Control servers from automations

Learn how automations can safely power on, reboot, or shut down your servers — and manage their backups and delete protection — all without manual work. This is for anyone running servers in InfraNest who wants routine server tasks to happen automatically.

#Overview

• Automations can act on your cloud servers, so a rule can power a server on, reboot it, or turn on backups without you lifting a finger.
• Every server action is reversible — there is no rebuild, restore or delete, so a rule can never wipe a server.
• Every action is logged in your Audit Log and in the automation's run history, so you can always see what ran and when.

NoteServer actions are part of a paid plan. On a free plan they appear in the builder but are greyed out until you upgrade.

#What a rule can do to a server

• Power on server — turns the server on
• Reboot server — a graceful restart
• Shut down server — graceful, power it back on whenever you like
• Enable or disable backups (the provider's automatic backups)
• Enable or disable delete protection

#Add a server action

1. Open Automations, then New automation (or edit an existing rule).
2. Pick a trigger — what should set this off (for example a monitor going down, or a server being added).
3. Under Do this, choose a server action — they're grouped under Servers.

4. Choose which server to act on:
   • Leave it on Use the one from the trigger when the trigger already involves a server (like Server added) — the action uses that server automatically.
   • Otherwise, search and pick a specific server using Choose a server….
5. Click Save automation.

#Start from a template

The Template library has ready-made recipes you can use as a starting point:

• New server → monitor it — every server you add is automatically watched and protected.
• Monitor down → reboot the server — self-healing: if a monitor fails, the server reboots and the team is told.

Click Use, adjust anything you like (for the reboot recipe, pick which server under Choose a server…), then click Save automation.

TipFor a "reboot when down" rule, keep the built-in cooldown (Don't repeat within) so a flapping monitor can't reboot the server over and over. Add conditions, like a tag, under Add condition to keep the rule pointed at the right servers.

#Troubleshooting

• If a server action looks greyed out in Choose an action…, check your plan — server actions require a paid plan.
• If a rule didn't run as expected, open the automation and check Run history to see what happened on each run.