Container Tools

Operate running containers — start, stop, view logs, and open a shell from the portal.

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A container is configured at the cluster level (or at node level on a standalone appliance), but the tools are only available on the node level view. They act on the running container on that specific node: Start, Stop, view live logs, or open a shell.

Where to find them

Navigate to a node, then Compute → Container Management → Containers, and click the container’s name.

Per-container action bar (Start, Stop, Logs, Terminal) on the node-scoped detail view

Status, State, and Health

The container list at node scope shows three columns side by side:

  • Status — Enabled or Disabled. Whether the container is configured to run.
  • State — what’s actually happening right now: Running, Initializing (image is downloading or the container is starting up), or Stopped.
  • Health — Healthy or Unhealthy, populated by the configured Health Check. Blank if no health check is set.

A container can show Enabled and Stopped at the same time - usually because the image couldn’t be pulled, because it hit a final failure, or because it was stopped manually.

Container list at node scope, showing runtime State alongside configured Status

Start

Starts the container immediately.

This is the only way to launch an On Demand container. For Service containers it’s useful when you’ve stopped one manually and want it back up without waiting.

Requires node-exec::compute permission.

Stop

Stops the container. For Service containers there’s a wait of up to Stop Time (default 30 seconds) for the container to shut down cleanly, then it’s forced.

Requires node-exec::compute permission.

Logs

Opens a new browser tab that streams the container’s log output as it happens.

Container Logs options
Field NameDescription
Follow Log OutputWhen True, the viewer stays open and prints new lines as they appear. When False, the viewer prints recent lines and disconnects.
Number of LinesHow many recent lines to show before starting to follow. Default is 100.

A CONNECTED badge in the corner means the stream is live. Click Terminate to close it.

Streaming log viewer with the CONNECTED indicator and Terminate button

Terminal

Opens a new browser tab with an interactive shell running inside the container — useful for debugging, poking around the filesystem, or running ad-hoc commands.

Terminal session inside an Alpine container

The shell runs as the configured user. If you didn’t set one, it runs as whatever user the image was built to run as. The Terminal button is disabled if the container isn’t currently Running.

Requires node-exec::compute permission.

History

The History section in the left sidebar of a running container shows:

  • Connections — Active Connections are live flows and can be terminated from that screen. Completed Connections are flow-log history for recently finished flows.
Active and Completed connections for a container