A node is a machine you deploy and manage from ORC8R. Each node has a set amount of CPU, memory, and disk, runs an operating system, and can have apps installed on it. This page explains the states a node moves through, what the agent is, and the everyday actions you can take.
Where to find your nodes
Click Nodes in the top navigation. This is your main dashboard. Nodes are grouped into cards called pools (see Pools), and each card lists the individual nodes inside it along with a colored status dot and a state label.
You can narrow the list down using the controls at the top of the page:
- Filter by Project... shows only nodes from a chosen project.
- Search pool or node name... finds a node or pool by name.
- The Pools and Nodes dropdowns filter by status (for example, show only online nodes).
What a node's state means
A node moves through several states from the moment you request it to the moment it is gone. The colored dot next to each node and the small label tell you where it is. Hover over the dot to see a short description.
| State you see | What it means |
|---|---|
| baking | The node is preparing a reusable pool image (see Pools). |
| starting | The node has been created and is booting up, waiting for its agent to connect. |
| online | The node is up and reachable. This is the healthy, running state. |
| offline | The node is not currently reachable. |
| terminating | The node is being shut down and removed. |
| destroying | The node's underlying machine is being deleted. |
| destroy-blocked | Deleting the machine failed and ORC8R is retrying. |
| ended | The node has been fully removed. |
You do not need to memorise these. In everyday use you mostly care about three: a node is online when it is ready, offline if something is wrong, and moves through terminating and ended when you remove it.
A node building a reusable pool image is the one exception: it shows what the build is doing rather than what the machine is doing, because the two do not match. It reads baking while the machine is provisioned and booted, installing while its agent installs the apps the image is to carry (or offline if that agent drops mid-install), snapshotting while it hands its disk over (the machine shuts down here — nothing is wrong, and the node is not being removed), and publishing while the finished image is stored for the pool. A builder that genuinely fails or is removed reads terminating like any other node.
Operators also see a special zone pool listing the ORC8R server members themselves. Their dot works the same way — green while the member serves the cluster, red when it is unreachable — but server members are not managed machines: they cannot be terminated from this page.
What the agent is
The agent is a small program ORC8R installs on every node; it connects the machine back to ORC8R so the node can report its status and receive apps. When a node shows starting, it is waiting for its agent to connect; once the agent is up the node becomes online.
Creating nodes
You do not create nodes one at a time. Instead you make a request that defines a pool, and ORC8R creates the nodes for you. To start, click New Request on the Nodes page (or Request first node if you have none yet). The full walkthrough is in the Quickstart, and pools are explained in Pools.
Everyday actions
Open a node's details
Click a node's name to open its detail view. Where your ORC8R prices nodes, the header shows what this node costs per hour; open it to see the rates behind that number — one line per thing charged for, and the dates the price changed if it ever did. A node with no price shows none, which means it is not priced rather than that it is free.
There are four tabs:
- Logs shows the node's recent activity. This is the first place to look if a node is not behaving as expected.
- Terminal opens a command-line session to the node directly in your browser. Use it for troubleshooting only. Any changes you make by hand are lost if the node is rebuilt, so do not rely on it for permanent configuration.
- Restore points lists the App data copies this node captured — the points it left behind, which stay listed here after the node has ended, each with a download link and a Pull control that shows the
orc pullcommand for it. See Restore points. - Audit lists the history of events for that node.
Terminate or rebuild a node
Each node row has an action in its Actions column:
- For most pools, this rebuilds the node: ORC8R replaces it with a fresh one so the pool keeps the size you asked for.
- For self-hosted or one-off pools, this terminates the node: it is shut down and removed for good.
Terminating is only available once a node has reached a stable state (online, offline, or terminating).
Either way, the node's apps are stopped before it is destroyed. Each app gets its own wind-down: a chance to finish work in flight and release anything it registered elsewhere, then a signal, then a short grace period before it is killed. The node shows as terminating while that runs, and asking again changes nothing — the request is already in hand. A separate force action is there for a node that will not wind down: it stops waiting on the apps and destroys the node right away.
Connect a self-hosted node
If a pool accepts your own machines (a self-hosted pool), its card shows a Connect button. Clicking it gives you a one-time install command to run on the machine you want to add. See Providers for how self-hosted pools work.
Remove the agent from a Windows node
On a node that is part of a project network, the Windows agent owns the machine's firewall and its internal DNS: every inbound port is closed except the ones the project uses, Remote Desktop included, and the rules stay in force when the agent stops. So take the agent off a Windows machine with its uninstaller, not by deleting files. In an elevated PowerShell, run the installer script with -Uninstall. It stops the service, removes the agent's firewall rules and DNS settings, and then removes the service.
If the service is already gone, or the uninstaller reports an error, stop the service and run the agent's recovery command yourself. It removes the same firewall rules and DNS settings:
Stop-Service orc-agent
& "C:\Program Files\orc-agent\orc-agent\orc-agent.exe" --mesh-uninstall --data-dir "C:\ProgramData\orc-agent"
The command prints what it removed, and exits with an error if the firewall rules could not be removed. If the agent binary is gone and the machine is still closed, use the fallback: disable the service and restart the machine. Then install the agent again and run the recovery command.
Set-Service orc-agent -StartupType Disabled
Restart-Computer
You can reach a sealed machine through your cloud provider's console, which does not go through the network.
Export your node list
Click Export on the Nodes page to download a nodes.csv file of the nodes currently shown, including any filters you have applied. This is handy for reporting or sharing a snapshot.
Related pages
- Pools — how nodes are grouped and scaled.
- Projects — the workspace your pools live in.
- Quickstart — request your first node step by step.