I use VirtualBox constantly, and I’ve used VMWare in the past, so I’m not new to virtual machines. However, this has my head scratching.
I created a droplet using the WordPress image (based on Ubuntu 14.04), and it mostly seems to be working OK. However, I noticed that whenever I do a “shutdown now” from the commandline, the online dashboard still says it is on. I believe it does this as well with the “poweroff” command.
OK, so then I click the button to turn it off so I can take a snapshot. I’ve been suspecting for a while something squirrelly was going on, so just now I took a snapshot, and I opened up a browser tab, and there is my machine already on!
Every other virtual software I’ve used recognizes the machine as off once it is turned off from the OS. Every other virtual software I’ve used takes a snapshot without doing anything to the power state. Every other virtual software I’ve used requires it being turned on after taking a snapshot (if it was already off).
It seems that either taking a snapshot turns it on, or, worse, turning it off from the web control panel actually turns it back on. In either case, this is not desired or expected behavior.
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There are a couple points that are brought up by your question and should clarify things for you.
1.) Running a shutdown -h now will halt your droplet’s OS but this event is not picked up by the hypervisor. A “poweroff” command should be picked up properly by the control panel and the state should show as off. If you do not see this happen with a “poweroff” command please open a ticket with our support team so they can look into this.
2.) What you are seeing is expected. Since the power state has no effect on your billing and in most cases you will want to limit downtime when performing a snapshot, once the image is generated your droplet is automatically powered back on.
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