Recent Updates

• 2025.06.09.2

  Better IP Handling, More SDN Envs, LB Fixes

  This release features a set of improvements, fixes, and additions focused on smarter IP handling, easier network scaling, and more reliable load balancer behavior. These changes continue our march toward simplifying operations on the platform while we work toward more monitoring and observability changes in the coming month.

  • improvement

    SDN IP Migrate

    Container instances that are deployed to virtual provider servers now retain their SDN static pool'd IPs as long as the migration is within the same region.

  • improvement

    SDN L3 Max Environment Increase

    The maximum number of environments that can be added to a layer 3 SDN network has been raised to 15.

  • improvement

    Allowed Metrics Increased

    Each tier of monitoring now has an increased number of total metrics included in the tier package.

  • fixed

    Ability to Initialize LB without IPs

    There was a bug that would cause load balancers on virtual provider nodes to not properly initialize when started without IP's. This issue has been resolved. This is valuable for users setting up environments which will exist exclusively on private networks, or behind a Cloudflare Tunnel.

  • fixed

    Raw Stack Patch

    There was an issue with patching raw stacks via API where the platform would not properly handle variables defined in the stack. This issue has been resolved.

  • added

    Load Balancer Micro Cache

    A 5 second cache has been added to the load balancer that retains information used to decide destination prioritization, greatly reducing the overall pressure on the load balancer during times of increased traffic.

  • improvement

    Image Source Delete

    Image sources with images that are not being used by any container can now be deleted without first needing to delete every image from the source.

• 2025.06.03.4

  Faster VMs, Smarter Scaling, and New Tools

  In this update, users will see double the write speed performance on all virtual machines and can now utilize a VNC connection for VM interaction! We're also proud to announce that auto-scaling has moved out of beta and now supports a custom webhook for even more granular controls. The portal was improved with new charts, better container logs, and better storage visibility.

  • improvement

    Faster VM Writes

    We’ve made major improvements to VM storage performance resulting in a doubling of write speeds.

  • fixed

    VPN Access to VMs

    Fixed an issue where VMs weren’t reachable over the VPN. They now route correctly.

  • improvement

    Auto-Scaling Out of Beta

    Auto-scaling has been stable for a while and we've recently made major improvements to performance, reliability, and responsiveness. The beta tag has been removed.

  • added

    Custom Webhooks for Auto-Scaling

    You can now trigger custom webhooks when scale events occur, giving users full control over scaling logic.

  • added

    VNC for VMs

    Virtual machines can now utilize a VNC connection for enhanced interaction.

  • added

    Compute Storage Summary

    Added a detailed storage breakdown on the server view. Useful for debugging disk issues and tracking down container file sprawl.

  • changed

    Log Drain Moved

    Log drain config is now applied at the environment level instead of per container.

  • improvement

    Improved Container Logs

    Logs now show up with syntax highlighting and color-coded formatting, making them easier to read at a glance.

  • improvement

    DNS Lookups Chart

    The DNS lookups chart will now show deeper information on cached and throttled hits including success, fail, and not found data points.

• 2025.05.21.2

  Improved Networking UX, Easier Billing, and DNS Fixes

  After our last update, this is a small quality of life improvements patch. It's mainly focused on improvements to billing access, container networking visibility, and has a nice fix for custom DNS resolvers.

  • fixed

    Custom Resolvers

    A bug was uncovered that would cause custom resolvers to only work with CNAME records. This has been resolved.

  • added

    Invoice Downloads

    Users can now download invoices directly from billing emails, forgoing the previous requirement of logging into the portal for the download.

  • added

    Attached Networks

    The container instances page now shows all attached networks for a given instance in one succinct view, making it easier to quickly view network details.

  • improvement

    VPN Configs Over IPv6

    The platform now supports downloading VPN configuration files through load balancers that have only IPv6 enabled.

• 2025.05.15.1

  Our Biggest Platform Release in Years: Virtual Providers and Virtual Machines

  This release marks a new era of hybrid infrastructure orchestration and cements the platform's status as a true alternative to both Kubernetes and VMware. It is easily the biggest release in years for our organization, and we couldn't be more excited to get it into the hands of our users! The biggest piece of this major release is the capability to now run any kind of workload anywhere -- while still maintaining the efficiency, standardization, and automation that the platform brings. We can't wait to see what you're able to build.

  • added

    Virtual Providers

    Virtual providers makes it simple to add any x86-compatible (Intel, AMD, etc) infrastructure to your Cycle clusters, unlocking the full potential of bare metal and massively reducing the technical lift for on-prem, colo, or non-native bare metal cloud offerings.

  • added

    Virtual Machines

    For workloads that don't play nicely with containers, we now support running virtual machines alongside your containerized workloads in environments. Great for legacy apps, maintaining hybrid stacks, and even running a full on OS inside the environment.

  • added

    Deployment-Restricted Scoped Variables

    Scoped variables now support being scoped to deployments. This gives users ultimate flexibility when it comes to certain scoped variables changing per deployment without the headache of making super dynamic on the fly changes to scoped variables within the environment.

  • added

    'Fixed' Destination Prioritization for LB V1

    The V1 load balancer now supports fixed destination prioritization. This feature will be mostly used alongside source IP routing to further anchor that the same requesting IP will be routed to the same container instance.

  • added

    Server IP Pools (Virtual Provider)

    Users can now add IP's to virtual provider servers so that containers deployed to them with an L2 network can allocate their own IP's.

  • added

    L2 Networks (SDN)

    The platform now supports Layer 2 software-defined networking via its Networks primitive. This enables L2 connectivity across your infrastructure for more advanced networking needs.

  • added

    L2 domains

    Containers on Cycle can now connect directly to Layer 2 networks, not just at the environment level. This allows for tighter control over how workloads interact with external infrastructure or broadcast domains.

  • added

    Expose Host's Cgroups

    Users can now choose to expose the underlying host's Cgroups to a container. This aids in building things such as monitoring functionality.

  • added

    Expose Power API

    Users can now give a container the ability to shut down a server via the internal API through opting into the expose power API.

  • improvement

    Upgraded to Linux Kernel 6.6.17

    The Linux kernel used by CycleOS has been upgraded to 6.6.17.

  • added

    Log Volume

    Each server now mounts a 10GB hard capped log volume. This guards against disk pressure caused by containers with uncontrolled log output from filling the servers disk entirely. Once disk usage for this volume hits 90% log retention is reduced from 72 to 48 hours.

• 2025.04.24.2

  Traffic Draining, Source IP Routing, and Tons of Improvements

  An exciting release as we move into the end of April and prepare for an awesome summer of updates. Users can now mark instances to drain traffic, signaling the platform to stop routing new connections to them while existing sessions wind down safely. The V1 load balancer gets some nice flexibility improvements and servers now support nicknaming. New graphs for server telemetry have been added and container instance network telemetry graphs fixed. This release marks the beginning of an impressive schedule of releases we have moving into summer so keep your eyes peeled for changelog updates!

  • improvement

    Source IP Routing

    V1 load balancer routers now support source IP routing mode. This allows for more consistent and predictable routing to instances that require more durable sessions.

  • added

    Server Network Telemetry Graph

    A new server telemetry graph has been added to the portal that shows transmit and receive bytes for individual nodes.

  • added

    Traffic Draining

    Container instances can now be marked for traffic draining, informing the platform that traffic should no longer be sent to that instance. For load balancers, the platform will stop traffic to that load balancer making it safe to remove, restart, or reconfigure.

  • fixed

    Container Telemetry Transmit and Receive

    Container instance network telemetry data had an issue where transmit and receive data was flipped. This has been fixed and now shows correctly.

  • improvement

    SFTP Lockdowns

    As always, SFTP on any server will go into lockdown after a spike in failed login attempts. Users who were successfully authorized prior to the lockdown can now continue their session uninterrupted.

  • added

    Server Nicknames

    All servers now support adding a nickname, making it simpler to track individual servers in a cluster and hub.

  • added

    Restart Container

    A button has been added for restarting containers. For containers with multiple instances, the restart stagger will also be automatically applied.

  • improvement

    Load Balancer IP Summary

    Load balancer IP's on the environment summary now show the exact assigned IP instead of the associated CIDR from which an IP is assigned.

  • improvement

    Retry Image Downlaods

    The compute service now tries multiple times to download container images from factory if there is an interruption.

  • improvement

    UID/GID for Scoped Variables

    Added support for specifying permissions and UID/GID for injected scoped variable files.

  • added

    Console Buffer Increased

    Increased the console buffer on containers making more room for logging during times where the compute services is updating or restarting.

• 2025.03.19.3

  Private Load Balancing, New Pipeline Steps, and Advanced Sysctl Commands

  This update brings a focus on flexibility in environments and pipelines. Users will enjoy a new pipeline step (deprecate container) and also new ways to use named resource identifiers. Load balancers can now be run without a public IP's assigned to them opening the door to more dynamic, zero-trust architectures. In the API, filtering got an upgrade with the addition of filtering on deprecated tag for containers. Finally, users who need to take deeper control of IPv6 settings can use the disable_ipv6 for further granularity in networking control on containers.

  • added

    Private Load Balancers

    Load balancers can now be enabled without public IPs. This is valuable for load-balancing private applications within an environment that might not need public internet access -- i.e. Cloudflare tunnels.

  • improvement

    Named Arguments in Resource Identifiers

    We now support arguments like deployment.version and deployment.tag as parameters to a resource identifier in pipelines. With these arguments, teams can build significantly more flexible pipelines furthering automation efforts.

  • added

    Deprecate Containers Step

    Containers can now be deprecated via pipelines.

  • improvement

    Jobs Endpoint

    The jobs endpoint wasn't properly limited to the expected capability for API keys.

  • improvement

    Filtering via Deprecation State

    In the API, containers can now be filtered by their deprecation state using ?filter[deprecated]=true/false

  • added

    Disable IPv6

    While we don't recommend disabling IPv6, there may be a specific reason where it is required. By setting net.ipv6.conf.all.disable_ip6 to 1, Cycle now fully disables IPv6 for a container.