Recent Updates

• 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.

• 2025.02.20.1

  Improved Load Balancer Routing, Upgraded TLS, and Administrative Flexibility

  This release brings users a handful of solid improvements and a couple needed fixes. The V1 load balancer routers got a fix to path matching in routes and also a major improvement to the predictability of the router chosen. Now the first match will always win. On the security front, a now deprecated cryptography alorithm was removed and the platform now enforces a higher minimum TLS version. Finally, hub billing now support multiple billing contacts, expanding flexibility on who in an organization receives important emails.

  • improvement

    Integration Deprecations

    Hub integrations can now be deprecated. This demarkation has no effect on existing integrations but will prevent new additions of that integration from being added.

  • improvement

    SSH TLS Update

    Removed a now deprecated crypto algorithm and now enforced a minimum TLS version of 1.3

  • fixed

    Route Matching Predictability

    We've refactored how the LB makes routing decisions to eliminate a race condition that existed with path matching. Now, router matching is significantly faster and more predictable, with the first (top) match always winning.

  • improvement

    Billing Contact

    Organizations can now update their billing and tax information within the portal. Additionally, organizations can subscribe additional email addresses to invoice notifications.

  • improvement

    User Uploaded Wildcard TLS Certificates

    We've expanded the functionality of user uploaded certificates to work with wildcard certificates. While we've supported LetsEncrypt wildcards for years, our recently added 'user uploaded certificates' did not support wildcards until now.

• 2025.01.21.2

  New Load Balancer Metrics, Log Drain Format, and Solid Platform Fixes

  This update features a slew of more granular load balancer metrics for Cycle's V1 load balancer. These new metrics also come with additional tooling in the portal that allows users to make specific filters when debugging network traffic. The log drain format can now be customized, offering higher flexibility for integrations with existing services, and the platform received some great fixes that should lead to even more stability.

  • improvement

    Log Drain Format

    The format of log output can now be customized via the container config integration.

  • added

    Load Balancer Metrics

    The V1 load balancer now collects more granular metrics that can be helpful in diagnosing application issues. A restart of the load balancer is required to gain these additional metrics. Additionally, users can now filter load balancer metrics based on domains and HTTP response codes in the load balancer's URLs tab.

  • fixed

    File Ownership

    We found a bug during our OCI image merging where, under certain conditions, files could lose their respective user/group ownership. This is fixed for all future image builds.

  • fixed

    Instance Migration

    No longer allow an instance to be migrated if an existing migration is already occurring for that instance.

  • fixed

    Migration Deadlock

    If an instance failed to migrate after 16 attempts, it could cause a node deadlock preventing future actions on that server.

• 2025.01.14.3

  Stack Build Logs, Stability Improvements, and Better Auto-Scaling

  In this release, users will find a wonderful new feature in Stack build logs . These logs will give insight into debugging stack builds that, in the past, have been more cumbersome to unpack. Alongside the stack build logs are a slew of stability improvements including a new agent logging mechanism that will enable even more resiliency to each server node during times of high usage. Additionally, auto-scaling was improved, requiring fewer window intervals before a scaling event can happen, resulting in an even more responsive auto-scaling from the platform.

  • improvement

    Metric Label Standardization

    We noticed a few inconsistencies in the naming conventions for metric/event labels. While they're now fixed, certain graphs within the portal will take a little time to populate with new data.

  • added

    Stack Build Logs

    Stacks now generate build logs that detail the overall build of images, stack parsing, etc, making it significantly easier to debug variable/stack formatting issues.

  • improvement

    External Log Draining

    Although this was beta released in December's build, we've made a number of optimizations to provide more context (via HTTP headers) while also reducing the amount of redundant meta information in the POST body.

  • fixed

    Container Reimage / Deleted Instances

    If a container was reimaged immediately after a scale event, any deleted instances would be undeleted.

  • added

    Block Storage / Raw Volumes

    While not accessible yet, we've added the ability to create volumes as raw block devices on compute nodes -- preparing for some soon to be announced features.

  • added

    Migrating Block Storage Volumes

    Support the ability to move block storage volumes between compute nodes.

  • improvement

    GCP Generation 3 + 4 Models

    We've compiled the required kernel modules into CycleOS to support the generation 3 and 4 (c3, c4, n3, m3) and accelerator (GPU) GCP machine types.

  • improvement

    Autoscaling Threshold Calculation

    We rebuilt the logic for network / bandwidth scaling thresholds to enable more responsive scaling. Previously, network scaling events required two interval windows to pass before a scaling event could occur.

  • added

    CycleOS Build Version

    Servers now report their CycleOS build version during their check-ins. This version is also displayed in the portal.

  • added

    Agent/Logging Volume

    Following a restart of the server, CycleOS will now build a dedicated 2GB volume for storing logs. By moving logs to their own volume, nodes will no longer deadlock / become unresponsive if disk usage reaches 100%.

  • improvement

    Hub Delete Prevention

    Hubs with active servers can no longer be deleted, unless the 'force' flag is specified.

  • fixed

    Attached Storage Size Customization

    When deploying servers at AWS or GCP, users can customize the size of the underlying block device. This functionality was broken in December's release.

  • improvement

    Cycle IPs in LB WAF

    Previously, it was possible to accidentally block VPN configuration via the portal by applying restrictive rules to the WAF (web application firewall). Now, the WAF will automatically detect the necessary Cycle IPs to allow VPN configuration without organizations needing to manage the IP list themselves.

• 2024.12.16.1

  Support for More AWS Regions + Availability Zones, Log Draining, and More

  This latest update brings our users several new features and lots of improvements that are aimed at enhancing flexibility, integration, and usability. Servers being deployed through AWS will now have the option to choose individual availability zones per server, in the given region. We've also enabled several new AWS regions to deploy from. Log draining is now natively supported through webhooks, DNS caching has been improved, and load balancer metrics now auto discover ports from container configuration.

  • added

    Support for AWS Availability Zones

    While Cycle has always favored multi-region deployments, we now also support multi-availability zone deployments at AWS. This brings our AWS integration inline with our GCP integration.

  • improvement

    Support for Additional AWS Regions

    We realized there were 4 AWS regions which we didn't support due to an API filtering limitation, that has been resolved and we now support all AWS non-GovCloud regions.

  • added

    External Log Draining

    On a per-container basis, Cycle can now push your logs to an external source via an HTTPS webhook, enabling better integration with Datadog, Middleware, and other log aggregators.

  • improvement

    Variable Support for Pipeline Webhooks

    You can now utilize pipeline variables in your POST/GET webhooks, enabling deeper integrations with your external development / devops tools.

  • improvement

    Optimized DNS Caching

    We've tweaked our caching logic to support more generalized matching while still preventing DNS cache poisoning attacks.

  • added

    Support for ACH Payments

    Our US clients can now pay their invoices by ACH instead of credit cards.

  • improvement

    Portal: Load Balancer Metrics

    We now auto-discover controllers based on active ports, making it easier to observe traffic into your load balancer.