Automatic discovery is not available yet
Shellius does not currently connect to AWS, Azure or GCP to discover instances. There is no connector to configure and no cloud credentials to store. You add cloud hosts the same way as any other server: one at a time, or with a bulk import. This page describes what works today.
Record where an instance lives
Every server has optional cloud fields. They are descriptive — Shellius stores and displays them, and does not call the provider.
| Field | Example |
|---|---|
| Provider | aws, azure, gcp or other |
| Instance ID | i-0123456789abcdef0 |
| Region | us-east-1 |
To fill them in, edit the server and expand the cloud section of the form. An instance ID can only be used by one server.
The same fields are columns in the servers import template — cloudProvider, cloudInstanceId and cloudRegion — so you can export an instance list from your provider, reshape it to the template, and import the whole fleet in one go.
Instances whose IP address changes
A VM without a reserved address gets a new public IP when it restarts. Mark such a server IP may change (not static):
- The address becomes optional when you create the server.
- People with the
servers.update_connection_ippermission can correct the address when they connect, without being able to edit anything else about the server. - Each correction is audited as
server.connection_ip.
If the server authenticates with a stored identity rather than a certificate, changing its address also needs servers.manage_credentials, because re-pointing it would send the stored secret to a different machine.
TIP
Where you can, avoid the problem: give Shellius a private address and place it on the same network as the instances. Browser sessions are opened by the backend, so users do not need a route to the instance themselves. See Network reachability.
Bootstrapping instances at scale
For a fleet that already exists, select the servers on the Servers page and use Install collectors, which runs the installer over SSH on up to 200 hosts per run. See Servers.
For instances you are about to create, the install command from Bootstrap your first host can be run by hand or by your own provisioning tooling. Bear in mind that each bootstrap token is single-use, tied to one server record, and valid for 30 minutes — it is not something to bake into an image.
When an instance is terminated
Nothing in Shellius notices. The server record stays, and its health check starts reporting unhealthy. Turn Active off on the server to retire it while keeping its sessions and audit history; delete it only if you want that history gone.