Start, stop and redeploy

The five actions on a running bench, which of them destroy work, and which are admin-only.

A running bench has five actions. Two are safe, one is destructive, one is
final, and one is admin-only. This page says which is which before you press
anything.

Who this is for. Anybody with a deployed bench.

Before you start. The bench must have been deployed at least once. An
action on a bench that has no container is refused with
This instance has no container — deploy it first.

Steps

1. Open the lab. The primary button on the right is the next step in the
   bench's own lifecycle, and it changes as the bench changes.

   Bench state	Primary button	What it does
   Never deployed	Deploy	Runs the eleven-step pipeline
   Deploying	Deploying…, disabled	Reports work already running
   Running	Open site	Opens the site over the VPN
   Stopped	Start	Resumes the same container
   Lab is Error	Rebuild image	Builds the image again. Admins only

   Start is the primary action on a stopped bench, never Redeploy. The
   container's writable layer holds everything done inside the bench, so the
   destructive path is never the default.

   Screenshot placeholder — docs/images/user/lifecycle/01-actions-menu.png — The BenchPress lab page for Helpdesk sandbox as a non-admin user, at 1280 by 800 pixels. The Container card reads Running in green, Health Healthy checked 1m ago, CPU 0 percent of quota 2 vCPU, MEMORY 3 percent of a 2 GB limit, and Started 2 minutes ago. The overflow menu beside Open site is open and offers exactly two items, Stop bench and Redeploy bench. The Sites card lists the site with seven app chips: Frappe, ERPNext, HR, CRM, Telephony, Helpdesk, Payments and Learning.

2. Press the … button beside the primary action for the rest. The menu
   holds what the primary button is not offering.

   Menu item	Effect	Who sees it
   Stop bench	Stops the container. Keeps the database	Everybody
   Redeploy bench	Replaces the container and the site	Everybody
   Rebuild image	Builds the lab image again	Admins
   Delete bench	Removes the container, the sites and the databases	Admins

   In the frame above, a BenchPress User sees two items. An admin sees four.

3. Confirm. Every action in the menu asks first, and the dialog names what it
   does.

   Screenshot placeholder — docs/images/user/lifecycle/02-stop-confirm.png — A confirmation dialog over the Helpdesk sandbox lab page, at 1280 by 800 pixels. The dialog is headed Stop this bench? and reads, The container stops and the site goes offline until it is started again. Nothing is deleted. A single black Confirm button sits below the text, with a close cross at the top right.

   Read the second sentence. It is where the dialog says whether anything is
   lost. Stop says Nothing is deleted. Redeploy does not.

4. Watch the page settle. A stop takes a few seconds.

   Screenshot placeholder — docs/images/user/lifecycle/03-stopped.png — The Helpdesk sandbox lab page after the stop, at 1280 by 800 pixels. The Container card header now reads Stopped in gray, while Health still reads Healthy with the note checked 2m ago. CPU and MEMORY both read a dash and container not running. The card ends with Started 3 minutes ago and Can be restored for 6d 23h. The primary button has become Start. The Sites card marks the site Inactive and Not running, with the line This site's container is stopped. Deploy the lab to bring it back.

   Two things in that frame are worth naming. Health still reads Healthy,
   because the last probe ran before the stop. And a countdown has appeared:
   Can be restored for 6d 23h.

5. Press Start to bring it back. The same container resumes with everything
   in it. Nothing is rebuilt and nothing is downloaded.

Verify

• After Stop, the Container card reads Stopped and the primary button
  reads Start.
• After Stop, the site row reads Inactive and Not running.
• After Start, the Container card reads Running within a few seconds.
• After Redeploy, the deploy log shows a new run with all eleven steps.

Troubleshooting

Reference

What each action keeps

Redeploy is not a restart. It throws the container away and makes a new one
from the lab image. Use Start when the bench is only stopped.

Who may do what

A user sees only their own benches. An admin sees every bench on the server.

Stopping is the answer to a refused start

A start passes the same admission gate a deploy does. Stopping and deleting do
not, because stopping is what a refused caller is being told to do.

After a stop, the countdown

A stopped bench past that window is torn down. An email goes out two days
before, so nothing disappears without notice. 0 turns the deletion off.

Related

• Read a lab page — the fields these actions change.
• Deploy from a template — the eleven steps a redeploy runs again.
• Create a lab — what a rebuild rebuilds.