> For the complete documentation index, see [llms.txt](https://docs.platform9.com/llms.txt). Markdown versions of documentation pages are available by appending `.md` to page URLs; this page is available as [Markdown](https://docs.platform9.com/private-cloud-director/2025.4/virtualized-clusters/add-hosts-virtualized-cluster/maintenance-mode.md).

# Maintenance Mode

<code class="expression">space.vars.product\_name</code> maintenance mode enables administrators to perform routine maintenance operations on their fleet of hosts in the data center in a safe and orchestrated manner. Maintenance mode allows you to safely evacuate virtual machines from a host and prevent new virtual machines from being scheduled during maintenance operations.

## What Happens in Maintenance Mode?

When maintenance mode is enabled for a host:

* All running VMs on the host are automatically live-migrated to another compute host in the cluster.
  * You have the option to choose the host to which the VMs will get migrated
* The host is marked as unschedulable, ensuring no new VMs are placed on it.
* Once all VM migrations are complete, the host remains online but isolated from scheduling operations, allowing administrators to perform software updates, hardware maintenance, or diagnostics.

## Enabling Maintenance Mode

To enable maintenance ode on a host:

1. Navigate to Infrastructure → Cluster Hosts in the <code class="expression">space.vars.product\_name</code> UI.
2. Select the target host from the list.
3. Click Other → Enable Maintenance Mode.

You may choose to:

* Allow <code class="expression">space.vars.product\_name</code> to automatically determine the best destination for each VM based on cluster capacity and placement policies.
* Manually specify a destination host for all VM migrations.

Click Migrate VMs and Enable Maintenance Mode to initiate the process.

After host maintenance operations completed, you can disable maintenance mode to allow the host to rejoin the scheduler.

## Disabling Maintenance Mode

Before disabling maintenance mode, ensure that any maintenance tasks on the host have been completed successfully and that the host is healthy and ready to handle new workloads.

1. Navigate to Infrastructure → Cluster Hosts
2. Locate the host that is currently in Maintenance Mode.
   1. Hosts in maintenance mode are typically marked with a "Maintenance Mode" label or status indicator.
3. Select the host, then click on Other → Disable Maintenance Mode

The host will be marked as schedulable again and <code class="expression">space.vars.product\_name</code> will resume placing new virtual machines on this host.


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