Destroy on a server's page tears it down. It is how you stop paying for it.
Permanent, with no confirmation step in the API
The guest and its disk are destroyed, the IPv4 address is released back to
the pool, and there is no snapshot, no undelete and no backup. From the
portal you confirm first. From the API, DELETE /api/v1/servers/<id> does it
on the spot.
Before you do it
- Copy off anything you want. See Back up your own data.
- Note the IP address if anything points at it. You are unlikely to get the same one back.
- Read your own DNS, monitoring and firewall allowlists for references to it.
What happens
The status goes to deleting and then destroyed. The hourly server charge
stops when cancellation begins, and its billing record closes with it.
What is not destroyed with it
- Account credit. It stays and is spent by whatever you run next.
- Floating IPs. Releasing the server unassigns them, but a reserved floating IP keeps billing until you release it under Network. See Floating IPs.
- Private networks. They are account-level and survive their members.
Tenure
A gap of under 24 hours between destroying and deploying again does not reset your loyalty tenure. A longer one does.
If you only want it off for a while
Stop it instead, and understand that a stopped server still bills at the full rate. See Stop paying for a server.