Technical guide on scaling Hovixa VPS resources via SolusVM 2. Learn the workflow for upgrading CPU, RAM, and NVMe storage, including pro-rata billing and filesystem expansion.
Upgrading or Downgrading VPS CPU, RAM, and Disk Allocations
Hovixa’s infrastructure is designed for vertical scalability. As your application's resource demands grow, you can increase your vCPU count, RAM allocation, and NVMe disk space through the client portal. Because our VPS instances are KVM-based, these changes involve hardware-level reallocations handled by the SolusVM 2 orchestration layer.
1. The Scaling Workflow
Unlike simple configuration changes, scaling resources requires a two-step process involving both the billing system and the hypervisor.
- Log in to the Hovixa Client Portal (Billing Area).
- Navigate to Services > My Services and select your VPS.
- Click Upgrade/Downgrade in the sidebar.
- Select your new plan. The system will calculate the pro-rata cost for the remainder of your billing cycle.
- Once the invoice is paid, the new resource limits are sent to vm.hovixa.com.
2. Technical Impact on the Virtual Machine
Scaling is not entirely "invisible" to the guest Operating System. Depending on the resource, different actions occur:
| Resource | Action Required | Technical Note |
|---|---|---|
| vCPU / RAM | Reboot Required | KVM requires a cold boot to re-read the new XML definitions for CPU cores and memory segments. |
| NVMe Disk | Filesystem Resize | The block device increases instantly, but you must manually expand the partition and filesystem within Linux. |
3. Expanding the Filesystem After an Upgrade
After upgrading your disk space, your OS will see a larger drive (e.g., /dev/vda), but your primary partition (/dev/vda1) remains at its old size. You must expand it to utilize the new space.
Automated Expansion:
Hovixa templates include cloud-init and growpart. In most cases, a Force Stop and Start from the SolusVM 2 panel will trigger an automatic resize of the root partition.
Manual Expansion (if auto-resize fails):
# 1. Expand the partition
growpart /dev/vda 1
# 2. Resize the filesystem (for Ext4)
resize2fs /dev/vda1
# 2b. Resize the filesystem (for XFS)
xfs_growfs /
4. Important Constraints & Downgrades
- Disk Downgrades: While CPU and RAM can be downgraded easily, disk space cannot be downgraded through the portal. This is because shrinking a filesystem carries a high risk of data corruption. To move to a smaller disk, you must deploy a new VPS and migrate your data manually.
- IP Persistence: Scaling your plan does not change your IP address or your geographic location.
- Backups: Always take a Snapshot before scaling resources, specifically when expanding the disk, to ensure you can roll back if a filesystem error occurs.
5. Technical Implementation Details
- Hot-Plugging: Hovixa currently disables CPU/RAM hot-plugging to ensure maximum stability and prevent kernel panics in older Linux distributions. All upgrades require a restart.
- Virtio Drivers: Our scaling relies on
virtio-blk. Ensure your custom ISO installations include these drivers to recognize capacity changes.
Sysadmin Advice: If you notice high "Steal Time" (%st) in your top/htop output after an upgrade, it may indicate your application is still limited by internal OS software caps. Ensure your application-level configs (like MySQL buffer pools) are updated to utilize the new RAM.
