---
title: "How it works"
description: "How Metalhost works in the dashboard — organizations, projects, wallet, VMs, bare metal, storage, and networking."
url: "https://metalhost.net/docs/dashboard/overview"
---

# How it works

Metalhost is bare-metal cloud infrastructure you manage from [app.metalhost.net](https://app.metalhost.net). This page explains the concepts you'll see in the dashboard — orgs, projects, wallets, VMs, bare metal, storage, and networks.

## Organizations and projects

Signup creates an **organization** — your billing boundary. Inside it you work in **projects** — workspaces that hold VMs, bare-metal leases, disks, SSH keys, and networks. The project picker in the top nav switches your scope; most resources belong to one project.

[Projects](https://metalhost.net/docs/dashboard/guides/projects.md) — create and switch workspaces. **Members** are org-wide — see [Team members](https://metalhost.net/docs/dashboard/guides/members.md).

## Wallet and billing

Metalhost is **prepaid**. Your org's **wallet** holds a balance; running resources debit it continuously. Top up under *billing → overview → top up* before creating resources.

- **Hourly** (default for VMs) — per-second usage while the VM runs.
- **Monthly prepaid** — discounted upfront terms (1–12 months) for VMs and bare metal.

Stopping a VM pauses compute billing; the boot disk still bills at the storage rate. Delete the VM to release everything. Bare-metal leases bill for the hardware even when powered off.

Full billing tabs (usage, invoices, limits): [Billing & usage](https://metalhost.net/docs/dashboard/guides/billing.md). Funding: [Wallet & top-ups](https://metalhost.net/docs/dashboard/guides/wallet-topup.md).

## Regions

VMs and bare-metal hosts live in a **datacenter** (region). Pick the closest region when creating resources. Resources can't move between regions — create new ones in another DC if you need to relocate.

## Virtual machines

Slices of shared hosts — elastic sizing, ~90 second provision. A VM needs a **name**, **region**, **compute shape**, an **OS image**, and **access** (SSH keys or password). States: `PROVISIONING` → `RUNNING`.

Every VM gets private networking and public IPv6. Public IPv4 is **opt-in** at create time (~$2/mo).

## Bare metal

**Whole physical machines** leased to your project — no hypervisor. Top nav *bare metal*. Hourly or prepaid monthly terms; browse inventory, lease a host, manage via BMC console. Leases include **unlimited bandwidth** (unlike VMs, which meter against a 10 TiB/mo transfer allowance). Best when you need dedicated GPU nodes, fixed specs, or BYO hypervisors.

[Bare metal overview](https://metalhost.net/docs/dashboard/guides/bare-metal.md) · [Lease bare metal](https://metalhost.net/docs/dashboard/guides/bare-metal-lease.md)

## Storage

Top nav *storage* — **block disks** (NVMe, attach to one VM) and **file shares** (NFSv4, mount from many VMs in the same project + DC). See [Storage](https://metalhost.net/docs/dashboard/guides/storage.md).

## SSH and access

Register SSH keys under *developers → SSH keys*, then select them when creating a VM or bare-metal lease. Keys are baked in at first boot via cloud-init.

```
ssh-keygen -t ed25519 -C "you@example.com"
```

API automation uses [API keys](https://metalhost.net/docs/dashboard/guides/api-keys.md) on the same *developers* page, including project service accounts and GitHub Actions. Project metrics and alerts are under [Monitoring](https://metalhost.net/docs/dashboard/guides/monitoring.md).

## Networks and firewall

Each project gets a default network per datacenter — see [Networks](https://metalhost.net/docs/dashboard/guides/networks.md). Firewall rules on the VM detail page control inbound traffic on the public IPv4. When you allocate a public IPv4, SSH (22), HTTP (80), and HTTPS (443) are opened by default.

## Support

Top nav *support* — org-wide tickets for billing, technical issues, and quota increases. [Support tickets](https://metalhost.net/docs/dashboard/guides/support.md).

## What's next

- [Quickstart](https://metalhost.net/docs/dashboard/quickstart.md) — sign up to SSH in five minutes.
- [Create a VM](https://metalhost.net/docs/dashboard/guides/vms-create.md) — full dashboard walkthrough.
- [Lease bare metal](https://metalhost.net/docs/dashboard/guides/bare-metal-lease.md) — dedicated servers.
- [Wallet & top-ups](https://metalhost.net/docs/dashboard/guides/wallet-topup.md) — funding and alerts.