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How to Reinstall a Vultr Cloud GPU Instance

Updated on 11 September, 2025

Learn how to reinstall your Vultr Cloud GPU instance to reset it to a clean state while maintaining the same IP address and hostname.

Reinstalling a Vultr Cloud GPU instance wipes the file system, resets all configurations and reinstalls the operating system. Any data available on the instance's file system is permanently deleted and cannot be recovered unless backed up.

Follow this guide to reinstall a Vultr Cloud GPU instance using the Vultr Customer Portal, API, CLI, or Terraform.

  • Vultr Customer Portal
  • Vultr API
  • Vultr CLI
  • Terraform
  1. Navigate to Products and click Compute.
  2. Click your target Cloud GPU instance to open its management page.
  3. Click Server Reinstall on the top-right navigation menu to reinstall the server's file system.
  4. Check the confirmation prompt and click Reinstall Server to apply changes.

  1. Send a GET request to the List Instances endpoint and note the target instance's ID.

    console 
    $ curl "https://api.vultr.com/v2/instances" \
  -X GET \
  -H "Authorization: Bearer ${VULTR_API_KEY}"

  2. Send a POST request to the Reinstall Instance endpoint to reinstall the instance with a new hostname.

    console 
    $ curl "https://api.vultr.com/v2/instances/{instance-id}/reinstall" \
  -X POST \
  -H "Authorization: Bearer ${VULTR_API_KEY}" \
  -H "Content-Type: application/json" \
  --data '{
    "hostname" : "new_instance_hostname"
  }'

  1. List all instances in your Vultr account and note the target instance's ID.

    console 
    $ vultr-cli instance list

  2. Reinstall the instance with a new hostname.

    console 
    $ vultr-cli instance reinstall --host <new_instance_hostname>  <instance_id>

  1. Open your Terraform configuration for the existing Cloud GPU instance.

  2. Trigger a reinstall by replacing the instance during apply.

    console 
    $ terraform apply -replace=vultr_instance.gpu

  3. Apply the configuration and observe the following output:

    Apply complete! Resources: 1 added, 0 changed, 1 destroyed.

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