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Common questions and answers about using LabEx. If your question is about LabEx Pro, see LabEx Pro FAQs.
Your free virtual machine quota resets 16 hours after you last used a VM, not at local midnight (00:00).
The system resets your free VM quota 16 hours after you last exhausted your full free allocation—please confirm your quota has reset. Also, free users may receive up to three temporary VM uses per day; that does not guarantee you will get three. When overall load on LabEx is high, we prioritize the Pro experience and the system may temporarily reduce free-tier quotas.
For a smoother experience, you do not need to stop the VM manually, and the VM interface does not include a Stop button. Compute resources are reclaimed automatically after the system detects extended inactivity, or when the countdown ends.
LabEx VMs use different operating systems, instance types, and may run different setup scripts. Each lab’s VM can therefore differ, which leads to different preparation steps and affects startup time. In general, Linux-related VMs typically start within tens of seconds, while Docker, Kubernetes, RHEL, and similar setups may take several minutes.