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States & Lifecycle

States: Unverified → Verified → (potentially) Deverified → Unverified → … Lifecycle: Machines automatically move between these states based on performance and reliability factors. Once verified, a machine will remain verified unless issues arise — such as failing health checks or reliability standards — which could lead to deverification.

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How It Works

Verification is entirely automated by proprietary algorithms that assess each machine’s operational health and performance. Only machines meeting platform reliability and performance thresholds are marked Verified. There is no manual intervention, ensuring consistency, scalability, and objectivity.

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Host Responsibilities (Always)

  • Keep systems stable, well-cooled, and correctly configured.
  • Maintain compatible drivers/CUDA and dependable, symmetric networking.
  • Run jobs only through the Jobs tab or the create job CLI command.
  • When issues arise, fix them promptly—the automation will update status.

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State Details & Guidance

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Unverified

What it means: Newly added machines or machines under evaluation. The system hasn’t yet completed enough testing to confirm platform standards. This is not a judgment of quality—only that no platform guarantee exists yet. Do
  • Maintain steady uptime during evaluation.
  • Ensure drivers/CUDA and networking are correctly installed and reachable.
  • Keep the environment clean; schedule work via Create Job only.
Avoid
  • Unnecessary reboots or configuration changes.
  • Unrelated background workloads that consume GPU/CPU/IO.

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Minimum Guidelines for Listing on Vast.ai

In order to be listed on Vast.ai, the machine must follow these minimum guidelines:
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- Ubuntu 18.04 or newer (required)
- Dedicated machines only - the machine shouldn't be doing other stuff while rented
- Fast, reliable internet: at least 10Mbps per machine.
- 10-series Nvidia GPU or MI25 or newer Radeon Instinct series GPU or Radeon VII or Radeon Pro VII or Radeon RX 7900 (GRE/XT/XTX); or Radeon Pro W7900/W7800. Other 6000 series or newer Radeon RX/Pro W series GPUs may be supported; but may not be searchable using standard filters for AMD ROCm.
- At least 1 physical CPU core (2 hyperthreads) per GPU.
- Your CPU must support AVX instruction set (not all lower end CPUs support this).
- At least 4 GB of system RAM per GPU.
- Fast SSD storage with at least 128GB per GPU.
- At least 1X PCIe for every 2.5 TFLOPS of GPU performance.
- All GPUs on the machine must be of the same type.
- An open port range mapped to each machine.

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Additional Requirements for Verification

In order for your unverified machine to be verified, it must also meet the following minimum requirements:
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- CUDA version greater than or equal to 12.0
- Reliability of 90%
- At least 3 open ports per GPU (100 recommended)
- Internet download speed of 500 Mb/s
- Internet upload speed of 500 Mb/s
- GPU RAM of 7 GB
Note: High-end GPUs are more likely to be verified. Machines with datacenter GPUs such as B200, H200, H100, A100, etc., and those with premium GPUs such as RTX PRO 6000 WS, 8xRTX 5090, 8xRTX 4090, etc., receive prioritized verification processing due to their high demand and performance capabilities.

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Verified

What it means: The machine passed automated checks for reliability, network stability, operational health, and performance. A Verified machine consistently delivers server services to platform standards. Do
  • Monitor health (uptime, thermals, power) and respond to alerts.
  • Keep drivers/CUDA on compatible, latest stable versions.
  • Maintain stable, symmetric bandwidth.
Avoid
  • Downgrading hardware capacity (e.g., reducing GPU count, disk or RAM).
  • Allowing thermal, power, or bandwidth instability under load.

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Deverified

What it means: A previously Verified machine no longer meets requirements. System continuous monitoring detects sustained degradation. When will deverification happen?
  • When the hosting software detects an error, your machine is automatically — but temporarily — deverified. It will appear as Unverified in search results until the underlying issue is resolved.
How should I begin fixing it?
  • A red error indicator will appear on your machine in the Machines tab. Use this message to identify and investigate the issue in your logs or metrics.
Recovery: Fix the issue and restore stability; the system will automatically transition back to Verified once system confirms healthy operation. This process may take some time, as the system ensures that the issue is fully resolved before restoring verification. Common causes
  • Network instability, closed ports, or low bandwidth.
  • Hardware/system errors (e.g., failing storage, insufficient PCIe bandwidth).
  • GPU issues (e.g., nvidia-smi/NVML failures, container device init errors).
  • Container launch failures or repeated runtime exceptions.
  • Detected abuse or policy violations.
Do
  • Investigate red error indicators quickly; review logs and metrics.
  • Validate thermal/power headroom and bandwidth under load.
  • Re-check health after changes to confirm resolution.
Avoid
  • Ignoring warnings or allowing instability to persist.
  • Reducing hardware below the created specification.
Note: If you’ve fixed the issue but the system doesn’t automatically detect the resolution, a Vast.ai team member may need to manually check that your machine is functioning correctly and clear the error.