How To Enable Recovery Mode

Got a server you’ve locked yourself out of? Or got an OS that’s in need of some TLC? Well, recovery mode to the rescue! Recovery mode is on-the-house with every cloud server, and it allows you to access your server in times of need.

Step 1

Log-in to your control panel at http://control.vps.net and find the server you want to fix. Next, bring up the main control screen.

Step 2

Click on the Reboot in Recovery tab at the top. The server will then go into reboot. Wait until it starts responding to pings. Then SSH to the server.

Step 3

You will be asked to enter a root password, this is ‘recovery’

Step 4

You may be promoted that the SSH key has changed. That’s fine, just accept the new key and log-in.

Step 5

Once logged-in you can find the old filesystem on /dev/xvdb1. Then you can either run a file, check on it (fsck /dev/xvdb1), or mount it (mount /dev/xvdb1 /mnt).

Step 6

Once you’ve put the wheels back on the bus, just type “reboot” from the SSH session. The system will then try to boot on your disk.

Step 7

Should you still have issues then you can try the “Console” on the control panel to see the state of the server.