Root password, reboot and reinstalling the system

Lost the root password, locked yourself out with a firewall rule, or just want a clean system? All of this is on the server's page in your account, no ticket needed.

Seeing the password

The initial password is shown once, after you press "Show password". As soon as it's revealed, we delete our copy, so we can't show it again or send it to you later. Save it in a password manager right away.

Resetting the root password

Press "Reset password". A new random password is generated and set inside the server; the old one stops working. It takes a few seconds, then the "Show password" button appears again, and again it shows the password only once.

The server has to be running for this, because the password is set through the guest agent inside the system. If you've removed or broken the agent, or changed the root account yourself, the reset may not go through. In that case reinstalling is the reliable way back in.

Power

"Start", "Stop" and "Reboot" work like the buttons on a physical box. If SSH still works, reboot or poweroff from inside the system is the gentler option, because services get to close their files. Keep the buttons for when the server doesn't respond.

Reinstalling the system

Choose a system and press "Reinstall": Ubuntu 24.04 or 22.04, Debian 12 or 13, AlmaLinux 9, Rocky Linux 9. The disk is wiped completely, the IP address stays the same, and a new root password is shown once when the installation finishes, usually within a few minutes.

To be blunt: there's no undo. We don't keep snapshots of client servers, so copy your data off first.

One side effect: the server's SSH host key changes, and your computer will complain about it on the next connection. Remove the old entry and connect again:

ssh-keygen -R 203.0.113.10

Password resets and reinstalls are limited to two every couple of minutes per server. If you hit the limit, just wait a moment.