How to use rescue mode on Elastic Metal servers

Reviewed on February 17, 2025

Rescue mode allows you to boot an Elastic Metal server from the network. It loads a rescue operating system based on Ubuntu Linux that runs entirely in the server's RAM. This enables you to perform maintenance and data recovery operations, even if the machine is otherwise unreachable in its normal mode.

Note

This documentation specifically covers rescue mode for Elastic Metal servers. If you need to use rescue mode on Instances, please refer to the corresponding documentation.

Before you start

To complete the actions presented below, you must have:

A Scaleway account logged into the console
Owner status or IAM permissions allowing you to perform actions in the intended Organization
An SSH key
An Elastic Metal server installed

Click Elastic Metal in the Bare Metal section of the Scaleway console side menu. This opens the Elastic Metal dashboard.
Select the machine you want to reboot into rescue mode from the list of your Elastic Metal servers. Click the server's name to access its information page.
Scroll down to the Rescue mode section and click Boot in rescue mode to start the reboot process.

Important
Rebooting your server may result in data corruption if there are unwritten files. The server's software will not be stopped before the reboot, so only use this feature when your server is not reachable over the internet.

Tip
Depending on your server's hardware model, the reboot process may take several minutes.
After the server has rebooted, use a terminal application to log into the server via SSH using the credentials provided in your console:
```
ssh rescue@<elastic-metal-server>
```
Tip
Rescue mode uses the SSH keys registered for your Elastic Metal server for authentication. You can log in using the rescue user and your SSH key. If you have lost your private key, you can still access your server using the password displayed in the console.

You are now logged into rescue mode and can perform maintenance tasks on the server. Rescue mode is based on Ubuntu, so you can execute commands as you would on any Ubuntu Linux system.

Note

Rescue mode runs entirely in the server's RAM. To access files on the hard disk, you need to mount it.

Rebooting back to normal mode

After completing maintenance, you can reboot the server back into its normal operating system.

To do this, click Switch to normal mode in the rescue mode section of the server's details page. The server will reboot into its installed operating system and should be available in normal mode within a few minutes.