VNC console (locked out?)

Sometimes you cannot SSH into a server: the key is wrong, a firewall rule shut the door, or the machine is stuck on boot. The VNC console is the way in that does not care about any of that. It is a live graphical screen of the machine, wired straight to its display, so it works even when the network to the server is broken.

On any instance, the Terminal tab is the VNC console.

Find it

Open the server and look at the row of tabs across the top. The console lives under Terminal.

The Terminal tab (circled) is the VNC console. Here it shows a live Ubuntu login prompt.

The Terminal tab is circled above. Open it and the VNC console fills the page.

When to reach for it

Use the console when the problem is inside the server itself and SSH is not an option:

• SSH is broken or refuses your key.
• The server will not finish booting, so no service is listening yet.
• You deleted or replaced the only key the server trusted.
• An in-guest change (a bad sshd_config, a full disk) stopped you getting in.

Because the console is attached to the machine's screen rather than to the network stack, it keeps working in every one of these cases.

A firewall lockout is not a console job

If what shut you out is one of our firewall rules, you do not need the console. Those rules are enforced by the network and managed in the panel, so open the instance's Firewall tab and delete the rule or disable the firewall. The console is for problems inside the operating system.

Firewall & ACLs

Using the console

Along the top of the console are a few controls:

• Reconnect reopens the connection if the screen freezes or goes blank.
• Paste sends text from your clipboard into the console, which is handy because a raw graphical console does not paste on its own.
• CTRL + ALT + DEL sends that key combination to the machine, the same way you would press it on a physical keyboard.

The console shows you the machine's login prompt, exactly as if you were sitting in front of it. Logging in still needs a password. If you do not have the root password, or you have forgotten it, reset it first and then log in here.

Reset the root password

Once you are logged in at the console, common recovery jobs include:

• Adding your SSH key back into ~/.ssh/authorized_keys.
• Restarting the SSH service or checking why it failed to start.
• Undoing a bad sshd_config change and reloading SSH.
• Reading boot logs to see why the machine is not coming up.

Related

• Passwords & reset set a known password so you can log in at the console.
• Connect over SSH the normal way in, for when SSH is working again.
• Power controls cleanly reboot or shut down once you are back in control.