Remote KVM: console and BIOS
Remote KVM is included on every server we deliver. Not lent out when one happens to be free, not a paid extra.
What it is
A keyboard, screen and mouse attached to your machine, reachable from the portal. You see exactly what a monitor in the rack would show: the BIOS, the boot loader, kernel messages, a panicking filesystem, a login prompt. You can type into all of it.
When to reach for it
- SSH does not answer. Before you assume the network, look at the console: a full disk, a failed mount or a firewall rule you just applied all look identical from outside.
- A kernel or boot change went wrong. Pick the previous kernel from the boot menu and you are back in minutes.
- You need the BIOS. Boot order, virtualisation extensions, memory settings — all reachable without us.
- Single user mode. Lost root password, broken fstab, a repair that needs a console rather than a session.
If the console stays black
Usually the machine is simply off or hung. Power-cycle it from the portal and watch the screen from the first frame — that first frame is where the useful error lives. Still nothing after a power cycle, with no POST output at all, then it is hardware and it is ours: open a ticket and see when hardware fails.
A note on security
Console access is access. Keep your portal account to the people who should have it, use a password you do not use anywhere else, and remember that anyone with the console can reset a root password the same way you can.
Still stuck? Mail support@novogara.com — an engineer answers, at any hour. Back to the knowledge base