---
title: "Activating rescue mode on a Public Cloud instance"
description: "Learn how to restart your OVHcloud Public Cloud instance in rescue mode and access your files."
url: https://docs.us.ovhcloud.com/en/public-cloud/compute/activating-rescue-mode-public-cloud-instance
lang: en
---
> For AI agents: the complete documentation index is available at https://docs.us.ovhcloud.com/en/llms.txt, the full documentation bundle is available at https://docs.us.ovhcloud.com/en/llms-full.txt.

# Activating rescue mode on a Public Cloud instance

**Learn how to restart your OVHcloud Public Cloud instance in rescue mode and access your files.**

Your Public Cloud instance may become inaccessible due to a lost SSH key or configuration errors. In such circumstances, you can use the rescue mode to reconfigure your instance or to recover your data.

 

## Requirements

- A [Public Cloud instance](https://us.ovhcloud.com/public-cloud/) in your OVHcloud account
- Access to the [OVHcloud Control Panel](https://manager.us.ovhcloud.com/#/hub)

 

## Instructions

### Step 1: Activating rescue mode

From the [OVHcloud Control Panel](https://manager.us.ovhcloud.com/):

1. Click `Public Cloud` from the top navigation bar.
2. Select `Instances` from the left-hand menu.
3. Select the _more options_ `...` button to the right of your instance.
4. Select `Reboot in rescue mode`.

You will now see the **Reboot in rescue mode** dialog box. Click the drop-down list to `select the distribution` you would like to use in rescue mode and then click the `Restart` button.

Once your instance has been rebooted in rescue mode, an information box will display the options to access it.

Your temporary **rescue mode password** will only be shown in the VNC console. Click on your instance, then switch to the tab `VNC console` to retrieve it.

 

### Step 2: Accessing your data

When rescue mode has been activated, your instance's data will be attached as an additional disk. You will now need to mount it, by taking the following steps.

First, establish an SSH connection to your instance. Once you are connected, verify the available disks with this command:

```
lsblk
```

The result will look similar to the following:

```
NAME    MAJ:MIN RM  SIZE  RO TYPE  MOUNTPOINT
sda     253:0   0     1G  0  disk
└─sda1  253:1   0  1023M  0  part  /
sdb     253:16  0    10G  0  disk
└─sdb1  253:17  0    10G  0  part
```

In rescue mode, `sda` is the rescue mode disk and `sda1` is the primary rescue partition mounted on `/`.

In this example, the primary disk is `sdb` and the system partition is `sdb1` (indicated by the larger size).

Next, mount the partition:

```bash
mount /dev/sdb1 /mnt/
```

Your data will now be accessible from the `/mnt` folder.

 

### Step 3: Deactivating rescue mode

Once you have completed your tasks, you can deactivate rescue mode by rebooting your instance from the Control Panel interface. To execute this, click the _more options_ `...` button and select `Exit rescue mode`.

**Warning:**

**NOTE:** If the `Exit rescue mode` button is not displayed while the instance is in rescue mode, we recommend that you refresh your browser tab.

 

### Activating rescue mode using the OpenStack API

You can also activate rescue mode via the OpenStack API using the following command:

```
nova rescue <INSTANCE_ID>
```

To exit rescue mode, use the following command:

```
nova unrescue <INSTANCE_ID>
```

 

## Go further

Browse all the [Compute guides](https://docs.us.ovhcloud.com/en/public-cloud/compute/landing-page-compute.md).

Browse the rest of the [OVHcloud US documentation](https://docs.us.ovhcloud.com/en/index.md) for guides on our other products and services.

Learn more about [Public Cloud Compute](https://us.ovhcloud.com/public-cloud/compute/) on the OVHcloud US website.