Connecting to the Console

Cloud Servers are provided with a graphical console which can be accessed through the ‘Cloud Servers‘ tab in the Bytemark Panel. Press the ‘Console‘ button for your server to open it.

Dedicated servers

Dedicated servers provide their serial output over SSH and are not yet integrated into the control panel. The console is based on a serial line, and features some special key-presses which allow you to power-cycle your server. These instructions assume you are running Linux or Mac OS X (using a Terminal application). If you are running Windows, please see the separate guide ‘Connecting to the Console from Windows‘.

Dedicated Servers require a key file instead of a password. The key file is stored in the /root folder of your server before delivery (the welcome email tells you this). Once you have this file, eg. ‘stoneboat.dh.key‘, you would type:

ssh -i stoneboat.dh.key dhshell@stoneboat.dhadmin.bytemark.co.uk

ie. the username is dhshell and the server name should be stoneboat.dhadmin.bytemark.co.uk.

Please note that OpenSSH (the most common SSH program on Linux or Mac OSX) requires that the permissions on the key file are 0700. If your key has different permissions you’ll receive a prompt for a passphrase, even if one has not been set. You can fix this by typing:

chmod 0700 stoneboat.dh.key

If you have lost your SSH key you can contact support to get a new one issued, or you can provide us with a public key you’d like us to use.

For more information about how to use the console, please see this article..

Legacy virtual machines

Legacy Virtual Machines provide their serial output over SSH and are not yet integrated into the control panel. The console is based on a serial line, and features some special key-presses which allow you to power-cycle your server. These instructions assume you are running Linux or Mac OS X (using a Terminal application). If you are running Windows, please see the separate guide ‘Connecting to the Console from Windows‘.

If your VM was called stoneboat, you would connect to the console by typing:

ssh stoneboat@stoneboat.vmadmin.bytemark.co.uk

The password will be the same as the root password we originally set for your VM. If you’ve forgotten your password, please contact support so we can reset it for you.

For more information about how to use the console, please see this article.