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SOS - Serial Over SSH

There are times when a server becomes unreachable over SSH due to broken networking, a bad install, misconfiguration, a kernel upgrade, bad firewall rules, etc. Equinix Metal™ offers an out-of-band, Serial Over SSH (SOS) console.

Equinix Metal runs the SOS console application in each of our facilities. It listens for incoming network connections and allows authenticated connections administrative access to our servers, effectively acting as a "jump box" to your server.

You can disable the ability of SOS to access your server in the server's operating system, but in the event that you can't reach the OS, SOS access can not be restored.

SOS Console Authentication

Access to the SOS console requires that you have your server's root password and valid a SSH key.

If you do not have the root password, you will not be able to use the SOS console.

If you provisioned your server with an either your user account's SSH key or a Project SSH key, the SOS console will use those keys for authentication.

If you provisioned your server without SSH keys, you can add either a new user SSH key or a new Project SSH key, associate the SSH key with the server while uploading the SSH key, and the SOS console will use the new SSH key for authentication. You must associate the new SSH key with the server.

The SOS console has been updated to support most modern key types. If you do not have the root password or a valid SSH key, you should leverage our Rescue Mode.

The SOS Hostname

In the Equinix Metal console, you can find the SSH command for SOS on the server's Overview page, by clicking on >_.

Out-of-band Console on the Overview page

Copy the SSH command containing the SOS hostname.

SOS console SSH command