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Boot your server into a SystemRescue environment with one click using rescue mode, and safely recover data over SFTP—even if the operating system no longer boots. Learn more.
10 November 20265 min read4 Views0 helpful
Introduction
Your server no longer starts? Are you locked out, or do you want to quickly make a backup before making changes?
With the built-in rescue mode, you can boot your server into a SystemRescue environment with one click—so you can still access your drives, recover important files, and create local backups. This even works if the original operating system is no longer accessible.
To transfer the recovered data securely, you can use SFTP (Secure File Transfer Protocol). This lets you copy files from the rescue system to your local computer or another server over a secure, encrypted connection.
FAQ
Frequently asked questions
In the VPS dashboard, open the Rescue tab and click “Start rescue mode.” The server will restart automatically and boot directly into the SystemRescue environment—no manual ISO selection needed.
In the same Rescue tab, open the “Reset network” card and click “Reapply network settings.” This automatically reapplies the IP address, gateway, and saved SSH keys to the server. Try this first.
Run fdisk -l. It lists all detected drives and partitions, including their size, partition type, and file system type.
Use SFTP (Secure File Transfer Protocol) to copy files from the rescue system to your local computer or another server over an encrypted connection.
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Navigation
VPS
Start rescue mode
Log in to your VPS dashboard and open the Rescue tab. Click Start rescue mode—your server will restart automatically and boot directly into the SystemRescue environment. You no longer need to select an ISO manually or change the boot order.
Once the server has restarted, open the Console tab to connect to the running SystemRescue environment.
Important
No automatic networking in rescue mode
ZapX does not configure the network automatically in rescue mode: SystemRescue does not receive an IP address, and Reapply network settings is unavailable in the Rescue tab while in rescue mode. To transfer data over SFTP, you therefore need to configure the network yourself in the console, as described below under Configure the network.
Configure the network
You can find your network details in the VPS dashboard under the Overview tab, on the IP addresses card: your primary IPv4 address, the subnet (the number after the / is the prefix, e.g. 24), and the gateway.
First, check the name of the network adapter (usually ens18 on VPS):
Code
ip -br link
SystemRescue continuously tries to obtain an address for the adapter using DHCP. As a result, an address you set using ip addr add alone will be removed by the network service after a short time. Instead, configure the address persistently using nmcli:
Code
nmcli con mod "Wired connection 1" ipv4.method manual ipv4.addresses <IP>/<Präfix> ipv4.gateway <Gateway> ipv4.dns 1.1.1.1
nmcli con up "Wired connection 1"
Replace <IP>, <Präfix>, and <Gateway> with the values from the IP addresses card, for example ipv4.addresses 203.0.113.25/24 ipv4.gateway 203.0.113.1. If your connection has a different name, nmcli con show will show you the correct one.
Next, check that the connection is working:
Code
ip -br addr show ens18
ping -c 3 1.1.1.1
Configure the firewall
For security reasons, SystemRescue enables its firewall by default. This means that all incoming connections are blocked to protect the system from unauthorized access.
However, in your case, you need to allow a connection from your local computer to the SFTP server on SystemRescue. You can either configure the firewall to allow SFTP traffic or temporarily disable it.
The safest option is to allow only SSH port 22, which is also used by SFTP:
Code
iptables -I INPUT -p tcp --dport 22 -j ACCEPT
Alternatively, you can stop the SystemRescue firewall for the duration of the recovery:
Code
systemctl stop iptables
Set the root password
The SFTP client needs to authenticate with a username and password to access the SFTP server's data. The system's root account is used so the client can access all files visible in SystemRescue. By default, logging in as root is not allowed in SystemRescue. You therefore need to set a password for authentication to work. Do this as follows:
Code
[root@sysrescue ~]# passwd root
New password:
Retype new password:
passwd: password updated successfully
Transfer data
You can now back up your data. Simply open your preferred FTP client and connect to your server. Make sure to select SFTP as the transfer protocol. Enter your server's IP-Adresse as the hostname, use port 22, and log in with the username root and the Passwort you set earlier.
The first time you connect to a server using SFTP, a security prompt will appear. This warning appears because the server's host key has not yet been saved in your local cache.
If you are sure the IP address is correct and you are intentionally making the connection, you can trust the server. Confirm the security prompt to save the key in the cache—you will not be prompted again on future connections to this server.
Once connected, navigate to the rescue-Verzeichnis you created earlier. There, you can access your files and download them to your local computer. Simply browse the folders, select the data you want to back up, and transfer it securely over SFTP.
Conclusion
You have now successfully recovered and backed up your important files.
Your data is safe and can be restored at any time. You can now move on to other steps, such as reinstalling the server, repairing the system, or migrating your data to a new environment.
If you have any questions or need help, our support team is here for you every day! 🙂
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Available partitions (e.g. /dev/sda1, /dev/sda2, …),
The file system type (if detected).
In this example, the drive /dev/sda has three partitions: /dev/sda1, /dev/sda2, and /dev/sda3. Make sure you select the correct partition to mount. The output of fdisk -l helps you avoid mistakes by clearly showing which data is on which drive. Example:
Code
Disk /dev/sda: 111.76 GiB, 119998201240 bytes, 234373120 sectors
Device Boot Start End Sectors Size Type
/dev/sda1 * 2048 1050623 1048576 512M EFI System
/dev/sda2 1050624 3147775 2097152 1G Linux filesystem
/dev/sda3 3147776 234440703 231292928 110G Linux LVM
Once you have found the correct partition, create a directory to serve as the mount point—the location where the partition will be made accessible. Then mount the desired partition in this directory. We recommend mounting the drive in read-only mode to keep the data safe.
Use these commands to create the mount point and mount the partition:
Code
mkdir /mnt/rescue
mount -o ro /dev/sdaX /mnt/rescue
Replace /dev/sdaX with the correct partition you identified using . In this example, that would be .
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