How to Regain Access to Your VPS on Hetzner (or Any Other Provider)

Lost access to your VPS? Here's a step-by-step guide to recover root access using Rescue Mode on Hetzner or similar providers. Learn how to reset your root password, configure SSH, and safely reboot your system.

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If you've lost access to your VPS (e.g., forgot your root password or locked yourself out), here’s how to regain control using Rescue Mode, specifically on Hetzner, but applicable to other providers with similar tooling.

✅ Step-by-Step Recovery

1. Enable Rescue Mode

From your VPS provider's dashboard, enable Rescue Mode and select an image (usually Linux-based) with your SSH key or generate one if needed.

dash


2. Get SSH Login Details

Once Rescue Mode is enabled, your provider will supply a temporary username and password for SSH access.

3. Connect via SSH

Open your terminal and connect:

ssh root@YourServerIP

If you get error: REMOTE HOST IDENTIFICATION HAS CHANGED!

Run this command to clear the old key: ssh-keygen -R YourServerIP

🛠️ Inside Rescue Mode

4. Find the Root Partition

List your disks to locate your root filesystem:

fdisk -l
// You are looking for something like
// /dev/sda1   528384 80003038 79474655  37.9G  Linux filesystem

5. Mount the Filesystem

mount /dev/sda1 /mnt

6. Enter Chroot

chroot /mnt

This gives you root access to your real system from the rescue environment.

🔐 Regain Root Access

7. Reset Root Password

passwd root

Enter a new password when prompted.

8. Enable SSH Root Login

Edit the SSH config:

nano /etc/ssh/sshd_config

Make sure these two lines are set:

PermitRootLogin yes
PasswordAuthentication yes

Restart the SSH service:

systemctl restart ssh

🔄 Final Steps

9. Exit and Unmount

exit
umount /mnt

10. Reboot

reboot

After rebooting, your VPS should boot normally and allow root login using the password you just set. Remember to disable password authentication again if you want to keep your server secure with SSH keys only.