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Reset the Root Password or Hostname
Reset a lost root or Administrator password from the cloud portal, set the hostname in the portal and inside the OS, and where boot order lives.
Two of the most common "how do I" questions on a VPS have one-click answers in the cloud portal: resetting a root password you have lost, and changing the hostname the server was created with. Both live on the server's page at cloud.nobullnetworks.com.
Reset the root password#
Use this when you have lost the root (Linux) or Administrator (Windows) password and cannot log in any other way. It works from outside the operating system, so it does not depend on you being able to get in.
- Open the server in the cloud portal.
- Choose Reset password from the server's actions (look in the Settings tab if it is not among the top-level actions).
- Confirm. The portal generates a new password and displays it once. Copy it into your password manager immediately.
- Log in and change it. Connect over SSH or the VNC console and set a password of your own choosing with
passwd, or better, switch to SSH keys and disable password logins altogether.
The reset is applied through the guest agent inside the server. It needs the server to be running and the agent responsive; if the reset does not take, use the rescue environment to mount the disk and reset it from a chroot, which works regardless of the guest's state.
If you only need to reset the password of a user you created yourself, and you can still log in as root, plain passwd username over SSH is faster than any portal.
Change the hostname#
The hostname is the name your server calls itself, and it shows up in the portal, in prompts, in logs, and in outbound mail headers. Setting it to a real name (web1.example.com) instead of the generated default is worth doing on day one.
- Open the Settings tab on the server's page and edit the Hostname field. Save.
- Set it inside the operating system too. The portal value is what SolusVM knows about; the guest keeps its own. On Linux:
sudo hostnamectl set-hostname web1.example.com hostnamectl - Add DNS records for the name (A and AAAA) and a matching reverse DNS entry if the server will send mail or you like tidy traceroutes.
Description and boot order#
The Settings tab also holds a free-text description (handy when an account has several servers) and, on current portal versions, the boot order for the server's disks. Leave boot order alone unless you have a specific reason to change it; the Boot & Rescue tab is the right place for a one-off boot from the rescue ISO.
Related#
- Getting Around the Cloud Portal
- Connect to Your VPS with SSH
- Reset Your MyNobull Password, which is a different password for a different portal
