Start console redirection of an out-of-band management
Quick answer
Open your server's Remote Access tab in Portal, under Bare Metal, to find its management type, management IP and credentials. Download and connect the Remote Access VPN from that same tab, then open the management IP in your browser to reach the out-of-band management interface and start the virtual console.
Out-of-band management gives you a way to interact with a dedicated server independently of its operating system. It's useful for reinstalling, watching a server boot, or troubleshooting one that won't come up over the network. Portal's Remote Access tab shows which interface your server uses, Dell iDRAC, HP iLO, or IPMI, depending on the hardware.
Open Remote Access for your server
Open the server in Portal
Go to Bare Metal, select the server, then open its Remote Access tab.
Note the management type, IP and credentials
The tab shows the out-of-band management type (iDRAC, iLO, or IPMI), the management IP, and the credentials, when available.
Remote Access
Bare Metal → server-01 → Remote Access
Download and connect the Remote Access VPN
Management IPs aren't reachable over the public internet. Download the Remote Access VPN from the same tab and follow the OS-specific setup instructions shown there.
Open the management IP in a browser
Once connected to the VPN, open the management IP shown on the Remote Access tab in your browser and sign in with the credentials from that tab.
Start the virtual console
Most current out-of-band management controllers offer an HTML5-based console viewer that runs directly in your browser without extra software. Some older controllers still rely on a Java applet or a vendor-specific plugin instead; if that applies to your hardware, you may need a browser configured to support it.
- Dell iDRAC: open the console launcher and, if needed, set the plug-in or viewer type to HTML5 under the console settings, then launch the console.
- HP iLO: open the remote console. On current firmware this launches an HTML5-based viewer directly in the browser.
- IPMI: open the remote console from the web interface's console or KVM menu, using whichever viewer the interface offers.
Mount installation media and choose a boot device
To boot from an ISO image, for example to run a manual OS installation or a rescue environment, mount it as virtual media from within the console. Then use the controller's boot-device override option, commonly reached with a function key such as F11 or F12 during startup, to boot from the mounted image instead of the local disk.