Debug mode

In an emergency situation, such as hardware failure or a verified security compromise, you may reboot your nodes into a secure administrative debug state. Slices will not run in this state, and only staff at PlanetLab Operations will be able to access the nodes. Unless a hard drive has failed, slice data (or forensic evidence of compromise) will not be lost.

To place a node into debug mode, visit the node's details page on the website and select Debug as its Boot State. Login to the node as the user site_admin and execute:

sudo /sbin/shutdown -r 5 "Emergency, please save your work and logout"


    

If you cannot login to the node via SSH or the console, you may send to the node a specially formed ICMP packet called the PlanetLab Ping Of Death (POD) that will immediately reboot it. Click Stop to attempt this action. You may only Stop nodes that are in Boot state, so if you placed the node into Debug state, put it back into Boot state before clicking Stop.