Contabo VPS Not Booting

Troubleshooting Contabo VPS Not Booting

A Contabo VPS failing to boot can be a frustrating experience. This article outlines common causes and practical troubleshooting steps to get your server back online. Before diving in, remember to back up your data regularly to mitigate potential data loss during these processes. Contacting Contabo support should be your last resort after trying these steps.

Common Causes and Initial Checks

Several factors can prevent your Contabo VPS from booting correctly:

• Kernel panic: A critical error in the kernel can halt the boot process.
• Filesystem corruption: Damaged system files can prevent the OS from loading.
• Resource exhaustion: Insufficient RAM or disk space can lead to boot failures.
• Incorrect boot configuration: Errors in GRUB or other bootloaders.
• Hardware issues (less common): Although rare, underlying hardware problems can occur.

Start with these initial checks:

1. Check Contabo's Status Page: Visit Contabo's official status page to see if there are any known outages affecting your server's region.
2. Login to the Contabo Control Panel: Verify the VPS status. Is it showing as "Running" or "Stopped"? If stopped, try manually starting it.
3. VNC Console Access: Use the VNC console provided by Contabo. This allows you to see the boot process in real-time and identify where it's failing. Look for error messages.

Advanced Troubleshooting Steps

If the initial checks don't resolve the issue, consider these more advanced steps:

Rescue Mode

Contabo offers a rescue mode environment. Access it via their control panel. This allows you to mount your VPS's filesystem and perform diagnostics and repairs.

1. Boot into Rescue Mode: Select the rescue system from the control panel (usually a Linux distribution like Debian or Ubuntu).
2. Mount Your Filesystem: Identify your root partition (usually /dev/vda1, but use lsblk to confirm). Mount it using: mount /dev/vda1 /mnt. If you have separate boot partition mount it as well.
3. Check for Errors: Run fsck /dev/vda1 (or your root partition) to check for and repair filesystem errors. Answer 'yes' to any prompts to fix errors.
4. Examine Log Files: Check system logs (e.g., /mnt/var/log/syslog, /mnt/var/log/kern.log) for clues about the boot failure.
5. GRUB Configuration: If you suspect bootloader issues, you can chroot into your system and regenerate the GRUB configuration: chroot /mnt then grub-mkconfig -o /boot/grub/grub.cfg and update-grub.

After performing these steps, unmount your filesystem (umount /mnt) and reboot your VPS from the Contabo control panel. If the problem persists after these steps, contact Contabo support and provide them with the error messages you observed in the VNC console and rescue mode logs.