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Just to add, I have found that really only options that are available are: * hardware reboot * os reinstalation

But there is a option called "netboot" which looks like it might be what you are looking for, but unfortunately I can't try it now on any of my servers.

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Netboot enables you to boot in a rescue environment. From there, you can usually mount your disk, do some basic tests, and fix mistakes.

Not as efficient as a direct console access, but for the occasional "Oh , I just firewalled myself" moment, it's enough.

Thanks; so basically if you bork your box your options are (1) netboot, and failing that (2) reinstall the OS. Reasonable enough, for the price. I suppose that this is why we have Chef and Puppet

I once firewalled myself and asked for help, a technician re-opened port 22 for me after a few hours (you can get instant support if you pay but it was for dev so I didn't care).

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