Granting Syself temporary access to bare metal servers

Introduction#

In some troubleshooting scenarios, the Syself Support team may require temporary access to a Hetzner bare metal server to inspect the operating system, hardware state, provisioning logs, or Kubernetes components.

This guide explains how to safely place a server into maintenance mode and grant temporary access through Hetzner Robot.

Put the server into maintenance mode#

Before granting access, place the server into maintenance mode to prevent reconciliation or automated operations while the investigation is ongoing.

Edit the corresponding HetznerBareMetalHost resource and set:

		spec:
  maintenanceMode: true
	

Create a temporary Hetzner Robot admin login#

Log in to Hetzner Robot⁠ and select the bare metal server you want to share with Syself support.

Open the Admin Login section and generate a temporary password for the server.

After setting the password, open the Admin Login section again. Hetzner Robot will now display a generated temporary login username similar to:

		Login #2928603+MzQDe
	

This generated login is required for the support team to access the server.

Send the access information to Syself#

Send the following information to the Syself Support team:

• Server ID
• Temporary Robot login username
• Temporary password

The support team will use this information to inspect the server and investigate the reported issue.

Remove access after troubleshooting#

After the investigation is complete, remove the temporary Robot admin login or rotate the password from the Hetzner Robot interface.

You can then disable maintenance mode by removing:

		spec:
  maintenanceMode: true
	

from the HetznerBareMetalHost resource.