Reboot, shutdown & recovery
This page covers power actions you can take remotely and the options for recovering a device that is not behaving as expected.
Reboot and shutdown
You can reboot or shut down a device remotely from the dashboard or with the cuttle command-line tool. These actions are carried over the device’s connection to the platform and require no inbound access to the device.
A device that loses power or is reset returns to its configured state on next boot, because configuration and data are persistent and the system image is read-only.
Automatic recovery
The OS is designed to keep itself running unattended:
- It restarts automatically after an unexpected fault rather than waiting at an error.
- Workloads configured to run are brought back up after a reboot.
- If a network configuration change does not produce a working connection, the device can fall back to known-good network settings — see connection fallback.
Recovery options
When a device needs hands-on recovery, the options in increasing order of impact:
| Option | Use when | Effect on data |
|---|---|---|
| Remote reboot | Device is reachable but misbehaving | None |
| Roll back the OS version | A new OS version caused the problem | None |
| Reset the administrator password | Local login is lost | None |
| Recover an encrypted device | Automatic unlock is unavailable | None (with recovery passphrase) |
| Re-image the device | Device is unrecoverable or being repurposed | Erases configuration and data |
See User accounts for password reset and Disk encryption for encrypted-device recovery.
When a device is offline
If a device is offline and unreachable through the platform, work through the troubleshooting playbooks — most often the cause is connectivity, time, or a network configuration change.