When the appliance is down
Copy link to the page “When the appliance is down”Bring the appliance back into service so it can renew certificates and install them on your servers.
What you need
Copy link to the section “What you need”- Access to the machine’s console in the hypervisor or to the Docker host.
- The 12 backup words if the appliance cannot open its keys.
Bring the appliance back
Copy link to the section “Bring the appliance back”- Open the virtual machine’s console and choose
5 Restart the appliance. For Docker, restart the container on the host. - Open the appliance’s address in your browser. If it cannot open its keys, use the 12 backup words as described under The appliance cannot open its keys.
- Open Overview › Needs action and start with the certificate that expires first.
Check that it works
Copy link to the section “Check that it works”Overview opens and service agents show Online under Servers › All servers. The appliance checks renewals every 3 hours. Then check the result under Installation plans › Runs, see Renewal.
If it fails
Copy link to the section “If it fails”- The web interface still does not respond → choose
8 Reboot this machinein the console menu. - The software cannot start → reinstall the software while keeping data from the console.
- Installation locked → turn off any clone and unlock with the backup words.
- The data or machine is lost → restore the appliance from a backup.
What keeps working during the outage
Copy link to the section “What keeps working during the outage”Certificates on servers work until they expire. Service agents retry at increasing intervals, see When the connection fails.
Renewal, installation and notifications wait while the appliance is down. Use your own monitoring to check the appliance’s HTTPS address. The appliance cannot report its own outage.
When sslbrain Cloud is down
Copy link to the section “When sslbrain Cloud is down”A running appliance keeps working, and installed certificates remain valid until expiry. Service agents connected directly to the appliance can still carry out local installations. The appliance uses its stored licence, which remains subject to its expiry date.
Certificate orders through Cloud and their renewals wait. Cloud sign-in, service agent connections through Cloud, AutoDNS and messages sent through Cloud also depend on Cloud being available. Licence information and downloads from Cloud cannot be fetched during the outage.
If the appliance restarts during the outage, it cannot fetch the key for automatic unlocking. Use the 12 backup words to open it as Admin Local. Users with a local password can then sign in without Cloud. See Users and sign-in.
The appliance retries certificate orders automatically once Cloud is reachable. Renewals start well before expiry, but need Cloud whenever the certificate source or domain validation uses Cloud.
On Professional and Enterprise, direct ACME can keep renewing without Cloud if the appliance can reach the CA and validate the domain without Cloud. This can use a direct DNS API connection from the appliance with locally stored credentials. AutoDNS, DNS credentials stored in Cloud and DNS API calls through the Cloud proxy still need Cloud.