How can I boot a FreeBSD VPS into rescue mode?

If your FreeBSD VPS won't boot, for instance, because of a broken bootloader or kernel, you can boot your VPS into rescue mode.

Rescue mode is also useful to copy files from an infected VPS, for resetting passwords and a variety of other things. When you boot your VPS into rescue mode, it is started from mfsbsd which can be used for resetting passwords, resizing partitions and so on.

Booting into rescue mode

In order to boot into rescue mode, just go to the server via the Tilaa dashboard and select "Start in rescue mode".  

Your VPS will start again, but this time, it will boot from the mfsbsd iso. You can view the boot progress from the Video Display.

When your VPS has finished booting, you see the following:

Your VPS is connected to the internet, so you can access the rescue mode via ssh. Login as root and the password is mfsroot. 

Mounting partitions and copying files

You can mount your freeBSD root partition, to copy files from it (using scp or rsync):

Reset your password

Once your root partition is mounted chroot into this newly mounted partition and change your password.