What are OOB Sessions and how do they work?

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An OOB Session will give you temporary access to your server’s OOB (also know as LOM, iDRAC, or IMPI). For more information on what OOB is, please read “What is Remote Management”.

If your server has a Dedicated OOB connection configured and is connected to one of our switches (known as our Remote Management service), the connection will be left disabled as default.

We do this as OOBs left enabled and open to the internet can leave the server open to being compromised. So, as a security measure, we disable the connected switch port to remove its network access; meaning that no one can use it to access the server.

Booking an OOB session will temporarily enable the switch port and allow you to access the server’s OOB, then automatically disable itself after a set amount of time. You can also turn all your OOB connections On or Off using the MyServers control panel (see “How do I enable or disable all my OOB connections?” for instructions on how to do this).

To request a temporary OOB session on a single server, which has a Dedicated OOB connection, follow these steps:

1. Log into your MyServers control panel.

2. Click on the My Servers tab along the top (or within the burger menu on the mobile version).

3. Click on the package reference of the server you want to enable the OOB on.

Then on the right-hand side (or the bottom of the page on the mobile version), click on Support and then OOB Request.

4. You can now configure the OOB session. Start off by choosing whether the session should start immediately or at a specific date and time; then choose how long the session will last.

5. Then press Save.

Either at the selected start time or within a couple of seconds, the switch port attached to your Dedicated OOB port will enable and your OOB session will be accessible. Then, after the selected duration, the switch port will automatically disable and your OOB will no longer be accessible.

If you have any issues accessing your OOB, please raise a support ticket and our engineers will be happy to help.