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How to Reinstall a Vultr Bare Metal Instance

Updated on 28 August, 2025

Reinstalling a Vultr Bare Metal instance wipes the server file system, resets all configurations and reinstalls the operating system. Any data available on the instance's file system is permanently deleted and cannot be recovered unless backed up.

Follow this guide to reinstall a Vultr Bare Metal instance using the Vultr Customer Portal, API, CLI, or Terraform.

  • Vultr Customer Portal
  • Vultr API
  • Vultr CLI
  • Terraform
  1. Navigate to Products and click Compute.
  2. Click your target Bare Metal instance to open its management page.
  3. Click Server Reinstall on the top-right navigation menu to reinstall the server's file system.
  4. Check the confirmation prompt and click Reinstall Server to apply changes.

  1. Send a GET request to the List Bare Metal Instances endpoint and note the target instance's ID.

    console 
    $ curl "https://api.vultr.com/v2/bare-metals" \
  -X GET \
  -H "Authorization: Bearer ${VULTR_API_KEY}"

  2. Send a POST request to the Reinstall Bare Metal endpoint to reinstall the instance with a new hostname.

    console 
    $ curl "https://api.vultr.com/v2/bare-metals/{baremetal-id}/reinstall" \
  -X POST \
  -H "Authorization: Bearer ${VULTR_API_KEY}"
  --data '{
    "hostname" : "<new-baremetal-hostname>"
  }'

  1. List all Bare Metal instances available in your Vultr account and note the target instance's ID.

    console 
    $ vultr-cli bare-metal list

  2. Reinstall the instance with a new hostname.

    console 
    $ vultr-cli bare-metal reinstall --host <new_instance_hostname> <instance_id>

  1. Open your Terraform configuration for the existing Bare Metal instance.

  2. Trigger a reinstall by replacing the instance during apply.

    console 
    $ terraform apply -replace=vultr_bare_metal_server.bm1

  3. Apply the configuration and observe the following output:

    Apply complete! Resources: 1 added, 0 changed, 1 destroyed.

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