Complete Guide to the netcup Server Control Panel (SCP)

Table of Contents11 sections

netcup separates customer administration into two dedicated portals following classic German engineering principles:

• CCP (Customer Control Panel, customercontrolpanel.de): Handles billing, invoices, contract upgrades, and cancellations.
• SCP (Server Control Panel, servercontrolpanel.de): Controls the underlying KVM hypervisor interface, virtual power state, storage media, snapshots, networking, and HTML5 VNC console.

Each panel uses its own password (though you can jump from CCP to SCP with one click via Auto-Login SCP). If you are used to all-in-one cloud dashboards, SCP's utilitarian interface hides several powerful low-level tools.

This guide covers every essential SCP feature so you can manage, rescue, back up, and migrate your servers with confidence.

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1. SCP Dashboard Navigation & Tab Overview#

After logging into SCP, you will see a list of all active VPS and Root Server instances. Click any server to open its management view:

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2. Mounting Custom ISOs (Proxmox VE, Alpine, Arch, FreeBSD, Windows)#

If you want to install an operating system not included in netcup's automated one-click image templates—such as Proxmox VE, Alpine Linux, NixOS, FreeBSD, OpenBSD, or a licensed Windows Server ISO—you can use SCP's virtual DVD drive.

The 3-Step ISO Mount & Boot Workflow#

Step 1: Mount the ISO File

1. Open your server in SCP and navigate to Media -> DVD Drive.
2. Choose one of two sources:
   • Official ISO Library: Select from pre-cached ISOs including FreeBSD, Arch Linux, Gentoo, Alpine, Debian netinst, and GParted Live.
   • Own Image (Custom ISO / FTP Upload): Provide a direct HTTP/HTTPS download URL to an ISO or upload your custom ISO image via the temporary FTP credentials shown on the page.
3. Click Insert DVD to attach the optical media to your KVM instance.

Step 2: Change the Boot Order (Crucial Step!)

Mounting the ISO alone will not boot from it if your virtual hard disk remains first in the boot sequence:

1. Switch to General -> Boot Order.
2. Move DVD Drive to the very top of the list, above Hard Disk.
3. Click Save Boot Order.

Step 3: Reboot and Complete Installation via VNC

1. Trigger an ACPI Restart or Force Reset from the power menu.
2. Immediately open the Screen (VNC Console) tab. You will see your server boot straight into the ISO installer.
3. Walk through the OS installation as normal.

Important Post-Installation Cleanup:
Once your new OS is installed, return to Media -> DVD Drive and click Eject DVD, then set General -> Boot Order back to Hard Disk first. Otherwise, your server will boot back into the installer every time it restarts!

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3. HTML5 VNC Console (Screen) & Emergency Rescue Tricks#

If an accidental firewall rule (ufw / nftables / iptables) or a typo in /etc/ssh/sshd_config locks you out of SSH, the Screen tab provides direct out-of-band console access to your KVM virtual machine.

1. Avoid Triggering Local Keyboard Shortcuts#

When trying to reboot a server inside the VNC browser window, pressing Ctrl + Alt + Del on your physical keyboard will lock your local Windows PC instead of rebooting the remote server.

• Best Practice: Click the Send Ctrl+Alt+Del button in the top toolbar of the SCP VNC window to inject the key combination directly into the remote KVM guest.

2. Reset a Forgotten Root Password via GRUB Single-User Mode#

Because SCP gives you full BIOS/GRUB console visibility via VNC, you can recover a lost root password in under two minutes:

1. Issue a reboot and watch the Screen console closely.
2. As soon as the GRUB boot menu appears, press an arrow key to pause the countdown, then press e to edit the boot entry.
3. Find the kernel line starting with linux or linux16, move the cursor to the end of that line, add a space, and append:

   init=/bin/bash
   

1. Press Ctrl + X or F10 to boot. The kernel will bypass standard authentication and drop you directly into a root bash shell.
2. Remount the root filesystem as read-write and set a new password:

   mount -o remount,rw /
   passwd root
   exec /sbin/init
   

Your new root password is saved and the server will resume normal multi-user boot.

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4. Snapshots: Offline vs. Online & Free .raw.zst Export#

SCP includes built-in KVM snapshot management under Media -> Snapshots—your best safety net before major kernel upgrades or database migrations.

1. Offline Snapshots vs. Online Snapshots#

• Online Snapshot: Captures disk state while the VM continues running.
  • Risk: If PostgreSQL, MySQL/MariaDB, or Redis is actively writing transactions, uncommitted in-memory pages may not be flushed to disk, resulting in a crash-inconsistent snapshot.
• Offline Snapshot (Strongly Recommended): Gracefully powers down or pauses the VM for 1–3 minutes, takes a clean block-level snapshot, and boots the server back up.
  • Benefit: 100% filesystem and database transactional consistency.

2. Free Snapshot Export (Off-Site Backup & Cross-Provider Migration)#

One of netcup's most underrated features is free snapshot exporting (Export Snapshot):

1. After creating a snapshot, click Export next to the snapshot entry.
2. SCP packages the entire virtual disk in the background and generates a temporary direct HTTP download link for a compressed .raw.zst archive (e.g., snapshot.raw.zst).
3. Download the archive to your local NAS, backup server, or another cloud host.
4. Decompress the archive into a standard raw disk image using zstd:

   # Install zstd decompression utility
   apt install -y zstd
   # Decompress the snapshot into a raw disk image
   zstd -d snapshot.raw.zst -o my_backup.raw
   

1. You can mount my_backup.raw locally via loop device (losetup -Pf my_backup.raw) to extract individual files, or write it via dd onto any KVM server at another provider for a bit-identical migration.

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5. Configuring rDNS (PTR Reverse DNS) for Email Deliverability#

If your server sends outbound email—whether running a full mail stack (Mailcow, Postfix, Stalwart) or sending transactional notifications—you must configure proper Reverse DNS (rDNS / PTR). Major providers like Gmail, Microsoft 365/Outlook, Yahoo, and Fastmail automatically reject or spam-folder messages sent from IPs with generic default PTR hostnames.

Step-by-Step FCrDNS Setup#

1. Create your Forward DNS (A and AAAA) records first:

In your DNS provider (e.g., Cloudflare, Route53, Hetzner DNS), point your mail hostname (e.g., mail.yourdomain.com) to your netcup server's IPv4 address (A record) and IPv6 address (AAAA record, e.g., 2a03:4000:xx:xx::1).

1. Set matching PTR records in SCP:
   • Open Network -> IPs in SCP.
   • Click the edit icon (rDNS) next to your IPv4 address and your IPv6 address.
   • Replace the default hostname (v22026xxxx.yourvserver.net) with mail.yourdomain.com.
   • Save your changes.
2. Verify Forward-Confirmed Reverse DNS (FCrDNS):

Test your IP from any terminal using dig:

   dig -x 203.0.113.10 +short
   

The output must match mail.yourdomain.com., confirming bidirectional DNS alignment.