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Configure Bare Metal access for an Ornn reservation to SSH directly into the GPU host with no virtualization overhead and no managed image. Bare Metal access connects you directly to the physical GPU host, with no hypervisor, no managed VM, and no image selection. You launch Bare Metal access from the reservation detail page, attach a registered SSH key, and connect over SSH once the host is ready.

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When to use Bare Metal

  • Your workload is sensitive to virtualization overhead.
  • You need direct control over driver versions or kernel modules.
  • You’re running performance benchmarks or distributed training that benefits from bare physical networking.
  • You want to manage the full software stack yourself.
For most ML training and inference workloads, VM access is the simpler choice. Bare Metal is best when you need full hardware control.

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Prerequisites

Before you can launch or switch to Bare Metal on a reservation:
  • The bid must be promoted to a confirmed reservation, and the reservation must be visible in My GPUs.
  • Checkout and payment for the reservation must be complete.
  • You must have at least one active SSH public key registered on your account. Bare Metal does not use a VM image, so the SSH key is the only credential pushed to the host.
If you have not registered a key yet, see Manage SSH keys for compute access.

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Set up Bare Metal access

1

Open the reservation detail page

From My GPUs (/portfolio), click View on the reservation you want to configure. The detail page opens at /portfolio/[reservationId]. Access mode and state are managed here. The legacy /portfolio/access URL redirects to this page.
2

Select Bare Metal

Pick Bare Metal as the access mode. Bare Metal does not require an image selection; you manage the OS and software stack directly.
3

Add an SSH key and launch

In the SSH Keys section, use Add Key to add or confirm an SSH key on the reservation, then launch. Ornn pushes the active reservation keys to the host as part of the launch step.
4

Connect via SSH

Once the host is ready, the SSH Host and User fields (plus a ready-to-run Quick Connect command) appear in the Connect section of the reservation detail page. Connect directly:
Bare Metal is direct physical host access. There is no snapshot, no image rollback, and no managed image. You’re responsible for everything on the machine.
VM and Bare Metal can’t run on the same reservation at the same time. Switching modes after launch tears down the existing environment; anything not persisted off the host will be lost.

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Host firewall and GPU metrics

Bare Metal nodes ship with the DCGM exporter running on TCP 9400 so ornn metrics and the Observability dashboards can read live GPU health. During enrollment, Ornn opens 9400 on the host firewall (ufw, firewall-cmd, or iptables) and source-restricts it to Ornn’s metrics collector — the port is not exposed to the public internet. If you re-tighten firewall rules on the host, keep the collector’s allow rule for 9400/tcp in place, otherwise the node will show as stale or offline in ornn metrics and Observability even while your workload is healthy. To verify the rule is present:

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Push additional keys

To add another key to an already-launched Bare Metal reservation, open the reservation’s SSH Keys section and use Add Key. Ornn queues the new key for every active machine in that grouped reservation. From the CLI, add the key directly to the reservation:
Active machines for that reservation automatically receive the updated key set. To re-sync a key that is already attached, run:

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Reboot and Hard reset

Bare Metal hosts stay live for the reservation term. Use Reboot or Hard reset from the reservation detail page when you need to recover from a stuck workload without giving up the reservation:
  • Reboot cycles the operating system on the host. Your Linux user, home directory, authorized SSH keys, and any attached Ornn storage volumes stay in place. Ornn re-mounts volumes and reconnects the agent automatically.
  • Hard reset wipes tenant data on the host (Linux user, home directory, authorized keys, /tmp, /var/tmp, /dev/shm residue) and then reboots. Once the host is back, Ornn re-pushes the reservation’s active SSH keys, so you can reconnect once provisioning finishes. Use it to return the host to a clean state without releasing the reservation.
Hard reset destroys everything on the host that isn’t persisted off it. Copy datasets, checkpoints, and any local state to object storage or an Ornn storage volume before you trigger it.
The equivalent CLI commands take a node id:

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CLI equivalents

The Ornn Compute CLI can queue Bare Metal access, wait for SSH readiness, and connect directly.
--key accepts a saved key id, saved key label, inline public key, or public-key file path. If you pass a private key path by mistake and the matching .pub exists, the CLI uses the public key file and refuses to upload private key material. The older ornn access activate command remains available as a reservation-oriented alias. Because launch queues provisioning, use --wait or run ornn nodes wait <reservation-id> to wait until the host is reachable. ornn nodes ssh-command <node-or-reservation-id> prints the SSH command without connecting. See the Ornn Compute CLI and Manage SSH keys for details.

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What’s next

access

Access overview

Compare VM and Bare Metal and understand the prerequisites for each.
vm-access

VM access

Use a managed VM with the Ornn base image or an approved custom image.