How to get back into unraid GUI when you change cert or Local TLD domain name and it doesn't work

JasonP · February 25, 2022

I wanted to post this incase anyone runs into this issue I had where I enabled a cert or changed Local TLD to something that didn't work. A way to get back to where you were before you enabled it since the GUI is inaccessible in this state. Login to the local shell or SSH into unraid server with Putty https://www.chiark.greenend.org.uk/~sgtatham/putty/latest.html if you had SSH enabled on the server ahead of time.

run

nano /boot/config/ident.cfg

scroll down with down arrow til you see

USE_SSH="yes"

change that to "no" and press ctrl + o to save it and ctrl + x to exit

then run

/etc/rc.d/rc.nginx restart

You should now be able to access the GUI with https://<IP address>

Common reason why you get locked out is the Local TLD you changed it to doesn't resolve to the local IP of the unraid server. You need to create a local dns record so it will resolve on whatever you use to resolve local DNS. I use OPNsense and create an Unbound host override for unraidservername.local.domain.com

I also use cloudflare for DNS for my domain name that I own and you can create local DNS records on your public DNS server that that will only work on your LAN. Create A record in cloudflare DNS for unraidservername.local and enter local IP address, proxy status will be DNS only. With this in place you don't need local DNS as anywhere you are in the world it will resolve unraidservername.local.domain.com to local IP that will only work on your LAN.