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How can I reinstall CentOS 7?

Posted on December 13, 2016

I installed CentOS 7 on my new droplet with the one click installer. I want to blow the machine away and reinstall it but I want to keep the IP address so I don’t have to update my DNS. I didn’t make a snapshot right after the install or I’d restore from that. Can I do this? Thanks.



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Yes, you can, with Rebuild option.

Go to Control Panel, select your Droplet and click Destroy from ‘right’ menu. You’ll see Rebuild option where you can select image.

Once you select image, click Rebuild, confirm, and wait for it to finish.

WARNING: All data will be destroyed, please make backup or snapshot if you have important data there!

Great. Thanks. I didn’t want to click “Destroy” not knowing if there were options for it.

Hello there,

I want to update the question and leave a link for our tutorial on How to rebuild a droplet

You can rebuild the droplet from the snapshot to keep the current IP address. You can use any image in your account that runs an OS that is in the same family as the Droplet you’re rebuilding, including backups, snapshots, custom images, 1-Click Applications, and base OS distributions we provide. If you’re trying to rebuild from a backup, you need to convert the backup into a snapshot before rebuilding your Droplet.

Rebuilding a Droplet wipes the Droplet’s disk and replaces it with an image you select. This is an option if you’re concerned that your Droplet has been compromised, you’ve lost access to it, you’d like to switch operating system versions, or you’d like to completely replace the contents of a Droplet.

You can also assign a floating IP to the droplet so that even if the droplet is destroyed, you can assign the Floating IP to another droplet.

To learn more about the floating IPs, you can check this guide: https://docs.digitalocean.com/products/networking/floating-ips/

I hope this helps!

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