[section_title title=Copy the Disk Image to Local Machine]
Reboot in Rescue Mode
First we have to shutdown the Linode machine and boot in rescue mode. To do this first shutdown the virtual (shutdown -h now) then go in to the Linode Manager and click on “Reboot into Rescue Mode” under the “Rescue” tab.
Start SSH Server
Login to LISH (Linode Manager > Remote Access > Launch Lish Ajax Console), set a temporary password, and start the SSH server.
passwd service ssh start
When you start the temporary server it will also generate new SSH keys.
Copy the Disk Image
Now, copy the disk image to your local machine.
ssh -C root@IP_ADDRESS_OF_YOUR_REMOTE_MACHINE "dd if=/dev/xvda" | dd of=linode.img
You can safely ignore any warnings about remote host identification being different (i.e. delete the appropriate line from ~/.ssh/known_hosts). This is happening because you probably have the SSH key for the actual VM and the rescue mode generated a new SSH key.
Depending on your connection speed and the size of the disk image this could take a while. Once the file is copied you can safely shutdown or restart the Linode VM.