FAQ About IGEL Business Continuity & Disaster Recovery

IGEL Business Continuity and Disaster Recovery (BC&DR) helps organizations maintain endpoint access during disruptions. This FAQ answers common questions about Emergency Mode, Dual Boot, infrastructure requirements, operational behavior, and recovery planning.

1. What Is the Difference Between Dual Boot and Emergency Mode?

Dual Boot is the foundational technology that allows a device to boot into IGEL OS or Windows from a shared hardware platform. For details, see How to Deploy and Use IGEL OS Dual Boot.

Emergency Mode is the operational feature that uses Dual Boot for centralized, policy-driven incident response. With Dual Boot alone, users can manually select which operating system to boot into. With Emergency Mode, administrators can remotely force devices into IGEL OS from UMS, lock them there, and track their status. This makes Emergency Mode suitable for ransomware response and other time-critical incidents. For details, see IGEL BC&DR Emergency Mode in the IGEL UMS Web App.

2. Can Emergency Mode Boot Devices into IGEL OS Without Dual Boot?

No. Emergency Mode requires IGEL OS Dual Boot to be installed on the target endpoints. Devices without Dual Boot cannot boot into IGEL OS through Emergency Mode.

For deployment guidance, see How to Deploy and Use IGEL OS Dual Boot.

3. What Happens When Devices Exit Emergency Mode? 

Emergency Mode does not repair or remediate Windows. It moves endpoints to a secure IGEL OS environment so users can keep working while your IT and security teams investigate. 

What happens next depends on the state of the Windows partition: 

• If Windows is verified clean and usable, administrators exit Emergency Mode from UMS, and devices reboot back into Windows on their next restart. 

• If Windows is compromised beyond recovery, the common outcome after a ransomware event, then it is recommended for devices stay in IGEL OS while the Windows partition is reimaged or rebuilt. Users remain productive in IGEL OS throughout, accessing their virtual desktops or other progressive web applications (PWAs) as necessary. Devices are recommended to return to Windows only after reimaging is complete

4. How Quickly Does Emergency Mode Take Effect on the Devices?

Command dispatch takes immediate effect.
When an administrator triggers Emergency Mode in UMS, the command is queued and begins delivery to endpoints within seconds. The first devices typically begin rebooting within two minutes. 

Fleet-wide completion is the time for all targeted devices to boot into IGEL OS and report their status.
This scales with fleet size, because UMS deliberately delivers commands in controlled batches rather than all at once. Batching protects UMS, the IGEL Cloud Gateway, and your network from the load of thousands of simultaneous reboots. An unthrottled dispatch would slow recovery down, not speed it up. 

The time from triggering Emergency Mode in UMS to the first device boot into IGEL OS depends on:

• Network latency between UMS, ICG, and endpoints

• Number of devices receiving the command at the same time

• Device state, such as online or offline status and reboot timing

5. How Can I Reduce Recovery Time and Network Load During an Emergency? 

The best way is to keep the IGEL OS side of your dual-boot endpoints current during normal operations. 

When a device boots into IGEL OS, it applies to any pending base system or app updates assigned in UMS before the user reaches a productive session. If the IGEL OS partition has fallen behind, because the device has been running Windows for months without booting into IGEL OS, those updates download and install at the worst possible moment: during an active incident, across many devices at once, competing for the same network and UMS capacity the recovery itself needs. 

A current endpoint boots straight into a working session. A stale one makes the user wait. 

To avoid this: 

• Run periodic IGEL OS boots as a planned operational exercise.
  There is no built-in scheduler for this today, so it needs to be coordinated like any other maintenance activity, for example, as part of a regular patch window, or alongside a BC&DR readiness test. Devices can be booted into IGEL OS by an administrator via UMS, or locally by the user via the IGEL Boot Menu. 

• Keep the assigned app and base system versions in UMS aligned with what you intend devices to run in a recovery scenario, so the delta stays small even between maintenance boots. 

• Use UMS as an update proxy or the IGEL App Portal as appropriate for your topology, so updating traffic follows a predictable path. 

Doing this also validates that the recovery path works.

6. How Long Can Devices Stay in Emergency Mode?

With the Unlimited License, there is no built-in limit. You can keep devices in IGEL OS for as long as needed during an incident. Devices remain in Emergency Mode, locked to IGEL OS, until you explicitly exit Emergency Mode from UMS.

With the 45 Day Emergency License, you can keep devices in emergency mode for up to 45 days of use per calendar year. For details on licensing, see IGEL Business Continuity & Disaster Recovery Edition.

7. What Happens to User Data and Active Sessions When Emergency Mode Is Triggered?

When Emergency Mode is triggered, users receive a reboot warning dialog before the device reboots. The warning message informs users to save their work. Active sessions and unsaved data on Windows are lost during the reboot. The timeout for the warning can be set by the administrator from the IGEL UMS Web App.

Plan for this in your incident-response workflow. Coordinate with end users and IT teams to minimize disruption.

8. Does Emergency Mode Delete or Modify Windows?

No. Emergency Mode does not modify, delete, or repair Windows. It suspends Windows operations by booting the device into IGEL OS instead.

The Windows partition remains untouched and available for forensic analysis or recovery after the incident is resolved.

9. Is Windows Data Intact During Emergency Mode?

Windows data is not modified during Emergency Mode.

10. Is BitLocker Affected by Emergency Mode?

BitLocker is not affected by Emergency Mode.

11. What Exactly Is Locked and How in Windows OS Isolation?

The bootloader is locked to boot only IGEL OS. This is done via a boot configuration file on the EFI partition.

12. What Must Be Configured When Implementing IGEL BC&DR in Environments with Reverse Proxies?

If reverse proxy forwarding evaluates path information, add the following endpoint path for device connections to the reverse proxy settings:

/device-connector/device/ws-connect-windows

For details, see IGEL Universal Management Suite Network Configuration.

If an NGINX proxy is used, modify the location definitions as follows:

location ~ /device-connector/device/(ws-connect|portforwarding|ws-connect-windows)

For details, see NGINX Example Configuration for Reverse Proxy in IGEL OS with SSL Offloading.

13. What Kind of Operational Control Does IGEL BC&DR Emergency Mode Offer?

IGEL BC&DR Emergency Mode supports administrators with three levels of response:

• Global activation across all IGEL BC&DR-enabled devices

• Targeted response by department, location, or risk profile

• Granular control at the individual endpoint level

Every action is tracked within UMS and provides:

• A full audit trail of device actions

• Visibility into which endpoints received and executed commands

• Verification of entry into and exit from Emergency Mode

14. How Can the Emergency Mode Process Be Managed Using Default Directory Rules?

Since some administrators might only have the permission to manage the BC&DR process for selected devices and device directories, they need to be able to get an overview of the BC&DR process through directory structure. The UMS can automatically classify BC&DR-capable devices to predefined directories using default directory rules. In the UMS Web App the following criteria can be used with BC&DR devices:

• Is BC/DR device: Can be used to group devices based on whether the device can be booted into Emergency Mode with IGEL OS.

• Active OS: Can be used to group devices based on the active OS running on the device.

• Intended Emergency Mode: Can be used to group devices based on the mode sent to the device.

• Reported Emergency Mode: Can be used to group devices based on whether the last switch to Emergency Mode was successful.

For more information, see How to Use Default Directory Rules in the IGEL UMS Web App.