diff --git a/iris-mpc-common/src/helpers/shutdown_handler.rs b/iris-mpc-common/src/helpers/shutdown_handler.rs
index e596335d7..11d85c381 100644
--- a/iris-mpc-common/src/helpers/shutdown_handler.rs
+++ b/iris-mpc-common/src/helpers/shutdown_handler.rs
@@ -50,6 +50,11 @@ impl ShutdownHandler {
             .fetch_sub(1, Ordering::SeqCst);
     }
 
+    pub fn manually_trigger_graceful_shutdown(&self) {
+        self.shutdown_received.store(true, Ordering::Relaxed);
+        tracing::info!("Shutdown signal received.");
+    }
+
     pub async fn wait_for_pending_batches_completion(&self) {
         let check_interval = Duration::from_millis(100);
         let start = Instant::now();
diff --git a/iris-mpc/src/bin/server.rs b/iris-mpc/src/bin/server.rs
index 2b1ed4f54..9f14d09d4 100644
--- a/iris-mpc/src/bin/server.rs
+++ b/iris-mpc/src/bin/server.rs
@@ -887,7 +887,8 @@ async fn server_main(config: Config) -> eyre::Result<()> {
                     // If the UUID response is different, the node has restarted without us
                     // noticing. Our main NCCL connections cannot recover from
                     // this, so we panic.
-                    panic!("Node {} seems to have restarted, killing server...", host);
+                    tracing::error!("Node {} has restarted, starting graceful shutdown", host);
+                    shutdown_handler.shutdown();
                 } else {
                     tracing::info!("Heartbeat: Node {} is healthy", host);
                 }