Cloud troubleshooting guide

This page contains basic troubleshooting steps for issues that come up frequently when using cloud. The steps include solutions you can try yourself, plus important information gathering steps and advice for when its time to submit a ticket. Not all issues can be solved on the user side, some things require system administrator level access to resolve; if you work through the guide and it advises you to submit a ticket, it is likely an issue not easily solved on the user side.

Issue: I can't reach my virtual machine

1. If you are having any issues connecting to you virtual machine (VM, also known as "instance") or hosted service, the first step is to check the Compute Canada System Status page. If there is an incident on your hosting cloud you may need to wait till the incident is resolved before connecting to your hosted service/VM.
2. If there is no incident for the cloud hosting your project on the System Status page, you need to confirm that you can reach the dashboard for your cloud project. (ex. Use this link to login to Arbutus:https://arbutus.cloud.computecanada.ca.) Login links for other clouds can be found on the cloud wiki page. If you cannot reach the login page to your cloud dashboard and you have verified your internet connectivity (ex. you can reach google) then it is recommended that you submit a ticket. To submit a ticket to the cloud queue, email: cloud@computecanada.ca. Include your name, username, hosting cloud and project name, and the steps you have taken to trouble-shoot thus far. For more information on submitting support tickets see the Technical Support page on the Compute Canada wiki.
3. If you are able to reach the login page for your cloud but are having trouble actually logging in, please see the “Can’t login to Cloud” guide in the lower section on this page for next steps.
4. If you are able to login to your cloud dashboard, there are a few things there that you can check to see if your VM is actually running:
   1. Navigate to the Instances screen on your left side menu. Look at the Power State for your VM. It should be “Running”. If it is not in the “Running” state (for example “Shut Down”, you can try and restart it using the actions menu on the far right hand side, select either “Start Instance” or “Resume Instance” depending on what options are available to you.
      • You can look through the action logs to try and figure out why it was taken out of the running state. From the instances screen, click on your Instance name (VM name) and then click on the “Action Log” tab. This will show all the actions that have been used on your VM. If there is an action you don’t recognize you can contact support (email: cloud@computecanada.ca) to try and figure out who it was, just be sure to include your name, username, hosting cloud, project name and the user ID from the action log for the action you want to investigate.
      • The “log” tab from the same screen will show you the console log for your VM, so you can look through that log for error messages as well.
   2. If you are unable to restart your VM then it's recommended that you submit a ticket. To submit a ticket to the cloud queue, email: cloud@computecanada.ca. Include your name, username, hosting cloud, project name and VM ID (You can find this by clicking on your instance, then looking at the overview tab), the steps you have taken to trouble-shoot and the issue you are seeing. For more information on submitting support tickets see the Technical Support page on the Compute Canada wiki.
5. Can you reach your VM with Secure Shell (SSH) protocol?
   1. If you can’t reach your application or web service hosted on your VM, but you have followed steps 1-4 and your VM is running, then you need to try to connect using SSH. You can find instructions for doing this in the Cloud Quick Start Guide, scroll down to the section near the bottom of the page to “Connecting to your VM with SSH”.
   2. If you are getting a login prompt verify you are using the correct key pair and username. You can check you are using the correct key pair by clicking on “instances” under “compute” on the open sack page, look under the column “Key Pair”, and make sure you are using that key pair to login. The username will be dependant on the operating system of your VM: