Console and troubleshooting

When an instance is unreachable over SSH, the console lets you see what is happening as if you were sitting at its screen. This is the first place to look when a VM does not come up or loses its network.

Console access

From the dashboard, open the instance and choose the Console tab for an interactive graphical or text console.

From the command line you can fetch the recent boot log, or get a URL for an interactive console:

# Boot/console log, usually enough to see why a boot failed
openstack console log show my-instance

# Interactive serial console (opens in your browser)
openstack console url show --serial my-instance

The serial console is served from serial.orion.sunetvdc.se.

Common problems

Instance is ACTIVE but SSH times out. Check that a security group allows inbound TCP 22 from your address, that the instance has a floating IP if you are connecting from outside, and that the router and external gateway are in place.

SSH refuses the key. Confirm you launched with --key-name and are using the matching private key and the correct default user for the image (for example debian for Debian, ubuntu for Ubuntu). The console log shows whether cloud-init installed your key.

Instance will not boot or hangs early. Read openstack console log show. A b2.* flavor with no disk must be booted from a volume; a bad cloud-init file can also stall the boot.

No network inside the guest. Check that the subnet has a working DNS resolver, the instance is on the expected network, and the router connects that subnet to the external network.

Out of quota. Errors when creating instances, volumes, or IPs are often quota limits. Check usage in the dashboard and contact Sunet support to raise a quota.