[SOLVED] Cannot connect to EC2 - ssh: connect to host port 22: Connection refused

Issue

I am currently overseas and I am trying to connect to my EC2 instance through ssh but I am getting the error ssh: connect to host ec2-34-207-64-42.compute-1.amazonaws.com port 22: Connection refused

I turned on my vpn to New York but still nothing changes. What reasons could there be for not being able to connect to this instance?

The instance is still running and serving the website but I am not able to connect through ssh. Is this a problem with the wifi where I am staying or with the instance itself?

Solution

My debugging steps to EC2 connection time out

1. Double check the security group access for port 22

2. Make sure you have your current IP on there and update to be sure it hasn't changed

3. Make sure the key pair you're attempting to use corresponds to the one attached to your EC2

4. Make sure your key pair on your local machine is chmod'ed correctly. I believe it's chmod 600 keypair.pem check this

5. Make sure you're in either your .ssh folder on your host OR correctly referencing it: HOME/.ssh/key.pem

6. Last weird totally wishy washy checks:

   • reboot instance
   • assign elastic IP and access that
   • switch from using the IP to Public DNS
   • add a : at the end of user@ip:

Totally mystical debugging sets for 6 though. That's part of the "my code doesn't work - don't know why. My code does work - don't know why." Category

Note: If you access your EC2 while you are connected to a VPN, do know that your IP changes! So enable incoming traffic from your VPN's IP on your EC2 security group.

Answered By - iSkore