Unable to access SSH

Issue

You are unable to access your machine via SSH.

Diagnose

Step One: Does the machine show as booted within the Task List?

If you check the Task List for the virtual machine in question and can see a boot failure, you should be able to see the reason for the boot failure within the failed task.

Step Two: Can you access the machine via the Web Console?

If step one indicates the virtual machine has booted successfully but you remain unable to access the machine via SSH you can try to connect to the machine via the Web Console. If you are able to access the machine via the the Katapult Console and even sign in via the console using the expected user account then this would identify the issue as being between the virtual machine and the users SSH client (See Fix below). If you can not access the machine via the web console either, please contact support.

Fix

The most common causes for this issue are one of the following items:

  1. Your local firewalls are preventing outbound access to SSH services. Can you use SSH on any other Katapult virtual machine from that same users device.
  2. Firewall rules at machine level prevent access to SSH ports. Do you have a firewall installed on the virtual machine that is blocking inbound SSH access.
  3. Katapult firewall rules at the hypervisor level are preventing access to the individual machine.

The above three examples would often see no response from the virtual machine in question when trying to access SSH. It would be likely the connection would time out. If the user is getting error messages such as credential issues then it may well be credentials or SSH key related.

Further support

If you require further support please feel free to reach out to our support team.