1. Verify that port 22 is open and the OpenSSH Daemon (sshd) is running: 

    telnet servername 22

    You should see something like:

    [root@ip-10-250-18-70:~] telnet ec2-75-101-152-27.compute-1.amazonaws.com 22
Trying 10.250.18.70...
Connected to ec2-75-101-152-27.compute-1.amazonaws.com (10.250.18.70).
Escape character is '^]'.
SSH-2.0-OpenSSH_4.3

    If the connection times out, it is likely that the server is not listening on the port and/or a firewall is blocking access.  

  2. Check your security group setup and make sure it looks like this:

    Permissions
    TCP IPs:any port:22
    TCP IPs:any port:80

    And not:

    Permissions
    TCP IPs:0.0.0.0/32 port:22
    TCP IPs:0.0.0.0/32 port:80

    In the incorrect example above, the IP address range is restricted to a single address: 0.0.0.0/32. You need to set it to 0.0.0.0/0 to allow any IP address access.

  3. Verify that your selected SSH client is working properly. Try a different SSH client like PuTTY, or try from a different browser or computer.

  4. If it is apparent that your private SSH key is not working, you can restore the key using the following steps. (Note that this requires a server reboot.)

Important! The follwing steps should not be needed if you launch your SSH sessions via the SSH icon in the RightScale Dashboard, as described in the article titled How do I configure my native SSH client to work with RightScale?. They are only intended for users who need to access their servers via SSH outside of the RightScale Dashboard.

  1. Create a RightScript with this content:

    #!/bin/bash -ex

echo "$NEW_PRIVATE_SSH_KEY" > /root/.ssh/private_key
chown 600 /root/.ssh/private_key
authkeys="/root/.ssh/authorized_keys"

if [-e ${authkeys}]; then
    cp ${authkeys} ${authkeys}.orig
fi

# Generate the public key from the private key
ssh-keygen -y -f /root/.ssh/private_key > ${authkeys}

rm -f /root/.ssh/private_key

  2. Edit the ServerTemplate used by the server.

  3. Add the script to the Boot Scripts section of the ServerTemplate.

  4. Edit the current inputs for the server. Assign the private key that the server is using to the NEW_PRIVATE_SSH_KEY input.

  5. Reboot the instance from the Dashboard.

  6. Wait for the server to become operational, then attempt to SSH into the box.

  7. When you have successfully initiated an SSH connection to the server, remove the script from the ServerTemplate.