How to handle a broken instance after automatic migration

Question

This relates to debugging a VM in Google Compute Engine:

It seems a long running instance became inaccessible after a Google-based operation: "Automatically migrate an instance". Are there methods or means of debugging this? Rebooting the instance, trying to connect via SSH using in browser (or direct) means both fail. Status shows the instance as consuming CPU while loading then being mostly flat.

It seems as though the instance itself is permantently inaccessible. Has this come up for anyone else? Is there a simple status page to see if the instance is simply broken or if this is a service outage?

Automatic migration occurred 2014-08-25, and that likely was triggered by Google as part of planned (or unplanned) maintenance.

UPDATE: Following three hours of inability to connect, the networking issue was resolved. I've not found a status page, nor seen any mention of the outage.

Answer 1

Charles,

Have a look at your console output, either from the command line:

gcloud compute instances get-serial-port-output NAME [--project PROJECT_ID] [--zone ZONE]

(where NAME, PROJECT_ID, and ZONE match your VM) or from

https://console.developers.google.com/project/PROJECT_ID/compute/instancesDetail/zones/ZONE/instances/NAME

(scroll down to the bottom and click "View console").

That may give you an idea why it is not letting you access it. (I had configured an encrypted SSL server certificate in Apache2, and it wanted the pass phrase at boot time, but the VM's console is not interactive. It's read-only. I had to delete my VM but keep my boot disk, mount that boot disk on another VM, find the certificate file and convert it to unencrypted, then unmount that second disk and create a new VM using that now-fixed boot disk. Worked like a charm. Of course, your VM may complain about something different.)

-- Brian Haney
By day: Technical Solutions Engineer, Google Cloud Platform Support
(My opinions are MINE, not Google's.)
By night: WebOps consultant -- empowering people with Internet technology since 1993