Need Help with EC2 Connection Problem Due to Keypair Issue

Question

Hi all,

I'm facing an issue with connecting to my Amazon EC2 instance after encountering problems with my keypair. I was using FileZilla to manage files on my EC2 instance, and accidentally set file permissions to allow all, which resulted in changes to many files. I suspect this caused some issues on the server, and now I am unable to use PuTTY or FileZilla for SSH access.

I have tried following a video tutorial on YouTube, but unfortunately, it didn't resolve the issue. I have also checked the SSH configuration on the server, verified the authorized_keys file, and tried using a different key pair, but the problem persists.

I'm seeking assistance in resolving this issue and restoring SSH access to my EC2 instance. If anyone has experienced a similar problem or has any suggestions, I would greatly appreciate your help.

Thank you in advance!

Answer

Perform the following steps to get access to the files for troubleshooting and fixing.

1. Take a snapshot of the Broken Instance (BI) root volume
2. Stop BI
2. Detach root volume from BI
3. Start a New Instance (NI)
4. Attach BI root volume to NI
5. Mount the BI root volume on NI at the OS level
6. Troubleshoot and fix file permissions.
7. Detach BI root volume from NI
8. Attach BI root volume to BI
9. Start BI, now Fixed Instance (FI). :)
10. Set up a [Data Lifecycle Policy](https://docs.aws.amazon.com/AWSEC2/latest/UserGuide/snapshot-lifecycle.html) to automate snapshot of the FI.

Need Help with EC2 Connection Problem Due to Keypair Issue

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