AWS EC2 instances are virtual machines that share hardware resources with many other instances on the host. Occasionally, because of issues with the underlying hardware, “noisy neighbor” problems of resource contention, or simple software or memory issues on the instance itself, an EC2 instance may become unresponsive. When this happens, an simple reboot of the instance will often fix the issue.
Amazon provides documentation for this and other EC2-related actions here: https://docs.aws.amazon.com/AWSEC2/latest/UserGuide/ec2-instance-reboot.html
The process of rebooting an EC2 instance in a Northwestern AWS account consists of these steps:
- Log into the AWS account and access the EC2 console
- Find the instance needing a reboot
- Reboot the instance
Log into the AWS account
Visit https://aws.northwestern.edu/ and log in with your Northwestern NetID and password and Duo MFA when prompted. If you are prompted to select a role, select a role in the account where the instance is running. Once you have logged in, search for EC2 in the list of AWS services, or just visit https://us-east-2.console.aws.amazon.com/ec2/v2/home?region=us-east-2#Instances:. If your instance is running in a region other than us-east-2 (Ohio), click the region select in the top right corner of the page.
Find the instance needing a reboot
In the list of instances in the EC2 Instances console page, find your instance. You can search in the search bar at the top of the list for the instance by name. You may also see that the instance’s “Status check” field shows one or more status check failures.
Reboot the instance
Check the checkbox for your instance, then click the “Instance State” dropdown in the top right and choose “Reboot”. (See below; note your console may look slightly different)
Click the “Reboot” button to confirm, then wait for your instance to come back up.