Troubleshooting

I can’t SSH into my VM

1. Is it running? Its page (or tebib vm show <VM ID>) shows the power state.
2. Is port 22 open to you? New VMs deny all inbound traffic. Check the VM’s security groups for a TCP 22 rule whose source includes your current public address. Your home or mobile address can change.
3. Are you using an address that reaches it? Over IPv4 the VM needs a public IPv4 address (and its VPC a NAT gateway). Over IPv6 your own network needs IPv6: test with curl -6 https://ifconfig.co.
4. Right user and key? The user depends on the image (ubuntu, debian, rocky, almalinux). Keys are installed only at the VM’s first boot.
5. Still booting? First boot installs updates and the guest agent; give it a few minutes.
6. Look at the serial console for boot errors.

My VM is stopped and I didn’t stop it

The VM’s page shows why (stop_reason):

Reason	What happened	What to do
guest	It was shut down from inside (for example sudo poweroff)	Start it again
balance	The balance ran out	Top up, then start it
abuse	TebibHost stopped it after detecting abuse; the page shows why	Contact abuse@tebibhost.com; it can’t be started while held
suspended	The organization is suspended	Contact TebibHost

A create is refused

Error	Meaning
409 Insufficient balance	Runway is under 24 hours (or there’s no money yet). Top up
409 Quota exceeded	A tier limit or project quota would be passed. See Quotas and tiers
400 instance type too small for the image	Rocky Linux and AlmaLinux need 1.5 GiB of memory, Ubuntu 1 GiB
409 VPC has no NAT gateway	Public IPs reach VMs through the VPC’s NAT gateway; create one first
409 already exists	Names are unique within a project

Resize or restore says “stop the VM first”

Changing the instance type and restoring a snapshot need the VM stopped. Stop it, wait until it shows stopped, then try again.

A volume doesn’t show up in the VM

Attached volumes are hot-plugged as SCSI disks. List them with ls -l /dev/disk/by-id/ | grep vol- and lsblk. A volume shows its new size after a resize, but you must grow the filesystem yourself. See Volumes.

My top-up is pending or failed

• Pending: TebibHost checks with M-Pesa after 90 seconds and keeps checking for 24 hours. A payment that succeeds late is still credited.
• Failed, cancelled on the phone: the prompt was dismissed; nothing was charged.
• Paid but not credited after an hour: contact TebibHost with the M-Pesa confirmation code. Payments that can’t be matched automatically are held, never lost.

API errors

Errors are JSON with a code, a message and a request_id. Quote the request_id when you contact TebibHost.

Status	Meaning
400	The request is invalid; the message names the field
401	Not signed in, or the access key is wrong, expired or turned off
403	Not allowed; the message names the action and the resource. Use the access checker
404	Not found, or not in an organization you can see
409	Conflicts with the current state (being deleted, name taken, balance, quota)
429	Too many requests; back off and retry

Creates and deletes answer 202 Accepted: the work continues in the background. Poll the resource (the CLI’s --wait does this) until it settles.