networking - Google Cloud Hosted VM. This site can’t be reached <URL> refused to connect

Question

Forgive me here, I am largely post-technical for 10+ years and taken this as far as I can. I can probably take any advice and run with it, but may ask for some specifics to help if troubleshooting tools or commands are required. So please forgive that too.

Background:

Yesterday we could hit site URL after restarting VM hosted on Google Cloud. Sometime overnight, the URL was inaccessible.

Message:

    This site can’t be reached <URL> refused to connect.
Try:

Checking the connection
Checking the proxy and the firewall
ERR_CONNECTION_REFUSED

Troubleshooting:

• can load using IP.
• The technical guys (3rd party suppliers) insist they have not made any changes. My team have not made any changes.
• The domain is still valid (it renews tomorrow)
• The domain is used for the DEV environment with DEV as a prefix hosted on another VM.
• Looking at firewall rules, all the rules with the proper tags appear to be set up correctly for HTTPS with appropriate IP (0.0.0.0) and port 80.

Many thanks in advance for your help. When I find the answer, I will post it here.

question from:https://stackoverflow.com/questions/65950329/google-cloud-hosted-vm-this-site-can-t-be-reached-url-refused-to-connect

Answer 1

RESOLVED:

ROOT CAUSE:

During setup on GCP, the team forgot to link the reserved external IP address to the VM. As such, the external IP address was ephemeral so after a reboot of the server, Google issued a new external IP for the VM.

SOLUTION:

Reserve a static external IP Address and link it to the VM or promote an existing ephemeral external IP Address.

https://cloud.google.com/compute/docs/ip-addresses/reserve-static-external-ip-address