SSH Connection Timed Out after Droplet Rebuild

Question

Hello everyone,my current problem is: I wrote an Ansible playbook that rebuilds all droplets inside a specific DigitalOcean project. As soon as the rebuild of a droplet is done, i always get “SSH connection timed out” errors for tasks on the remote host, making it impossible to run post rebuild processes needed on the remote host. However, when i connect via SSH command, I can login just fine. The login is only possible via SSH keypair authentification. Thanks for your help.

KFSys · Accepted Answer

Heya, Why “SSH connection timed out” happens after rebuild Timing Issue : After the droplet is rebuilt, Ansible tries to connect too early , before sshd is fully running or accepting connections. SSH Host Key Change : A rebuild means the machine image has changed, so the SSH host key has changed. If the old key is in the Ansible control machine’s ~/.ssh/known_hosts file, SSH will fail with a warning/error , even if you can log in manually (because SSH clients usually give you a prompt, while Ansible does not). Use wait_for module to pause until SSH is available Before running any post-rebuild tasks, insert a task like this: - name: Wait for SSH to come up ansible.builtin.wait_for: host: "{{ inventory_hostname }}" port: 22 delay: 10 timeout: 300 state: started This will keep retrying until port 22 is accepting connections. 2. Flush old SSH host keys (or ignore them) You might be running into SSH fingerprint mismatch errors . Option A: Automatically remove old key from known_hosts Insert a task before connecting to the host: - name: Remove host from known_hosts to avoid SSH key mismatch local_action: > ansible.builtin.shell ssh-keygen -R {{ inventory_hostname }} run_once: true Option B: Ignore host key checking entirely (less secure): Add this to your inventory or playbook: [all:vars] ansible_ssh_common_args='-o StrictHostKeyChecking=no -o UserKnownHostsFile=/dev/null' Use a retries + delay mechanism for tasks after rebuild You can also apply retry logic on tasks likely to fail if SSH isn’t fully ready: - name: Ensure SSH login works ansible.builtin.shell: whoami register: result retries: 10 delay: 10 until: result.rc == 0

alexdo · Answer

Heya, @lan It sounds like your Ansible playbook is trying to connect too soon after the rebuild, before the Droplet is fully ready for SSH. Although manual SSH works (after waiting a bit), Ansible likely fails because the host isn’t ready when it tries. You can add a delay or a wait-for-SSH task in your playbook. Example: - name: Wait for SSH to be available wait_for: port: 22 host: "{{ inventory_hostname }}" timeout: 300 This will pause until the Droplet is ready to accept SSH connections. Let me know if you want help adding this to your playbook. Regards

Become a contributor for community

DigitalOcean Documentation

Resources for startups and AI-native businesses

The developer cloud

Start building today

Report this

SSH Connection Timed Out after Droplet Rebuild

Related questions

Is Apidog CLI a Good Choice for API Testing in CI/CD?

OAuth refresh token lifetime?

How to create Gradient KB via API?

Does DigitalOcean OAuth Authorization Code Flow Support Public Desktop Clients Using PKCE (Without client_secret)?

Why is my requirements.txt not being used?

How do I add requirements.txt to Digital Ocean's Serverless Functions? Runtime Python:3.11 does not have all the libraries I need Installed

Modifier Cannot Access Namespace Function Using doctl CLI with Full Access Token

Activation records and log messages not appearing for my Serverless Function

Apply weekly backup plan to the servlet using API

How to copy files from app platform to local machine

Monitoring API Empty Response - Used PAT token

troubleshooting SSH agent forwarding with doctl compute ssh <droplet-id> --ssh-agent-forwarding

Report this

SSH Connection Timed Out after Droplet Rebuild

Related questions

Is Apidog CLI a Good Choice for API Testing in CI/CD?

OAuth refresh token lifetime?

How to create Gradient KB via API?

Does DigitalOcean OAuth Authorization Code Flow Support Public Desktop Clients Using PKCE (Without client_secret)?

Why is my requirements.txt not being used?

How do I add requirements.txt to Digital Ocean's Serverless Functions? Runtime Python:3.11 does not have all the libraries I need Installed

Modifier Cannot Access Namespace Function Using doctl CLI with Full Access Token

Activation records and log messages not appearing for my Serverless Function

Apply weekly backup plan to the servlet using API

How to copy files from app platform to local machine

Monitoring API Empty Response - Used PAT token

troubleshooting SSH agent forwarding with doctl compute ssh <droplet-id> --ssh-agent-forwarding