VM e2-micro with Ghost. Unresponsive url and ssh after some time passes

[k17a]

Hi, 

New to GCP. I had created a VM instance on the free-tier to get taste of GCP utilizing Ghost as a CMS. 

I had created a VM on e2-micro (2vCPU, 1GB mem), 1 disk, 30G standard, with Ubuntu 22.04 LTS. The rest of the settings are either untouched or set to default. 

i would then, ssh into the server and follow the instructions at https://ghost.org/docs/install/ubuntu/  to get Ghost installed and running.

The site was launched and it was working fine. I was able to update templates and add new blog entries, upload pictures, etc.  I’ll explore Ghost on GCP, then take a break for a couple of hours. Several hours later, I would return to the URL to find the site time out and become unreachable. 

I would try to SSH into the terminal but then will not be able to establish connection. 

I usually end up stopping the instance and starting it again to resolve the issue. 

Is there some setting that i am missing? I am looking at the logs and do not see any alerts or warnings. Does the VM go into sleep if inactive? I was expecting the VM to be up according to SLA be up and available even after several hours of non activity.

Any leads would be most obliged. 

This site can’t be reached

XXX.com took too long to respond.

Try:

• Checking the connection

ERR_CONNECTION_TIMED_OUT

Reload

Details

[Willbin]

Hello @k17a,

Welcome to Google Cloud Community!

It would be great if you can post any errors or specific questions that would likely be useful. Even though the errors may be similar, the root causes may be different.

Since you had difficulties connecting to the VM using SSH, we have common errors, ways to resolve errors, and methods for diagnosing failed SSH connections. See Troubleshooting SSH errors