ssh: connect to host port 22: Connection timed out — how to fix

ssh: connect to host 203.0.113.10 port 22: Connection timed out

Quick fix: Check the server is up and the IP is right, then open port 22 in the cloud firewall/security group and the server firewall (sudo ufw allow OpenSSH). If SSH runs on another port, use ssh -p 2222 user@host.

Timed out vs refused

Connection timed out: nothing answered. Usually a firewall silently dropping packets, wrong IP, or the machine is off.
Connection refused: the host answered "nothing listens on that port" — SSH isn't running or uses another port.

Step 1: is the host reachable at all?

ping -c 3 203.0.113.10          # may be blocked, not conclusive
nc -vz -w 5 203.0.113.10 22     # tests the SSH port specifically

Check in your cloud console that the instance is running and the public IP hasn't changed (AWS public IPs change on stop/start unless you use an Elastic IP).

Step 2: cloud firewall

AWS EC2: the instance's Security Group needs an inbound rule TCP 22 from your IP. Also check Network ACLs and that the subnet has a route to an Internet Gateway.
GCP: VPC firewall rule allowing tcp:22 (default default-allow-ssh).
Azure: Network Security Group inbound rule for 22.
DigitalOcean/Hetzner/Linode: Cloud Firewall attached to the droplet/server.

Step 3: firewall on the server

If you can get a console (cloud web console / VNC):

sudo ufw status
sudo ufw allow OpenSSH
sudo systemctl status ssh       # or sshd

Also check firewalld (sudo firewall-cmd --list-all) and iptables -L.

Step 4: SSH on a non-standard port

ssh -p 2222 user@host

Or in ~/.ssh/config:

Host myserver
    HostName 203.0.113.10
    Port 2222
    User ubuntu

Step 5: your network blocks outgoing port 22

Corporate, school and hotel Wi-Fi often block it. Test from another network (phone hotspot). For GitHub specifically, SSH over port 443 works: ssh -T -p 443 git@ssh.github.com.

Other causes

fail2ban banned your IP after failed logins: unban from the console (sudo fail2ban-client set sshd unbanip <ip>).
IPv6 vs IPv4: force IPv4 with ssh -4.

Last updated 2026-10-29.