SSH Unavailable and "Connection reset" Error Caused by Deleting the "/home/ma-user/log" Directory

Symptom

When attempting to connect to a notebook instance locally via SSH, the connection is refused with the following error:

kex_exchange_identification: read: Connection reset

Figure 1 Error example

Possible Causes

This issue occurs because the /home/ma-user/log directory, which is the parent directory required for SSH log outputs, was deleted.

Solution

Open a terminal window inside the notebook instance and run the following commands in sequence to recreate the log directory:

cd ~
mkdir log

After verifying that the directory has been created, reconnect to the notebook instance via SSH.