PAS-C01 Operations and Maintenance Practice Question
An operations team receives an alert that an SAP application server EC2 instance is unreachable. The team checks the AWS Management Console and sees that the instance status check shows "Instance reachability check failed". What is the most likely cause?
Answer choices
Why each option matters
Answer the question above first, then reveal the full breakdown to understand why each option is right or wrong.
Correct answer & explanation
✓
The operating system on the instance is not responding.
An instance reachability check failure typically indicates OS-level issues such as a crashed OS or kernel panic. Therefore, option A is correct. Option B is incorrect because security group issues would cause network connectivity failure but not necessarily a status check failure. Option C is incorrect because a stopped instance would show a different status. Option D is incorrect because EBS volume issues would be reported as a volume status check failure.
Answer analysis
Option-by-option breakdown
For each option: why learners choose it and why it is or isn't the right answer here.
- ✓
The operating system on the instance is not responding.
Why this is correct
Correct. The instance reachability check fails when the OS is not responding, often due to kernel panic or OS crash.
- ✗
The security group associated with the instance is blocking all traffic.
Why it's wrong here
Incorrect. Security group rules affect network traffic but are not checked by instance status checks; they would not cause a reachability check failure.
- ✗
The EBS root volume is detached from the instance.
Why it's wrong here
Incorrect. If the EBS root volume were detached, the instance would show a different status, such as 'instance status check failed because the volume is not attached'.
- ✗
The instance was stopped by an Auto Scaling group.
Why it's wrong here
Incorrect. If the instance were stopped by an Auto Scaling group, it would be in a 'stopped' state, not reporting a reachability check failure.
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JA
Written by Johnson Ajibi, MSc IT Security
Senior Network & Security Engineer · founder of Courseiva
This PAS-C01 practice question is part of Courseiva's free Amazon Web Services certification practice question bank. Courseiva provides original exam-style practice questions with explanations, topic-based practice, mock exams, readiness tracking, and study analytics to help learners prepare for the PAS-C01 exam.