The pain of cloud configuration is the cryptic error message. Due to the nature of many VM (virtual machines) and applications, the errors can be quite a pain in the ars*. Seriously, there is no shortcut to learning except to test drive and figure out the errors yourself. Do expect to invest a lot of hours in troubleshooting.
Are you Stuck?
Stackoverflow is really a savior because everyone was as desperate as me in those error messages. These errors are the breadcrumbs to learn the rest of configuration syntax. You can literally search the whole error messages and stackoverflow will turn up 8 of 10 times. As a last resort, stop trying and time out. You may rethink the configuration to come up with another new approach to find the issues.
Common Mistakes
For many laughs, the mistakes are often silly and common. These are some of them.
- Typo errors will create all kinds of error messages. Always check and recheck your typo.
- Wrong data value is another top errors. Cloud fields are so similar than you may be mistaken to put similar data. If you are unsure, just try the similar data. Who knows, it will work.
- Missing steps also contribute to weird error message because there are dependency with each step. Sometimes, the step are a must for the next one.
- Outdated examples will require a change in syntax. Be prepare to tweak the example syntax for the newer version.
Cloud Configuration errors are never a breeze. If it works, it is worth the efforts. Meanwhile, be resilient and persist with guts!
Danny Kwok 