title: Google Cloud Platform Apache WebServer says "Site Can't Be Reached"
body: <p>I am new to using Google Cloud Platform and am trying to host a very simple static site. I have followed Google's <a href="https://cloud.google.com/compute/docs/tutorials/basic-webserver-apache" rel="nofollow noreferrer">tutorial for running a basic apache webserver</a> exactly and yet, when I click on the external IP of my site, I am taken to a page that says "This site can't be reached. <code>&lt;my site's IP address&gt;</code> unexpectedly closed the connection <code>ERR_CONNECTION_CLOSED</code>.</p>
  
  <p>Since creating the VM, I have run the following commands:</p>
  
  <ul>
  <li><code>sudo apt-get update &amp;&amp; sudo apt-get install apache2 -y</code></li>
  <li><code>echo '&lt;!doctype html&gt;&lt;html&gt;&lt;body&gt;&lt;h1&gt;Hello World!&lt;/h1&gt;&lt;/body&gt;&lt;/html&gt;' | sudo tee /var/www/html/index.html</code></li>
  </ul>
  
  <p>I also ran <code>ping &lt;site IP address&gt;</code> and saw lines of the form</p>
  
  <p><code>PING &lt;IP address&gt; 56(84) bytes of data.</code></p>
  
  <p><code>64 bytes from &lt;IP address&gt;: icmp_seq=1 ttl=76 time=0.746 ms</code></p>
  
  <p>I have ensured that the Firewall settings on my VM are set to allow both HTTP and HTTPS traffic.</p>
  
  <p>Why can I not see the simple Hello World page that should be hosted at my site? Do I need to manually start apache? I have tried to and not had any success.</p>
  
  <p>(My VM has Debian 8 as the Boot Image)</p>
  
  <p><strong>UPDATE</strong></p>
  
  <p>At the request of a user below, I ran <code>sudo service apache2 status</code> but got the response below:</p>
  
  <p><pre></p>
  
  <code>apache2.service - LSB: Apache2 web server
     Loaded: loaded (/etc/init.d/apache2)
    Drop-In: /lib/systemd/system/apache2.service.d
             └─forking.conf
     Active: active (running) since Mon 2017-01-23 01:27:44 UTC; 11h ago
     CGroup: /system.slice/apache2.service
             ├─2570 /usr/sbin/apache2 -k start
             ├─2573 /usr/sbin/apache2 -k start
             └─2574 /usr/sbin/apache2 -k start
  </code></pre>
  
  <p>Running <code>sudo service apache2 start</code> did not seem to do anything.</p>