AWS – EC2 Instance creation steps for Linux server

In this article, we will go through the steps for creating a simple Linux server in Amazon Web Cloud service

We have seen in the previous article<link> on how to create an Amazon Web Service account (free tier for 1 year). Using that account we are going to march on to the next step, which is to create a simple Linux server

EC2 Instance creation steps:

Step 1: Login to the Amazon console, using username/password created in the previous article

From the services Menu, select Compute -> EC2 Submenu

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Step 2: Once EC2 dashboard is displayed, you will find an empty table listing zero EC2 instances

Click on ‘Launch Instance’ button

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Step 3:  This page displays a list of OS. For now, we are going to select ‘Red Hat Enterprise Linux 7.1(HVM). SSD Volume Type

Press Select button for the highlighted option below

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Step 4: The next page displays a list of instance types for Red Hat Linux (different capacity, memory, computing speed etc). For now, we will select the free tier instance (i.e. t2 micro ) since its freely available (of course with certain limits) and is enough for general purpose use

Press “Next: Configure Instance Details

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Step5: The Next page displays all the configuration setting related to instance

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Set : Number of Instances =1 ( you may create more than 1 instances simultaneously )
Purchasing Option = unchecked (Spot instances are not freely available and will cost you as per the charges of the instance type)
Network = default VPC for the Region
Subnet = Default Subnet in any availability zone

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Every region has multiple availability zones in it. You may choose any availability zone from the list.
For now, we are going to select the default one.
Auto-assign Public IP = Use Subnet Setting (Enabled) – This will ensure a public IP address is assigned to your server

IAM Role = None
Shutdown behavior = Stop
Enable Termination Protection =unchecked
Monitoring = unchecked
Tenancy = Shared Tenancy

Press “Next: Storage

Step 6: This page will give you the option to add additional Storage disks to the server apart from the boot disk. Every OS will have a minimum storage requirement that is required for the system. In our case (OS = Red Hat Linux) the minimum boot disk size is 10 GB

You may increase the size of the Root disk to any value above 10 GB
You may also add additional disk of any size.

Press ”Next: Tag Instance

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Step 7: In the next page you can add tags (optional) to the server. These tags are used to identify the purpose of the server. Tags can be anything like, Name, Environment, Role of the server etc.

Click on “Next: Configure Security Group

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Step 8: The Security group is a firewall that allows/denies communication (both inbound and outbound) with the server. You can either select an existing Security Group OR create a new Security group

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For now, we are going to allow communication only through tcp on port 22

And then Click on “Review and Launch” button

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Step 9: This will take you to review and Launch page

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Press the “Launch” button

Step 10: Before launching the server, you will be asked to create/or use existing a key-pair

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Since this is our first server, we will create a new key-pair for it

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Give a name to the key pair and download the key pair

And then finally click on “Launch Instance

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This key pair will be used in the next blog, when we shall see how to connect to this Linux server

Step 11: The dashboard will display the newly created server. Also check the Instance State. It is ‘pending’ which means that the server is starting up

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Once the server startup is complete, the Instance State will change to ‘Running’ and the Status check will show ‘2/2 checks complete

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In the upcoming article, we will use this instance and key-pair created to connect Linux instance using putty

Happy Reading !!
Happy Learning !!

AWS - Connecting to EC2 Instance (Linux Server)