Lab 1.1 Accessing the AWS Sandbox - Zacham17/my-tech-journal GitHub Wiki

This page explains the process of accessing the AWS sandbox as well as making a remote connection.

Accessing the Sandbox

The AWS Sandbox course was accessed through the AWS canvas course. The following steps outline how to access the sandbox.

  1. When clicking the link to the sandbox in canvas, a terminal appears with instructions for the sandbox. Read the instructions.
  2. To start the sandbox, click "Start Lab". A window will appear stating that the lab is preparing. Wait for this to say "Lab Status: Ready"
  3. Once the lab has started, the window that popped up can be closed. The ID of the current user who started the lab can be seen by using the aws sts get-caller-identity command in the AWS terminal.
  4. To access the AWS console for the sandbox, click the "AWS" button that is to the left of the Start Lab button.

Launching an Instance

The following steps explain how to launch an EC2 instance in AWS

  1. To launch an EC2 instance, the "Launch a Virtual Machine" option can be selected under the "Build a Solution Section". This can also be done by navigating to the EC2 dashboard.
  2. When creating the instance a Name must be entered, an operating system must be chosen, an instance type must be selected, and a key pair must be set. I used Amazon Linux operating system, t2.micro free tier instance type, and the default key pair (vockey)
  3. The instance can also be added to a security group, which sets permissions for chosen services. I gave the instance a security group that allows SSH connections from any IP address.
  4. To finish creating the instance, click "Create Instance". The instance will be created and then boot. The status will say "Running" when it has completed.

Remotely Connecting to the Instance in the AWS Sandbox

The following steps outline how to connect to an AWS instance using Windows PowerShell.

  1. Before being able to remotely connect to the AWS instance, the key file must be downloaded to the system that will be connected to the instance.
  2. To do this, back in the sandbox window with the terminal, click Details > Credential. Next to SSH Key, select the option to "Download PEM".
  3. Find the Public IP address of the AWS instance in the instance configuration window.
  4. Now using SSH in windows PowerShell, a remote connection can be made to the instance as "ec2-user". The command will look similar to this one: ssh -i keyfile.pem ec2-user@AWS_INSTANCE_IP