Today I will cover how to set up an Ubuntu Server v13.10 on Amazon Web Services (AWS) EC2 (Elastic Compute Cloud) instance. That said Amazon offers a free tier for both new and existing clients, which means that you can install the OS and use it for free for just one year from date of registering. Before I get started, I would assume that you already have an account on AWS, if not then you need to sign-up for a free account @ AWS
Step 1: Create a New Instance
- Once you are logged into AWS, click on EC2 under Amazon Web Services
- Under Create Instance, click on “Launch Instance“
- Check “Free tier only” to filter all Free tier AMIs, then click on Select for “Ubuntu Server 13.10 ami“. I will be using the 64-bit version
- Under “Choose an Instance Type“, click on “Next: Configure Instance Details“
- Click “Next: Add Storage” > “Next: Tag Instance” > “Next: Configure Security Group“. Under Configure Security Group, enter Security group name; Description and add the following rules to secure access to your EC2 instance:
All TCP; All UDP; ALL ICMP; RDP; SSH
Note: you can add more rules or custom rules based on the service you want to run on the server and under source select “My IP”, this would enter your public IP address meaning you are the only one that would be able to connect to this instance
- Review Instance Launch details and click on Launch
- Next you should get a pop-up box for key pair to use to secure your connection. I have already documented in my earlier posts on HowTo “Create Amazon Web Service EC2 Key Pair” & “Setup EC2 instance Private Key using Putty“. I will create a new Key Pair since I would like to have a separate key for this. Select “Create a new key pair“, enter name of key and click on “Download Key Pair“. Save the .pem file somewhere safe as you will need it to able to access this instance. Click Launch Instances
- You should get a message saying “Your instance is now launching“. Click on View Instances to see the status
- After the instance had been installed completely, the Instance State should show “running“
Step 2: Connect to EC2 machine using SSH
- First note down your EC2 Ubuntu machine DNS address by clicking on it and under Description tab, write down the Public DNS address shown
- Go through this post ”Setup EC2 instance Private Key using Putty” to setup the key you earlier downloaded and ensure that the key is listed in Pageant
- Open putty, enter the Public DNS address in Host Name, ensure Port is 22 and SSH is selected
- When you click Open to login, you will be prompted for login account. Note that for Ubuntu, the default username is “ubuntu” while RHEL/CentOS is “ec2-user“
Step 3: Install Updates
- Run following command to install latest updates
# sudo apt-get update
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