AWS-Cloud-Computing

Tutorial: Setting Up an EC2 Instance for Hosting a Web Server

Introduction
Account Setup
Create an EC2 Instance
Connect to Your Instance
Set Up a Web Server using Apache
Dynamic Domain Name Service
Installing HTTPS
Connecting to Your VM via SSH on Visual Studio Code

1. Introduction

Amazon Elastic Compute Cloud (EC2) is a powerful service that allows you to deploy virtual servers in the cloud, making it an ideal choice for hosting web servers. Whether you’re running a small personal website or managing a large-scale application, EC2 provides the flexibility and scalability to meet your hosting needs.

In this guide, we will walk you through the essential steps of setting up an EC2 instance to host a web server. By the end of this tutorial, you’ll have a functional web server ready to serve your content to the world. We’ll cover key concepts such as account setup, instance creation, security group configuration, and the installation of a web server software, like Apache.

So, whether you’re a seasoned developer or just beginning your journey in web hosting, this guide will equip you with the foundational knowledge to get your web server up and running on an EC2 instance in no time.

2. Account Setup

Go to https://aws.amazon.com/.
Click on the “Create an AWS Account” or “Get Started for Free” Button.
Input your email and choose an account name.
Go to your emails and find the email to verify your account.

Create a root password and click continue.
Input your contact information (Full name, phone number and address). Check the terms and conditions, then click continue.
You will need to input a credit or debit card, which will temporarily hold up to $1 USD as a pending transaction. You will be able to access AWS Free tier products for 12 months.
To verify your phone number, choose how to receive the code, by text message or my voice call, input your phone number, then type the security check to send the code.
Input the code you received then click continue.
Choose the Basic Support – Free option. Click Complete Sign Up button.

3. Create an EC2 Instance

Once you log into your account, the console home page will be displayed, if the EC2 doesn’t show in you recently visited click on view all services.

Under the Compute category, choose EC2.
This will load your EC2 Dashboard.

In the EC2 Dashboard, click on the Launch instance button.
Input a name for you instance,

Under the Application and OS Image section, choose Ubuntu operating system.
Amazon Machine Image (AMI) choose the Ubuntu Server 22.04 LTS (free tier eligible).
The architecture choose the 64-bit (x86).

Choose the t2.micro instance type.

Click on “Create new key pair” hyperlink.

Name your key pair.
Choose RSA key pair type.
Choose the .pem format.
Click on the create key pair button.
A file will be downloaded to your computer.
Save the file (DO NOT LOSE OR DELETE THIS FILE).
Choose the keypair you just created in the drop down menu.

In the Network Settings, create a security group.
Check Allow SSH traffic from Anywhere.
Check Allow HTTPS traffic from the internet.
Check Allow HTTP traffic from the internet.

For the storage type in 16

Leave the Advance and Summary settings as the default settings.
Click on the “Launch instance” Button

4. Connect to your instance

You can connect to your instance via AWS Console, for the initial set up, I would recommend connecting via SSH and using the Key Pair created during the instance set up.

5. Set Up a Web Server using Apache

Update and uprade all packages

sudo apt update

sudo apt upgrade

Installing and configuring Apache
In the instance console, install and configure Apache by inputting the following commands:

sudo apt install apache2 apache2-utils

Type Y to continue with the installation.

sudo systemctl enable apache2

Find your public IP address and copy and paste it into a browser address bar.

**Congratulations you now have a running web server! **

Ownerships and groups:

sudo chown www-data:www-data /var/www/html -R

sudo usermod -a -G www-data ubuntu

sudo chown -R ubuntu:www-data /var/www

sudo chmod 2775 /var/www && find /var/www -type d -exec sudo chmod 2775 {} \; && find /var/www -type f -exec sudo chmod 0664 {} \;

Creating a website and log directories:

sudo mkdir /var/www/bookclub

sudo mkdir /var/log/apache2/bookclub

Set up the virtual configuration file:

cd /etc/apache2/sites-available/

Copy the default configuration file and edit the new configuration file:

sudo cp 000-default.conf bookclub.conf

sudo nano bookclub.conf

Update the document root to the directory we created earlier to /var/www/bookclub
And update the access and error logs to save in the directory we created earlier in /var/log/apache2/bookclub
Save this file by pressing Ctrl + S on the keyboard and Ctrl + X to close the file.
Enable the site by activating the virtual host configuration file.
Go to the /etc/apache2/site-available directory:

cd /etc/apache2/sites-available/

Run the command to enable the configuration we created and disable the default file:

sudo a2ensite bookclub.conf

sudo a2dissite 000-default.conf

Restart Apache

sudo systemctl restart apache2

Create an index.html file

cd /var/www/bookclub

nano index.html

Save (Ctrl + S) and Exit the file (Ctrl + X)
Refresh the browser and you should now see the index file you created.

6. Dynamic Domain Name Service

The AWS instance we created has a dynamic IP that is changing regularly, we can use a service such as Duckdns.org to assign a constant web address that is easy to remember.

Go to https://duckdns.org.

Input a unique web address and click add domain.

Click install on the button in the menu at the top of the page.

Choose the linuxcron in the operating system section.
Choose your domain you created from the dropdown menu.

Follow the instructions in the linux cron section, ensure linux is running crontab and curl is installed.
You may need to adapt and personallised some of the commands:

cd ~

mkdir duckdns

cd duckdns

nano duck.sh

Copy and paste the code from your instructions on Duckdns

echo url="https://www.duckdns.org/update?domains=YOUR_DOMAIN&token=YOUR_TOKEN&ip=" | curl -k -o ~/duckdns/duck.log -K –

Press Ctrl + S to save and Ctrl X to exit the file.

chmod 700 duck.sh

crontab -e

Choose 1 and press enter.

Copy and paste the code into the bottom of that file which will run a script to update Duckdns with the new IP address every 5 minutes

*/5 * * * * ~/duckdns/duck.sh >/dev/null 2>&1

Press Ctrl + S to save and Ctrl X to exit the file.
Test the script:

./duck.sh

cat duck.log

This should return OK.

Your new web address should now be working.

7. Installing HTTPS

sudo apt update

sudo apt install snapd

sudo snap install –classic certbot

sudo certbot –apache

8. Connecting to Your VM via SSH on Visual Studio Code

Install Remote SSH and SSH Editing Configuration from the VSC marketplace.

Press Ctrl + Shift + P on your keyboard
In the search bar, search for ssh
Find add new SSH host
Choose the .ssh/config file

Save this file
Press Ctrl + Shift + P on your keyboard
Find Connect to SSH Host
Choose Linux

Choose Continue
Wait for the connection to connect
Click on open folder

Type /var/www/bookclub/ into the address bar and click OK

You should now be able to see your index.html file you created in the command line