Can You Pass This AWS EC2 Challenge?

Test your skills

image from AWS

This is a beginner level challenge you can use to test your EC2 knowledge.

I have listed 6 validation checks below that you can use to setup some EC2 resources in your account. Remember there is a free tier you can use in AWS, more info on that can be found here.

You can complete this lab for free within the AWS console in your account, just be sure to terminate your EC2 instance when you are done.

Finally, at the bottom after a bit of space is the solution on how to do all steps. Don’t look until you try it yourself!

Validation checks

1. Create a single t2.micro EC2 instance to host a web application using Amazon Linux for the OS.
2. The instance must have a public IP address to serve web traffic.
3. The instance must include a key pair to securely access SSH with.
4. The instance needs exactly 10 GiBs of storage attached to store the application (This is the size in GiBs you need to allocate as the root storage).
5. It must also allow incoming HTTP traffic for the web application.
6. Finally, the instance must allow SSH traffic for configuration and troubleshooting. Even though it is not best practice, for the purposes of this lab we will select to allow SSH traffic from anywhere.

Next, I will lay out the steps to complete this challenge. Don’t look until you have made an attempt first!

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Solution

1. Log into your AWS account and navigate to the EC2 console

2. Choose Launch Instance

3. Give your instance a name, then select the Amazon Linux OS. Make sure the AMI says “free-tier eligible”, and leave everything else at default.

4. Select t2.micro for your instance type, and select a key pair. If you do not have one already, select “Create new key pair” and follow the prompts to make one and associate it with your instance.

5. Make sure “Auto assign public IP” is set to Enable, check the boxes to allow SSH/HTTP traffic, and set the SSH source to 0.0.0.0/0 (anywhere). Leave everything else at default.

6. Configure 10 GiB of storage using the default gp2 type.

7. In the summary section, ensure your settings all look correct and select “Launch Instance”.

8. Verify it launches successfully with no errors.

9. Back in the EC2 console, ensure the status checks are complete and the instance is running.

If you made it this far with no errors then congratulations! You completed the challenge with ease.