How to Publicly View a Website Hosted on Amazon EC2
How to Publicly View a Website Hosted on Amazon EC2
Running a website has become easier with the advent of cloud computing. One popular service is Amazon’s Elastic Compute Cloud (EC2), part of the Amazon Web Services (AWS) suite. In this guide, we’ll show you how to make your website hosted on Amazon EC2 publicly viewable.
What is Amazon EC2?
Before diving into the steps, let’s briefly discuss what Amazon EC2 is. Amazon EC2 is a web service that provides secure, resizable compute capacity in the cloud. It’s designed to make web-scale computing easier for developers, giving them the tools to build and host applications.
Step 1: Launch an EC2 Instance
First, you need to launch an EC2 instance. After logging into your AWS Management Console, navigate to the EC2 Dashboard and click on “Launch Instance.” You’ll then select an Amazon Machine Image (AMI) that suits your needs, like Ubuntu Server or Amazon Linux 2 AMI.
Choose an instance type based on your requirements - for a simple website, a low-cost instance like t2.micro should suffice. Follow the prompts to configure instance details, add storage, and add tags.
Step 2: Set up a Security Group
Next, configure a security group for your instance. This acts like a firewall, controlling inbound and outbound traffic. In the configuration wizard, under “Configure Security Group,” you’ll want to create a new group. Make sure to add rules to allow HTTP (port 80) and HTTPS (port 443) traffic from anywhere (0.0.0.0/0). This allows your website to be publicly accessible.
Step 3: Launch and Connect to Your Instance
Review your instance configurations, then click “Launch.” You’ll be prompted to create a new key pair or use an existing one. This is crucial for connecting to your instance later. Download the key pair, then launch the instance.
After the instance launches, select it in the EC2 Dashboard and click “Connect.” Follow the instructions to SSH into your instance using your key pair.
Step 4: Install a Web Server
With a connection to your instance, you can now install a web server. For this guide, we’ll use Apache, a popular open-source web server. On your instance, run the following commands:
sudo apt-get update
sudo apt-get install apache2
After installation, start Apache:
sudo service apache2 start
Step 5: Deploy Your Website
Now that your web server is running, you can deploy your website. By default, Apache serves files from the /var/www/html directory. Upload your website’s files to this directory. For example, use the scp command:
scp -i /path/to/your/key.pem /path/to/your/website/files ubuntu@your-instance-public-ip:/var/www/html
Replace the paths and IP address with your specifics.
Step 6: View Your Website
Lastly, open a web browser and navigate to your EC2 instance’s public IPv4 address. You should see your website live!
In summary, making a website publicly viewable on Amazon EC2 involves launching an EC2 instance, setting up a security group, connecting to the instance, installing a web server, deploying your website, and finally, viewing it in a web browser. Remember, security is crucial, so always ensure your instance is secure and up-to-date.
keywords: Amazon EC2, Web Hosting, AWS, Cloud Computing
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