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Exercise 3: Launching an EC2 Instance

For this scenario, you create the employee directory application by using user data that you configure when you set up the EC2 instance.

In this exercise, you log in to the console as the IAM Admin user. You then launch an EC2 instance by using the IAM role that you created previously. Finally, after you create the employee directory application, you stop and then terminate the instance. Because this instance launch is a dry run, you terminate the instance to prevent additional costs from incurring.

Task 1: Launching an EC2 instance that uses a role

In this task, you will launch an EC2 instance that hosts the employee directory application.

1. If needed, log in to the AWS Management Console as your Admin user.

2. In the Services search bar, search for EC2, and open the service by choosing EC2.

3. In the navigation pane, under Instances choose Instances.

4. Choose Launch instances.

5. For Name use employee-directory-app.

6. Under Application and OS Images (Amazon Machine Image), choose the default Amazon Linux 2023.

7. Under Instance type, select t2.micro.

8. Under Key pair (login), choose Create a new key pair.

9. For Key pair name, paste app-key-pair. Choose Create key pair. The required .pem file should automatically download for you.

10. Under Network settings and Edit: Keep the default VPC selection, which should have (default) after the network name
    • Subnet: Choose the first subnet in the dropdown list
    • Auto-assign Public IP: Enable

11. Under Firewall (security groups) choose Create security group use app-sg for the Security group name and Description.

12. Under Inbound security groups rules choose Remove above the ssh rule.

13. Choose Add security group rule. For Type choose HTTP. Under Source type choose Anywhere.

14. Expand Advanced details and under IAM instance profile choose S3DynamoDBFullAccessRole.

15. In the User data box, paste the following code:

    #!/bin/bash -ex
    wget https://aws-tc-largeobjects.s3-us-west-2.amazonaws.com/DEV-AWS-MO-GCNv2/FlaskApp.zip
    unzip FlaskApp.zip
    cd FlaskApp/
    yum -y install python3-pip
    pip install -r requirements.txt
    yum -y install stress
    export PHOTOS_BUCKET=${SUB_PHOTOS_BUCKET}
    export AWS_DEFAULT_REGION=<INSERT REGION HERE>
    export DYNAMO_MODE=on
    FLASK_APP=application.py /usr/local/bin/flask run --host=0.0.0.0 --port=80

16. In the pasted code, change the following line to match your Region (your Region is listed at the top right, next to your user name):

    export AWS_DEFAULT_REGION=<INSERT REGION HERE>

    Example:

    The following example uses the US West (Oregon) Region, or us-west-2.

    export AWS_DEFAULT_REGION=us-west-2

    Note: In a later lab, you will modify this user data script again to use your Amazon Simple Storage Service (Amazon S3) bucket. For now, keep ${SUB_PHOTOS_BUCKET} in the script.

17. Choose Launch instance.

18. Choose View all instances.

    The instance should now be listed under Instances.

19. Wait for the Instance state to change to Running and the Status check to change to 2/2 checks passed.

    Note: Often, the status checks update, but the console user interface (UI) might not update to reflect the most recent information. You can minimize waiting by refreshing the page after a few minutes.

Task 2. Viewing the application

In this task, you will view the application that’s running on the instance in a web browser window.

1. Select the instance by selecting its check box.

   Instance information should load on the tabs in the pane.

2. On the Details tab, copy the Public IPv4 address.

   Note: Make sure that you only copy the address instead of choosing the open address link.

3. In a new browser window, paste the IP address that you copied. Make sure to remove the ‘S’ after HTTP so you are using only HTTP instead.

   You should see an Employee Directory placeholder. Right now, you won’t be able to interact with it yet because the application isn’t connected to a database.

   Congratulations! You have successfully created an EC2 instance, which hosts the employee directory application.

   After you finish exploring the instance, you will stop and terminate your instance so that you don’t incur future costs.

Task 3. Cleaning up

In this task, you will terminate the EC2 instance that you launched.

1. Go back to the AWS Management Console.

   The employee-directory-app instance should still be selected.

2. At the top of the console pane, choose Instance state, choose Stop instance, and choose Stop.

   The status in the Instance state column will eventually go into the Stopped state.

   Next, you will terminate the instance.

3. Make sure that check box next to the instance Name is selected.

4. Choose Instance state, choose Terminate instance, and choose Terminate.