EC2 Amazon Web Services

Introduction

EC2 - Elastic Compute Cloud

A web service that provides computing power in the cloud.

The service is part of the Amazon Web Services (AWS) .

The simple web interface of the service lets you get access to computing power and configure it with minimal resource costs.

It gives users full control over computing resources, as well as a convenient environment to work in.

The service reduces the time needed to obtain and boot a new server.

With EC2 you can:

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Connecting to a Linux system

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Connect to the Linux instances you launched and transfer files between your local computer and your instance.

For information about connecting to a Windows instance see the "Connecting to your Windows instance" section in the Amazon EC2 User Guide for Windows Instances.

Connection options

The operating system of your local computer determines the options for connecting from the local computer to a Linux instance.

If your local computer runs Linux or macOS X

If your local computer runs Windows

Connecting to a Linux system over SSH

1

After launching your instance you can connect to it and use it just as you would use a computer sitting in front of you.

The following instructions explain how to connect to your instance using an SSH client. If an error occurs when you try to connect to the instance, see the section Troubleshooting instance connections . For more connection options see the section Connecting to your Linux instance .

When you launch an instance in AWS for the first time you will be asked to choose an access type - choose paired-keys and save your private key (.pem) to the client computer.

Remember where you saved it. Suppose you saved the key in the directory /path/

Prerequisites

Before connecting to a Linux system, meet the following conditions.

Check the status of your instance

After the instance is launched, a few minutes may pass before the instance is ready and you can connect to it.

Make sure that your instance has passed the status check. You can view this information in the status check column on the instances page. Get the public DNS name and the user name for connecting to your instance

topbicycle.awsapps.com/start#/ → Management Console → EC2 → Instances (all states) → Instance state → Wait until the status becomes Running

Get the public DNS name and the user name for connecting to your instance

To find the public DNS name or IP address of your instance and the user name you should use to connect to your instance, see the section connection prerequisites for your instance .

Install an SSH client on your local computer as needed

Your local computer may have an SSH client installed by default. You can check this by typing ssh in the command line. If your computer does not recognize this command, you can install an SSH client.

Connecting to a Linux system using an SSH client

Use the following procedure to connect to your Linux instance using an SSH client. If an error occurs when you try to connect to the instance, see the section Troubleshooting instance connections .

To connect to your instance using SSH

  1. In a terminal window, run the ssh command to connect to the instance. You specify the path and file name of the private key (.pem), the user name for your instance and the public DNS name or IPv6 address for your instance.

    For more information about how to find the private key, the user name for your instance and the DNS name or IPv6 address for the instance, see the sections Finding the private key and getting information about your instance .

    To connect to your instance, use one of the following commands.


    • (Public DNS) To connect using the public DNS name of your instance, enter the following command.

      ssh -i /path/my-key-pair.pem my-instance-user-name@my-instance-public-dns-name


      You can see the exact command by going to the instance page (to do this you need to click its Instance ID)

      There you need to click the button Connect and select SSH client

      This tab contains detailed information about exactly which command you must run to connect to the instance

      Let us examine this command in more detail.

      • /path/ is the directory into which you saved the .pem key
      • my-key-pair.pem is the key name. You came up with it yourself.
      • my-instance-user-name is your user name

        You can find out your user name on the instance page in the section Connect

        By default the user name for EC2 is ec2-user
      • my-instance-public-dns-name is the name of your host as seen from the internet

        You can see it on the page Instances in the column Pulic IPv4 DNS or by going to the instance page (to do this you need to click its Instance ID)

        Usually it consists of

        ec2 + IPv4 address + Availability Zone Name


      Your command will look roughly like this

      ssh -i /path/key_name.pem ec2-user@ec2-198-51-100-1.us-west-1.compute.amazonaws.com




    • (IPv6) In addition, if your instance has an IPv6 address, to connect using the IPv6 address of your instance, enter the following command.

      ssh -i /path/my-key-pair.pem my-instance-user-name@my-instance-IPv6-address



    You see a response like this:

    The authenticity of host 'ec2-198-51-100-1.compute-1.amazonaws.com (198-51-100-1)' can't be established.
    ECDSA key fingerprint is l4UB/neBad9tvkgJf1QZWxheQmR59WgrgzEimCG6kZY.
    Are you sure you want to continue connecting (yes/no)?

  2. (Optional) make sure that the fingerprint in the security warning matches the fingerprint obtained earlier (optional) Get the instance fingerprint. If these fingerprints do not match, someone may be trying to perform an MITM attack . If they match, go to the next step.
  3. Enter yes.

    You will see a similar response:

    Warning: Permanently added 'ec2-198-51-100-1.compute-1.amazonaws.com' (RSA)
    to the list of known hosts.
    Sending file modes: C0644 20 SampleFile.txt
    Sink: C0644 20 SampleFile.txt
    SampleFile.txt

Article author: Andrei Olegovich

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