--- title: "How To Create An AWS EC2 Instance Using AWS CLI" description: "How to build a VPC, subnets, an internet gateway, a NAT gateway, a route table, and a security group with the AWS CLI, then launch an EC2 instance whose user data installs Apache, PHP, MariaDB, and WordPress." author: "Mohammad Abu Mattar" canonical: https://mkabumattar.com/blog/post/how-to-create-an-aws-ec2-instance-using-aws-cli --- # How To Create An AWS EC2 Instance Using AWS CLI ## Introduction In this tutorial we will create an AWS EC2 instance with the AWS CLI. We will build the network around it first, then launch the instance with a user data script that installs the Apache web server and brings up a working WordPress site. ## Prerequisites To follow along with this tutorial, you will need: - An AWS account. - An AWS IAM user with the following permissions: - AmazonEC2FullAccess - AmazonVPCFullAccess - An AWS CLI installed on your computer. - An SSH client installed on your computer. ## Create an AWS VPC Before we create an AWS EC2 instance using AWS CLI, we need to create a VPC. We will also create a public and private subnet, an internet gateway, and a route table. ### Create a VPC To create a VPC, run the following command: ```shell # Create a VPC AWS_VPC=$(aws ec2 create-vpc \ --cidr-block 10.0.0.0/16 \ --query 'Vpc.{VpcId:VpcId}' \ --output text) # Add a name tag to the VPC aws ec2 create-tags \ --resources $AWS_VPC \ --tags Key=Name,Value=DevOpsVPC ``` ### Modify your custom VPC to enable DNS hostname and DNS support To modify your custom VPC and turn on both DNS hostname support and DNS support, run the following command: ```shell # Enable DNS hostnames aws ec2 modify-vpc-attribute \ --vpc-id $AWS_VPC \ --enable-dns-hostnames "{\"Value\":true}" # Enable DNS support aws ec2 modify-vpc-attribute \ --vpc-id $AWS_VPC \ --enable-dns-support "{\"Value\":true}" ``` ### Create a public subnet To create a public subnet, run the following command: ```shell # Create a public subnet AWS_PUBLIC_SUBNET=$(aws ec2 create-subnet \ --vpc-id $AWS_VPC \ --cidr-block 10.0.1.0/24 \ --availability-zone us-east-1a \ --query 'Subnet.{SubnetId:SubnetId}' \ --output text) # Add a name tag to the public subnet aws ec2 create-tags \ --resources $AWS_PUBLIC_SUBNET \ --tags Key=Name,Value=DevOpsPublicSubnet ``` ### Create a private subnet To create a private subnet, run the following command: ```shell # create a private subnet AWS_PRIVATE_SUBNET=$(aws ec2 create-subnet \ --vpc-id $AWS_VPC \ --cidr-block 10.0.2.0/24 \ --availability-zone us-east-1a \ --query 'Subnet.{SubnetId:SubnetId}' \ --output text) # Add a name tag to the private subnet aws ec2 create-tags \ --resources $AWS_PRIVATE_SUBNET \ --tags Key=Name,Value=DevOpsPrivateSubnet ``` ### Enable auto-assign public IP on the subnet To enable auto-assign public IP on the subnet, run the following command: ```shell # Enable auto-assign public IP on the public subnet aws ec2 modify-subnet-attribute \ --subnet-id $AWS_PUBLIC_SUBNET \ --map-public-ip-on-launch ``` ### Create an internet gateway To create an internet gateway, run the following command: ```shell AWS_INTERNET_GATEWAY=$(aws ec2 create-internet-gateway \ --query 'InternetGateway.{InternetGatewayId:InternetGatewayId}' \ --output text) # Add a name tag to the Internet Gateway aws ec2 create-tags \ --resources $AWS_INTERNET_GATEWAY \ --tags Key=Name,Value=DevOpsInternetGateway ``` ### Create a NAT gateway To create a NAT gateway, run the following command: ```shell # Get Elastic IP AWS_ELASTIC_IP=$(aws ec2 allocate-address \ --domain vpc \ --query 'AllocationId' \ --output text) # Create a NAT gateway AWS_NAT_GATEWAY=$(aws ec2 create-nat-gateway \ --subnet-id $AWS_PUBLIC_SUBNET \ --allocation-id $AWS_ELASTIC_IP \ --query 'NatGateway.{NatGatewayId:NatGatewayId}' \ --output text) # Add a name tag to the NAT gateway aws ec2 create-tags \ --resources $AWS_NAT_GATEWAY \ --tags Key=Name,Value=DevOpsNATGateway ``` ### Attach the internet gateway to your VPC To attach the internet gateway to your VPC, run the following command: ```shell # Attach the Internet gateway to your VPC aws ec2 attach-internet-gateway \ --vpc-id $AWS_VPC \ --internet-gateway-id $AWS_INTERNET_GATEWAY \ --query 'InternetGateway.{InternetGatewayId:InternetGatewayId}' \ --output text ``` ### Create a custom route table To create a route table, run the following command: ```shell # Create a custom route table AWS_ROUTE_TABLE=$(aws ec2 create-route-table \ --vpc-id $AWS_VPC \ --query 'RouteTable.{RouteTableId:RouteTableId}' \ --output text) # Add a name tag to the route table aws ec2 create-tags \ --resources $AWS_ROUTE_TABLE \ --tags Key=Name,Value=DevOpsRouteTable ``` ### Create a custom route table association To create a custom route table association, run the following command: ```shell # Create a custom route table association aws ec2 associate-route-table \ --route-table-id $AWS_ROUTE_TABLE \ --subnet-id $AWS_PUBLIC_SUBNET \ --output text ``` ### Associate the subnet with route table, making it a public subnet To associate the subnet with route table, making it a public subnet, run the following command: ```shell # Associate the subnet with route table, making it a public subnet aws ec2 create-route \ --route-table-id $AWS_ROUTE_TABLE \ --destination-cidr-block 0.0.0.0/0 \ --gateway-id $AWS_INTERNET_GATEWAY \ --output text ``` ### Associate the NAT gateway with the route table, making it a private subnet To associate the NAT gateway with the route table, making it a private subnet, run the following command: ```shell # Associate the NAT gateway with the route table, making it a private subnet aws ec2 create-route \ --route-table-id $AWS_ROUTE_TABLE \ --destination-cidr-block 10.2.0.0/24 \ --nat-gateway-id $AWS_NAT_GATEWAY \ --output text ``` ### Create a security group To create a security group, run the following command: ```shell # Create a security group AWS_SECURITY_GROUP=$(aws ec2 create-security-group \ --group-name DevOpsSG \ --description "DevOps Security Group" \ --vpc-id $AWS_VPC \ --query 'GroupId' \ --output text) # Add a name tag to the security group aws ec2 create-tags \ --resources $AWS_SECURITY_GROUP \ --tags Key=Name,Value=DevOpsSG ``` ### Add a rule to the security group To add a rule to the security group, run the following command: ```shell # Add a rule to the security group # Add SSH rule aws ec2 authorize-security-group-ingress \ --group-id $AWS_SECURITY_GROUP \ --protocol tcp \ --port 22 \ --cidr 0.0.0.0/0 \ --output text # Add HTTP rule aws ec2 authorize-security-group-ingress \ --group-id $AWS_SECURITY_GROUP \ --protocol tcp \ --port 80 \ --cidr 0.0.0.0/0 \ --output text ``` ## Create an AWS EC2 instance ### Get the latest AMI ID To get the latest AMI ID, run the following command: ```shell # Get the latest AMI ID AWS_AMI=$(aws ec2 describe-images \ --owners 'amazon' \ --filters 'Name=name,Values=amzn2-ami-hvm-2.0.*' \ 'Name=state,Values=available' \ --query 'sort_by(Images, &CreationDate)[-1].[ImageId]' \ --output 'text') ``` ### Create a key pair To create a key pair, run the following command: ```shell # Create a key pair aws ec2 create-key-pair \ --key-name DevOpsKeyPair \ --query 'KeyMaterial' \ --output text > DevOpsKeyPair.pem # Change the permission of the key pair chmod 400 DevOpsKeyPair.pem ``` ### Create an EC2 instance Before creating an EC2 instance, you need to create a user data script. That script automates the previous three blog posts: - [How to Install Apache Web Server on Amazon Linux 2](/blog/post/how-to-install-apache-web-server-on-amazon-linux-2) - [How to Install PHP and MariaDB on Amazon Linux 2](/blog/post/how-to-install-php-and-mariadb-on-amazon-linux-2) - [How to Install and Setup FireWall on Amazon Linux 2](/blog/post/how-to-install-and-setup-firewall-on-amazon-linux-2) You can find the user data script in the [GitHub repository](https://github.com/MKAbuMattar/install-and-setup-wordpress-on-amazon-linux-2) ```shell frame="terminal" # Create a bash script to update packages, install git and clone the repo, and run the script cat < install.sh #!/bin/bash # Update packages sudo yum update -y # Install git sudo yum install git -y # Clone the repo git clone https://github.com/MKAbuMattar/install-and-setup-wordpress-on-amazon-linux-2.git # Run the script bash install-and-setup-wordpress-on-amazon-linux-2/script.sh mkabumattar 121612 121612 wordpressdb wordpressuser password EOF ``` To create an EC2 instance, run the following command: ```shell # Create an EC2 instance AWS_EC2_INSTANCE=$(aws ec2 run-instances \ --image-id $AWS_AMI \ --instance-type t2.micro \ --key-name DevOpsKeyPair \ --monitoring "Enabled=false" \ --security-group-ids $AWS_SECURITY_GROUP \ --subnet-id $AWS_PUBLIC_SUBNET \ --user-data file://install.sh \ --private-ip-address 10.0.1.10 \ --query 'Instances[0].InstanceId' \ --output text) # Add a name tag to the EC2 instance aws ec2 create-tags \ --resources $AWS_EC2_INSTANCE \ --tags "Key=Name,Value=DevOpsInstance" ``` ### Check the status of the EC2 instance To check the status of the EC2 instance, run the following command: ```shell # Check the status of the EC2 instance aws ec2 describe-instances \ --instance-ids $AWS_EC2_INSTANCE \ --query 'Reservations[*].Instances[*].[InstanceId,State.Name,PublicIpAddress]' \ --output text ``` ### Get the public IP address of your instance To get the public IP address of your instance, run the following command: ```shell # Get the public ip address of your instance AWS_PUBLIC_IP=$(aws ec2 describe-instances \ --instance-ids $AWS_EC2_INSTANCE \ --query 'Reservations[*].Instances[*].[PublicIpAddress]' \ --output text) echo $AWS_PUBLIC_IP ``` ### SSH into the EC2 instance To SSH into the EC2 instance, run the following command: ```shell # SSH into the EC2 instance ssh -i DevOpsKeyPair.pem ec2-user@$AWS_PUBLIC_IP ``` ### Show the WordPress website ![WordPress on Amazon Linux 2](/assets/blog/0015-how-to-create-an-aws-ec2-instance-using-aws-cli/wordpress-on-amazon-linux-2-1.png) ## Conclusion In this blog post, you learned how to create a VPC, a public subnet, a private subnet, a NAT gateway, a route table, a security group, and an EC2 instance. You also learned how to SSH into the EC2 instance. ## References - [AWS CLI Command Reference - EC2](https://awscli.amazonaws.com/v2/documentation/api/latest/reference/ec2/index.html) - [AWS CLI Command Reference - `ec2 create-vpc`](https://awscli.amazonaws.com/v2/documentation/api/latest/reference/ec2/create-vpc.html) - [AWS CLI Command Reference - `ec2 create-subnet`](https://awscli.amazonaws.com/v2/documentation/api/latest/reference/ec2/create-subnet.html) - [AWS CLI Command Reference - `ec2 create-internet-gateway`](https://awscli.amazonaws.com/v2/documentation/api/latest/reference/ec2/create-internet-gateway.html) - [AWS CLI Command Reference - `ec2 create-nat-gateway`](https://awscli.amazonaws.com/v2/documentation/api/latest/reference/ec2/create-nat-gateway.html) - [AWS CLI Command Reference - `ec2 create-route-table`](https://awscli.amazonaws.com/v2/documentation/api/latest/reference/ec2/create-route-table.html) - [AWS CLI Command Reference - `ec2 create-security-group`](https://awscli.amazonaws.com/v2/documentation/api/latest/reference/ec2/create-security-group.html) - [AWS CLI Command Reference - `ec2 run-instances`](https://awscli.amazonaws.com/v2/documentation/api/latest/reference/ec2/run-instances.html) - [AWS CLI Command Reference - `ec2 create-key-pair`](https://awscli.amazonaws.com/v2/documentation/api/latest/reference/ec2/create-key-pair.html) - [Amazon EC2 User Guide for Linux Instances - User Data](https://docs.aws.amazon.com/AWSEC2/latest/UserGuide/user-data.html) - [Amazon VPC User Guide](https://docs.aws.amazon.com/vpc/latest/userguide/what-is-amazon-vpc.html) - [WordPress Official Website](https://wordpress.org/) - [Tutorial: Installing a LAMP Web Server on Amazon Linux 2](https://docs.aws.amazon.com/AWSEC2/latest/UserGuide/ec2-lamp-amazon-linux-2.html) - [GitHub Repository for User Data Script](https://github.com/MKAbuMattar/install-and-setup-wordpress-on-amazon-linux-2) - [AWS Identity and Access Management (IAM) User Guide](https://docs.aws.amazon.com/IAM/latest/UserGuide/introduction.html)