AWS EC2 — CLI

Under this blog we will explore AWS command line interface(CLI). Please follow AWS-EC2-GUI to perform same set of process via Graphical user interface(GUI).

But Why CLI ?

AWS CLI is yet another service as provided by amazon to manage AWS. It’s basically a tool to manage or control aws modules via command line . In upcoming section we going to see how we setup and manage few of aws services via command line.

Prerequisite:

OS : Linux,Unix

Python 2 Version 2.6.5+ or Python 3 Version 3.3+

Python Version

AWS CLI Setup

Below steps to install and setup AWS CLI for first time.

1. Download AWS Bundled Installer

$ curl “https://s3.amazonaws.com/aws-cli/awscli-bundle.zip" -o “awscli-bundle.zip”

Download Bundle

2. Unzip the package and install executable

$ unzip awscli-bundle.zip

$ sudo ./awscli-bundle/install -i /usr/local/aws -b /usr/local/bin/aws

Unzip Bundle

Install

3. Check if AWS CLI is correctly setup and ready to use

$ aws — version

$ aws help

Check AWS Version

Setup is correct if you see aws as a system recognized command.

4. Configure AWS

Post installation, use aws configure to setup AWS CLI to use specific user credentials for particular account which is going to manage the services.

$ aws configure

[awscli@awscli ~]$ aws configure
AWS Access Key ID [None]: XXXXXXXXXXXXXXXX
AWS Secret Access Key [None]: XXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXX
Default region name [None]: ap-south-1
Default output format [None]: json

Run an instance via AWS CLI

Now we done with aws cli setup so, its time to use it :-)

Follow below steps to spin up an ec2 instance and to terminate an instance via aws cli.

1. Generate Key-Pair

First we generate key-pair to access our EC2 instance that we going to launch in upcoming steps.

$ aws ec2 create-key-pair — key-name awsclinew — query ‘KeyMaterial’ — output text > awscli.pem

Generate Key Pair

2. Create Security Group

Next Step is to generate security group for our instance to allow/set inbound and outbound traffic to/via EC2 instance.

$ aws ec2 create-security-group — group-name awscligroup — description “aws cli security group”

Security Group

3. Rules For Security Group

We created a security group in our last step but rules ? . Use below steps to open some of the basic ports like port 22 (ssh) Or 80/443(http/https) to make an EC2 instance reachable to internal or external world.

$ aws ec2 authorize-security-group-ingress — group-name awscligroup — protocol tcp — port 22 — cidr 0.0.0.0/0

$ aws ec2 authorize-security-group-ingress — group-name awscligroup — protocol tcp — port 80 — cidr 0.0.0.0/0

$ aws ec2 authorize-security-group-ingress — group-name awscligroup — protocol tcp — port 443 — cidr 0.0.0.0/0

Add Rules

• port → Port for a service to be open
• cidr → allowed range of IP
• protocol →Protocol to be open
• group-name → Security Group
• authorize-security-group-ingress → used for incoming traffic

Run below command to check and validate if rules got attached to our security group.

$ aws ec2 describe-security-groups — group-names awscligroup

describe security group

4. Create EC2 instance

Now it’s time to create an instance, use below command to initiate an instance request.

$ aws ec2 run-instances — image-id ami-cdbdd7a2 — count 1 — instance-type t2.micro — security-groups awscligroup — key-name awsclinew

Run EC2

Post successful execution of above command it will give details for a created instance , search for instance-id tag , that we will be going to use in next step.

• run-instances → to run a new ec2 instance.
• image-id → OS image id(AMI) to be use for an instance.
• count → number of instance to be created.
• instance-type → type of instance i.e. capacity.
• security-groups → security group to be attached to our new instance.
• key-name → key file to be used for login/authentication.

5. Login to EC2

Finally, we ready to login!

First, describe instance details via below command for detailed instance configuration.

$ aws ec2 describe-instances — instance-ids i-xxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxx

• i-xxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxx → instance id of an instance.

describe instance

Pick IP from above details and jump on an ec2 instance using below command.

$ ssh -i awscli.pem ec2-user@xx.xxx.xx.xxx

login on ec2

ec2-user is an default user which is created for each ec2 instance and same is used for login.

• xx.xxx.xx.xxx → IP assigned to our instance.

6. Cleanup

Time for clean up as its good practice to terminate an instance i.e. not in use to save overall cost.

$ aws ec2 terminate-instances — instance-ids i-xxxxxxxxxxxxxxxx

terminate instance

Done. Use ‘aws help’ to check or explore other aws available commands.

— A blog by teckdevOps