--- title: "How To Create An AWS EC2 Instance Using AWS CLI" description: "We will learn how to create an AWS EC2 instance using AWS CLI in this tutorial. We will also discover how to set up an AWS EC2 instance so that it functions with the Apache web server. We will also discover how to set up an AWS EC2 instance so that it functions with 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 We will learn how to create an AWS EC2 instance using AWS CLI in this tutorial. We will also discover how to set up an AWS EC2 instance so that it functions with the Apache web server. We will also discover how to set up an AWS EC2 instance so that it functions with WordPress. ## 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 an 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 and enable DNS hostname support, and DNS support To modify your custom VPC and enable 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 $AWS_INTERNET_GATEWAY \ --tags Key=Name,Value=DevOpsInternetGateway ``` ### Create an NAT gateway To create an NAT gateway, run the following command: ```shell # Get Elastic IP AWS_ELASTIC_IP=$(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_EIP_ALLOCATION \ --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 will be automation 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 Create An AWS EC2 Instance Using AWS CLI](/blog/post/0015-how-to-create-an-aws-ec2-instance-using-aws-cli/how-to-create-an-aws-ec2-instance-using-aws-cli) 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 $AWS_EC2_INSTANCE_PUBLIC_IP ``` ### SSH into the EC2 instance To SSH into the EC2 instance, run the following command: ```shell # SSH into the EC2 instance ssh -i DevOpsKeyPair.pem ec2-user@$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)