Add an application load balancer to Amazon EC2 using Terraform

A highly available application has higher chances of attracting customers because they are assured of consistency in service. Load balancing is a cost-effective way to increase an application's availability. In this note, I describe the steps to add an application load balancer to three EC2 instances hosted in three different availability zones in a region … Continue reading Add an application load balancer to Amazon EC2 using Terraform

Create a web-server on Amazon EC2 instance using Terraform and user data

In this note, I detail all the steps required to create a bare-bone web server on Amazon EC2. I discuss creating the Amazon Virtual Private Cloud, subnets, internet gateway, security group, and Amazon EC2 instances to finally automate the process via Terraform and user data. Note: I did not include the concepts of load balancing, … Continue reading Create a web-server on Amazon EC2 instance using Terraform and user data

Download Amazon S3 bucket into an Amazon EC2 instance in 5 steps using user data and Terraform

I required a few files and folders on an Amazon EC2 instance as part of the provisioning process. So, the objective was to upload these files and folders into an Amazon S3 bucket and download them from the Amazon EC2 instance with the assistance of the user data script and Terraform. Note: As a reader … Continue reading Download Amazon S3 bucket into an Amazon EC2 instance in 5 steps using user data and Terraform

Install AWS CLI on a Windows Amazon EC2 instance using Terraform and user data

In the last post, I discussed the steps involved in installing AWS.Tools module for PowerShell on Amazon EC2 using user data and Terraform. This post lists the steps to install the AWS CLI on an Windows Amazon EC2 instance. I used Amazon EC2 user data and Terraform to automate AWS CLI installation as part of … Continue reading Install AWS CLI on a Windows Amazon EC2 instance using Terraform and user data

Install AWS.Tools module for PowerShell on Amazon EC2 using user data and Terraform

I was under the impression that all Amazon EC2 instances have the latest version of AWS CLI installed. So, I was in for a pretty shock when I discovered that is not always the case. However, I was required to use the AWS CLI, and since this was an Amazon EC2 with Windows OS, I … Continue reading Install AWS.Tools module for PowerShell on Amazon EC2 using user data and Terraform

Manage sensitive variables in Amazon EC2 user data with Terraform

If you have worked with Amazon EC2 user data, you'd have noticed a shortcoming in the approach  -the inability to pass command-line arguments to the user data script at run time. Let me explain why I believe that to be a problem. User data is a capability associated with an Amazon EC2 instance as part … Continue reading Manage sensitive variables in Amazon EC2 user data with Terraform

Attach IAM role to Amazon EC2 instance using Terraform

I have a reasonable level of understanding of the relationship between AWS Identity and Access Management (IAM) policy, role, user, and group. I have also implemented the concept of assumed-role and the trusted and trusting account association. You can read more about that at -Creating IAM assume-role relationship between two AWS accounts. So, when I … Continue reading Attach IAM role to Amazon EC2 instance using Terraform

Working with Amazon EC2 user data and Terraform

User data is a feature that allows customization of Amazon Elastic Compute Cloud (virtual machine) when it is created and (if desired) with each restart after being provisioned.As we all know, Amazon EC2 (virtual machines) is the legacy approach to hosting applications in the world of containers. Last year I attended a webinar sponsored by … Continue reading Working with Amazon EC2 user data and Terraform