Amazon AWS Tutorial #1: Cloud Sysadmin - Your First EC2 Instance

A quick, practical Amazon AWS tutorial that will help you set up your first Amazon EC2 instance (virtual machine) and connect to it via SSH.

This series will show you how to set up a load-balanced, auto-scaled web application: automated, self-healing web infrastructure.

In this Amazon AWS tutorial video, you'll learn:

1. How to create your first Amazon EC2 instance
2. How to create your first security group (Amazon's network firewall rules)
3. How to choose a trusted Ubuntu image to run on EC2 (amazon machine image)
4. How to create an Amazon SSH key
5. How to boot your EC2 instance from that image
6. How to connect to an EC2 instance via SSH

Now featuring 30% more sarcastic remarks about Amazon specifically, and 'the cloud' in general!

################
TABLE OF CONTENTS
################
0:00 Introduction + Overview
2:17 Prerequisites
4:11 Application Structure (for this video and the ones after it)

(Elastic Load Balancer) --- (Auto-Scaling Group (EC2 instances))

5:47 - The EC2 Dashboard (VM Management Console)
6:43 - AWS Marketplace, Community AMIs, official images (AMIs)
9:43 - Choose an Instance Type (Virtual Machine Size/Resources)
11:00 - Difference between learning and production network settings in Amazon (VPCs, subnets)
13:21 - EBS Storage Volumes on Amazon -- SSD vs. Magnetic, Ephemeral Instance Storage, etc.
14:14 - How to configure an AWS Security Group (a.k.a. network firewall rules)
17:07 - Create and download your first Amazon SSH Key (AWS Key Pair)
18:19 - How to connect to an EC2 instance with SSH
19:15 - Setting up your SSH directory from scratch (you might already have this set up)
21:31 - (basic webserver setup -- skipped for this video)

[tutoriaLinux]

0:00 Introduction + Overview
2:17 Prerequisites
4:11 Application Structure (for this video and the ones after it)

(Elastic Load Balancer) --- (Auto-Scaling Group (EC2 instances))

5:47 - The EC2 Dashboard (VM Management Console)
6:43 - AWS Marketplace, Community AMIs, official images (AMIs)
9:43 - Choose an Instance Type (Virtual Machine Size/Resources)
11:00 - Difference between learning and production network settings in Amazon (VPCs, subnets)
13:21 - EBS Storage Volumes on Amazon -- SSD vs. Magnetic, Ephemeral Instance Storage, etc.
14:14 - How to configure an AWS Security Group (a.k.a. network firewall rules)
17:07 - Create and download your first Amazon SSH Key (AWS Key Pair)
18:19 - How to connect to an EC2 instance with SSH
19:15 - Setting up your SSH directory from scratch (you might already have this set up)
21:31 - (basic webserver setup -- skipped for this video)

[victoriakhaki]

You're a hero to beginners. Benefited from your no assumption presentation - teaching style. Thank you. Just made you my online mentor. David.

[mitchman]

Finally some AWS information that keeps it REAL...! The host is great, keeps it real with things good and bad. Highly recommend this video for AWS Tutorial #1. I can only hope he has a bunch more for me to watch. Great job.

[NickMcCathyTX]

As a Sysadmin transitioning into DevOps and just learning AWS, this is a great series. Thank you!

[LtdJorge]

Together with Traversy Media, you are my favourite tutorial youtuber right now. Making a lot of things easier to understand. 👍

[portentouslad]

Perfect timing!
I just started working with AWS.

Thanks :)

[lorimaydeguzman]

This tutorial really helped me deploy my first ever server. Thank you very much!

[txiasummer]

awesome, in-depth video tutorial with no assumptions of prior experience. thank you!

[deogratiasadade]

Perfect timing, I am starting this cloud thing tomorrow.

[cdnuzzo]

This is awesome! Thanks. I am a Web Dev interested in more SysAdmin / Engineering things. AWS is obviously on my short-list. I would also be interested in Puppet and Docker for future videos.

[FunkyAhamed]

Clear explanation and cool... Watched all 3 tutorials.. Thanks for the video... Good job mate !!

[Craigerson]

I was with you right up to about the 18:45 mark, than I think my laptop started freaking out. The video screen turned this weird shade of purple, and there was all this text with cryptic like command being displayed. 😀 Really well explained video. Now onto a crash course in Unix commands.

[WendellsCat]

It's a bummer that you have to pay to use the services, to learn how to use the services. I am taking a class in this right now and I was surprised that they don't have an education or student version.

[bogdanmoraru]

Really awesome!!! I already knew some of this stuff, but it's a very good intro!

[deeds]

Appreciate you sharing the knowledge. This is a really good video, thank you.

[juanvaldes]

Nice! Thank you Dave. Another skill added to the list. :)

[SergeiBash]

6:35 The issue i have is that often in tutorials it is said that we are going to use "A" with no explanation as to why "A" and not "B", "C" etc. Also whether the transition from one ami to another will be possible later on.

[gamma_v]

That would be nice to put a link (annotation) in the beginning of videos for those who want to jump to where the tutorials actually start.

[andremarcelodelourdes]

What is the best AWS(EC2) for moments that can reach 4, 000 users?

[Ulghart]

When you create those security rules, are they created locally, like if they were setted up using ipchains on the virtual server, or they get created at a physical firewall that routes frames to the new created virtual server? Thanks !