If you are new to AWS and just want to try it out quickly, this article describes, step by step how to get a free Linux server (or AWS instance) running and available on the web in not more than 30-40 mins.  You will not need Linux skills to set up the server but you will need Linux skills to access and administer the server!

How to get a Linux server (AWS Instance) up and running, step by step

1. First create a free AWS account.  You will need a valid credit card and a telephone number.  You will receive an automated verification call during which you need to speak or type a short verification number.  As of writing there is no charge for creating the account.  Note that you can always cancel your account should you be unsatisfied.
2. Using your login and password you just created, log into the AWS EC2 Console
3. Make sure the “Amazon EC2″ tab is selected and the page is loaded to see the “EC2 Dashboard”.
4. Ensure you select the physical location you want your server to run in by selecting the Region at the top of the Navigation window on the left.  This selection should stay as you want it the next time you log in, but it’s a good idea to check it.
5. Note that on the right under “My Resources” the number of running instances is zero.   This is because you have not launched any servers yet.
6. In the Navigation pane, click on AMIs (Amazon Machine Images).  This is where we need to select the type of Linux OS we want to run.  For the purpose of this article, we will pick Ubuntu 10.04 LTS in the following steps.
7. In the input box to the right of “All Platforms”, enter “Ubuntu-lucid-10.04-i386-server” and then select “All images” in the combo-box to the left.  The list of available Ubuntu images should be displayed.  Note that you will see a different list of images depending on your selection for “Region”.  I chose the image with the ID ami-00067852 from the region Asia Pacific (you can also browse the images).
8. Right-click the image and select “Launch instance” in the context menu that pops up.  The “Request Instance” wizard will pop up.
   1. Ensure the number of instances is set to 1.  Do not launch more than one at this stage (unless you don’t mind the danger of running your servers for longer than your allowed quota of hours or unless you want to use load balancing).
   2. Availability Zone can be left as it is (unless you know exactly in which data center you want to launch your instance).
   3. Make sure that Instance Type is changed from “small” to “micro” (t1.mico)!! This is very important, otherwise charges will apply.  Click on the Continue button.
   4. Under Advanced Instance Options ensure “Enable CloudWatch” is disabled, otherwise charges (as of writing) will apply!  The rest of the options can stay as they are; “Use Default” for Kernel ID and RAM Disk ID.  Click on the Continue button.
   5. Next, tags can be set.  We don’t need any tags so click on the Continue button (tags are used to more easily identify Instances).
   6. Next we come to “Create Key Pair”.  You will need to do this to enable access to your running instance via ssh.   Select “Create a new Key Pair” and enter a name for it, e.g. “my-key-pair”, click on “Create & Download your Key Pair” and save the “my-key-pair.pem” file following the instructions given.
   7. On the next screen choose the default Security Group (SG).  Security Groups are your “simple to use firewall protection” for running instance.  The default SG allows ssh and HTTP traffic into your running instance from anywhere on the Internet.  Since these are sensible defaults, we will use them as is.  Click on the Continue button.
   8. Check and review the launch information and make any changes as needed.  Click on the Launch button.
   9. The next page shows “Your Instances are now launching” which can take a few seconds to about 30-40 seconds depending on the OS and the type of instance.  Click on the “View your instances on the Instances page” link.  Under “My Instances” wait for the status of the instance you just launched to change to “running”.
9. Your Instance (of Ubuntu Linux 10.04) is now running and reachable online.  To check this, click on the Instance and locate the “Public DNS” line in the information pane at the bottom of the page.
10. Run ping, to check your instance is online, e.g.:
    ping ec2-<YOUR-IP-ADDRESS>.ap-southeast-1.compute.amazonaws.com
11. As a word of warning, DO NOT leave your Instance running when is it not needed, otherwise you can run up a large bill, unless of course you are running just one free micro Linux server.
12. To stop your instance, right-click on your instance and select “Stop”.  You will be able to start it again at a later time when you need it.  Note that a stopped instance will still incur charges for its storage, but this is much less than compared to running the Instance.  To remove an Instance entirely, select “Terminate”.  If you terminate an instance, its storage is also removed so you wont be paying for any of it any more, but you wont be able to re-start it again either.

How to access your running instance.

1. Make sure your instance is running by checking it’s status on the Instances page.  If it is not running, right-click your instance and select “start”.
2. Right-click on your running instance and select “Connect”.  You should see a pop-up window with instructions on how to connect using ssh.  At the bottom of the window you will see the actual ssh command you can use.  Notice the command uses the .pem file we created and downloaded earlier.  This file is needed to successfully authenticate to your server.  On your Linux PC, make sure your .pem file is unreadable to others by using the chmod command shown in the pop-up window.
3. Cut and paste the ssh command into an open terminal window on your Linux PC, replace “root” with Ubuntu’s default user called “ubuntu” and execute it.
4. Example: ssh -i my-key-pair.pem ubuntu@ec2-<IP ADDRESS>.ap-southeast-1.compute.amazonaws.com
   You should see “Are you sure you want to continue connecting (yes/no)?”, answer yes and hit Enter.  You should now see the Linux command prompt, e.g.  ubuntu@ip-<IP-ADDRESS>:~$
5. You should now be logged onto your server instance.  You can do all the normal things with it, just like any other Linux server.
6. To disconnect from the server, enter “exit” and hit enter.

Troubleshooting:

1. If you see something like “WARNING: UNPROTECTED PRIVATE KEY FILE!” make sure you run “chmod 400 my-key-pair.prm” to ensure nobody but you can read the file.  Run the ssh command again.
2. If you see something like “Please login as the ubuntu user rather than root user.” you should not log in directly as root on Ubuntu systems.  Replace “root” with “ubuntu” in the above ssh command.
3. If you see something like “my-key-pair.pem not accessible: No such file or directory.”, the ssh command cannot find the .pem file.  You need to locate the .pem file you downloaded earlier and either move it over to the directory from which you are running ssh or change your ssh command to reference the .pem file.

This blog is being served from my free EC2 instance.  Note that the default system volume size for an instance seams to be 15GB.  Since there are charges for anything above 10GB, I installed a server with a 10GB volume by following these instructions.  I then installed LAMP and WordPress onto this server.

If you have any comments please feel free to add them below.

- Stephen Bylo

If you are interested in trying out or learning about Cloud Computing, Infrastructure as a Service (IaaS), testing your new web service or starting your service in production to see how it performs, go to Amazon Web Service and get your free account.  If you are planning on starting a new web site or service, try it out first free.  If your site is successful and demand picks up you can then scale up and start using AWS’s full service.   Test your software for scalability and “elasticity” using Amazon’s load balancing.   Some network traffic and disk usage is also free which should get you started.

What does “Free Usage Tier” mean exactly?

There are some restrictions of course.  You are allowed to use their smallest (micro) Linux servers only, but this should be enough to get you started.  On my server I have 595 MB of usable RAM.  One micro server can be running continuously & free of charge for one month since this usage would fall just withing the allowed 750 hours per month.  You can run more than one server (i.e. with free load balancing) but you will be charged for one of them.  If you go over your quota of machine hours for the month you will need to start paying $0.02 per hour of machine running time (as of writing in the US Region).

If you are new to Cloud Computing do not be afraid to get started.  After about 20 minutes only you can sign up and have your own server running whatever (open source) software you like, free of charge on the Internet.

For more information see http://aws.amazon.com/free/ and read the rather short terms here.

See also my guide to setting up a server at AWS.

- Stephen Bylo