AWS: Connecting to an EC2 Linux Instance

Haven't practiced this in a few months. Back to establish the basics. Before, I just jumped into the available white papers on Amazon's site. While informative, a lot of it went over my head. Learning the simpler things such as using EC2, Linux, and puTTY works to make the information stick.

I'm using the yearly free tier of AWS for practice. Many things are run on Amazon's infrastructure - like Netflix. Have to keep up with that!

But how do you use puTTY to connect to your Instance? You change the key Amazon gives you (.pem) to one with a .ppk extension using puTTYGen.

Key blocked.

Then you use said adjusted key, your given login name, and your public DNS IPv4 chain-code thing on your EC2 Management page (the blanked out square under 'Host Name (or IP Address)').

DNS IPv4 Chain-Code blocked.

We have connectivity!

What happened? I spun up a Virtual Machine on EC2 / AWS, installed an Amazon-variant of Linux, and SSH'd into it with puTTY on Windows.

Then I installed an Apache server on it just for kicks.

Other References: Connecting To Your Linux Installation from Windows Using puTTY.

Video used:

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