path-to-packer

Runbook

This runbook will outline the steps required to configure an ubuntu instance on AWS with an NGINX application.

Creating Ubuntu Server in AWS

• Create a new instance by using the Amazon EC2
• Under the AMI, select Ubuntu 20.04 LTS in the Quick Start section
• Make sure to create a Key pair
• Under Network Settings, find the Firewall section & click “create security group”
  • Check all three boxes to create rules for SSH, HTTPs & HTTP traffic

• Use default settings for everything else and then click “Launch instance”
• Connect the Instance to the Ubuntu server by clicking on “Connect” that is located in the Instance summary

Add a New User and Directory in Ubuntu

• Add a new user

  • From the Ubuntu user, move to the home directory and add a USERNAME
  • sudo adduser <USERNAME>

• Add the new user to the ‘sudoers’ directory

  • This is needed in order to install nginx in our user directory
  • sudo adduser <USERNAME> sudo

• Switch into the user

  • su - <USERNAME>

• Create a directory in your user directory

  • This is where we can create our app directory
  • mkdir <DIRECTORY-NAME>

Downloading and Configuring NGINX

• In the new user directory, download NGINX

  • Run these commands. When complete, type in the command quit

  sudo -s
  nginx=stable # use nginx=development for latest development version
  add-apt-repository ppa:nginx/$nginx
  apt update
  apt install nginx
  

• Verify the installation with nginx -v

  • It’ll display the software version nginx version: nginx/1.18.0 (Ubuntu)

Enable and start the NGINX landing page

• Start by checking the status where it will display active (running)

  • sudo systemctl status nginx

• If NGINX is not running, run the following sudo systemctl start nginx

• Load when the system starts

  • sudo systemctl enable nginx

• Allow NGINX traffic and grant access to the firewall

   sudo ufw app list
   sudo ufw allow 'nginx full'
   sudo ufw reload
  

Deploying the NGINX Page

• Open a new web browser with the IP address from the Connect instance page
• It should look like this, where the localhost is the IP address

Resources and References

https://phoenixnap.com/kb/how-to-install-nginx-on-ubuntu-20-04

https://ubuntu.com/tutorials/install-and-configure-nginx#1-overview