How to Launch Your Website or Application on AWS (Step-by-Step) 🚀

Ever wondered how to run a website or an application on AWS?

It all starts with EC2 (Elastic Compute Cloud)—a virtual machine that runs on the cloud.

In this simple guide, I’ll walk you through:

✅ Setting up an AWS EC2 virtual machine

✅ Connecting to it remotely

✅ Installing a web server (Nginx)

✅ Making it accessible online

Let’s get started!

1️⃣ What Do You Need to Run an Application on AWS?

To launch any website or app in AWS, you need:

✔ An AWS Account – Sign up at aws.amazon.com

✔ A Network (VPC) – So your server gets an IP address

✔ A Virtual Machine (EC2 Instance) – This is your actual server in the cloud

✔ Security Settings (Firewall Rules) – To control who can access your server

2️⃣ What is an EC2 Instance? (Your Virtual Server)

Think of It Like This:

💻 Your laptop or PC = A physical machine

🌐 An EC2 instance = A virtual machine in the AWS cloud

An EC2 instance allows you to:

✅ Install software (like WordPress or a website)

✅ Store data

✅ Host a website or application

3️⃣ How to Launch an EC2 Instance (Step-by-Step Guide)

Step 1: Go to AWS EC2

🔹 Open AWS Console

🔹 Search for EC2 and click Launch Instance

Step 2: Choose Your Server Settings

✔ Name your server (e.g., "My Website Server")

✔ Choose an operating system (Amazon Linux, Ubuntu, Windows)

✔ Select Instance Type (Start with t2.micro for free tier)

Step 3: Create a Key Pair (To Securely Connect)

✔ Click "Create Key Pair"

✔ Download the .pem file (you’ll need this to connect later)

Step 4: Configure Security Group (Firewall Rules)

✔ Allow SSH (Port 22) – To connect remotely

✔ Allow HTTP (Port 80) – To view the website

Step 5: Launch the Server 🎉

Click Launch and wait a few seconds… Boom! Your virtual machine is running.

4️⃣ Connecting to Your EC2 Server (Using SSH)

Step 1: Open Terminal (Mac/Linux) or Command Prompt (Windows)

Run this command to connect:

ssh -i "your-key.pem" ec2-user@your-instance-ip        

🔹 Replace your-key.pem with your downloaded key file.

🔹 Replace your-instance-ip with the Public IP of your EC2 instance (found in AWS Console).

5️⃣ Installing a Web Server (Nginx) on EC2

Once connected, install a web server:

sudo yum update -y 
sudo amazon-linux-extras enable nginx1
sudo yum install nginx -y 
sudo systemctl start nginx 
sudo systemctl enable nginx        

Now, open your browser and enter your EC2 public IP → You should see the Nginx Welcome Page! 🎉

6️⃣ Making Your Website Accessible to Everyone

By default, AWS blocks all incoming traffic. To allow visitors:

✔ Go to EC2 → Security Groups

✔ Edit rules and allow HTTP (Port 80) for Everyone (0.0.0.0/0)

🔹 Now, anyone on the internet can access your website! 🚀

Final Thoughts

✔ You just launched your first cloud server!

✔ You installed Nginx, a web server.

✔ You made it accessible to the world.

Next steps? 🎯 🔹 Install WordPress or other software 🔹 Connect a database 🔹 Set up a domain name (like www.yoursite.com)

💡 Want to build more cloud projects? Start by experimenting with EC2 and networking—it’s the foundation of AWS!