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Welcome to the Team! 🎉

You’ve just joined our dynamic team as a DevOps Engineer, and we’re thrilled to have you on board! 🚀

As we gear up for the holiday season, your mission is to:

  1. Boost our computing power to handle increased traffic to our website.
  2. Onboard an intern with secure, limited access.

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Let’s get started with Task 1: Launching EC2 Instances! 🌐

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What You’ll Learn 💡

  • Launch EC2 instances for production and development environments.
  • Understand EC2 basics, AMIs, and instance types.
  • Create and apply tags for better resource management.
  • Set up IAM policies to secure AWS resources.

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🚀 Step 1: Launch EC2 Instances

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1. Log in to the AWS Management Console

  1. Open your AWS console.
  2. Navigate to the EC2 Dashboard.

💡 What is EC2?
Amazon EC2 (Elastic Compute Cloud) lets you rent virtual computers in the cloud. Think of them as remote servers that you can configure and use on-demand.

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2. Switch Your Region 🌍

Make sure to select the region closest to your location for optimal performance.

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3. Launch Your First EC2 Instance

  • Name: nextwork-production-yourname (replace yourname with your name).
  • Add Tags:
    • Key: Env
    • Value: production

💡 Why Use Tags?
Tags help organize resources, filter results, track costs, and apply policies.

  • AMI: Choose a Free Tier-eligible option.
  • Instance Type: Select a Free Tier-eligible type.
  • Key Pair: Proceed without a key pair for simplicity (not recommended for long-term projects).
  • Network and Storage: Leave defaults for now.

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4. Launch a Development Instance

Repeat the steps above, but use these details:

  • Name: nextwork-development-yourname
  • Add Tags:
    • Key: Env
    • Value: development

💡 Production vs. Development Environments:

  • Production: The live environment for end-users.
  • Development: The testing ground for new features.

🎉 Congrats! You’ve launched two EC2 instances.

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🛡️ Step 2: Create an IAM Policy

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1. Navigate to the IAM Console

💡 What is IAM?
AWS Identity and Access Management (IAM) controls who can access your AWS resources and what actions they can perform.

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2. Create a New Policy

  • Choose JSON Editor and paste the following:
{
  "Version": "2012-10-17",
  "Statement": [
    {
      "Effect": "Allow",
      "Action": "ec2:*",
      "Resource": "*",
      "Condition": {
        "StringEquals": {
          "ec2:ResourceTag/Env": "development"
        }
      }
    },
    {
      "Effect": "Allow",
      "Action": "ec2:Describe*",
      "Resource": "*"
    },
    {
      "Effect": "Deny",
      "Action": [
        "ec2:DeleteTags",
        "ec2:CreateTags"
      ],
      "Resource": "*"
    }
  ]
}

💡 Understanding the Policy:

  • Effect: Allows or denies actions.

  • Action: Specifies the allowed/denied actions (e.g., ec2:StartInstances).

  • Resource: Targets specific AWS resources.

  • Condition: Limits actions based on tags.

  • Name: NextWorkDevEnvironmentPolicy

  • Description: IAM policy for managing the development environment.

🎉 Policy created successfully!

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✨ Bonus Step: Create an Account Alias

  1. Go to the IAM Dashboard.
  2. Click Create Account Alias.
  3. Enter: nextwork-alias-yourname.

💡 Why Create an Alias?
An alias makes your AWS login URL more user-friendly. For example:

  • Default: https://123456789.signin.aws.amazon.com/console/
  • With Alias: https://nextwork-alias-yourname.signin.aws.amazon.com/console/

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👩‍💻 Step 3: Create IAM Users and Groups

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1. Create a New IAM User

  1. Navigate to the Users tab in the IAM Console.
  2. Add a user with these details:
  • Username: nextwork-intern
  • Access Type: AWS Management Console access.

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2. Add the User to a Group

  1. Create a new group:
  • Group Name: NextWorkDevAccess
  • Policy: Attach NextWorkDevEnvironmentPolicy.
  1. Add the intern to the group.

🎉 The intern now has access to the development environment only.

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🎯 Recap and Next Steps

  • ✅ Launched production and development EC2 instances.
  • ✅ Created IAM policies to secure resources.
  • ✅ Onboarded an intern with limited access.

💡 Pro Tip: Regularly review your IAM policies to ensure they follow the principle of least privilege.

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🚀 Ready for More?

Explore the following next steps:

  • Set up SSH access for EC2 instances.
  • Automate resource tagging using AWS Lambda.
  • Monitor EC2 instances with CloudWatch.

🌟 You’re off to an amazing start, NextWork Engineer! Keep learning and innovating.

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📧 Contact

For questions or feedback, reach out:

📨 Email: projects@briankimemia.is-a.dev 🌐 Portfolio: Brian Kimemia GitHub: BrianKN019

Thank you for exploring this project! Let’s innovate and build secure AWS solutions together. 🚀