Launch an AWS EC2 Instance

Source: Dev.to

Introduction

This guide walks you through launching an AWS EC2 instance, installing Docker, and running NGINX inside a Docker container. By the end you will have a publicly accessible web server showing the default NGINX welcome page.

Prerequisites

• AWS account
• Basic terminal knowledge
• SSH client installed on your local machine
• Internet connection

Launch an EC2 Instance

1. Open the AWS Console → EC2 → Launch Instance.
2. Choose an AMI: Amazon Linux 2023.
3. Select instance type: t2.micro (Free tier).
4. Create a key pair:
   • Name: my-ec2-key
   • Type: RSA
   • Format: .pem
5. Network settings:
   • Auto‑assign Public IP: Enabled
6. Create a Security Group with the following inbound rules:

7. Click Launch Instance and wait until the instance state becomes Running.

Connect via SSH

chmod 400 my-ec2-key.pem
ssh -i ~/.ssh/my-ec2-key.pem ec2-user@

Replace the empty space after ec2-user@ with the public IP address of your instance.

Install Docker

# Update packages
sudo yum update -y

# Install Docker
sudo yum install docker -y

# Start and enable Docker service
sudo systemctl start docker
sudo systemctl enable docker
sudo systemctl status docker

# Add ec2-user to the docker group
sudo usermod -aG docker ec2-user

Log out and log back in for the group change to take effect:

ssh -i ~/.ssh/my-ec2-key.pem ec2-user@

Verify Docker installation:

docker --version

Run NGINX in Docker

docker run -d --name nginx-test -p 80:80 nginx

• Runs NGINX in detached mode
• Exposes port 80 to the public

Check that the container is running:

docker ps

You should see a line similar to:

0.0.0.0:80->80/tcp

Verify Public Access

Open a web browser and navigate to:

http://<public-ip>

You should see the default NGINX welcome page:

Welcome to nginx!

This confirms that your EC2 instance is publicly accessible and serving content via Docker.