🧪 Lab x1: Deploy & Destroy EC2 Instance Using AWS CLI

Course: CompTIA Cloud+ CV0-004
Objective: Learn how to use the AWS CLI to deploy and terminate an EC2 instance from the command line.

🎯 Goals

⚙️ Configure AWS CLI

  1. Open your terminal. Run: bash aws configure

  2. Enter your AWS credentials:

  3. AWS Access Key ID
  4. AWS Secret Access Key
  5. Default region (e.g., us-east-1)
  6. Default output format: json

✅ Checkpoint: Run the following to verify connectivity:

aws ec2 describe-instances

🚀 Launch EC2 Instance via CLI

  1. Create a key pair: bash aws ec2 create-key-pair --key-name cli-key --query 'KeyMaterial' --output text > cli-key.pem chmod 400 cli-key.pem

  2. Find the latest Amazon Linux 2023 AMI: bash aws ssm get-parameters --names /aws/service/ami-amazon-linux-latest/al2023-ami-kernel-6.1-x86_64 --region us-east-1

Use the value under Value from the output as the AMI ID.

  1. Create a security group: bash aws ec2 create-security-group --group-name cli-sg --description "CLI SG"

  2. Allow SSH access: bash aws ec2 authorize-security-group-ingress \ --group-name cli-sg \ --protocol tcp \ --port 22 \ --cidr 0.0.0.0/0

  3. Launch the EC2 instance: bash aws ec2 run-instances \ --image-id <AMI-ID> \ --count 1 \ --instance-type t2.micro \ --key-name cli-key \ --security-groups cli-sg

🔍 Note: Replace <AMI-ID> with the actual value from step 2.

✅ Checkpoint: Use the following to get the public IP:

aws ec2 describe-instances --query "Reservations[*].Instances[*].PublicIpAddress" --output text

🔌 Connect to EC2 Instance

ssh -i "cli-key.pem" ec2-user@<public-ip>

✅ Checkpoint: You should now be connected to the EC2 instance.

💣 Terminate the EC2 Instance

  1. Get the Instance ID: bash aws ec2 describe-instances --query "Reservations[*].Instances[*].InstanceId" --output text

  2. Terminate the instance: bash aws ec2 terminate-instances --instance-ids <INSTANCE-ID>

  3. Confirm it's terminated: bash aws ec2 describe-instances --instance-ids <INSTANCE-ID> --query "Reservations[*].Instances[*].State.Name"

✅ Checkpoint: Output should say terminated.

✅ Lab Complete

You successfully deployed and terminated an EC2 instance using only the AWS CLI.