Launch a Linux or Windows server on AWS

🛠️ Time for Hands-On! 🛠️

After a quick theoretical introduction to cloud computing, it's time to dive into practical, hands-on AWS concepts! ☁️💻

In today’s post, we’ll start with something simple yet fundamental: ✅ How to launch a Linux and Windows server on AWS ✅ How to access them securely

This is the first step toward understanding infrastructure setup on the cloud — great for beginners and a solid refresher for others!

1. Login to AWS Console.
2. Search for EC2 in search bar of AWS console.
3. Under the Instances section, click on "Launch Instance".
4. Give your instance a name (e.g., Linux-test-instance)/ (e.g., window-test-instance)
5. Choose an Amazon Machine Image (AMI) i. If launching Linux server : Amazon Linux 2023 (For demo purpose) ii. If launching Windows server : Windows Server 2019 Base (For demo purpose)
6. Choose Instance Type
7. Create a Key Pair (We will be using this at the time of server Login, keep it safe) click “Create new key pair”, download the .pem file and save it securely.
8. Keep the networking configuration as it for the time being will deep dive in this in future.
9. Create a security group (e.g., Linux-test-sg)/ (e.g., window-test-sg) i. For Linux server: Make sure port 22 is open to your IP(For security) or anywhere (0.0.0.0/0) ii. For Windows server: Make sure RDP (port 3389) is open to your IP or anywhere (0.0.0.0/0)
10. Storage- Root volume i. For Linux server: Default is usually 8 GB — you can increase if needed. ii. For Windows server: Default disk size is ~30 GB for Windows; adjust as needed.
11. Launch instance.

Login to Linux server:

1. Download the putty tool.https://www.putty.org/
2. Putty gen also get automatically downloaded with putty
3. Convert .pem file to .ppk file using putty gen
4. Open putty, under "Host Name" give "Public Ip" of server
5. Expand “SSH” → “Auth” Click Browse and select .ppk file (the private key).
6. Click “Open”
7. User: ec2-user (Enter)

Login to Window server:

1. Go to the EC2 Dashboard → Click on Instances
2. Select your Windows instance
3. Click on the "Connect" button at the top
4. Choose "RDP Client" tab
5. Click on "Get Password" 🔑 Copy the decrypted Administrator password shown.
6. Press Win + R, type mstsc, and press Enter
7. In the Computer field, enter your instance’s Public IPv4 address
8. Click Connect
9. Username: Administrator
10. Password: Paste the decrypted password from earlier
11. Accept the certificate warning (click Yes)

Stay tuned for step-by-step guidance, screenshots, and tips. 🔐💡 Let’s build confidence with the basics and scale up together! 🚀

#AWS #EC2 #Linux #Windows #HandsOnCloud #CloudComputing #TechLearning #CareerGrowth