Retrieving metadata from a EC2 bootstrapped instance

.gitignore

 ________  ________  ___  __    ___     
|\_____  \|\   __  \|\  \|\  \ |\  \    
 \|___/  /\ \  \|\  \ \  \/  /|\ \  \   
     /  / /\ \   __  \ \   ___  \ \  \  
    /  /_/__\ \  \ \  \ \  \\ \  \ \  \ 
   |\________\ \__\ \__\ \__\\ \__\ \__\
    \|_______|\|__|\|__|\|__| \|__|\|__|
                                                                 
                                        

Other cloud platforms such as GCP, Azure.

README.md

Retrieving metadata from a EC2 bootstrapped instance - Hands-on

I'm currently preparing AWS Certified Solution Architect - Associate certificate.
In the following gist you'll learn how to automate the deployment of an EC2 instance on AWS and retrieve the instance metadata. The hand-on will consist on a simple web server deployment using Amazon Elastic Compute Cloud and you'll learn how to access its metadata from the AWSCLI.
I performed this setup on my Ubuntu 18.04.2 LTS.
To check your OS version, execute $ lsb_release -a in your Terminal.

Installations

None. Just log into your AWS management console, https://console.aws.amazon.com.
You'll need to perform several tasks in your CLI regarding SSH keygen, so make sure you check the following prerequisites.

Prerequisites

First, make sure Oracle jdk is installed. I recommend java 1.8.0
To uninstall effectively your current jdk, perform this:
$ sudo apt-get remove openjdk*
$ sudo apt-get remove --auto-remove openjdk*
$ sudo apt-get purge openjdk*
$ sudo apt-get purge --auto-remove openjdk*

To install java 1.8.0, open Terminal Ctrl+Alt+T and run the command:
$ sudo add-apt-repository ppa:webupd8team/java // adds PPA repository
$ sudo apt-get update // updates package list
$ sudo apt-get install openjdk-8-jdk // installs openjdk


$ javac -version // shows your new java version

Author

• Isaac Arnault - AWS Cloud series - Related tags: #EC2 #Metadata #AWSCLI #Linux

metadata.md

Part 1 : log into your AWS Management Console

• Log into your AWS management console using $ https://console.aws.amazon.com.
  

I'm using MFA to secure my root account access coupled with Google Authenticator on my Android smartphone.

You can bypass this step and login normally.

🔴 See output

Part 2 : create an EC2 instance

Services > EC2

• In "Create Instance" section, click on "Launch Instance"
  

🔴 See output

• Select Amazon Linux 2 AMI (HVM), SSD Volume Type
  

• Instance type: choose t2.micro (Free tier eligible). Instance comes with 1vCPU and 1 GiB (memory).
  

Next: Configure instance details

• Leave all fields as they're by default, just Enable termination protection.
  

• Important : click on Advanced Details (here we'll provide out bootstrapped script).
  

Ues the following Script

🔵 See script

#!/bin/bash
yum update -y
yum install httpd -y
service httpd start
chkconfig httpd on
cd /var/www/html
echo "This is a web server from an EC2 bootstraped instance!" > index.html
aws s3 mb s3://yourbucketname
aws s3 cp index.html s3://yourbucketname

Please note that the last line of the script will push all files related to your web server in a s3 bucket.

🔴 See output

Next : Add Storage

• Leave default configuration then click on Next: Add Tags. You can leave tags blanks, here I'm using some tags for my own needs.
  

🔴 See output

Next : Configure Security Group

• Create a new security group > Security group name: dev-master > Description : Security Group Master > Add Rule : add HTTP ptorotocole to allow listening on Port 80 > Review and launch > Launch > Create New Key Pair > Key Pair Name : EC2KP > Download Key Pair (EC2KP.pem should appear in your Downloads).

🔴 See output

Launch Instances > View Instances

• Rename your instance to "EC2 Bootstrapped Instance - Web Server".
  

🔴 See output

• At this point of the tutorial, you should have one running EC2 instance. You can check if it was deployed correctly.
  

Just use the IPv4 public address provided by your EC2 instance in your web browser.

🔴 See output

---

Part 3 : use your Command Line Interface to connect to your EC2 instance

$ cd Desktop > $ mkdir SSH

$ cd Downloads > $ sudo mv /home/zaki/Downloads/EC2KP.pem /home/zaki/Desktop>SSH

• Go to your SSH directory and check that the file persists there : $ cd Desktop/SSH > ls
  

• Change the permissions to .pem file, ie: $ chmod 400 EC2KP.pem.
  

🔴 See output

Connect to your EC2 instance using your CLI

Use : $ ssh ec2-user@your-ipv4-public-address -i EC2KP.pem.

Type "yes" when prompted by the CLI

🔴 See output

• Go in root mode : $ sudo su and use $ aws s3 ls. The last command should return "Unable to locate credentials. You can configure credentials by running "aws configure".
  

To use your provided credentials use : $ aws configure

Remember that you wrote down your Access Key ID and Secret access key when creating your EC2 Instance. Use the provided credentials (go to your Downloads and check for the credentials.csv file).

• Provide Access Key ID > AWS Secret Access Key > Default region name (use the Availability Zone of your EC2 instance, ie : us-east-1) > default output format : you can use "text" or "json". In this tutorial i'm using "json".
  

$ aws s3 ls displays my available buckets. If your buckets do not show up, go to Users > Security credentials > Create a new access key or create a new EC2 instance and restart the procedure in your CLI.

$ aws s3 ls - Outputs that I have 2 available buckets.

🔴 See output

Part 4 : retrieve metadata of your EC2 bootstrapped instance

$ curl http://169.254.169.254/latest/user-data - This should render the script you've provided for bootstraping the EC2 instance.

🔴 See output

At this point of the tutorial you may want to save the script in a .txt file on your s3 bucket.

$ curl http://169.254.169.254/latest/user-data > bootstrap.txt

🔴 See output

To retrieve metadata related to your EC2 instance, use the following command :

$ curl http://169.254.169.254/latest/meta-data/

🔴 See output

You can curl specific resource of your metadata :

$ curl http://169.254.169.254/latest/meta-data/public-ipv4 - Returns your IPv4 public address for instance.

🔴 See output

You may also want to save this metadata into a .txt file :

$ curl http://169.254.169.254/latest/meta-data/public-ipv4 > myipv4.txt

🔴 See output

---

That's all for now guys. Feel free to fork it and to spread a word about it. Thanks.