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Abiodun Eniola
Abiodun Eniola

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How to create a Linux Virtual Machine with Amazon Lightsail

AWS LightSail is a platform as a service (PaaS) that provides a simple web user interface to manage the servers and basic configuration around it.

It offers virtual servers, storage, databases, and networking, plus a cost-effective monthly plan. It’s designed to help you start small, and then scale as you grow.

In this Project, we will create an Amazon Linux instance in Amazon Lightsail. After the instance is up and running, we will connect to it via SSH within the Lightsail console using the browser-based SSH terminal.

Step 1

  • Login to the Amazon console and Launch Lightsail
  • Click on create instance

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Step 2

  • Select a Region
  • Select an Availability Zone

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Step 3

  • Select an **instance **platform
  • Choose the Linux/Unix platform option, and choose OS Only

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  • Select Add launch script to add a script that will run on your instance when it launches. (This is optional)

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Step 4

  • Select change SSH key pair to select, create, or upload the key pair you would like to use to SSH into your instance. For this project, we will tick the create new default key

Enable Automatic Snapshots - if you want to automatically create a backup of your instance image. (This is optional)

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Step 5

  • Select an instance plan
  • Select the $3.5 plan (It's within the free tier)

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Step 6

  • Name your instance
  • Leave the tag option as default
  • Select create instance

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Step 7

Our instance has been created successfully, Now let's connect to our instance

  • Click the terminal icon, or the ellipsis (⋮) icon and click connect

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Yes! Our Linux instance is up and running
You can now run some basic Linux commands and other activities like hosting a web server on it.

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Make sure to delete the instance after running to avoid any charges.

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