Deploying a Spring Boot App on AWS EC2 with RDS (No Terraform, No CLI Just AWS Console)

#aws #cloud #devops #beginners

Most tutorials jump straight into Terraform, AWS CLI, or Boto3 automation. That’s great for advanced workflows but what if you’re just starting out and want to see how AWS actually works?

In this guide, I’ll show you how we deployed a Spring Boot Java application on AWS, step by step, using only the AWS Console (GUI).
No automation, no shortcuts just a clean walkthrough so you truly understand the moving parts.

We’ll also attach the GitHub repo at the end that contains the application source code.

🔹 Architecture Overview

Here’s what we’ll build:

VPC → custom networking environment for our app
Subnets → public subnet for EC2 (app), private subnet for RDS (database)
Internet Gateway + Route Table → so EC2 can be accessed from the internet
Security Groups → fine-grained access control
EC2 (Ubuntu) → to run our Java JAR
RDS (MySQL) → managed database
Application → Spring Boot JAR deployed on EC2

🔹 Step 1: Networking Setup (VPC & Subnets)

Open VPC Console → Create a new VPC.

Name: app-vpc
CIDR: 10.0.0.0/16

Create two subnets:

public-subnet → 10.0.1.0/24 (for EC2)
private-subnet → 10.0.2.0/24 (for RDS)

Create an Internet Gateway and attach it to the VPC.
Create a Route Table for the public subnet:

Add route: 0.0.0.0/0 → Internet Gateway

Associate this route table with the public subnet.

✅ Now, EC2 in the public subnet can be reached from outside.
✅ RDS in the private subnet will stay isolated (secure).

🔹 Step 2: Security Groups

We created two security groups:

EC2-SG
- Inbound: Allow SSH (22) from your IP
- Inbound: Allow HTTP (8080) from anywhere
- Outbound: Allow all
RDS-SG
- Inbound: Allow MySQL (3306) only from EC2-SG
- Outbound: Allow all

✅ This ensures only the app server can talk to the database.

🔹 Step 3: RDS Setup (MySQL)

Open RDS Console → Create Database.

Engine: MySQL
Version: Choose latest stable
Deployment: Single AZ (for demo)
Instance: db.t3.micro (free-tier eligible)
DB Name: appdb
Master User: admin
Password: (set & note it down)

Place RDS in the private subnet group.
Attach RDS-SG security group.

✅ Database is now ready but only accessible from EC2.

🔹 Step 4: EC2 Setup (Ubuntu + Java)

Open EC2 Console → Launch Instance.

Name: app-server
OS: Ubuntu 22.04
Type: t2.micro
Network: Choose public-subnet
Security Group: EC2-SG
Key Pair: Create & download .pem file

Once launched, connect via SSH:

ssh -i your-key.pem ubuntu@<EC2-Public-IP>

Install Java:

sudo apt update
sudo apt install openjdk-17-jdk -y

Copy your JAR file to the server:

scp -i your-key.pem encryption-app-1.0.0.jar ubuntu@<EC2-Public-IP>:/home/ubuntu/

Run the app with RDS config:

nohup java -jar encryption-app-1.0.0.jar \
 --server.address=0.0.0.0 --server.port=8080 > app.log 2>&1 &

✅ Your Java app is now running on port 8080.

🔹 Step 5: Application Properties (Database Connection)

Inside your Spring Boot application.properties, configure the RDS DB:

spring.datasource.url=jdbc:mysql://<RDS-ENDPOINT>:3306/appdb
spring.datasource.username=admin
spring.datasource.password=your-password
spring.jpa.hibernate.ddl-auto=update