Beanstalk deployment speed up : AMI & user data

#aws

1 — Elastic Beanstalk and EC2

Elastic Beanstalk is a Platform-as-a-Service (PaaS) that automates the deployment of your application.
When you deploy, EB creates and manages EC2 instances for you. You normally don’t have to manually manage those EC2 instances — EB handles scaling, health monitoring, updates, etc.

But:

You can access those instances directly via SSH if you enable it.
You can customize instances by modifying configuration files or using .ebextensions, etc.
You should avoid making manual changes that you want to persist, because EB might replace the instance.

2 — Why you might need EC2 access here

Elastic Beanstalk launches instances and runs the installation/configuration during provisioning.
If installation takes a long time, you can use Amazon Machine Images (AMIs) to skip the installation step.

That’s where EC2 access comes in:

You launch an instance.
Install all the dependencies and dynamic/static files manually.
Create a custom AMI from that instance.
Configure Elastic Beanstalk to use this custom AMI for its instances.

This means when EB launches a new instance, it starts from your prebuilt AMI, and provisioning time is dramatically reduced.

3 — How to do this safely

Elastic Beanstalk instances are ephemeral — EB can terminate them for scaling or deployment.
That’s why you don’t manually log in to production instances for permanent changes — instead, you create a custom AMI or use EB configuration files to bake changes in.

Two common approaches:

Custom AMI & user data of EC2

Access EC2 instances.
Install everything.
Create an AMI.
Configure EB to use that AMI.
Result: New instances start ready to run.

Configuration Scripts

Use .ebextensions or EB configuration to install dependencies and files during deployment.
But this may still take time if installation is long.

4 — Why EB normally hides EC2 management

Elastic Beanstalk abstracts EC2 management to make deployments simpler — you focus on code, not infrastructure.
That’s why direct EC2 access feels “restricted” — it’s intentionally discouraged for normal workflow, but possible and sometimes necessary (like creating a custom AMI).

✅ Key takeaway:
You can access and manage Elastic Beanstalk EC2 instances (via SSH), but changes won’t persist unless baked into a custom AMI or configuration. For your use case, the solution is to create a custom AMI so EB launches new instances in under 2 minutes.