AWS basics: Linux in the cloud
Everything you've learned so far ran on a server in front of you. In the cloud, the server is somewhere else, and you ask for it with an API call. This path teaches the core of Amazon Web Services from the command line: accounts and permissions, networks, servers, storage, load balancers, auto scaling, DNS and monitoring. It ends with the lesson every cloud learner needs: finding what's costing money and cleaning it all up.
Is this path for you?
You're ready if these sound familiar (each links to the lesson that teaches it):
- Moving around, files and permissions (Linux Basics, lesson 8, Linux Basics, lesson 10)
- Installing packages and running services on both families (Linux Basics, lesson 11, Linux Basics, lesson 14)
- IP addresses, routes, DNS and firewalls (Linux Sysadmin, lesson 1, Linux Sysadmin, lesson 2)
- SSH keys (Linux Basics, lesson 3)
- Shell variables and
$( )(Linux Sysadmin, lesson 13)
Networking matters most. A VPC is the same routes, subnets and firewalls you already know, built with commands instead of cables.
What's ahead
| Lesson | You'll learn to… | The challenge |
|---|---|---|
| Foundations | ||
| lesson 1: the cloud & AWS | understand regions and AZs, install AWS CLI v2, and sign in | A bare server: install the CLI and connect it to the account |
| lesson 2: IAM | create users, groups and policies, and use profiles | A read-only helper who can write notes and nothing else |
| lesson 3: VPC | build a network: subnets, gateway, routes, security groups | An empty account. Build the network from a diagram |
| Servers & storage | ||
| lesson 4: EC2 | launch a server with user data, curl it and ssh in | Your first cloud web server, from launch to terminate |
| lesson 5: S3 | store files, host a static site, share with presigned URLs | Publish a website safely, and share one secret file |
| Scale & names | ||
| lesson 6: load balancers | put a load balancer in front of servers in two AZs | An unhappy load balancer: find out why and fix it properly |
| lesson 7: Auto Scaling | let AWS replace broken servers and add more under load | Kill a server, then send a crowd, and watch it heal and grow |
| lesson 8: Route 53 | host a domain, create records and aliases, check with dig | Give the site a real name |
| Run it well | ||
| lesson 9: CloudWatch | read metrics, send alarm emails, guard the bill | Make a server sweat and get the email |
| lesson 10: costs & clean-up | find what costs money across every region, and delete it in the right order | A month of forgotten experiments. Get the bill to zero |
How this path is different
- A pretend AWS account. The practice terminals talk to a simulated AWS that answers like the real one: the same commands, JSON, errors and delays. You can't break anything, and nothing costs money.
- Command line first. The web console is nice for looking around, but the CLI is what you can script, repeat and put in a pipeline. It also shows exactly which API call does what.
- Both families still. Your own computer is Rocky or Ubuntu, and so are your cloud servers: Amazon Linux (the RHEL family, with
dnf) or Ubuntu (withapt). - Money is part of the lesson. Each lesson says what things cost, and the path ends by cleaning up.
Get a grown-up's OK first: a real account needs a payment card. Then, before building anything: turn on MFA for the root user, create a budget alert, and don't use the root user for daily work. Everything in these lessons works the same way on a real account, and so does the bill.
The cloud rewards people who clean up after themselves. Tag what you create, write down what you started, and delete experiments the same day. A forgotten test server costs almost nothing on day one, but it adds up after a few months.