When launching an EC2 instance, you can configure:
- Operating System: Linux, Windows, or macOS.
- Compute power & cores: Number of vCPUs.
- Memory: Amount of RAM.
- Storage:
- Network-attached: Amazon EBS or Amazon EFS.
- Instance Store: Physical disks attached to the host.
- Networking: Network card speed, public IP assignment.
- Firewall rules: Security Groups for inbound/outbound traffic control.
- Bootstrapping: EC2 User Data script for initial configuration.
EC2 – User Data
- Allows bootstrapping: running commands at the first instance launch.
- Executed only once, at the first start.
- Runs with root user privileges.
- Common uses:
- Install updates or software.
- Download configuration files.
- Execute custom setup scripts.