AWS Elastic Compute Cloud (EC2) Labs (LocalStack Pro)

This repository contains hands-on labs demonstrating core Amazon EC2 concepts, from foundational networking and instance provisioning to high availability and automated scaling. Using LocalStack Pro, we simulate a complete AWS compute environment locally.

🎯 Architecture Goals & Use Cases Covered

Based on AWS best practices (SAA-C03), these labs cover:

• Network Foundation: Provisioning custom VPCs, public/private subnets, and internet gateways.
• EC2 Provisioning: Launching On-Demand instances with optimized AMI selection.
• Security & Access: Implementing stateful Security Groups and instance-level bootstrapping via User Data.
• High Availability: Designing for fault tolerance using Multi-AZ deployments.
• Scaling & Load Balancing: Exploring Launch Templates, Auto Scaling Groups, and Elastic Load Balancers.
• Cost Optimization: Leveraging Spot Instances and Savings Plans logic.

⚙️ Prerequisites

• Docker & Docker Compose
• LocalStack Pro account and Auth Token
• awslocal CLI (a wrapper around the AWS CLI for LocalStack)

🚀 Environment Setup

1. Configure your LocalStack Auth Token in .env:

   echo "YOUR_TOKEN=your_auth_token_here" > .env

2. Start LocalStack Pro:

   docker-compose up -d

Important

Cumulative Architecture: These labs are designed as a cumulative scenario. You are building an evolving infrastructure.

Session Persistence: These labs rely on bash variables (like $VPC_ID, $SG_ID, $AMI_ID, etc.). Run all commands in the same terminal session to maintain context.

📚 Labs Index

1. Lab 1: Network Foundation & EC2 Provisioning
2. Lab 2: Layer 7 Application Load Balancer (ALB)
3. Lab 3: EC2 Auto Scaling (Launch Templates & ASG)
4. Lab 4: Auto Scaling Policies (Target Tracking)
5. Lab 5: Cost Optimization (Spot Instances)

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💡 Pro Tip: Using aws instead of awslocal

If you prefer using the standard aws CLI without the awslocal wrapper or repeating the --endpoint-url flag, you can configure a dedicated profile in your AWS config files.

1. Configure your Profile

Add the following to your ~/.aws/config file:

[profile localstack]
region = us-east-1
output = json
# This line redirects all commands for this profile to LocalStack
endpoint_url = http://localhost:4566

Add matching dummy credentials to your ~/.aws/credentials file:

[localstack]
aws_access_key_id = test
aws_secret_access_key = test

2. Use it in your Terminal

You can now run commands in two ways:

Option A: Pass the profile flag

aws iam create-user --user-name DevUser --profile localstack

Option B: Set an environment variable (Recommended) Set your profile once in your session, and all subsequent aws commands will automatically target LocalStack:

export AWS_PROFILE=localstack
aws iam create-user --user-name DevUser

Why this works

• Precedence: The AWS CLI (v2) supports a global endpoint_url setting within a profile. When this is set, the CLI automatically redirects all API calls for that profile to your local container instead of the real AWS cloud.
• Convenience: This allows you to use the standard documentation commands exactly as written, which is helpful if you are copy-pasting examples from AWS labs or tutorials.