✅ Day 4 of My Cloud Journey ☁ – EC2 + Linux + IPs + Ports & Protocols

Welcome to Day 4 of my #30DaysOfCloud series!

Today was packed with hands-on learning. I explored Amazon EC2, Linux basics, and got a clearer understanding of IP addressing, ports, and protocols in the cloud.

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🔹 What is EC2?

Amazon EC2 (Elastic Compute Cloud) offers scalable virtual servers in the AWS cloud.
You can run applications without managing physical infrastructure.

🧩 Choose from a variety of instance types based on workloads:

• General Purpose

• Compute Optimized

• Memory Optimized

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🛠️ How I Launched My First EC2 Instance

Steps via AWS Console:

1. Go to EC2 → Launch Instance

2. Choose Amazon Linux 2023

3. Select t2.micro (Free Tier eligible)

4. Create/select a key pair

5. Configure networking with a Public IP

✅ After launch, connect via SSH:

ssh -i "key.pem" ec2-user@<Public-IP>

🐧 What is Linux?

Linux is a powerful, open-source operating system that powers most of the cloud. It's lightweight, secure, and ideal for server environments.

🔍 Why Linux Matters in the Cloud

• Lightweight and resource-efficient

• CLI-based control over servers

• Powers services like EC2, Lambda, Docker

• Essential for DevOps, automation, and scripting

👉 Most EC2 instances use Amazon Linux, optimized for security and cloud performance.

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🌐 Understanding IPs in Cloud Networking

• Private IP → Internal communication within a VPC

• Public IP → Accessible over the internet (e.g., SSH, web apps)

You typically need a public IP to connect to an EC2 instance from your local machine.

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🔹 Key Ports & Protocols

Common Ports:

• 22 → SSH (Secure Shell access to Linux servers)

• 80 → HTTP (Web traffic)

• 443 → HTTPS (Secure web traffic)

Common Protocols:

• TCP → Reliable, connection-oriented

• UDP → Fast, connectionless (used for streaming, DNS, etc.)

• HTTP/HTTPS → Web protocols built on top of TCP

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💡 Final Thoughts

This day laid the groundwork for working with real cloud infrastructure.
From launching EC2 to understanding how Linux, IPs, and ports work — these are essential skills for any cloud engineer.

📅 Up Next (Day 5):
I'll explore Security Groups, Inbound/Outbound Rules, and basic EC2 security best practices.

Let’s keep learning and building 🚀
Feel free to follow or comment if you're on this journey too!