EC2 Instance
Overview
This service creates a single EC2 instance that includes server hardening, IAM role, EIP (optional), EBS Volume (optional), and CloudWatch metrics, logs, and alerts. Note that a single EC2 instance can be a single point of failure, so if you want to run multiple EC2 instances for high availability and scalability, see the asg-service.
Features
- Build an AMI to run on the EC2 instance
- Create EC2 instance for the host
- Allocate an optional Elastic IP Address (EIP) and an associated DNS record
- Create an IAM Role and IAM instance profile
- Create a security group to manage ingress and egress traffic on desired ports
- Harden the OS by installing
fail2ban,ntp,auto-update,ip-lockdown, and more - Send all logs and metrics to CloudWatch
- Configure alerts in CloudWatch for CPU, memory, and disk space usage
- Manage SSH access with IAM groups using
ssh-grunt - Create and mount optional EBS volumes
- Allow ingress traffic on desired ports
Learn
note
This repo is a part of the Gruntwork Service Catalog, a collection of reusable, battle-tested, production ready infrastructure code. If you’ve never used the Service Catalog before, make sure to read How to use the Gruntwork Service Catalog!
Core concepts
The EC2 Instance AMI
The EC2 Instance AMI is defined using the Packer template at ec2-instance.json.
This template configures the AMI to:
Run the ssh-grunt module so that developers can upload their public SSH keys to IAM and use those SSH keys, along with their IAM user names, toSSH to the EC2 instance.
Run the auto-update module so that the EC2 instance installs security updates automatically.
Optionally run the syslog module to automatically rotate and rate limit syslog so that the EC2 instance doesn’t run out of disk space from large volumes of logs.
Deploy
Non-production deployment (quick start for learning)
If you just want to try this repo out for experimenting and learning, check out the following resources:
- examples/for-learning-and-testing folder: The
examples/for-learning-and-testingfolder contains standalone sample code optimized for learning, experimenting, and testing (but not direct production usage).
Production deployment
If you want to deploy this repo in production, check out the following resources:
- examples/for-production folder: The
examples/for-productionfolder contains sample code optimized for direct usage in production. This is code from the Gruntwork Reference Architecture, and it shows you how we build an end-to-end, integrated tech stack on top of the Gruntwork Service Catalog, configure CI / CD for your apps and infrastructure.
Reference
- Inputs
- Outputs
Required
allow_port_from_cidr_blocksmap(object(…))Accept inbound traffic on these port ranges from the specified CIDR blocks
map(object({
from_port = number
to_port = number
protocol = string
cidr_blocks = list(string)
}))
allow_port_from_security_group_idsmap(object(…))Accept inbound traffic on these port ranges from the specified security groups
map(object({
from_port = number
to_port = number
protocol = string
source_security_group_id = string
}))
allow_ssh_from_cidr_blockslist(string)Accept inbound SSH from these CIDR blocks
allow_ssh_from_security_group_idslist(string)Accept inbound SSH from these security groups
amistringThe AMI to run on the EC2 instance. This should be built from the Packer template under ec2-instance.json. One of ami or ami_filters is required. Set to null if looking up the ami with filters.
ami_filtersobject(…)Properties on the AMI that can be used to lookup a prebuilt AMI for use with the EC2 instance. You can build the AMI using the Packer template ec2-instance.json. Only used if ami is null. One of ami or ami_filters is required. Set to null if passing the ami ID directly.
object({
# List of owners to limit the search. Set to null if you do not wish to limit the search by AMI owners.
owners = list(string)
# Name/Value pairs to filter the AMI off of. There are several valid keys, for a full reference, check out the
# documentation for describe-images in the AWS CLI reference
# (https://docs.aws.amazon.com/cli/latest/reference/ec2/describe-images.html).
filters = list(object({
name = string
values = list(string)
}))
})
Specify whether we're selecting a private or public Route 53 DNS Zone
ebs_volumesanyThe EBS volumes to attach to the instance. This must be a map of key/value pairs.
Any types represent complex values of variable type. For details, please consult `variables.tf` in the source repo.
instance_typestringThe type of instance to run for the EC2 instance
namestringThe name of the EC2 instance and the other resources created by these templates
The domain name to use to look up the Route 53 hosted zone. Will be a subset of fully_qualified_domain_name: e.g., my-company.com. Only one of route53_lookup_domain_name or route53_zone_id should be used.
route53_zone_idstringThe ID of the hosted zone to use. Allows specifying the hosted zone directly instead of looking it up via domain name. Only one of route53_lookup_domain_name or route53_zone_id should be used.
subnet_idstringThe ID of the subnet in which to deploy the EC2 instance. Must be a subnet in vpc_id.
vpc_idstringThe ID of the VPC in which to deploy the EC2 instance.
Optional
additional_security_group_idslist(string)A list of optional additional security group ids to assign to the EC2 instance.
[]alarms_sns_topic_arnlist(string)The ARNs of SNS topics where CloudWatch alarms (e.g., for CPU, memory, and disk space usage) should send notifications.
[]attach_eipboolDetermines if an Elastic IP (EIP) will be created for this instance.
truebase_domain_name_tagsmap(string)Tags to use to filter the Route 53 Hosted Zones that might match the hosted zone's name (use if you have multiple public hosted zones with the same name)
{}cloud_init_partsmap(object(…))Cloud init scripts to run on the EC2 instance while it boots. See the part blocks in https://www.terraform.io/docs/providers/template/d/cloudinit_config.html for syntax.
map(object({
filename = string
content_type = string
content = string
}))
{}The ID (ARN, alias ARN, AWS ID) of a customer managed KMS Key to use for encrypting log data.
nullThe number of days to retain log events in the log group. Refer to https://registry.terraform.io/providers/hashicorp/aws/latest/docs/resources/cloudwatch_log_group#retention_in_days for all the valid values. When null, the log events are retained forever.
nullcloudwatch_log_group_tagsmap(string)Tags to apply on the CloudWatch Log Group, encoded as a map where the keys are tag keys and values are tag values.
nullSet to true to create a DNS record in Route53 pointing to the EC2 instance. If true, be sure to set fully_qualified_domain_name.
truedefault_userstringThe default OS user for the EC2 instance AMI. For AWS Ubuntu AMIs, which is what the Packer template in ec2-instance.json uses, the default OS user is 'ubuntu'.
"ubuntu"dns_ttlnumberDNS Time To Live in seconds.
300ebs_optimizedboolIf true, the launched EC2 Instance will be EBS-optimized.
trueSet to true to enable several basic CloudWatch alarms around CPU usage, memory usage, and disk space usage. If set to true, make sure to specify SNS topics to send notifications to using alarms_sns_topic_arn.
trueSet to true to send logs to CloudWatch. This is useful in combination with https://github.com/gruntwork-io/terraform-aws-monitoring/tree/master/modules/logs/cloudwatch-log-aggregation-scripts to do log aggregation in CloudWatch.
trueSet to true to add IAM permissions to send custom metrics to CloudWatch. This is useful in combination with https://github.com/gruntwork-io/terraform-aws-monitoring/tree/master/modules/metrics/cloudwatch-memory-disk-metrics-scripts to get memory and disk metrics in CloudWatch for your EC2 instance.
trueenable_fail2banboolEnable fail2ban to block brute force log in attempts. Defaults to true.
trueEnable ip-lockdown to block access to the instance metadata. Defaults to true.
trueenable_ssh_gruntboolSet to true to add IAM permissions for ssh-grunt (https://github.com/gruntwork-io/terraform-aws-security/tree/master/modules/ssh-grunt), which will allow you to manage SSH access via IAM groups.
trueIf you are using ssh-grunt and your IAM users / groups are defined in a separate AWS account, you can use this variable to specify the ARN of an IAM role that ssh-grunt can assume to retrieve IAM group and public SSH key info from that account. To omit this variable, set it to an empty string (do NOT use null, or Terraform will complain).
""The apex domain of the hostname for the EC2 instance (e.g., example.com). The complete hostname for the EC2 instance will be name.fully_qualified_domain_name (e.g., bastion.example.com). Only used if create_dns_record is true.
""keypair_namestringThe name of a Key Pair that can be used to SSH to this instance. This instance may have ssh-grunt installed. The preferred way to do SSH access is with your own IAM user name and SSH key. This Key Pair is only as a fallback.
nullIf set to true, the root volume will be deleted when the Instance is terminated.
trueroot_volume_sizenumberThe size of the root volume, in gigabytes.
8root_volume_typestringThe root volume type. Must be one of: standard, gp2, io1.
"standard"When true, precreate the CloudWatch Log Group to use for log aggregation from the EC2 instances. This is useful if you wish to customize the CloudWatch Log Group with various settings such as retention periods and KMS encryption. When false, the CloudWatch agent will automatically create a basic log group to use.
truessh_grunt_iam_groupstringIf you are using ssh-grunt, this is the name of the IAM group from which users will be allowed to SSH to this EC2 instance. To omit this variable, set it to an empty string (do NOT use null, or Terraform will complain).
""ssh_grunt_iam_group_sudostringIf you are using ssh-grunt, this is the name of the IAM group from which users will be allowed to SSH to this EC2 instance. To omit this variable, set it to an empty string (do NOT use null, or Terraform will complain).
""tagsmap(string)A map of tags to apply to the EC2 instance and the S3 Buckets. The key is the tag name and the value is the tag value.
{}tenancystringThe tenancy of this instance. Must be one of: default, dedicated, or host.
"default"When true, all IAM policies will be managed as dedicated policies rather than inline policies attached to the IAM roles. Dedicated managed policies are friendlier to automated policy checkers, which may scan a single resource for findings. As such, it is important to avoid inline policies when targeting compliance with various security standards.
trueThe fully qualified name of the EC2 server.
The ARN of the EC2 server's IAM role.
The ID of the EC2 server's IAM role.
The name of the EC2 server's IAM role.
The EC2 instance ID of the EC2 server.
The private IP address of the EC2 server.
The public IP address of the EC2 server.
The ID of the EC2 servers's security group.
Info about the created EBS volumes.
The input parameters for the EBS volumes.