How to connect to the Amazon EC2 Windows Server site from a computer

Question

I have a problem understanding what I need to do to allow an instance of Amazon EC2 to allow connections from external computers. I selected an instance of Windows 2008 R2 and installed my ASP.NET application for it. I set up a new DB, configured IIS, and then uploaded the web application to the server by going through http: // localhost: 80

So, currently I can use RDC to connect to the EC2 server and upload my site here under the local host, but I want to be able to go to http: // (EC2 IP or DNS): 80 and connect to it from external computers.

I have no idea where to start, as this is the first time I've ever done a hosting like this myself. Do I need to configure anything on the Amazon EC2 dashboard? Or do I need to configure something else on the web server?

I have tried checking the public / private DNS and private IP provided by Amazon, but it seems to be disconnected or blocked, or something like that.

Can anyone make me point in the right direction at least?

Thanks for any help in advance!

Answer 1

There are two places you can check:

• Windows level, check if the firewall allows port 80 to listen for external traffic. Opening port 80 on Windows Server 2008 R2 or

• You need to check if your security group allows listening on port 80. Click on the Instances menu in the left pane of the EC2 console. Find the Security Group column for the instance that you want to check in Securty Group of.

  Then go to the Security Groups menu and see if port 80 open to the whole world (i.e. source 0.0.0.0/0 ). If there is no entry in the input for port 80 . Go ahead and Add Rule for port range 80 , Source 0.0.0.0/0 . See the image below, where my account has port 80 .

Answer 2

You need to add a security group that allows incoming connections. By default, EC2 instances do not allow incoming connections.

See this link:

http://docs.amazonwebservices.com/AWSEC2/latest/UserGuide/using-network-security.html