How to Connect to Your New AWS Lightsail Linux Instance

Mark Hanna

Apr 30, 2023 • 1 min read

Step 1: Access your Lightsail Instance

To begin, you need to access your Servting account. Log in to your Servting account and navigate to the services dashboard. Here, you should see your instance listed.

Step 2: Download your SSH Key

You should have been provided with an SSH key pair. To access your instance, you'll need to download the private key file to your local machine.

On the Servting dashboard, click on the name of your instance to go to its management page. Here, you'll see a section called "Connect using SSH". Click the "Download" button next to "Default Key". This will download the private key file to your local machine.

Step 3: Set Permissions on your SSH Key

Before you can use your SSH key, you need to set the correct permissions on the private key file. Open a terminal or command prompt and navigate to the directory where you downloaded the key file. Then run the following command:

chmod 400 private_key_file.pem

Replace private_key_file.pem with the name of the private key file you downloaded.

Step 4: Connect to your Lightsail Instance

To connect to your Lightsail instance, open a terminal or command prompt and run the following command:

ssh -i /path/to/private_key_file.pem ubuntu@public_ip_address

Replace /path/to/private_key_file.pem with the full path to the private key file you downloaded, and public_ip_address with the public IP address of your instance. You can find the public IP address of your instance on the Lightsail dashboard.

You'll be prompted to confirm that you want to connect to the instance. Type "yes" and press Enter to continue. You should now be connected to your Lightsail instance.

Step 5: Configure your Instance

Now that you're connected to your Lightsail instance, you can configure it as needed. This might involve installing additional packages, setting up a web server, or configuring your firewall.

Step 6: Disconnect from your Instance

To disconnect from your Lightsail instance, simply type "exit" in your terminal or command prompt.

exit

That's it! You now know how to connect to an AWS Lightsail instance for the first time when it was automatically created and assuming you were provided with an SSH key. If you have any further questions, please let me know.