The Jump Box Web Server Set up

What is a Jump Box Web Server?

The Jump Box Web Server is the Web Server that is connected between the Private Database and the NAT Instance. It allows the Private Database to be able to be accessed from public via NAT Instance using Public Subnet and Internet Gateway (IGW). This secure the public access to the private database because the private database stays in the private subnet.

Steps by Steps

Setting up the NAT Instance

Create VPC with two subnets
- Create VPC using the console
  - Name Tag: Optionally provide a name of your VPC
  - IPv4 CIDR Block: Specify an IPv4 CIDR block for your VPC (ex., 10.0.0.0/16)
- Create two Subnets: one Public Subnet and one Private Subnet
  - Open Amazon VPC Console > Subnets > Create subnet
  - Name Tag: Optionally provide a name of your subnet
  - VPC: Choose the VPC that was created
  - Availability Zone: Optionally choose an Availability Zone that your subnet will reside
  - IPv4 CIDR Block: Specify an IPv4 CIDR block for your subnet, for example, 10.0.1.0/24 for Public Subnet and 10.0.2.0/24 for Private Subnet
- Attach an Internet Gateway to the VPC
  - Open Amazon VPC Console > Internet Gateways > Create internet gateway
  - Optionally name your Internet Gateway, then choose Create
  - Choose the Internet Gateway you just created, then choose Actions > Attach to VPC
  - Select your VPC from the list, then choose Attach
- Create a custome Route Table that sends traffic destined outside the VPC to the Internet Gateway, and then associate it with one subnet, making it a public subnet
  - Open Amazon VPC Console > Route Tables > Create Route Table
  - In the Create Route Table dialog box, optionally name your route table, then select your VPC, and then choose Yes, Create
  - Select the custom route table that you just created.
  - On the Routes tab, choose Edit, Add another route, and add the following routes as necessary. Choose Save when you're done.
    - For IPv4 traffic, specify 0.0.0.0/0 in the Destination box, and select the internet gateway ID in the Target list.
    - For IPv6 traffic, specify ::/0 in the Destination box, and select the internet gateway ID in the Target list.
  - On the Subnet Associations tab, choose Edit, select Associate check box for the subnet, then Save
Create NATSG Security Group. This will need to be specified when launching the NAT Instance.
- Define the NATSG Security Group in order to enable your NAT instance to receive Internet-bound traffic from instances in a private subnet, as well as SSH traffic from your network. The NAT Instance can also send traffic to the internet, which enables the instances in the private subnet to get software updates.

NATSG: Recommended Rules Inbound

Source	Protocol	Port Range	Comments
10.0.1.0/24	TCP	80	Allow inbound HTTP traffic from servers in the private subnet
10.0.1.0/24	TCP	443	Allow inbound HTTPS traffic from servers in the private subnet
Public IP address range of your home network	TCP	22	Allow inbound SSH access to the NAT instance from your home network (over the Internet gateway)

Outbound

Destination	Protocol	Port Range	Comments
0.0.0.0/0	TCP	80	Allow outbound HTTP access to the Internet
0.0.0.0/0	TCP	443	Allow outbound HTTPS access to the Internet

Open Amazon VPC Console > Security Groups > Create Security Group
In the Create Security Group dialog box, specify the NATSG as the name of the security group, and provide description. Select the ID of your VPC from the VPC list, then choose Create
Select the NATSG group that just created. The details pane displays the details for the security group, and tabs for inbound and outbound rules.
Add rules for inbound traffic via Inbound Rules tab as followed: a. Choose Edit. b. Choose Add another rule, select HTTP from the Type list. In the Source field, specify IP address range of your private subnet. c. Choose Add another rule, select HTTPS from the Type list. In the Source field, specify IP address range of your private subnet. d. Choose Add another rule, select SSH from the Type list. In the Source field, specify the public IP address range of your network. e. Choose Save.
Add rules for outbound traffic via Outbound Rules tab as followed: a. Choose Edit. b. Choose Add another rule, and select HTTP from the Type list. In the Destination field, specify 0.0.0.0/0 c. Choose Add another rule, and select HTTPS from the Type list. In the Destination field, specify 0.0.0.0/0 d. Choose Save.

Launch an instance into your public subnet from an AMI that is configured to run a NAT instance. a. Open Amazon E2 Console b. Launch Instance and do as followed:
- On Choose an Amazon Machine Image (AMI) page, select Community AMIs category and seach for amzn-ami-vpc-nat. Choose the latest edition > Select.
- On Configure Instance Details page, select the VPC created from Network list, and select your Public Subnet from Subnet list
- On Configure Security Group page, select the Select an existing security group option, and select the NATSG Security Group that you just created > Review and Launch
- Review the configure and Launch
Disable the SrcDestCheck attribute for the NAT instance
- Open Amazon E2 Console > Instances
- Select NAT Instance, choose Actions, Networking, Change Source/Dest. Check.
- For the NAT Instance, verify that this attribute is disabled. Otherwise, choose Yes, Disable.
If you forgot to assign the public IP address to your NAT Instance during launch (step 3), you need to associate an Elastic IP address with it
- Open Amazon VPC Console > Elastic IPs > Allocate new address
- Choose Allocate
- Select Elastic IP Address from the list > Actions, Associate address
- Select network interface resource, then select the network interface from the NAT Instance. Select the address to assiciate to the Elastic IP with from the Private IP list > choose Associate
Update the main route table to send traffic to the NAT Instance
- Open Amazon VPC Console > Route Tables
- Select the main route table, the one that lable Main is Yes. The details pane displays tabs for routes, associations and route propagation.
- On the Routes tab > Edit, specify 0.0.0.0/0 in the Destination box, select the instance ID of the NAT instance from Target list > Save
- On the Subnet Association tab > Edit > Associate check box for the subnet > Save
Adding the rule in the Security Group to allow pinging between instances
- On Amazon VPC Console > Security Groups
- Select the Security Group that was created in the previous step
- On the Inbound Rules tab, add All ICMP - IPv4 with Source the VPC range that you created
Create a Jump Box Web Server instance
- Open Amazon EC2 Console > Launch Instance
- On the Configure Instance Details page, choose the created VPC, Public Subnet on the same VPC, and Enable for Auto-assign Public IP
- Add Tags, for example "Jump Box Web Server"
- On the Configure Security Group, choose existing security group that was created (NATSG_Shutima) > Review and Launch
Create a third instance for Private Database. Follow the steps from 7) but this time, need to specify as followed (same VPC, Public subnet, disable Auto-assign Public IP)
As soon as all the three instances are configured, you can connect to each instance as per following commands, make sure you go into the directory where the permission key *.pem is located. Normally, you should NOT be able to connect into the Private DB instance from your PC.
- Connet to NAT Instance
ssh -i "Shutima_A19_KeyPair.pem" ec2-user@18.207.153.244
- Connect to Jump Box Web Server
ssh -i "Shutima_A19_KeyPair.pem" ec2-user@34.207.220.24
- Connect to Private Database
ssh -i "Shutima_A19_KeyPair.pem" ec2-user@10.0.2.4
Test that the Jump Box Web Server works as followed: