Amazon Lightsail is a virtual server that's cost-effective, fast, & reliable with an easy-to-use interface ideal for developers, businesses, students, or users who need a simple Virtual Private Server (VPS) solution for a lab or production site.
Lightsail gives you access to the power of AWS, with the simplicity of a VPS. You choose a configuration from a menu and launch a virtual machine (an instance) pre-configured with SSD-based storage, DNS management and a static IP address utilising either Linux or Windows.
This guide is for implementing Joomla on Linux, a free tier is available for month (Up to 750 hours).
Lightsail pricing (Correct as of April 2020)
Included in all Lightsail plans:
Static IP address
DNS management
Server monitoring
SSH terminal access (Linux/Unix)
Intuitive management console
RDP access (Windows)
Secure key management
Building the Joomla lightsail instance
- Search for Lightsail in the AWS Console
- Select Create Instance
- Select the AWS Region and Availability Zone or leave defaults
- Select the Joomla blueprint
- Download the keypair for use later on
- Choose an instance plan
- Name your instance
Once your options have been chosen, select Create to start the instance creation. A linux build should take around 10 seconds, once the instance has been created the status will change from Pending to Running as below.
Once the instance is up and running, firewall adjustments, load balancing, additional storage, snapshot backups and metrics can all be obtained within the menu.
To obtain the Joomla password you need to connect to the instance via SSH either via the browser or via a client such as PuTTY using the public ip address shown with private key downloaded earlier or download from the account page with bitnami as the username.
Once connected you can obtain the Joomla password via the following command;
cat /home/bitnami/bitnami_application_password
Using this password, the username user and the static public ip address shown on your instance page you can now login to your Joomla administrator section.
https://<public ip address>/administrator/
Once logged in, ensure Joomla is updated to the latest, security hardened etc.
When your no longer require the instance, the instance can simply be deleted by selecting delete in the menu.
