Frederick Atinkine Atasina

Project Overview

This project documents the end-to-end process of deploying a personal portfolio website on AWS EC2, configuring Nginx as a web server, connecting a custom domain name, and securing the site with HTTPS using Let’s Encrypt (Certbot).

The goal of this project is to demonstrate practical cloud, Linux, networking, and web server administration skills.

Step 1: Create an AWS EC2 Instance

1.1 Launch EC2

Logged into AWS Management Console
Navigate to EC2 → Launch Instance
Select Amazon Linux 2023 as the AMI
Choose instance type t2.micro

1.2 Key Pair & Network

Create an SSH key pair (.pem)
Set up Security Group to allow:
- HTTP (80) from anywhere
- HTTPS (443) from anywhere
- SSH (22) restricted to your IP address

1.3 Launch and Connect

ssh -i mykey.pem ec2-user@<public-ip>

Step 2: Update System and Install Nginx

sudo dnf update -y
sudo dnf install nginx -y
sudo systemctl start nginx
sudo systemctl enable nginx

Verify the default Nginx page by navigating to http://<EC2-Public-IP>.

Step 3: Buy a Domain Name

Purchased frederickatasina.com from a domain registrar and opted to manage DNS manually.

Step 4: Configure DNS Records

Created the following DNS A records:

Type	Host	Value	TTL
A	@	EC2 Public IPv4	Auto
A	www	EC2 Public IPv4	Auto

Wait for DNS propagation (5–30 minutes).

Step 5: Create Website Files

sudo mkdir -p /var/www/frederickatasina.com/html
sudo chown -R ec2-user:ec2-user /var/www/frederickatasina.com
nano /var/www/frederickatasina.com/html/index.html

Step 6: Configure Nginx Server Block

sudo nano /etc/nginx/conf.d/frederickatasina.com.conf

Add the following configuration:

server {
    listen 80;
    listen [::]:80;

    server_name frederickatasina.com www.frederickatasina.com;

    root /var/www/frederickatasina.com/html;
    index index.html;

    location / {
        try_files $uri $uri/ =404;
    }
}

sudo nginx -t
sudo systemctl reload nginx

Step 7: Install Certbot (Let’s Encrypt)

sudo dnf install certbot python3-certbot-nginx -y

Step 8: Obtain and Install SSL Certificate

sudo certbot --nginx -d frederickatasina.com -d www.frederickatasina.com

Follow prompts to complete the process.

Security

In this project, I secured the server by:

Configuring SSH access with key-based authentication and disabling root login to prevent unauthorized access.

Setting up firewall rules to allow only essential ports (HTTP, HTTPS, and SSH).

Installing SSL certificates from Let’s Encrypt to enable HTTPS and encrypt data in transit.

Ensuring the web server (Nginx) listens on both IPv4 and IPv6 to maintain secure connectivity.

These steps strengthened the server’s security and ensured a safe browsing experience for users.

Lessons Learned

Through this project, I gained practical experience with:

Setting up and managing a Linux server on AWS EC2.

Configuring Nginx for hosting static websites and troubleshooting server blocks.

Managing DNS records to point a custom domain to a cloud server.

Implementing SSL/TLS encryption using Certbot and resolving common challenges during setup.

Understanding the importance of IPv6 support in modern web servers.

Improving troubleshooting skills when facing real-world deployment issues.

This project strengthened my skills in cloud infrastructure, web server management, and security best practices.