This post describes the steps to create an EC2 instance in AWS using command line interface(CLI).

• Describe an existing security group (else, create one)

  aws ec2 describe-security-groups
  

• Get the configured region

  aws configure get region
  

• Create a Key Pair for EC2

  aws ec2 create-key-pair help
  aws ec2 create-key-pair --key-name MyKeyPair --query 'KeyMaterial' --output text > MyKeyPair.pem
  aws ec2 describe-key-pairs --key-name MyKeyPair
  

• Modify accessibility of Key pair to read only for owner

  chmod 400 MyKeyPair.pem
  ls -ltr
  

• Authorize the security group for SSH access

  aws ec2 authorize-security-group-ingress --group-id sg-91a26ee0 --protocol tcp --port 22 --cidr 0.0.0.0/0 --region us-east-1
  

• Create EC2 instance

  aws ec2 run-instances --image-id ami-0b542c1d --count 1 --instance-type t2.micro --key-name MyKeyPair --security-group-ids sg-91a26ee0 --region us-east-1\n
  

• SSH into the new EC2 using Key pair created

  ssh -i MyKeyPair.pem ubuntu@ec2-ipaddress.compute-1.amazonaws.com
  

• Exit from the EC2 instance

  exit 
  

• Stop the instance

  aws ec2 describe-instances
  aws ec2 stop-instances --instance-ids <instance id>