Creating and Interacting with a Lightsail Instance

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Creating and Interacting with a Lightsail Instance

In this learning activity, we will use Amazon Lightsail to create a simple Linux instance. The goal for this activity is to gain experience with: * The basic components of Lightsail * Creating SSH keys to connect to Lightsail * Creating a Lightsail instance * Instance monitoring basics * Basic instance operations (Start, Stop, Restart) * Deleting instances An understanding of these objectives is essential for intermediate-level tasks in Lightsail.

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Lab Info

Level

Beginner

Last updated

Sep 23, 2025

Duration

30m

Challenge

Create an Amazon Lightsail instance.
Create an SSH Key for the Learning Activity.
1. Name the key LightsailDemo.
2. Download the SSH key.
Create a Lightsail Instance in us-east-1.
1. Choose the OS Only blueprint option.
2. Select Amazon Linux.
3. Use the 512 MB instance plan.
4. Name the instance.
Challenge

Interact with the instance via the management console.
1. Locate the following in the management console:
  
  Storage
  
  Metrics
  
  Networking
  
  Snapshots
  
  Tags
  
  History
  
  Delete
2. Locate your instance privateIP and publicIP.
3. Review how the publicIP and privateIP react to the following instance operations:
  
  Stop your instance.
  
  Start your instance.
  
  Restart your instance.
Challenge

Connect to the instance using SSH and delete the instance.
Note: If you're using Windows, follow steps 1-5. If you're not using Windows, skip to step 3.
1. Review the following page of the Amazon Lightsail docs: https://lightsail.aws.amazon.com/ls/docs/en/articles/lightsail-how-to-set-up-putty-to-connect-using-ssh (Optional)
2. Download and install PuTTY if required. (Optional)
3. Connect to your instance using the web SSH client.
4. Connect to your instance using a full SSH client on your local workstation.
5. Delete your instance.

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