I'm planning to run Docker on an EC2 instance using Ubuntu and I want to ensure it's optimized and secure. While I can easily create an instance, SSH into it, and install Docker, I'm looking for better ways to enhance the setup. I also checked out the Amazon Marketplace for pre-made Docker AMIs for optimizations, but the options were limited and they charge hourly. Are there any guidelines or recommended practices for creating the ideal Docker environment on an Ubuntu host, or is there a decent pre-made solution out there?
2 Answers
You might want to consider using Flatcar as your OS. It's designed specifically for running containers and is quite lightweight. All configurations can be managed through a single config file, making it easier to maintain.
First off, you should avoid using SSH; block port 22 entirely at the network ACL level and switch to using the SSM session instead. Make sure to only allow necessary ports in your EC2 security group, like 80 and 443. Installing Docker on Ubuntu is pretty straightforward, but if you want to run this in production, you'll need to implement SSL, load balancing, and other security measures. You might also explore services like ECS Fargate instead of managing EC2 yourself, though that could be more advanced.
Using EC2 has the advantage of running a t2.micro instance for free for a year under the free tier!
That sounds really interesting, thanks for the tip!