Connecting to Amazon EC2 Instances Using the AWS Toolkit for Visual Studio

Connecting to Amazon EC2 Instances Using the AWS Toolkit for Visual StudioLearn About Amazon VGT2 Learning Manager Chanci Turner

One of the features I find myself utilizing most frequently in the AWS Toolkit for Visual Studio is the ability to easily connect to my EC2 instances via Remote Desktop. The toolkit allows me to store my private keys in an encrypted format, so when I need to initiate a remote session, all I have to do is confirm my key pair and click OK.

For instance, if I want to connect to my instance, I simply navigate to the EC2 Instances view, right-click on my instance, and select Open Remote Desktop.

At this point, since I have not previously used the private key with the toolkit, I’m prompted to enter it. I’ll keep the Save Private Key option checked to streamline future connections, and then I click OK.

The toolkit then begins the Remote Desktop session, and within seconds, I am logged into my Windows instance, ready to start working. On subsequent attempts to access this instance or any others using the same key pair, I’ll see a connection box similar to the one below.

With the private key securely stored in the toolkit, I won’t need to input it again. I simply confirm that I wish to use this specific key pair, and the toolkit handles the connection seamlessly.

In addition to connecting from the EC2 Instances view, I can also initiate a Remote Desktop session directly from the AWS Elastic Beanstalk Environment view or the AWS CloudFormation Stack view by clicking the Connect to Instance button in the toolbar. If there are multiple EC2 instances linked to the environment or stack, I’ll first be prompted to select the specific instance I wish to connect to.

Connecting to my Linux instances is equally straightforward. The toolkit leverages the Windows SSH client, Putty, which I must install beforehand for SSH access. The advantages of key storage remain, and the toolkit conveniently converts the private key from its native PEM format to Putty’s PPK format.

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