SSH, or Secure Shell, opens a secure terminal session on a remote computer. During deployment, it lets you connect from your local machine to the EC2 instance running an application, where you can enter commands and investigate problems. section 12.3.6
SSH protects the session through two related functions:
- Authenticates you with public-key cryptography: the remote server receives a public key, while your private key remains secret on your machine. section 12.3.6
- Encrypts the connection so commands and session data remain protected while traveling between the two computers. section 12.3.6
- Provides direct access useful for diagnosing problems that cannot be investigated through the deployment interface alone. section 12.3.6
Create an Elastic Beanstalk key pair
When Elastic Beanstalk asks whether to set up SSH, answer yes, provide a keypair name such as aws-eb, and create a passphrase when prompted. The CLI generates the key pair and uploads the public key to EC2; keep the private key secret.
