Where do I run ec2-authorize? Locally or on my AMI VM?

Question

To open port 80 on my Amazon AMI VM, I need to do "ec2-authorize default -p 80". Should I do this on my home machine or on the VM itself?

Since running ec2-authorize requires a private key, I'm guessing I run it on my home machine for security. I'm confused because ec2-authorize comes preinstalled on my VM (it's in ec2-user's path, but not root's), and that's the one place I shouldn't use it? Or is this for those cases where one VM controls others?

Answer 1

Do it from the VM. You have to download a private key and certificate from the Amazon page and copy it somewhere in your VM, and use those to do ec2-authorize.

To download, you can go to the Amazon console and click the upper right dropdown where it says your name. You will find there something like "security settings" or something, click that. Go to the X.509 tab and click create new certificate.