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amazon-web-servicesamazon-ec2aws-acm

Setting up HTTPS for ELB and EC2

I am currently hosting a frontend and backend website on AWS. Here is my current setup:

FrontEnd:

  • Static website hosted on S3
  • Cloudfront CDN
  • ACM certificate for HTTPS on Cloudfront

Backend:

  • Nginx Docker image on EC2
  • ELB setup targeting the single EC2 instance

I have the frontend HTTPS working correctly by generating the certificate for Cloudfront using Route 53. For the backend, I setup ELB so that I can use ACM to also manage my backend cert instead of doing it directly on the server.

I am confused on the domain I am supposed to create the certificate for ELB. Would I need to create a sub domain that points to the DNS location of the EC2 instance? I tried adding the DNS location of the domain ([...].compute-1.amazonaws.com) to generate the cert but when I try to DNS validate it within ACM, it fails.

Any thoughts?

Solution

  • I am supposed to create the certificate for ELB. Would I need to create a sub domain that points to the DNS location of the EC2 instance?

    You are very close. You need to create a subdomain that points to the DNS of the ELB. You can only create SSL certificates for domains you own. You don't own compute-1.amazonaws.com so you can't create an SSL certificate for that.