coder/examples/templates/aws-linux

display_name	description	icon	maintainer_github	verified	tags
AWS EC2 (Linux)	Provision AWS EC2 VMs as Coder workspaces	../../../site/static/icon/aws.svg	coder	true	vm linux aws persistent-vm

Remote Development on AWS EC2 VMs (Linux)

Provision AWS EC2 VMs as Coder workspaces with this example template.

Prerequisites

Authentication

By default, this template authenticates to AWS using the provider's default authentication methods.

The simplest way (without making changes to the template) is via environment variables (e.g. AWS_ACCESS_KEY_ID) or a credentials file. If you are running Coder on a VM, this file must be in /home/coder/aws/credentials.

To use another authentication method, edit the template.

Required permissions / policy

The following sample policy allows Coder to create EC2 instances and modify instances provisioned by Coder:

{
  "Version": "2012-10-17",
  "Statement": [
    {
      "Sid": "VisualEditor0",
      "Effect": "Allow",
      "Action": [
        "ec2:GetDefaultCreditSpecification",
        "ec2:DescribeIamInstanceProfileAssociations",
        "ec2:DescribeTags",
        "ec2:DescribeInstances",
        "ec2:DescribeInstanceTypes",
        "ec2:CreateTags",
        "ec2:RunInstances",
        "ec2:DescribeInstanceCreditSpecifications",
        "ec2:DescribeImages",
        "ec2:ModifyDefaultCreditSpecification",
        "ec2:DescribeVolumes"
      ],
      "Resource": "*"
    },
    {
      "Sid": "CoderResources",
      "Effect": "Allow",
      "Action": [
        "ec2:DescribeInstanceAttribute",
        "ec2:UnmonitorInstances",
        "ec2:TerminateInstances",
        "ec2:StartInstances",
        "ec2:StopInstances",
        "ec2:DeleteTags",
        "ec2:MonitorInstances",
        "ec2:CreateTags",
        "ec2:RunInstances",
        "ec2:ModifyInstanceAttribute",
        "ec2:ModifyInstanceCreditSpecification"
      ],
      "Resource": "arn:aws:ec2:*:*:instance/*",
      "Condition": {
        "StringEquals": {
          "aws:ResourceTag/Coder_Provisioned": "true"
        }
      }
    }
  ]
}

Architecture

This template provisions the following resources:

• AWS Instance

Coder uses aws_ec2_instance_state to start and stop the VM. This example template is fully persistent, meaning the full filesystem is preserved when the workspace restarts. See this community example of an ephemeral AWS instance.

Note This template is designed to be a starting point! Edit the Terraform to extend the template to support your use case.

code-server

code-server is installed via the startup_script argument in the coder_agent resource block. The coder_app resource is defined to access code-server through the dashboard UI over localhost:13337.