CloudPath Academy

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Amazon Web Services AWS Broken Labs

Lab 06 - Web Access III

Difficulty: Intermediate Service: Amazon EC2

Cost: This lab uses a t2.micro instance (Free Tier eligible). If left running outside the Free Tier, the cost is approximately $0.30/day. Delete the stack when you are done.

Scenario

Your team deployed a web server on EC2. The stack completed successfully and the instance passed all health checks. But when you open the URL, the browser can’t connect.

What Was Deployed

Resource Purpose
AWS::EC2::VPC Dedicated VPC for the lab
AWS::EC2::Subnet Public subnet with internet access
AWS::EC2::InternetGateway Internet gateway attached to the VPC
AWS::EC2::RouteTable Route table with a default route to the internet
AWS::EC2::SecurityGroup Allows inbound traffic on ports 80 and 22
AWS::IAM::Role Instance role with AmazonSSMManagedInstanceCore
AWS::IAM::InstanceProfile Attaches the role to the instance
AWS::EC2::Instance t2.micro running Amazon Linux 2023

The stack deployed without errors.

Deploy the Lab

  1. Open the AWS CloudFormation console
  2. Click Create stack > With new resources (standard)
  3. Select Upload a template file and upload lab-06-web-access-iii.yaml
  4. Enter a stack name (e.g., brokenlabs-ec2-lab-06) and click Next > Next > Submit
  5. Wait for the stack status to reach CREATE_COMPLETE (takes 2–3 minutes)
  6. Open the stack Outputs tab — you will see InstanceId, InstancePublicIP, and WebPageURL

The Problem

Open the WebPageURL from the stack Outputs in your browser.

Expected: the AWS Broken Labs welcome page loads. Actual: the browser displays:

This site can't be reached
ERR_CONNECTION_REFUSED

The instance is running and has passed its health checks.

Fix the Lab

Diagnose why the problem occurs and fix it so the result matches Expected above.

You can open a terminal on the instance with Session Manager (EC2 console → select the instance → Connect → Session Manager → Connect).

Need help? Open hints.md for progressive hints.

Cleanup

  1. Open CloudFormation, select your stack, and click Delete
  2. Wait for the stack to reach DELETE_COMPLETE (or disappear from the list)
  3. Verify in the EC2 console that the instance no longer appears (or shows Terminated)
  4. Verify in IAM → Roles that the lab role no longer appears

Resources