1. Sign up for AWS, and login

I've been using AWS for a while so I really don't have any advice here. I think it was pretty straight forward.

2. Create a new EC2 instance

From the EC2 Management console click the "Launch Instance" Button.

Use the Quick Launch wizard

Chose a working key pair Use Amazon Linux AMI as the Launch configuration Continue

3. Create a security group

I created a new security group that enabled only ssh (22) and postgres (5432) This may have been unnecessary, let me know if the default security groups would have worked.

• Click on edit details
• Choose the Security Settings button
• Create a new Security Group
• Call it Postgres
• Add rule SSH
  • Port: 22
  • Source 0.0.0.0/0
• Add rule Postgres
  • Port: 5432
  • Source 0.0.0.0/0
• Save
• Launch

4. Login in to the box

Down load the key pem file to you local machine. I called it ami.pem on my machine.

Then use ssh to log in

ssh -i w.pem ec2-user@ec2-xx-xx-xx-xx.compute-1.amazonaws.com

You can get the DNS fro the EC2 config console.

5. Update

Update the installed services using yum

sudo yum update

6. Instal PostgreSQL

Install the psql client

sudo yum install postgresql

7. Install PostgreSQL server

Install the psql server

sudo yum install postgresql-server

Configure by following the install notes

service postgresql initdb

chkconfig postgresql on

8. Start postgres and create a user

Start the postgres server

service postgresql start

Test login

sudo su - postgres

psql postgres=# create user jsmith with password 'testpass';

9. Configure Postgres for external connections

Set up postgres to allow external access. Configure the pg_hba.conf first by added to the end of the file /var/lib/pgsql9/data/pg_hba.conf

# Allow acess from any ip

host all all 0.0.0.0/0 md5

also update the Postgres config file to listen on an address. By changing the listen address paramater in

/var/lib/pgsql9/data/postgres.conf

listen_addresses = '*'

10. Restart

Restart postgres to pick up the new config files.

service postgresql restart

Test that you user can login from the server.

psql -U jsmith -h localhost

And now try from you local machine (assumine you have the psql client installed)

psql -U jsmith -h ec2-user@ec2-xx-xx-xx-xx.compute-1.amazonaws.com

11. Sucess

At this point you should be all set to start loading data. You'll want to create users for the other collaborators and grant them necessary permissions.