AWS VPC - Edit DNS Hostnames issue with public IP ERR_CONNECTION_REFUSED - amazon-ec2

I have encountered a strange issue with getting ERR_CONNECTION_REFUSED when I don't have DNS hostnames enabled in my custom VPC.
I have created a VPC with one subnet (public), one route table, and an Internet gateway.
My route table has a route to my Internet gateway. I am using the default Network ACL. My SG has ports 1024-65535 open (<--- this is just a test!).
I create an instance from the AWS Linux AMI and put it in my public subnet. When my VPC is configured to assign DNS hostnames via enabling in "Edit DNS Hostnames", then I can reach my instance from my browser. (Instance is a Nodejs web service). All works fine, and network interface flow logs verify traffic is reaching my instance.
I disable the DNS hostname creation in my VPC via "Edit DNS Hostnames". I create a new instance following the same steps. It does not have DNS hostnames as expected (private nor public), but it does have a public IP address. When I try to connect to my instance via public IP via browser, I get ERR_CONNECTION_REFUSED.
It appears that I can readily reproduce this error with success/failure via enable/disable DNS hostnames.
Am I missing something in my configuration? Is this a known issue? Am I smoking crack?
Thanks.

Issue was Nodejs web service is failing to find the hostname for binding...because I was pulling the hostname to bind from the meta-data in the #!/bin/bash UserData script:
# Grab the EC2 instance internal DNS and configure the Hapi server host value
localhost=$(curl http://169.254.169.254/latest/meta-data/local-hostname)
rm -f ServerHost.js
echo -n "module.exports = \"" > ServerHost.js
echo -n "$localhost" >> ServerHost.js
echo "\"" >> ServerHost.js
But since there is no private DNS (because the default when manually creating a VPC is 'disable'), then there is no 'local-hostname'.

Related

In AWS, how do I configure SSM for an instance joined to an AWS AD Domain in a Private Subnet?

I am trying to set up SSM on Windows.
I have an ASG in a private subnet (absolutely 0 internet access). I can not use NAT, only VPC endpoints.
In the instance launch configuration, I have a PowerShell script that uses Set-DnsClientServerAddress so that the instance can find and join an AWS Managed MS AD service. I would also like to set up the instance so it can be fully managed with SSM.
The problem comes with the DNS Client Server Address.
When I set it to match the address of the AD service SSM will not work.
When I leave the DNS Client Server Address default, SSM works but I can not join the AD.
I tried forcing the SSM Agent to use the endpoints by creating a amazon-ssm-agent.json file and setting all three endpoints in there. This allowed the instance to show on the Managed Instance list, but its status never changed from pending and requests from within the instance still timed out.
Does anyone know the magic sauce to get these things all working at the same time?
EDIT 1:
I also tried adding a forward as described in this thread, however I'm either missing somethign or it is not working for my case:
https://forums.aws.amazon.com/thread.jspa?messageID=919331&#919331
It turns out that adding the forwarder as described in the link above worked. The part I was missing was joedaws comment, "I would also remove the existing 169.254.169.253 entry so that only the 10.201.0.2 ip address is in the list".
Of course, my IPs are different, but once I removed the preexisting forward so that my x.x.x.2 IP was the only one in the list (I did this for both of the AD DNS servers) the instance was discoverable by SSM.
So, I would make a minor change to the list that saugy wrote:
On a domain joined windows instance, log in with AD domain Admin user
Open DNS manager
Connect to one of the DNS IP addresses for the AWS AD
Select forwarders
Add the VPC's DNS IP (x.x.x.2 from you VPC's CIDR range)
Remove the existing IP (so you VPCs IP is the only one)
Click Apply
Repeat from step 3 with the other DNS IP address for the AWS AD (not 1
Also, as mentioned in the other post. This only has to be done once and the settings persist in the AD DNS.

Consul.IO - How to public service domain in local network for DNS Lookup

In Windows, when I setup Consul service for Service discovery in local network, I used DNS Interface for query service. But when I query service with this command
dig -x 127.0.0.1 -p 53 consul.service.consul +short
And it returned nothing.
Currently, my local network DNS address is 10.18.200.103. But when I changed to Consul server 10.18.200.202, it worked and return correct data.
I want to know how can my local DNS server find the domain of Consul services without changing DNS to Consul server
You can set your local DNS as recursor in consul config, then set consul as your primary DNS server and your normal DNS as secondary. This will pass requests through consul first.
If consul is up, it will resolve *.consul domain and pass everything else to recursors. If consul is down, OS will pass request to secondary DNS and it will still end up resolved.
"recursors": [ "10.18.200.103" ],
https://www.consul.io/docs/agent/dns.html

Elasticsearch on EC2

I've spent some time now looking for information regarding elasticsearch.yml configurations that make my single instance Elasticsearch (on Windows 2012 Server EC2) accessible via public ip, but everytime I uncomment one or both of following settings the only thing that changes is, calling the private ip as well results in an error.
network.publish_host: <public ip>
network.bind_host: <private ip>
Is this correct and are there any other settings that have to be defined? Shouldn't it run with the default values?
This is more of a general answer as to how networking works within EC2 instead of a specific answer to your question. But it should help inform how to configure your application.
EC2 has 1:1 NAT between a public and private IP address. Because of this, only the private IP address is visible to the instance directly.
If you are binding a service to a network interface, it would be the one with the private IP.
Some services do require knowledge of the external IP address in order to function properly. The only one I have run into is FTP in a passive configuration, likely due to the fact that it needs to open a separate socket for data transfer.
In the case of elastic search, it appears that they have a special plugin that will help configure elastic search for the aws environment: http://www.elasticsearch.org/guide/en/elasticsearch/reference/current/modules-network.html
I had the same problem.
Installed only one instance of ES on aws EC2 and wanted to grant it public access.
On ubuntu 16.04 this is what works for me:
in /etc/elasticsearch/elasticsearch.yml add this line:
network.host: <ec2 instance private ip>
The private ip should be something like 172.x.x.x
Also do not forget allow access in security group in your aws console for port 9200 (default) and ip address from which you will be sending requests.
So difference was setting not public but private ip address from aws console..
Also note that this can be dangerous as there is not any user/password or other access control

Amazon RDS Endpoint internal

How can I make ec2 instance communicate with rds instance on aws by internal ip address or dns?
I only see public dns like xxx.cehmrvc73g1g.eu-west-1.rds.amazonaws.com:3306
Will internal ipaddress will be faster than public dns?
Thanks
A note for posterity, ensure that you enable DNS on the VPC Peering link!
Enabling DNS Resolution Support for a VPC Peering Connection
To enable a VPC to resolve public IPv4 DNS hostnames to private IPv4
addresses when queried from instances in the peer VPC, you must modify
the peering connection.
Both VPCs must be enabled for DNS hostnames and DNS resolution.
To enable DNS resolution support for the peering connection
Open the Amazon VPC console at https://console.aws.amazon.com/vpc/.
In the navigation pane, choose Peering Connections.
Select the VPC peering connection, and choose Actions, Edit DNS
Settings.
To ensure that queries from the peer VPC resolve to private IP
addresses in your local VPC, choose the option to enable DNS
resolution for queries from the peer VPC.
If the peer VPC is in the same AWS account, you can choose the option
to enable DNS resolution for queries from the local VPC. This ensures
that queries from the local VPC resolve to private IP addresses in the
peer VPC. This option is not available if the peer VPC is in a
different AWS account.
Choose Save.
If the peer VPC is in a different AWS account, the owner of the peer
VPC must sign into the VPC console, perform steps 2 through 4, and
choose Save.
You can use the "Endpoint" DNS name. It will resolve to the internal IP when used within the VPC and resolves to a public ip when used outside of your AWS network. You should never use the actual IP address because the way the RDS works it could possibly change in the future.
If you ping it from your EC2 (on the same VPC) server you can verify this.
It is amazing to see the amount of down votes I've got given that my answer is the only correct answer, here is 2 other sources:
https://forums.aws.amazon.com/thread.jspa?threadID=70112
You can use the "Endpoint" DNS name. It will resolve to the internal IP when used within EC2.
https://serverfault.com/questions/601548/cant-find-the-private-ip-address-for-my-amazon-rds-instance2
The DNS endpoint provided in the AWS console will resolve to the internal IPs from within Amazon's network.
Check out the AWS EC2 docs: http://docs.aws.amazon.com/AWSEC2/latest/UserGuide/using-instance-addressing.html#concepts-private-addresses.
It doesn't appear that this necessarily applies to RDS, however.
When resolving your RDS instance from within the same VPC the internal IP is returned by the Amazon DNS service.
If the RDS instance is externally accessible you will see the external IP from outside the VPC. However, if the EC2 instance NOT available publiclly the internal IP address is returned to external and internal lookups.
Will internal ip address will be faster than the external address supplied by public dns?
Most likely as the packets will need to be routed when using the external addresses, increasing latency.
It also requires that your EC2 instances have a public IP or NAT gateway along with appropriate security groups and routes, increasing cost, increasing complexity and reducing security.
its pretty easy, telnet your RDS endpoint using command prompt on windows or through unix terminal
for example: telnet "you RDS endpoint" "Port"
trying to connect "You get your RDS internal IP here"

Are EIP's required for internet traffic?

Sorry if this is a dumb question but I can't find any definitive answers. I setup a VPC with a private subnet and a public subnet. THe private subnet has a NAT'd instance to route for internet traffic. The public subnet is configured to go out of the IGW.
-I created a Bastion host to login into SSH
-I created Test instance on private subnet and connect from Bastion Host. Because of the route to the NAT instance and port 80/443 is allowed and ICMP, i can ping and access files on the internet.
-I create instance on public subnet without EIP. Since it has a route to the IGW, shouldn't I have internet access? I created a test security group to allow all traffic from all sources and i still can't ping or get http links.
A public subnet instance with a public DNS name should be accessible over the internet provided you have right VPC security group configured. You do not need an EIP.
Public DNS name of EC2 instance changes when you stop and start the instance. to avoid this, you can assign an EIP to the instance so that the IP address remains same across the instance stop/start cycles.
You need to answer these questions:
Does your public subnet instance has a public DNS hostname? Run curl -s http://169.254.169.254/latest/meta-data/public-hostname on your instance to see the public DNS hostname.
Do you have VPC security group configured properly to allow incoming internet access ?

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