Access and prepare the AWS Cloud9 IDE
Access your AWS Cloud9 environment by clicking the link right from AWSCloud9URL in the Outputs section of your CloudFormation stack. Use a supported browser to work with Cloud9.
You should see a website that looks similar to:
Color Theme
The color theme of your Cloud9 environment might look different. The examples in this guide are based on the Jett Dark theme. If you like this theme you can switch to it under:
View -> Themes -> UI Themes -> Jett Dark
But feel free to use whatever theme you like.
Show Files in Home Folder
Several files and folders have been copied to your AWS Cloud9 environment into the home folder of the ec2-user. To show them in the left pane of AWS Cloud9 choose the gear icon and then choose Show Home in Favorites.
Opening a Terminal in Cloud9
The Cloud9 IDE offers a builtin terminal that is used to type commands on the EC2 instance. A terminal can be opened in the following way:
- Click the
+in the tab-bar - New Terminal
Bootstrapping
To prepare the AWS Cloud9 instance a bootstrapping process will run shortly after the instance has been created. The process performs several settings and installs software packages.
If you access AWS Cloud9 shortly after it was created bootstrapping might still be in process.
- When the bootstrapping process is in progress you will see a bootstrapping message similar to the following in a Cloud9 terminal:
THE INSTANCE IS CURRENTLY BEING BOOTSTRAPED
Please wait until bootstrapping has been finished
Bootstrapping is ongoing as long as "/tmp/BOOTSTRAPPING_IN_PROGRESS" exists
Will REBOOT after bootstrapping is done
To follow bootstrapping use: "tail -f /tmp/c9-user-data.log"
- Bootstrapping the instance will take round about 5 minutes
- You can find the output of the bootstrapping process in the log file mentioned in the bootstrapping message. In the log file you will find information about the bootstrapping progress like installing packages or configuring the system. When the bootstrapping process has been finished the instance will be rebooted and you should see log entries similar to:
=== REBOOTING instance with at ===
/tmp/tmp.NavUZLQ8a0
BOOTSTRAP_START: 2021-02-11 15:20:14
BOOTSTRAP_END: 2021-02-11 15:23:04
REBOOTING... WAIT UNTIL REBOOT HAS BEEN COMPLETED
- At reboot the connection to the Cloud9 IDE is lost. If you are not reconnected automatically after a minute or so reload the page to regain access to the Cloud9 IDE.
Copying Files from/to Cloud9
The following instructions are for later use.
Files could either be uploaded directly with the Cloud9 IDE or via an S3 bucket.
Cloud9 IDE
- Upload a file: In the menu choose File -> Upload Local Files…
- Download a file: Right-click on the filename -> Download
S3
The CloudFormation stack has created a S3 Bucket for you. You can find the bucket name in the outputs section of the CloudFormation stack. A shell variable named “$S3_BUCKET” also holds the name of the bucket.
Use the S3 bucket to copy files to/from your EC2 instance. The AWS S3 console can be used to up/download files to/from the S3 bucket.
In a terminal in the Cloud9 IDE you would use the awscli to copy files to/from the bucket.
# copy files from the bucket
aws s3 cp s3://$S3_BUCKET/my_object .
# copy files to the bucket
aws s3 cp my_file s3://$S3_BUCKET/my_file