Hosting Websites with Amazon Lightsail | AWS for 2020

Updated November 2018

This course details how to use one Amazon Lightsail (via AWS) instance to run multiple websites and apps (including WordPress) across a number of domains. Several hosting stacks will be explored within this course, including the Bitnami's LAMP Stack, Bitnami WordPress Stack (a variant of the LAMP stack), and the Plesk Hosting Stack.  All of these stacks are available from Amazon Lightsail with just one click! 

Amazon Lightsail is considered an easier-to-use and entry-level implementation of Amazon's AWS cloud service.  It has the specific objective of creating and running a Virtual Private Server (VPS) as opposed to the dozens or hundreds of potential use cases with AWS EC2 instances.  Lightsail is an ideal cloud solution for individuals who self-host and for small-to-midsize businesses looking to minimize I.T. costs without sacrificing performance.

If you want to begin to leverage the power of the cloud for your online business or hobbies, or if you've ever felt intimidated by your web hosting providers and too scared to cut costs by running your own setup, this course will help you break the dependency on overpriced shared and reseller hosting.  You'll increase your knowledge of cloud computing and cloud server instantiation while building functional skills with Linux and Apache, despite needing absolutely no Linux, Apache, or cloud computing knowledge to begin.

After viewing this course, you'll be able to complete the following tasks on Lightsail:

• Create a Virtual Private Server on Amazon Lightsail using a Bitnami or Plesk stack

• Install one or multiple WordPress blogs mapping to different domains, subdomains, or directories

• Encrypt your website for users with SSL/TLS certification to use https:// instead of http://

• Host one or multiple static websites with just one VPS Instance

• Host one or multiple dynamic websites with just one VPS Instance

• Point domains to your hosted websites

• Add additional storage space to a VPS Instance

• Backup and scale your VPS Instance

Don't miss out and don't be locked into high web hosting and VPS costs which can reach over $100/mo.  Instead, learn the fundamentals of Amazon Lightsail and be able to power your own websites on Amazon's cloud starting at just $5/mo.  Take back control of your web sites, and sign up for Hosting Websites with Amazon Lightsail today! 

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Software Utilized

The course uses the least expensive Lightsail packages from the AWS cloud, specifically we utilized the US$3.50 and $5.00 per month plans (formerly $5 and $10, respectively).   Also introduced is how to use free software—such as PuTTY and FileZilla— for Instance management, but Lightsail comes with its own built-in and web-based SSH terminal, so no external software is necessary in many cases.

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Course Changelog:

• July 2018 - Updated videos to show additional options for working with the WordPress installer module

• May 2018 - Major update to include a second LAMP stack, the Plesk Hosting Stack.  This is an alternative stack to the one provided by Bitnami and it provides a web-based dashboard.  Three domains can be managed for free by the Plesk Hosting Stack on Amazon Lightsail.  Larger licenses are available from Plesk.

• March 2018 - Added SSL/TLS encryption and certification on the Bitnami LAMP Stack using Let's Encrypt.  Certbot is introduced as a command line tool for automating the SSL process with Let's Encrypt.

• February 2018 - How to Connect via macOS Terminal lesson added for Bitnami LAMP Stack.  Also added a new section for Bitnami's LAMP Stack on running one or multiple WordPress installations that can map to domains, sub-domains, or directories.

• January 2018 - Course launched focusing entirely on setting up the Bitnami LAMP Stack on Amazon Lightsail to host one or multiple websites.