You should use SSL/HTTPS

Learning objectives

• Details that we won’t dig into:
  • Identify the problems that SSL/https are meant to solve.
  • Explain how SSL/https solve those problems.
• Configure SSL on an AWS EC2.
  • Configure nginx to identify your domain name.
  • Use certbot to set up SSL.
  • Update the rstudio configuration in nginx to support https.
  • Open the necessary ports on your EC2’s security group.

Get ready

• If you’ve followed the instructions from Chapter 13, you’re ready to go!
• Make sure you have this line in nginx.conf:
  • server_name yourdomain.you www.yourdomain.you;

certbot

• sudo apt-get install certbot python3-certbot-nginx
• sudo systemctl restart nginx
• sudo certbot –nginx -d yourdomain.you -d www.yourdomain.you

rstudio in nginx.conf

• sudo vim /etc/nginx/nginx.conf
• proxy_set_header X-Forwarded-Proto https; in the rstudio location
• sudo systemctl restart nginx

Open the port

(you may have already set this up in Chapter 12)

• (Log into console.aws.amazon.com and navigate to EC2/Instances)
• Click the “Security” tab on your instance.
• Click the Security group (something like launch-wizard-2)
  • (or go directly to “Network & Security”/“Security Groups”)
• “Inbound rules” > “Edit inbound rules”
• “Add rule”
  • “HTTPS”, “Anywhere-IPv4”
• Discussion: Leave HTTP, probably?
• Visit https://yourdomain.you/rstudio, http://yourdomain.you/rstudio, etc.