Configure your Amazon Linux instance - Amazon Elastic Compute Cloud

Configure your Amazon Linux instance

After you have successfully launched and logged into your Linux instance, you can make changes to it. There are many different ways you can configure an instance to meet the needs of a specific application. The following are some common tasks to help get you started.

Common configuration scenarios

Each Amazon EC2 Linux instance launches with a default Linux system user. For more information about default user names and managing users, see Manage users on your Linux instance.

The default time configuration for Linux instances uses Amazon Time Sync Service to set the system time on an instance. The default time zone is UTC. For more information on setting the time zone for an instance or using your own time server, see Set the time for your Linux instance.

When you launch an instance in Amazon EC2, you have the option of passing user data to the instance that can be used to perform common configuration tasks and even run scripts after the instance starts. You can pass two types of user data to Amazon EC2: cloud-init directives and shell scripts. For more information, see Run commands on your Linux instance at launch.