Bastion Host | Jump Server

What is a Bastion Host ?

• A bastion host is a server whose purpose is to provide access to a private network from an external network, such as the Internet. Because of its exposure to potential attack, a bastion host must minimize the chances of penetration.

Why to use ?

• If we want to SSH into EC2 instance on the private subnet from our home/office (or using a development machine), currently we can’t. Our instance has no public IP, it is in a Private Subnet (no direct route from the internet). This is where we can use a Bastion Server or Jump server.

The purpose of a bastion host

• To restrict access to a private network from an external network.

Now lets us deploy a window server [disable public ip]

• Search for Ec2
• Launch instance
• choose T2micro[free tier]

• Disable public ip. [as we never provide a public ip to our database]

• add storage

• add tags

• Name the instance as Database or anything you want.

• next configure security group

• select all traffic and anywhere [generally this is not a best industry practice , we only allow custom ips]

• now download the key pair and launch

• decrypt the password

• download remote desktop and paste private ip ..

• As we see , its not allowing because to ssh into a instance need a public ip.

Now lets us deploy a window server/Jump server with in same vpc [enable public ip]

• launch instance

• select T2micro

• enable public ip

• name it as jump server

• select all traffic anywhere and launch .

• launch instance
• view instance
• Check box it [jump server] and try to connect .

• here we successfully connect to our server.

• now we can access to our database within this server only,here this server acts as a bastion host.

• click Window+r

• type mstsc

• put private ip of database server and connect

here we successfully connected to our database.