AWS and network noob. I've been asked to migrate QuickBooks Desktop Enterprise to AWS. This seems easy in principle but I'm finding a lot of conflicting and confusing information on how best to do it. The requirements are:
Setup a Windows Server using AWS EC2
QuickBooks will be installed on the server, including a file share that users will map to.
Configure VPN connectivity so that the EC2 instance appears and behaves as if it were on prem.
Allow additional off site VPN connectivity as needed for ad hoc remote access
Cost is a major consideration, which is why I am doing this instead of getting someone who knows this stuff.
The on-prem network is very small - one Win2008R2 server (I know...) that hosts QB now and acts as a file server, 10-15 PCs/printers and a Netgear Nighthawk router with a static IP.
My approach was to first create a new VPC with a private subnet that will contain the EC2 instance and setup a site-to-site VPN connection with the Nighthawk for the on-prem users. I'm unclear as to if I also need to create security group rules to only allow inbound traffic (UDP,TCP file sharing ports) from the static IP or if the VPN negates that need.
I'm trying to test this one step at a time and have an instance setup now. I am remote and am using my current IP address in the security group rules for the test (no VPN yet). I setup the file share but I am unable to access it from my computer. I can RDP and ping it and have turned on the firewall rules to allow NB and SMB but still nothing. I just read another thread that says I need to setup a storage gateway but before I do that, I wanted to see if that is really required or if there's another/better approach. I have to believe this is a common requirement but I seem to be missing something.
This is a bad approach for QuickBooks. Intuit explicitly recommends against using QuickBooks with a file share via VPN:
Networks that are NOT recommended
Virtual Private Network (VPN) Connects computers over long distances via the Internet using an encrypted tunnel.
From here: https://quickbooks.intuit.com/learn-support/en-us/configure-for-multiple-users/recommended-networks-for-quickbooks/00/203276
The correct approach here is to host QuickBooks on the EC2 instance, and let people RDP (remote desktop) into the EC2 Windows server to use QuickBooks. Do not let them install QuickBooks on their client machines and access the QuickBooks data file over the VPN link. Make them RDP directly to the QuickBooks server and access it from there.
Related
We have a very difficult problem here, we have a Windows Server 2019 Base x64 on Amazon EC2, connected through RDP and setup-ed forest and activated AD DS , also activated DNS. But whenever we try to connect we are not allowed to.
We have opened all the relevant ports on inbound traffic rules.
We have added users.
We have tried searching internet and various tutorials.
In Server Manager=:
Added the public ipv4 address to our ipv4 settings of the adapter.
Went to the computer setting in computer domain entered the domain but no fun.
Disabled the firewall in server manager.
We want to connect our clients on different network to connect to the server hosted else-where on AWS.
We are really new into this can some one guide through this?
Please make sure there is network connectivity between your client and you DC which is set up on EC-2 Instance.
[1] In case your clients are on AWS (meaning different EC-2 Instances), and in a different network, you need to create VPC peering or use Transit Gateway, so that it has proper network connectivity.
[2] In case your clients are not on AWS, and in an On-prem Environment, you need to have a VPN connection between your client and your DC.
So in Summary, you need to have network connectivity between your client and DC so that clients can join your Domain.
What do you mean whenever we try to connect we are not allowed to?
What are you trying to connect to, the Windows EC2 instance?
Are you saying that the instance is joined to AWS Directory Service domain but you can't connect to the instance using one of the users in your AWS directory?
Edit: This should have been a comment but couldn't post comments at the time of answering.
On AWS, I know how to set up a web server with inbound rules allowing HTTP and HTTPS and a database security group that only connect to the web server. The issue is I need to create a front end to manage the databases without using Internet access - this will be internal only and precludes the use of a public IP / public DNS. Does anyone know how I would do this?
To further elaborate, some of our AWS accounts are for internal use only - we can log in to the console, use CygWin to SSH in, see what's there, etc. But these accounts are for development purposes, and in a large enterprise such as this one, these are not allowed an IGW. So - no inbound Internet access is allowed. How do I create an app (e.g., phpMyAdmin type) in which our manager can easily view and edit the data in the database given the restriction that this must be done without inbound Internet access?
Host your database on RDS inside a VPC and create a VPN connection between your client network and your VPC.
host your database on one EC2 and also upload your front end there. your database will be running on locally on EC2 and you can connect front end to database. where database will not have public DNS it will running locally you can access only using SSH and front end script.
you check this official documentation from aws : https://docs.aws.amazon.com/AmazonRDS/latest/UserGuide/USER_VPC.WorkingWithRDSInstanceinaVPC.html
for frontend script you can use https://www.adminer.org/ which is one file database management system. one simple file is there using this make connection to locally running database on EC2
Hi my goal is to create Active Directory in AWS. I used simple AD and used 2 public and 2 private subnets within the same VPC with the private ones being for the domain controllers. I created an EC2 instance within the same VPC with Windows Server so that I can manage the AD. My EC2 instance joins the domain with no problem. My problem however is I cannot get my local machines on my network to join the AD, as the DC's, are of course private IP's and I cant change the DNS on my machine to these IP's unless on the same network.
Im guessing I need a VPN to join my local network to the Network in the AWS cloud.
Is there a way to achieve having AD in AWS without a VPN such as using an elastic IP with NAT to communicate to the DC's? Or maybe even promoting my EC2 instance to a DC then connecting the local machines DNS to the EC2 instances elastic IP?
Any help is much appreciated and let me know if I am missing any information or not explaining the goal clear enough.
Your question mentions Simple AD. My comments will be for Active Directory in AWS.
Setting up Active Directory in AWS and on-premises is not as easy as I would like it to be. This topic can fill a small book or as Amazon does it, multiple hour long videos. Watch a few while thinking up your solution.
1) Simple AD is not real Active Directory. It is Samba 4, which is very good, but is an Active Directory clone.
2) Do not, and I repeat do not, think about putting Active Directory on a public IP address to serve your on-premises users. The number of ports that you need to open and the risk is just not worth it.
3) Most, if not all, real solutions for configuring Active Directory on-premises and in AWS involve VPNs. Either Direct Connect (DX), hardware routers (Cisco) or site to site VPNs built from OpenSwan or Windows Server.
Note: OpenSwan is very easy to setup, so this is the route I would recommend if cost is a factor. Otherwise look at Cisco ASA type routers (lots of vendors here) for your office and setup a VPN with IPSEC. If cost is not a factor, absolutely go with Direct Connect (DX).
Note: I also use OpenVPN to connect to AD in AWS from home. This setup routes my workstation to a VPC in AWS and is so easy to setup and use. You could start with this to get comfortable with networking to a VPC. There are preconfigured OpenVPN setups in AWS marketplace that are free (user limited).
We have a number of 3rd party systems which are not part of our AWS account and not under our control, each of these systems have an internal iis server set up with dns which is only available from the local computer. This iis server holds an API which we want to be able to utilise from our EC2 instances.
My idea is to set up some type of vpn connection between the ec2 instance and the 3rd party system so that the ec2 instance can use the same internal dns to call the api.
AWS provide direct connect, is the correct path go down in order to do this? If it is, can anyone provide any help on how to move forward, if its not, what is the correct route for this?
Basically we have a third party system, on this third party system is an IIS server running some software which contains an API. So from the local machine I can run http://<domain>/api/get and it returns a JSON lot of code. However in order to get on to the third party system, we are attached via a VPN on an individual laptop. We need our EC2 instance in AWS to be able to access this API, so need to connect to the third party via the same VPN connection. So I think I need within AWS a separate VPC.
The best answer depends on your budget, bandwidth and security requirements.
Direct Connect is excellent. This services provides a dedicated physical network connection from your point of presence to Amazon. Once Direct Connect is configured and running your will then configure a VPN (IPSEC) over this connection. Negative: long lead times to install the fibre and relatively expensive. Positives, high security and predicable network performance.
Probably for your situation, you will want to consider setting up a VPN over the public Internet. Depending on your requirements I would recommend installing Windows Server on both ends linked via a VPN. This will provide you with an easy to maintain system provided you have Windows networking skills available.
Another good option is OpenSwan installed on two Linux system. OpenSwan provides the VPN and routing between networks.
Setup times for Windows or Linux (OpenSwan) is easy. You could configure everything in a day or two.
Both Windows and OpenSwan support a hub architecture. One system in your VPC and one system in each of your data centers.
Depending on the routers installed in each data center, you may be able to use AWS Virtual Private Gateways. The routers are setup in each data center with connection information and then you connect the virtual private gateways to the routers. This is actually a very good setup if you have the correct hardware installed in your data centers (e.g. a router that Amazon supports, which is quite a few).
Note: You probably cannot use a VPN client as the client will not route two networks together, just a single system to a network.
You will probably need to setup a DNS Forwarder in your VPC to communicate back to your private DNS servers.
Maybe sshuttle can do, what you need. Technically you can open ssh tunnel between your EC2 and remote ssh host. It can also deal with resolving dns requests at remote side. That is not perfect solution, since typical VPN has fail over, but you can use it as starting point. Later, maybe as foll back, or for testing purposes.
First of all let me say that I'm new to AWS and don't know much about servers but trying to learn something now!
I have been given access to AWS instance. I can access the server using ssh. It's ubuntu server.
There is an application deployed under var/www/. I have also public IP of server but when I try to access this public IP it's not opening and I also can't ping that IP.
Am I doing something wrong? I will note that I don't have very big experience with servers.
You will need to check security group credentials associated with your ec2. There http and any other required protocols will need to be opened. And also that internet gateway is correctly NATed. Good luck. It's a steep but fast learning curve with aws.