Launch an Instance

Learn how to launch a new OrangeHRM Starter instance. Make sure you are subscribed to OrangeHRM Starter on the AWS Marketplace first before proceeding.

Background

The OrangeHRM Starter AMI runs on Amazon Linux 2023 with some preinstalled components. Please do not remove any of these components to ensure that your system runs smoothly.

Pre-Installed Components

• OrangeHRM AWS CLI
  • You can find the source code here
• Docker
  • During the installation, the following containers are pulled:
    • orangehrm/orangehrm
    • mariadb:10.11.4
    • certbot/certbot
• pwgen

 

After you subscribe to OrangeHRM Starter AMI, you need to launch an EC2 instance to set up the system. The basic steps are as follows:

1. Launch an EC2 Instance from the OrangeHRM AMI
2. Connect to the instance
3. Install OrangeHRM via the OrangeHRM Command Line Tool
4. Access your OrangeHRM system and set your password

Launch an OrangeHRM EC2 Instance

First, subscribe to OrangeHRM Starter on the AWS Marketplace.

 

Access the AWS Console and search for “AWS Marketplace Subscriptions”.

 

Now search for your OrangeHRM Starter subscription in the list and click “Launch New Instance”.

 

Then, click “Continue to launch through EC2”

This should bring you to the EC2 “Launch an Instance” page. There are several changes you need to make here which are detailed below:

Name and Tags:

No required changes.

Application and OS Images:

Verify that the OrangeHRM Starter AMI has been selected. If not, please select “Browse more AMIs” and search for our AMI under “AWS Marketplace AMIs”

 

Instance Type:

Choose t2.micro as your instance type if you have a small number of users (it is part of the AWS Free Tier).

Choose t2.medium if have more users and need more performance (it costs more and is not part of the free tier).

 

You are also free to select any instance with 64-bit architecture.

Key Pair:

Amazon recommends that you create a key pair to connect to your instance. Please see their documentation for more details.

Network Settings:

Enable the following options:

• Allow SSH traffic from:
  • Amazon recommends you allow access from known IPs only
• Allow HTTPS traffic from the internet
• Allow HTTP traffic from the internet

Feel free to customize your network settings further but do note that blocking certain ports will affect OrangeHRM Starter features (such as LDAP and SMTP).

 

Configure Storage:

You can select 8 GB (the minimum) but only 4 GB will remain after you install OrangeHRM Starter. If you are eligible for AWS Free Tier, you can select up to 30 GB for no cost.

Advanced Details:

No required changes.

Summary:

No required changes.

 

Once you are done, click “Launch Instance”.

You will see a success message with an instance ID. Click on it to view the instance status. You can proceed to the next step once it has changed to “Running” (you may need to refresh the page).

 

 

Connect to your OrangeHRM EC2 Instance

You can SSH into your instance either from your local terminal or using EC2 Instance Connect. Select your newly created instance and click the “Connect” button in the top right.

Now you can follow Amazon’s given instructions to connect to your instance.

 

IMPORTANT: Change the username field to ec2-user before you connect (AWS will autofill “root” by default).

E.g. EC2 Connect

 

E.g. SSH from local terminal

ssh -i "your-identity-file" ec2-user@ec2-instance-ip

 

You will see the message “OrangeHRM is not installed” after connecting.

 

If instead, you see a message about broken permissions, then you have logged in as the root user (i.e. UID=0). Exit the current session and log in with ec2-user as the username (see above).

 

 

What’s Next?

You can install OrangeHRM Starter on your new EC2 instance after completing the steps above.