Fantasy Grounds - Port Forwarding - Transparent Op
  • Fantasy Grounds - Port Forwarding and a "transparent" OpenVPN setup
  • General
    • Introduction - F.G.Comms
    • GM's machine barriers
    • Internet connection barriers
    • Some NO-GO Situations
    • VPN solutions
  • Proposed Solution
    • "Transparent" OpenVPN-based Port Forwarding
    • Tools
    • Amazon Web Services
    • Setup process overview
  • Local setup - Step-by-step
    • Step 0 : Preparation
    • Step 1 : OpenVPN + Easy-RSA & "new-PKI"
    • Step 2 : Create your own PKI
    • Step 3 : Setup OpenVPN connections
  • AWS Setup - Click-by-Click
    • Step 4 : Your AWS environment
    • 4.1-Creating the IAM Role
    • 4.2-Choosing the AWS Region
    • 4.3-Creating the S3 bucket
    • 4.4-Virtual Private Cloud - Default VPC
    • 4.5-Creating an AWS Key Pair
    • 4.6-Creating an AWS Security Group
    • 4.7-Filling the bucket
    • 4.8-Building the Launch Template
  • Transfer & First Test
    • Step 5 : Transfer to S3
    • Step 6 : Launch time !
    • Step 7 : Connect, test, fix glitches
    • Step 8 : Destroy/"Terminate" after use
  • Use your server
    • Regular Usage Pattern
  • Simultaneous FG games / 1 VPN Server
    • Lifting the "1 GM at-a-time" restriction
    • FGU vs. FGC networking
    • VPNs for both FGC + FGU (LAN mode)
  • Upgrading our setup for "N-at-a-time", FGC/FGU
    • Untitled
  • Appendixes
    • Acronyms and definitions
    • AWS acronyms
    • AWS admin user + API access key
    • AWS, DNS, DDNS, CRL...
    • Possible (?) developments
  • Links
    • Fantasy Grounds Web
    • Fantasy Grounds Discord
    • FG College Web
    • FG College Discord
    • FG College KB
    • Our "EU" Discord
    • OpenVPN
    • AWS
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On this page
  • How to create an AWS account
  • AWS Free Tier
  • AWS potential costs : how to avoid them ?
  • Minimizing AWS costs when you step outside the Free Tier
  • Mobile Management App

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  1. Proposed Solution

Amazon Web Services

PreviousToolsNextSetup process overview

Last updated 4 years ago

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provides cloud hosting services at the IaaS (Infrastructure as a Service) level. Leading rivals in that area include the and offers.

I won't go into the war between these competitors (and others). Being an AWS user since 2014, I am proficient enough with the AWS platform to design a reliable and secure "end-user" setup. Competing offers can provide the equivalent of what I'll show here but I'm not proficient enough with them...

IaaS means you can create your virtual environment in the cloud, hosted within AWS infrastructure, "exactly" the way you want : networks, subnets, private or public, in multiple geographic locations, with servers and databases of all sizes and types, with or without Internet access, network traffic filtering, etc...

"exactly the way you want" implies some measure of "do it yourself" and entails a not-so-easy learning curve to master the ins and outs of the AWS platform (just like all other IaaS providers). So we'll only use a simple (but secure) setup.

AWS uses a "pay as you go" economic model, and provides a nice 1 year "Free Tier" + some on-going goodies after the first year.

All the details about the AWS Free Tier and it's limits can be found at

To become an AWS user you have to create an account (even if only to use the Free Tier).

How to create an AWS account

Go check and follow the process here :

Or simply click "Create Free Account" at the bottom of the main AWS page at :

Also here is a link to a :

  • new AWS account creation

  • first IAM user creation in the new account

AWS Account creation videos :

AWS Free Tier

The AWS "Free Tier" provides a new subscriber with everything needed to run this solution free of charge for 1 year.

AWS potential costs : how to avoid them ?

It is extremely easy to create I.T. "resources" on AWS with a few clicks...which implies that you may try things out and not check if they remain within the Free Tier bounds.

On the other hand, associated with the "pay as you go" pricing, it offers the opportunity to test high-end configurations for a short time at a low cost without a large upfront investment - provided you remember to destroy ("terminate") these resources after that, to avoid ongoing costs.

So keep this in mind :

  • always check the cost structure for any service you may want to test (free part/billable part/invoicing criteria)

  • Each AWS Region (geographical area) has it's own costs. From what i saw, South America is currently (mid 2019) more expensive than other regions. You may take this into account when choosing the place where you'll run your own server

  • Periodically check your month-to-date actuals and month-total estimated values in your Billing Dashboard in the AWS Management Console. They are updated at intervals of 6 to 8 hours :

Minimizing AWS costs when you step outside the Free Tier

1 year after account creation, some bonuses from the AWS Free Tier expire, including those that enabled running our proposed setup entirely for free. So the cost will mandatorily become >$0 /month.

However this solution is designed to be lightweight, and that reflects in it's potential running costs when NOT operating free of charge :

  • the total permanent volume of S3 sorage is around 50KB, which should remain virtually free (maybe $0.01 if you have A LOT of startups/boots in a month ?)

  • with the "destroy when not used" strategy, and a minimal virtual disk size (8GB), you should extremely reduce both EC2 and EBS costs (EC2=Elastic Compute Cloud : your CPU(s)+RAM, and EBS=Elastic Block Store : your virtual disk(s))

  • OpenVPN requirements are extremely low : you can run it with the cheapest EC2 instance type

Overall, WITHOUT the Free Tier goodies, you should be able to run your VPN server for 50 Hours per month for less than $0.5 /month and a permanently running (24x7) server should cost $2.5 to $10 depending on the world region and the options you choose.

Change your Machine Instance Type

After you are out of the AWS Free Tier, you can choose a smaller (= cheaper) "instance type" than the one you have used for free during 1 year : downsizing from t2.micro or t3.micro to t2.nano or t3.nano.

Use "Spot" instances

One of my OpenVPN servers is a "Spot" t3.nano running 24x7 for <2.5$/month.

Mobile Management App

This is something I like : when on the move I can use the mobile app to check statuses or start/stop AWS servers etc...

It does not provide everything you can do with the main AWS Management Console, though.

the Free Tier bounds are specified, detailed by service, at :

ALL pricing info is available per service, or from the "umbrella" pricing page :

Check the available offer from AWS for your AWS Region : it generally gives the lowest possible price point.

AWS
Google Compute Engine
Microsoft Azure
https://aws.amazon.com/free
https://aws.amazon.com/premiumsupport/knowledge-center/create-and-activate-aws-account/
https://aws.amazon.com
recent enough video showing both
https://www.youtube.com/results?search_query=create+aws+account
https://aws.amazon.com/free
https://aws.amazon.com/pricing/
Spot Instances
Billing Dashboard shortcut, near the top-right corner in the AWS console