To efficiently manage and automate the creation and termination of development environments:

AWS CloudFormation Templates:

Provide a standardized CloudFormation template for developers to create identical development environments.

Automate Termination:

Use Amazon EventBridge (CloudWatch Events) to schedule a nightly rule that invokes an AWS Lambda function.

The Lambda function should be designed to delete the CloudFormation stacks created for development environments.

This solution ensures operational efficiency and cost management.

Enabling Instance Scale-In Protection:

Instance scale-in protection prevents Auto Scaling from terminating specific instances.

Steps:

Go to the AWS Management Console.

Navigate to EC2 and select 'Auto Scaling Groups.'

Select your Auto Scaling group.

Go to the 'Instance management' tab.

Select the instances you want to protect and click 'Actions.'

Choose 'Enable scale-in protection.'

This ensures that instances are not terminated during troubleshooting.

Step-by-Step

Understand the Problem:

Engineers need to connect to EC2 instances in a private subnet for troubleshooting.

The instances are using Windows or Amazon Linux AMIs.

The team already has an IAM role for authorization.

Analyze the Requirements:

Provide secure and efficient access to the instances without exposing them directly to the internet.

Utilize existing IAM role for access control.

Evaluate the Options:

Option A: Use AWS Systems Manager Session Manager.

Allows secure and auditable SSH or RDP access to EC2 instances without the need for bastion hosts or opening inbound ports.

Add a policy to allow the ssm:StartSession action.

Option B: Use Elastic IP and security group.

Exposes instances to direct access, increasing security risks.

Option C: Use a bastion host.

Requires additional infrastructure and maintenance.

Option D: Use an internet-facing Network Load Balancer.

Exposes instances to direct access via load balancer, not ideal for private subnets.

Select the Best Solution:

Option A: Using AWS Systems Manager Session Manager is the most secure and efficient solution. It eliminates the need for additional infrastructure and avoids exposing instances to the internet.

AWS Systems Manager Session Manager

Controlling Access to Session Manager

AWS Systems Manager Session Manager provides secure and auditable access to EC2 instances in a private subnet using IAM roles.

https://docs.aws.amazon.com/awscloudtrail/latest/userguide/cloudtrail-log-file-validation-intro.html

'When you enable log file integrity validation, CloudTrail creates a hash for every log file that it delivers. Every hour, CloudTrail also creates and delivers a file that references the log files for the last hour and contains a hash of each. This file is called a digest file. Validated log files are invaluable in security and forensic investigations'

When using Amazon S3 Object Lock configured in governance mode, deleting objects before their retention period ends requires specific permissions. To bypass these governance restrictions, the administrator must:

C: Assume a role that has the s3:BypassGovernanceRetention permission. This permission allows the role to override the governance mode restrictions.

D: Include the x-amz-bypass-governance-retention:true header in the delete request. This header is necessary to programmatically bypass the governance retention settings when making a delete request via the AWS CLI or SDK. These steps enable the deletion of objects under governance mode retention without waiting for the retention period to expire, addressing the need to remove unintended data uploads effectively. For further details, refer to the AWS documentation on S3 Object Lock Amazon S3 Object Lock.