Gateway Load Balancer endpoints (AWS PrivateLink)

A Gateway Load Balancer endpoint enables you to intercept traffic and route it to a service that you've configured using Gateway Load Balancers, for example, for security inspection. The owner of the service is the service provider, and you, as the principal creating the Gateway Load Balancer endpoint, are the service consumer.

The following are the general steps for setting up a Gateway Load Balancer endpoint:

1. Ensure that a Gateway Load Balancer endpoint service is configured. For more information, see VPC endpoint services for Gateway Load Balancer endpoints.

2. Choose the VPC in which to create the Gateway Load Balancer endpoint, and provide the name of the service.

3. Choose a subnet in your VPC to use the Gateway Load Balancer endpoint. We create an endpoint network interface in the subnet. An endpoint network interface is assigned a private IP address from the IP address range of your subnet, and keeps this IP address until the Gateway Load Balancer endpoint is deleted.

   Note

   An endpoint network interface is a requester-managed network interface. You can view it in your account, but you cannot manage it yourself. For more information, see Requester-managed network interfaces.

4. After you create the Gateway Load Balancer endpoint, it's available to use when it's accepted by the service provider. The service provider can configure the service to accept requests automatically or manually.

5. Configure your subnet route table and gateway route table to point traffic to the Gateway Load Balancer endpoint. For more information, see Routing to a Gateway Load Balancer endpoint in the Amazon VPC User Guide.

Gateway Load Balancer endpoint properties and limitations

To use a Gateway Load Balancer endpoint, be aware of the following:

• For each Gateway Load Balancer endpoint, you can choose only one Availability Zone (subnet) in your VPC. You cannot change the subnet later. To use a Gateway Load Balancer endpoint in a different subnet, create a new Gateway Load Balancer endpoint in that subnet. You can create a single Gateway Load Balancer endpoint per Availability Zone for a service, but only for the Availability Zones that the Gateway Load Balancer supports.

• Each Gateway Load Balancer endpoint supports a maximum bandwidth of up to 40 Gbps.

• If the network ACL for your subnet restricts traffic, you might not be able to send traffic through the Gateway Load Balancer endpoint. Ensure that you add appropriate rules that allow traffic to and from the CIDR block of the subnet.

• Security groups are not supported.

• Endpoint policies are not supported.

• A service might not be available in all Availability Zones through a Gateway Load Balancer endpoint. To find out which Availability Zones are supported, use the describe-vpc-endpoint-services command or use the Amazon VPC console. For more information, see Create a Gateway Load Balancer endpoint.

• When you create a Gateway Load Balancer endpoint, the endpoint is created in the Availability Zone that is mapped to your account and that is independent from other accounts. When the service provider and the consumer are in different accounts, use the Availability Zone ID to uniquely and consistently identify the endpoint Availability Zone. For example, use1-az1 is an Availability Zone ID for the us-east-1 Region and maps to the same location in every AWS account. For information about Availability Zone IDs, see AZ IDs for Your Resources in the AWS RAM User Guide or use describe-availability-zones.

• To keep traffic within the same Availability Zone, we recommend that you create a Gateway Load Balancer endpoint in each Availability Zone that you will send traffic to.

• Endpoints are supported within the same Region only. You cannot create an endpoint between a VPC and a service in a different Region.

• Endpoints support IPv4 traffic only.

• You cannot transfer an endpoint from one VPC to another, or from one service to another.

• You have a quota on the number of endpoints you can create per VPC. For more information, see AWS PrivateLink quotas.

Gateway Load Balancer endpoint lifecycle

A Gateway Load Balancer endpoint goes through various stages, starting from when you create it (the endpoint connection request). At each stage, there might be actions that the service consumer and service provider can take.

The following rules apply:

• A service provider can configure their service to accept Gateway Load Balancer endpoint requests automatically or manually.

• A service provider cannot delete a Gateway Load Balancer endpoint to their service. Only the service consumer that requested the connection can delete the Gateway Load Balancer endpoint.

• A service provider can reject the Gateway Load Balancer endpoint after it has been accepted and is in the available state.

Pricing for Gateway Load Balancer endpoints

You are charged for creating and using a Gateway Load Balancer endpoint to a service. Hourly usage rates and data processing rates apply. For more information, see AWS PrivateLink Pricing. You can view the total number of Gateway Load Balancer endpoints using the Amazon VPC console or the AWS CLI.

Create a Gateway Load Balancer endpoint

To create a Gateway Load Balancer endpoint, you must specify the VPC in which to create the endpoint, and the service to which to establish the connection.

Console

To create a Gateway Load Balancer endpoint

1. Open the Amazon VPC console at https://console.aws.amazon.com/vpc/.

2. In the navigation pane, choose Endpoints, Create Endpoint.

3. For Service category, choose Find service by name.

4. For Service Name, enter the name of the service and choose Verify.

5. Complete the following information and then choose Create endpoint.

   • For VPC, select a VPC in which to create the endpoint.

   • For Subnets, select the subnet (Availability Zone) in which to create the Gateway Load Balancer endpoint.

   • (Optional) To add a tag, choose Add tag and then specify a key and value for the tag.

Command line

To create a Gateway Load Balancer endpoint using the AWS CLI

Use the create-vpc-endpoint command and specify the VPC ID, type of VPC endpoint (Gateway Load Balancer), service name, and the subnet in which to create the Gateway Load Balancer endpoint.

aws ec2 create-vpc-endpoint --vpc-endpoint-type GatewayLoadBalancer --vpc-id vpc-id --subnet-ids subnet-id --service-name gateway-load-balancer-service-name 

To create a VPC endpoint using the AWS Tools for Windows PowerShell or API

• New-EC2VpcEndpoint

• CreateVpcEndpoint

View your Gateway Load Balancer endpoint

After you've created a Gateway Load Balancer endpoint, you can view information about it.

Console

To view information about a Gateway Load Balancer endpoint using the console

1. Open the Amazon VPC console at https://console.aws.amazon.com/vpc/.

2. In the navigation pane, choose Endpoints and select your Gateway Load Balancer endpoint.

3. Choose Details.

4. To view the subnet in which the Gateway Load Balancer endpoint has been created, and the ID of the endpoint network interface, choose Subnets.

Command line

To describe your Gateway Load Balancer endpoint using a command line tool or API

• describe-vpc-endpoints (AWS CLI)

• Get-EC2VpcEndpoint (Tools for Windows PowerShell)

• DescribeVpcEndpoints (Amazon EC2 Query API)

Add or remove tags for a Gateway Load Balancer endpoint

You can add or remove the tags for your Gateway Load Balancer endpoint.

Console

To add or remove a tag

1. Open the Amazon VPC console at https://console.aws.amazon.com/vpc/.

2. In the navigation pane, choose Endpoints.

3. Select the Gateway Load Balancer endpoint and choose Actions, Add/Edit Tags.

4. Add or remove a tag.

   [Add a tag] Choose Create tag and do the following:

   • For Key, enter the key name.

   • For Value, enter the key value.

   [Remove a tag] Choose the delete button (“x”) to the right of the tag’s Key and Value.

Command line

To add or remove tags using a command line tool or an API

• Use create-tags and delete-tags. (AWS CLI)

• Use New-EC2Tag and Remove-EC2Tag (AWS Tools for Windows PowerShell)

• Use CreateTags and DeleteTags. (Amazon EC2 Query API)