VPC with public and private subnets and AWS Site-to-Site VPN access
The configuration for this scenario includes a virtual private cloud (VPC) with a public subnet and a private subnet, and a virtual private gateway to enable communication with your own network over an IPsec VPN tunnel. We recommend this scenario if you want to extend your network into the cloud and also directly access the internet from your VPC. This scenario enables you to run a multi-tiered application with a scalable web front end in a public subnet, and to house your data in a private subnet that is connected to your network by an IPsec AWS Site-to-Site VPN connection.
This scenario can also be optionally configured for IPv6. Instances launched into the subnets can receive IPv6 addresses. We do not support IPv6 communication over a Site-to-Site VPN connection on a virtual private gateway; however, instances in the VPC can communicate with each other via IPv6, and instances in the public subnet can communicate over the internet via IPv6. For more information about IPv4 and IPv6 addressing, see IP addressing for your VPCs and subnets.
For information about managing your EC2 instance software, see Managing software on your Linux instance in the Amazon EC2 User Guide for Linux Instances.
Overview
The following diagram shows the key components of the configuration for this scenario.
The configuration for this scenario includes the following:
-
A virtual private cloud (VPC) with a size /16 IPv4 CIDR (example: 10.0.0.0/16). This provides 65,536 private IPv4 addresses.
-
A public subnet with a size /24 IPv4 CIDR (example: 10.0.0.0/24). This provides 256 private IPv4 addresses. A public subnet is a subnet that's associated with a route table that has a route to an internet gateway.
-
A VPN-only subnet with a size /24 IPv4 CIDR (example: 10.0.1.0/24). This provides 256 private IPv4 addresses.
-
An internet gateway. This connects the VPC to the internet and to other AWS products.
-
A Site-to-Site VPN connection between your VPC and your network. The Site-to-Site VPN connection consists of a virtual private gateway located on the Amazon side of the Site-to-Site VPN connection and a customer gateway located on your side of the Site-to-Site VPN connection.
-
Instances with private IPv4 addresses in the subnet range (examples: 10.0.0.5 and 10.0.1.5), which enables the instances to communicate with each other and other instances in the VPC.
-
Instances in the public subnet with Elastic IP addresses (example: 198.51.100.1), which are public IPv4 addresses that enable them to be reached from the internet. The instances can have public IPv4 addresses assigned at launch instead of Elastic IP addresses. Instances in the VPN-only subnet are back-end servers that don't need to accept incoming traffic from the internet, but can send and receive traffic from your network.
-
A custom route table associated with the public subnet. This route table contains an entry that enables instances in the subnet to communicate with other instances in the VPC, and an entry that enables instances in the subnet to communicate directly with the internet.
-
The main route table associated with the VPN-only subnet. The route table contains an entry that enables instances in the subnet to communicate with other instances in the VPC, and an entry that enables instances in the subnet to communicate directly with your network.
For more information, see Subnets. For more information about internet gateways, see Connect to the internet using an internet gateway. For more information about NAT gateways, see NAT gateways. For more information about your AWS Site-to-Site VPN connection, see the AWS Site-to-Site VPN User Guide.
IPv6 configuration
You can optionally enable IPv6 for this scenario. In addition to the components listed above, the configuration includes the following:
-
A size /56 IPv6 CIDR block associated with the VPC (example: 2001:db8:1234:1a00::/56). AWS automatically assigns the CIDR; you cannot choose the range yourself.
-
A size /64 IPv6 CIDR block associated with the public subnet (example: 2001:db8:1234:1a00::/64). You can choose the range for your subnet from the range allocated to the VPC. You cannot choose the size of the subnet IPv6 CIDR.
-
A size /64 IPv6 CIDR block associated with the VPN-only subnet (example: 2001:db8:1234:1a01::/64). You can choose the range for your subnet from the range allocated to the VPC. You cannot choose the size of the subnet IPv6 CIDR.
-
IPv6 addresses assigned to the instances from the subnet range (example: 2001:db8:1234:1a00::1a).
-
Route table entries in the custom route table that enable instances in the public subnet to use IPv6 to communicate with each other, and directly over the internet.
-
A route table entry in the main route table that enable instances in the VPN-only subnet to use IPv6 to communicate with each other.
The web servers in the public subnet have the following addresses.
| Server | IPv4 address | Elastic IP address | IPv6 address |
|---|---|---|---|
|
1 |
10.0.0.5 |
198.51.100.1 | 2001:db8:1234:1a00::1a |
|
2 |
10.0.0.6 |
198.51.100.2 | 2001:db8:1234:1a00::2b |
| 3 | 10.0.0.7 | 198.51.100.3 | 2001:db8:1234:1a00::3c |
The database servers in the private subnet have the following addresses.
| Server | IPv4 address | IPv6 address |
|---|---|---|
|
1 |
10.0.1.5 |
2001:db8:1234:1a01::1a |
|
2 |
10.0.1.6 |
2001:db8:1234:1a01::2b |
| 3 | 10.0.1.7 | 2001:db8:1234:1a01::3c |
Routing
Your VPC has an implied router (shown in the configuration diagram for this scenario). In this scenario, Amazon VPC updates the main route table used with the VPN-only subnet, and creates a custom route table and associates it with the public subnet.
The instances in the VPN-only subnet can't reach the internet directly; any internet-bound traffic must first traverse the virtual private gateway to your network, where the traffic is then subject to your firewall and corporate security policies. If the instances send any AWS-bound traffic (for example, requests to the Amazon S3 or Amazon EC2 APIs), the requests must go over the virtual private gateway to your network and then egress to the internet before reaching AWS.
Any traffic from your network going to an Elastic IP address for an instance in the public subnet goes over the internet, and not over the virtual private gateway. You could instead set up a route and security group rules that enable the traffic to come from your network over the virtual private gateway to the public subnet.
The Site-to-Site VPN connection is configured either as a statically-routed Site-to-Site VPN connection or as a dynamically-routed Site-to-Site VPN connection (using BGP). If you select static routing, you'll be prompted to manually enter the IP prefix for your network when you create the Site-to-Site VPN connection. If you select dynamic routing, the IP prefix is advertised automatically to the virtual private gateway for your VPC using BGP.
The following tables describe the route tables for this scenario.
Main route table
The first entry is the default entry for local routing in the VPC; this entry enables the
instances in the VPC to communicate with each other over IPv4. The second entry
routes all other IPv4 subnet traffic from the private subnet to your network over
the virtual private gateway (for example, vgw-1a2b3c4d).
| Destination | Target |
|---|---|
10.0.0.0/16
|
local |
| 0.0.0.0/0 |
vgw-id
|
Custom route table
The first entry is the default entry for local routing in the VPC; this entry enables the
instances in the VPC to communicate with each other. The second entry routes all
other IPv4 subnet traffic from the public subnet to the internet over the internet
gateway (for example, igw-1a2b3c4d).
| Destination | Target |
|---|---|
10.0.0.0/16
|
local |
| 0.0.0.0/0 |
igw-id
|
Alternate routing
Alternatively, if you want instances in the private subnet to access the internet, you can create a network address translation (NAT) gateway or instance in the public subnet, and set up the routing so that the internet-bound traffic for the subnet goes to the NAT device. This enables the instances in the VPN-only subnet to send requests over the internet gateway (for example, for software updates).
For more information about setting up a NAT device manually, see Connect to the internet or other networks using NAT devices.
To enable the private subnet's internet-bound traffic to go to the NAT device, you must update the main route table as follows.
The first entry is the default entry for local routing in the VPC. The second entry routes
the subnet traffic bound for your own local (customer) network to the virtual
private gateway. In this example, assume your local network's IP address range is
172.16.0.0/12. The third entry sends all other subnet traffic to a
NAT gateway.
| Destination | Target |
|---|---|
10.0.0.0/16
|
local |
172.16.0.0/12
|
vgw-id
|
| 0.0.0.0/0 |
nat-gateway-id
|
Routing for IPv6
If you associate an IPv6 CIDR block with your VPC and subnets, your route tables must include separate routes for IPv6 traffic. The following tables show the route tables for this scenario if you choose to enable IPv6 communication in your VPC.
Main route table
The second entry is the default route that's automatically added for local routing in the VPC over IPv6.
| Destination | Target |
|---|---|
10.0.0.0/16
|
local |
2001:db8:1234:1a00::/56
|
local |
| 0.0.0.0/0 |
vgw-id
|
Custom route table
The second entry is the default route that's automatically added for local routing in the VPC over IPv6. The fourth entry routes all other IPv6 subnet traffic to the internet gateway.
| Destination | Target |
|---|---|
10.0.0.0/16
|
local |
2001:db8:1234:1a00::/56
|
local |
| 0.0.0.0/0 |
igw-id
|
| ::/0 | igw-id |
Security
AWS provides features that you can use to increase security for the resources in your VPC. Security groups allow inbound and outbound traffic for associated resources, such as EC2 instances. Network ACLs allow or deny inbound and outbound traffic at the subnet level. In most cases, security groups can meet your needs. However, you can use network ACLs if you want an additional layer of security. For more information, see Compare security groups and network ACLs.
For this scenario, you'll use security groups but not network ACLs. If you'd like to use a network ACL, see Recommended network ACL rules.
Your VPC comes with a default security group. An instance that's launched into the VPC is automatically associated with the default security group if you don't specify a different security group during launch. For this scenario, we recommend that you create the following security groups instead of using the default security group:
-
WebServerSG: Specify this security group when you launch web servers in the public subnet.
-
DBServerSG: Specify this security group when you launch database servers in the VPN-only subnet.
The instances assigned to a security group can be in different subnets. However, in this scenario, each security group corresponds to the type of role an instance plays, and each role requires the instance to be in a particular subnet. Therefore, in this scenario, all instances assigned to a security group are in the same subnet.
The following table describes the recommended rules for the WebServerSG security group, which allow the web servers to receive internet traffic, as well as SSH and RDP traffic from your network. The web servers can also initiate read and write requests to the database servers in the VPN-only subnet, and send traffic to the internet; for example, to get software updates. Because the web server doesn't initiate any other outbound communication, the default outbound rule is removed.
The group includes both SSH and RDP access, and both Microsoft SQL Server and MySQL access. For your situation, you might only need rules for Linux (SSH and MySQL) or Windows (RDP and Microsoft SQL Server).
| Inbound | |||
|---|---|---|---|
| Source | Protocol | Port Range | Comments |
|
0.0.0.0/0 |
TCP |
80 |
Allow inbound HTTP access to the web servers from any IPv4 address. |
|
0.0.0.0/0 |
TCP |
443 |
Allow inbound HTTPS access to the web servers from any IPv4 address. |
|
Your network's public IP address range |
TCP |
22 |
Allow inbound SSH access to Linux instances from your network (over the internet gateway). |
|
Your network's public IP address range |
TCP |
3389 |
Allow inbound RDP access to Windows instances from your network (over the internet gateway). |
|
Outbound |
|||
|
The ID of your DBServerSG security group |
TCP |
1433 |
Allow outbound Microsoft SQL Server access to the database servers assigned to DBServerSG. |
|
The ID of your DBServerSG security group |
TCP |
3306 |
Allow outbound MySQL access to the database servers assigned to DBServerSG. |
|
0.0.0.0/0 |
TCP |
80 |
Allow outbound HTTP access to the internet. |
|
0.0.0.0/0 |
TCP |
443 |
Allow outbound HTTPS access to the internet. |
The following table describes the recommended rules for the DBServerSG security group, which allow Microsoft SQL Server and MySQL read and write requests from the web servers and SSH and RDP traffic from your network. The database servers can also initiate traffic bound for the internet (your route table sends that traffic over the virtual private gateway).
| Inbound | |||
|---|---|---|---|
| Source | Protocol | Port range | Comments |
|
The ID of your WebServerSG security group |
TCP |
1433 |
Allow inbound Microsoft SQL Server access from the web servers associated with the WebServerSG security group. |
|
The ID of your WebServerSG security group |
TCP |
3306 |
Allow inbound MySQL Server access from the web servers associated with the WebServerSG security group. |
|
Your network's IPv4 address range |
TCP |
22 |
Allow inbound SSH traffic to Linux instances from your network (over the virtual private gateway). |
|
Your network's IPv4 address range |
TCP |
3389 |
Allow inbound RDP traffic to Windows instances from your network (over the virtual private gateway). |
|
Outbound |
|||
| Destination | Protocol | Port range | Comments |
|
0.0.0.0/0 |
TCP |
80 |
Allow outbound IPv4 HTTP access to the internet (for example, for software updates) over the virtual private gateway. |
|
0.0.0.0/0 |
TCP |
443 |
Allow outbound IPv4 HTTPS access to the internet (for example, for software updates) over the virtual private gateway. |
(Optional) The default security group for a VPC has rules that automatically allow assigned instances to communicate with each other. To allow that type of communication for a custom security group, you must add the following rules:
| Inbound | |||
|---|---|---|---|
| Source | Protocol | Port range | Comments |
|
The ID of the security group |
All |
All |
Allow inbound traffic from other instances assigned to this security group. |
| Outbound | |||
| Destination | Protocol | Port range | Comments |
| The ID of the security group | All | All | Allow outbound traffic to other instances assigned to this security group. |
Security group rules for IPv6
If you associate an IPv6 CIDR block with your VPC and subnets, you must add separate rules to your WebServerSG and DBServerSG security groups to control inbound and outbound IPv6 traffic for your instances. In this scenario, the web servers will be able to receive all internet traffic over IPv6, and SSH or RDP traffic from your local network over IPv6. They can also initiate outbound IPv6 traffic to the internet. The database servers cannot initiate outbound IPv6 traffic to the internet, so they do not require any additional security group rules.
The following are the IPv6-specific rules for the WebServerSG security group (which are in addition to the rules listed above).
| Inbound | |||
|---|---|---|---|
| Source | Protocol | Port range | Comments |
|
::/0 |
TCP |
80 |
Allow inbound HTTP access to the web servers from any IPv6 address. |
|
::/0 |
TCP |
443 |
Allow inbound HTTPS access to the web servers from any IPv6 address. |
|
IPv6 address range of your network |
TCP |
22 |
(Linux instances) Allow inbound SSH access over IPv6 from your network. |
|
IPv6 address range of your network |
TCP |
3389 |
(Windows instances) Allow inbound RDP access over IPv6 from your network |
| Outbound | |||
| Destination | Protocol | Port range | Comments |
| ::/0 | TCP | HTTP | Allow outbound HTTP access to any IPv6 address. |
| ::/0 | TCP | HTTPS | Allow outbound HTTPS access to any IPv6 address. |
Implement this scenario
To implement this scenario, get information about your customer gateway and create the VPC.
These procedures include optional steps for enabling and configuring IPv6 communication for your VPC. You do not have to perform these steps if you do not want to use IPv6 in your VPC.
To prepare your customer gateway
-
Determine the device you'll use as your customer gateway device. For more information, see Your customer gateway device in the AWS Site-to-Site VPN User Guide.
-
Obtain the internet-routable IP address for the customer gateway device's external interface. The address must be static and may be behind a device performing network address translation (NAT).
-
If you want to create a statically-routed Site-to-Site VPN connection, get the list of internal IP ranges (in CIDR notation) that should be advertised across the Site-to-Site VPN connection to the virtual private gateway. For more information, see Route tables and VPN route priority in the AWS Site-to-Site VPN User Guide.
Recommended network ACL rules
For this scenario, you can create a network ACL for the public subnet and a separate network ACL for the VPN-only subnet. The following table shows the rules that we recommend for each network ACL. They block all traffic unless it is explicitly required.
| Inbound | |||||
|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| Rule # | Source IP | Protocol | Port | Allow/Deny | Comments |
|
100 |
0.0.0.0/0 |
TCP |
80 |
ALLOW |
Allows inbound HTTP traffic to the web servers from any IPv4 address. |
|
110 |
0.0.0.0/0 |
TCP |
443 |
ALLOW |
Allows inbound HTTPS traffic to the web servers from any IPv4 address. |
|
120 |
Public IPv4 address range of your home network |
TCP |
22 |
ALLOW |
Allows inbound SSH traffic to the web servers from your home network (over the internet gateway). |
|
130 |
Public IPv4 address range of your home network |
TCP |
3389 |
ALLOW |
Allows inbound RDP traffic to the web servers from your home network (over the internet gateway). |
|
140 |
0.0.0.0/0 |
TCP |
32768-65535 |
ALLOW |
Allows inbound return traffic from hosts on the internet that are responding to requests originating in the subnet. This range is an example only. For information about choosing the correct ephemeral ports for your configuration, see Ephemeral ports. |
|
* |
0.0.0.0/0 |
all |
all |
DENY |
Denies all inbound IPv4 traffic not already handled by a preceding rule (not modifiable). |
| Outbound | |||||
| Rule # | Dest IP | Protocol | Port | Allow/Deny | Comments |
|
100 |
0.0.0.0/0 |
TCP |
80 |
ALLOW |
Allows outbound HTTP traffic from the subnet to the internet. |
|
110 |
0.0.0.0/0 |
TCP |
443 |
ALLOW |
Allows outbound HTTPS traffic from the subnet to the internet. |
|
120 |
10.0.1.0/24 |
TCP |
1433 |
ALLOW |
Allows outbound MS SQL access to database servers in the VPN-only subnet. This port number is an example only. Other examples include 3306 for MySQL/Aurora access, 5432 for PostgreSQL access, 5439 for Amazon Redshift access, and 1521 for Oracle access. |
|
140 |
0.0.0.0/0 |
TCP |
32768-65535 |
ALLOW |
Allows outbound IPv4 responses to clients on the internet (for example, serving webpages to people visiting the web servers in the subnet). This range is an example only. For information about choosing the correct ephemeral ports for your configuration, see Ephemeral ports. |
|
* |
0.0.0.0/0 |
all |
all |
DENY |
Denies all outbound traffic not already handled by a preceding rule (not modifiable). |
| Inbound | |||||
|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| Rule # | Source IP | Protocol | Port | Allow/Deny | Comments |
|
100 |
10.0.0.0/24 |
TCP |
1433 |
ALLOW |
Allows web servers in the public subnet to read and write to MS SQL servers in the VPN-only subnet. This port number is an example only. Other examples include 3306 for MySQL/Aurora access, 5432 for PostgreSQL access, 5439 for Amazon Redshift access, and 1521 for Oracle access. |
|
120 |
Private IPv4 address range of your home network |
TCP |
22 |
ALLOW |
Allows inbound SSH traffic from the home network (over the virtual private gateway). |
|
130 |
Private IPv4 address range of your home network |
TCP |
3389 |
ALLOW |
Allows inbound RDP traffic from the home network (over the virtual private gateway). |
|
140 |
Private IP address range of your home network |
TCP |
32768-65535 |
ALLOW |
Allows inbound return traffic from clients in the home network (over the virtual private gateway). This range is an example only. For information about choosing the correct ephemeral ports for your configuration, see Ephemeral ports. |
|
* |
0.0.0.0/0 |
all |
all |
DENY |
Denies all inbound traffic not already handled by a preceding rule (not modifiable). |
| Outbound | |||||
| Rule # | Dest IP | Protocol | Port | Allow/Deny | Comments |
|
100 |
Private IP address range of your home network |
All |
All |
ALLOW |
Allows all outbound traffic from the subnet to your home network (over the virtual private gateway). This rule also covers rule 120. However, you can make this rule more restrictive by using a specific protocol type and port number. If you make this rule more restrictive, you must include rule 120 in your network ACL to ensure that outbound responses are not blocked. |
|
110 |
10.0.0.0/24 |
TCP |
32768-65535 |
ALLOW |
Allows outbound responses to the web servers in the public subnet. This range is an example only. For information about choosing the correct ephemeral ports for your configuration, see Ephemeral ports. |
|
120 |
Private IP address range of your home network |
TCP |
32768-65535 |
ALLOW |
Allows outbound responses to clients in the home network (over the virtual private gateway). This range is an example only. For information about choosing the correct ephemeral ports for your configuration, see Ephemeral ports. |
|
* |
0.0.0.0/0 |
all |
all |
DENY |
Denies all outbound traffic not already handled by a preceding rule (not modifiable). |
Recommended network ACL rules for IPv6
If you implemented IPv6 support and created a VPC and subnets with associated IPv6 CIDR blocks, you must add separate rules to your network ACLs to control inbound and outbound IPv6 traffic.
The following are the IPv6-specific rules for your network ACLs (which are in addition to the preceding rules).
| Inbound | |||||
|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| Rule # | Source IP | Protocol | Port | Allow/Deny | Comments |
|
150 |
::/0 |
TCP |
80 |
ALLOW |
Allows inbound HTTP traffic from any IPv6 address. |
|
160 |
::/0 |
TCP |
443 |
ALLOW |
Allows inbound HTTPS traffic from any IPv6 address. |
|
170 |
IPv6 address range of your home network |
TCP |
22 |
ALLOW |
Allows inbound SSH traffic over IPv6 from your home network (over the internet gateway). |
|
180 |
IPv6 address range of your home network |
TCP |
3389 |
ALLOW |
Allows inbound RDP traffic over IPv6 from your home network (over the internet gateway). |
|
190 |
::/0 |
TCP |
1024-65535 |
ALLOW |
Allows inbound return traffic from hosts on the internet that are responding to requests originating in the subnet. This range is an example only. For information about choosing the correct ephemeral ports for your configuration, see Ephemeral ports. |
|
* |
::/0 |
all |
all |
DENY |
Denies all inbound IPv6 traffic not already handled by a preceding rule (not modifiable). |
| Outbound | |||||
| Rule # | Dest IP | Protocol | Port | Allow/Deny | Comments |
|
150 |
::/0 |
TCP |
80 |
ALLOW |
Allows outbound HTTP traffic from the subnet to the internet. |
|
160 |
::/0 |
TCP |
443 |
ALLOW |
Allows outbound HTTPS traffic from the subnet to the internet. |
|
170 |
2001:db8:1234:1a01::/64 |
TCP |
1433 |
ALLOW |
Allows outbound MS SQL access to database servers in the private subnet. This port number is an example only. Other examples include 3306 for MySQL/Aurora access, 5432 for PostgreSQL access, 5439 for Amazon Redshift access, and 1521 for Oracle access. |
|
190 |
::/0 |
TCP |
32768-65535 |
ALLOW |
Allows outbound responses to clients on the internet (for example, serving webpages to people visiting the web servers in the subnet). This range is an example only. For information about choosing the correct ephemeral ports for your configuration, see Ephemeral ports. |
|
* |
::/0 |
all |
all |
DENY |
Denies all outbound IPv6 traffic not already handled by a preceding rule (not modifiable). |
| Inbound | |||||
|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| Rule # | Source IP | Protocol | Port | Allow/Deny | Comments |
|
150 |
2001:db8:1234:1a00::/64 |
TCP |
1433 |
ALLOW |
Allows web servers in the public subnet to read and write to MS SQL servers in the private subnet. This port number is an example only. Other examples include 3306 for MySQL/Aurora access, 5432 for PostgreSQL access, 5439 for Amazon Redshift access, and 1521 for Oracle access. |
|
* |
::/0 |
all |
all |
DENY |
Denies all inbound IPv6 traffic not already handled by a preceding rule (not modifiable). |
| Outbound | |||||
| Rule # | Dest IP | Protocol | Port | Allow/Deny | Comments |
|
130 |
2001:db8:1234:1a00::/64 |
TCP |
32768-65535 |
ALLOW |
Allows outbound responses to the public subnet (for example, responses to web servers in the public subnet that are communicating with DB servers in the private subnet). This range is an example only. For information about choosing the correct ephemeral ports for your configuration, see Ephemeral ports. |
|
* |
::/0 |
all |
all |
DENY |
Denies all outbound IPv6 traffic not already handled by a preceding rule (not modifiable). |
