Sending and Receiving SQS Messages from an EC2 instance

This guide provides step-by-step instructions on how to send and receive SQS messages from an EC2 instance.

Hafeez Baig
62 steps
4 minutes

Amazon Web Services

Refer to the following guide to learn how to use IAM in the cloud\ <https://scribehow.com/shared/Creating_an_IAM_User_and_User_Group_in_AWS_Management_Console__hWNiiXlcRJKFqYZZEJD-cg>

Sign in to **AWS Management Console** as an **IAM User** **Pre-requisite** - Ensure you have selected the AWS region closest to your location\ For this guide, we will be using us-east-2 (Ohio) as a preferred

Type **EC2** in the search bar and click on **EC2** to view the EC2 Dashboard

**What is an EC2 in AWS?** Amazon EC2 (Elastic Compute Cloud) is a web service that allows users to rent virtual servers on the AWS cloud, offering scalability, flexibility, and pay-as-you-go pricing.

On the EC2 dashboard click on **Instances** from the left bar to view the EC2 instances

Click on the **Launch instances** button from the top right of the page

Create an Amazon Linux EC2 Instance with the name of "**SQS Instance**"

Refer to this guide to learn how to create an EC2 Instance\ <https://scribehow.com/shared/AWS__Creating_your_first_EC2_Instance__Xcu7ZVCdRfWx56YVktKgbQ>

To create a new **Role**, type **IAM** in the search bar and click on **IAM** to view the IAM Dashboard

**What is IAM?** IAM (Identity and Access Management) is a service provided by AWS that enables users to securely control access to AWS resources by managing users, groups, and permissions.

On the IAM dashboard, on the left bar click on the **Roles**

**Roles** wizard will open, on the top right corner click on the **Create role** button

**Select trusted entity** wizard will open, select the option **AWS service**

**What is the Trusted Entity type?** AWS Trusted Entity Type "AWS Service" refers to granting permissions to AWS services to perform actions on your behalf.

Scroll to the **Use case** section, from the dropdown select the option **EC2**

Scroll to the **Choose a use case for the specified service** section and select the option **EC2**

Here we are choosing trusted entity as EC2 service, allowing EC2 instances to call AWS service on your behalf

Scroll the page and click on the **Next** button

**Add permissions** wizard will open, scroll to the **Permissions policies** section and select the Policy name **AWSLambdaSQSQueueExecutionRole**

**What is AWSLambdaSQSQueueExecutionRole?** AWSLambdaSQSQueueExecutionRole is an AWS IAM role used to grant permissions to Lambda functions to interact with SQS queues.

Click on the **Next** button on the right side

**Name, review, and create** wizard will open, give the Role name as "**EC2RoleForSQS**" and Description as "**Allows EC2 instances to call AWS services on your behalf**"

Scroll the page and click on the **Create role** button

Role **EC2RoleForSQS** created

Congratulations on successfully creating the **EC2RoleForSQS**! Well done!

To **Modify** the EC2 Instance, type **EC2** in the search bar and click on **EC2** to view the EC2 Dashboard

On the EC2 dashboard click on **Instances** from the left bar to view the EC2 instances

**Instances** wizard will open, from the list of instances select the Name **SQS Instance**

On the top right corner click on th **Actions** drpdown button and select the option **Security** then select the option **Modify, IAM role**

**Modify IAM role** wizard will open, scroll to the **IAM role** section and from the dropdown select the option "**EC2RoleForSQS**"

Click on the **Update IAM role** button

Successfully attached **EC2RoleForSQS** to instance

Congratulations on successfully attaching **EC2RoleForSQS** to the instance! Well done!

To connect the instance, select the instance Name **SQS Instance**

On the top right corner click on the **Connect** button

**Connect to instance** wizard will open, scroll the page and click on the **Connect** button

After connecting to instance type the command [[aws sqs list-queues ]]you will see the error Access Denied

**What is the [[aws sqs list-queue]] command?** The `aws sqs list-queues` command lists the Amazon SQS queues available in a specific AWS region.

Type the command [[aws confgure ]]and set the **Default region** name as [[us-east-2 ]]

Type the command **[[aws sqs list-queue]] ,** you will see An error occured (Access Denied)

Go back to the **IAM** tab on the Roles wizard

Scroll to the **Roles** section and click on the role name "**EC2RoleForSQS**"

Scroll to the horizontal tab and click on the Permissions tab, scroll to the **Permissions policies** section

On the right side, click on the **Add permissions** dropdown button and select the option **Attach policies**

**Attach policy to EC2RoleForSQS** wizard will open, scroll to the **Other permissions policies** section and select the policy name **AmazonSQSFullAccess**

**What is AmazonSQSFullAccess?** AmazonSQSFullAccess is an AWS managed policy that grants full access to Amazon Simple Queue Service (SQS) resources, allowing actions such as creating, managing, and interacting with SQS queues and messages.

On the right side click on the **Add permissions** button

Policy was successfully attached to role

Congratulations on attaching a new policy to the **IAM** role! Well done!

Come back to the **EC2 Instance Connect** tab

Type the command [[aws sqs list-queues ]]you will be able to see the QueueUrls

Go back to the **IAM** tab on the **EC2RoleforSQS** wizard

To delete a policy from the IAM role, scroll to the **Permissions Policy** section and select the Policy name **AmazonSQSFullAccess**

On the right side click on the **Remove** button

**Remove AmazonSQSFullAccess ?** wizard will open, click on the **Remove** button

Policy removed

Congratulations on successfully removing the policy! Well done!

Type **Simple Queue Service** in the search bar and click on **Simple Queue Service** to view the Simple Queue Service Dashboard

**What is Simple Queue Service?** Amazon Simple Queue Service (SQS) is a fully managed messaging queuing service by AWS, facilitating asynchronous communication between components of distributed systems or applications, ensuring reliability, scalability, and flexibility without managing infrastructure.

Amazon SQS dashboard will open, scroll to the **Queues** section and click on the Name **first-standard-queue**

**first-standard-queue** wizard will open, scroll to the **Details** section and click on the copy widget to copy the URL

Go back to the **EC2 Instance Connect** tab

Type the command [[aws sqs recieve-message --queue-url=]] and right click then paste the URL

**What is**`aws sqs receive-message`**?** The `aws sqs receive-message` command retrieves messages from an Amazon SQS queue.

You can see the output **Messages** in JSON format

Type the command [[aws sqs delete-message --queue-url= ]]then right click and paste the URL

**What is**`aws sqs delete-message`**command?** The `aws sqs delete-message` command deletes a message from an Amazon SQS queue.

Come back to the **Simple Query Sevice** tab

On the right side click on the **Send and recieve messages** button

**Send Message** and **Recieve Message** wizard will open, on right side click on the **Poll for messages** button

Scroll to the **Recieve messages** section and select the **ID** of the message

Come back to the **EC2 Instance Connect** tab

Type the command [[aws sqs send-message --queue-url= ]]and paste the previously copied URL, you will see AccessDenied error

Here the error occurred due to the removal of the SQS full access policy from the IAM role.

Come back to the **Amazon SQS** tab

On the right side click on the **Edit** button

Edit **first-standard-queue** wizard will open, scroll to the **Configuration** section

Come back to the previous wizard **first-standard-queue** and on the top right corner click on the **Purge** button

**Purge queue** wizard will open, type purge in the text input field and click on the **Purge** button

**What do you mean by Purge queue?** Purging a queue means removing all messages from an Amazon SQS queue, leaving it empty.

Congratulations on completing this lab and Sending and Receiving SQS Messages from an EC2 instance! Well done!