AWS macOS

Run macOS in AWS for testing out systems macOS compatibility

All done with Terraform and ansible

How do you know to do this?

Easy! I follow Tony on YouTube 😂

• How to run mac in the cloud (macOS on AWS)
• How can I access my Amazon EC2 Mac instance through a GUI?

Prerequisites

1. You must allow dedicated mac1/mac2 quotas for EC2:
2. Copy terraform/terraform.tfvars.example to terraform/terraform.tfvars and adjust as needed

Create a macOS box accessible via SSH

cd terraform

# one time
# terraform init

terraform apply

Paste the sshconfig output into ~/.ssh/config and then login to the macOS by ssh:

ssh macos

GUI access

Since most macOS programs are GUI apps, its just about impossible to do all tasks over SSH so we must enable VNC and access via a tunnel. Set this up with Ansible:

cd ansible

# test connectivity - wait a few mins for host to alive
ansible -m ping all -i hosts.yml

ansible-playbook -i hosts.yml playbooks/vnc.yml

Now SSH to the box and open an SSH tunnel:

ssh -L 5900:localhost:5900 macos

# set a password we need it for VNC
sudo /usr/bin/dscl . -passwd /Users/ec2-user

Finally, you can connect via VNC:

• Client software for Linux: Remmina
• Server: localhost
• Port: 5900
• Username: ec2-user
• Password: whatever you just set

"Enjoy"!

What Next?

1. Apps + Confluent SDK/CLI
2. Docker with bridge networking
3. K3D with with accessible load balancers

Cleanup

• Shutting down EC2 mac instances takes 10 minutes+ - this will fail the terraform script
• Need to "release" the EC2 dedicated host to stop being billed (in 24hr increments)
• Sometimes it take half hour or so for the EC2 host to realize its no longer occupied
• Be patient and re-run terraform after some time or just release with the AWS console

cd terraform
terraform destroy