Hi all,
I use EC2 to provision tailscale exit nodes scattered around the world,mainly so that I can use georestricted services easily with my existing tailnet setup. I wrote up the process on my blog and shared a simple AWS CDK app to launch exit nodes quickly. Sharing here in case it proves useful to someone else!
Scott
I’ve done something similar, but created a lambda with a function URL to launch and stop the instance on-demand. That way, when I want to use the instance I can just hit a bookmarked page in my browser to launch it, use it for a while, then hit another bookmarked URL to shut it down.
How much does it cost to keep one exit mode per month?
I run a couple in cloudfanatic. $3/mo.
You could definitely do this too! You do get a free bandwidth allownace out on EC2 too, but not nearly as much. I use it because I don’t transfer out > the EC2 free tier, it’s a bit easier to automate, and the lightsail free tier is time limited.
I’m also wondering this, the smallest EC2 instance that I deployed for a test just for a month was ~1.50USD per day…
A single t3.micro falls under the free tier, so nothing if its your only one!
According to their calculator and my limited knowledge a shared instance can be 0.052$ per hour on demand.
or even less if you pay upfront
this equates to 1.3$ per day or 38$ per month of constant usage.
One location though, so you have to be smart and create a really cool script to automate spin-up and shut-down with some really nice UI
You don’t transfer out?
If you’re running an EC2 as an exit node it will definitely be transferring out all the time, (everything you’re downloading from those machines using the exit node).
You can `cdk destroy` the CDK stack here and `cdk deploy` it when you want it back - admittedly removes the whole thing, not just pausing the instances, but it is pretty quick to deploy subsequently.
I dont exceed the ec2 free transfer out tier