Network access control lists (NACLs) within Amazon Virtual Private Cloud (VPC) are a critical security layer in AWS, which offers stateless packet filtering to manage both inbound and outbound traffic at the subnet level. NACLs enable fine-tuned control over network traffic, allowing the enforcement of specific rules based on IP addresses, protocols, and port numbers, ensuring that each subnet within a VPC adheres to tailored security requirements.
In this Cloud Lab, you will examine the default network access control list accompanying a new VPC and understand its permissive nature. You will then move on to the practical aspect of configuring custom NACLs and learn to set specific rules that control traffic based on IP addresses, port numbers, and protocols. You will fetch the Educative instance’s IP address and then update the NACL to restrict traffic from this address. This process will be tested by attempting to access an AWS EC2 instance using the curl command from the identified IP address, demonstrating the effectiveness of the NACL configuration.
By the end of this Cloud Lab, you will understand how to manage NACLs within AWS VPC to implement security measures for the cloud-based networks.
The following illustration is a high-level architecture diagram of the infrastructure you will create in this Cloud Lab:
