Route 53 with ELB integration in AWS - Mini Project: Build & Apply

Route 53 with ELB integration

📖 Scenario: You are setting up a simple web application on AWS. You want to connect your domain name to your application load balancer so users can access your app using a friendly URL.

🎯 Goal: Build an AWS Route 53 configuration that creates a hosted zone and a DNS record pointing your domain to an existing Elastic Load Balancer (ELB).

📋 What You'll Learn

Create a hosted zone for the domain example.com in Route 53.

Create an alias A record in the hosted zone that points to the ELB DNS name my-load-balancer-1234567890.us-west-2.elb.amazonaws.com.

Use the AWS CLI JSON format for the Route 53 change batch.

Follow AWS best practices for alias records to ELB.

💡 Why This Matters

🌍 Real World

Connecting a domain name to an AWS Elastic Load Balancer is a common step in deploying web applications to make them accessible via friendly URLs.

💼 Career

Understanding Route 53 and ELB integration is essential for cloud engineers and DevOps professionals managing scalable web infrastructure on AWS.

1

Create a hosted zone for example.com

Write a JSON object called hosted_zone_config that defines a hosted zone with the name example.com and a caller reference unique-string-001.

AWS

# Define the hosted zone configuration JSON
# Your code here

Need a hint?

The hosted zone needs a Name and a unique CallerReference string.

2

Add the ELB DNS name as a variable

Create a variable called elb_dns_name and set it to the string my-load-balancer-1234567890.us-west-2.elb.amazonaws.com.

AWS

{
  "hosted_zone_config": {
    "Name": "example.com",
    "CallerReference": "unique-string-001"
  }
}

# Define the ELB DNS name
# Your code here

Need a hint?

Store the ELB DNS name as a string variable for reuse.

3

Create the Route 53 change batch JSON for alias record

Create a JSON object called change_batch that contains a Changes list with one change. This change should be an UPSERT action that creates an alias A record for example.com pointing to the ELB DNS name stored in elb_dns_name. Use the hosted zone ID Z3DZXE0Q79N41H for the ELB alias target. The record should have a TTL of 300 seconds.

AWS

{
  "hosted_zone_config": {
    "Name": "example.com",
    "CallerReference": "unique-string-001"
  },
  "elb_dns_name": "my-load-balancer-1234567890.us-west-2.elb.amazonaws.com"
}

# Create the change batch JSON for the alias record
# Your code here

Need a hint?

Use the AliasTarget structure with HostedZoneId and DNSName for ELB alias records.

4

Add the hosted zone ID to the hosted zone config

Add the HostedZoneId field with value Z1D633PJN98FT9 to the hosted_zone_config object.

AWS

{
  "hosted_zone_config": {
    "Name": "example.com",
    "CallerReference": "unique-string-001"
  },
  "elb_dns_name": "my-load-balancer-1234567890.us-west-2.elb.amazonaws.com",
  "change_batch": {
    "Changes": [
      {
        "Action": "UPSERT",
        "ResourceRecordSet": {
          "Name": "example.com",
          "Type": "A",
          "AliasTarget": {
            "HostedZoneId": "Z3DZXE0Q79N41H",
            "DNSName": "my-load-balancer-1234567890.us-west-2.elb.amazonaws.com",
            "EvaluateTargetHealth": false
          },
          "TTL": 300
        }
      }
    ]
  }
}

# Add HostedZoneId to hosted_zone_config
# Your code here

Need a hint?

The hosted zone config should include the hosted zone ID for your domain.