How can I configure ACM certificates for my website hosted on an EC2 instance?

You can't export an Amazon Issued ACM public certificate for use on an EC2 instance because ACM manages the private key. For more information, see ACM Private Key Security.

You can use SSL/TLS encryption for communication by putting your Amazon EC2 instance behind a service that integrates with ACM, such as Elastic Load Balancing (ELB) or an Amazon CloudFront distribution.

Before you begin, follow the instructions to Request a Public Certificate.

Note: ACM certificates must be requested or imported in the same AWS Region as your ELB. CloudFront distributions must request the certificate in the US East (N. Virginia) Region.

Create an Application Load Balancer (ALB), Network Load Balancer (NLB), Classic Load Balancer (CLB), or CloudFront distribution

Note: If you already created an ALB, NLB, CLB, or CloudFront distribution, you can skip these steps.

• For ALB, follow the instructions to Create an Application Load Balancer.
• For NLB, follow the instructions to Create a Network Load Balancer.
• For CLB, follow the instructions to Create a Classic Load Balancer.
• For CloudFront distribution, follow the instructions for Creating a Distribution.

Associate the certificate with an ELB or configure with a CloudFront distribution

• For ELB, follow the instructions to associate the certificate with a Classic, Application, or Network Load Balancer.
• For CloudFront, follow the instructions to configure your CloudFront distribution to use an SSL/TLS certificate.

Put the Amazon EC2 instance behind your ELB or CloudFront distribution

• For ALB and NLB, follow the instructions to Register Targets with Your Target Group.
• For CLB, follow the instructions to Register or Deregister EC2 Instances for Your Classic Load Balancer.
• For a CloudFront distribution, follow the instructions for Using Amazon EC2 or Other Custom Origins.

Route traffic to your ELB or CloudFront distribution

• For ELB, follow the instructions for Routing Traffic to an ELB Load Balancer.
• For CloudFront distribution, follow the instructions for Routing Traffic to a CloudFront Web Distribution.