Question

Explain the concept of SSL termination and how it is handled by AWS Load Balancer.

Answer 1

SSL termination is the process of decrypting SSL-encrypted traffic at the load balancer before forwarding the unencrypted traffic to the targets. This offloads the decryption work from the application servers.

To configure SSL termination in ALB:

1. Create an SSL certificate using AWS Certificate Manager (ACM) or import a certificate.
2. Create an HTTPS listener:

   aws elbv2 create-listener --load-balancer-arn arn:aws:elasticloadbalancing:region:account-id:loadbalancer/app/my-alb/12345 --protocol HTTPS --port 443 --certificates CertificateArn=arn:aws:acm:region:account-id:certificate/12345 --default-actions Type=forward,TargetGroupArn=arn:aws:elasticloadbalancing:region:account-id:targetgroup/my-targets/12345