SSH access into an EC2 instance using an alias

Accessing an EC2 instance via SSH using a long SSH command (a general format is shown below) can be time consuming and not efficient.

ssh -i <path to the pem file> default_user@ec2_ip

A quick way to access an EC2 instance is by using an alias. This alias can be created in the ssh config file located in the home directory (/Users//.ssh) of a user. The following can be added in the config file located at /Users//.ssh under the section “start of CNAME and SSH alias configs”.

Host ec2
    Hostname        <IP_DNS_of_EC2_instance>
    User	    <default_user_of_AMI>
    IdentityFile    "<path to the pem file>"

Once the config file is updated with the above configuration, an EC2 instance can be accessed using the command ssh ec2 where ec2 is an alias created for SSH access.

Note: update the alias name, hostname, user, and identity file details as per your usecase.