Hands-on emulator lab · 6–10 min
Share the crowd across servers — Elastic Load Balancing and EC2
Create a load balancer listener and point it at a target group.
These actions use an isolated AWS Emulator. It stores API state locally; it does not create paid cloud resources or run the full hosted AWS service.
Your goal
Create a load balancer listener and point it at a target group.
Why this matters
A listener needs a clear destination for incoming requests. You will create a load balancer, target group, and forwarding rule, then inspect the relationship. The group has no live web servers.
Words you will use
A load balancer distributes requests. A target is a server or app that receives them. A listener accepts traffic on a chosen port.
How to proceed
Start a fresh emulator, read each numbered step, and enter the practice settings shown. Run the action, inspect its API receipt, then continue. Finish lab checks the emulator state again before saving your progress.
1. Prepare the load balancer
Create a private VPC with two subnets and an internal application load balancer. Two subnets describe where it can be placed. This lab does not run web servers or send visitor traffic.
2. Choose where requests should go
Create a target group for HTTP port 80, then add an HTTP listener that forwards to it. A listener is the front door; the target group is its list of destinations. The practice group starts empty.
3. Check the forwarding rule
Read the listener and compare its target-group ARN with the group you created. This verifies routing configuration, not successful traffic delivery to a healthy app.
Practice, then check your understanding
Perform the actions yourself and inspect the returned state. Errors keep your settings so you can retry. Starting another lab clears the previous live environment. Earned XP is kept, and signed-in achievements sync to your account. Replay does not award duplicate XP.
Read the official AWS documentation for service behavior and production details.