# Old AWS Accounts & EC2-Classic

AWS made some big changes to improve security a few years ago.

This means that old accounts will not work with LaunchPal.

**If you created your AWS account after 4 December 2013 your OK and can ignore the information on this page.**

If you created your account on or before 4 December 2013, then please check the [special AWS sub-account guide](/hosts/sub-accounts.md) to show you the easiest & best way to get a new account.

## The Issue

In simple terms - before December 2013 - your account most likely will not support the more secure EC2-VPC, and will have used EC2-Classic.

VPC is a way of securing the network for your AWS instances.

LaunchPal is not compatible with EC2-Classic and requires EC2-VPC.

Here is the relevant information from Amazon - in their classic "*Please read this 17 times*" style.

> If you created your AWS account after 2013-12-04, it supports only EC2-VPC
>
> If you created your AWS account before 2013-03-18, it supports both EC2-Classic and EC2-VPC in regions that you've used before, and only EC2-VPC in regions that you haven't used.
>
> If you created your AWS account between 2013-03-18 and 2013-12-04, it may support only EC2-VPC, or it may support both EC2-Classic and EC2-VPC in some of the regions that you've used.
>
> If your AWS account supports both EC2-Classic and EC2-VPC and you want the benefits of using EC2-VPC with the simplicity of launching instances into EC2-Classic, you can either create a new AWS account or launch your instances into a region that you haven't used before.

[The source of the info is this AWS FAQ Page](http://docs.aws.amazon.com/AmazonVPC/latest/UserGuide/default-vpc.html)

## Can't I just change something in my AWS account

Reading through AWS support documents about EC2-Classic, EC2-VPC and Default VPCs, it seems that with a lot of work it is possible to change an account.

But honestly the better option is [to just create a new account](/hosts/sub-accounts.md), It's super easy now with AWS Organisations.

Changing your existing account is a bloody pain!

It involves terminating all non-VPC provisioned Elastic Load Balancers, Amazon RDS, Amazon ElastiCache, and Amazon Redshift resources in that region.

Here is the info from Amazon:

> **I really want a default VPC for my existing EC2 account. Is that possible?**
>
> Yes, however, we can only enable an existing account for a default VPC if you have no EC2-Classic resources for that account in that region. Additionally, you must terminate all non-VPC provisioned Elastic Load Balancers, Amazon RDS, Amazon ElastiCache, and Amazon Redshift resources in that region. After your account has been configured for a default VPC, all future resource launches, including instances launched via Auto Scaling, will be placed in your default VPC. To request your existing account be setup with a default VPC, contact AWS Support.

[Here is the source.](https://aws.amazon.com/vpc/faqs/#Default_VPCs)


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