Node.js Elastic Beanstalk Demo

This repository contains a simple Node.js application that demonstrates how to deploy to AWS Elastic Beanstalk, which in turn deploys the application on an EC2 instance.

Prerequisites
Setup
Deployment
Application

Prerequisites

1. AWS Account

You need an AWS account. Sign up at AWS official website.

2. AWS CLI

Install the AWS CLI.
Setup your IAM user by following the instructions here
Add necessary permissions for the IAM user. Follow the instructions here. The following would be some of the permissions required.

  arn:aws:iam::aws:policy/AdministratorAccess-AWSElasticBeanstalk
  arn:aws:iam::aws:policy/service-role/AWSElasticBeanstalkService

Install and configure the AWS CLI. Instructions can be found here. Run the command to configure the CLI

  $ aws configure --profile your_profile_name
    AWS Access Key ID [None]: your_access_key_id
    AWS Secret Access Key [None]: your_secret_access_key
    Default region name [None]: ap-southeast-2
    Default output format [None]: json

To use the named profile with the AWS CLI, specify the profile using the --profile option in your commands

3. Elastic Beanstalk CLI

Install the EB CLI. Instructions can be found here. You will need to also have Go through the troubleshooting guide on their repo if you face any errors.
Configure the Elastic Beanstalk CLI. Instructions can be found here. Run the command to configure the CLI

 $ eb init --profile your_profile_name
    Select a default region
    1) us-east-1 : US East (N. Virginia)
    2) us-west-1 : US West (N. California)
    3) us-west-2 : US West (Oregon)
    4) eu-west-1 : Europe (Ireland)
    5) eu-central-1 : Europe (Frankfurt)
    6) ap-south-1 : Asia Pacific (Mumbai)
    7) ap-southeast-1 : Asia Pacific (Singapore)
    8) ...
    (default is 3): x

    You have not yet set up your credentials or your credentials are incorrect.
    You must provide your credentials.
    (aws-access-id): your_access_key_id
    (aws-secret-key): your_secret_access_key

    Select an application to use
    1) [ Create new Application ]
    (default is 1): 1

    Enter Application Name
    (default is "eb"): eb-node-ec2
    Application eb has been created.

    Select a platform.
    1) Node.js
    (default is 1): 1

    Do you want to set up SSH for your instances?
    (y/n): y

    Select a keypair.
    1) [ Create new KeyPair ]
    (default is 1): 1

Setup

Clone the repository:

git clone https://github.com/sebinbenjamin/node-aws-beanstalk-demo.git
cd node-beanstalk-demo

Install dependencies:
```
npm install
```

Deployment

Initialize Elastic Beanstalk in your project directory:

eb init --profile aws-demo-user

Select a default region
1) us-east-1 : US East (N. Virginia)
2) us-west-1 : US West (N. California)
3) us-west-2 : US West (Oregon)
4) eu-west-1 : EU (Ireland)
5) eu-central-1 : EU (Frankfurt)
6) ap-south-1 : Asia Pacific (Mumbai)
7) ap-southeast-1 : Asia Pacific (Singapore)
8) ap-southeast-2 : Asia Pacific (Sydney)

Follow the prompts to configure your Elastic Beanstalk application. You will need to select your AWS region and provide your access credentials.

Create an Elastic Beanstalk environment and deploy your application:
```
eb create --profile your_aws_profile_name
```

Create subnets using the AWS CLI

aws ec2 create-subnet --vpc-id vpc-1-demo-fs-node --cidr-block 10.0.1.0/24 --region ap-southeast-2
aws ec2 create-subnet --vpc-id vpc-1-demo-fs-node --cidr-block 10.0.2.0/24 --region ap-southeast-2

Deploy the application after updating .ebextensions/rds.config with the subnets created.

eb deploy --profile your_profile_name
eb status --profile your_profile_name # use to monitor the app
eb open --profile your_profile_name # use to open the app
eb logs --profile your_profile_name # to view the logs

You can set any environment variables using

    eb --profile your_profile_name setenv KEY=value

You can also setup environment variables in .ebextensions\environment.config like in this sample project.

Application

This application is a simple Node.js Express server that responds with "Hello, World!" when accessed.

How It Works

When you deploy an application using Elastic Beanstalk, AWS automatically handles the deployment details of capacity provisioning, load balancing, scaling, and monitoring. Specifically, Elastic Beanstalk uses Amazon EC2 instances to run your application. Here’s what happens behind the scenes:

Environment Creation: Elastic Beanstalk creates an environment, which includes one or more EC2 instances to host your application.
Application Deployment: The application is deployed to the EC2 instances in the environment.
Load Balancing and Auto Scaling: Elastic Beanstalk automatically sets up load balancing and auto-scaling to ensure your application can handle varying amounts of traffic. In this particular example, we are just setting up a single instance.

By using Elastic Beanstalk, you can focus on writing code and not worry about the underlying infrastructure, while still having full control over the AWS resources powering your application.

CI using GitHub Action

You can deploy your Node.js application to AWS Elastic Beanstalk using GitHub Actions. This allows you to automate the deployment process as part of your CI/CD pipeline. The following are the steps to do the same

Create an IAM User for Deployment.

Refer to AWS CLI config.
Attach the policies AWSElasticBeanstalkFullAccess and AmazonS3FullAccess to the IAM user.
Generate and save the access key and secret key for this IAM user.

Add GitHub Secrets

In your GitHub repository, go to Settings > Secrets and variables > Actions, make sure you add the following secrets

   AWS_ACCESS_KEY_ID: your_access_key_id
   AWS_SECRET_ACCESS_KEY: your_secret_access_key
   AWS_REGION: ap-southeast-2
   EB_ENVIRONMENT_NAME: ec2-node-env
   EB_APPLICATION_NAME: eb-node-ec2

Database Setup

This project also includes the setup of an RDS MySQL database instance as part of the Elastic Beanstalk environment. The database setup is automated using CloudFormation templates specified in .ebextensions directory.

.ebextensions/network.config - sets up the VPC, subnet, and security groups required for the environment. .ebextensions/rds.config - sets up the RDS MySQL database instance.

Using the Database in Your Application

The JDBC connection string for the database will be set as an environment variable DATABASE_URL in your Elastic Beanstalk environment. This file is used to configure it .ebextensions\environment.config. You can access this environment variable in your Node.js application to connect to the database.

sebinbenjamin/node-aws-beanstalk-demo