AWS ElasticBeanstalk First try

Contents

1. 1. Why AWS Elastic Beanstalk?
2. 2. How to use Elastic Beanstalk?
   1. 2.1. Cloudformation Template
   2. 2.2. .ebextensions

Why AWS Elastic Beanstalk?

A single server instance is good for development but it would be bad for production environment because it’s unable to scale horizontally. Also it’s a waste of money to let a giant instance run 7x24 while we just have a few rushing hours in a day. Therefore, we need to be able to scale horizontally base on the network traffic, server cpu utilization percentage etc.

How to use Elastic Beanstalk?

I will create the Elastic Beanstalk environment by a cloudformation template and make specific server instance change in project artifact’s .ebextension config files.

Cloudformation Template

Let’s begin with a snippet.

AWSTemplateFormatVersion: '2010-09-09'
Resources:
  sampleApplication:
    Type: AWS::ElasticBeanstalk::Application
    Properties:
      ################################### 
      # Specify the Application name here
      ###################################
      ApplicationName: Application Name(XXXXX)
      Description: AWS Elastic Beanstalk Sample Application
  sampleApplicationVersion:
    Type: AWS::ElasticBeanstalk::ApplicationVersion
    Properties:
      ApplicationName:
        Ref: sampleApplication
      Description: AWS ElasticBeanstalk Sample Application Version
      SourceBundle:
        ###################################
        # Specify the artifact's location
        ###################################
        S3Bucket: !Sub "elasticbeanstalk-samples-${AWS::Region}"
        S3Key: php-newsample-app.zip
  sampleConfigurationTemplate:
    Type: AWS::ElasticBeanstalk::ConfigurationTemplate
    Properties:
      ApplicationName:
        Ref: sampleApplication
      Description: AWS ElasticBeanstalk Sample Configuration Template
      ###################################
      # Specify the solution stack name
      # The list of all solution stack can be found from https://docs.aws.amazon.com/elasticbeanstalk/latest/dg/concepts.platforms.html
      ###################################
      SolutionStackName: 64bit Amazon Linux 2018.03 v2.8.1 running PHP 7.0
      OptionSettings:
      ###################################
      # Specify the option settings of environment and platform
      # - Environment options: https://docs.aws.amazon.com/elasticbeanstalk/latest/dg/command-options-general.html
      # - Platform specific options: https://docs.aws.amazon.com/elasticbeanstalk/latest/dg/command-options-specific.html
      ###################################
      - Namespace: aws:autoscaling:asg
        OptionName: MinSize
        Value: '2'
      - Namespace: aws:autoscaling:asg
        OptionName: MaxSize
        Value: '6'
      - Namespace: aws:elasticbeanstalk:environment
        OptionName: EnvironmentType
        Value: LoadBalanced
  sampleEnvironment:
    Type: AWS::ElasticBeanstalk::Environment
    Properties:
      ApplicationName:
        Ref: sampleApplication
      Description: AWS ElasticBeanstalk Sample Environment
      TemplateName:
        Ref: sampleConfigurationTemplate
      VersionLabel:
        Ref: sampleApplicationVersion

NOTE: If we need to have immutable auto scaling, aws:elasticbeanstalk:healthreporting:system -> System Type should be set as “enhanced”.

.ebextensions

How about the software and the script deployment in EC2 instance? How can we refer and use the environment variables in ebextensions? Here is an example

## Install loggly
packages:
  yum:
    rsyslog-gnutls: []

files:
  "/tmp/configure-apache.sh" :
    mode: "000755"
    owner: root
    group: root
    source: https://www.loggly.com/install/configure-apache.sh

  "/opt/elasticbeanstalk/hooks/appdeploy/post/90_reindex_elastic_cache.sh" :
    mode: "000755"
    owner: root
    group: root
    content: |
      #!/usr/bin/env bash
      /tmp/configure-apache.sh -a `{"Fn::GetOptionSetting": {"Namespace": "aws:elasticbeanstalk:application:environment", "OptionName": "LogglySubDomain"}}` -u `{"Fn::GetOptionSetting": {"Namespace": "aws:elasticbeanstalk:application:environment", "OptionName": "LogglyUserName"}}` -p `{"Fn::GetOptionSetting": {"Namespace": "aws:elasticbeanstalk:application:environment", "OptionName": "LogglyPassword"}}`

packages:
  yum:
    newrelic-php5: []
  rpm:
    newrelic: http://yum.newrelic.com/pub/newrelic/el5/x86_64/newrelic-repo-5-3.noarch.rpm

files:
  "/tmp/update_nr_application_name.sh" :
    mode: "000744"
    owner: root
    group: root
    content: |
      #!/bin/bash
      sed -i 's/^\;\?newrelic\.appname\s*=.*/newrelic.appname = "`{"Fn::GetOptionSetting": {"Namespace": "aws:elasticbeanstalk:application:environment", "OptionName": "NewRelicAppName"}}`"/' /etc/php.d/newrelic.ini
      sed -i 's/^\;\?newrelic\.appname\s*=.*/newrelic.appname = "`{"Fn::GetOptionSetting": {"Namespace": "aws:elasticbeanstalk:application:environment", "OptionName": "NewRelicAppName"}}`"/' /etc/php-7.0.d/newrelic.ini


commands:
  01_configure_new_relic:
    command: newrelic-install install
    env:
      NR_INSTALL_SILENT: true
      NR_INSTALL_KEY: 
        "Fn::GetOptionSetting":
          Namespace: "aws:elasticbeanstalk:application:environment"
          OptionName: NewRelicLicenseKey
  02_set_application_name:
    command: sudo bash /tmp/update_nr_application_name.sh
  03_stop_daemon:
    command: sudo /etc/init.d/newrelic-daemon stop

Note:

• If we want to contain characters like ‘|’ in commands, the command should be placed inside a single quote.