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Event Calendar

  • This repo contains code to launch a website called "EventCalendar", which allows users to create and manage events associated with the University of Otago

System Architecture

  • The app is composed of several AWS services. A simplified diagram of the system is shown below:

Image Description

App parts

  • An EC2 instance (React EC2 as above) serves the website files to a web browser using React.
  • The React EC2 is served by an AWS Lambda instance (Lambda API as above). This handles API requests from the React wesbsite, and then completes CRUD operations with the production database. This is written in TypeScript using Express.js.
  • The production database (Production DB as above) is implemented with an AWS RDS MySQL instance.
  • A further EC2 instance is used to delete old repeated events from the production database.

Deploying to cloud platforms

Deployment overview

  • The app is deployed to AWS using a combination of Terraform and the Serverless framework.
  • Terraform is used to deploy the RDS DB, and both the EC2 instances. The Lambda function is deployed using the Serverless framework
  • Once the services are deployed, manually provisioning is required to make them production ready.

Prerequisites:

  • Deployment of this app requires a step by step deploy process
  • Please make sure that you have valid AWS credentials specified in your .aws configuration file. These should be under the profile event-calendar
  • Make sure you have npm, Terraform and the AWS CLI installed

Configuring the SSH key for EC2 instances

  • Assuming that you have the provided SSH key (the .pem file) and that its in the top level project directory. You will need to make it visible to your local ssh client
  • On Unix systems:
chmod 400 event-calendar.pem
  • On Windows systems (make sure to substitute <USERNAME> for your Windows username)
icacls event-calendar.pem /inheritance:r /grant:r "<USERNAME>:R"

Deploy with Terraform

  • Now you can deploy the first lot of services using Terraform
  • To deploy the React and Cron-Job EC2 instances, along with the RDS DB, run:
terraform init --upgrade
# Enter 'yes' when prompted
terraform apply

Using the output of terraform apply:

  • You will see that the host url of the RDS DB is printed out by Terraform. Set this to the value of DB_HOST in the .env files within the cron-job and express-server directories
# In cron-jon/.env and /express-server/.env
DB_HOST=XXXXX
  • The Terraform deploy creates a Lambda security group necessary for the Express Lambda function. This should be referenced serverless.yml, in the configuration file of the Lambda function. The id of this security group is printed out after entering terraform apply. Copy this into the provider section of express-server/serverless.yml like so
# express-server/serverless.yml
# ...Rest of file above

provider:
  # Other details...
  vpc:
    securityGroupIds:
      - <Lambda security group id>

# Rest of file below...

Deploying the Lambda Express app

  • Note: This must be done after deploying with Terraform, since Terraform creates the security groups used by the Lambda function.

  • To deploy the Express API using the Serverless framework, enter:

cd express-server
npm run install-deploy
  • Once you have deployed the Lambda, copy the API gateway address of the function (should be printed out by Serverless) to a new .env file at react-app/.env like so:
# In react-app/.env
API_HOST="XXXX"

Provisioning

  • After deployment, you will need to provision the RDS DB and the EC2 instances.
  • The previous terrafform apply prints out the DNS addresses of the React and Cron-Job EC2 instances, use these for the next steps.
  • Follow the next steps in the order that they appear.

Provisioning the DB

  • To provision the DB, i.e. create the actual production database, you will need to first jump into the CRON job DB, then provision it from there
  • First update the DB host name in the sql-scripts/setup-db.sh, using the value printed out by terraform apply. As so:
# Change this on redeploys of the RDS DB
export DB_HOST=XXXX # Use value of 'db-endpoint' from 'terraform apply', remove the :PORT extension from the end
  • Now copy over the necessary sql scripts from your local machine to the cron-job ec2 with:
 scp -i "event-calendar.pem" -r ./sql-scripts admin@<cron-job-public-dns>:~/
  • Then SSH into the cron-job ec2 using:
ssh -i "event-calendar.pem" admin@<cron-job-public-dns>
  • Now enter these commands, one after the other, make sure they all are successful before going onto the next. Enter the DB password when necessary, a popup should ask you if you want to uninstall MariaDB, enter yes.
  • The below commands set up the RDS DB, and insert dummy test data.
cd ./sql-scripts
chmod +x setup-db.sh
./setup-db.sh
cd ../
rm -r sql-scripts/

Provisioning the React instance:

  • First, build the React app locally, this can be extraordinarily slow a small server, so do it locally first
cd ./react-app
npm run build
cd ../

  • Then remove your local react-app/node_modules, it's better to install dependencies fresh on the local ec2 instance

  • Then copy over contents from the project directory to the ec2 instance with:

scp -i "event-calendar.pem" -r ./react-app admin@<react-app-public-dns>:~
  • Then SSH into the instance with, making sure to replace with the host of the EC2
ssh -i "event-calendar.pem" admin@<react-app-public-dns>
  • To provision and run the instance, enter:
cd ./react-app
chmod +x provision_react.sh
./provision_react

Provisioning the Cron-Job instance

  • Similarly copy over contents from the project directory to the ec2 instance with:
scp -i "event-calendar.pem" -r ./cron-job admin@<cron-job-public-dns>:~
  • Then SSH into the instance with:
ssh -i "event-calendar.pem" admin@<cron-job-public-dns>
  • To provision and run the instance, enter:
cd ./cron-job
chmod +x provision_cron_job.sh
./provision_cron_job

Teardown

  • To remove the Express lambda function (from within the express-server directory), enter:
npm run remove

  • Note due to dependencies between the Terraform file and the Lambda function, the Lambda function needs to be torn down before destroying any services defined by Terraform

  • To remove the other deployed services, enter:

terraform destroy

Project directories

  • express-server contains a Node.js project for the backend express.js API
  • react-app contains a Node.js project for the frontend React app
  • sql-scripts contains any configuration scripts of the MySQL RDS DB
  • cron-job contains a micro project to run a cron-job within a container.