Deploy a highly-available webserver

Table of Contents

Overview
Directory layout
How to use
Architecture

Overview

This project uses Packer and Terraform to create and configure a highly-available website. The project has the following components:

• GitHub Actions: the workflows are used to validate, test, and deploy the Packer, Terraform, and documentation code.
• Packer: creates an Ubuntu AMI and installs and configures NGINX on the image that is later used in the Terraform step.
• Terraform: IaC used to deploy resources to AWS:
  • Route53: DNS and CNAME records.
  • ACM: SSL Cert for HTTPS.
  • Application Load Balancer: balances load to webservers, redirects HTTP -> HTTPS.
  • Autoscaling Group using Packer AMI for the NGINX webservers.

Directory layout

• .github/workflows: hosts all the files relating to GitHub Actions.
  • deployment.yaml: contains the code for the job that deploys Terraform.
  • docs.yaml: contains the code for the job that builds the Terraform docs.
  • image.yaml: contains the job code that runs Packer.
• packer: hosts all the files related to Packer and the image that it builds.
  • index.html: index page for the webserver.
  • website: NGINX server configuration.
  • webserver.pkr.hcl: Packer configuration to build the AMI.
• terraform: contains all of the Terraform IAC.
  • README.md: README generated by Terraform docs job in pipeline.
  • main.tf: main Terraform file.
  • dns.tf: contains code related to DNS, certificates, and CNAME associtation.
  • loadbalancer.tf: contains code relating to the load balancer.
  • variables.tf: variables files.
  • webserver.tf: contains code that deploys server, autoscaling group, and launch config
  • outputs.tf: outputs from Terraform deployment.
• test: test directory
  • validate.py: Python script to validate webserver configuration.

How to use

Prerequisites

• Github Account
• AWS Account
• A registered doamin
• If you want to run this locally you will also need:
  • AWS CLI
  • Terraform CLI
  • Packer CLI

Steps

1. Fork the repo into your own GitHub Account
2. Add the following secrets to your GitHub secrets:
   • or to a local terraform.tfvars file if you are running locally.

Secret	Description
AWS_ACCESS_KEY_ID	Access key for IAM user in your account.
AWS_SECRET_ACCESS_KEY	Secret access key for IAM user in your account.
DOMAIN	Domain name that you own and want to deploy to.
VPC_ID	VPC ID to deploy to.

3. Push a commit, and the pipeline will run.
4. You will have a new site on https://challenge.${domain}

Architecture