Deploying a Rails Application to AWS Elastic Beanstalk

To install the prerequisite software and initialize your Git repository

1. Install the following software onto your local computer:

   1. Linux/Unix/MAC

      • Git 1.6.6 or later. To download Git, go to http://git-scm.com/.

      • Ruby version 1.8.7 or later. To view and download Ruby clients, go to http://www.ruby-lang.org/en/.

   2. Windows

      • Git 1.6.6 or later. To download Git, go to http://git-scm.com/.

      • PowerShell 2.0.

        Note

        Windows 7 and Windows Server 2008 R2 come with PowerShell 2.0. If you are running an earlier version of Windows, you can download PowerShell 2.0. Visit http://technet.microsoft.com/en-us/scriptcenter/dd742419.aspx for more details.

2. Initialize your Git repository and commit your changes.

   git init && git add -A && git commit -m "Initial commit"

To configure AWS Elastic Beanstalk

1. From your directory where you created your local repository, type the following command.

   eb init

2. When you are prompted for the AWS access key, type your access key. To get your access key information, go to Access Credentials.

   Enter your AWS Access Key ID (current value is "AKIAIOSFODNN7EXAMPLE"): 

3. When you are prompted for the AWS secret key, type your secret key. To get your secret key information, go to Access Credentials.

   Enter your AWS Secret Access Key (current value is "wJalrXUtnFEMI/K7MDENG/bPxRfiCYEXAMPLEKEY"): 

4. When you are prompted for the AWS Elastic Beanstalk region, type the number of the region. For information about this product's regions, go to Regions and Endpoints in the Amazon Web Services General Reference. For this example, we'll use US East (Virginia).

5. When you are prompted for the AWS Elastic Beanstalk application name, type the name of the application. AWS Elastic Beanstalk auto-generates an application name based on the current directory name if an application name has not been previously configured. In this example, we use railsapp.

   Enter an AWS Elastic Beanstalk application name (auto-generated value is "windows"): railsapp

   Note

   If you have a space in your application name, make sure you do not use quotes.

6. When you are prompted for the AWS Elastic Beanstalk environment name, type the name of the environment. AWS Elastic Beanstalk automatically creates an environment name based on your application name. If you want to accept the default, press Enter.

   Enter an AWS Elastic Beanstalk environment name (current value is "railsapp-env"): 

   Note

   If you have a space in your application name, make sure you do not have a space in your environment name.

7. When you are prompted for the solution stack, type the number of the solution stack you want. For this example, we'll use 32bit Amazon Linux running Ruby 1.9.3.

8. When you are prompted to create an Amazon RDS DB Instance, type y or n. For this example, we'll type y.

   Create an RDS DB Instance? [y/n]:

9. When you are prompted to create the database from scratch or a snapshot, type your selection. For this example, we'll use No snapshot.

10. When you are prompted to enter your RDS user master password, type your password containing from 8 to 16 printable ASCII characters (excluding /,", and @).

    Enter an RDS DB master password: 

    Retype password to confirm: 

11. When you are prompted to create a snapshot if you delete the Amazon RDS DB Instance, type y or n. For this example, we'll type n. If you type n, then your RDS DB Instance will be deleted and your data will be lost if you terminate your environment.

    You should see a confirmation that your AWS Credential file was successfully updated.

    By default, eb sets the following default values for Amazon RDS.

    • Database engine — MySQL

    • Default version: — 5.5

    • Database name: — ebdb

    • Allocated storage — 5GB

    • Instance class — db.t1.micro

    • Deletion policy — delete

    • Master username — ebroot

12. When you are prompted to enter your instance profile name, you can choose to create a default instance profile or use an existing instance profile. Using an instance profile enables IAM users and AWS services to gain access to temporary security credentials to make AWS API calls. Using instance profiles prevents you from having to store long-term security credentials on the EC2 instance. For more information about instance profiles, see Granting Permissions to Users and Services Using IAM Roles. For this example, we'll use Create a default instance profile.

To create the application

• From your directory where you created your local repository, type the following command.

  eb start

To view an application

1. From your directory where you created your local repository, type the following command.

   eb status --verbose

   AWS Elastic Beanstalk displays the environment status. If the environment is set to Green, then AWS Elastic Beanstalk displays the URL for the application. If you attached an RDS DB Instance to your environment, your RDS DB information is displayed.

2. Copy and paste the URL into your web browser to view your application.

To update the sample application to use Rails

1. When you run the command eb init, AWS Elastic Beanstalk creates a .elasticbeanstalk directory in your project directory. This directory contains the private environment configuration data provided above, as well as other customized settings. Let's add this directory to .gitignore and then commit this change to .gitignore.

   git add .gitignore && git commit -m "Ignore .elasticbeanstalk from Git"

   Note

   For information about Git commands, go to Git - Fast Version Control System.

2. Deploy to AWS Elastic Beanstalk.

   git aws.push

   You can also configure Git to push from a specific branch to a specific environment. For more information, see Deploying a Git Branch to a Specific Environment.

3. Use the eb status --verbose command to check your environment status. When your environment is green and ready, refresh your web browser to view your updated application. You should see a "Welcome aboard You’re riding Ruby on Rails!" page.

To update the sample application to use Amazon RDS

1. On your local computer, update config/database.yml to use Amazon RDS. AWS Elastic Beanstalk has built-in support for Amazon RDS, so when you launch a Ruby container, you can associate an Amazon RDS DB Instance. The values of the Amazon RDS parameters are available through environment variables.

   production:
     adapter: mysql2
     encoding: utf8
     database: <%= ENV['RDS_DB_NAME'] %>
     username: <%= ENV['RDS_USERNAME'] %>
     password: <%= ENV['RDS_PASSWORD'] %>
     host: <%= ENV['RDS_HOSTNAME'] %>
     port: <%= ENV['RDS_PORT'] %>

2. Add mysql2 to the Gemfile.

   gem 'mysql2'

3. Add your files to your local Git repository, and then commit your change.

   git add .
   git commit -m "update database"

4. Deploy to AWS Elastic Beanstalk. Make sure the database.yml file is not added to .gitignore.

   git aws.push

   You can also configure Git to push from a specific branch to a specific environment. For more information, see Deploying a Git Branch to a Specific Environment.

5. Use the eb status --verbose command to check your environment status. When your environment is green and ready, refresh your web browser to view your updated application.

To delete the application

1. From your directory where you created your local repository, type the following command.

   eb stop

   This process may take a few minutes. AWS Elastic Beanstalk will display a message once the environment has been successfully terminated.

   Note

   If you attached an RDS DB Instance to your environment, your RDS DB will be deleted, and you will lose your data. To save your data, create a snapshot before you delete the application. For instructions on how to create a snapshot, go to Creating a DB Snapshot in the Amazon Relational Database Service User Guide.

2. From your directory where you installed the command line interface, type the following command.

   eb delete

   AWS Elastic Beanstalk will display a message once it has successfully deleted the application.