The create new environment wizard

In Creating an Elastic Beanstalk environment we show how to open the Create environment wizard and quickly create an environment. Choose Create environment to launch an environment with a default environment name, automatically generated domain, sample application code, and recommended settings.

This topic describes the Create environment wizard and all the ways you can use it to configure the environment you want to create.

Wizard page

The Create environment wizard provides a set of steps for you to create a new environment.

Environment tier

For environment tier, choose the Web server environment or Worker environment environment tier. You can't change an environment's tier after creation.

Note

The .NET on Windows Server platform doesn't support the worker environment tier.

Application information

If you launched the wizard by selecting Create new environment from the Application overview page, then the Application name is prefilled. Otherwise, enter an application name. Optionally, add application tags.

Environment information

Set the environment's name and domain, and create a description for your environment. Be aware that these environment settings cannot change after the environment is created.

• Name – Enter a name for the environment. The form provides a generated name.

• Domain – (web server environments) Enter a unique domain name for your environment. The default name is the environment's name. You can enter a different domain name. Elastic Beanstalk uses this name to create a unique CNAME for the environment. To check whether the domain name you want is available, choose Check Availability.

• Description – Enter a description for this environment.

Select a platform for the new environment

You can create a new environment from two types of platforms:

• Managed platform

• Custom platform

Managed platform

In most cases you use an Elastic Beanstalk managed platform for your new environment. When the new environment wizard starts, it selects the Managed platform option by default.

Select a platform, a platform branch within that platform, and a specific platform version in the branch. When you select a platform branch, the recommended version within the branch is selected by default. In addition, you can select any platform version you've used before.

Note

For a production environment, we recommend that you choose a platform version in a supported platform branch. For details about platform branch states, see the Platform Branch definition in the Elastic Beanstalk platforms glossary.

Custom platform

If an off-the-shelf platform doesn't meet your needs, you can create a new environment from a custom platform. To specify a custom platform, choose the Custom platform option, and then select one of the available custom platforms. If there are no custom platforms available, this option is dimmed.

Provide application code

Now that you have selected the platform to use, the next step is to provide your application code.

You have several options:

• You can use the sample application that Elastic Beanstalk provides for each platform.

• You can use code that you already deployed to Elastic Beanstalk. Choose Existing version and your application in the Application code section.

• You can upload new code. Choose Upload your code, and then choose Upload. You can upload new application code from a local file, or you can specify the URL for the Amazon S3 bucket that contains your application code.

  Note

  Depending on the platform version you selected, you can upload your application in a ZIP source bundle, a WAR file, or a plaintext Docker configuration. The file size limit is 500 MB.

  When you choose to upload new code, you can also provide tags to associate with your new code. For more information about tagging an application version, see Tagging application versions.

  

For quick environment creation using default configuration options, you can now choose Create environment. Choose Configure more options to make additional configuration changes, as described in the following sections.

Wizard configuration page

When you choose Configure more options, the wizard shows the Configure page. On this page you can select a configuration preset, change the platform version you want your environment to use, or make specific configuration choices for the new environment.

Choose a preset configuration

On the Presets section of the page, Elastic Beanstalk provides several configuration presets for different use cases. Each preset includes recommended values for several configuration options.

The High availability presets include a load balancer, and are recommended for production environments. Choose them if you want an environment that can run multiple instances for high availability and scale in response to load. The Single instance presets are primarily recommended for development. Two of the presets enable Spot Instance requests. For details about Elastic Beanstalk capacity configuration, see Auto Scaling group.

The last preset, Custom configuration, removes all recommended values except role settings and uses the API defaults. Choose this option if you are deploying a source bundle with configuration files that set configuration options. Custom configuration is also selected automatically if you modify either the Low cost or High availability configuration presets.

Customize your configuration

In addition to (or instead of) choosing a configuration preset, you can fine-tune configuration options in your environment. The Configure wizard wizard shows several configuration categories. Each configuration category displays a summary of values for a group of configuration settings. Choose Edit to edit this group of settings.

Software settings

Use the Modify software configuration page to configure the software on the Amazon Elastic Compute Cloud (Amazon EC2) instances that run your application. You can configure environment properties, AWS X-Ray debugging, instance log storing and streaming, and platform-specific settings. For details, see Environment properties and other software settings.

Instances

Use the Modify instances configuration page to configure the Amazon EC2 instances that run your application. For details, see The Amazon EC2 instances for your Elastic Beanstalk environment.

Capacity

Use the Modify capacity configuration page to configure the compute capacity of your environment and Auto Scaling group settings to optimize the number and type of instances you're using. You can also change your environment capacity based on triggers or on a schedule.

A load-balanced environment can run multiple instances for high availability and prevent downtime during configuration updates and deployments. In a load-balanced environment, the domain name maps to the load balancer. In a single-instance environment, it maps to an elastic IP address on the instance.

Warning

A single-instance environment isn't production ready. If the instance becomes unstable during deployment, or Elastic Beanstalk terminates and restarts the instance during a configuration update, your application can be unavailable for a period of time. Use single-instance environments for development, testing, or staging. Use load-balanced environments for production.

For more information about environment capacity settings, see Auto Scaling group for your Elastic Beanstalk environment and The Amazon EC2 instances for your Elastic Beanstalk environment.

Load balancer

Use the Modify load balancer configuration page to select a load balancer type and to configure settings for it. In a load-balanced environment, your environment's load balancer is the entry point for all traffic headed for your application. Elastic Beanstalk supports several types of load balancer. By default, the Elastic Beanstalk console creates an Application Load Balancer and configures it to serve HTTP traffic on port 80.

Note

You can only select your environment's load balancer type during environment creation.

For more information about load balancer types and settings, see Load balancer for your Elastic Beanstalk environment and Configuring HTTPS for your Elastic Beanstalk environment.

Note

The Classic Load Balancer (CLB) option is disabled on the Create Environment console wizard. If you have an existing environment configured with a Classic Load Balancer you can create a new one by cloning the existing environment using either the Elastic Beanstalk console or the EB CLI. You also have the option to use the EB CLI or the AWS CLI to create a new environment configured with a Classic Load Balancer. These command line tools will create a new environment with a CLB even if one doesn’t already exist in your account.

Rolling updates and deployments

Use the Modify rolling updates and deployments configuration page to configure how Elastic Beanstalk processes application deployments and configuration updates for your environment.

Application deployments happen when you upload an updated application source bundle and deploy it to your environment. For more information about configuring deployments, see Deployment policies and settings.

Configuration changes that modify the launch configuration or VPC settings require terminating all instances in your environment and replacing them. For more information about setting the update type and other options, see Configuration changes.

Security

Use the Configure service access page to configure service and instance security settings.

For a description of Elastic Beanstalk security concepts, see Service roles, instance profiles, and user policies.

The first time you create an environment in the Elastic Beanstalk console, you must create an EC2 instance profile with a default set of permissions. If the EC2 instance profile dropdown list doesn't show any values to choose from, expand the procedure that follows. It provides steps to create a Role that you can subsequently select for the EC2 instance profile.

Create IAM Role for EC2 instance profile

To create a an IAM Role for EC2 instance profile selection

1. Choose View permission details. This displays under the EC2 instance profile dropdown list.

   A modal window titled View instance profile permissions displays. This window lists the managed profiles that you'll need to attach to the new EC2 instance profile that you create. It also provides a link to launch the IAM console.

2. Choose the IAM console link displayed at the top of the window.

3. In the IAM console navigation pane, choose Roles.

4. Choose Create role.

5. Under Trusted entity type, choose AWS service.

6. Under Use case, choose EC2.

7. Choose Next.

8. Attach the appropriate managed policies. Scroll in the View instance profile permissions modal window to see the managed policies. The policies are also listed here:

   • AWSElasticBeanstalkWebTier

   • AWSElasticBeanstalkWorkerTier

   • AWSElasticBeanstalkMulticontainerDocker

9. Choose Next.

10. Enter a name for the role.

11. (Optional) Add tags to the role.

12. Choose Create role.

13. Return to the Elastic Beanstalk console window that is open.

14. Close the modal window View instance profile permissions.

    Important

    Do not close the browser page that displays the Elastic Beanstalk console.

15. Choose (refresh), next to the EC2 instance profile dropdown list.

    This refreshes the dropdown list, so that the Role you just created will display in the dropdown list.

Monitoring

Use the Modify monitoring configuration page to configure health reporting, monitoring rules, and health event streaming. For details, see Enabling Elastic Beanstalk enhanced health reporting, Configuring enhanced health rules for an environment, and Streaming Elastic Beanstalk environment health information to Amazon CloudWatch Logs.

Managed updates

Use the Modify managed updates configuration page to configure managed platform updates. You can decide if you want them enabled, set the schedule, and configure other properties. For details, see Managed platform updates.

Notifications

Use the Modify notifications configuration page to specify an email address to receive email notifications for important events from your environment.

Network

If you have created a custom VPC, the Modify network configuration page to configure your environment to use it. If you don't choose a VPC, Elastic Beanstalk uses the default VPC and subnets.

Database

Use the Modify database configuration page to add an Amazon Relational Database Service (Amazon RDS) database to your environment for development and testing. Elastic Beanstalk provides connection information to your instances by setting environment properties for the database hostname, user name, password, table name, and port.

For details, see Adding a database to your Elastic Beanstalk environment.

Tags

Use the Modify tags configuration page to add tags to the resources in your environment. For more information about environment tagging, see Tagging resources in your Elastic Beanstalk environments.

Worker environment

If you're creating a worker tier environment, use the Modify worker configuration page to configure the worker environment. The worker daemon on the instances in your environment pulls items from an Amazon Simple Queue Service (Amazon SQS) queue and relays them as post messages to your worker application. You can choose the Amazon SQS queue that the worker daemon reads from (auto-generated or existing). You can also configure the messages that the worker daemon sends to your application.

For more information, see Elastic Beanstalk worker environments.