Connect a Lightsail container service to a Lightsail database

An Amazon Lightsail container service is a highly scalable compute and networking resource on which you can deploy, run, and manage containers. For more information, see Deploy and manage containers on Amazon Lightsail.

A Lightsail database is a fully managed relational database that runs MySQL or PostgreSQL. For more information, see Create and manage relational databases in Amazon Lightsail.

In this tutorial, you learn how to configure a Lightsail container service to connect to a Lightsail MySQL database. When you finish, you have a Lightsail container that stores its data in a Lightsail database.

This tutorial takes approximately 20–30 minutes to complete.

Note

The resources you create in this tutorial might result in charges to your AWS account. Delete the resources after you finish to avoid ongoing charges. For more information, see Step 5: Clean up resources.

Note

This tutorial uses Uptime Kuma, a third-party open-source monitoring tool, as an example.

Step 1: Complete the prerequisites

Complete the following prerequisites before you begin:

1. Create a Lightsail container service, for example ls-container-service. For more information, see Creating Amazon Lightsail container services.

2. Create a Lightsail MySQL database, for example ls-database. The database must be in the same AWS Region as your container service. For more information, see Creating a database in Amazon Lightsail.

Step 2: Choose a container image

This tutorial uses the Uptime Kuma public image as an example. Uptime Kuma is a lightweight open-source monitoring tool that tracks the uptime of websites, servers, and services. By default, Uptime Kuma uses a SQLite file stored inside the container. By configuring your container service to use a Lightsail database, you preserve your monitoring configuration, availability history, and incident logs data.

Uptime Kuma is a third-party open-source project maintained on GitHub. To review the project's license and documentation, see the Uptime Kuma repository on GitHub.

If you want to use your own image, you can create your application on your local machine, and then push your image to your Lightsail container service. For more information, see Pushing and managing container images on your Amazon Lightsail container services.

Step 3: Create a deployment with database configuration

Complete the following procedure to create a deployment on your container service that uses the Uptime Kuma image and connects to your Lightsail database.

1. Sign in to the Lightsail console at https://lightsail.aws.amazon.com/.

2. In the left navigation pane, choose Containers to go to the container services home page and view your container services.

3. Choose the container service that you created in the prerequisites step, for example ls-container-service.

   

4. On the container service management page, choose the Deployments tab, and then choose Create your first deployment. For more information, see Creating and managing deployments for your Amazon Lightsail container services.

   

5. Fill out the deployment configuration as follows:

   1. Container name – Enter a name for your container, for example tutorialapp. The container name doesn't have to match the container service name.

      Note

      All containers within a deployment must have unique names and must contain only alphanumeric characters and hyphens. A hyphen can separate words but cannot be at the start or end of the name.

   2. Source image – Specify louislam/uptime-kuma:1.

      Note

      If you want to use an image from your local machine, choose Choose stored image, and then select the image that you uploaded to your container service.

   3. Launch command – Skip this step. The Uptime Kuma image does not require an additional launch command for this tutorial.

   4. Environment variables – Choose Add environment variables, and then specify the variables that the container reads at runtime. Uptime Kuma requires the following environment variables to connect to a MySQL database. To find the database values, choose Databases in the left navigation pane of the Lightsail console, and then choose the database name (for example ls-database) to open the database management page.

      Variable	Value	Location in the Lightsail console
      PORT	3001	Not applicable
      UPTIME_KUMA_HOST	0.0.0.0	Not applicable
      DB_TYPE	mysql	Not applicable
      DB_PORT	Your database port	The Port value in the Connection details section
      DB_USER	Your database user name	The User name value in the Database details section
      DB_NAME	Your database name	The database name in the Database details section
      DB_HOST	Your database endpoint	The Endpoint value in the Connection details section
      DB_PASSWORD	Your database password	Choose Show next to the master password to reveal it

      The following screenshot shows the location of these values on the database management page.

      

      Using the values from your database management page, enter the environment variables as shown in the following screenshot.

      

   5. Open ports – Choose Add open ports, and then open port 3001 with the HTTP protocol.

      

   6. Public endpoint – Select the name of your container from the dropdown menu. The container in this tutorial is tutorialapp.

      

6. Choose Save and deploy. Wait a few minutes for the deployment to finish. You can monitor the deployment status under Deployment versions. When the deployment is complete, the status changes to Active.

   

Step 4: Test your application with your Lightsail database

Your Uptime Kuma application now runs on your Lightsail container service and connects to your Lightsail database. To connect to your application, choose the Public domain link on your container service detail page. The link opens the Uptime Kuma setup page, where you create an account.

After you sign up, Uptime Kuma redirects you to the dashboard. On the dashboard, you can create a new monitor. Uptime Kuma stores the monitor's data in your Lightsail database.

Now that Uptime Kuma is running, you can use it to monitor your applications. For example, you can launch a Lightsail WordPress instance, and then create and attach a static IP address to that instance. You can then use Uptime Kuma to track the uptime of your WordPress site.

Note

The default public IP address for your instance changes if you stop and start the instance. When you attach a static IP address, it stays the same even if you stop and start the instance, so your monitor continues to track the correct address. For more information, see Create a static IP and attach it to an instance.

To add a monitor for your WordPress instance, complete the following steps in the Uptime Kuma dashboard:

1. Choose Add New Monitor.

2. In the URL field, enter the static IP address of your WordPress instance using the format http://ip-address, for example http://192.0.2.0.

3. In the Friendly Name field, enter a name for the monitor, for example TestMonitor.

4. Choose Save. Uptime Kuma begins monitoring the uptime of your Lightsail WordPress instance.

Step 5: Clean up resources

To avoid ongoing charges, delete the following resources you created in this tutorial when you no longer need them: the container service and the Lightsail database. If you also created a WordPress instance and a static IP address in Step 4, delete those as well.

1. Delete the container service. For more information, see Deleting Amazon Lightsail container services.

2. Delete the Lightsail database. For more information, see Delete a Lightsail database and create a final snapshot.

3. (Optional) If you created a WordPress instance in Step 4, delete it. For more information, see Deleting an Amazon Lightsail instance.

4. (Optional) If you created a static IP address in Step 4, delete it. For more information, see Delete a static IP address in Amazon Lightsail.