Step 5: Add Access Information to the Stack Configuration and Deployment Attributes

Important

The AWS OpsWorks Stacks service reached end of life on May 26, 2024 and has been disabled for both new and existing customers. We strongly recommend customers migrate their workloads to other solutions as soon as possible. If you have questions about migration, reach out to the AWS Support Team on AWS re:Post or through AWS Premium Support.

The appsetup.rb recipe depends on data from the AWS OpsWorks Stacks stack configuration and deployment attributes, which are installed on each instance and contain detailed information about the stack and any deployed apps. The object's deploy attributes have the following structure, which is displayed for convenience as JSON:

{
   ...
  "deploy": {
    "app1": {
      "application" : "short_name",
      ...
    }
    "app2": {
      ...
    }
    ...
  }
}

The deploy node contains an attribute for each deployed app that is named with the app's short name. Each app attribute contains a set of attributes that define the app's configuration, such as the document root and app type. For a list of the deploy attributes, see deploy Attributes. You can represent stack configuration and deployment attribute values in your recipes by using Chef attribute syntax. For example,[:deploy][:app1][:application] represents the app1 app's short name.

The custom recipes depend on several stack configuration and deployment attributes that represent database and Amazon S3 access information:

• The database connection attributes, such as [:deploy][:database][:host], are defined by AWS OpsWorks Stacks when it creates the MySQL layer.

• The table name attribute, [:photoapp][:dbtable], is defined in the custom cookbook's attributes file, and is set to foto.

• You must define the bucket name attribute, [:photobucket], by using custom JSON to add the attribute to the stack configuration and deployment attributes.

To define the Amazon S3 bucket name attribute

1. On the AWS OpsWorks Stacks Stack page, choose Stack Settings and then Edit.

2. In the Configuration Management section, add access information to the Custom Chef JSON box. It should look something like the following:

   
   {
     "photobucket" : "yourbucketname"
   }
   

   Replace yourbucketname with the bucket name that you recorded in Step 1: Create an Amazon S3 Bucket.

   

AWS OpsWorks Stacks merges the custom JSON into the stack configuration and deployment attributes before it installs them on the stack's instances; appsetup.rb can then obtain the bucket name from the [:photobucket] attribute. If you want to change the bucket, you don't need to touch the recipe; you can just override the attribute to provide a new bucket name.