Hosting a Dynamic Website on AWS with Terraform

Project Overview

This repository provides all the necessary resources and scripts for deploying a dynamic website on AWS. The project leverages various AWS services to create a resilient, scalable, and fault-tolerant infrastructure for hosting a dynamic website. Below is a detailed guide on the architecture, deployment process, and how to use the scripts provided in this repository to deploy the web application on an EC2 instance.

Architecture Overview

The AWS infrastructure setup for this project includes:

• VPC (Virtual Private Cloud): Configured with public and private subnets across two availability zones for enhanced fault tolerance and high availability.
• Internet Gateway (IGW): Facilitates internet access for resources within the VPC.
• Security Groups: Define firewall rules to control inbound and outbound traffic to AWS resources.
• NAT Gateway: Allows internet access for instances in private subnets without exposing them to inbound traffic.
• Application Load Balancer (ALB): Distributes incoming application traffic across multiple targets in different availability zones.
• Bastion Host: Secure instance for connecting to other AWS resources within private subnets.
• Amazon Machine Image (AMI): Custom EC2 image containing pre-configured settings and software for launching instances.
• EC2 Instances: Serve the dynamic web application. Managed within an Auto Scaling group, these instances can scale based on demand.
• Auto Scaling Group: Dynamically adjusts the number of EC2 instances to meet the application's demand while maintaining high availability.
• RDS Instance: Hosts the database, providing data persistence and easy management while leveraging AWS scalability and security features.
• S3 Buckets: Made two buckets to store the website files and the other stores the terraform tfvars file.
• Route 53: Manages the domain name and DNS settings, directing traffic to the ALB.
• AWS Certificate Manager: Provides SSL/TLS certificates for securely handling HTTPS traffic.
• GitHub: Stores the web application files and deployment scripts.

Deployment Script

The script provided automates the deployment and configuration of the e-commerce platform on an EC2 instance. Here's an outline of the script's actions:

# Update EC2 instance packages
sudo su
sudo yum update -y

# Install Apache web server
sudo yum install -y httpd httpd-tools mod_ssl
sudo systemctl enable httpd
sudo systemctl start httpd

# Install PHP 7.4
sudo amazon-linux-extras enable php7.4
sudo yum clean metadata
sudo yum install php php-common php-pear -y
sudo yum install php-{cgi,curl,mbstring,gd,mysqlnd,gettext,json,xml,fpm,intl,zip} -y

# Install MySQL 5.7
sudo rpm -Uvh https://dev.mysql.com/get/mysql57-community-release-el7-11.noarch.rpm
sudo rpm --import https://repo.mysql.com/RPM-GPG-KEY-mysql-2022
sudo yum install mysql-community-server -y
sudo systemctl enable mysqld
sudo systemctl start mysqld

# Set permissions for Apache
sudo usermod -a -G apache ec2-user
sudo chown -R ec2-user:apache /var/www
sudo chmod 2775 /var/www
find /var/www -type d -exec sudo chmod 2775 {} \;
find /var/www -type f -exec sudo chmod 0664 {} \;

# Download and prepare the e-commerce platform files
sudo aws s3 sync s3://coby-fleetcart-webfiles /var/www/html
cd /var/www/html
sudo unzip FleetCart.zip
sudo mv FleetCart/* /var/www/html
sudo mv FleetCart/.* /var/www/html  # Moves hidden files
sudo rm -rf FleetCart FleetCart.zip

# Configure Apache for the e-commerce platform
sudo sed -i '/<Directory "\/var\/www\/html">/,/<\/Directory>/ s/AllowOverride None/AllowOverride All/' /etc/httpd/conf/httpd.conf
chown apache:apache -R /var/www/html
sudo service httpd restart

Conclusion

This project demonstrates a comprehensive approach to deploying a dynamic website on AWS, utilizing Terraform for infrastructure provisioning and a custom script for application deployment. The architecture ensures that the site is resilient, scalable, and secure, providing a solid foundation for future operations.