Expense Prediction Application - AWS EC2 Deployment Guide

This guide provides step-by-step instructions to deploy the Expense Prediction Flask application on AWS EC2.

Quick Start: Use the provided deployment scripts (deploy.sh for Linux/Mac or deploy.ps1 for Windows) to automatically transfer files while excluding unnecessary folders like venv.

Prerequisites

• AWS Account
• EC2 instance running (Ubuntu/Amazon Linux recommended)
• SSH access to your EC2 instance
• Windows: use WinSCP or PowerShell, Linux/Mac: built-in

Step 1: Launch EC2 Instance

1. Log in to AWS Console
2. Navigate to EC2 Dashboard
3. Click "Launch Instance"
4. Configure instance:
   • Name: expense-prediction-app
   • AMI: Ubuntu Server 22.04 LTS or Amazon Linux 2023
   • Instance type: t2.micro (free tier) or t2.small
   • Key pair: Create new or select existing (download .pem file)
   • Network settings: Allow SSH and HTTP traffic
5. Launch instance and note the Public IP address

Step 2: Configure Security Group

1. Go to EC2 Dashboard → Security Groups
2. Select your instance's security group
3. Edit Inbound Rules:
   • Ensure: SSH, Port: 22, Source: 0.0.0.0/0 (or your IP for testing)
   • Ensure: Custom TCP, Port: 5000, Source: 0.0.0.0/0 (or your IP for testing)
4. Save rules

Step 3: Connect to EC2 Instance

On Windows (PowerShell):

ssh -i "path\to\your-key.pem" ubuntu@<EC2-PUBLIC-IP>

On Linux/Mac:

chmod 400 your-key.pem
ssh -i your-key.pem ubuntu@<EC2-PUBLIC-IP>

Replace <EC2-PUBLIC-IP> with your instance's public IP address.

Step 4: Install Dependencies on EC2

Once connected to EC2, run:

sudo apt-get update
sudo apt-get install -y python3 python3-pip python3-venv
sudo apt install python3.12-venv

Step 5: Transfer Files to EC2 Using Deployment Script

The deployment scripts automatically exclude venv, __pycache__, and other unnecessary files.

On Windows (PowerShell):

.\deploy.ps1 -KeyFile "path\to\your-key.pem" ubuntu@<EC2-PUBLIC-IP>

On Linux/Mac:

chmod +x deploy.sh
./deploy.sh your-key.pem ubuntu@<EC2-PUBLIC-IP>

Note: Replace <EC2-PUBLIC-IP> with your EC2 instance's public IP address.

Step 6: Setup Application on EC2

SSH back into your EC2 instance and run:

python3 -m venv venv
source venv/bin/activate

pip install --upgrade pip
pip install -r requirements.txt

Step 7: Run the Application

cd ~/expense-prediction
source venv/bin/activate
python3 app.py

The application will start on port 5000. You should see output like:

 * Running on http://0.0.0.0:5000

Step 8: Access the Application

Open your web browser and navigate to:

http://<EC2-PUBLIC-IP>:5000

Replace <EC2-PUBLIC-IP> with your EC2 instance's public IP address.

Step 9: Stop the Instance to save extra bill

Once you are done you MUST STOP INSTANCE otherwise you will get billed, go to Instance list from "instances" -> Check your instance -> From "instance state" dropdown above STOP AND TERMINATE your instance