Building and Deploying a Node.js + Express API with AWS Services Using Terraform and GitHub Actions

📖 Medium Article

This guide walks through the process of building and deploying a Node.js + Express.js API connected to various AWS services using Terraform and GitHub Actions. By the end of this guide, you'll have a robust CI/CD pipeline that automates the deployment of your Node.js application.

Key Components

1. Node.js + Express.js

• Node.js: A JavaScript runtime environment.
• Express.js: A minimalist web framework for Node.js, ideal for building RESTful APIs.

2. AWS Services

• S3: Amazon Simple Storage Service for storing and retrieving any amount of data.
• DynamoDB: A key-value and document database with single-digit millisecond performance.
• RDS: Amazon Relational Database Service for operating and scaling relational databases.
• EC2: Amazon Elastic Compute Cloud for hosting Dockerized applications.
• API Gateway: Amazon API Gateway for creating, publishing, and securing APIs.

3. Terraform

• An open-source Infrastructure as Code (IaC) tool for provisioning AWS resources.

4. Docker

• A platform for developing, shipping, and running applications inside containers.

5. GitHub Actions

• A CI/CD service for automating software workflows directly from GitHub repositories.

Workflow Overview

1. Code Commit: Developers push changes to a specified branch in the GitHub repository.
2. CI/CD Pipeline: GitHub Actions triggers, checking out code, installing dependencies, running tests, building a Docker image, and pushing it to DockerHub.
3. Deployment: The EC2 instance pulls the latest Docker image from DockerHub, stops the previous container, and runs the new one.
4. Accessing the API: Users interact with the API through Amazon API Gateway, routing requests to the Node.js application running inside Docker on the EC2 instance.

Prerequisites

• Basic knowledge of Node.js and Express.js.
• An AWS Free Tier Account configured on your PC.
• Terraform installed on your local PC.
• DockerHub Account.

Folder Structure

All the necessary codes and files are included in the GitHub repository.

Step-by-Step Guide

1. Terraform Setup:

   • Modify variables in the variables.tf file.
   • Navigate to the Terraform directory and run terraform init, terraform plan, and terraform apply.

2. GitHub Actions Configuration:

   • Define CI/CD workflows in the main.yml file inside the .github/workflows directory.
   • Handle Docker image building and pushing to DockerHub.

3. Self-Hosted Runner Setup:

   • Access repository settings on GitHub.
   • Open Actions settings and add a new self-hosted runner.
   • SSH to your EC2 instance and configure the runner.

4. Deployment and Testing:

   • Commit changes to the GitHub repository to trigger the CI/CD pipeline.
   • Access the deployed API at http://[EC2 IP]:5000.
   • Access Swagger documentation for testing purposes at http://[EC2 IP]:5000/api-docs.

5. Resource Cleanup:

   • Terminate all AWS resources using the terraform destroy command to avoid unnecessary costs.

Conclusion

In this guide, we've walked through building and deploying a Node.js + Express.js API connected to various AWS services using Terraform and GitHub Actions. By following the step-by-step guide, developers can streamline their development workflow, automate deployment tasks, and ensure consistency and reliability in their application deployments.

Happy coding! 🚀🌟

Resources

• 📚 Medium Article