AWS Installation Instructions

The instructions below explain how to install the backend in AWS. It's mostly driven by a CloudFormation template, but there are few manual steps.

Installation should only take a few minutes.

1. If you don't have one, create a Google client ID. See these instructions. Make note of the ID ending with apps.googleusercontent.com.
2. Log in to AWS. Create an S3 bucket to store the server code, or you can use an existing one.
3. Upload the flamewars.zip file and cft.yml template.
4. When they have uploaded, click cft.yml and copy the 'Object URL' beginning with https://.
5. Open CloudFormation, click 'Create stack' > 'With new resources (standard)'.
6. Under the section 'Specify Template', for the field 'Amazon S3 URL' paste the value you copied in step 3. Click next.
7. Give the stack a name. 'flamewars' will usually be fine. The stack name will be prepended to some resources to prevent name clashes.
8. Enter a value for each of the parameters. Click next.
9. On the 'Configure stack options' page, no changes are required. Click next.
10. Check the checkbox confirming "I acknowledge that AWS CloudFormation might create IAM resources with custom names". The template sets up some permissions to allow the lambda functions to connect to the DynamoDB database and this is just confirming that you're okay with that.
11. Click 'Create stack' and wait for the resources to be created.
12. On the 'Outputs' tab, copy the URL which is generated; you'll need it when setting up the client.

Finished? Move on to the client setup.