The evolution of a process: phase 2.
In Phase 1 an app was developed and sealed into a container. Phase 2 is about making a home for that container in the form of a Amazon AMI.
Some automation was converted from phase1 to support the environment that will be build in this phase. This will ensure build consistency.
Before starting, edit the vars-build file in this directory and change the value of AWS_REGION from us-west-2 to whatever region AWS assigned to you.
Also, the work that comes later cannot be validated until there is access to the VPC:
- FROM: the point of origin: your current gateway
- TO: the destination: your AWS account
We may as well get it out of the way now. NOTE:
- This is only necessary if the gateway address is DHCP (keeps changing) or
- You are on the road, staying in hotels for example.
- The script only needs to be run once per IP address change.
- If the gateway address hasn't changed the script will simply report that the correct settings are already in place.
Access can be gained easily by running this script:
scripts/aws-tools/access-aws-securitygroup.sh
Now that the requisite access is in place the AMI can be built.
Building an AMI means describing it in a JSON file that Packer can consume. In this case that file is debian-8.6-ami.json. It needs to be built from an existing AMI so, we'll use the one Debian offers in the AWS Marketplace. Since finding the latest AMI ImageId requires the manual steps of selecting the Manual Launch (tab) and indexing the ImageId in your region the exorcise becomes tedious. We'll get the automation to do it for us.
The build-ami.sh script takes 1 argument - the packer file: debian-8.6-ami.json
Next, build-ami.sh calls scripts/aws-tools/find-latest-amis.sh to find the latest Debian Jessie AMI ImageId which is then sent to Packer as a variable; for example: latestImageId=ami-12345678. NOTE: this script does factor for AWS_REGION specified in vars-build.
WARNING: this step can take 8-12 minutes.
After the script has been started it's time to go make a sandwich, do some laundry, whatever. It takes some time to build, which varies based on available Internet connection bandwidth and workstation horsepower.
To build an AMI simply run this script:
./build-ami.sh debian-8.6-ami.json 2>&1 | tee /tmp/packer-debian-build.out
When you're ready, review the output in /tmp/packer-debian-build.out. These are the build details.
Now that you have a tailored AMI. You are ready to start Terraforming.