🚀Unlocking Efficiency: AWS EC2 Deployment with Jenkins
>>> A complete guide to Launching an AWS EC2 instance and deploying a simple application using Jenkins pipelines
8 min readApr 21, 2024
Hello World… Welcome to the ultimate hands-on guide for launching an AWS EC2 instance and deploying a simple application using Jenkins pipelines, starting from scratch! So, let’s get started…
Overview:
- What is Jenkins?
- What is Jenkinsfile?
- What AWS EC2 Server is?
- What is a User Data script?
- What is Dockerfile?
- Creating the Dockerfiles
- Building, Tagging, and Pushing an image
- Deploying a container
- Setup of Jenkins
- Install Plugins
- Configuring AWS Access Keys
- Configuring the PEM/Secret Key
- Simple hands-on guide: using the PEM key
- Simple hands-on guide: using User Data script
- Architectural Diagram
- Tips
- Source Code
What is Jenkins?
- Jenkins is an open-source automation server that is used for building, testing, and deploying software.
- It is a widely used continuous integration and continuous delivery (CI/CD) tool that automates the process of integrating code changes from multiple contributors, running automated tests, and then delivering the changes to a production environment.
- A Jenkins Pipeline is a collection of plugins that supports implementing and integrating continuous delivery pipelines into Jenkins.
- A Jenkins Pipeline is a powerful set of tools for modeling simple and complex delivery pipelines ‘as code’
What is Jenkinsfile?
- The definition of a pipeline is typically written into a text file called a Jenkinsfile, which can be checked into a project’s source control repository.
- Supports two types of syntaxes: Declarative Pipeline and Scripted Pipeline.
What AWS EC2 Server is?
- EC2, Amazon Elastic Compute Cloud, is a web service that is provided by Amazon Web Services (AWS) that allows users to rent virtual servers, also known as instances, in the cloud.
- These instances provide scalable computing capacity and enable users to run applications and workloads without investing in and managing physical hardware.
What is a User Data script?
- User data script refers to a script or a set of commands we provide when launching an instance in a cloud computing environment, such as AWS EC2.
- The script is executed automatically when the instance starts up and allows to perform various initialization tasks or configurations on the instance.
What is Dockerfile?
- A Dockerfile is a text document that contains all the commands a user could call on the command line to assemble an image.
- It’s a set of instructions used to create a Docker image.
Creating the Dockerfiles:
- The below Dockerfile uses Jenkins as a base image, installs the required tools, and copies the index.html from local to the container.
- Used this Dockerfile for the PEM key case.
- The below Dockerfile uses Jenkins as a base image, installs the required tools, and copies the user data script from local to the container.
- Used this Dockerfile for the User Data script case.
Building, Tagging, and Pushing an Image:
- Command to build an image using Dockerfile:
docker build -t jenkins -f <Dockerfile_name> .- Command to create/update the tag of an image:
docker tag <image_name>:<old_associated_tag> <new_image_name>:<new_tag>- Command to push an image to a registry like Docker Hub:
docker push <registry_URL>/<repository_name>:<tag>- Before pushing an image into the registry, login to the appropriate registry using the command:
docker login <registry_URL>Deploying a container:
- Command to create/run a container from the above-created image:
docker run -dt --name <container_name> -p 8080:8080 -p 50000:50000 -u root <image-name>:<tag>- The container above is running with the specified name, operating on ports 8080 (for the master) and 50000 (for the slave).
- It is configured to run as a root user using the desired image.
Setup of Jenkins:
- Once the container is created successfully, Jenkins can be accessed using the URL: http://localhost:8080
- We can get the initial admin password from the logs of the container (at the end) Command to get the logs of a container:
docker logs <container_name/id>- Next, install the suggested plugins:
- Next, you can either create a first admin user or you can skip and continue as admin:
- Next, we can configure the Jenkins URL here:
- Save and Finish.
- Start using Jenkins.
Install Plugins:
- Select the Manage Jenkins option from the dashboard.
- Then select the Plugins option from the System Configuration category.
- Available Plugins → Select AWS Credentials and SSH Agent plugins → Install
Configuring AWS Access Keys:
- Once the above plugins are installed, then configure the AWS access keys in Jenkins Credentials.
- Select the Manage Jenkins option from the dashboard.
- Then select the Credentials option from the Security category.
- Credentials → System → Global Credentials (unrestricted) → Add Credentials → Kind (AWS Credentials) → Scope (Global) → ID (any desired ID) → Access Key ID (AWS access key ID) → Secret Access Key (AWS secret access key) → Create
- Done with configuring the AWS credentials.
Configuring the PEM Key:
- Now, need to store the PEM key in Jenkins.
- Select the Manage Jenkins option from the dashboard.
- Then select the Credentials option from the Security category.
- Credentials → System → Global Credentials (unrestricted) → Add Credentials → Kind (SSH Username with private key) → Scope (Global) → ID (any desired ID) → Username (any desired username) → Enter directly (Private Key) → Add → Enter the secret (i.e., private key) → Passphrase (any desired password) → Create
- Done with configuring the PEM key.
Simple hands-on guide: using the PEM key
Task Overview: The objective is to use a Jenkins pipeline to automate launching an EC2 instance and deploying a simple web app onto the server, utilizing a PEM key for secure access.
Step 1: Setup Jenkins
- Launching Jenkins.
- Install required plugins.
- Storing AWS credentials and PEM key.
- All these steps are mentioned above.
Step 2: Write a pipeline definition in Jenkinsfile.
- The above pipeline definition launches an EC2 instance in AWS, logs in to the server using the PEM key, and then the app is deployed into the server.
Step 3: Create a simple web app.
Step 4: Create a pipeline and build.
- Below snap is the process of how to create a pipeline and run it:
Step 5: Results
- Upon the successful completion of the pipeline run…
- Check the status EC2 server and access the web app.
- Steps to check the EC2 server:
- Steps to access the web app:
- And it’s done successfully using the PEM key… 🙌
Simple hands-on guide: using User Data script
Task Overview: The objective is to use the Jenkins pipeline to automate launching an EC2 instance and deploying a simple web app onto the server, using a User Data script.
Step 1: Setup Jenkins
- Launching Jenkins.
- Install required plugins.
- Storing AWS credentials and PEM key.
- All these steps are mentioned above.
Step 2: Write a pipeline definition in Jenkinsfile.
- The above pipeline definition launches an EC2 instance in AWS, logs in to the server using the User Data script, and then the app is deployed into the server.
Step 3: Create a User Data script.
Step 4: Create a pipeline and build.
- Below snap is the process of how to create a pipeline and run it:
Step 5: Results
- Upon the successful completion of the pipeline run…
- Check the status EC2 server and access the web app.
- Steps to check the EC2 server:
- Steps to access the web app:
- And it’s done successfully using User Data script… 🙌
Architectural Diagram:
Tips:
- Error: Waiter InstanceRunning failed: Waiter encountered a terminal failure state
Solution: Instead of using aws ec2 wait instance-running use this aws ec2 wait instance-status-ok - Error: AWS was not able to validate the provided access credentials.
Solution: Try the below flow —
IAM → Account Settings → Security Token Service → Make Global endpoint valid for all regions
or follow this link — AWS Credentials Error
Source Code:
Step into my GitHub Repo, where I’ve compiled a comprehensive collection of source code.
Docker Images: Link
Let’s Connect:
Feel free to reach out, share your thoughts, or ask any questions. I’m excited to engage with you and learn from each other as we navigate this exciting field!
LinkedIn: Sai Manasa
GitHub: Sai Manasa
Happy Jenkins-ing! Have a Delightful Deployments🚀
Happy Learning 💻
