ElasticBeanstalk

Configure and deploy a rails app to Elastic Beanstalk via rake in 60 seconds. Maintain multiple environment DRY configurations and .ebextensions in one easy to use yaml configuration file.

This gem simplifies configuration, and passes the heavy lifting to the eb_deployer from ThoughtWorksStudios.

Installation

Add this line to your application's Gemfile:

gem 'elastic-beanstalk'

And then execute:

$ bundle

Or install it yourself as:

$ gem install elastic-beanstalk

Features

The elastic-beanstalk gem provides:

• Rake tasks to simplify all interactions
• Multi-environment configuration inheritance for DRY yaml configs
• Keep all configurations including .ebextensions in one yaml file (they are inheritable and can be overridden too)
• Full access to the range of configuration options provided by AWS Elastic Beanstalk
• Provide access to helpers such as the SmokeTester to simplify configurations

Plus

Since eb_deployer is doing the heavy lifting, by proxy you get access to great continuous delivery features such as:

• blue-green deployment strategy
• inplace-update deployment strategy
• Smoke Testing upon deployment before blue-green CNAME switching

Usage

Given an application named 'acme':

Step 1: Add ~/.aws/acme.yml

This should contain the access and secret keys generated from the selected IAM user. This is the only file that will need to reside outside the repository. Note that this location is configurable in the config/eb.yml file.

access_key_id: XXXXXX
secret_access_key: XXXXXX

Step 2. Add a config/eb.yml to your rails project

Something like this should get you started

app: acme
region: us-east-1
solution_stack_name: 64bit Amazon Linux 2015.03 v2.0.0 running Ruby 2.2 (Passenger Standalone)
strategy: inplace-update 
keep_latest: 10
development:
  options:
    aws:autoscaling:launchconfiguration:
      InstanceType: t1.micro

production:
  strategy: blue-green 
  options:
    aws:autoscaling:launchconfiguration:
      InstanceType: t1.small

Step 3. Package and deploy

The default is the 'development' environment, change this via command line arguments

$ rake eb:package eb:deploy

Step 4. Get some coffee

This will take a while. TODO: investigate methods to speed up deployment i.e. cache bundle. Feel free to post yours in the wiki.

Rake Tasks

EB

rake eb:clobber                             # Remove any generated package
rake eb:config[environment,version]         # Setup AWS.config and merge/override environments into one resolved configuration
rake eb:deploy[environment,version]         # Deploy to Elastic Beanstalk
rake eb:destroy[force]                      # ** Warning: Destroy Elastic Beanstalk application and *all* environments
rake eb:package[environment,version]        # Package zip source bundle for Elastic Beanstalk
rake eb:show_config[environment,version]    # Show resolved configuration without doing anything

EB:RDS Rake Tasks

The EB:RDS tasks are intended to make use of RDS tasks simple given existing configuration in the eb.yml. i.e. create a snapshot before or after an eb:deploy. The following rake tasks exist:

rake eb:rds:create_snapshot[instance_id,snapshot_id]   # Creates an RDS snapshot
rake eb:rds:instances                                  # List RDS instances
rake eb:rds:snapshots                                  # List RDS snapshots

For example, this would create a snapshot prior to the deployment (and migration) to version 1.1.0:

rake eb:rds:create_snapshot[acme, pre-1.1.0] eb:deploy[1.1.0]

Using RAILS_ENV vs :environment:

Some people prefer to use RAILS_ENV, others prefer to use the :environment argument. Both are accepted. Depending on the use case, each one can be DRYer than the other. Where the task specifies [:environment, :version], consider the :environment optional if you want to use the default of development or utilize the RAILS_ENV instead.

NOTE: if using the argument :environment, you must specify it for both the eb:package and eb:deploy, as eb:package is responsible for injecting the RACK_ENV and RAILS_ENV in aws:elasticbeanstalk:application:environment section of the .ebextensions file.

:version

If not specified, version will be auto-generated via and MD5 hash of the package file. If specified to the eb:package task, the version will be available as the APP_VERSION environment variable, specified in the aws:elasticbeanstalk:application:environment section of the .ebextensions file.

A real-world example

Deploy version 1.1.3 of acme to production using the :environment parameter

$ rake eb:package[production,1.1.3] eb:deploy[production,1.1.3]

Deploy version 1.1.3 of acme to production using RAILS_ENV

$ RAILS_ENV=production rake eb:package[1.1.3] eb:deploy[1.1.3]

Deploy an MD5 hashed version of acme to production using the :environment parameter

$ rake eb:package[production] eb:deploy[production]

Deploy an MD5 hashed version of acme to production using RAILS_ENV

$ RAILS_ENV=production rake eb:package eb:deploy

Deploy an MD5 hashed version of acme to development

$ rake eb:package eb:deploy

config/eb.yml

# This is a sample that has not been executed so it may not be exactly 100%, but is intended to show
#   that access to full options_settings and .ebextensions is intended.
#---
# http://docs.aws.amazon.com/elasticbeanstalk/latest/dg/command-options.html#command-options-ruby
#
# This is a sample that has not been executed so it may not be exactly 100%, but is intended to show
#   that access to full options_settings and .ebextensions is intended.
#---
app: acme
region: us-east-1
# Choose a platform from http://docs.aws.amazon.com/elasticbeanstalk/latest/dg/concepts.platforms.html
solution_stack_name: 64bit Amazon Linux 2015.03 v2.0.0 running Ruby 2.2 (Passenger Standalone)
strategy: inplace-update # default to inplace-update to avoid starting new environments
keep_latest: 10
package:
  verbose: true
  includes:  ['public/assets/.sprockets-manifest-*.json'] # ensure '.' manifest is added when using assets:precompile
  exclude_dirs: [features, spec, target, coverage, vcr, flows]  # additional dirs that merge with default excludes
  exclude_files: [.ruby-*,  rspec.xml, README*, db/*.sqlite3, bower.json]
smoke_test: |
    lambda { |host|
      EbSmokeTester.test_url("http://#{host}/health", 600, 5, 'All good! Everything is up and checks out.')
    }
#--
ebextensions:
  # General settings for the server environment
  01-environment.config:
    commands:
      01timezone:
        command: "ln -sf /usr/share/zoneinfo/America/Chicago /etc/localtime"

  # These are things that make sense for any Ruby application
  02-ruby.config:
    # Install git in order to be able to bundle gems from git
    packages:
      yum:
        git: []
        patch: []

  # Run rake tasks before an application deployment
  03-rake.config:
    container_commands:
      01seed:
        command: rake db:seed
        leader_only: true

#---
options:

  # Any environment variables - will be available in ENV
  aws:elasticbeanstalk:application:environment:
    FOO: 'bar'
    RAILS_SKIP_ASSET_COMPILATION: true # Use if doing asset compilation before packaging (recommended)

  aws:autoscaling:launchconfiguration:
    EC2KeyName: eb-ssh
    SecurityGroups: 'acme-production-control'

  aws:autoscaling:asg:
    MinSize: 1
    MaxSize: 5
    # Restrict to Reserved Instance zone: http://stackoverflow.com/a/33131364/2363935
    'Custom Availability Zones': us-east-1c
    'Availability Zones': Any 1
    

  aws:elb:loadbalancer:
    SSLCertificateId: 'arn:aws:iam::XXXXXXX:server-certificate/acme'
    LoadBalancerHTTPSPort: 443

  aws:elb:policies:
    Stickiness Policy: true

  aws:elasticbeanstalk:sns:topics:
    Notification Endpoint: 'alerts@acme.com'

  aws:elasticbeanstalk:application:
    Application Healthcheck URL: '/health'
    
#---
# Set "inactive_settings" for saving cost on blue green deployment
#  https://github.com/ThoughtWorksStudios/eb_deployer/wiki/Elastic-Beanstalk-Tips-and-Tricks#set-inactive_settings-for-saving-cost-on-blue-green-deployment    
inactive:
  aws:autoscaling:asg:
    MinSize: 0
    MaxSize: 0
    Cooldown: 900
  aws:autoscaling:updatepolicy:rollingupdate:
    RollingUpdateEnabled: false    

#---
development:
  options:
    aws:autoscaling:launchconfiguration:
      InstanceType: t1.micro
    aws:elasticbeanstalk:application:environment:
      RAILS_SKIP_ASSET_COMPILATION: true
#---
production:
  strategy: blue-green # always fire up a new environment and healthcheck before transitioning cname
  options:
    aws:autoscaling:launchconfiguration:
      InstanceType: t1.small

ENV interpolation

ENV variable interpolation is provided by dry-config. Any of the values in the eb.yml may contain interpolated values.

The following formats are acceptable:

  - ~/foo
  - $HOME/foo
  - ${HOME}/foo
  - #{HOME}/foo

Additional options

Most of the configurations are defaulted. The following are less obvious but may be useful:

secrets_dir: (default: '~/.aws')
package:
  verbose: (default: false)
  dir: (default: 'pkg')

eb_deployer additional options

The following are passed if not nil, otherwise eb_deployer assigns an appropriate default.

inactive_settings:  (nil if unspecified)
package_bucket:
keep_latest:        (if unspecified, it will keep all past versions in the S3 bucket)
version_prefix:
tier:

Still to come

1. Speedier deployments - investigate caching of bundle and asset pre-compilation to see if there is a common setting to be found

Contributing

Please contribute! While this is working great, a greater scope of functionality is certainly easily attainable with this foundation in place.

1. Fork it
2. Create your feature branch (git checkout -b my-new-feature)
3. Commit your changes (git commit -am 'Add some feature')
4. Push to the branch (git push origin my-new-feature)
5. Create new Pull Request

Copyright and License

Copyright (c) 2014-2015 AlienFast, LLC. MIT License, see LICENSE.txt for further details.