aws-cloudformation-ecs-php-template

This repository consists of a set of nested templates that deploy the following:

• ECS cluster and services. Runing PHP Laravel application with Nginx.
• Codepipeline that will automate the steps required to release the application changes continuously. Which is in another GitHub repository..
• Another Codepipeline that will automate the steps required to release the CloudFormation templates changes continuously.

Prerequisites

• Cloud​Formation, How it works
• AWS account predefined with the following resources:
  • VPC
  • Subnets
  • Security Groups
  • EC2 key pair. This is necessary to for EC2 Launch Type.
• A GitHub repository for the application code with the required artifacts.
• Fork this repo so that you have a copy of the templates.

Template details

The templates below are included in this repository and reference architecture:

Template	Description
cf-master.yaml	This is the master template - which includes all of the other child templates.
cf-ecs.yaml	This template deploys a web application in an Amazon ECS container with autoscaling and an application load balancer. For more information, see Getting Started with Amazon ECS in the Amazon Elastic Container Service Developer Guide.
cf-app-pipeline.yaml	This template creates a pipeline that will detect code changes through push event in GitHub branches and pull them into the pipeline. New docker images will be built in CodeBuild and trigger ECS zero-downtime redeployment.
cf-cloudformation-pipeline.yaml	This template will creates a pipeline that performs the following workflow to update Cloudformation stacks: The first stage of the pipeline retrieves a source artifact (an AWS CloudFormation template and its configuration files) from this GitHub repository. In the second stage, it use Cloudformation Package command to compile and upload the artifacts to S3. It returns a copy of your template, replacing references to local artifacts with the S3 location where the command uploaded the artifacts. In the third stage, the pipeline creates a change set against an existing stacks, sends an email notification and then waits for your approval. In your initial run, you won't have a stack exist. The change set shows you all of the resources that AWS CloudFormation will create. If you approve, this stage executes the change set and builds your stack.
config/*	This folder contains JSON-formatted text Template Configuration File that can specify template parameter values, a stack policy, and tags. Which is only used in CodePipeline that performs Cloudformation changes. Learn more.
cf-master-ecs-ec2.yaml and cf-ecs-ec2.yaml	Templates for launch the ECS services in EC2 launch type.

Getting started

Upload artifacts

Package and upload the local artifacts with Cloudformation package command.

aws cloudformation package --template-file $CF_MASTER_TEMPLATE_FILE_NAME \
        --s3-bucket $CODEPIPELINE_S3_BUCKET_NAME \
        --s3-prefix cf-stacks-template \
        --output-template-file transformed-$CF_MASTER_TEMPLATE_FILE_NAME

Creating stacks

Use the AWS CloudFormation Console to run the master template. Click the "Create Stack" button in the upper left corner of the console, then under "Choose a template", select "Upload a template to Amazon S3" and click "Browse" to find your local template file.

Documentation

• Securing GitHub Tokens with Secrets Manager
• Enable HTTPS support
• Uploading nested template to an S3 Bucket
• Cost-Efficient ECS services with Scheduled Lambda
• Required artifacts in application repository
• Sending SNS Alerts for Task Stopped Events
• Lambda Functions

Reference

• The StartupKit-templates repo
• Cloudformation User Guide
• Cloudformation Template Snippets
• Cloudformation Continuous Delivery

Contributing

Any improvements or suggestions are welcomed. Just do a commit or pull request.