Deploy your admin backend to AWS

This tutorial is designed to assist you with a step-by-step guide to deploy the admin backend to Amazon Web Services, using EC2, ELB, ACM and Route53.

Please be sure of your agent type and version and pick the right documentation accordingly.

Node.js

This is the documentation of the forest-express-sequelize and forest-express-mongoose Node.js agents that will soon reach end-of-support.

forest-express-sequelize v9 and forest-express-mongoose v9 are replaced by @forestadmin/agent v1.

Please check your agent type and version and read on or switch to the right documentation.

Ruby on Rails

This is still the latest Ruby on Rails documentation of the forest_liana agent, you’re at the right place, please read on.

Python

This is the documentation of the django-forestadmin Django agent that will soon reach end-of-support.

If you’re using a Django agent, notice that django-forestadmin v1 is replaced by forestadmin-agent-django v1.

If you’re using a Flask agent, go to the forestadmin-agent-flask v1 documentation.

Please check your agent type and version and read on or switch to the right documentation.

PHP

This is the documentation of the forestadmin/laravel-forestadmin Laravel agent that will soon reach end-of-support.

If you’re using a Laravel agent, notice that forestadmin/laravel-forestadmin v1 is replaced by forestadmin/laravel-forestadmin v3.

If you’re using a Symfony agent, go to the forestadmin/symfony-forestadmin v1 documentation.

Please check your agent type and version and read on or switch to the right documentation.

First, please ensure you have an AWS account. You can sign up here.

1. Launch an EC2 Instance:

• Navigate to the EC2 dashboard and click on Launch Instance.

• Choose an Amazon Machine Image (AMI) such as Amazon Linux 2023 AMI.

• Select t2.micro (part of the AWS Free Tier).

• Select Proceed without a key pair

• On the Configure Security Group step, create a new security group:

  • allow ssh traffic.

  • allow HTTPS traffic.

  • allow HTTP traffic.

• Review and launch the instance.

2. Connect to the EC2 instance:

• Navigate to your EC2 instance and click on Connect.

• Leave the default parameters and click on Connect again.

• Your are now connected to your instance.

3. Set up your instance:

The command lines in this step demonstrate how to install a Node.js agent. If you are running Forest Admin on another agent, please adapt the following to your specific stack.

• Update the instance:

sudo yum update -y

• Install Git:

sudo yum install git -y

• Clone your repo:

git clone your-repo-link

• Install Node.js and npm:

sudo yum install npm -y

• Navigate to your project directory and install the necessary packages:

cd your-repo-directory
npm install

• Set up all the necessary environment variables provided by the Forest Admin environment creation wizard.

• Add the APPLICATION_PORT environment variable to be able to contact the server from outside. In this example, we will choose APPLICATION_PORT=3310. If you choose another port, please adapt the next steps accordingly.

• Start the agent

npm run start:watch

4. Adjust security group rules:

• Navigate to your EC2 instance's security group.

• Click on Edit inbound rules.

• Add a Custom TCP inbound rule to allow on port 3310.

5. Create a target group:

• In the AWS Management Console, navigate to the EC2 service.

• Under "Target Groups", click Create Target Groups.

• Ensure target type is instance.

• Choose HTTP to 3310.

• Ensure VPC is set to the same VPC as your EC2 instance.

• Setup the health checks as set to /forest.

• On the next step, select instance and click on Include as pending below.

• Finally create the target group.

6. Request a certificate using AWS Certificate Manager (ACM):

• Navigate to ACM and click on Request a certificate.

• Enter your domain name and validate the domain ownership using DNS validation.

• After viewing the new created certificate, click on Create records in Route 53.

• Wait for the certificate to be validated (this can take some time < 1mn).

7. Set up an Application Load Balancer (ALB):

• In the AWS Management Console, navigate to the EC2 service.

• Under "Load Balancers", click Create Load Balancer.

• Choose Application Load Balancer and follow the setup.

• Ensure the ALB is set to the same VPC as your EC2 instance.

• Select all regions.

• Remove default security group and select the group associated to the newly created instance.

• Add an HTTPS listener and choose previously created target group and certificate.

• After creating the ALB copy the DNS name.

8. Add CNAME to Route53:

• Navigate to Route53 and choose your hosted zone (domain).

• Create a CNAME record with the domain name filled in the certificate and the DNS name of the ALB.

9. Finalize:

Check your domain. You should be able to access your Forest Admin panel environment hosted on AWS. 🎉

This is a basic setup, and there are many optimizations and security enhancements (like using RDS, tightening security groups, etc.) that can be done for a production-ready deployment. Please refer to the AWS documentation to go deeper.