API Self-hosted AWS EC2 deployment guide

If you intend on using AWS EC2 to host your Draftable Self-hosted image, this guide provides a step by step process for this exact deployment. 

Prerequisites 

You will need to ensure you have the following ready before beginning this deployment.

1. You have logged into your AWS console with elevated privileges 
2. You have selected the correct region in the AWS console where you are going to host your instance

Deployment steps

The deployment steps are broken down into the following sections. 

• User configuration: Account configuration for the AWS user that will interact with the instance configuration. 
• Launching a EC2 instance: Process of the initial configuration for your EC2 instance. 
• Instance configuration: Adding the Draftable container to your instance, configuring the Self-hosted instance and restarting your container with Self-hosted configured. 

User configuration

1. Navigate to your IAM users. We are going to create a new user by selecting the add users option. (Note: if editing an existing user account instead skip to step 5)
   
   
   
2. Enter details for the new user, ensure that you have the following AWS credential parameters enabled: Access Key and Password. Then click next. 
   
   
   
3. Now we include specific policies on the account. Ensure you include the AdministratorAccess and IAMUserChangePassword policies to the account. Then click next. 
   
   
4. Ignoring the tags step, go straight to the review page. Ensure that the two policies we added earlier are present. If all looks good, click create user.
   
   
5. Open the user account again and go the permissions page. We to add an additional permission called AmazonEC2ContainerRegistryFullAccess. Add this policy and hit next, then add permissions.
   
   
   

Launching a EC2 instance

Prerequisites 

Ensure you have setup the following:

• Logged into the AWS console as the user created/edit in the user configuration section.
• Have the correct region selected before continuing with instance setup. 

1. Navigate to the EC2 dashboard and select the Launch instance option. 
   
   
   
2. Draftable API Self-hosted runs on any Linux operating system which has both docker support and uses a Linux kernel. Provide a name for your instance and then select Amazon Linux as the AMI.
   Note: You can deviate from the example below and choose a different Linux operating system, as long as it still supports the above requirements. 
   
   
   
3. Continue to configure the instance by selecting a x64 architecture, and then selecting a instance type that is at least t2.medium or higher. Key pair should be the same one used as part as the login for the AWS user. 
   
   
   
4. Configure the network settings as detailed below, create a new firewall security group and allow SSH, HTTPS and HTTP traffic from the internet. Depending on your use case you may want to change some of these parameters at a later time, but for the configuration process please allow all during the setup process. 
   
   Following this configuration, you should be left with a following summary of settings. Ensure they are correct to the settings provided earlier. 
   
5. Click launch instance. Your EC2 instance should now be running. 

Instance configuration 

Prerequisites 

Ensure you have setup the following:

• Logged into the AWS console as the user created/edit in the user configuration section.
• Are on the instances page before continuing. 

1. Select on your newly created instance and click on connect to your instance. Ensure the username s correct and then select connect. 
   
   
   
2. In this instance terminal we will configure and add the latest Draftable Self-hosted image. First we need to add docker to the instance, which can be done with the command below:

   sudo yum install -y docker

   
   
   
3. Now we need to add docker-compose to the instance, use the commands below:

   1. sudo curl -L https://github.com/docker/compose/releases/latest/download/docker-compose-$(uname -s)-$(uname -m) -o /usr/local/bin/docker-compose

   2. sudo chmod +x /usr/local/bin/docker-compose

      
      
      
4. We can now verify that docker compose has installed correctly by using the command below:
   

   docker-compose version

   
   
   
5. Now create the docker-compose.yml file, use the command below:
   

   touch docker-compose.yml

6. Now we need to edit the docker-compose file to add all the correct parameters for the instance. To start editing the file use the command below:
   

   nano docker-compose.yml

7. Now using this file editor, populate the YAML file with the correct configuration. For references on this topic see our docker-compose guide and settings reference. For this example we are using the most basic YAML configuration. 
   
   
   
8. Save and close the docker-compose file, and then start the docker daemon with the following command: 

   sudo systemctl start docker

9. Now start the instance using the command below:

    docker-compose up

   Note: You may receive a permissions error regarding the instance trying to connect to the Docker Daemon. If so run this command to correct permissions:

   sudo chmod 666 /var/run/docker.sock

10. Your instance should launch from here. You can go back to your EC2 instances list and extract a IP address to connect to your instance via the web browser to start configuration. 
    
11. From here, please refer to our first time configuration guide. 
    
    
    

If you are having difficulty following this guide or getting Draftable Self-hosted to work on your AWS EC2, please get in contact with our support team at support@draftable.com.