Submit CS

The purpose of this repository is to facilitate building and launching new instances of the submission service.

Prerequisites

Local AWS Credentials

In order to talk with Amazon, please create or add to an existing ~/.aws/credentials file. Its contents should contain a submit section with your aws credentials similar to the following:

[submit]
aws_access_key_id = AKIQWERTYUIOPASDFGHJ
aws_secret_access_key = ABCDEFGHIJKLMNOPQRSTUVWXYZ1234567890abcd

To retrieve your aws_access_key_id and create a aws_secret_access_key, visit: https://console.aws.amazon.com/iam/home?#/security_credential

AWS Key Pair

In order to SSH into your launched instances, you will need to have imported your SSH public key to AWS. Visit the following URL, and click the "Import Key Pair" button to add your SSH public key:

https://console.aws.amazon.com/ec2/v2/home?region=us-east-1#KeyPairs:sort=keyName

Provide the keypair with a unique name, which will later be referred to as KEYNAME.

References

• https://www.packer.io/docs/builders/amazon.html#specifying-amazon-credentials
• https://www.terraform.io/docs/providers/aws/index.html#shared-credentials-file

Build AMI

To build AMIs you first need to setup the packer tool. The first part of its quick start guide should be sufficient: https://www.packer.io/intro/getting-started/install.html

Once the tool is installed you should be able to run:

packer build submit.json

Following the run keep note of the created AMI image, which should be provided in the last line of the output.

Launch Service

To deploy the service to AWS you need to setup the terraform tool. Its installation guide should be sufficient: https://www.terraform.io/intro/getting-started/install.html

Planning

Once installed, the first thing we want to do is see what resources will be created. We can do that by running:

TF_VAR_ami=AMI_VALUE TF_VAR_key_name=KEYNAME terraform plan

Replace AMI_VALUE with the AMI output provided by packer. The value should start with ami-. Similarly replace KEYNAME with the name you provided to your imported ssh public key.

The output of the command should end with a summary like:

Plan: 4 to add, 0 to change, 0 to destroy.

If you already have an instace of the service running, it might not have anything to do, or if you've made some changes the effect of running terraform should be properly summarized.

Applying

Run the following to actually launch/update your serice:

TF_VAR_ami=AMI_VALUE TF_VAR_key_name=KEYNAME terraform apply

Again replace AMI_VALUE, and KEYNAME with the AMI that you would like to use, and public key respectively.

Connecting

The IP address of the running server should be output at the end of terraform apply. You can use that IP address to connect both via the web, and ssh:

• http://ipaddress
• ssh ec2-user@ipaddress

TODO: At the moment you need to ssh into the machine and run update_submit before it is properly reachable via http.

Setting Up Users

When the submit service starts up, no users are able to connect because none exist. SSH into the instance, and execute submit_shell to drop into the application's shell. From there create a new admin user:

s.add(user(name='Admin User', username='admin', password='PASSWORD', is_admin=True))
t.commit()

Then you can exit the shell, or create more users.

Cleaning Up

To terminate your running AWS resources run:

TF_VAR_ami=AMI_VALUE TF_VAR_key_name=KEYNAME terraform destroy

Note: You can use any non-empty value in place of AMI_VALUE and KEYNAME when destroying resources.

For more information on destroy please see: https://www.terraform.io/intro/getting-started/destroy.html

Cleaning up AMI instances is a two part process. See the instructions pertaining to AMI removal at: https://www.packer.io/intro/getting-started/build-image.html#managing-the-image