strapi-elb/runningnotes.md

Running notes

deocument that the db has to be done from cli arg, but the configs can be done via files.

SSL? https://levelup.gitconnected.com/beginners-guide-to-aws-beanstalk-using-node-js-d061bb4b8755

If doesnt work, try installing yarn in the ELB instance

Create seperate sql database + VPC rules: http://blog.blackninjadojo.com/aws/elastic-beanstalk/2019/01/28/adding-a-database-to-your-rails-application-on-elastic-beanstalk-using-rds.html

Tie this in with a cloudformation template + hooking it up

/opt/elasticbeanstalk/node-install/node-v12.16.1-linux-x64/bin

Try setting the database name using cloudformation template

Running strapi in different modes

You should use development for developing strapi and then deploy it to production.

If you run strapi in production, you cannot edit content types. See this git issue for the thread.

If you're running Strapi in a multiple instance you should:

• Run strapi locally in develop mode.
• Create content types.
• Build strapi in production.
• Push to ELB.

If you're running a single instance, you can alternatively just run it in develop mode in ELB.

Strapi stores its models locally on the instance and not on the database.

https://github.com/strapi/strapi/issues/4798

This is not a bug and is intended, as the CTB (Content-Type builder) saves model configurations to files doing so in production would require Strapi to restart and thus could potentially knock your production API offline. Along with the previous reason, strapi is also very much pushed as a scale able application which would mean these changes would not be replicated across any clustered configurations.

There is no current plans to allow for this, as well as no plans to move these model definitions into the database. The enforcement of using the proper environment for the proper task (Production, Staging, and Development) is something that has been pushed from day 1.

Due to the reasons I explained above I am going to mark this as closed but please do feel free to discuss.

Strapi documentation

https://strapi.io/blog/api-documentation-plugin

You can install the strapi documentation plugin by running: npm run strapi install documentation.

You can then access it through the Strapi Admin panel.

You should change the production URL server url in the documentation settings.

Edit the file ./extensions/documentation/documentation/1.0.0/full_documentation.json and change YOUR_PRODUCTION_SERVER to the ELB URL of your environment.

API Examples using HTTPIE

Authenticate with the API

http http://strapi-prod.eu-west-1.elasticbeanstalk.com/auth/local identifier=apiuser password=password

Get a Single Content Type

http http://strapi-prod.eu-west-1.elasticbeanstalk.com/tests Authorization:"Bearer eyJhbGciOiJIUzI1NiIsInR5cCI6IkpXVCJ9.eyJpZCI6MiwiaWF0IjoxNTg3ODY3NzQ4LCJleHAiOjE1OTA0NTk3NDh9.McAi1b-F3IT2Mw90652AprEMtknJrW66Aw5FGMBOTj0"

Use query parameters to filter for Multiple Content Type

You can use query parameters to filter requests made to the API.

https://strapi.io/documentation/3.0.0-beta.x/content-api/parameters.html#parameters

The syntax is ?field_operator=value, e.g ?title_contains=test, after the endpoint URL for the content type.

http "http://strapi-prod.eu-west-1.elasticbeanstalk.com/tests?title_contains=test" Authorization:"Bearer eyJhbGciOiJIUzI1NiIsInR5cCI6IkpXVCJ9.eyJpZCI6MSwiaXNBZG1pbiI6dHJ1ZSwiaWF0IjoxNTg3ODY3NzMwLCJleHAiOjE1OTA0NTk3MzB9.XXdoZUk_GuOION2KlpeWZ7qwXAoEq9vTlIeD2XTnJxY"

S3 Upload Addon

You should add the strapi-provider-upload-aws-s3 extension using NPM. Make sure you add the same version of Strapi you are using.

npm i strapi-provider-upload-aws-s3@3.0.0-beta.20

AWS Resources

You should have an S3 bucket with public access, and an AWS account that has a policy to access the bucket.

Configuration

You should create a settings file at ./extensions/upload/config/settings.json.

This file defines an S3 object as in: https://docs.aws.amazon.com/AWSJavaScriptSDK/latest/AWS/S3.html#constructor-property.

You can use Strapi dynamic config files to set environment variables:

• provider
• providerOptions
  • accessKeyId
  • secretAccessKey
  • region
  • params
    • Bucket

{
  "provider": "aws-s3",
  "providerOptions": {
    "accessKeyId": "${ process.env.STRAPI_S3_ACCESS_KEY || 'AKIA23D4RF6OZWGDKV7W' }",
    "secretAccessKey": "${ process.env.STRAPI_S3_SECRET_KEY || '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' }",
    "region": "${ process.env.STRAPI_S3_REGION || 'eu-west-1' }",
    "params": {
      "Bucket": "${ process.env.STRAPI_S3_BUCKET || 'elb-example-bucket' }"
    }
  }
}

Alternatively if you want to use different options for different environments, you can use a settings.js file instead.

https://strapi.io/documentation/3.0.0-beta.x/plugins/upload.html#using-a-provider

if (process.env.NODE_ENV === "production") {
  module.exports = {
    provider: "aws-s3",
    providerOptions: {
      accessKeyId: process.env.STRAPI_S3_ACCESS_KEY,
      secretAccessKey: process.env.STRAPI_S3_SECRET_KEY,
      region: process.env.STRAPI_S3_REGION,
      params: {
        Bucket: process.env.STRAPI_S3_BUCKET,
      },
    },
  };
} else {
  module.exports = {};
}

Fix Version Numbers

When using Strapi you should make sure the version numbers for all dependencies in ./package.json are fixed for Strapi modules. You cannot mix and match and upgrade arbitrarily.

An example is:

{
  "dependencies": {
    "knex": "<0.20.0",
    "pg": "^8.0.3",
    "sqlite3": "latest",
    "strapi": "3.0.0-beta.20",
    "strapi-admin": "3.0.0-beta.20",
    "strapi-connector-bookshelf": "3.0.0-beta.20",
    "strapi-plugin-content-manager": "3.0.0-beta.20",
    "strapi-plugin-content-type-builder": "3.0.0-beta.20",
    "strapi-plugin-documentation": "3.0.0-beta.20",
    "strapi-plugin-email": "3.0.0-beta.20",
    "strapi-plugin-upload": "3.0.0-beta.20",
    "strapi-plugin-users-permissions": "3.0.0-beta.20",
    "strapi-provider-upload-aws-s3": "3.0.0-beta.20",
    "strapi-utils": "3.0.0-beta.20"
  }
}

Strapi in git

To have a strapi project in github you should remove the:

• ./build
• ./node_modules

folders.

When cloning from the repo you should then do a:

• NODE_ENV=development npm install
• NODE_ENV=development npm run build

You can then run Strapi with npm run develop or NODE_ENV=production npm run start.

Cloudformation

https://adamtheautomator.com/aws-cli-cloudformation/ (example of deploying an S3 bucket with static site index.html.)

Creating templates

To create a cloudformation template you should create a template.yaml. This yaml file should have at the top:

AWSTemplateFormatVersion: 2010-09-09
Description: A simple CloudFormation template

Then you should add a Resources key and populate this with all the infrastructure you need to provision.

Adding resources

Documentation for all AWS resources is: https://docs.aws.amazon.com/AWSCloudFormation/latest/UserGuide/aws-template-resource-type-ref.html.

A good approach is to use the GUI to create an object, and then lookup the cloudformation template as you go along.

Using parameters

https://docs.aws.amazon.com/AWSCloudFormation/latest/UserGuide/parameters-section-structure.html

You can use parameters in your templates. This allows you to use names/resources from other templates, or specify them at creation on the CLI.

To use a parameter you should create a Parameters section in the yaml on the same level as a Resources.

Parameters:
  InstanceTypeParameter:
    Type: String
    Default: t2.micro
    AllowedValues:
      - t2.micro
      - m1.small
      - m1.large
    Description: Enter t2.micro, m1.small, or m1.large. Default is t2.micro.

Using outputs

https://docs.aws.amazon.com/AWSCloudFormation/latest/UserGuide/outputs-section-structure.html

Using functions

A list of all Cloudformation functions is: https://docs.aws.amazon.com/AWSCloudFormation/latest/UserGuide/intrinsic-function-reference.html.

Fn::Select will select a single object from a list of objects by index.

Fn::GetAZs returns an array that lists all availability zones for a specified region.

!Ref returns the value of the specified parameter or resource.

Example of these:

PublicSubnet1:
  Type: AWS::EC2::Subnet
  Properties:
    AvailabilityZone:
      Fn::Select:
        - 0
        - Fn::GetAZs: !Ref "AWS::Region"

Outputs

You can use the Outputs: header in your Cloudformation templates to specify outputs to be used in other Cloudformation templates.

https://docs.aws.amazon.com/AWSCloudFormation/latest/UserGuide/outputs-section-structure.html

Outputs:
  PublicVPCID:
    Description: The VPC ID.
    Value: !Ref PublicVPC
    Export:
      Name: ELBStrapiPublicVPC

Value returns the value of the property by an aws cloudformation describe-stacks command. The value can contain literals, parameter references, pseudo-parameters, mapping values or functions.

Name goes under Export: and is used for cross-stack reference. This name should be unique within a region. You can use this name in other Cloudformation templates to reference the Value you have specified above. You can set content in other cloudformation templates this way.

You can refer to these in ELB ./config files for example - allowing you to dynamically link to other AWS resources in your ELB environment.

Referencing other resources

You can reference other resources in the template. This is useful say if you want to define a VPC and a subnet and reference the VPC from the subnet.

To do this you should use the !Ref function:

VpcId: !Ref PublicVPC

Pesudeo references

You can also reference certain AWS references: https://docs.aws.amazon.com/AWSCloudFormation/latest/UserGuide/pseudo-parameter-reference.html.

Examples include AWS::AccountId and AWS::StackName among others.

Deploy a stack/template

To deploy, you should run the command: aws cloudformation deploy --template-file template.yaml --stack-name static-website

Tags

When setting tags you can set them on individual resources in the Cloudformation template:

Tags:
  - Key: git
    Value: web-dev
  - Key: owner
    Value: home
  - Key: project
    Value: strapi-elb
  - Key: test
    Value: true
  - Key: deployment
    Value: cloudformation

Alternatively if you have many tags to be shared across all resources you can set them when you use the CLI to deploy: --tags git=web-dev owner=home project=strapi-elb test=true deployment=cloudformation

Updating stack

To update a stack you can use deploy. Note that the default behaviour is to create the new resources side by side, then once successful remove the old ones. You may run into errors when updating certain resources (updating a VPC subnet will fail as it has to create the new subnet alongside the existing one). You should remove the old stack by doing delete-stack first.

aws cloudformation delete-stack --stack-name temp-vpc --profile admin

Failure

If something goes wrong, you can use describe-stack-events and pass the stack-name to find the events leading up to the failure: aws cloudformation describe-stack-events --stack-name strapi-s3.

If this is the first time you are creating a stack you will not be able to re-deploy the stack. You must first delete the stack entirely and then re-deploy with any fixes.

You can delete a stack by running: aws --profile admin cloudformation delete-stack --stack-name strapi-s3.

Stacks

https://docs.aws.amazon.com/AWSCloudFormation/latest/UserGuide/stacks.html

A cloudformation stack is a collection of AWS resources that you can manage as a single unit. You can group different resources under one stack then create, update or destroy everything under this stack.

Using stacks means AWS will treat all resources as a single unit. They must all be created or destroyed successfully to be created or deleted. If a resource cannot be created, Cloudformation will roll the stack back to the previous configuration and delete any interim resources that were created.

Snippets

Deploy a template/stack

aws --profile admin cloudformation deploy --template-file ./01-stack-storage.yaml --stack-name strapi-s3

You can pass paramter values in with --paramter-overrides KEY=VALUE:

--parameter-overrides TestParameter="some test string"

Destroy a stack

aws --profile admin cloudformation delete-stack --stack-name strapi-s3

Tags

Suggested tags for all AWS resources are:

Tag	Description	Example
git	git repo that contains the code	web-dev
owner	who the resource is for/owned	home, work, elliot
project	what project it belongs to	strapi-elb
test	flag for a temporary test resource	true
environment	environment resource belongs to	dev, prod
deployment	AWS tool used for deployment	cloudformation, elb

Cloudformation default tags

For Cloudformation resources the following tags get applied automatically:

Tag	Description	Example
aws:cloudformation:stack-name	stack-name of the resource	strapi-s3
aws:cloudformation:logical-id	resource name given in template	ELBExampleBucket
aws:cloudformation:stack-id	ARN of the cloudformation stack	arn:aws:cloudformation:eu-west-1:745437999005:stack/strapi-s3/459ebbf0-88aa-11ea-beac-02f0c9b42810