Welcome to Scribble With Users

Welcome to Deployment Blogs

Step 0: Ensure Docker is installed:

Install Docker:

https://docs.docker.com/get-docker/

Step 1: Accessing AWS EC2

Log in to the AWS Management Console
Navigate to EC2 > Instances
Launch a new EC2 instance using Ubuntu as the base image
Connect to the instance using SSH:

# Connect to your EC2 instance using SSH
ssh -i something-key.pem ubuntu@something-aws-instance-ip #ex aws instance ip: 3.129.109.200

Step 2: Setting Up Application

1. Finding an Available Port

Run the following command in the EC2 terminal to check for available ports:

# List running Docker containers to check for available ports
docker ps

Our class port is 802_, scribble’s port goes to 8023

2. Setting Up Docker on Localhost

Ensure Docker configuration files match the deployment environment:

If docker.io/python doesn’t work, make sure the versions match up

Terminal

# Check the Python version installed
python --version

Dockerfile

# Use Python 3.11 as the base image
FROM docker.io/python:3.11

# Set the working directory
WORKDIR /

# Install necessary packages and dependencies
RUN apt-get update && apt-get install -y python3 python3-pip git
COPY . /

# Install Python dependencies
RUN pip install --no-cache-dir -r requirements.txt
RUN pip install gunicorn

# Set Gunicorn environment variables
ENV GUNICORN_CMD_ARGS="--workers=1 --bind=0.0.0.0:8023"

# Expose port 8023
EXPOSE 8023

# Start the application using Gunicorn
CMD [ "gunicorn", "main:app" ]

docker-compose.yml

version: '3'
services:
  web:
    image: scribble_2025
    build: .
    env_file:
      - .env
    ports:
      - "8023:8023"
    volumes:
      - ./instance:/instance
    restart: unless-stopped

.env File Setup:

In the root of the directory, make an .env and adjust environment keys.

# Environment variables for the application
PORT=8203
DATABASE_URL=<your-database-url>  # URL for Database
SECRET_KEY=<your-secret-key>      # Secret Key for Authorization

.env files created are hidden for privacy, ensure that environment file isn’t shared, especially secret_key.

Frontend Configuration

Update config.js to ensure the frontend communicates with the backend:

// Configure the backend URI based on the environment
export var pythonURI;
if (location.hostname === "localhost" || location.hostname === "127.0.0.1") { //Main domain
    pythonURI = "http://localhost:8023"; //Our port (8023)
} else {
    pythonURI = "https://scribble_backend.stu.nighthawkcodingsociety.com";
}

If localhost works on the backend but not the frontend, always check pythonURI before continuing.

Step 3: Server Setup

1. Clone Backend Repository

Ensure repos don’t have an uppercase for formatting purposes.

# Clone the backend repository and navigate into it
cd ~
git clone https://github.com/scribble_backend.git scribble_backend
cd scribble_backend

2. Build and Run the Docker Container

# Build and start the Docker container
docker-compose up -d --build

Verify deployment with:

# Verify the deployment by making a request to the backend
curl localhost:8023

Step 4: Configuring DNS with Route 53

Go to AWS Route 53
Select hosted zone and add a new CNAME record.

Our name is scribble
Our value is scribble.stu.nighthawkcodingsociety.com

Name	Type	Value
scribble	CNAME	scribble.stu.nighthawkcodingsociety.com

Step 5: Setting Up Nginx as a Reverse Proxy

thie Create an Nginx configuration file:

# Create a new Nginx configuration file for the backend
sudo nano /etc/nginx/sites-available/scribble_backend

Add the following configuration:

server {
    listen 80;
    listen [::]:80;
    server_name scribble.stu.nighthawkcodingsociety.com;

    location / {
        proxy_pass http://localhost:8203;
        
        if ($request_method = OPTIONS) {
            add_header "Access-Control-Allow-Credentials" "true" always;
            add_header "Access-Control-Allow-Origin" "https://nighthawkcoders.github.io" always;
            add_header "Access-Control-Allow-Methods" "GET, POST, PUT, DELETE, OPTIONS, HEAD" always;
            add_header "Access-Control-Allow-Headers" "Authorization, Content-Type, Accept" always;
            return 204;
        }
    }
}

Enable the configuration and restart Nginx:

# Enable the new Nginx configuration and restart the service
sudo ln -s /etc/nginx/sites-available/scribble_backend /etc/nginx/sites-enabled/
sudo nginx -t
sudo systemctl restart nginx

Step 6: Enabling SSL with Certbot

Install Certbot and configure HTTPS:

# Install Certbot and the Nginx plugin
sudo apt update && sudo apt install certbot python3-certbot-nginx -y
# Run Certbot to configure SSL
sudo certbot --nginx

Follow the prompts to select the domain and enable HTTPS.

Step 7: Deployment Updates

Whenever updating code, do the following:

Pull the latest changes:

# Pull the latest changes from the repository
cd ~/scribble_backend
git pull

Restart the container:

# Restart the Docker container to apply changes
docker-compose down
docker-compose up -d --build

Verify the deployment:

# Verify the deployment by making a request to the backend
curl localhost:8023

Step 8: Troubleshooting and Monitoring

Troubleshoot Docker configurations.

Check if deploy works.
Be careful of sudo commands unless mort allows it.

Basic Checks

Check running Docker containers:

# List running Docker containers
docker ps

Check application logs:

# View logs for the Docker containers
docker-compose logs

Check Nginx errors:

# View the last 20 lines of the Nginx error log
sudo journalctl -u nginx --no-pager | tail -n 20

Using Cockpit for Server Management

Log into Cockpit using subdomain.
Navigate to:

Overview – System health and status.
Logs – Server activity and errors.
Networking – View active network settings.
Terminal – Run administrative commands.