GAWS - Golang|AWS Oneliner

Oneliner to create an EC2 instance running the default page of a web application.

The oneliner calls a longer script. AWS credentials for a dedicated region are provided either as flags or via an env-file. The web application is a Flask app, not default nginx or apache.

The pre-requisite configs for the AWS credentials, as well as the amiID for the right region, are out of scope of this code. The idea is that before you hit enter, there are no compute instances running and after, you supply an IP address, and at that address is a working web application.

Summary

I decided to develop everything in golang to explore AWS's golang SDK. While the route of provisioning everything using Ansible or Terraform would have been easier, a dockerized golang package would allow me the flexibility in the future to automate or adjust precise elements of the deployment should I want to expand on the project or, for example, run it under kubernetes.

The overall call stack is:

make -> bash -> Docker [ -> Golang ] -> AWS API

The golang scripts will create one instance, install docker, start the specified docker container on

Usage

Oneliner

docker run -it --rm stevemcquaid/gaws:1.0 \
    gaws \
    --amiID="<my_amiid_for_amazon_linux> \
    --cidr="0.0.0.0/0" \
    --container="stevemcquaid/python-flask-docker-hello-world:latest" \
    --instanceType="t2.micro" \
    --instanceTagKey="Name" \
    --instanceTagValue="gaws" \
    --port=80 \
    --securityGroupName="gaws-SG" \
    --securityGroupDesc="Allow access to my docker container" \
    --vpcID="" \
    --AWS_REGION=<my_aws_region> \
    --AWS_ACCESS_KEY_ID="<my_aws_access_key>" \
    --AWS_SECRET_ACCESS_KEY="<my_aws_secret_access_key>"

View help options

make help

Build the container locally

make build

How to avoid showing sensitive creds

Populate the aws.env file to avoid having to specify creds as flags or enter credentials on the CLI

echo "AWS_REGION=us-east-1
AWS_ACCESS_KEY_ID=SECRET
AWS_SECRET_ACCESS_KEY=longsecret" >> aws.env

Build & Run the container locally (My development workflow)

Use with a populated aws.env file. You might have to modify the amiID though depending upon your region

make run

Raw run usage

All parameters specified for the gaws tool are optional. If you have a valid aws.env, you can get away with just:

docker run -it --env-file aws.env --rm stevemcquaid/gaws:latest