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Set Up Your Real Time Chat App On Amazon Ec2 With Docker and Feathersjs

1. The document describes how to set up a real time chat app on Amazon EC2 using Docker and FeathersJS. It involves creating an AWS EC2 instance, installing Docker, pulling a FeathersJS Docker image containing the chat app code, and running the image to launch the app. 2. Key steps include connecting to the EC2 instance via SSH, installing Docker, pulling the pre-made Docker image with the FeathersJS chat app, running the image with ports exposed to access the app remotely via a web browser. 3. The chat app can now be tested by creating accounts and exchanging messages, demonstrating a simple real-time chat application deployed to AWS.

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150 views23 pages

Set Up Your Real Time Chat App On Amazon Ec2 With Docker and Feathersjs

1. The document describes how to set up a real time chat app on Amazon EC2 using Docker and FeathersJS. It involves creating an AWS EC2 instance, installing Docker, pulling a FeathersJS Docker image containing the chat app code, and running the image to launch the app. 2. Key steps include connecting to the EC2 instance via SSH, installing Docker, pulling the pre-made Docker image with the FeathersJS chat app, running the image with ports exposed to access the app remotely via a web browser. 3. The chat app can now be tested by creating accounts and exchanging messages, demonstrating a simple real-time chat application deployed to AWS.

Uploaded by

srinubasani
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© © All Rights Reserved
We take content rights seriously. If you suspect this is your content, claim it here.
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Set Up Your Real Time Chat App

On Amazon EC2 With Docker and


FeathersJS

Reda Boumahdi
Follow
Aug 9, 2017 · 6 min read
Introduction
Amazon AWS is a service where you can borrow a machine
(sometimes for free) to do whatever you want. We are going to
learn how to set up a server to run a real time Chat App with
FeathersJS. FeathersJS is an open source REST and real time
API framework.We will need to set up a database and Feathers.
We will launch those 2 parts on your Amazon AWS service. This is
a simple tutorial, where we will learn how to run your real time
app on your Amazon AWS.

Connect to Amazon Web Service, and create an account, this is


maybe the most time consuming task!

Create a free AWS EC2 instance and


SSH
Connect to your Amazon AWS profile
Select menu -> products -> compute -> Amazon EC2 -> get
started with Amazon EC 2 (It is completely free)
Click on EC2 Dashboard on the left and then launch instance
Select Ubuntu server and choose the Free Tier
Eligible T2.micro, then click on Next until you reach the security
step
We need 2 network rules, the ssh rule on port 22, source
custom and the custom tcp, port range 3000, source
anywhere, then launch your instance ! This step is important to
reveal the port 3000 to the world on tcp, and the port 22 on ssh.
This step is extremely important to connect to your EC2
machine ! Choose to create a new key pair, name your key pair
webApp, and download it, then view
instance. Congratulations, you have launched
your AmazonAWS instance. The next step is to try to connect to
this instance.
This step is for linux / mac users, if you have a windows, please
follow this link. Create a directory called webApp, and put
the webApp.pem in it (if you are a mac user, you may have
downloaded a webApp.pem.txt, rename it webApp.pem),
navigate inside this directory using bash, then run :
> chmod 400 webApp.pem

to modify the rights on the key.


> ssh -i “webApp.pem” ubuntu@name_of_your_ubuntu_instance

You can find the right command by connecting to the Amazon


AWSwebsite, and click on the connect button. A pop-up will
appear with the right ssh command. For me for instance, it is
going to be :
> ssh -i "webApp.pem" [email protected]
2.compute.amazonaws.com

Congratulations, most of the dirty work is done by now ! The


aim is to be pretty simple, and help you set up your machine.

Install Docker
Now, we need to install Docker on your ec2 machine. Docker
runs “kind of” virtual machine which are called images, but are
way lighter than virtual machines. Docker will allow you to run all
the bricks of your app with a simple command line ! The good
thing about Docker is that it encapsulates all the software you
may need. This is precisely what we want to do when we run an
app, we wrap the different components of our architecture in
containers.

To install docker, you can type on your ec2 terminal the following
commands :
> curl -fsSL https://download.docker.com/linux/ubuntu/gpg | sudo
apt-key add -
> sudo add-apt-repository "deb [arch=amd64]
https://download.docker.com/linux/ubuntu $(lsb_release -cs) stable"
> sudo apt-get update
> apt-cache policy docker-ce
> sudo apt-get install -y docker-ce
> sudo systemctl status docker

The last command is to make sure that docker is installed.


Install Feathers, Get And Launch The
Chat App
To install Feathers, and download the app, we will simply pull a
Docker image. That is where the magic resides. There is already a
Docker image with Feathers installed and the real time chat app
coded. We will use this ready to use image, and deploy it to
amazon. You can then quit your shell, and the AWS instance will
still be running your app ! Let’s try.

Run the following command :


> sudo docker pull kevbac/feathers-chat

Now we need to create a folder and bind it to the docker container.


For instance, navigate to your webapp folder and run :
> sudo docker run -itd -p 3000:8080 -v ~/webapp:/home --name
feathersChatApp kevbac/feathers-chat bash -c "npm start"

You can notice that the folder is empty, but the app is running!
You can copy the content of the docker container to your host
machine with this command:
> sudo docker cp feathersChatApp:/usr/src/app .

We now run in a detached mode “npm start”, you can use


“yarn start” as well. This means that in the background, we have
a process keeping our chat app alive! We can now access to our
EC2 Amazon machine through HTTP. Give it a try, copy
the public DNS to your browser and add the port :3000 in the
end. For me it looks like this :

http://ec2-54-187-133-189.us-west-
2.compute.amazonaws.com:3000/
You should have the same picture as this one. Now you can chat
with your friends or build a code on top of this “boilerplate”,
manage or change the database, etc…
You can signup, login, and test your real time chat app by creating
two accounts and exchange messages.
Now Close Your Terminal And Enjoy
Your App!

Next steps for the best worflow in dev


mode
1. Create the same project in your local machine.
2. Push this project to github.
3. Develop locally, and deploy by asking your ec2 machine
to pull your github repository.
4. Write a Dockerfile and a Makefile to manage your builds /
deployments in one command line !

Enjoy agility with an environment iso-staging where you can


deploy in one command line.

Conclusion
Today you learned to deploy a real time application to Amazon.
Real time is easy to set up with FeathersJS. Docker can help you
encapsulate all FeathersJS environment and push it to Amazon.
Docker can even help you launch your application on Amazon and
restart it when it crashes, but it is not a production
ready environment. You can now start coding and enriching your
real time application and deploy it to the cloud.
In the next articles, we will deploy deep learning / big data
applications. Don’t hesitate to follow me to get notified when the
next article comes out!

More links
1. More on Docker an incredible tool to build and ship apps
2. More on Amazon AWS to get to know all the products
3. More on setting up Dockers
4. More on Feathers and real time apps

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