Setting up Wordpress on Elastic Beanstalk

ElasticBeanStalk is a service that automates scaling, load-balancing, and deploying applications so you can concentrate on only software development. In a way, it is very similar to Google App Engline.

In this article, we will visit how we can set up Wordpress on Elastic Beanstalk.

Configuration the Elastic Beanstalk Environment

First log into your ElasticBeansTalk and click on Create a New Application.

Enter the Application Name and Description and click Next.

Click on "Create one now" to create a new environment.

Environment tier: Web Server 1.0

Predefined configuration: PHP

Environment type: Load balancing, autoscaling

Note for Environment tier, Web Server handles web requests (HTTP/S) while workers handle background processes.

Choose sample application for now

You will then be prompted to input an Environment Name. Label it whatever, as we will use CNAME later.

For Additional Resources, check create an RDS DB instance with this environment.

In Configuration Details, select your EC2 key pair and leave the other details as it is. You can always change these later.

For RDS configuration, put 5GB for allocated storage. Input the username and password. Select Create snapshot and single availability zone.

Click Launch.

Once it's launched, click Configuration on the left sidebar, then Software Configuration. In PARAM1, set to production, staging or something else.

Installing Wordpress

We need to have different wp-config files for local development and Elastic BeanStalk. Let's define the local config as local-config.php.

Set up wordpress in your local computer. 

In wp-config, replace the database configs with the following: 

if ( file_exists( dirname( __FILE__ ) . '/local-config.php' ) ) {

    define( 'WP_LOCAL_DEV', true );

    include( dirname( __FILE__ ) . '/local-config.php' );

} else {

    define( 'WP_LOCAL_DEV', false );

    define('WP_HOME','');

    define('WP_SITEURL','');

    define('DB_NAME', 'database');

    define('DB_USER', 'username');

    define('DB_PASSWORD', 'password');

    define('DB_HOST', 'localhost');

}

Fill in the above db_name, db_user, db_password, db_host with the appropriate settings.

Create a file called local-config.php at the same directory as wp-config.php

Put in the following with your local database information.

<?php

    define('WP_HOME','');

    define('WP_SITEURL','');

    define('DB_NAME', '');

    define('DB_USER', '');

    define('DB_PASSWORD', 'root');

    define('DB_HOST', '');

Install AWS ElasticBeanstalk Tools and AWSDevTools

Download  from http://aws.amazon.com/code/6752709412171743

Read this: http://docs.aws.amazon.com/elasticbeanstalk/latest/dg/GettingStarted.GetSetup-devtools.html

Check to make sure eb is running properly:

eb --version

Configure your ElasticBeanstalk Git settings:

git aws.config

Reading Credentials from C:\Users\Kenneth\.elasticbeanstalk\aws_credential_file.

The file does not exist.  You can supply credentials by creating the file or editing .elasticbeanstalk/config to reference a different file.

The credential file should have the following format:

AWSAccessKeyId=your key

AWSSecretKey=your secret

AWS Access Key:

AWS Secret Key:

AWS Region [default to us-east-1]: (Check this in your Elastic Beanstalk console)

AWS Elastic Beanstalk Application: <put in the application name you created above>

AWS Elastic Beanstalk Environment: <put in the environment name you created above>

Check if Elastic Beanstalk can detect your app:

eb status --verbose

Now deploy your application:

git aws.push

Remember to use Route53 to map to Elastic Beanstalk.

http://docs.aws.amazon.com/elasticbeanstalk/latest/dg/customdomains.html

After you point the domain to the Elastic Load Balancer. If the site does not load up in the browser, do not panic. Give it 15 mins. It will be back up.