Disclaimer

This is a work in progress. All help appreciated.

Goal

To install an EC2 micro server configured to serve 10 Million hits per day with WordPress on a $15 virtual server but without quite as much manual work.

• # for EC2
• Install EC2 API tools
• Create your Micro server
• Log in and update
• Install Puppet and Git
• Configure your puppet

For more detail, see Installation below. (Sadly, GitHub's Markdown lacks internal anchors.)

Testing in Vagrant

• Install Vagrant

• Edit your /etc/hosts file (%WINDOWS%\system32\drivers\etc\hosts on Windows) to include:

  192.168.31.43 fortythree.local fortythree

• Build the virtual machine:

  make vm -- on Linux or Mac OS X
  vagrant up -- on Windows, Linux, or Mac OS X

• Browse to http://fortythree.local/

• Configure and play with WordPress

TODO

• Finish replicating Ewan's work (current step: "Run a blitz.io test to see how we’re doing")
• Fix the security again.
• Fix the CSS when not on the admin page when port is set.

Installation

# for EC2

• # for EC2

• On the Security Credentials page, hit Access Credentials and the X.509 Certificates tab. Click Create a new Certificate.

• Click Download Private Key File. This will be your only chance to do so.

• Click Download X.509 Certificate.

• mkdir ~/.ec2

• Move the certificates. As a one-liner, it's:

  find ~/Downloads -type f | egrep ".*/(cert|pk)-[A-Z0-9]{32}.pem" | xargs -I{} mv {} ~/.ec2/

Install EC2 API tools

Windows:

• Good luck!

Linux:

• Try these instructions on Installing the Amazon EC2 Command Line Tools from Bottomless, Inc.

Mac:

• Install Homebrew.

• brew install ec2-api-tools

• brew unlink ec2-api-tools to remove 284 scripts from your PATH unless you need them

• Do the variables per RS2008, but with an adjusted EC2_HOME that suits Homebrew.

    export EC2_PRIVATE_KEY=`ls $EC2_HOME/pk-*.pem`
    export EC2_CERT=`ls $EC2_HOME/cert-*.pem`
    export EC2_HOME=/usr/local/Cellar/ec2-api-tools/1.5.2.5/jars
    export JAVA_HOME=/System/Library/Frameworks/JavaVM.framework/Home/
    export PATH=$EC2_HOME/bin
  

  WARNING: the EC2_PRIVATE_KEY and EC2_CERT lines will cause commands to fail if you have more than one matching file. If so, pick one key pair and set the variables to their file names.

Create your Micro server

• look for a 32-bit t1.micro oneirc image in your preferred region, and note its AMI, e.g. ami-ac05889c for us-west-2.

• Create a key pair for the region and set its permissions so that ssh will trust it:

    REGION=us-west-2
    ec2-add-keypair --region $REGION $REGION | tee $REGION.pem
    chmod 600 $REGION.pem
  

• Run the instance:

    AMI=ami-ac05889c
    ec2-run-instances $AMI --instance-type t1.micro --region $REGION --key $REGION
  

• If you're sick of specifying --region all the time, set EC2_URL to https:// plus the region's API address:

    export EC2_URL=https://$(ec2-describe-regions | grep $REGION | cut -f 3)
  

  I'll assume you've done so from now on.

• Use ec2-describe-instances to watch your instance boot. The output format is diabolical: a run of tab-separated values. Look for running, which for me turned up in column 6. Then note the group (probably default, perhaps in column 30) and hostname (ec2-$DASHED_IP-$REGION.compute.amazonaws.com, perhaps in column 4).

  Assuming your columns match:

    export $HOSTNAME=`ec2-describe-instances|grep $AMI|grep $INSTANCE|cut -f 4`
  

• Enable SSH and HTTP traffic to its group, which by default will be conveniently named default:

    ec2-authorize default -p 22
    ec2-authorize default -p 80
  

  The default Ubuntu instance lacks anything on port 80, so that second line is safe — especially as we're about to…

Log in and update

• SSH in and apply updates right away. First, connect:

    ssh -i $REGION.pem ubuntu@$HOSTNAME
  

  Then, on the host:

    sudo -i
    set -o emacs # else go insane
    apt-get update
    apt-get dist-upgrade
  

Install Puppet and Git

• Still as root, install Puppet, which is like CSS but which describes server configuration rather than element rendering:

    apt-get install puppet git-core
  

Configure your puppet

• Still as root, install the module and change its cookie keys:

    cd /etc/puppet/modules
    git clone git://github.com/garthk/puppet-wp-micro.git wp_micro
    curl https://api.wordpress.org/secret-key/1.1/salt/ > wp_micro/templates/wp-config-keys.php.erb
  

• Write your own self.pp file based on tests/vagrant.pp.

• puppet apply self.pp

References:

• Robert Sosinski's Starting Amazon EC2 with Mac OS X
• Ewan Leith's 10 Million hits per day with WordPress on a $15 virtual server