README.md

aws-ruby

The openstax_aws gem helps you deploy your applications to AWS using CloudFormation. It provides a layer on top of the AWS SDKs to help coordinate common deployment steps and configurations.

The gem also includes utilities that use Packer and Ansible to help you build Amazon Machine Images (AMIs).

When using CloudFormation directly, you write template files that define AWS resources and their interconnections. You then make AWS API calls (either using the AWS CLI directly or one of the AWS SDKs) that tell AWS to build the resources defined in those templates. The resulting set of resources is called a stack. The API calls involved are numerous and repetitive.

In this gem, you don't make the AWS API calls directly. Instead, you make "deployment" objects that organize and act on sets of "stack" objects. While not required to benefit from this gem, DSLs, convenience methods, and conventions let you adopt a "convention over configuration" approach to dry up your code.

Requirements

• git

A Quick Look

Let's assume we have a web API application defined in two CloudFormation templates: app.yml for the web server template and network.yml for a template that sets up VPCs, subnets, etc. The app.yml template defines one ImageId parameter that is the AMI ID for the web server code and also connects to the network template by importing some of its values. There is one Ruby file defining the deployment object, web_api_deployment.rb. And then there's an executable script to call a method on the deployment, create_deployment.rb. Though not required, let's further assume that all files are in the same directory:

/myapp $> ls
app.yml
network.yml
web_api_deployment.rb
create_deployment.rb

# web_api_deployment.rb

class WebApiDeployment < OpenStax::Aws::DeploymentBase
  template_directory __dir__

  stack :network
  stack :app

  def initialize(env_name:, region:, dry_run: true)
    super(name: "web-api", env_name: env_name, region: region, dry_run: dry_run)
  end

  def create(api_image_id)
    network_stack.create(wait: true)
    app_stack.create(image_id: api_image_id)
  end
end

# create_deployment.rb

deployment = WebApiDeployment.new(env_name: "production", region: "us-east-1", dry_run: false)
deployment.create("ami-0f71234567890a7f2")

Now let's call the script (making sure our AWS secrets are populated into our environment):

/myapp $> ./create_deployment.rb
I, [2019-04-26T09:13:58.133753 #12173]  INFO -- : Creating production-web-api-network stack...
D, [2019-04-26T09:14:29.543717 #12173] DEBUG -- : Waiting for production-web-api-network stack to be created... (0m30s elapsed)
D, [2019-04-26T09:14:59.923172 #12173] DEBUG -- : Waiting for production-web-api-network stack to be created... (1m1s elapsed)
I, [2019-04-26T09:15:00.306983 #12173]  INFO -- : production-web-api-network has been created!
I, [2019-04-26T09:15:01.133753 #12173]  INFO -- : Creating production-web-api-app stack...
D, [2019-04-26T09:15:31.543717 #12173] DEBUG -- : Waiting for production-web-api-app stack to be created... (0m30s elapsed)
D, [2019-04-26T09:16:01.923172 #12173] DEBUG -- : Waiting for production-web-api-app stack to be created... (1m1s elapsed)
I, [2019-04-26T09:16:02.306983 #12173]  INFO -- : production-web-api-app has been created!

That's it. Now you have two stacks deployed with minimal fuss. Behind the scenes, the gem found your templates, validated them, uploaded them to S3, populated inferred template parameters and capabilities, made standardized stack names, managed instance key pairs, waited for stacks to complete, and more. Major functionality not shown in this example are the methods for updating and deleting deployments, as well as the mechanism for conveying secret values to instances.

Deployments & Stacks

In a deployment supported by this gem, Stack objects do the heavy lifting of calling CloudFormation APIs. Deployment objects contain a number of Stacks and coordinate their use to effect the creation, updating, and deletion of applications and infrastructure. For each application or separable infrastructure you'll have a deployment class that inherits from OpenStax::Aws::DeploymentBase.

Defining stacks (manually)

You can instantiate OpenStax::Aws::Stack objects directly. E.g. your deployment class may look like:

class MyDeployment < OpenStax::Aws::DeploymentBase

  attr_reader :network_stack, :app_stack

  def initialize(env_name:, name:, region:, dry_run:)
    super(env_name: env_name, name: name, region: region, dry_run: dry_run)

    @network_stack = OpenStax::Aws::Stack.new(
      name: "#{env_name}-#{name}-network",
      region: region,
      absolute_template_path: File.join(__dir__, "../../templates/network.yml"),
      enable_termination_protection: env_name == "production",
      parameter_defaults: {
        env_name: env_name
      },
      dry_run: dry_run
    )

    @app_stack = OpenStax::Aws::Stack.new(
      name: "#{env_name}-#{name}-app",
      region: region,
      absolute_template_path: File.join(__dir__, "../../templates/app.yml"),
      enable_termination_protection: env_name == "production",
      parameter_defaults: {
        env_name: env_name,
        network_stack_name: @network_stack.name,
      },
      dry_run: dry_run
    )
  end

  def create(app_image_id)
    @network_stack.create(wait: true)
    @app_stack.create(params: {image_id: app_image_id})
  end
end

You create instance variables, make them accessible via attr_reader and set a bunch of options. A lot of these options end up being duplicated, and when you get into a deployment that has a bunch of stacks, this duplication gets a bit heavy.

Defining stacks (using the DSL)

This gem provides an alternative way to declare stacks. The following code is equivalent to the manual use of stacks above:

class MyDeployment < OpenStax::Aws::DeploymentBase

  template_directory __dir__, "../../templates"

  stack :network
  stack :app

  def initialize(env_name:, name:, region:, dry_run:)
    super(env_name: env_name, name: name, region: region, dry_run: dry_run)
  end

  def create(app_image_id)
    network_stack.create(wait: true)
    app_stack.create(params: {image_id: app_image_id})
  end
end

Here, we've removed a good bit of code by calling the stack class method to define our two stacks. The stack method uses knowledge of the deployment in which it is called in addition to some conventions to fill in smart defaults for many of the stack options.

• It makes the :network stack accessible via network_stack.
• It standardizes the stack name in AWS as env_name-deployment_name-stack_symbol, where any underscores are replaces with hyphens.
• It sets the stack region to the the deployment's region.
• For the :network stack, it automatically finds template files named network.yml or network.json in the declared template_directory.
• It enables stack termination protection if the deployment's environment name is the production environment name (which itself is configured in the settings).
• It set's the stack's dry_run field to the deployment's dry_run value.
• It detects standard parameters in the template that it knows the values for, e.g. EnvName, KeyName (or KeyPairName), and [Anything]StackName and fills in those values as the stack's parameter defaults.

If you don't want to use this automagic setting of values, you can manually define a few of them:

stack :app do
  region { "us-west-2" }
  absolute_template_path { File.join(__dir__, "../../templates/app_variant.yml") }
  parameter_defaults do
    env_name { "april-11-b" }
  end
end

Blocks passed to the stack definition methods (like region above) are executed in the context of the containing deployment object.

When using the DSL, you can define a stack-local template_directory to override the deployment-level one, e.g.

stack :app do
  template_directory __dir__, "../somewhere/else"
end

You can also set a relative template path to override the inferred template filename (can be done with or without local modification of the template directory):

stack :app do
  relative_template_path "foo/app_2.yml"
end

Working with stacks

Whichever way you choose to define your stack, your next step is to call methods to create, update, and delete your stacks in AWS. You do this with the Stack methods create, apply_change_set, and delete.

Each of these methods takes a wait boolean (defaults to false), which will wait for the operation to complete in AWS before returning. You can also separately make a call to wait for stack operations to complete, which is useful when you want to simultaneously run operations in several independent stacks and then wait for all of them at the same time, e.g.

network_stack.create   # these return immediately after starting the creation in AWS
sqs_stack.create       # (meaning all three happen concurrently)
dynamodb_stack.create

network_stack.wait_for_creation  # blocks until network_stack created
sqs_stack.wait_for_creation      # blocks until sqs_stack created (may have finished already)
dynamodb_stack.wait_for_creation

There are three waiter methods on Stack: wait_for_creation, wait_for_update, wait_for_deletion.

Other things to know about stacks:

• You can get stack output values by calling my_stack.output_value(key: "whatever-the-key-is")
• Stack parameter names are typically camel-cased in the template, but in Ruby we write them underscored, so e.g. a EnvName parameter in the template is referred to in the ruby code as env_name. You'll also have noticed that the way we pass parameters is simplified so that we just have to use Ruby hashes instead of the more verbose ParameterKey ParameterValue breakdown used in the SDK.

create

[ Work on this section ]

apply_change_set

[ Work on this section ]

When updating a stack, call apply_change_set with just the parameters you want to change. The gem will build the parameters to include in the update using the following algorithm:

1. First, every parameter in the currently-deployed stack that is also in the template being used in the update will be included with a value of :use_previous_value.
2. Next, those parameters in the template being used in the update that are not already in the deployed stack will be included with a default value defined in the stack definition (in the parameter_defaults block)
3. Next, "volatile parameters" are set. Volatile parameters are those that can change outside of stack updates (e.g. autoscaling group desired capacities that change due to scaling events). See below for more of a discussion of volatile parameters. Volatile parameters will override any existing parameter values.
4. Finally, parameters explicitly set in the call to apply_change_set will be included. These values will override any existing parameter values.

Any parameter that ends up with a nil value after these series of steps will be removed. Those parameters will need to have a default value set in the CloudFormation template file to avoid the call failing within AWS.

parameter_defaults

Use the parameter_defaults section of the stack defintion to give default values for stack parameters. Entries within the block are of the form parameter_name value or parameter_name { value }. When the latter block form is used, the block is executed in the context of the stack's deployment object when the stack is first accessed.

stack :app do
  ...
  parameter_defaults do
    web_server_desired_capacity 2
    some_other_parameter_name { "#{env_name}-blah" }
  end
  ...
end

Deployment-wide parameter defaults can be defined via a parameter_defaults(parameter_name) method on your deployment class. This method should return the default value given a parameter name (as it is shown in the template), e.g.

class MyDeployment < OpenStax::Aws::DeploymentBase
  ...
  def parameter_default(parameter_name)
    "my-log-bucket" if parameter_name == "LogBucketName"
  end
  ...
end

The OpenStax::Aws::DeploymentBase class provides a built_in_parameter_default(parameter_name) method for some baseline defaults, e.g. for "EnvName" and parameters that are names of other stacks. If you want to disable these extra defaults, you can override the method and have it return nil.

class MyDeployment < OpenStax::Aws::DeploymentBase
  ...
  def built_in_parameter_default(parameter_name)
    nil
  end
  ...
end

volatile_parameters

By and large, we want to make changes to our stacks using the update stack capabilities offered by AWS. However, sometimes there are parameters that change outside of this update process. The classic example is autoscaling group desired capacity. When we define an ASG in a template, we define its desired capacity (if we don't, it defaults to the minimum allowed capacity). If we give its desired capacity as a static number, it'll have that value for each update, meaning that if we create it with a desired capacity of '2' and then a scaling event causes the desired capacity to change to 6, an update through CloudFormation will reset the desired capacity to 2. Even if the capacity is not a literal number but instead a stack parameter, a stack update call that uses the "use previous value" functionality will use the value last used during a stack update and not the current value of the desired capacity in the stack. What we want to do is get the stack's current desired capacity and use that value in the stack update call so that the update leaves the capacity unchanged.

Volatile parameters let us do that. They define the parameters that can change outside of stack updates and define a block of code to run just before the update to get that latest value. That value is then used in the stack update. The form within the volatile_parameters block is parameter_name { value } where the { value } block is executed in the context of the stack object, just before the call to update the stack.

stack :app do
  ...
  volatile_parameters do
    web_server_desired_capacity { resource("Asg").desired_capacity }
  end
  ...
end

Here, we're getting the resource in our stack with the Asg logical ID (which returns an Aws::AutoScaling::Group instance) and then getting its desired capacity.

delete

No options here besides wait.

query

A class method query is provided on the Stack class to find stacks matching certain criteria:

• regex: only queries whose name matches this regex will be returned (default: /.*/)
• regions: only stacks in these regions will be queried (default: US regions)
• active: if true, excludes stacks that have been deleted or that failed to create (default: true)
• reload: if true, forces cached query data to be reloaded (default: false)

all_highlights_stacks_in_us = OpenStax::Aws::Stack.query(regex: /.*highlights.*/)

Secrets

openstax_aws uses the AWS Parameter Store as a holding area for application secrets (and here "secrets" includes configuration values that are both secret and not secret). During deployment, secrets are written to the Parameter Store, and then during instance launch they are read from the Parameter Store.

Secrets are defined with a specification and a set of substitutions. A specification can currently be defined as a string or file containing YAML, like the following:

secret_key: random(hex,4)
my_domain: "https://{{ domain }}"
search_domain:
  endpoint: "{{ search_endpoint }}"

The specification gives (possibly nested) secret names and the values for them, which can be literal values, values that need substitutions populated into them, computed values, or references to other values within the Parameter Store. The specification can be defined inline:

OpenStax::Aws::SecretsSpecification.from_content(
  format: :yml,
  content: <<~CONTENT
    graylog_url: ssm(graylog_url)
  CONTENT
)

or via a reference to a file on GitHub at a SHA:

OpenStax::Aws::SecretsSpecification.from_git(
  org_slash_repo: "openstax/open-search",
  sha: some_sha_here,
  path: 'config/secrets.yml.example',
  format: :yml,
  top_key: :production
)

Why not just write the secrets to the instances directly? In a world where we are deploying Amazon Machine Images or Docker containers across environments and clouds, we don't want the secrets to live in these files because (1) we don't want secret values written in plaintext in a the image file and (2) when launched those images/containers will need different secrets based on where they are launched. This is why instead we work to get the secrets into an accessible location and then have the running app pull them when it needs them.

How secrets get written to the Parameter Store

When secrets are written to the Parameter Store, their nested structure is combined with a caller-specified namespace prefix to form the Parameter Store key. E.g. for the following specification:

a:
  b:
    c: "my value"

And a namespace of qa/search/api, the following is written to the Parameter Store:

Key:   /qa/search/api/a/b/c
Value: my value

When using the secrets DSL, the namespace is env_name/deployment_name/stack_name.

Kinds of secrets

In the specification, secrets can have literal values, e.g. "some static string". But the real power of secrets is that their values can be substituted, generated, or pulled in via reference:

Literal secrets

Specification:

some_boring_secret: "this string never changes"

Result in Parameter Store:

Key:   /env_name/more_namespace/some_boring_secret
Value: this string never changes

Substituted secrets

Specification:

a_substitution_secret: "this string's ending changes {{ ending }}"

Substitutions:

ending: "oh yeah it does"

Result in Parameter Store:

Key:   /env_name/more_namespace/a_substitution_secret
Value: this string's ending changes oh yeah it does

Computed secrets

Computed secrets are good for generating random strings.

Specification:

my_secret_key: random(hex, 8)

Result in Parameter Store:

Key:   /env_name/more_namespace/my_secret_key
Value: 019af8dc

Instead of random(hex, number_of_hex_characters]) you can use uuid to get a UUID or base64 to get a URL-safe base 64 string or rsa(size_of_key) to generate a private SSL RSA key. Note that generated secrets are only updated during a stack update if their specification changes (that way things like randomly generated secret keys don't change on each deployment unless how the value is computed changes).

Also note that if an array of secrets in the specification contains a generated secret, the overall StringList secret written to the parameter store is not marked as generated and so would be changed in an update; the lesson of which is that this library only partially handles generative secrets in arrays.

Referential secrets

Referential secrets let you say that a secret should take the value of another parameter in the parameter store. They are good for defining static secret keys in the parameter store that are shared across many deployments, e.g. some fixed OAuth keys or a common logging endpoint.

Assume that the parameter store has the following value:

Key:   /external/graylog/secret
Value: cf9bb194b53d76a557c8

Then in your specification:

my_graylog_secret: ssm(graylog_secret)

Substitutions:

graylog_secret: "/external/graylog/secret"

Result in Parameter Store:

Key:   /env_name/more_namespace/my_graylog_secret
Value: cf9bb194b53d76a557c8

We lookup the value inside ssm(...) using substitutions so that different environments can point to different values in the Parameter Store, which is useful if you have say two secret values, one for development and one for production deployments.

Note that you can also use referential secrets without substitutions:

my_graylog_secret: ssm(/external/graylog/secret)

Encrypted Secrets

Most of the secrets we store are really just configuration values, and these we store in the Parameter Store with type "String". However, the Parameter Store also lets us store parameters as "SecureString"s, which means that AWS encrypts them for us. The secrets handling code can deal with these kinds of parameters.

When we use referential secrets the are SecureString encrypted, the secrets that are copied to an environment's section of the Parameter Store are also SecureString encrypted.

Secrets DSL

While you can instantiate secrets and specifications objects directly, it is easiest to use the DSL. The DSL lets you define secrets on a per-stack basis:

stack :api do
  ...
  secrets do |parameters|
    namespace "my-app/api"
    specification do
      org_slash_repo { "my-org/my-repo" }
      path { "config/secrets.yml.example" }
      sha { parameters.sha }
      format { :yml }
      top_key { :production }    # optional
      preparser { :erb }         # optional, use if your YAML file has embedded Ruby
    end
    substitutions do
      domain { domain }
      env_name { env_name }
      elasticsearch_endpoint { elasticsearch_stack.output_value(key: "endpoint")}
    end
  end
  ...
end

Specification and substitution blocks are executed in the context of the containing deployment. If you have the secrets block take a parameters argument, that will give you access to the stack's parameters, which is useful for getting the SHA being deployed for the stack (so you can get the secrets specification to match the deployment).

You can call the secrets DSL multiple times within the stack declaration. You may also call specification multiple times within the secrets call. Later declarations can override earlier ones.

When stacks are updated, only the secrets that change are updated.

Sometimes multiple stacks share the same substitutions. Instead of repeating those substitutions, you can define them once in your deployment class:

class MyDeployment < OpenStax::Aws::DeploymentBase
  ...
  secrets_substititutions do
    domain { my_domain }
  end
  ...

  def my_domain
    "#{env_name}.example.com"
  end
end

Substitutions defined in this way will be overridden by any substitutions defined directly in the stack.

When you create, update, or delete a stack that uses the secrets DSL, the secrets are automatically created, updated, or deleted before the stack resources are modified.

Sometimes you might need to create secrets within a deployment but outside of any particular stack (e.g. to define a database password to be used by an RDS stack and API server stack). You can use the secrets DSL at the deployment level just like you do at the stack level:

class MyDeployment < OpenStax::Aws::DeploymentBase
  secrets :common do
    # same stuff here as for stack-level secrets
  end
end

These deployment-level secrets can then be accessed via {ID}_secrets, e.g. common_secrets in the example above.

You can define multiple deployment-level secrets, but they must all have unique names compared to each other and to defined stacks, e.g. you cannot do:

  secrets :foo
  stack :foo

While stack-level secrets are created, updated, and deleted for you when you perform those actions on the stacks that contain them, deployment-level secrets must created, updated, and deleted explicitly. E.g. you may have secrets that you create first thing inside your deployment's create method:

class MyDeployment < OpenStax::Aws::DeploymentBase
  secrets :common do
    specification do
      content do
        { database_password: 'random(hex,15)' }
      end
    end
  end

  def create
    common_secrets(for_create_or_update: true).create

    rds_stack.create(params: {master_password: common_secrets.get(:database_password)})

    # ...
  end
end

Loading secrets from the Parameter Store

When your instance or container launches, you'll want it to access its secrets in the Parameter Store so it can use them however is needed in your application.

The key structure of each Parameter Store value helps you in two ways:

(1) You can limit your application's ability to read values in the parameter store by the namespace of each value, e.g. if you want to limit the QA search deployment to access only the QA search secrets, you could use a CloudFormation template IAM policy such as:

- PolicyName: !Sub '${EnvName}-read-parameters'
  PolicyDocument:
    Version: '2012-10-17'
    Statement:
      - Effect: Allow
        Action:
          - ssm:DescribeParameters
        Resource: '*'
      - Effect: Allow
        Action:
          - ssm:GetParametersByPath
          - ssm:GetParameters
        Resource: !Sub 'arn:aws:ssm:${AWS::Region}:${AWS::AccountId}:parameter/${EnvName}/search'

(2) That the nesting of the keys from the secrets specification is preserved in the Parameter Store key lets you recover it when accessing your secrets. E.g. here's how one of our apps uses the AWS Ruby SDK to take the secrets in the Parameter Store and writes them to the app's nested config/secrets.yml file:

client = Aws::SSM::Client.new(region: region)
client.get_parameters_by_path({path: "/#{env_name}/#{namespace}/",
                               recursive: true,
                               with_decryption: true}).each do |response|
  response.parameters.each do |parameter|
    # break out the flattened keys and ignore the env name and namespace
    keys = parameter.name.split('/').reject(&:blank?)[2..-1]
    deep_populate(secrets, keys, parameter.value)
  end
end

File.open(File.expand_path("config/secrets.yml"), "w") do |file|
  # write the secrets hash as yaml, getting rid of the "---\n" at the front
  file.write({'production' => secrets}.to_yaml[4..-1])
end

def deep_populate(hash, keys, value)
  if keys.length == 1
    hash[keys[0]] = value
  else
    hash[keys[0]] ||= {}
    deep_populate(hash[keys[0]], keys[1..-1], value)
  end
end

Forcing servers to cycle when their secrets change

When an app's secrets change, we want their new values to be used by the app. But our apps typically get their secrets when they launch, and launches happen when CloudFormation sees a change in the template that requires an update (e.g. a new AMI is specified). When we make changes to the values in the Parameter Store, CloudFormation doesn't see them and therefore does not trigger an update of our servers.

This gem provides a mechanism for changes in secrets to trigger an update of the servers that use them. When a stack update is called and the secrets defined within the stack (via the DSL) change, the gem will set a random value in a user-defined stack parameter. If that stack parameter is then included in an ASG's launch configuration, CloudFormation will detect a change in that launch configuration and trigger a server update.

Here's a snippet of a template that will accept and use this special parameter:

AWSTemplateFormatVersion: '2010-09-09'

Parameters:

  ...

  CycleIfDifferent:
    Description: A special parameter that will be set to a random value when this stack's secrets change
    Type: String
    Default: ''

Resources:

  ...

  Lc:
    Type: AWS::AutoScaling::LaunchConfiguration
    Properties:
      ImageId: !Ref 'WebServerImageId'
      InstanceType: t2.micro
      UserData:
        Fn::Base64:
          !Sub |
            #!/bin/bash -x

            # ${CycleIfDifferent} <-- this gets randomized when secrets change, which forces server updates
            ...

  Asg:
    Type: AWS::AutoScaling::AutoScalingGroup
    Properties:
      LaunchConfigurationName: !Ref 'Lc'
      ...

CycleIfDifferent is the default name of this special stack parameter. This default can be overridden in the gem configuration via

OpenStax::Aws.configuration.default_cycle_if_different_parameter = "MyPreferredParameter"

or it can be set within the stack declaration:

stack :api do
  ...
  cycle_if_different_parameter "MyPreferredParameter"
  ..

Tags

You can specify stack tags with:

stack :network do
  ...
  tag :Foo, "bar"
  ...
end

You can specify tags in all of a deployment's stacks by setting the tags at the deployment level:

class MyDeployment < OpenStax::Aws::DeploymentBase
  tag :Application, "my_app"
  tag :Owner, "Jimmy"
  tag(:Environment) { env_name }
  ...

  def env_name
    @env_name
  end

Note the block form of tag sets the tag value by evaluating the block in the context of the deployment instance, in this case by calling env_name on the deployment instance.

Tags set at the stack level will override those set at the deployment level.

You can enforce that stacks always have certain tags by setting OpenStax::Aws.configuration.required_stack_tags. By default, there are a few required tags; if you want to disable this, set this variable to [].

Dry runs

You'll have noticed above that deployment and Stack objects are instantiated with a dry_run parameter that defaults to true. When dry_run is true, stacks are not created, updated, or deleted, but the code is exercised and log messages are generated. Note that during dry run updates, CloudFormation change sets are temporarily created on AWS but they are not executed.

Configuration

You can configure gem behavior with:

OpenStax::Aws.configure do |config|
  # The bucket where you want to upload templates
  config.cfn_template_bucket_name = "some-bucket-name"
  # The top-level folder(s) where templates are stored in the template bucket.
  # (default: "cfn_templates")
  config.cfn_template_bucket_folder = "cfn_templates"
  # A logger object, e.g. `Logger.new(STDOUT)` (the default); see below for more.
  config.logger = Logger.new(STDOUT)
  # The number of seconds the gem waits between polling for the completion of stack creation,
  # updates, deletes. (default: 30)
  config.stack_waiter_delay = 30
  # The number of maximum attempts the gem makes to check for the completion of stack creation,
  # updates, deletes. (default: 180)
  config.stack_waiter_max_attempts = 180
  # If true, the gem will parse your template and autoset the required capabilities
  # (default: true)
  config.infer_stack_capabilities = true
  # If true, the gem will set default values for parameters that it knows about (e.g.
  # EnvName, default: true)
  config.infer_parameter_defaults = true
  # The environment name you use for production, e.g. "prod" or "production" (the default).
  config.production_env_name = "production"
end

We use the logger configuration below:

config.logger = Logger.new(STDERR)
config.logger.formatter = proc do |severity, datetime, progname, msg|
  date_format = datetime.strftime("%Y-%m-%d %H:%M:%S.%3N")
  if severity == "INFO" or severity == "WARN"
      "[#{date_format}] #{severity}  | #{msg}\n"
  else
      "[#{date_format}] #{severity} | #{msg}\n"
  end
end

Templates

While you won't usually use it directly, there is an OpenStax::Aws::Template object that you can use to get values back from your template. A stack's template is available via my_stack.template. Templates are uploaded to S3 when its Stack needs it to be there. Before it is uploaded, it is validated and errors are raised to you.

AutoScalingInstance

An OpenStax::Aws::AutoScalingInstance class is provided that wraps and extends the Aws::AutoScaling::Instance class. Methods that it doesn't implement are delegated to the AWS SDK class.

It has a class method, me, that returns an AutoScalingInstance for a instance running within AWS. This method requires the autoscaling:DescribeAutoScalingInstances permission on the instance calling this method or attached to the credentials being used to call this method.

It has ASG-lifecycle-hook-aware methods, e.g. its implementation of terminate takes the same arguments as the SDK class (should_decrement_desired_capacity) but also takes an continue_hook_name parameter with a termination lifecycle hook name. If that parameter is provided, the terminate call will wait for the lifecycle state Terminating::Wait to be reached before calling the SDK client to continue on from that state to complete the termination.

It also has an unless_waiting_for_termination method that checks to see if the instance is in the Terminating::Wait state. If it isn't, the block of code passed to the method is executed. If it is in that state, the block of code isn't executed and instead the termination is completed.

OpenStax::Aws::AutoScalingInstance.me.unless_waiting_for_termination do
 # some code that you don't want interrupted by a termination
end

The unless_waiting_for_termination method checks for the terminating wait state just before and just after the block is yielded to.

S3TextFile

S3TextFile is a helper class for writing, reading, and deleting text files on S3.

s3_text_file = OpenStax::Aws::S3TextFile.new(bucket_name: "my-bucket", bucket_region: "us-east-2", key: "some/path/foo.txt")
s3_text_file.write(string_contents: "Howdy")
s3_text_file.read #=> "Howdy"
s3_text_file.delete

Raises Aws::S3::Errors::NotFound when trying to read a file that does not exist. Calling delete on a file that doesn't exist does not raise an error.

You can also set the content type and cache control headers, e.g.:

s3_text_file.write(string_contents: "...", content_type: "application/json", cache_control: "max-age=0")

SAM

You can include AWS SAM (Serverless Application Model) stacks in your deployments, just like you would any other stack:

stack :sam   # use whatever name you want

SAM stacks will be automatically detected by finding the "Transform: AWS::Serverless" text in its template.

When you have a SAM stack, you need to declare a build directory in your deployment, e.g.:

class Deployment < OpenStax::Aws::DeploymentBase
  sam_build_directory __dir__, '../.aws-sam'

You should gitignore this directory. Because there isn't an API or SDK for AWS SAM, you'll need the SAM cli installed where this code is run.

Within the deployment class, the stack variable provided for you, sam_stack in the example above, will be of type OpenStax::Aws::SamStack instead of the normal OpenStax::Aws::Stack. SamStack inherits from Stack and adds two methods: build and deploy, which make the SAM CLI calls to build and deploy the stack. deploy is a method that creates the stack if it doesn't exist or updates it if it does.

Where it is common practice for us to have create, update, and delete scripts that call these methods on our deployments, with a SAM stack in the mix, you'll probably also want a build script to call a build method on your deployment class which turns around and calls build on your SAM stack. Then you can choose to have create and update or a deploy method on your deployment class, which calls deploy on your SAM stack and normal create and update methods on your non-SAM stacks.

AWS Development Environment

Some methods, e.g. those that retrieve instance metadata, are intended to be run on an actual AWS instance. This means that to test them we must be running the tests on an AWS instance. To this end, this gem provides a bash script that creates a stack with an autoscaling group containing one instance.

$> bin/create_development_environment

You can find the instance's IP address in the AWS console, and then SSH into it. Once there you can install ruby, etc, to get the development environment set up. There is a script, install.sh that has the commands you can use to install ruby et al.

Then you can checkout this gem, do your development through SSH, record specs, etc, and commit your changes.

Don't forget to delete your stack (from the console) when you are finished!

Gem Release Process

When making a PR with a new feature or bug fix, add a changelog describing the change in CHANGELOG.md, under the Unreleased section.

When releasing a new version, update lib/openstax/aws/version.rb, following semantic versioning. Then rename the Unreleased section on the changelog to the same version, adding the current date next to it. Finally, create a new Unreleased section at the top of the changelog. These steps can either be performed in a separate PR or in the same PR, if a new version is due for immediate release.

After the PR is merged, pull the master branch, run tests to confirm that everything looks OK, then run rake release to push aws-ruby to rubygems.

README Todos

1. Discuss use of multiple secrets objects