My Laravel Blog AWS Journey

I wanted to learn Terraform and how to create infrastructure with Terraform in AWS, then deploy a Laravel app with different services like Redis, RDS, and Nginx. This project is the result of that learning adventure!

I developed this simple blog system following clean code architecture principles. To improve the search functionality, I integrated Elasticsearch, and I'm using Redis for queuing background jobs.

I created a production-ready Laravel blog application that runs on AWS with:

• Laravel 10 - My choice for the backend framework
• AWS ECS Fargate - Because I wanted to learn containerized deployments
• RDS MySQL - Managed database
• ElastiCache Redis - For caching and background job queues
• Elasticsearch - advanced search
• S3 - File storage made simple
• Application Load Balancer - High availability was important to me
• ECR - Container registry for my Docker images
• CloudWatch - Monitoring everything

Features

• Clean Architecture
• Elasticsearch Integration
• Background Jobs - Queue processing with Redis
• Self-Healing Database - The app automatically runs migrations if tables are missing
• CI/CD Pipeline - GitHub Actions deployment
• Infrastructure as Code - Everything in Terraform
• Container Security - Multi-stage Docker builds with security best practices
• Auto-scaling - ECS Fargate scales based on demand

Before you start this journey, make sure you have:

• AWS CLI (v2.0 or later) - You'll need AWS credentials
• Terraform (v1.0 or later) - The star of the show!
• Docker (v20.0 or later) - For containerization
• Git - Version control is essential

1. Clone

git clone [email protected]:Nadeera3784/laravel-10-blog-aws-deployment.git
cd laravel-10-blog-aws-deployment

2. Set Up Your AWS Credentials

aws configure
# You'll need your AWS Access Key ID, Secret Access Key, and choose us-east-1 as region

3. Configure Terraform Variables

cd terraform
cp terraform.tfvars.example terraform.tfvars

Now edit terraform.tfvars with your values. Here's what I used:

# AWS Configuration
aws_region = "us-east-1"

# Project Configuration  
project_name = "laravel-blog"

# Application Configuration
app_env = "production"
app_debug = "false"
app_key = "base64:YOUR_GENERATED_APP_KEY_HERE"  # Generate this with: php artisan key:generate --show

# Database Configuration
db_name = "laravel_blog"
db_username = "laraveluser"
db_password = "YourSecurePassword123!"  # Make this strong!

# Elasticsearch Configuration
opensearch_master_user = "admin"
opensearch_master_password = "YourSecureElasticsearchPassword123!"

# ECS Configuration
app_cpu = "512"
app_memory = "1024"
app_count = 1

4. Deploy the Infrastructure

This is where the magic happens:

# Initialize Terraform (first time only)
terraform init

# See what Terraform will create
terraform plan

# Deploy everything to AWS
terraform apply

5. Build and Deploy Your Application

# Build the Docker image (make sure it's for the right architecture!)
docker build --platform linux/amd64 -f docker/php/Dockerfile.prod -t laravel-blog-app:latest .

# Push to AWS ECR
aws ecr get-login-password --region us-east-1 | docker login --username AWS --password-stdin $(terraform output -raw ecr_repository_url)

docker tag laravel-blog-app:latest $(terraform output -raw ecr_repository_url):latest
docker push $(terraform output -raw ecr_repository_url):latest

# Update the ECS service
aws ecs update-service --cluster laravel-blog-cluster --service laravel-blog-service --force-new-deployment --region us-east-1

Running Database Migrations

Here's something I learned the hard way - you need to run migrations separately. Create a new ECS task with the same task definition and override the command in Container overrides:

php artisan migrate 

Launch the task, wait for it to complete, then stop it. Your database will be ready!

To generate local task_definition

terraform apply -auto-approve -target=local_file.task_definition

Here's something I learned the hard way - you need to run migrations separately. Create a new ECS task with the same task definition and override the command in Container overrides:

php artisan migrate 

Setting Up CI/CD

I set up GitHub Actions to automatically deploy when I push code. Here's what you need to do:

Add These Secrets to Your GitHub Repository

Go to Settings → Secrets and variables → Actions → New repository secret

Secret Name	What to Put	Why You Need It
AWS_ACCESS_KEY_ID	Your AWS Access Key	For GitHub to access AWS
AWS_SECRET_ACCESS_KEY	Your AWS Secret Key	Authentication
AWS_REGION	us-east-1	Which AWS region
ECR_REPOSITORY	laravel-blog-app	Your container repository
ECS_SERVICE	laravel-blog-service	Your ECS service name
ECS_CLUSTER	laravel-blog-cluster	Your ECS cluster name
CONTAINER_NAME	laravel-app	Container name in task definition

What Happens Automatically

Once you set this up, every time you push to the main branch:

• ✅ Tests run automatically
• ✅ Docker image builds
• ✅ Pushes to ECR
• ✅ Updates ECS service
• ✅ Zero downtime deployment!

What Gets Created in AWS

When you run Terraform, here's what you'll get:

Core Infrastructure:

• VPC with public/private subnets (security first!)
• ECS Fargate cluster (no servers to manage)
• RDS MySQL database with automated backups
• ElastiCache Redis for caching and queues
• Elasticsearch domain for search functionality
• Application Load Balancer with health checks
• S3 bucket for file storage
• ECR repository for your Docker images

Security & Monitoring:

• CloudWatch log groups
• IAM roles with minimal permissions
• Security groups that actually secure things
• Encryption everywhere (RDS, Redis, Elasticsearch)

What the Blog Can Do

For Users:

• Read blog posts with beautiful, responsive design
• Search through posts (Elasticsearch!)
• Browse by categories

For Admins:

• Create, edit, and delete posts
• Manage categories
• User authentication system
• Admin dashboard

Under the Hood:

• Background job processing
• Comprehensive error logging
• Performance optimizations

Docker Development

Want to develop locally? I've got you covered:

# Start everything with Docker Compose
docker-compose up -d

# Run migrations in the container
docker-compose exec app php artisan migrate

My Learning Journey

Challenges I Faced

1. Docker Architecture Issues - Learned the hard way about ARM64 vs x86_64 compatibility
2. Database Connectivity - Security groups were confusing at first
3. Elasticsearch Setup - The configuration took several attempts
4. ECS Task Definitions - Understanding CPU/memory allocation was tricky

When Things Go Wrong

ECS Task Failing?

aws logs get-log-events --log-group-name "/ecs/laravel-blog" --log-stream-name <stream-name>

Database Issues?

• Check security group rules
• Verify RDS endpoint in environment variables
• Make sure your password is correct!

Docker Build Problems?

• Always use --platform linux/amd64 for AWS
• Check if Docker daemon is running