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AWS

Lightsail AWS Service Provider

The following is a step-by-step guide to installing DocNow in AWS. The instructions use terminology for macOS. You should be able to follow these instructions without prior experience with AWS or macOS Terminal, but if this is your first time administering an application, fair warning! This may take up to 2 hours to install.

Please follow each step carefully and open an issue on the Github Repository if you find something missing.

Installing DocNow in AWS will cost money, both for running a server and collecting and storing data. Please remember to turn off your Virtual Private Server (VPS) when you are done to avoid extra charges.

1. Install Ansible

Ansible will be used to configure the Virtual Private Server you will be setting up on AWS Lightsail. This server will host the DocNow App.

You will need a Programmers Editors like Microsoft's VSCode to make edits below

Start by opening the Terminal application on your Mac in Applications/Utilities This can be also found by typing terminal' in Spotlight.

Install Homebrew by copying the following into your Terminal:

/bin/bash -c "$(curl -fsSL https://raw.githubusercontent.com/Homebrew/install/HEAD/install.sh)"

This will take a few minutes

Then copy the following into your Terminal:

git -C /usr/local/Homebrew/Library/Taps/homebrew/homebrew-core fetch --unshallow

This will take a few minutes

Then install Ansible by copying the following into your Terminal:

brew install ansible

Now your computer has the tools it needs to interface with AWS.

2. Set up your AWS account

3. Create your Virtual Private Server

  • Create your Virtual Private Server
  • Instance Location: (any region is OK)
  • Instance Image: Select "Linux/Unix" platform
  • Select blueprint: "OS Only"
  • Select: either Ubuntu (18.04) or Centos (7)

  • Change SSH Key Pair: Selecte "Create New"

    • Give your keys the name DocNowLightSailKeyPair
    • Download your keys
    • Move key file to the `/Users/[yourusername]/.ssh hidden directory withthe following:

    mkdir /Users/[yourusername]/.ssh

    this directory may already exist

    mv /Users/[yourusername]/Downloads/DocNowLightSailKeyPair.pem /Users/[yourusername]/.ssh

  • Choose the US$10 option

  • Identify your instance (Give it a name)
  • Create the Instance and take note of the resulting IP address (for this example we will use 1.2.2.4) of your Virtual Private Server
  • Open your Terminal Application
  • Connect to your Virtual Private Server with the following command using the key you created above

ssh -i ~/.ssh/DocNowLightSailKeyPair.pem ubuntu@[yourIPaddresshere]

If you have permissions issues, run the following in Terminal:

chmod 0400 ~/.ssh/DocNowLightSailKeyPair.pem

exit

You will see:

The authenticity of host '[yourIPaddress] [yourIPaddress]' cannot be established.
ED25519 key fingerprint is SHA256:MtFD6zgLJkyr6Ju8nmzwNqwvqy+rayVVnp1NW97DW0s.
This key is not known by any other names
Are you sure you want to continue connecting (yes/no/[fingerprint])? yes
Warning: Permanently added '[yourIPaddress]' (ED25519) to the list of known hosts.
Welcome to Ubuntu 18.04.1 LTS (GNU/Linux 4.15.0-1021-aws x86_64)

4. Launch your application

  • Download and unzip the docnow-ansible zip file or, if you are a GitHub user, clone the repository to a location on your computer.
  • Move the docnow-ansible folder to your Documents folder
  • Modify the hosts.example to have the IP address from the steps above.
  • rename the file hosts.example file to hosts

Run the following commands in Terminal:

cd /Users/<yourusername>/Documents/docnow-ansible-main

ansible-playbook -i hosts playbooks/lightsail_ubuntu_deploy.yml

When it completes if you point your browser to the IP in the example thus far http://1.2.2.4 you will see the configuration page for your docnow application