Automating Web Application Deployment on AWS with Terraform,Docker, and GitHub Actions

Samson Lasode

Introducing Today's Project!

In this project, I’ll show you how to create a fully automated CI/CD pipeline to

deploy a dynamic web application to AWS using Terraform, Docker, Amazon ECS,

and GitHub Actions. This pipeline integrates AWS infrastructure management,

application containerization, and deployment automation into a seamless workflow.

What is CI/CD?

CI/CD (Continuous Integration/Continuous Deployment) is a practice that

automates the steps involved in software development, including testing, building,

and deploying applications. It helps streamline the development process by ensuring

that the latest code changes are continuously integrated, tested, and deployed to

production without manual intervention.

How I Used CI/CD in This Project

I created a GitHub Actions pipeline to automate the following steps:

1. Provision AWS resources using Terraform.

2. Build Docker images and push them to Amazon ECR.

3. Deploy the application on Amazon ECS (Fargate) using Task Definitions.

4. Automatically manage domain names via Route 53 and ensure secure communication using

ACM SSL certificates. This end-to-end process reduces manual work and ensures rapid, reliable deployment of web applications.

One Thing I Didn’t Expect in This Project Was…

How smooth and seamless the automation was! Once set up, the pipeline worked

flawlessly to provision infrastructure and deploy the application. Watching the system

handle the deployments automatically, from building the Docker image to restarting

the ECS service, was truly rewarding.

This Project Took Me...

It took me about 3 hours to complete, including configuring the AWS infrastructure,

writing Terraform modules, creating the GitHub Actions pipeline, and testing the

deployment.

Setting Up Your AWS Environment

Time Taken: Less than 30 minutes

Key Learning: AWS services like VPC, ECS, ECR, and Route 53 are crucial for

hosting a scalable web application. I created and configured these AWS resources

with Terraform, including:

• VPC with public and private subnets

• ECS Cluster for container orchestration
• S3 Bucket for application files
• RDS Database for persistent data storage

Fun Fact: Terraform enables infrastructure as code, which allows for version control

and repeatable infrastructure deployments!

Configuring GitHub Actions for CI/CD

Key Components:

• Terraform Configuration: A Terraform module for provisioning AWS infrastructure.
• Dockerfile: For creating the application container.
• GitHub Actions Workflow: Automates the entire CI/CD pipeline, including Docker image

build, pushing to ECR, and deploying to ECS.

Tools Used:

• GitHub Actions for managing pipeline stages.
• Docker for containerization.
• Terraform for infrastructure provisioning.
• AWS ECR for storing Docker images.

Deploying the Application on AWS with ECS

What is ECS?

Amazon ECS (Elastic Container Service) is a fully managed container orchestration

service that allows you to easily deploy, manage, and scale containerized applications.

In this project, I used ECS Fargate for serverless container management, meaning

AWS automatically handles the provisioning and scaling of resources.

How I Set Up ECS

1. Created an ECS Task Definition to define the Docker container configurations.

2. Set up an ECS Service to run the containerized application on Fargate.

3. Used Application Load Balancer (ALB) for managing incoming traffic to the service.

Outcome: Once the GitHub Actions pipeline completed, the web application was

automatically deployed to ECS and accessible via the ALB.

Challenges and How I Overcame Them

Challenge:

I encountered a Docker image push failure when pushing images to ECR.

Solution:

I had to configure GitHub Secrets correctly to authenticate Docker with ECR using a

Personal Access Token (PAT) and AWS credentials. Once configured properly, the

image was pushed successfully.

Success!

The pipeline was a success!

Once the changes were pushed to the repository:

• Docker images were automatically built and pushed to Amazon ECR.
• Terraform provisions the AWS infrastructure and deploys the application to Amazon ECS.
• The application was accessible via the domain managed by Route 53.

Endpoint: The application was live and accessible through the Load Balancer URL,

with SSL certificates ensuring secure traffic.

What’s Next?

Now that the application is deployed and running, you can enhance this project further

by implementing auto-scaling, integrating monitoring tools like CloudWatch, or

setting up additional CI/CD steps like testing or linting.