Efficient Deployment with GitHub Actions & EC2: A CI/CD Journey

In today's fast-paced software development landscape, continuous integration and continuous deployment (CI/CD) have become indispensable practices. They enable teams to automate the building, testing, and deployment of applications, resulting in faster release cycles, higher-quality code, and improved collaboration among developers.

GitHub Actions, a powerful workflow automation tool provided by GitHub, empowers developers to implement CI/CD pipelines seamlessly within their repositories. In this article, we'll delve into a practical example of setting up a CI/CD pipeline using GitHub Actions for a Flask application deployed on an EC2 instance.

Understanding the Workflow:
Our project revolves around a Flask application hosted on an EC2 instance. The CI/CD pipeline is triggered whenever changes are pushed to the main branch of the GitHub repository. The workflow consists of two YAML files: ci.yml and cd.yml.

CI Workflow (ci.yml):

• Upon a push to the main branch, the CI workflow (ci.yml) is triggered.

• This workflow utilizes GitHub-hosted runners and comprises three main stages:

  • 1. Running test cases that are written in test_app.py

       2. Login to DockerHub: Authentication to DockerHub to access the container registry.

       3. Build Docker Image: Building the Docker image for the Flask application.

       4. Push Docker Image: Pushing the built Docker image to DockerHub for storage and accessibility.

CD Workflow (cd.yml):

• After the successful completion of the CI workflow, the CD workflow (cd.yml) is triggered.

• This workflow runs on self-hosted runners configured on an EC2 instance.

• The CD workflow involves the following stages:

  1. Pull Docker Image: Pull the latest Docker image from DockerHub.

  2. Delete Old Container: Removing the existing container instance running on the EC2 instance.

  3. Run Docker Container: Spinning up a new Docker container with the updated image.

Implementing the Workflow:

To implement this CI/CD pipeline, follow these steps:

Setting Up GitHub Actions:

For a more detailed setup guide for this project, please visit the repository linked below:

• Create two YAML files, ci.yml and cd.yml, in the .github/workflows directory of your GitHub repository.

• Define the workflow steps within each YAML file according to the stages mentioned above.

  

Configuring Self-Hosted Runners on EC2:

• Set up an EC2 instance with Docker installed.

• Install and configure the GitHub Actions runner on the EC2 instance.

• 

• Ensure the runner is registered with your GitHub repository and configured to execute the cd.yml workflow.

• example of running the cd.yml in a self-hosted runner in EC2

  

Deploying the Flask Application:

• Ensure your Flask application is containerized using Docker.

• Push the Dockerfile and application code to your GitHub repository.

• Configure the Dockerfile to expose the Flask application on port 5000.

  

  

Accessing the Deployed Application:

• Once the CI/CD pipeline is set up and triggered, navigate to http://<ec2_public_ip>:5000 access the deployed Flask application.

  

• Any updates pushed to the GitHub repository will automatically trigger the pipeline, ensuring seamless deployment of changes to the production environment.

Conclusion:

By leveraging GitHub Actions for CI/CD, we've established an efficient pipeline for automating the deployment of a Flask application. This streamlined approach enhances development agility, improves code quality, and accelerates time-to-market. With continuous integration and deployment becoming increasingly essential in modern software development, adopting tools like GitHub Actions empowers teams to deliver value to end-users rapidly and reliably.