COMEM+ Architecture & Deployment course

In this course you will learn:

• How to deploy applications on a Linux server on an IaaS platform (Microsoft Azure).
• How to deploy applications on a PaaS platform (Render).

In pursuit of this goal, you will learn:

• How to use the command line and version control.
• The basics of Unix system administration and cloud computing architectures.
• Good security practices related to system administration and web applications.

This course is a COMEM+ web development course taught at HEIG-VD.

• Plan
• How to improve our basic deployment
• What you will need
• Exercises
• Frequently Asked Questions
  • How do I do X with the command line?
  • How do I connect to my server and stuff?
  • How do I do Y with Git?
• References

Plan

• Introduction
  • Command line
  • Secure Shell (SSH)
• Version control
  • Version control with Git
  • Git branching
  • Collaborating with Git
• Security
  • Open Web Application Security Project
  • OWASP Top 10 - The Ten Most Critical Web Application Security Risks
  • The image gallery
  • The CSRF bank
    • Phishing page
• Basic deployment
  • Cloud computing
  • Linux
  • Unix basics & administration
  • Unix processes
  • Unix networking
  • APT
• How to improve our basic deployment
• Advanced deployment
  • Twelve-factor app
  • Unix environment variables
  • Linux process management
  • Domain Name System (DNS)
  • Reverse proxying
  • TLS/SSL certificates
• Automated deployment
  • Shell scripting
  • Git hooks
• Managed deployments
  • Platform-as-a-Service (PaaS)
• Software development (extra)
  • Continuous software development
  • Automated testing (2018)
  • Automated testing (2020)
    • YouTube: Expecting Profesionnalism – Robert C. Martin
    • YouTube: GOTO 2017 – The Scribe's Oath – Robert C. Martin
    • YouTube: The Future of Programming – Robert C. Martin

How to improve our basic deployment

The basic SFTP deployment of the PHP TodoList has several flaws which we will fix during the rest of the course:

• Transfering files manually through SFTP is slow and error-prone. We will use Git to reliably transfer files from our central codebase and easily keep our deployment up-to-date over time.
• Hardcoding configuration is a bad practice. We will use environment variables so that our application can be dynamically configured and deployed in any environment without changing its source code.
• Starting our application manually is not suitable for a production deployment. We will use a process manager to manage the lifecycle of our application: starting it automatically when the server boots, and restarting it automatically if it crashes.
• Accessing a web application through an IP address is not user-friendly. We will obtain a domain and configure its DNS zone file so that our application is accessible with a human-readable domain name.
• Using a non-standard port is not user-friendly either. We will run the application on port 80 or 443 so that the end user does not have to specify a port in the browser's address bar.
• Running our application server directly on port 80 or 443 will cause a problem: only one process can listen on a given port at the same time. We need another tool to support multiple production deployments on the same server. That will be the job of a reverse proxy like Apache or nginx.
• Our application is not secure as indicated by the browser, because it is served over HTTP and not HTTPS. We will obtain a TLS/SSL certificate signed by a trusted certificate authority so that our application can be served over HTTPS and recognized as secure by browsers.
• The PHP Development Server is not meant to deploy applications in production environments. We will use the FastCGI Process Manager to perform a production-grade deployment, making our application more resilient and able to serve more clients concurrently.

What you will need

• A Unix CLI
  • Linux/macOS users can use their standard Terminal
  • Windows users should install Git for Windows which includes Git Bash
• Git
  • macOS users should install the command-line tools
  • Windows users should install Git for Windows
• A free GitHub account
• Google Chrome (recommended, any browser with developer tools will do)
• A free Render account

Exercises

• Version control
  • Collaborative exercise (graded)
  • Clone a repository from a server
  • Push a repository to a server
• Unix
  • Permissions
    • Solutions
  • Pipeline
    • Solutions
• Basic deployment
  • Run your own virtual server on Microsoft Azure
  • Deploy a PHP application with SFTP
    • Architecture
• Advanced deployment
  • Deploy a PHP application with Git
    • Architecture
  • Configure a PHP application through environment variables
    • Architecture
  • Manage a PHP application with systemd as a Process Manager
    • Solution
    • Architecture
  • Configure a domain name
    • Architecture
  • Deploy a static site with nginx
    • Solution
    • Architecture
  • Deploy a PHP application with nginx and the FastCGI process manager
    • Solution
    • Architecture
  • Deploy a multi-component web application with nginx
    • Solution
    • Architecture
  • Provision a Let's Encrypt TLS certificate with Certbot
    • Architecture
  • Set up an automated deployment with Git hooks
    • Architecture
  • Deploy Flood It, a Spring Boot (Java) & Angular application with a PostgreSQL database (graded)
  • Horizontally scale a web application with nginx as a load balancer
    • Architecture
• Platform-as-a-Service deployment
  • Deploy a static site to Netlify
  • Deploy web applications with a database to Render (not yet available)
• Extra
  • Deploy One Chat Room, an Express (Node.js) web application with a MongoDB database
    • Diagram
  • Deploy Big Browser, a Nest.js (Node.js) application with a Redis database
  • Deploy WOPR, a Sinatra & Svelte application with a Redis database
  • Deploy RPS, a Node.js & Svelte web application with a PostgreSQL database
  • Deploy Minesweeper, a Phoenix (Elixir) & Alpine.js application with a PostgreSQL database
    • Architecture
  • Configure nginx as a load balancer

Frequently Asked Questions

What is the meaning of life?

42

How do I do X with the command line?

Read the command line cheatsheet

How do I connect to my server and stuff?

Read the system administration cheatsheet

How do I do Y with Git?

Read the Git cheatsheet

References

These are the main references used throughout this course. More detailed and additional links to various online articles and documentation can be found at the end of each subject.

• The Linux Documentation Project
  • Advanced Bash-Scripting Guide
• Building the Future of the Command Line
• SSH, The Secure Shell: The Definitive Guide - Daniel J. Barrett, Richard E. Silverman, Robert G. Byrnes
• The Git Book
  • Chapter 1 - Getting Started
  • Chapter 2 - Git Basics
  • Chapter 3 - Git Branching
  • Chapter 5 - Distributed Git
  • Chapter 8 - Customizing Git - Git Hooks
• Open Web Application Security Project
  • OWASP Top Ten
• Ops School Curriculum
  • Sysadmin 101
  • Unix Fundamentals 101
  • Unix Fundamentals 201
  • Networking 101
  • Networking 201
• The Internet Explained From First Principles
• The Twelve-Factor App
• Systemd Manual
  • Unit Configuration
  • Service Configuration
• nginx documentation
  • Beginner's Guide
  • Configuring HTTPS Servers
• Render Documentation

Wikipedia is also often referenced, namely these and related articles:

• Secure Shell
• Cloud Computing
• Internet Protocol
  • IP Address
  • Port (Computer Networking)
• Domain Name System
• Environment Variable
• Reverse Proxy
• Public Key Certificate