Project 1: Deploy multi-tier web application locally

7 min readJun 6, 2024

Task : Deploy multi-tier web application locally

This project is the first of a series where I will use and put into practice what I learned about the benefits of cloud computing and IaC.

For today it will be just locally but the next ones will be on the cloud with different setups.

What did I use to build this environment?

1. Oracle VM Virtualbox

2. Vagrant

3. Vagrant plugins

4. Git bash

Phase 1:

Install hostmanager plugin

$ vagrant plugin install vagrant-hostmanager

Then some VMs SETUP , which is given below:

1. Clone the source code : https://github.com/hkhcoder/vprofile-project

2. cd into the repository.

3. Switch to the main branch.

4. cd into vagrant/Manual_provisioning

5. Need to bring up VMs

$ vagrant up

NOTE: Bringing up all the VMs may take a long time based on various factors.

INFO: All the VMs hostname and /etc/hosts file entries will be automatically updated.

PROVISIONING

Services

1. Nginx => Web Service

2. Tomcat => Application Server

3. RabbitMQ => Broker/Queuing Agent

4. Memcached => DB Caching

5. MySQL => SQL Database

After the provisioning I checked if the VMs are ready

vagrant status

Phase 2: MYSQL Setup

$ vagrant ssh db01 ##db01 is the hostname

Verify Hosts entry, if entries missing update the it with IP and hostnames

# cat /etc/hosts

Update OS with latest patches

# yum update -y

# yum install epel-release -y

Install Maria DB Package

# yum install git mariadb-server -y

Starting & enabling mariadb-server

# systemctl start mariadb
# systemctl enable mariadb

RUN mysql secure installation script.

# mysql_secure_installation

NOTE: Set db root password, I will be using admin123 as password , you can choose any db password.

It will display the messages which is given below , you just need to provide the same permission as shown below:-

Set root password? [Y/n] Y
New password:
Re-enter new password:
Password updated successfully!
Reloading privilege tables..
... Success!
By default, a MariaDB installation has an anonymous user, allowing anyone
to log into MariaDB without having to have a user account created for
them. This is intended only for testing, and to make the installation
go a bit smoother. You should remove them before moving into a
production environment.
Remove anonymous users? [Y/n] Y
... Success!
Normally, root should only be allowed to connect from 'localhost'. This
ensures that someone cannot guess at the root password from the network.
Disallow root login remotely? [Y/n] n
... skipping.
By default, MariaDB comes with a database named 'test' that anyone can
access. This is also intended only for testing, and should be removed
before moving into a production environment.
Remove test database and access to it? [Y/n] Y
- Dropping test database...
... Success!
- Removing privileges on test database...
... Success!
Reloading the privilege tables will ensure that all changes made so far
will take effect immediately.
Reload privilege tables now? [Y/n] Y
... Success!

Set DB name and users.

# mysql -u root -padmin123

mysql> create database accounts;
mysql> grant all privileges on accounts.* TO 'admin'@'%' identified by 'admin123';
mysql> FLUSH PRIVILEGES;
mysql> exit;

Download Source code & Initialize Database.

# git clone -b main https://github.com/hkhcoder/vprofile-project.git
# cd vprofile-project
# mysql -u root -padmin123 accounts < src/main/resources/db_backup.sql
# mysql -u root -padmin123 accounts
mysql> show tables;
mysql> exit;

Restart mariadb-server

# systemctl restart mariadb

Starting the firewall and allowing the mariadb to access from port no. 3306

# systemctl start firewalld
# systemctl enable firewalld
# firewall-cmd - get-active-zones
# firewall-cmd - zone=public - add-port=3306/tcp - permanent
# firewall-cmd - reload
# systemctl restart mariadb

Phase 3: MEMCACHE SETUP

Install, start & enable memcached on port 11211

SSH to memcahed VM

vargant ssh mc01

# sudo dnf install epel-release -y
# sudo dnf install memcached -y
# sudo systemctl start memcached
# sudo systemctl enable memcached
# sudo systemctl status memcached
# sed -i 's/127.0.0.1/0.0.0.0/g' /etc/sysconfig/memcached
# sudo systemctl restart memcached

Starting the firewall and allowing the port 11211 to access memcached

# firewall-cmd --add-port=11211/tcp
# firewall-cmd --runtime-to-permanent
# firewall-cmd --add-port=11111/udp
# firewall-cmd --runtime-to-permanent
# sudo memcached -p 11211 -U 11111 -u memcached -d

Phase 4: RABBITMQ SETUP

$ vagrant ssh rmq01

Verify Hosts entry, if entries missing update the it with IP and hostnames

# cat /etc/hosts

Update OS with latest patches

# yum update -y

Set EPEL Repository

# yum install epel-release -y

Install Dependencies

# sudo yum install wget -y
# cd /tmp/
# dnf -y install centos-release-rabbitmq-38
# dnf - enablerepo=centos-rabbitmq-38 -y install rabbitmq-server
# systemctl enable - now rabbitmq-server

Setup access to user test and make it admin

# sudo sh -c 'echo "[{rabbit, [{loopback_users, []}]}]." > /etc/rabbitmq/rabbitmq.config'
# sudo rabbitmqctl add_user test test
# sudo rabbitmqctl set_user_tags test administrator
# sudo systemctl restart rabbitmq-server

Starting the firewall and allowing the port 5672 to access rabbitmq

# firewall-cmd - add-port=5672/tcp
# firewall-cmd - runtime-to-permanent
# sudo systemctl start rabbitmq-server
# sudo systemctl enable rabbitmq-server
# sudo systemctl status rabbitmq-server

Phase 5: TOMCAT SETUP :

$ vagrant ssh app01

Verify Hosts entry, if entries missing update the it with IP and hostnames

# cat /etc/hosts

Update OS with latest patches

# yum update -y

Set Repository

# yum install epel-release -y

Install Dependencies

# dnf -y install java-11-openjdk java-11-openjdk-devel
# dnf install git maven wget -y

Change dir to /tmp

# cd /tmp/

Download & Tomcat Package

# wget https://archive.apache.org/dist/tomcat/tomcat-9/v9.0.75/bin/apache-tomcat-9.0.75.tar.gz
# tar xzvf apache-tomcat-9.0.75.tar.gz

Add tomcat user

# useradd - home-dir /usr/local/tomcat - shell /sbin/nologin tomcat

Copy data to tomcat home dir

# cp -r /tmp/apache-tomcat-9.0.75/* /usr/local/tomcat/

Make tomcat user owner of tomcat home dir

# chown -R tomcat.tomcat /usr/local/tomcat

Setup systemctl command for tomcat

Create tomcat service file

# vi /etc/systemd/system/tomcat.service

Update the file with below content

Reload systemd files

# systemctl daemon-reload

Start & Enable service

# systemctl start tomcat
# systemctl enable tomcat

Reload systemd files

# systemctl daemon-reload

Start & Enable service

# systemctl start tomcat
# systemctl enable tomcat

Enabling the firewall and allowing port 8080 to access the tomcat

# systemctl start firewalld
# systemctl enable firewalld
# firewall-cmd - get-active-zones
# firewall-cmd - zone=public - add-port=8080/tcp - permanent
# firewall-cmd - reload

Phase 6: CODE BUILD & DEPLOY (app01)

Download Source code

# git clone -b main https://github.com/hkhcoder/vprofile-project.git

Update configuration

# cd vprofile-project
# vim src/main/resources/application.properties
# Update file with backend server details

Build code

Run below command inside the repository (vprofile-project)

# mvn install

Deploy artifact

# systemctl stop tomcat
# rm -rf /usr/local/tomcat/webapps/ROOT*
# cp target/vprofile-v2.war /usr/local/tomcat/webapps/ROOT.war
# systemctl start tomcat
# chown tomcat.tomcat usr/local/tomcat/webapps -R
# systemctl restart tomcat

Phase 7: NGINX SETUP

Login to the Nginx VM

$ vagrant ssh web01
$ sudo -i

Verify Hosts entry, if entries missing update the it with IP and hostnames

# cat /etc/hosts

Update OS with latest patches

# apt update
# apt upgrade

Install nginx

# apt install nginx -y

Create Nginx conf file

# vi /etc/nginx/sites-available/vproapp

Update with below content

upstream vproapp {
server app01:8080;
}
server {
listen 80;
location / {
proxy_pass http://vproapp;
}
}

Remove default nginx conf

# rm -rf /etc/nginx/sites-enabled/default

Create link to activate website

# ln -s /etc/nginx/sites-available/vproapp /etc/nginx/sites-enabled/vproapp

Restart Nginx

# systemctl restart nginx

Phase 8 : Validate

To check the running application we need to get the IP address of our web application , just enter ip addr show to check the IP address of nginx

copy the IP address and paste in the browser

As you can see the login page is displayed, It means the tomcat server is working , I will log in with the username & password : admin_vp

After login I got the new window, It means the database is also working.

Now I need to check whether my rabbitmq is working or not, just click on the Rabbitmq button.

It means rabbitmq is working .

Now time to verify whether the cache is working or not, For that I just need to click on any of the users in the table below

Just click on user id

Here you can see that it will indicate the message ‘Data is from DB and data inserted in Cache’ . It means the cache is working.

Project 1: Deploy multi-tier web application locally

What did I use to build this environment?

Written by Semo

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