Three-Tier Architecture Deployment for WordPress with Terraform and Ansible

Overview

This repository provides a solution to deploy WordPress on AWS using a three-tier architecture model. The infrastructure is provisioned using Terraform, while Ansible is used for the configuration and setup of WordPress on EC2 instances.

Architecture Components

The key AWS resources provisioned in this setup include:

• VPC with isolated subnets for security and scaling
  • 2x Availability Zones (AZs) for redundancy
  • 3x Subnets: Public, Private, and Database
• 1x Internet Gateway for external access
• 2x NAT Gateways for internet connectivity in private subnets
• Auto Scaling Group with EC2 instances (t2.micro) to scale as needed
  • Desired Instances: 2
  • Maximum Instances: 3
• Application Load Balancer (ALB) for distributing traffic to EC2 instances
• RDS Database (MySQL) for storing WordPress data

Architecture Diagram

Prerequisites

Ensure you have the following before proceeding:

• AWS Account with the necessary permissions (AdministratorAccess or equivalent)
• Installed Terraform CLI
• Installed Ansible for server configuration

Getting Started

The project involves two main parts: provisioning infrastructure using Terraform and deploying WordPress using Ansible.

Clone the Repository

git clone https://github.com/sagar-uprety/aws-three-tier-architecture-automation
cd aws-three-tier-architecture-automation

Part 1: Provision AWS Infrastructure with Terraform

To set up the infrastructure, follow these steps:

1. Navigate to the Terraform directory:

   cd infra-terraform

2. Initialize Terraform:

   terraform init

3. Plan the infrastructure changes:

   terraform plan --var-file="dev.tfvars"

4. Apply the configuration to provision the resources:

   terraform apply --var-file="dev.tfvars"

5. Cleanup: If needed, destroy the infrastructure:

   terraform destroy --var-file="dev.tfvars"

Project Structure

• main.tf: Defines the core infrastructure for VPC, RDS, and S3
• alb.tf: Configuration for the Application Load Balancer
• asg.tf: Auto Scaling Group configuration for managing EC2 instances
• variables.tf: Input variables for parameterization and sensitive data
• provider.tf: Specifies the AWS provider
• output.tf: Defines outputs such as Auto Scaling Group ID and RDS endpoint
• dev.tfvars: Variables specific to the dev environment
• .gitignore: Lists files to exclude from version control

Part 2: Configure and Deploy WordPress with Ansible

Once the infrastructure is ready, follow these steps to install and configure WordPress using Ansible:

1. Navigate to the Ansible directory:

   cd ansible

2. Create a group_vars/all.yml file to define variables for MySQL and WordPress. Do not commit this file to source control. Check out Ansible Vault if you want to explore other options.

   mysql_db_name: "your-wordpress-db-name"
   mysql_user: "your-mysql-username"
   mysql_password: "your-mysql-password"
   mysql_host_address_ip: "your-rds-endpoint"

3. Configure Ansible's dynamic inventory to use AWS Systems Manager (SSM) for instance access:

   • In wordpress.aws_ec2.yml, set the autoscaling_group_id to the value from terraform output

4. Verify the dynamic inventory setup:

   ansible-inventory -i wordpress.aws_ec2.yml --list

5. Run the Ansible playbook to install and configure WordPress:

   ansible-playbook -i wordpress.aws_ec2.yml wordpress_playbook.yml

6. You should be able to see the configuration page now from your ALB DNS. If you have a custom domain, point your DNS records to ALB DNS or setup them in Route53.

   

7. Well done! After wordpress configuration, Now you can visit the site to see the deployed application :)
   

Contributing

Contributions are welcome! To contribute:

1. Fork the repository
2. Create a new branch for your feature or bug fix:

   git checkout -b feature-branch

3. Commit your changes and push the branch:

   git push origin feature-branch

4. Open a pull request to merge your changes

License

This project is licensed under the MIT License.