Overview

Here are the steps you’ll follow in this tutorial:

• ​Register with Amazon Web Services (AWS)​

• ​Generate an SSH key pair​

• ​Create an AWS Security Group​

• ​Deploy Appsmith on an AWS cloud server​

• ​Log in and start using Appsmith​

• ​Configure custom domain for your app​

• ​Find Application Credentials​

• ​Updating your Appsmith installation​

The next sections will walk you through these steps in detail.

Step 1: Register With Amazon Web Services

At the end of this step, you will have signed up for the Amazon Web Services free tier. If you already have an Amazon Web Services account, you may skip this step.

Please follow the steps detailed here in order to create an account on AWS.

Step 2: Generate an SSH key pair

At the end of this step, you will have generated an SSH key pair to access your EC2 instances. If you already have an SSH key pair for the AWS region you are operating in, you can skip this step.

Please follow the steps detailed here to generate a new key-pair. You need this key to SSH into your AWS EC2 instance.

Step 3: Create an AWS Security Group

At the end of this step, you will have created an AWS security group for your cloud server. If you already have an existed security group with ports 80, 443 and 22 open, you can skip this step.

Appsmith is a web application that requires ports 80 and 443 for HTTP access. It also requires port 22 to be accessible for HTTP access. Please follow the steps detailed here to create a new security group.

While creating the the new security group, please follow the steps detailed here to edit the "Inbound Rules" and make ports 80, 443 and 22 accessible from anywhere.

Step 4: Deploy Appsmith On AWS Cloud

At the end of this step, your Appsmith stack will be running on an AWS cloud server.

The next step is to launch a cloud server with the Appsmith Amazon Machine Image (AMI) running on it. The AWS Console lets you do this in just a couple of clicks. Follow these steps:

• From the Amazon EC2 dashboard, select the “AMIs” option in the “Images” menu.

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• Search for the Appsmith Stack by entering the search term appsmith in the search bar at the top.

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• Select the image in the list of search results and click the “Launch” button.

• On the resulting detail page, review the available server sizes. Select the server size you wish to use and click “Review and Launch” to proceed.

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• On the review page, click the “Edit security groups” link.

• On the “Configure Security Group” page, choose the option to “Select an existing security group”. Find the security group you created in Step 3 and select it. Click the “Review and Launch” button to proceed.

• Verify that the correct key pair (created in Step 2) will be used for the server.

• Confirm your selection by hitting the “Launch Instances” button.

The AWS Console will now begin spinning up the new server.

The process usually takes a few minutes. Use the EC2 Dashboard to check the status of the server. Once the server has launched, you will be able to obtain its public IP address from the EC2 Dashboard, as shown below:

At this point, you should be able to browse to the cloud server, by entering the cloud server IP address or DNS name directly into your browser’s address bar. You should now see your web app home page as shown below:

Step 5: Login & start using Appsmith

At the end of this you will have Appsmith running on your AWS server for you to start building your custom apps.

To log in to the Appsmith dashboard, follow these steps:

• Go to the Sign Up page, fill in your user's email & password, then click Sign Up

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Once you completed the registration, you will be moved to the Personal Organization page. Now you can begin to create your custom app.

Custom Domain

The next step is to configure your app so that it can be accessed by your custom domain. Follow these steps:

• Once your instance is ready, connect to that instance (via SSH) using your key pair (Create in step 2) and the public IP of your instance (Created in step 4) via the terminal or any SSH Client that you have

• Move to /home/ubuntu/appsmith/scripts

• Run configure-ssl.sh script

  ./configure-ssl.sh

• You will be asked to your input domain to proceed with the configuration(Please make sure that you have mapped your domain with EC2 Instance's public IP)

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• There will be an option for you to configure SSL for your domain

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At this point, you should be able to browse to the cloud server, by entering your custom domain directly into your browser’s address bar. You should be able to see your web app home page now

Find Application Credentials

By default, Appsmith boots up with default user credentials that allow you to login without needing to sign up. The default username is: appsmith@example.com. There are two options for obtaining the password.

Option 1: Find Credentials By Checking The System Log On The AWS Cloud Console (EC2)

• Go to your EC2 instances dashboard on AWS

• Select the instance

• From the “Actions” drop-down menu, select the “Get System Log” menu item.

• Review the system log until you find the application password. You will also find the default username printed in the logs.

Option 2: Find Credentials By Connecting To Your Application Through SSH

The default application credentials are stored in a standalone file. To obtain these credentials at any time, follow these instructions:

• SSH into your server using your private key

• Run the following command to see your application credentials:

    sudo cat /home/ubuntu/appsmith/credential

Updating your Appsmith installation

Your Appsmith installation will auto-update itself whenever there is a new release by the Appsmith team. You don't need to change anything in order to access the latest version of Appsmith.