Slancer - Blog

📖 Project Overview

This project demonstrates the deployment of my personal portfolio website on an AWS EC2 instance. Unlike static hosting with S3, EC2 allowed me to configure a full web server using Nginx, practice server management, and implement a CI/CD pipeline with AWS CodePipeline. This setup provided hands-on experience in infrastructure provisioning, hosting both dynamic and static files, and automating deployments for a seamless workflow.

Technologies & Services Used

AWS EC2 (Ubuntu t2.micro)
Nginx
AWS CodePipeline
AWS CodeDeploy
IAM Roles
Namecheap
Cloudflare
HTML
CSS
JavaScript

🚀 Setup Steps

Create an Ubuntu t2.micro EC2 instance (free tier).
Connect via SSH and configure Nginx to serve files from /var/www/html/.
Test the site using the EC2 public IP.
Push code to a GitHub repository.
Set up CodePipeline with GitHub as the source and CodeDeploy for deployment to EC2.
Configure Cloudflare DNS with an A record pointing to the EC2 public IP.
Enable Cloudflare SSL for secure HTTPS access.

⚡ Challenges & Solutions

Manual Deployment Delays

Uploading files to EC2 manually via SSH was time-consuming.

✅ Solution: Implemented CodePipeline and CodeDeploy for automated deployments.

Complex SSL Configuration

Setting up HTTPS on EC2 with Let’s Encrypt required manual certificate renewals.

✅ Solution: Utilized Cloudflare’s free SSL for simplified management.

DNS Propagation Issues

Cloudflare DNS updates took hours to propagate globally.

✅ Solution: Verified DNS settings with tools like dig and nslookup, then allowed time for propagation.

🎯 Key Takeaways

EC2 hosting provided full server control, enabling advanced configurations compared to S3.
Mastered Linux server management, Nginx setup, and deployment troubleshooting.
Developed expertise in CI/CD pipelines, IAM roles, and domain/SSL integration.
Cloudflare proved to be a cost-effective alternative to Route 53, offering free SSL and caching.

📸 Gallery

EC2 Instance Setup

Nginx Configuration

CodePipeline Setup