3 Tier Deployment Setup (HAProxy-PHP-MySQL)

Objective

To create a 3-tiered production-like deployment from scratch using ServerTemplates published by RightScale for a PHP application.

Note: The tutorial uses RightScale's latest revisions of the v12.11 LTS ServerTemplates that use Chef cookbooks and recipes instead of RightScripts.

Table of Contents

Prerequisites

• Access to add/create/edit DNS records with a supported DNS provider (e.g. DNSMadeEasy, DynDNS, Route53). 
• A paid edition of RightScale.
• 'designer' 'actor' and 'security_manager' user role privileges are required, although the 'security_manager' user role privilege may not be required if security groups with the appropriate firewall permissions already exist.

Overview

Although this end-to-end tutorial was originally designed as a hands-on exercise in an Instructor Led Training course, anyone can follow the tutorial and use it as a learning tool as well. The class environment influences naming conventions, hence we often precede names with initials or names in our examples. (For example, an A Record for John Doe named "jd-www", rather than simply "www"). Be sure to provide enough time for yourself to complete the end-to-end exercise. (Estimate: 1-3hrs) 

This tutorial will demonstrate how to build a common 3-tier website architecture in the cloud using some of RightScale's ServerTemplates. 

• (HAProxy) Load Balancing servers
• PHP Application servers
• MySQL Database servers

Disclaimers

• This tutorial assumes that you are launching all servers into the same cloud infrastructure. 
• As a best practice, it's encouraged to deploy over multiple Datacenters / Zones (if supported by the cloud) for high-availability.

Deployment Setup

Create a Deployment

Prerequisites: Requires 'actor' user role privileges in the RightScale account.

The first step is to create a new deployment for the project. It's not recommended that you use the "Default" deployment or an existing deployment for new development because you do not want to accidentally inherit any unknown configuration settings. Therefore, it's recommended to always create a new deployment when you start a new project. Be sure to use a unique and descriptive nickname for each deployment. (e.g. My Project Name)

1. Go to Manage > Deployments. Click New and provide the following information:
   • Nickname - User-defined name for the deployment. 
   • Description - A short, internal-only description of the deployment.

Tip: Most users find it useful to create a bookmark in the left-hand pane of the dashboard that links to the deployment's Servers tab.

Create DNS Records

In a typical 3-tier architecture setup, DNS A records are used to create fully qualified domain names (FQDNs) that map to a particular server or tier of servers. The digram below shows a typical example of a 3-tier website architecture.

In this type of architecure, the application servers locate the "master" database server by using Master-DB's FQDN (e.g. db-master.example.com), which points to the Master-DB's private IP address. Similarly, front-end web traffic can be routed to a FQDN (e.g. www.example.com) where each load balancer server has a DNS record for that FQDN so that incoming requests are routed to one of the load balancer servers. Since the IP address of an instance in the cloud is often dynamically assigned at launch time, you are required to use a DNS provider that supports dynamic DNS (i.e. the ability to dynamically update the IP address of an A record) for the Master-DB server (at a minimum). You can also use the same DNS provider for creating FQDNs for the load balancer servers. However, since they do not require the use of dynamic DNS, any DNS provider can be used.

TTLs

When you create the DNS records, it's important to set appropriate TTLs to ensure that servers will not stay connected to an old IP address that is no longer assigned to a functional server. For example, the DNS record that points to the "master" database server should have a low TTL to ensure that the application servers will connect to the correct server within a reasonable amount of time. It's strongly recommended that you use a TTL of 60 seconds for the DNS record that points to the "master" database server.

Note: If you are using Rackspace's Cloud DNS service, you must use a TTL of 300 seconds because that is the lowest allowable TTL. Be sure to change the 'Database DNS TTL Limit' input from 60 (default) to 300.

You will need to create DNS records for the following servers:

• Each Load Balancer Server
• Master Database Server
• Slave Database Server (optional)

RightScale's ServerTemplates contain scripts that support one of the following DNS providers. Create an account with one of the DNS providers below and set up the A records accordingly.

• Domain Setup with DNSMadeEasy
• Domain Setup with DynDNS
• Domain Setup with Amazon's Route 53 (Aws DNS)
• Domain Setup with Cloud DNS

Create Common Credentials

Prerequisites: Requires 'designer' user role privileges in the RightScale account to create a new credential.

Note: Only the user who created the credential and any 'admin' users will be able to view and modify an existing credential. 

Credentials are a way of passing sensitive information to a script (as an input) in a discrete manner without making the actual value visible in the Dashboard. As a best practice, many of the ServerTemplates published by RightScale are preconfigured to use certain credentials. It's recommended that you create these common credentials in your own account. If they already exist and apply to a different deployment, you might want to create a new set of credentials to avoid any conflicts. In such cases, it's helpful to use a common prefix to group the credentials together. (e.g. APP1_DBADMIN_USER)

If you try to launch a server where one of the inputs references a credential that does not exist in the RightScale account, you will receive an error message and will not be able to launch the server. Therefore, it's best to create any required credentials before you configure and launch a server. Depending on your cloud provider and backup storage selections, you may want to create additional credentials.

At a minimum, create the following credentials. See Create a New Credential for more information.

Note: If you are going through the 3-tier tutorial and are using the provided sample application and database files for testing purposes, use the sample "3 Tier Tutorial" values highlighted below.

• DBADMIN_USER - Username of a database user with administrator privileges. Use this credential for the "Database Admin Username" input.
  • 3 Tier Tutorial: admindb
• DBADMIN_PASSWORD - Password for DBADMIN_USER. Use this credential for the "Database Admin Password" input.
  • 3 Tier Tutorial: admindb
     
• DBAPPLICATION_USER - User name of a database user with user-level privileges. Use this credential for the "Database Application Username" input.
  • 3 Tier Tutorial: 1234
• DBAPPLICATION_PASSWORD - Password for DBAPPLICATION_USER. Use this credential for the "Database Application Password" input.
  • 3 Tier Tutorial: 1234
     
• DBREPLICATION_USER - Username of a database user with replication permissions on the server. Use this credential for the "Database Replication Username" input.
  • 3 Tier Tutorial: dbrpl
• DBREPLICATION_PASSWORD - Password for DBREPLICATION_USER. Use this credential for the "Database Replication Password" input.
  • 3 Tier Tutorial: dbrpl
     
• DNS_USER* - Username that's used to log into your DNS provider and update DNS records. It's commonly used to update the A record with the private IP address of the "master" database server. Use this credential for the "DNS User" input.
• DNS_PASSWORD* - Password for DNS_USER. Use this credential for the "DNS Password" input.

* If you use Amazon Route 53 as your DNS provider, you do not need to set up separate DNS user name and password credentials because your AWS credentials are used for authentication purposes. 

Amazon S3

If you are using Amazon S3 to store binary database backups or retrieve a "private" file from an S3 bucket, you will need to use the following AWS credentials. Fortunately, these credentials are automatically created when AWS credentials are added to a RightScale account. Although, they are available for use when you define your inputs, they will not be listed under Design > Credentials.
Note: AWS credentials are located under Settings > Account Settings > Clouds.

• AWS_ACCESS_KEY_ID - Amazon access key ID for authentication.
• AWS_SECRET_ACCESS_KEY - Amazon secret key corresponding to AWS_ACCESS_KEY_ID.

Rackspace Cloud Files

If you want to use Rackspace Cloud Files for storing binary database backups, you will need to create the following credentials.

• RACKSPACE_USERNAME - The username used to log into Rackspace's Cloud Control Panel. Use this credential for the "Backup Primary User" and/or the "Secondary Backup User" input if you are using Rackspace Cloud Files for primary and/or secondary backups. 
• RACKSPACE_AUTH_KEY - The Rackspace account API key. Use this credential for the "Backup Primary Secret" and/or the "Secondary Backup Secret" input if you are using Rackspace Cloud Files for primary and/or secondary backups.

SoftLayer Object Storage

If you want to use SoftLayer's Object Storage for storing binary database backups, you will need to create the following credentials. See Set up SoftLayer Object Storage.

• SOFTLAYER_USER_ID - The username of a SoftLayer User with API privileges. Use this credential for the "Backup Primary User" and/or the "Secondary Backup User" input if you are using SoftLayer Object Storage for primary and/or secondary backups. (e.g. SLOS123456-1:SL123456)
• SOFTLAYER_API_KEY - The matching SoftLayer API Access Key for the specified SoftLayer user. Use this credential for the "Backup Primary Secret" and/or the "Secondary Backup Secret" input if you are using SoftLayer Object Storage for primary and/or secondary backups. (e.g. 68734787202aecdef123767678asdf72364872asdf468273478237as287df67)

Source Control Management (SVN, GitHub)

If you are using a source control management (SCM) system to host your application code, you will need to create the following credentials to retrieve your source code from the specified repository.

• GIT_SSH_KEY - A valid SSH Key for accessing a private repository hosted on GitHub.com. Use this credential for the "SSH Key" input. 
   
• SVN_USERNAME - The SVN username that has access to the specified repository. Use this credential for the "SVN username" input.
• SVN_PASSWORD - Password for SVN_USERNAME. Use this credential for the "SVN password" input.

Secure Sockets Layer (SSL)

If you are using SSL to support HTTPS access, you should create credentials for any of the following values that apply. See How do I create an SSL certificate for my web server?

• LB_STATUS_USERNAME - Optional user name to require in order to log in to the HAProxy status report page.
• LB_STATUS_PASSWORD - Optional password corresponding to LB_STATUS_USERNAME.
• SSL_CERTIFICATE - Contents of the X.509/PEM-format SSL server certificate used for enabling HTTPS communications.
• SSL_CERTIFICATE_CHAIN - The certificate authority (CA) certificate chain associated with the server certificate used to set up HTTPS communications.
• SSL_CERTIFICATE_KEY - The SSL server certificate's private key, in PEM format.
• SSL_PASSPHRASE - If required by an SSL certificate, you must provide the passphrase so Apache can start.

Create Cloud-specific Resources

Prerequisites: Requires 'actor' user role privileges in the RightScale account to create SSH Keys and Elastic IPs, and 'security_manager' privileges to create security groups.

Each cloud infrastructure is unique and requires different resources in order to launch a server in their cloud. Depending on the type of cloud infrastructure that you're going to use to launch servers, you will find it useful to create some of the required cloud-specific resources beforehand so that you can select them in the "Add Server Wizard" when you add servers into a deployment. Cloud resources are also cloud-specific. For example, you cannot launch an EC2 instance in the 'us-east' region with an 'us-west' security group. 

Warning!
If you are following a standard 3-tier tutorial for testing and demonstration purposes only, you can create a single security group with the following permissions. If you are building a 3-tier deployment for a production environment, you should consider using more robust security group settings. See Configure Multiple Security Groups for a Multi-Tiered Deployment.

Linux

At a minimum, the security group should contain the following firewall permissions. Note: Port 443 is only required for SSL support (HTTPS).

Amazon Web Services (EC2 and S3)

EC2

• Create a New SSH Key You are required to select an SSH Key when you launch an EC2 instance. Although it can be used to establish a remote connection with the instance, Server Login Control is used instead.
• Create a New EC2 Security Group Although you can use the same security group for all servers in the same region, you may want to consider creating separate security groups for each tier of your site architecture for additional security. See Configuring Multiple Security Groups for a Multi-Tiered Deployment.
• Create Elastic IPs (EIP) If you are launching load balancer servers in EC2, it's recommended that you use Elastic IPs for your public facing load balancer servers if you're using RightScale's "Load Balancer" ServerTemplates. Typically, you will have two load balancers for redundancy purposes. You must create an Elastic IP for each load balancer.

S3

Simple Storage Service (S3) is Amazon's remote object store (ROS) where you can store static files that can be used by EC2 instances in any AWS region. For example, you can store a database dump file in an S3 bucket and then launch an EC2 instance that will retrieve the file from the S3 bucket. S3 buckets are also used to store binary backups of a database. 

If S3 is not activated for your AWS account, please sign-up for the service now. (http://aws.amazon.com/s3/)

CloudStack

• Create a New Security Group  Note: If the cloud does not support Security Groups, you can ignore this step. 

Database Tier Setup

Upload the Database Dump File

The ServerTemplate contains scripts that can retrieve a MySQL database dump file from a Remote Object Storage (ROS) location such as an Amazon S3 bucket or a Rackspace Cloud Files container. Create a new bucket/container and upload your database dump file. The file can remain a 'private' object because your cloud credentials can be used (as inputs) for authentication purposes to retrieve the file. Make sure the uploaded file maintains the .gz file extension.

Warning! The filename of the MySQL dump file cannot contain a dash (-) in its prefix name. For example, if your dump file is named, 'my-app-201205030022.gz', you must manually rename it to be 'my_app-201205030022.gz' where you use an underscore (_) to replace the dash, otherwise the script (do::do_dump_import) that imports the database dump file into the instance will fail.

• Create a New S3 Bucket
• Create a New Cloud Files Container

If you are setting up a database server for testing purposes or if you do not have your own dump file, you can use the following sample MySQL dump file to complete the tutorial. The sample is a gzip (.gz) file.

app_test-201109010029.gz

Create a Database Server

Follow these steps to add a database server to the deployment.

1. Go to the MultiCloud Marketplace (Design > MultiCloud Marketplace > ServerTemplates) and import the most recently published revision of the Database Manager for MySQL 5.1 or Database Manager for MySQL 5.5ServerTemplate into your RightScale account.
2. From the imported ServerTemplate's show page, click the Add Server button.
3. Select the cloud for which you will configure a server. 
4. Select the deployment for the new server.
5. Next, the Add Server Assistant wizard will walk you through the remaining steps that are required to create a server based on the selected cloud.
   • Server Name - Provide a nickname for your new database server (e.g., mysql-db1). Do not include "master" or "slave" in the name, because a database server's role can change in the future.
   • Select the appropriate cloud-specific resources (e.g. SSH Key, Security Group, etc.) that are required in order to launch a server into the chosen cloud. The required cloud resources may differ depending on the type of cloud infrastructure. If the cloud supports multiple datacenters/zones, select a specific zone. Later, when you create the other database server you will use a different datacenter/zone to ensure high-availability. For more information, see Add Server Assistant.
   • Important! If you are not using volumes to store the database, you must select an instance type that has disk space that's at least twice as large as your database because LVM snapshots are performed locally on the instance before they are gzipped and saved to the specified ROS location. Also, although these ServerTemplates will work with any instance size, you may experience degraded performance with small instance sizes (such as EC2 micro, Rackspace 256MB etc) due to lack of system resources. We do not recommend smaller instance types for production use.
6. Click Confirm, review the server's configuration and click Finish to create the server.

Configure Inputs

The next step is to define the properties of your database server or servers by entering values for inputs. It is simplest and best to do this at the deployment level. For a detailed explanation of how inputs are defined and used in Chef recipes and RightScripts, see Inputs and their Hierarchy.

The inputs that you need to provide values for will depend on which options you're going to use. The ServerTemplate is very flexible and supports a variety of different configurations. You will need to provide the necessary values as inputs based on which options you want to use.

• Where will the contents of the database be stored?
  • On volumes attached to the instance.
  • On the local/ephemeral drive - Ignore all "Block Device" inputs.
• If you're using volumes, are you going to use a stripe?
  • Yes - Use a stripe of multiple volumes.
  • No - Use a single volume. 
  • INPUTS: Block Device Mount Directory (1), Nickname (1), Number of Volumes in the Stripe (1), Total Volume Size (1)
• Are you building a master-slave database setup with replication?
  • Yes
  • No
  • INPUTS: Database Master FQDN, Database Master DNS Record ID, Database Slave FQDN, Database Slave DNS Record ID, Database Replication Password, Database Replication Username
• What are you going to use to take "primary" backups of the database?
  • Snapshots
  • Binary Dumps to a ROS container (e.g. S3 bucket or Cloud Files container)
  • INPUTS: Backup Primary Secret (default), Backup Primary User (default), Primary Backup Storage Cloud (default)
• Are you going take "secondary" backups of the database? If yes, which ROS provider will you use?
  • Amazon S3
  • Rackspace Cloud Files
  • INPUTS: Secondary Backup Storage Cloud (default), Secondary Backup Secret (default), Secondary Backup User (default), Secondary Backup Storage Container (1)
• Which DNS provider are you using for dynamic DNS at the database level?
  • DNS Made Easy
  • DynDNS
  • Amazon Route 53
  • Cloud DNS
  • INPUTS: DNS Service Provider, DNS Password, DNS User

Set Inputs at the Deployment Level

Go to the deployment's Inputs tab (Manage > Deployments > your deployment > Inputs) and click Edit.

Although you can enter values for missing inputs as text values, it's strongly recommended that you set up credentials for passing sensitive information to scripts such as passwords or any other sensitive data.

Rackspace only
If you use Rackspace for your database servers and backup storage (i.e., Cloud Files) the storage-related Chef recipes will use Rackspace Service Net (SNET) by default. SNET is Rackspace's internal private networking service for optimized communication between Rackspace Cloud Servers and Cloud Files. If SNET is not supported in your Rackspace environment, you must set the "Rackspace SNET Enabled for Backup" input to false; otherwise, all backup and restore operations that rely on Cloud Files will fail.

Block Device

If the cloud supports the use of block devices (e.g. AWS EBS Volumes, CloudStack volumes, etc.), it's strongly recommended that you use block devices to store the contents of the MySQL database. Backups of the database will be stored as snapshots.

If the cloud does not support block devices (e.g. Rackspace), you must use a Remote Object Store container (e.g. Rackspace Cloud Files container) the contents of the MySQL database will be stored locally on the instance's ephemeral drive. Backups of the database will be stored as binary dump files to the specified storage container.

Required

Optional

DB

SYS_DNS

Launch the Database Server

After configuring your inputs, launch your newly configured master database server.

1. Go to the deployment's Servers tab and launch the database server. When you view the input confirmation page, there should not be any required inputs with missing values.  If there are any required inputs that are missing values (highlighted in red), cancel the launch and add the missing values at the deployment level before launching the server again. Refer to the instructions in Launch a Server if you are not familiar with this process. Because there are no required inputs that are missing values for any boot scripts, you can click the Launch button at the bottom of the input confirmation page. 

Initialize the Master Database Server

Wait for the server to reach the "operational" state before you run a script to initialize the database server.

1. Go to the "current" server's Scripts tab and run the db::do_init_and_become_master operational script to initialize it as the "Master" database server.
   
2. You can go to the "current" server's Audit Entries tab to track the status of the operation.

The script performs the following actions:

• Registers it as the "master" database server and assign appropriate replication privileges.
• For cloud providers with volume support, create and mount either a single volume or group of striped volumes for data storage.
• Creates a database backup to primary storage.

• Schedules a cron job to run backups to primary storage once per day on the server. (For information on modifying the default backup schedule, see the Database Manager for MySQL 5.1/5.5 Runbook.)
• Updates the dynamic DNS record for the "Master" database with your DNS provider. The DNS record will be updated with the server's private IP address. 
  Warning! If using Amazon Route 53 as your DNS provider, ensure that the TTL (time to live) is set to 60 seconds for each DNS record. Using a different TTL value will cause the db::do_init_and_become_master script to fail. If you are using Rackspace's Cloud DNS service, the DNS record's TTL and the value specified for the 'Database DNS TTL Limit' input must match. (e.g. 300)

Disable Scheduled Primary Backups

Since you have not loaded an actual database onto the server there is no reason to create a primary backup of the database.

Go to the "current" server's Scripts tab and run the db::do_primary_backup_schedule_disable operational script to disable your scheduled backups (cron jobs). 

Later, once you have imported your database you will reverse this action and enable continuous backups.

Set Up the Database

After initializing the master database server and disabling scheduled backups, you will need to add your database (or databases) and records to it.

1. Go to the "current" server's Scripts tab and run the db::do_dump_import operational script to import a MySQL dump file from an ROS location.

Note: If you use a previous backup snapshot instead of a MySQL dump file or initialize a blank MySQL database, refer to the Database Manager for MySQL 5.1/5.5 Runbook for instructions.

Create a Primary Backup

You are now ready to create the first primary backup of the database. You will need a completed backup in order to initialize a slave database server.

1. Go to the "current" server's Scripts tab and run the db::do_primary_backup operational script to manually generate a primary backup of your database server.

Enable Scheduled Primary Backups

It is now safe to enable continuous backups of the database server.

1. Go to the "current" server's Scripts tab and run the db::do_primary_backup_schedule_enable operational script.

For more information about configuring and modifying your scheduled backup policy, see the Database Manager for MySQL 5.1/5.5 Runbook.

Add a Slave Database Server

Although you can run MySQL in single-server mode and having a separate slave server for replication purposes is not required, this is strongly recommended for failover purposes. Create a slave server in your deployment.

1. Clone the Master-DB server. See Clone a Server.
2. Rename the server accordingly. (e.g. mysql-db2) Remember, you do not want to include the word "slave" in the nickname because this server may become the "master" server during a failover scenario. You don't want the server's nickname to potentially cause any confusion.
3. Under the server's Info tab, click Edit and change the server's availability zone. In order to ensure high availability, it's strongly recommended that you launch the Slave-DB server in a different availability zone as the Master-DB.  Note: Cross-zone data transfer costs may apply.

Launch the Slave Database Server

Make sure the following conditions are true before you launch the second database server.

• The master database server state is "operational."
• The initial primary backup of the master database server is 100% complete. If you are using a cloud that supports snapshots for backups, you can track the status in the dashboard (Clouds > region > Snapshots). The time required to complete the initial primary backup will vary based on factors such as storage type, volume size, etc.

You are now ready to launch a "slave" database server for failover and redundancy purposes. 

1. Go to the deployment's Servers tab and launch the server that will be the slave database server. There should be no missing inputs. 

Initialize the Slave Database Server

Wait for the server to reach the "operational" state before initializing it as a "slave" of the master database server.

1. Go to the "current" server's Scripts tab and run the db::do_primary_init_slave operational script.

The script performs the following actions:

• Assigns the "slave" role to the server.
• Uses the most recently completed database backup (default) to initially populate the database in order to reduce the time needed for the slave to become in-sync with the master.
• Sends a request to the master server to allow connections from the slave server's private IP address and opens the default MySQL client port (TCP port 3306) on the master server's firewall (i.e., iptables) for this purpose.
• Schedules a cron job to run primary backups of the database. 

(Optional) Update the DNS Record for the Slave Database Server

If you created a DNS record for the slave database server, you can set a value for the Database Slave DNS Record ID input and run the db::do_set_dns_slave_private_ip operational script.

Test Database Setup (optional)

If you want to test the status of the "master" and "slave" database servers, see Check Database Status of Master or Slave.

Load Balancer Tier Setup

Create a Load Balancer Server

Follow these steps to add a load balancer server to the deployment.

1. Go to the MultiCloud Marketplace (Design > MultiCloud Marketplace > ServerTemplates) and import the most recently published revision of the Load Balancer with HAProxy ServerTemplate into the RightScale account.
2. From the imported ServerTemplate's show page, click the Add Server button.
3. Select the cloud for which you will configure a server. 
4. Select the deployment into which the new server will be placed.
5. Next, the Add Server Assistant wizard will walk you through the remaining steps that are required to create a server based on the selected cloud.
   • Server Name - Provide a nickname for your new load balancer server (e.g., lb1). 
   • Select the appropriate cloud-specific resources that are required in order to launch a server into the chosen cloud. The required cloud resources may differ depending on the type of cloud infrastructure. If the cloud supports multiple datacenters / zones, select a specific zone. Later, when you create the other load balancer server you will use a different datacenter / zone to ensure high-availability. For more information, see Add Server Assistant.
   • If you are using Elastic IPs (AWS EC2 only), select an Elastic IP.
6. Click Confirm, review the server's configuration and click Finish to create the server.

Create another Load Balancer Server

For production environments, it's strongly recommended that you have at least two load balancer servers (preferably in different availability zones or datacenters) for redundancy purposes. The easiest way to create a second load balancer is to simply clone and modify the first load balancer server.

1. Go to the show page of the load balancer server that you just created and click the Clone button.
2. Change the name of the server accordingly. (e.g. lb2)
3. Under the Info tab, click Edit.
4. Select a different zone/datacenter and Elastic IP (if applicable).

Configure Inputs

The next step is to define the properties of your load balancer server or servers by entering values for inputs. As a best practice, you should define required inputs for the servers at the deployment level. For a detailed explanation of how inputs are defined and used in Chef recipes and RightScripts, see Inputs and their Hierarchy.

To enter inputs for the Chef recipes that will run on your load balancers, open the deployment's Inputs tab, click Edit, and use the following settings to configure input values. We recommend that you set up credentials for password values and any other sensitive data as shown in the examples.

LB

WEB_APACHE

Launch the Server

1. Go to the deployment's Servers tab and launch all of the load balancer servers. When you view the input confirmation page, there should not be any required inputs with missing values.  If there are any required inputs that are missing values (highlighted in red) at the input confirmation page, cancel the launch and add values for those inputs at the deployment level before launching the server again. Refer to the instructions in Launch a Server if you are not familiar with this process.
   
   Note: Remember that as a best practice for building high-availability sites, you should have two load balancers that you launch in different availability zones or data centers.

Configure DNS Records

If you are using Elastic IPs or already know the public IP addresses that will be used by the load balancer servers, you might have already set up the DNS records for the load balancing tier. However, if you do not know the public IP addresses that will be assigned to the load balancer servers, you must manually set up the DNS records after the servers have been launched. Once the servers become operational (and have been assigned their respective public IP addresses), create or update the DNS records with your DNS provider. Each load balancer server should have its own DNS record with the same hostname (e.g. www.example.com) that points to its public IP address.

The DNS records for the HAProxy load balancing tier should direct traffic from the associated hostname (FQDN) (e.g. www.example.com) to the application servers in its load balancing pool.

Application Tier Setup

Prepare Application Code

The ServerTemplate supports the ability to download your application code either as a tarball (.tgz) from a Remote Object Storage location or checkout the codebase from a software repository.

• Remote Object Storage (ROS)
  • Amazon S3
  • Rackspace Cloud Files
  • SoftLayer Object Storage
• Software Repository
  • Git
  • SVN

Remote Object Storage (ROS)

• Amazon S3 Bucket
• Rackspace Cloud Files Container
• SoftLayer Object Storage Container

If you have a tarball of your application, upload it to a Remote Object Storage location as either a 'public-read' or 'private' object. If you are using a 'private' object you must provide valid cloud credentials (as inputs) for authentication purposes in order to properly retrieve the object. For more information see the following tutorials.

• Create a New S3 Bucket
• Create a New Cloud Files Container
• SoftLayer Object Storage

Software Repository

• Git
• SVN

If you want to checkout your application code from a software repository (e.g. GitHub), you will need to provide your access credentials as inputs later in this tutorial so that a script can be executed to automatically retrieve your application code. If the code is in a private repository, you may need to generate an SSK key (e.g. GitHub SSH Key) for authentication purposes and create a credential (Design -> Credentials) to store the sensitive value.

Sample Application

Git Repository

If you need an example application for testing purposes, you can use the application code from the following git repository.

• Project App root - Set to "No value/ignore" or "Inherit:no value to inherit"
• Git SSH Key - Set to "No value/ignore" or "Inherit:no value to inherit"
• Repository Provider - repo_git
• Repository URL - git://github.com/rightscale/examples.git
• Branch/Tag - unified_php

Tarball (.tgz)

If you prefer to use a tarball instead, download the file below and upload it into your own remote storage container. (e.g. S3 bucket)

• phptest.tgz

Create the Application Tier

You can either add application servers directly into a deployment or create an server array of application servers for autoscaling. 

Import the ServerTemplate

1. Go to the MultiCloud Marketplace (Design > MultiCloud Marketplace > ServerTemplates) and import the most recently published revision of the following ServerTemplate into the RightScale account.
   • PHP App Server (v12.11.x-LTS)
2. (Optional) If you expect to make changes to the ServerTemplate, you will need to clone it to create an editable copy.  Click the Clone button and rename the ServerTemplate accordingly. (e.g. My App Server) Before you make any changes to the ServerTemplate, click the Commit button so that the first revision of the ServerTemplate matches the original revision, which will make it easier to perform differentials in the future to see what changes were made to the "original" version. When committing the ServerTemplate you can use a simple commit message. (e.g. Original version. No changes.) If you are actively developing the ServerTemplate, you may find it useful to use the HEAD version of the ServerTemplate to create the application server tier. However, for production environments, you should always use static, committed revisions of a ServerTemplate to launch servers.

Create a Server or Server Array

When you create a server or server array, you will first need to select a deployment and the cloud where the server will eventually be launched into (e.g. AWS us-east). Based on the chosen cloud provider, you will need to complete the configuration process that's specific for that cloud. For example, some cloud providers support features that are unique to their specific cloud. 

• To create a server, click the Add Server button and complete the steps in the wizard. See Add Server Assistant for details. If you are setting up a multi-tier deployment, it's strongly recommended that you create at least two application servers.
  • The easiest way to create the second server is to clone the first one. Be sure to change the name of the server accordingly (e.g. app2) and its availability zone (if available) under the Info tab.
• To create a scalable server array, click the Add Array button and complete the steps in the wizard. See Add Server Array Assistant for details. 

Configure Inputs

The next step is to define the properties of your application server by entering values for inputs. It is best to do this at the deployment level. For a detailed explanation of how inputs are defined and used in Chef recipes and RightScripts, see Inputs and their Hierarchy.

To enter inputs for the Chef recipes that will run on your application servers, open the deployment's Inputs tab, click Edit, and use the following instructios to configure the input values. We recommend that you set up credentials for password values and any other sensitive data as shown in the examples.

Note: The following examples and sample values assume that you will connect the application server with RightScale's "Load Balancer" ServerTemplate, which uses HAProxy. If you are using a cloud's load balancing service such as Rackspace Cloud Load Balancing (CLB) or Amazon's Elastic Load Balancing (ELB), please refer to the PHP Application Server Runbook for proper setup instructions.

APP

DB_MYSQL

DB

LB

PHP

REPO

The values that you use for the repository inputs will depend on where the application code will be retrieved from. The selection for the Repository Provider input will determine which inputs will be used to retrieve the application. Unrelated inputs are ignored.

ALL Repositories (ROS, Git, SVN)

The following inputs are used to retrieve the application from either a Git/SVN software repository or an ROS location (Amazon S3 bucket or Rackspace Cloud Files container). Specify the appropriate inputs based upon the selection for the 'Repository Provider' input.

Git Repository

Important!
If you are checking out code from a Git repository, specify values for the following inputs.

SVN Repository

Important!
If you are checking out code from an SVN repository, specify values for the following inputs.

Remote Object Storage (ROS)

Important!
If you are checking out code from a Remote Object Storage (ROS) location, specify values for the following inputs.

WEB_APACHE

Launch the Server

After configuring your inputs, launch all of the PHP application servers. Refer to the instructions in Launch a Server if you are not already familiar with this process.

Test the Deployment

Once all of the servers are operational you can perform the following tests.

Shutting Down

You may find the need to perform some clean up, either to minimize costs, or to perform the tutorial again from a clean slate. Follow these high level steps to do so:

• Terminate the Load Balancers.
• Terminate the Master and Slave Database Servers. (If you are using volumes, see the Database Manager for MySQL 5.1/5.5 Runbook for proper instructions.)
• Delete the Deployment.
• Delete the two EIPs (if applicable and they no longer need to be preserved)
• Delete the one cloned ServerTemplate for the Application Servers that you created.
• Delete the SSH Key.
• Delete the Security Group(s).
• Delete all Credentials (unless you are sharing your account or Deployment with others who might still be using them).
• Delete all four DNS A records (if applicable)
• Delete the application and database dump files from the ROS containers
• Delete the ROS containers (e.g. S3 bucket)

Post Tutorial Steps

• Perform a Health Check Test