Testing AMIs or provisioning in AWS

Sometimes you want to mess around testing something complex (untestable locally e.g. AMI or config changes) in a real env, but you don't want to block the CODE/PROD deployment path.

The simplest way to do that is to spin up a new Auto scaling Group in environment TEST, and deploy your build there.

deploy your stuff for testing

1. build your branch of platform/your ami/whatever it is you plan to test. If you want to test frontend itself, we don't produce artifacts for a PR build so follow the instructions at the bottom to build artifacts.
2. deploy platform to stage TEST
3. deploy a build of frontend to TEST if necessary (this will copy the file but won't be able to find the ASG)

create the launch config

1. go to the appropriate launch configuration in AWS EC2 console as admin/cloudformation e.g. frontend-CODE-ArticleServer-1P6YIUG2KIZWB
2. Copy it, and give it a good name e.g. john-test-article-launch
3. edit the "details" and open the advanced details.
4. change export FACTER_gu_stage='CODE' to refer to TEST stage instead
5. change whatever else you want - e.g. AMI
6. make sure it's still in the GuardianAccess and ApplicationServer security groups (under non-vpc)
7. create the launch configuration /Note: it's worth using your own key, especially if you are changing puppet provisioning, as otherwise you can't log in and look when puppet inevitably fails the first time/

Next create an ASG

1. click the Create an ASG with this launch configuration button
2. call it john-test-article-asg or similar
3. give it an availability zone (you probably don't need a load balancer)
4. make sure it has 1 instance

Getting rid of it after use

1. delete the ASG and Launch config

Building a branch with frontend

1. deploy the build of your branch with riffraff to TEST