Summary

This repo contains static assets for the cmdchallenge.com website and terraform configuration to build it in AWS.

Everything that is built can be run in an AWS free tier account. This is also the same configuration that is used for the production cmdchallenge site. With a single terraform run you can have your own version of cmdchallenge running in AWS in less than 5 minutes by following the 5 steps below.

What you will create

+---------------------+
|    API Gateway      |
+---------------------+
           |
  +-----------------+
  |                 |
  | Lambda Function |    +----------+
  |                 |--- |          |
  +-----------------+   \| DynamoDB |
           |             |          |
   +--------------+      +----------+
   | EC2 t2.micro |
   |   (coreos)   |
   +--------------+
  

Requirements

Creating your own version of cmdchallenge is simple, there are three prerequisites for your mac or linux workstation:

• terraform (download the appropriate binary and put it in your path)
• openssl (for generating keys)
• python (for serving static content locally)

Create cmdchallenge in the AWS free tier

Step 1: Clone this repository

git clone https://github.com/jarv/cmdchallenge-site
git submodule update --init --recursive

Step 2: Create SSH keys for the EC2 instance

$ ./bin/create-ssh-keys
Creating keypair for ssh
Generating public/private rsa key pair.
Your identification has been saved in cmd_rsa.
Your public key has been saved in cmd_rsa.pub.
...

This will create a private/ssh directory in the repostory root which contains the private and public keypair for the instance used for cmdchallenge. This private/ directory is ignored by git and should be kept safe. In addition to the ssh keys it will contain the CA and certificates needed for tls authentication for docker after the terraform run.

Step 3: Update the AWS configuration for terraform

Modify terraform/site.tf with your AWS credentials. By default it looks for a profile named "cmdchallenge". See the terraform documentation if you want to use something other than an aws profile

provider "aws" {
  region = "us-east-1"
  shared_credentials_file = "${pathexpand("~/.aws/credentials")}"
  profile = "cmdchallenge"
}

Step 4: Run terraform

cd terraform
terraform init
terraform apply

The process of bringing up all the resources in AWS takes around 4 or 5 minutes. At the very end you will see some terraform outputs:

Outputs:

ami_id = ami-ad593cbb
ec2_public_ip = 107.23.137.206
invoke_url = https://9hz0doczmb.execute-api.us-east-1.amazonaws.com/prod
test_hello_world = curl 'https://9hz0doczmb.execute-api.us-east-1.amazonaws.com/prod/?cmd=echo+hello+world&challenge_slug=hello_world'

Paste the curl command into your terminal to confirm that everything is working:

$ curl 'https://9hz0doczmb.execute-api.us-east-1.amazonaws.com/prod/?cmd=echo+hello+world&challenge_slug=hello_world'
{"challenge_slug": "hello_world", "rand_error": false, "output": "hello world", "test_errors": null, "return_code": 0, "correct": true}

Step 5: Serve assets

make serve

Point your browser to http://localhost:8000/