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thechrisnewtonblog-blog · 14 years ago

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Setting up an instaPlatform server on Amazon AWS

This post is about setting up an instaPlatform server using a free AWS instance. This means you can test out this service and the Instagr.am Realtime API for free. You will learn about node.js and a whole host of other technologies by looking at the code, not to mention getting an insite into the real-time Instagr.am API.

I decided to create this post as I wanted to setup InstaPlatform and I did not have a dedicated server to install it on so the Amazon free server seemed like a good idea. However there are a few pitfalls with the Amazon server as you are not logged in as root by default and so some of the commands to install certain pieces of software did not work. I should mention that I have come at this problem as a front end developer and as such was not too familiar with installing software on Linux servers or server side code. Although I did know a bit of PHP, I found the server side javascript really easy to write as I am very familiar with it on the client-side, and as such was able to create my own app using instaPlatform as a base.

This post will take you through step by step on installing InstaPlatform on an AWS server.

First of all you will need to sign up to AWS and create an AMI (Amazon Machine Image) using the free Linux instance. I won't go through that here as there are instructions on their site plus tutorials on the web to show you how.

You will need to change the security settings to allow access on port 8080. Click on security groups. Pick the relavent group for your instance and then add an inbound custom TCP rule. In the port range box add in 8080 and then click add rule. This is assuming you want to have your server on port 8080. You can use whatever port you like but I will be using port 8080 in this example.

You will also need to sign up as an Instagr.am developer and register your app. You will get a client ID and client secret that you will need to use later. You will also need to enter your amazon url here so instagr.am knows where to callback your app. This comprises of a 'callback URL' that will be your amazon URL plus the port you want to use plus '/callbacks/oauth'. Here we are using port 8080:

http://ec2-XX-XX-XX-XXX.eu-west-1.compute.amazonaws.com:8080/callbacks/oauth

We also need to enter the website url. Which would be the following using the example above:

http://ec2-XX-XX-XX-XXX.eu-west-1.compute.amazonaws.com:8080/

Once you have setup an AWS instance and downloaded your key to access it via ssh you will need to open 'Terminal' on OSX or the equivalent on Linux/Windows and ssh into your amazon server using the following command:

ssh -i <path to your key.pem> [email protected]

Where '<path to your key>' is the path to your amazon key and the X's are replaced by the url generated by Amazon.

You may receive an error saying that the permissions are too open. In this instance you will need to change the permissions on your private key file to be more secure. You can use the following command to change the permissions and then you can try the ssh one more time:

chmod 600 <yourkey.pem>

You may need to change the permissions of the directory your key is in as well.

chmod 700 <the directory that your key is in>

You should now be able to log in to the server and should be placed in the home directory for ec2-user.

>> STEP 1 - DOWNLOAD AND INSTALL NODE.JS

Make sure you are in your home directory

cd ~

Download node.js archive:(you could download the latest version although I haven't tested it with this setup).

curl -O http://nodejs.org/dist/node-v0.4.8.tar.gz

Un-archive node

tar xvf node-v0.4.8.tar.gz

Go into the newly created node directory

cd node-v0.4.8

Run the node configure command (you may want to look at http://www.codecoffee.com/tipsforlinux/articles/27.html for explanation of installing on Linux)

./configure

ERROR occurs as we don't have a c++ compiler installed on our AMI. It only installs the bare minimum!!

Download and install c++ compiler from the YUM repository.

sudo yum install gcc-c++

When prompted say 'y' to download

When prompted say 'y' to download again

Run the node configure command AGAIN

./configure

ERROR occurs as we don't have open ssl installed

Download and install openSSL from the YUM repository.

sudo yum install openssl-devel

When prompted say 'y' to download

Run the node configure command AGAIN

./configure

Success

Now we need to compile node

sudo make

ERROR make command not installed!!

Download and install 'make' from the YUM repository.

sudo yum install make

When prompted say 'y' to download

Now we need to try and compile node again ( this may take a while, 20 mins on my machine).

sudo make

Now we need to install node.js

sudo make install

Once install has finished, run node by typing:

node

We should have a node command prompt running… test it by adding some numbers:

5+4

We should get 9… Node is properly installed!!!

ctrl+c

This quits node and gets you back to the linux prompt

>> STEP 2 - DOWNLOAD AND INSTALL REDIS

Make sure you are in your home directory

cd ~

Download Redis

curl -O http://redis.googlecode.com/files/redis-2.2.1.tar.gz

Un-archive Redis

tar xvf redis-2.2.1.tar.gz

Go into the new redis directory

cd redis-2.2.1

Run the Redis make command

sudo make

Install Redis so we can access it anywhere

sudo make install

>> STEP 3 - DOWNLOAD AND INSTALL NODE PACKAGE MANAGER (NPM)

Make sure you are in your home directory

cd ~

We can't use the install script stated on their website as npm will not then work with the sudo command on the Amazon AMI. To get around this we need to first clone the git archive. This means installing git.

sudo yum install git

Make sure you are in your home directory

cd ~

Clone npm from the git repository

git clone git://github.com/isaacs/npm.git

Change to the npm directory

cd npm

Switch to root user

sudo -s

Set path to bin

PATH=/usr/local/bin:$PATH

Run installer

make install

Exit out of root user

exit

>> STEP 4 - SETUP INSTA.PLATFORM

Make sure you are in your home directory

cd ~

Clone insta.Platform from Github

git clone git://github.com/andrewsenter/Insta.Platform.git

Switch to the Insta.Platform directory

cd Insta.Platform

Need to install the required node module libraries using npm that we installed earlier. Install the following

npm install redis

npm install socket.io

npm install express

npm install ejs

npm install instagram-node-lib

npm install geo

Now we need to create a settings file. Make a copy of the example file and call it 'settings.js' using the following command

cp settings.example.js settings.js

Now edit the settings file using the vi editor

vi settings.js

Chnage the appPort setting from 3000 to 8080. Enter in your client id and client secret that you got from instagram when you registered your application. press esc followed by i to get to insert mode

Also enter in you callback url which in this instance should be the url to your AMI plus a port eg 8080 plus/callbacks

eg. http://ec2-XX-XXX-XXX-XX.eu-west-1.compute.amazonaws.com:8080/callbacks

Also enter your redirect url, which should be your AMI url plus a port plus callbacks/oauth

eg. http://ec2-XX-XXX-XXX-XX.eu-west-1.compute.amazonaws.com:8080/callbacks/oauth

Exit and save from vi. press esc, then : then x then return

Next edit the gloabl.js file using vi

vi public/static/scripts/global.js

Change the PUBSUB_SERVER variable to point at your AMI:press esc followed by i to get to insert mode

e.g. http://ec2-XX-XX-XXX-XX.eu-west-1.compute.amazonaws.com

Exit and save from vi. press esc, then : then x then return

>> STEP 5 - START THE SERVER

Make sure you are in the Insta.Platform directory

Start the redis server running using the insta platform config file in the con folder

redis-server conf/redis.conf

Permission error. we don't have permission to write to the /var/log directory as we are not root user. We'll create the file and give it write permissions so that redis will run.

Create the file using the root user

sudo vi /var/log/redis.log

Hit esc then i. Place a character in to make a change. exit and save esc, : x, return

Change the permission of that file so we can write to it

sudo chmod 777 /var/log/redis.log

Now we can run the redis server

redis-server conf/redis.conf

The redis server is now running in the background

Now start the node server

node server.js

Success the node server is now running

Goto your url

e.g http://ec2-XX-XX-XXX-XX.eu-west-1.compute.amazonaws.com:8080/

You should see your own instance of insta.Platform running!

Hopefully by this stage you should have everything running well. From here you can check out the code used to create the demo and then you could use this to create your own instagr.am real-time app, or simply use it as a way into the world of node.js, which is a great server for real-time apps in general.

As mentioned I am a front-end developer and so may have done things that don't follow best practice. Please let me know if I have done anything silly and I will rectify the post to reflect this.

I think that is enough now for my first blog post. Hopefully I should have some more (useful?) info at some point in the future.

#instaPlatform #node.js #AWS #Instagr.am #real-time

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