Using PM2 with AWS Elastic Beanstalk

This page will guide you step by step through the PM2 integration in an AWS Elastic Beanstalk environment.

We will use Git and the Elastic Beanstalk CLI.

Prepare your app

Set your ecosystem file

Generate an ecosystem.config.js template with:

pm2 init

Change the template to suit your needs:

module.exports = {
  apps : [{
    name: "app",
    script: "./app.js",
    env: {
      NODE_ENV: "development",
    },
    env_production: {
      NODE_ENV: "production",
    }
  }]
}

Learn more about ecosystem file here.

Add PM2 as a module

Add pm2 as a dependency to your projet.

With npm:

npm install --save pm2

With yarn:

yarn add pm2

Set your package.json

In your package.json, modify the start script to:

{
  "scripts": {
    "start": "pm2-runtime start ecosystem.config.js --env production"
  }

Deploy with Elastic Beanstalk CLI

Create an account on AWS and get your access keys

Sign up for an account on AWS here.

In order to get access keys, you must create an IAM user. You can do that here.

Add a user:

Give it the programmatic access:

Select the ElasticBeanstalkFullAccess strategy:

Create the user and you will get your access keys:

Copy and paste your access-id and your secret-key in your AWS config file (~/.aws/config):

[profile eb-cli]
aws_access_key_id = YYYYYYYYYYYYY
aws_secret_access_key = XXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXX

Install the CLI

The CLI is available with pip, the python package manager:

pip3 install --upgrade --user awsebcli

Further instructions to install here.

Init your Elastic Beanstalk app

Run eb init -p Node.js to initialize your Node.js app:

eb init --profile eb-cli -p Node.js

Select a default region
2) us-west-1 : US West (N. California)

Select an application to use
[ Create new Application ]

Enter Application Name
eb-pm2-example
Application eb-pm2-example has been created.

Do you want to set up SSH for your instances?
(y/n): n

For a description of each option see the AWS example here

Create an Elastic Beanstalk environment

Each application can have many environments, which is useful to manage separate environments for development, testing or production.

Before creating an environment, make sure to commit your changes. The Elastic Beanstalk uses git archive to create a .zip file from the contents of the most recent git commit command.

To create a new environment, run the following:

eb create eb-pm2-example-env

List all available environments with:

eb list
eb-pm2-example-env

Get environment infos and status with:

eb status

Environment details for: eb-pm2-example-env
  Application name: eb-pm2-example
  Region: us-west-2
  Deployed Version: app-4408-180305
  Environment ID: e-gekedaw
  Platform: arn:aws:elasticbeanstalk:us-west-1::platform/Node.js running on 64bit Amazon Linux/4.4.5
  Tier: WebServer-Standard-1.0
  CNAME: eb-pm2-example.us-west-2.elasticbeanstalk.com
  Updated: 2018-02-19 23:51:59.259000+00:00
  Status: Ready
  Health: Green

Later, to deploy latest changes, commit them and run eb deploy <environment_name> or just eb deploy.

You are ready

That’s all! Run eb open to open your app in the browser.

Next Steps

Complete your configuration with the Ecosystem File.

Monitor your app on a web dashboard, with PM2 Plus.