| title | description | published | date | tags | editor | dateCreated |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
AWS hosted foundry scripted |
An automated deployment of a server on aws using AWS Cloudformation script |
true |
2023-06-22 16:10:35 UTC |
template, aws |
markdown |
2021-04-23 09:43:25 UTC |
NOTE: The AWS Free Tier provides 1GB of RAM. This is below the minimum requirements for a dedicated Foundry server. You run the risk of running out of RAM and Foundry crashing, especially on heavier game systems, using many modules, or importing a lot of content into a world.
This community guide appears to be unmaintained. If you used this guide and are encountering issues, you can try contacting the author at their github or on Discord as described below. {.is-warning}
Following this page you will create a server on AWS with an API Gateway to manage starting and stopping. If you don't know what an API is: In this case it is simply a URL you use to start and stop your machine and to add the IP adresses for you and your friends to your storage (s3) and to your server (so only you and your friends can use it) As a result if you have a domain registered in AWS Route53 named myexample.com. You can create a server called https://foundry.myexample.com and your API will be manage-https://foundry.myexample.com/start, https://manage-foundry.myexample.com/stop, https://manage-foundry.myexample.com/register (for /register you'll get instructions as you call the URL). Sometimes the start will take a bit longer, if you get a page saying 502 then just wait for 5 seconds and try eiter /start or foundry again.
Based on the two excellent tutorials on this wiki: Self-Hosting-on-AWS and Ubuntu-VM I scripted their solutions using cloudformation. You only need to get a few values to fill (will point out where to find them) in the script:
- EC2 AMI
- EC2 instancetype
- Hosted Zone ID
- Domain name
- Email (for the certificate)
- The foundry installation link
- VPC Id
- AdminIPs (this will be used to only allow your API getting called from these adresses)
If you know how and where to get these skip to the deployment step. Here is the script: template.yml
If you are new to AWS you'll be eligible for free tier. Free tier allows you 750 hour of ec2 usage for a specific type per month for the first year using AWS. for most regions that is t2.micro (so that is the default), exception being Stockholm and Bahrain where you should use t3.micro. If you are not eligable for free tier you may want to use another type, for me t3a.micro is cheaper and better.
Take the ami for ubuntu, go to ec2 and click on launch instances retrieve the ami ubuntu 20.04 
for
If you don't have a domain in route 53 yet, you should get one now (or move it here, cost for dns record is 50 cent per month. So if you have a Domain named example.com you should input foundry.example.com in the parameters. It will add that record in the hosted zone as an alias (A) record.
!!IMPORTANT!! If you stop and start and ec2 you will get a new public ip address, you can update the A record in the hosted zone with the new IP address
The email address is used to request a certificate on your machine during initial provisioning. The certificate is self signed with certbot and is valid for 3 months (it is free) and you need to renew it after that period (will show how)
The link is only valid for 5 minutes, get this parameter last. You'll find it in your foundry account under purchased licenses. click on the link.
Every AWS account has a VPC in it to start, look it up under the VPC Service.
this is your IPv4 address, your api will only allow calls made from this these IPs. It will be in a format of 123.127.89.0 If you want to add more you can use a comma and put them together (no spaces): 123.127.89.0,53.127.89.0 you can find it on sites such as https://www.whatismyip.com/
Go to the cloudformation service. In the top right corner click on Create Stack and select the option "with new resources". Then click the button "Choose file" and upload the template. 
Following page enter all the parameters you've gathered and decide on a name for your cloudformation stack. And click next and check the checkboxes at the end and see your foundry instance get created.
Even after the stack is completed it will take a few minutes before everything in the script has finished. So be patient for a few minutes. The most likely issue to encounter is that the link for nodejs foundry is not downloaded properly. The stack should then fail. Simply make it again using a fresh DownloadURL.
If everything has succeeded and it is not working check the logs on the ec2. You connect to the ec2 as follows. You click on the connect button.
Once connected you can look at the logs generated during the setup, they are split up for readability's sake.
nano /var/log/initial-log.log
nano /var/log/start.log
nano /var/log/user-data.log
If you encounter an error that cannot be fixed by running it again please leave a comment with your error on my github: https://github.com/dirkvandooren/AWS_FoundryVTT/issues or send me a message on Discord @Dofthorn
To renew the certificate. make the security group for your ec2 temporarily reachable for HTTP and HTTPS by adding an entry for HTTP and one for HTTPS to your security group allowing 0.0.0.0/0
certbot renew
After it is renewed you should remove those entries
small bug to be fixed: if you restart the server your user "ssm-user" does not have the proper permissions to start foundry. if you login using the connect button and run these three lines your setup will be fixed and it will not happen again:
sudo chown ssm-user /home/ssm-user -R
pm2 start "node /home/ssm-user/foundry/resources/app/main.js --port=8080" --name "foundry"
pm2 save