Secure Your AWS Pipeline: Step-by-Step Guide to VPC Integration

Why Automate?

Picture this: Your team just kicked off a brand-new project. Everyone’s excited, but one big question is hanging over your head—how will you deploy all this code? You’ve been asked to set up a pipeline to handle the process. At first, it sounds straightforward, but you start thinking about what’s involved: testing, building, and deploying every time someone pushes a change.

Do you do it manually? That’s going to get messy fast.

This is where automation steps in to save the day. With a CICD pipeline, all those repetitive tasks—like testing and deploying—are handled for you. It’s like having a reliable assistant who never gets tired or makes mistakes. And as someone stepping into a DevOps role, knowing how to set this up isn’t just helpful—it’s essential.

In this article, you’ll gain hands-on experience building your first CICD pipeline using AWS CodePipeline and GitHub. Once your pipeline is set up, it will connect to private resources inside a VPC, ensuring secure deployment. You’ll also configure monitoring and an alarming system with CloudWatch and SNS topics to receive email notifications if a build fails, giving you a solid and dependable workflow from start to finish.

Now, let’s explore what CICD is all about. What is CICD?

CICD stands for Continuous Integration and Continuous Deployment.

Let’s break it down:

Continuous Integration (CI): This is about automatically integrating code changes from multiple developers into a single project. Every time you push new code, the system checks if it works with the existing codebase by running tests.

Continuous Deployment (CD): This step takes it further. After your code passes all tests, it gets deployed automatically to a live environment or staging environment.

Think of CICD as a chef in a busy restaurant. You prepare the ingredients (your code), and instead of making each dish from start to finish yourself, you have a kitchen team (the pipeline) handling the repetitive tasks like chopping, cooking, and plating. The result? Your dishes are prepared faster, consistently, and ready to be served (deployed) to your customers without any unnecessary delays or errors. And hey, unlike a real kitchen, this pipeline never burns the toast 😎. Now that we’ve got the basics, let’s dive deeper into AWS CodePipeline. 

What is AWS CodePipeline?

AWS CodePipeline is an AWS service that helps you automate the software release process. It’s like having a reliable kitchen team working behind the scenes while you focus on crafting your signature dish.

Here’s why it’s a big deal:

Automation: It takes care of repetitive tasks like building, testing, and deploying code for you.

Speed: CodePipeline helps you roll out features and updates faster than ever.

Integration: It plays nicely with tools like GitHub, CodeBuild, and other AWS services, making your workflow seamless and efficient.

With AWS CodePipeline, you don’t need to worry about manually deploying changes. Instead, you can focus on improving your code and delivering value to your users. Think of it like having a sous-chef who handles all the prep work for you, so you can focus on perfecting the final dish.

Why Should You Care?

Now, you might be wondering, Why does all this matter? Well, as someone stepping into a DevOps role, your goal is to bridge the gap between development and operations. Knowing how to set up a CICD pipeline is critical because:

1. It saves you time: Automated pipelines handle repetitive tasks, so you can focus on creating better features.

2. It reduces errors: By automating testing and deployment, you minimize the risk of human error.

3. It ensures consistency: Every build and deployment follows the same process, leading to more reliable results.

By understanding CICD and CodePipeline, you’re not just learning a skill; you're building a foundation for smoother, faster, and more reliable deployments. And here’s the exciting part: you’ll be using Terraform from start to finish to build this project, giving you a hands-on experience with infrastructure as code. Before we jump in, let’s take a moment to understand the monitoring tools we’ll be using:

CloudWatch: Think of this as the monitoring dashboard for your AWS resources. It keeps track of metrics, logs, and events, helping you spot and troubleshoot issues before they become bigger problems.

SNS (Simple Notification Service): This is the messenger. When something goes wrong—like a pipeline build failure—CloudWatch triggers an alarm, and SNS sends you an email (or another type of notification) to alert you. It’s like having an always-on assistant keeping you in the loop.

With these tools in place, we’ll keep an eye on operations and get immediate notifications if something breaks. Let’s get hands-on and start building your first pipeline.

GitHub Repository - Create a CICD Pipeline with Terraform Step-by-Step-Guide Set a reminder for the update or revisit this page in a few days. You're welcome to browse through other projects I've worked on in the meantime using this link.

Digram:

Code Previous:

resource "aws_codebuild_project" "my_project" {
  name          = "my-codebuild-project"
  description   = "My CodeBuild project"
  service_role  = aws_iam_role.codebuild_role.arn
  source {
    type      = "GITHUB"
    location  = "https://github.com/your-repo.git"  # Replace with your GitHub repository
  }
  artifacts {
    type = "NO_ARTIFACTS"
  }
  environment {
    compute_type                = "BUILD_GENERAL1_SMALL"
    image                       = "aws/codebuild/standard:5.0"
    type                        = "LINUX_CONTAINER"
    environment_variable {
      name  = "ENV_VAR_NAME"
      value = "value"
    }
  }
}

resource "aws_codepipeline" "my_pipeline" {
  name     = "my-codepipeline"
  role_arn = aws_iam_role.codepipeline_role.arn

  artifact_store {
    location = "my-artifact-store"  # Replace with your S3 bucket name
    type     = "S3"
  }

  stage {
    name = "Source"
    action {
      name            = "Source"
      category        = "Source"
      owner           = "ThirdParty"
      provider        = "GitHub"
      version         = "1"
      output_artifacts = ["source_output"]

      configuration = {
        Owner  = "your-github-username"
        Repo   = "your-repo"
        Branch = "main"
        OAuthToken = "your-oauth-token"  # Replace with your GitHub OAuth token
      }
    }
  }

  stage {
    name = "Build"
    action {
      name            = "Build"
      category        = "Build"
      owner           = "AWS"
      provider        = "CodeBuild"
      version         = "1"
      input_artifacts = ["source_output"]
      output_artifacts = ["build_output"]

      configuration = {
        ProjectName = aws_codebuild_project.my_project.name
      }
    }
  }
}

You’ve done an awesome job getting through this. Give yourself a break—you’ve earned it. And here’s the exciting part: this is just the beginning. In the next part of this series, we’ll dive into how to securely connect your pipeline to a production environment inside a subnet in a VPC. Plus, you’ll learn how to take security and automation to the next level.

Meanwhile, follow me on X and YouTube for more content about AWS, DevOps, and Terraform. I’d love to see what you create, so don’t hesitate to share your projects and questions.

See you in the next part!