Build and Push Docker Image to AWS ECR Using GitHub Actions

In this article we are going to learn, Create Docker file for NodeJS App, Make a package.json file, Create Workflow in GitHub Actions, Create Repository AWS ECR, Create Secrets in GitHub, How to Build and Push Docker Image to AWS ECR Using GitHub Actions.

Pre-Requisites:

• Aws account
• You must have knowledge of GitHub, and Git commands
• Basic knowledge of GitHub actions, CI/CD, YAML

First of all you need to create new repository on GitHub or you can use your old repository also

Step#1:Create Docker file for NodeJS App

We have to make a Dockerfile for our application

FROM node:14

WORKDIR /usr/src/app

COPY package.json .
RUN npm install 
COPY . .

EXPOSE 3000

CMD ["node", "index.js"]

Step#2:Make a package.json file

We need to create a package.json using below code

{
    "name": "docker_nodejs_demo",
    "version": "1.0.0",
    "description": "",
    "main": "index.js",
    "scripts": {
      "test": "echo \"Error: no test specified\" && exit 1"
    },
    "keywords": [],
    "author": "",
    "license": "ISC",
    "dependencies": {
      "config": "^3.3.6",
      "express": "^4.17.1"
    }
  }

Step#3:Create Workflow in GitHub Actions

Now configure the GitHub Actions. For the Image building and pushing it to AWS ECR and here we are going to use a great tool from GitHub called GitHub Actions.

Now let’s create your workflow using below file:

name: Build and push image to ECR

on: push
  

jobs:
  
  build:
    
    name: Build Image
    runs-on: ubuntu-latest

   
    steps:

    - name: Check out code
      uses: actions/checkout@v2
    
    - name: Configure AWS credentials
      uses: aws-actions/configure-aws-credentials@v1
      with:
        aws-access-key-id: ${{ secrets.AWS_ACCESS_KEY_ID }}
        aws-secret-access-key: ${{ secrets.AWS_SECRET_ACCESS_KEY }}
        aws-region: ap-south-1

    - name: Login to Amazon ECR
      id: login-ecr
      uses: aws-actions/amazon-ecr-login@v1

    - name: Build, tag, and push image to Amazon ECR
      env:
        ECR_REGISTRY: ${{ steps.login-ecr.outputs.registry }}
        ECR_REPOSITORY: github-sample
        IMAGE_TAG: sample_image
      run: |
        docker build -t $ECR_REGISTRY/$ECR_REPOSITORY:$IMAGE_TAG .
        docker push $ECR_REGISTRY/$ECR_REPOSITORY:$IMAGE_TAG

Let’s understand our workflow first

Steps: Steps represent a sequence of tasks that will be executed as part of the job steps

Job: Name: Check out code

It job simply checks out our GitHub repository for “Dockerfile” to build the docker image

Job: Name: Configure AWS credentials

In this job we need to configure AWS login Credentials. For accessing the AWS ECR we need to define a custom Role in later steps.

Job:Name: Build, tag, and push image to Amazon ECR

In this step we are going to build the Docker Image by copying using the Code in our Repository, tagging the Image with Version and pushing Image to AWS ECR 

Step #4:Create Repository AWS ECR

Firstly go to your AWS account and go to ECR and then create a repository and fill the input field and create repository

After creating your ECR repository, go to your workflow and edit the field ECR_REPOSITORY, and enter the name of our ECR Repository

Step #5:Create Secrets in GitHub

Now to access our AWS ECR, so here we need to add AWS secrets for AWS_ACCESS_KEY_ID and AWS_SECRET_ACCESS_KEY

So go to the settings and create secrets and set them as Environment Variables.

Note: Your IAM user has proper valid IAM permissions. Your IAM user must have “AmazonEC2ContainerRegistryFullAccess”

Step #6:Build & Push Docker Image to AWS ECR Using GitHub Actions

Now let’s commit and push our code into our repository

Now our Job success

Now you can also open the ECR repository and check for the final image with the latest tag inside it.

we have covered How to Build and Push Docker Image to AWS ECR Using GitHub Actions.

Conclusions:

In this article we have covered Create Docker file for NodeJS App, Make a package.json file, Create Workflow in GitHub Actions, Create Repository AWS ECR, Create Secrets in GitHub, How to Build and Push Docker Image to AWS ECR Using GitHub Actions.

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Reference:

GitHub Actions AWS ECR page