Launch tg-app

testgrinder service will be discontinued on January 31, 2025

testgrinder SMPC was discontinued as of February 1, 2024

You can manage EC2 instances on the Instances page in AWS EC2 console at https://console.aws.amazon.com/ec2

Launch tg-app

Using the tg-app AMI (see Subscribing to testgrinder on AWS Marketplace for how to find it), launch an instance of tg-app while making the following choices:

• Name and tags:

  • Name: tg-app-x.y.z (where x.y.z are the tg-app version)

• Application and OS Images (Amazon Machine Image):

  • Make sure tg-app AMI is selected or choose a tg-app AMI

• Instance type

  • We recommend t3a.medium, but most instance types with architecture x86_64 and at least 4 GB of RAM should work

• Key pair (login):

  • Choose the key pair you identified or created earlier

• Network settings:

  • VPC: choose the VPC you created earlier

  • Subnet: choose a specific subnet or let AWS pick one for you

  • Auto-assign public IP: Enable

  • Firewall (security groups): Select existing security group: select the security group you created earlier for tg-app

• Configure storage:

  • 8 GB should be sufficient

• Advanced details:

  • IAM instance profile: choose the Role you created earlier for tg-app

  • Termination protection: Enable

  • User Data: leave empty for now for tg-app to autogenerate Configuration Files with default values. Later on you can package Configuration Files in User Data format to be pasted here and have tg-app auto-configure on launch when launching subsequent tg-app servers. This is especially useful when upgrading tg-app or if you manage tg-app instances with Auto Scaling Group. See more about User Data in Configuration Files

Launch the instance.

Confirm tg-app launch

Navigate to the launched instance in AWS console and copy its public IPv4 DNS address. After about a minute, navigate to the address in a browser using http protocol (e.g. http://my-tg-app-dns-name/) and you should see the testgrinder home page.

Often browsers will automatically switch to HTTPS and this will generate a security warning because tg-app comes with a self-signed SSL certificate which browsers don't trust. See Install SSL Certificate on how to install your own SSL certificate and eliminate the security warning. Your browser should give you an option to bypass the warning. Also you should be able to force your browser to communicate on HTTP without switching to HTTPS. See the browser's documentation on how to do it.

On the page you should see a message indicating that testgrinder setup is incomplete. You will resolve these later. The page should look like this:

testgrinder page after launching the tg-app instance with default configuration

Elastic IP Address

When tg-app launched as described above, it will be assigned a random IP address by AWS. This IP address will change if you stop and start the instance again. Since this also changes the instance's DNS name, testgrinder will stop responding to the browser requests but you will be able to connect to it via ssh to make configuration changes. To avoid IP address changes, consider assigning an Elastic IP address to the tg-app instance. For that:

• Allocate an Elastic IP address in AWS EC2 console

• Associate the EIP with the tg-app instance

• Map the EIP to a domain of your choosing in your DNS

• Update DOMAIN_WEB setting to match the domain (see Finalize Configuration File .env)

• If you want to use HTTPS: obtain and configure an SSL certificate that matches the domain (see Install SSL Certificate)

• Restart the tg-app server