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Now that you have your Docker images ready, we need to publish them to a registry and package them via Helm charts. If you don’t have a Docker image, see the I don’t have a Docker image section to create images.

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Prerequisites

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Publish Docker images to AWS ECR

You can push your container images to an Amazon ECR repository with the docker push command. Before pushing the images, the Amazon ECR repository must exist. For more information, refer to the AWS official guide for creating repositories.

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Authentication

We must authenticate the Docker client to the Amazon ECR registry to which we want to push the image. Authentication should be done for each registry used, and the tokens are valid for 12 hours. To authenticate Docker to an Amazon ECR registry, run the aws ecr get-login-password command and then pass the authentication token to the docker login command. If you want to authenticate to multiple registries, you must repeat the command for each registry. 
aws ecr get-login-password --region <AWS_REGION> \
| docker login --username AWS \
--password-stdin <AWS_ACCOUNT_ID>.dkr.ecr.<AWS_REGION>.amazonaws.com

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Manual build and push docker images

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Preparing the images

Ideally, it is recommended to write a Makefile or any scripts to automate the following process. For convenience throughout the guide, let’s export some environment variables to the shell, which we will be referring to in the commands we use. 
export IMAGE_VERSION=0.0.1 \
  APP_NAME=my-app \
  AWS_ACC_NO=123456789012 \
  ECR_REGION=us-east-1 \
  ECR_REPO=my-app-repo
The following is an example reference of how to set environment variables in Windows and Linux and use them:
Export the variable to the shell:
  • Linux
  • Windows (CMD)
  • Windows (Powershell)
bash export IMAGE_VERSION=1.0.0 APP_NAME=my-app
Using the environment variable:
  • Linux
  • Windows (CMD)
  • Windows (Powershell)
docker build -t $APP_NAME:$IMAGE_VERSION .
For simplicity’s sake, we will be using Linux references throughout the guide.

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Building the image

Use the docker build command to build the images and tag the image with your app name and version. 
docker build \
  --platform linux/amd64 \
  -t $APP_NAME:$IMAGE_VERSION .
Now, you can check the tag we created using the command: 
docker image ls
If your APP_NAME is my-app and IMAGE_VERSION is v1.0.0, it would print the following: 
REPOSITORY     TAG         IMAGE ID       CREATED              SIZE
my-app         v1.0.0      4daf08897bf2   About a minute ago   136MB

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Tagging the image

Once the app is built, tag your image with the combination of the Amazon ECR registry, repository, and image tag to use. The registry format is <AWS_ACCOUNT_ID>.dkr.ecr.<AWS_REGION>.amazonaws.com. Run the following commands to create two tags: 
docker tag $APP_NAME:$IMAGE_VERSION \
  $AWS_ACC_NO.dkr.ecr.$ECR_REGION.amazonaws.com/$ECR_REPO:$IMAGE_VERSION

docker tag $APP_NAME:$IMAGE_VERSION \
  $AWS_ACC_NO.dkr.ecr.$ECR_REGION.amazonaws.com/$ECR_REPO:latest
The repository name should match the repository that you created for your image.
We create two tags here since we use versioning. The first one is to tag the image with the version we have built, and the latter is to mark the recently pushed image as latest. The latest tag should always point to the recently pushed stable image.

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Push the image to ECR

Once the images are tagged, push them to ECR by running the following commands: 
docker push $AWS_ACC_NO.dkr.ecr.$ECR_REGION.amazonaws.com/$ECR_REPO:latest

docker push $AWS_ACC_NO.dkr.ecr.$ECR_REGION.amazonaws.com/$ECR_REPO:$IMAGE_VERSION
You can find more information on publishing to AWS in their official guide. Congratulations!🚀 You have successfully pushed your Docker image to an AWS ECR private repository.

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Build and push docker images with Github Actions

If you are using Github, you can use Github Actions to build and push your images to AWS ECR. Here is an example workflow: 
name: Push the Docker image to AWS ECR Repo
on:
  push:
    tags:
      - v*

jobs:
  Build:
    name: Build
    runs-on: ubuntu-latest
    steps:
      - name: Checkout
        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 the image to Amazon ECR
        id: build-image
        env:
          ECR_REGISTRY: ${{ steps.login-ecr.outputs.registry }}
          ECR_REPOSITORY: ${{ secrets.REPO_NAME }}
          IMAGE_TAG: ${{ github.ref_name }}
        run: |
          docker build -t $ECR_REGISTRY/$ECR_REPOSITORY:$IMAGE_TAG .
          docker push $ECR_REGISTRY/$ECR_REPOSITORY:$IMAGE_TAG
          docker push $ECR_REGISTRY/$ECR_REPOSITORY:latest
or, If you want to push on every commit, you can use the following workflow: 
name: Push the Docker image to AWS ECR Repo
on:
  push:
    branches:
      - main

jobs:
  Build:
    runs-on: ubuntu-latest
    steps:
      # ... same upto Login to Amazon ECR

      - name: Get commit hash
        id: get-commit-hash
        run: echo "::set-output name=commit-hash::$(git rev-parse --short HEAD)"

      - name: Get timestamp
        id: get-timestamp
        run: echo "::set-output name=timestamp::$(date +'%Y-%m-%d-%H-%M')"

      - name: Build, tag, and push the image to Amazon ECR
        id: build-image
        env:
          ECR_REGISTRY: ${{ steps.login-ecr.outputs.registry }}
          ECR_REPOSITORY: ${{ secrets.REPO_NAME }}
          IMAGE_TAG: ${{ steps.get-commit-hash.outputs.commit-hash }}-${{ steps.get-timestamp.outputs.timestamp }}
        run: |
          docker build -t $ECR_REGISTRY/$ECR_REPOSITORY:$IMAGE_TAG .
          docker push $ECR_REGISTRY/$ECR_REPOSITORY:$IMAGE_TAG
          docker push $ECR_REGISTRY/$ECR_REPOSITORY:latest
These examples are provided for customization based on your specific use case. While the examples use long-term credentials for authentication, it is recommended to use OpenID Connect (OIDC) for enhanced security. For more information, refer to the guide on Configuring OpenID Connect in Amazon Web Services.

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Prepare a Helm chart

Helm is like a package manager for Kubernetes, which coordinates the download, installation, and deployment of apps. Helm charts are the way we can define an application as a collection of related Kubernetes resources. In LocalOps, packaging the application as Helm makes deployments, updates, and managing your application a breeze. You can refer to the node-react app tutorial to see how to prepare a Helm chart for a Node.js application. You can also refer to other tutorials for references to create your Helm chart.

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Package a Helm chart

Once you have prepared your Helm chart, you need to package it. Packaging a Helm directory as a Helm chart involves creating a .tgz (tarball) file that contains your Helm chart. This file can then be easily shared, versioned, and deployed. Here are the steps to package your Helm chart:
The below steps require the Helm CLI to be installed. If it is not already installed, please refer to this article for installation instructions.
From the root of the Helm directory, run the following command: 
helm package . -d .tmp
The above command will package the Helm chart into a file named <chart_name>-<chart_version>.tgz, which will be saved in the .tmp directory.