AWS - Help

Overview

The platform runs on AWS with the following services:

Service	Purpose
ECS (EC2 launch type)	Container orchestration for app, nginx, blackbox
ECR	Docker image registry
S3	File storage (profile images, videos, documents, env configs)
CloudWatch	Container logging
CodeBuild	CI/CD build pipeline

AWS account details

Account ID: 170904582664
Region: eu-west-2 (London)
ECR Registry: 170904582664.dkr.ecr.eu-west-2.amazonaws.com

S3

Configuration

AWS_ACCESS_KEY_ID       — AWS access key
AWS_SECRET_ACCESS_KEY   — AWS secret key
AWS_DEFAULT_REGION      — AWS region
AWS_BUCKET              — S3 bucket name

Config: config/filesystems.php under s3 disk.

Storage layout

The S3 bucket tutorbloc-app stores:

Path	Content
Profile images	Tutor/student profile pictures
Profile videos	Tutor intro videos
DBS documents	DBS certificate images
Qualification documents	Education qualification images
Lesson note files	Files attached to lesson notes
`env-configurations/staging/.env`	Staging environment config
`env-configurations/production/.env`	Production environment config
APNS key files	Apple push notification certificates

File access patterns

Files are served via temporary signed S3 URLs — not direct public URLs:

// Profile images/videos: redirect to signed URL
GET /api/resources/profile-image/{id}    → 5-minute signed URL
GET /api/resources/profile-video/{id}    → 5-day signed URL

// Protected documents: requires auth
GET /api/resources/dbs-image/{id}        → 5-minute signed URL (auth:api)
GET /api/resources/qualification-image/{id} → 5-minute signed URL (auth:api)

File model

File: app/Models/File.php Uses UUID primary keys (non-incrementing strings), not auto-increment integers.

files
├── id (UUID string)
├── name
├── url
└── Polymorphic attachments via fileables table

ECS

Task definitions

Two environments, each running 3 containers: Production (production-taskdef.json):

Container	Image	Port	Memory
`app`	`tutorbloc.app:production`	9000	128 MB
`nginx`	`tutorbloc.app.nginx:production`	80	128 MB
`blackbox`	`tutorbloc.blackbox:production`	3000	128 MB

Staging (staging-taskdef.json):

Container	Image	Port	Memory
`app`	`tutorbloc.app:staging`	9000	128 MB
`nginx`	`tutorbloc.app.nginx:staging`	80, 443	128 MB
`blackbox`	`tutorbloc.blackbox:staging`	3000	128 MB

Environment file loading

ECS loads .env from S3 at container startup:

"environmentFiles": [{
  "value": "arn:aws:s3:::tutorbloc-app/env-configurations/production/.env",
  "type": "s3"
}]

Container startup

The app container (from Dockerfile) runs on startup:

php artisan migrate --force — run pending migrations
crond — start cron daemon for scheduled jobs
php-fpm — start PHP-FPM process

If a migration fails, the container fails to start. This can cause deployment issues if a migration has errors.

CloudWatch

Logging configured per container:

Log group: /ecs/production-app-ec2  (or /ecs/staging-app-ec2)
Region: eu-west-2
Stream prefix: ecs

All three containers (app, nginx, blackbox) log to the same CloudWatch group.

ECR images

Three images are pushed during CI/CD:

Image	Tag pattern
`tutorbloc.app`	`{env}`, `{env}-{build_number}`
`tutorbloc.app.nginx`	`{env}`, `{env}-{build_number}`
`redis`	`{env}`

The blackbox image is pulled separately (not built in CI/CD).

​Overview

​AWS account details

​S3

​Configuration

​Storage layout

​File access patterns

​File model

​ECS

​Task definitions

​Environment file loading

​Container startup

​CloudWatch

​ECR images

Overview

AWS account details

S3

Configuration

Storage layout

File access patterns

File model

ECS

Task definitions

Environment file loading

Container startup

CloudWatch

ECR images