installing PHP module from Elastic Beanstalk - php

Question

I am trying to configure my AWS Elastic Beanstalk to work with mongo, all I need to do is install the mongo driver for PHP and update the php.ini file
To do this, usually I would ssh into the EC2 and run:
sudo pecl install mongo
But this would require using a custom AMI which isnt the best way to go.
It is better to use config files to install the software required onto the standard AMI.
So to do this, I have done the following:
created directory .ebextensions
created file mongo.config
in it I have put the following:
packages:
pecl: install mongo
However upon deployment, I get the following error:
"option_settings" in one of the configuration files failed validation. More details to follow.
and
'null' values are not allowed in templates
So I am wondering how this config file needs to be laid out in order to install the mongo extension?
I have read the info here: http://docs.aws.amazon.com/elasticbeanstalk/latest/dg/customize-containers-ec2.html
but I am not quite understanding how to do this specific task
Help would be appreciated , thanks! :)

Answer 1

pecl is not a valid package manager on Amazon Linux and therefore cannot be used under the packages key of an .ebextensions config.
To install a PECL package it is enough to add a single command under the commands key. To avoid that Beanstalk tries to install the extension twice on follow-up deployments add a PHP console command to the test key that checks if the extension is already installed:
commands:
install_mongo_driver:
command: pecl install mongo
test: "php -r \"exit(extension_loaded('mongo') ? 1 : 0);\""
If the test result is true, i.e. exit(0), then the command gets executed - otherwise not. Please note that a exit code of 0 means "No errors" in a shell context.
See also the description at http://docs.aws.amazon.com/elasticbeanstalk/latest/dg/customize-containers-ec2.html#customize-containers-format-commands.

Answer 2

I have figured it out and thought I would share what I found. Thanks to Hudku (http://blog.hudku.com/2013/02/innocuous-looking-evil-devil.html#elastic-beanstalk.config) for the excellent article:
1) Create myapp.config
2) enter the following into it
packages:
yum:
dos2unix: []
container_commands:
01-command:
command: rm -rf /myapp/ebextensions
02-command:
command: mkdir -p /myapp/ebextensions
03-command:
command: cp -R .ebextensions/* /myapp/ebextensions/
04-command:
command: dos2unix -k /myapp/ebextensions/mongo.sh
05-command:
command: chmod 700 /myapp/ebextensions/mongo.sh
06-command:
command: bash /myapp/ebextensions/mongo.sh
Then create mongo.sh file and put in it something like:
#!/bin/bash
if [ ! -f /mongostatus.txt ];
then
pecl install mongo
echo "mongo extension installed" > /mongostatus.txt
apachectl restart
fi
This will install mongo php extension and restart apache so the install takes affect.

Answer 3

I just accomplished the same thing thanks to the answer above, and figured out it can be done with less lines and less files for those interested...
# ~/project/.ebextensions/project.config
# Logger messages can be viewed in /var/log/messages
files:
"/tmp/test.sh":
content: |
# This file will be created and can then
# be executed by a command call below.
logger TEST FILE CALLED
commands:
01-command:
command: logger CALLING TEST FILE; sh /tmp/test.sh;