Prezet + Bref + AWS Lambda for Lean Laravel Deployments

Prezet integrates seamlessly with traditional server-based Laravel deployments, such as those managed through Laravel Forge. In fact, the whole point of Prezet is to consolidate your content and application into a single deployment.

However, running a dedicated application server 24/7 solely to host a handful of articles can be cost-prohibitive, especially if you don't already have a Laravel application server and/or Laravel Forge subscription available.

In such scenarios, deploying your Laravel application to a serverless environment like AWS Lambda can be a cost-effective solution, especially when paired with Cloudflare Edge Cache.

While configuring a Laravel application to run on AWS Lambda can be complex, Bref makes it quick and easy.

#What is Bref?

Bref is a free open source project that leverages the Serverless Framework to quickly deploy PHP applications to AWS Lambda. It's designed to work seamlessly with popular PHP frameworks such as Symfony and Laravel.

#Configuring Bref for Prezet

The serverless framework relies on a serverless.yml file that defines the configuration for your application, such as the runtime, memory, environment variables, ancillary resources, etc. The framework then uses this file to scaffold all the necessary resources using AWS CloudFormation.

#1. Publish the Serverless Config File

Prezet provides a command to publish a serverless.yml file that includes most of the configurations needed to deploy your application (except for the HTTPS Certificate). You can generate this file by running:

1php artisan prezet:bref

This command performs the following actions:

1. Creates a serverless.yml file based on the Bref defaults, with additional Prezet-specific configurations:

   • Configures a CloudFront distribution to serve your application
   • Sets up an S3 bucket to store your blog content
   • Configures S3Sync to synchronize your content to the S3 bucket
   • Enables Binary Responses for dynamic image resizing
   • Adds the GD Extension layer for image manipulation

2. Installs the required PHP dependencies:

1'composer require league/flysystem-aws-s3-v3 league/flysystem-read-only bref/bref bref/extra-php-extensions bref/laravel-bridge'

3. Installs the necessary Node.js dependencies:

1npm install serverless-lift serverless-s3-sync serverless-api-gateway-throttling

#2. Issue an HTTPS certificate in ACM

Before deploying your application, you need to set up an HTTPS certificate for your domain. This can be done in the ACM (AWS Certificate Manager) by following this link.

Once the certificate has been issued you should Copy the certificate ARN into your serverless.yml file.

1constructs:
2  website:
3    domain: example.com
4    certificate: arn:aws:acm:us-east-1:000000000000:certificate/00000000-0000-0000-0000-000000000000 
5    type: server-side-website
6    assets:
7      '/build/*': public/build
8      '/favicon.ico': public/favicon.ico

#3. Serverless CLI Setup

If this is your first time using the Serverless Framework you need to install the Serverless CLI and add credentials for the AWS account you're deploying to. To do so follow the steps found in the Bref documentation.

#4. Deploy Your Application

With the Serverless CLI installed and your AWS credentials configured, you can deploy your application with the following command:

1serverless deploy

#5. Update DNS Records

After deployment, the serverless framework will output information about the associated CloudFront distribution including its CNAME record. Here's an example output of the deployment for this very website:

1...
2functions:
3  web: prezet-com-prod-web (39 MB)
4  artisan: prezet-com-prod-artisan (39 MB)
5website:
6  url: https://prezet.com
7  cname: d2ebm4fiptmrhs.cloudfront.net 

The final step is to update your DNS records to point your domain to the CNAME record for the CloudFront distribution. You can do this by creating a CNAME record in your DNS provider.

#Automated Deployments

After your initial setup and getting everything in place, it's highly recommended to run your deployments in a GitHub Action or other CI/CD pipeline. This ensures that no locally cached views, routes, resources, etc., are pushed to production.

#Example GitHub Action

For reference take a look at the GitHub Action that's used to deploy this documentation on prezet.com: github.com/.../.github/workflows/main.yml

#Required Secrets

To use this GitHub Action, you'll need to add the following secrets to your GitHub repository's environment:

• AWS_ACCESS_KEY_ID: Your AWS access key ID
• AWS_SECRET_ACCESS_KEY: Your AWS secret access key
• CLOUDFLARE_ZONE: Your Cloudflare zone ID
• CLOUDFLARE_TOKEN: Your Cloudflare API token

Make sure to set these secrets in your GitHub repository settings before running the action.

#Troubleshooting

If you experience a ERR_TOO_MANY_REDIRECTS error when using cloudflare make sure that your SSL/TLS encryption on Cloudflare is set to Full.