Laravel

AWS – ECS Keeps Recreating Docker Container

Today was a strange day. I’ve launched a new version of my docker image within an ECS cluster, which usually worked fine. However, today my container always got recreated every 5 minutes for no reason.

The new docker image that I have pushed to the repository had no significant changes, except a redirect from non-SSL ( 80 ) to SSL ( 443 ) for all loaded virtual hosts. So, when I had a look at the processes, everything looked fine. There was nothing that could put the container into an unhealthy status.

PID   USER     TIME  COMMAND
    1 root      0:02 {supervisord} /usr/bin/python2 /usr/bin/supervisord -c /etc/supervisord.conf
    8 root      0:00 nginx: master process /usr/sbin/nginx -g daemon off;
    9 root      0:00 {mysqld.sh} /bin/sh /scripts/mysqld.sh
   10 root      0:00 /usr/sbin/crond -f
   13 nginx     0:13 nginx: worker process
   35 root      0:00 {php-fpm7.1} php-fpm: master process (/etc/php/7.1/php-fpm.conf)
   90 root      0:00 {mysqld_safe} /bin/sh /usr/bin/mysqld_safe --datadir=/var/lib/mysql
  288 mysql     0:08 /usr/bin/mysqld --basedir=/usr --datadir=/var/lib/mysql --plugin-dir=/usr/lib/mariadb/plugin --user=mysql --log-error=/var/lib/mysql/f817894c1752.err --pid-file=f817894c1752.pid --socket=/var/run/my
 3620 www-data  0:06 {php-fpm7.1} php-fpm: pool www
 3621 www-data  0:05 {php-fpm7.1} php-fpm: pool www
 3668 www-data  0:02 {php-fpm7.1} php-fpm: pool www
 3795 root      0:00 bash
 3807 root      0:00 ps aux

PID USER TIME COMMAND

1 root 0:02 {supervisord} /usr/bin/python2 /usr/bin/supervisord -c /etc/supervisord.conf

8 root 0:00 nginx: master process /usr/sbin/nginx -g daemon off;

9 root 0:00 {mysqld.sh} /bin/sh /scripts/mysqld.sh

10 root 0:00 /usr/sbin/crond -f

13 nginx 0:13 nginx: worker process

35 root 0:00 {php-fpm7.1} php-fpm: master process (/etc/php/7.1/php-fpm.conf)

90 root 0:00 {mysqld_safe} /bin/sh /usr/bin/mysqld_safe --datadir=/var/lib/mysql

288 mysql 0:08 /usr/bin/mysqld --basedir=/usr --datadir=/var/lib/mysql --plugin-dir=/usr/lib/mariadb/plugin --user=mysql --log-error=/var/lib/mysql/f817894c1752.err --pid-file=f817894c1752.pid --socket=/var/run/my

3620 www-data 0:06 {php-fpm7.1} php-fpm: pool www

3621 www-data 0:05 {php-fpm7.1} php-fpm: pool www

3668 www-data 0:02 {php-fpm7.1} php-fpm: pool www

3795 root 0:00 bash

3807 root 0:00 ps aux

Even the log output of the docker container didn’t show any error. After a little bit of research, I ended up on the following AWS developer guide page https://docs.aws.amazon.com/AmazonECS/latest/developerguide/update-service.html

When the service scheduler replaces a task during an update, the service first removes the task from the load balancer (if used) and waits for the connections to drain. Then, the equivalent of docker stop is issued to the containers running in the task. This results in a SIGTERM signal and a 30-second timeout, after which SIGKILL is sent and the containers are forcibly stopped. If the container handles the SIGTERM signal gracefully and exits within 30 seconds from receiving it, no SIGKILL signal is sent. The service scheduler starts and stops tasks as defined by your minimum healthy percent and maximum percent settings.

When the service scheduler replaces a task during an update, the service first removes the task from the load balancer (if used) and waits for the connections to drain. Then, the equivalent of docker stop is issued to the containers running in the task. This results in a SIGTERM signal and a 30-second timeout, after which SIGKILL is sent and the containers are forcibly stopped. If the container handles the SIGTERM signal gracefully and exits within 30 seconds from receiving it, no SIGKILL signal is sent. The service scheduler starts and stops tasks as defined by your minimum healthy percent and maximum percent settings.

It was not exactly what I was looking for, but it pretty much explained the problem I had. One of my colleagues said I should maybe have a look at the health checks of the load balancer.

Indeed, when I had a look at the settings in EC2 > Load Balancing > Target Groups > Health Checks the health check expected a success code 200 instead of 301 on port 80. Because of that, the container has been marked unhealthy every 5 minutes.

I hope this will point someone in the right direction.

Octopus – Couldn’t find a valid ICU package installed on the system

This morning I created a new ECS environment and tried to deploy a Laravel project on it.

   __|  __|  __|
   _|  (   \__ \   Amazon Linux 2 (ECS Optimized)
 ____|\___|____/

For documentation, visit http://aws.amazon.com/documentation/ecs
4 package(s) needed for security, out of 18 available

__| __| __|

_| ( \__ \ Amazon Linux 2 (ECS Optimized)

____|\___|____/

For documentation, visit http://aws.amazon.com/documentation/ecs

4 package(s) needed for security, out of 18 available

So far so good, until one of the deployment steps got stuck in Octopus because of the following error.

Process terminated. Couldn't find a valid ICU package installed on the system. Set the configuration flag System.Globalization.Invariant to true if you want to run with no globalization support.

1	Process terminated. Couldn't find a valid ICU package installed on the system. Set the configuration flag System.Globalization.Invariant to true if you want to run with no globalization support.

While looking for a solution, I’ve noticed that I forgot to install the package libicu on the new ECS machine that was required during the deployment process.

$ sudo yum install libicu
Loaded plugins: priorities, update-motd, upgrade-helper
Package libicu-50.2-4.amzn2.x86_64 already installed and latest version

$ sudo yum install libicu

Loaded plugins: priorities, update-motd, upgrade-helper

Package libicu-50.2-4.amzn2.x86_64 already installed and latest version

After installing the missing package, I was able to deploy again without errors.

October CMS – Execute Console Commands Sequentially

In this tutorial, I am going to show you how to execute long running PHP processes sequentially in October CMS from anywhere of your code.

First, you must define a default driver, which is pretty much a handler for managing how to run a queued job, identifying whether the jobs succeeded or failed, and trying the job again. In October CMS, the driver settings are located in the file in ./config/queue.php.

<?php

return [

    /*
    |-------------------------------------------------------------------------
    | Default Queue Driver
    |-------------------------------------------------------------------------
    |
    | The Laravel queue API supports a variety of back-ends via an unified
    | API, giving you convenient access to each back-end using the same
    | syntax for each one. Here you may set the default queue driver.
    |
    | Supported: "null", "sync", "database", "beanstalkd",
    |            "sqs", "iron", "redis"
    |
    */

    'default' => 'database',

<?php

return [

|-------------------------------------------------------------------------

| Default Queue Driver

|-------------------------------------------------------------------------

| The Laravel queue API supports a variety of back-ends via an unified

| API, giving you convenient access to each back-end using the same

| syntax for each one. Here you may set the default queue driver.

| Supported: "null", "sync", "database", "beanstalkd",

| "sqs", "iron", "redis"

'default' => 'database',

If you are new to this, I recommend to start with the database driver. This driver is good enough to execute your console commands synchronously in the background without slowing down your PHP calls. As a next step, you have to register a custom console command in your Plugin.php file. For example company.pluginname.

/**
 * Register console commands
 */
public function register() {

    $this->registerConsoleCommand('company.pluginname', 'Company\Pluginname\Console\Test');
}

/**

* Register console commands

public function register() {

$this->registerConsoleCommand('company.pluginname', 'Company\Pluginname\Console\Test');

}

For test purposes, I created a console command company.pluginname which will execute the method backupList.

bash-4.4# php artisan company:pluginname 123 --customer=list
Parameter ID 123 passed.

1 2	bash-4.4# php artisan company:pluginname 123 --customer=list Parameter ID 123 passed.

<?php namespace Company\Pluginname\Console;

use Illuminate\Console\Command;
use Symfony\Component\Console\Input\InputOption;
use Symfony\Component\Console\Input\InputArgument;

class Test extends Command
{
    /**
     * @var string The console command name.
     */
    protected $name = 'company:pluginname';

    /**
     * @var int
     */
    protected $customerId = 0;

    /**
     * @var string
     */
    protected $description = 'No description provided yet...';

    /**
     *
     */
    public function backupList()
    {
        $this->output->writeln(sprintf('Parameter ID %s passed.', $this->customerId));
        
        // Call API
        // Compress response and save on disk
        // Write information into Log table
    }

    /**
     * Execute the console command.
     * @return void
     */
    public function handle()
    {
        $this->customerId = $this->argument('customerId');

        $option = $this->option('customer');

        $args = explode(',', $option);

        if (in_array('list', $args)) {
            $this->backupList();
        }
    }

    /**
     * Get the console command arguments.
     * @return array
     */
    protected function getArguments()
    {
        return [
            ['customerId', InputArgument::REQUIRED, '(Required) Customer Id']
        ];
    }

    /**
     * Get the console command options.
     * @return array
     */
    protected function getOptions()
    {
        return [
            ['customer', null, InputOption::VALUE_REQUIRED, 'An example option.', null],
            ['queue', null, InputOption::VALUE_OPTIONAL, 'An example option.', null]
        ];
    }
}

<?php namespace Company\Pluginname\Console;

use Illuminate\Console\Command;

use Symfony\Component\Console\Input\InputOption;

use Symfony\Component\Console\Input\InputArgument;

class Test extends Command

{

/**

* @var string The console command name.

protected $name = 'company:pluginname';

/**

* @var int

protected $customerId = 0;

/**

* @var string

protected $description = 'No description provided yet...';

/**

public function backupList()

{

$this->output->writeln(sprintf('Parameter ID %s passed.', $this->customerId));

// Call API

// Compress response and save on disk

// Write information into Log table

}

/**

* Execute the console command.

* @return void

public function handle()

{

$this->customerId = $this->argument('customerId');

$option = $this->option('customer');

$args = explode(',', $option);

if (in_array('list', $args)) {

$this->backupList();

}

/**

* Get the console command arguments.

* @return array

protected function getArguments()

{

return [

['customerId', InputArgument::REQUIRED, '(Required) Customer Id']

];

}

/**

* Get the console command options.

* @return array

protected function getOptions()

{

return [

['customer', null, InputOption::VALUE_REQUIRED, 'An example option.', null],

['queue', null, InputOption::VALUE_OPTIONAL, 'An example option.', null]

];

}

Let’s assume you have a front-end controller http://yourpage.dev/customer/list that calls an API, creates a list and saves it on disk. Executing all these steps can be time-consuming and simply slow down your controller. Instead, you can run such processes in the background with Artisan::queue.

<?php namespace Company\Pluginname\Controllers;

use Illuminate\Routing\Controller;
use Illuminate\Support\Facades\Artisan;

class Customer extends Controller
{
    public function list($id)
    {
        Artisan::queue('company:pluginname', [
            'customerId' => 123,
            '--customer' => 'list',
            '--queue' => 'default'
        ]);
    }
}

<?php namespace Company\Pluginname\Controllers;

use Illuminate\Routing\Controller;

use Illuminate\Support\Facades\Artisan;

class Customer extends Controller

{

public function list($id)

{

Artisan::queue('company:pluginname', [

'customerId' => 123,

'--customer' => 'list',

'--queue' => 'default'

]);

}

As soon as you hit the controller, artisan will queue a new record in the table jobs and wait until a queue worker executes the job. You just have to make sure that a Queue Worker is running in the background, otherwise jobs won’t get executed.

bash-4.4# php artisan queue:work --tries=3
[2020-04-14 04:11:52] Processing: Illuminate\Foundation\Console\QueuedCommand
[2020-04-14 04:11:54] Processed:  Illuminate\Foundation\Console\QueuedCommand
[2020-04-14 04:11:54] Processing: Illuminate\Foundation\Console\QueuedCommand
[2020-04-14 04:11:55] Processed:  Illuminate\Foundation\Console\QueuedCommand
[2020-04-14 04:11:55] Processing: Illuminate\Foundation\Console\QueuedCommand
[2020-04-14 04:12:14] Processed:  Illuminate\Foundation\Console\QueuedCommand

bash-4.4# php artisan queue:work --tries=3

[2020-04-14 04:11:52] Processing: Illuminate\Foundation\Console\QueuedCommand

[2020-04-14 04:11:54] Processed: Illuminate\Foundation\Console\QueuedCommand

[2020-04-14 04:11:54] Processing: Illuminate\Foundation\Console\QueuedCommand

[2020-04-14 04:11:55] Processed: Illuminate\Foundation\Console\QueuedCommand

[2020-04-14 04:11:55] Processing: Illuminate\Foundation\Console\QueuedCommand

[2020-04-14 04:12:14] Processed: Illuminate\Foundation\Console\QueuedCommand

I recommend to start a queue worker with Supervisor which is well explained on https://medium.com/@rohit_shirke/configuring-supervisor-for-laravel-queues-81e555e550c6

October CMS – How To Use Models In Custom Components

Components in October CMS can be used for custom output, such as JavaScript snippets, dynamic content from a web service or models. Components can also handle AJAX requests or other incoming data. In this tutorial, I will simply show you how to register a new component and output a list with records from the users table.

First of all, you have to register a new component in your Plugin.php file. For example, users.

<?php namespace Playground\Sandbox;

use System\Classes\PluginBase;
use System\Classes\SettingsManager;

class Plugin extends PluginBase
{

    /**
     * Register Component
     *
     * @return array
     */
    public function registerComponents()
    {
        return [
            'Playground\Sandbox\Components\Users' => 'users'
        ];
    }
}

<?php namespace Playground\Sandbox;

use System\Classes\PluginBase;

use System\Classes\SettingsManager;

class Plugin extends PluginBase

{

/**

* Register Component

* @return array

public function registerComponents()

{

return [

'Playground\Sandbox\Components\Users' => 'users'

];

}

Create the following structure within the components folder which must contain the file Users.php and users/default.htm.

.
└── playground
    └── sandbox
        ├── Plugin.php
        ├── components
        │   ├── Users.php
        │   └── users
        │       └── default.htm

└── playground

└── sandbox

├── Plugin.php

├── components

│ ├── Users.php

│ └── users

│ └── default.htm

Below you will find the content for the default.htm file which will basically output a list of all users.

<div class="list-users">
    {% for person in __SELF__.getPeople %}
        {{ person.username }} {{ person.email }}
    {% endfor %}
</div>

{% for person in __SELF__.getPeople %}

{% endfor %}

</div>

The Users.php file only requires a method getPeople and a reference to the new model, called UsersModel.

<?php namespace Playground\Sandbox\Components;

use Cms\Classes\ComponentBase;
use Playground\Sandbox\Models\Users as UsersModel;

class Users extends ComponentBase
{
    /**
     * Define component details.
     *
     * @return array
     */
    public function componentDetails()
    {
        return [
            'name' => 'playground.sandbox::lang.plugin.name',
            'description' => 'playground.sandbox::lang.plugin.description'
        ];
    }

    public function getPeople()
    {
        return (new UsersModel())->getPeople();
    }
}

<?php namespace Playground\Sandbox\Components;

use Cms\Classes\ComponentBase;

use Playground\Sandbox\Models\Users as UsersModel;

class Users extends ComponentBase

{

/**

* Define component details.

* @return array

public function componentDetails()

{

return [

'name' => 'playground.sandbox::lang.plugin.name',

'description' => 'playground.sandbox::lang.plugin.description'

];

}

public function getPeople()

{

return (new UsersModel())->getPeople();

}

In order to access a model, you must create one within the models folder.

├── models
│   └── Users.php

1 2	├── models │ └── Users.php

For test purposes, I simply return all records from the users table.

<?php namespace Playground\Sandbox\Models;

use Model;

/**
 * Class Users
 * @package Playground\Sandbox\Models
 */
class Users extends Model
{
    /**
     * @var string The database table used by the model.
     */
    public $table = 'users';

    /**
     * Return all records from users table.
     *
     * @return mixed
     */
    public function getPeople()
    {
        return self::all();
    }
}

<?php namespace Playground\Sandbox\Models;

use Model;

/**

* Class Users

* @package Playground\Sandbox\Models

class Users extends Model

{

/**

* @var string The database table used by the model.

public $table = 'users';

/**

* Return all records from users table.

* @return mixed

public function getPeople()

{

return self::all();

}

Now you can use the new component anywhere in your template files. I recommend to use [users] in your parent template file, because it will allow you to use the component in your child templates.

description = "Default layout"

[users]
==
<!doctype html>
<html lang="en">
<head>
</head>
<body>

<section id="body">
    <div class="wrapper">
        {% component 'users' %}
    </div>
</section>

{% scripts %}
{% framework extras %}
</body>

</html>

description = "Default layout"

[users]

<!doctype html>

<head>

</head>

<body>

{% component 'users' %}

</div>

</section>

{% scripts %}

{% framework extras %}

</body>

</html>

After a page reload, should you immediately see the list.

For more information, check out https://octobercms.com/docs/cms/components. The source code of this tutorial can be found on https://github.com/tobias-forkel/october-cms-playground

Laravel – Carbon and Queries

Carbon is probably the most effective way to handle DateTime strings flawlessly and implement PHP code that everybody can easily extend or debug.

echo Carbon::now()->subMinutes(2)->diffForHumans(); // '2 minutes ago'

1	echo Carbon::now()->subMinutes(2)->diffForHumans(); // '2 minutes ago'

In the following example, I would like to demonstrate how you can filter a collection in Laravel by using Carbon. As you can see, the below example will simply return all People who have registered in the past two weeks.

$from = Carbon::now()->subWeeks(2);
$to = Carbon::now();

$people = (new People())
    ->whereBetween('registered_at', [$from, $to])
    ->orderBy('registered_at', 'desc')
    ->get();

$from = Carbon::now()->subWeeks(2);

$to = Carbon::now();

$people = (new People())

->whereBetween('registered_at', [$from, $to])

->orderBy('registered_at', 'desc')

->get();

The method subWeeks() will do all the work for you and return a valid DateTime string from 14 days ago which can be used for the whereBetween query method. If you prefer using days, you can simply use subDays() instead.

One possible use case could be a front-end controller that handles AJAX requests.

<?php namespace Your\Plugin\Controllers\Frontend;

use Illuminate\Routing\Controller;
use Your\Plugin\Models\People;
use Response;
use Carbon\Carbon;

class Work extends Controller
{

    public function index($weeks)
    {
        try {

            $from = Carbon::now()->subWeeks($weeks);
            $to = Carbon::now();

            $people = (new People())
                ->whereBetween('registered_at', [$from, $to])
                ->orderBy('registered_at', 'desc')
                ->get()
                ->toArray();

            return Response::json($people, 200)->send();
        }

        catch (\Exception $ex) {
            $ex->getMessage();
        }
    }
}

<?php namespace Your\Plugin\Controllers\Frontend;

use Illuminate\Routing\Controller;

use Your\Plugin\Models\People;

use Response;

use Carbon\Carbon;

class Work extends Controller

{

public function index($weeks)

{

try {

$from = Carbon::now()->subWeeks($weeks);

$to = Carbon::now();

$people = (new People())

->whereBetween('registered_at', [$from, $to])

->orderBy('registered_at', 'desc')

->get()

->toArray();

return Response::json($people, 200)->send();

}

catch (\Exception $ex) {

$ex->getMessage();

}

PHP message: PHP Fatal error: Interface ‘SessionHandlerInterface’ not found in /var/www/src/vendor/ laravel/framework/src/Illuminate/Session/FileSessionHandler.php on line 10

Today I successfully installed my first October CMS project locally via composer / command line. The installation was pretty straightforward and worked surprisingly well on my Alpine Linux docker container which includes NGINX, PHP-FPM and MariaDB.

October.Demo
- v1.0.1:  First version of Demo
Seeded System 
Seeded Backend 
.=========================================.
                ,@@@@@@@,                  
        ,,,.   ,@@@@@@/@@,  .oo8888o.      
     ,&%%&%&&%,@@@@@/@@@@@@,8888\88/8o     
    ,%&\%&&%&&%,@@@\@@@/@@@88\88888/88'    
    %&&%&%&/%&&%@@\@@/ /@@@88888\88888'    
    %&&%/ %&%%&&@@\ V /@@' `88\8 `/88'     
    `&%\ ` /%&'    |.|        \ '|8'       
        |o|        | |         | |         
        |.|        | |         | |         
`========= INSTALLATION COMPLETE ========='

October.Demo

- v1.0.1: First version of Demo

Seeded System

Seeded Backend

.=========================================.

,@@@@@@@,

,,,. ,@@@@@@/@@, .oo8888o.

,&%%&%&&%,@@@@@/@@@@@@,8888\88/8o

,%&\%&&%&&%,@@@\@@@/@@@88\88888/88'

%&&%&%&/%&&%@@\@@/ /@@@88888\88888'

%&&%/ %&%%&&@@\ V /@@' `88\8 `/88'

`&%\ ` /%&' |.| \ '|8'

|o| | | | |

|.| | | | |

`========= INSTALLATION COMPLETE ========='

However, when I tried to open the front-end I got the following error.

PHP message: PHP Fatal error:  Interface 'SessionHandlerInterface' not found in /var/www/src/vendor/laravel/framework/src/Illuminate/Session/FileSessionHandler.php on line 10

1	PHP message: PHP Fatal error: Interface 'SessionHandlerInterface' not found in /var/www/src/vendor/laravel/framework/src/Illuminate/Session/FileSessionHandler.php on line 10

After a quick research I found the solution on Stackoverflow. I basically forgot to install the PHP extension php7-session inside my docker container. I manually installed the missing extension, but also updated my Dockerfile in case I have to rebuild my container.

bash-4.4# apk add php7-session
fetch http://dl-cdn.alpinelinux.org/alpine/v3.7/main/x86_64/APKINDEX.tar.gz
fetch http://dl-cdn.alpinelinux.org/alpine/v3.7/community/x86_64/APKINDEX.tar.gz
(1/1) Installing php7-session (7.1.33-r0)
OK: 291 MiB in 87 packages

bash-4.4# apk add php7-session

fetch http://dl-cdn.alpinelinux.org/alpine/v3.7/main/x86_64/APKINDEX.tar.gz

fetch http://dl-cdn.alpinelinux.org/alpine/v3.7/community/x86_64/APKINDEX.tar.gz

(1/1) Installing php7-session (7.1.33-r0)

OK: 291 MiB in 87 packages

After that I manually killed all PHP processes to make sure php-fpm loads the new extension with the next page reload.

pkill php

pkill php