How to Deploy FastAPI on Amazon EC2: Step-by-Step Guide

FastAPI has gained significant traction among developers for its high performance and ease of use in building APIs. When it comes to deploying FastAPI applications, several hosting options are available, including Heroku, Google Cloud Run, DigitalOcean App Platform, and Kubernetes clusters. However, Amazon EC2 (Elastic Compute Cloud) stands out as a robust choice for FastAPI deployments.

EC2 offers distinct advantages for hosting FastAPI projects. It provides granular control over the hosting environment, cost-effectiveness for consistent workloads, and excellent scalability to handle traffic spikes. Moreover, EC2's seamless integration with other AWS services like RDS for databases and ElastiCache for caching can significantly enhance your application's capabilities.

This guide assumes you have a ready-to-run FastAPI project and an EC2 instance set up. We'll focus on the deployment process, covering these key technical steps:

Establishing secure SSH access to your EC2 instance
Configuring the necessary runtime environment for FastAPI
Implementing efficient file transfer protocols for project deployment
Optimizing performance with production-grade ASGI servers (Uvicorn/Gunicorn)
Implementing Nginx as a reverse proxy for enhanced security and performance
Ensuring application reliability through process management with Supervisor

By the end of this tutorial, you'll have the technical expertise to deploy your FastAPI application on EC2, leveraging AWS infrastructure while maintaining the high performance that FastAPI offers. Let's dive into the deployment process and take your FastAPI project to production.

Let’s dive in. First, you should start by Preparing Your EC2 Environment for FastAPI Deployment. The code example is for amazon linux instance.

Set up nginx

Before deploying your FastAPI application, it's crucial to properly configure your EC2 instance. This process involves several key steps:

Securing Access and Configuring FastAPI

• Ensure your FastAPI project is running and accessible on 0.0.0.0:8000

• Establish a secure SSH connection to your EC2 instance:
```
 ssh -i your-key.pem ec2-user@your-ec2-public-ip
```

Setting Up Nginx as a Reverse Proxy Nginx will act as an efficient reverse proxy, enhancing your application's security and performance. Follow these steps: • Install and activate Nginx:

 sudo amazon-linux-extras install nginx1
 sudo systemctl start nginx
 sudo systemctl enable nginx

• Configure Nginx to forward requests to your FastAPI app:

 sudo nano /etc/nginx/nginx.conf

• Add the following server block within the http block or modify it to look like this:

 server {
     listen       80;
     listen       [::]:80;
     server_name  _;  # You can replace _ with your domain name if you have one

     # Add these lines for reverse proxy to your FastAPI app
     location / {
         proxy_pass http://127.0.0.1:8000;
         proxy_set_header Host $host;
         proxy_set_header X-Real-IP $remote_addr;
     }

     # Keep the existing configuration
     root         /usr/share/nginx/html;

     # Load configuration files for the default server block.
     include /etc/nginx/default.d/*.conf;

     error_page 404 /404.html;
     location = /404.html {
     }

     error_page 500 502 503 504 /50x.html;
     location = /50x.html {
     }
 }

• Validate and apply the Nginx configuration:

 sudo nginx -t
 sudo systemctl reload nginx

This configuration leverages Nginx's capabilities as a reverse proxy, enhancing both the security and performance of your deployment.

Automating Your FastAPI Application Deployment

To ensure your FastAPI application runs reliably on your EC2 instance, we'll leverage systemd for process management. This approach provides robust error handling and automatic restarts, enhancing your application's stability.

Here's how to set it up:

Creating a Systemd Service for FastAPI

• Generate a systemd service file:

 sudo nano /etc/systemd/system/fastapi.service

• Populate the file with the following configuration (adjust paths as needed):

 [Unit]
 Description=FastAPI application
 After=network.target

 [Service]
 User=ec2-user
 WorkingDirectory=/path/to/your/fastapi/app
 ExecStart=/path/to/your/venv/bin/uvicorn main:app --host 0.0.0.0 --port 8000
 Restart=always

 [Install]
 WantedBy=multi-user.target

• Activate and enable the service:

 sudo systemctl start fastapi
 sudo systemctl enable fastapi

Fine-tuning EC2 Security Settings To ensure your application is accessible while maintaining security:

• Access the EC2 dashboard in the AWS Console

• Locate your instance and navigate to the Security tab

• Click on the Security Group link

• Click on Edit Inbound rules

• Add an inbound rule permitting HTTP traffic (port 80) from any source

• Add an inbound rule permitting HTTP traffic (port 8000) from any source

Make sure you are adding new rule from “Add rule” button and not editing existing rule.

Additional Considerations for Amazon Linux Environments

• Package Management: Use sudo yum install package-name for additional software installations

• User Configuration: The default user is ec2-user, as reflected in the systemd service file

• Application Setup: Ensure your FastAPI application and its dependencies are correctly installed in the appropriate directory

• Virtual Environments: If utilizing a Python virtual environment, activate it when installing dependencies and running your application

By implementing these steps, you'll have established an automated, reliable deployment environment for your FastAPI application on Amazon EC2. This setup leverages systemd for robust process management and configures the necessary security settings, providing a solid foundation for your production deployment.

Deploying FastAPI on Amazon EC2: A Comprehensive Guide

Table of contents

Set up nginx

Automating Your FastAPI Application Deployment

Additional Considerations for Amazon Linux Environments