🚀 My DevOps Journey – Week 1: Mastering the Foundations of Modern Infrastructure

Lav kushwaha — Mon, 16 Jun 2025 02:48:32 +0000

🔖 Tags: #devops, #aws, #git, #bash, #MERN, #docker, #pm2

👋 Introduction

In Week 1 of my DevOps journey, I laid a strong foundation by exploring essential tools, systems, and cloud infrastructure practices. DevOps is all about collaboration, automation, and delivering better software, faster—and this week gave me a deep dive into the basics.**

Here’s what I covered:

✅ Git & GitHub
✅ Bash & Terminal mastery
✅ Virtual Machines
✅ SSH authentication
✅ MERN stack hosting
✅ AWS EC2 deployment
✅ Reverse proxies & process management
✅ Streamlined DevOps workflows

Let’s go over each topic in detail.

🗂️ Git & GitHub – The Backbone of Collaboration

Git is a distributed version control system that allows developers to track code changes and collaborate efficiently. GitHub builds on top of Git by offering cloud-based repositories, pull requests, issue tracking, and integrations with CI/CD tools.

📦Core Commands:

git init                     # Initialize repo
git add .                   # Stage all changes
git commit -m "message"     # Commit changes
git branch -M main          # Rename branch
git remote add origin URL   # Link remote repo
git push -u origin main     # Push code

Git & GitHub are vital in CI/CD pipelines and code collaboration in DevOps environments.

🧠 Bash & Terminal Mastery

Bash is a Unix shell that lets DevOps engineers write scripts and automate tasks.

🔧 Basic Commands

Command  Description
pwd Print working directory
ls -l   List files with details
cd, mkdir, rm   Navigate/create/delete folders
nano, cat   Edit or view files
sudo, adduser   User permissions & creation
ifconfig, ping  Networking checks

📦 Package Management

sudo apt update && sudo apt upgrade
sudo apt install nodejs npm git

Bash scripting will be a key focus next week to automate these workflows.

🧱 Virtual Machines

A Virtual Machine (VM) simulates a physical machine using virtualization. It's used to run isolated environments on the same physical hardware.

Hosted via hypervisors like VirtualBox or cloud platforms like AWS

Ideal for building, testing, and deploying apps in a production-like environment

🔐 SSH Protocol – Secure Remote Access
SSH (Secure Shell) is used to securely access and manage remote servers.

🔑 Key Usage:

ssh user@remote-ip
ssh -i ~/.ssh/private-key.pem user@host

SSH is essential for connecting to cloud servers, configuring services, and deploying code remotely.

🌐Hosting Full-Stack (MERN) Projects

Hosting a MERN (MongoDB, Express, React, Node.js) stack involves deploying both frontend and backend with appropriate routing, environment configs, and server process management.

Coming up next: containerizing MERN apps using Docker and deploying them on cloud platforms!

☁️ AWS Fundamentals – Deploying Node.js on EC2
This week, I deployed a backend app on AWS using an EC2 instance.

🪜 Step-by-Step:

1️⃣ Launch EC2 Instance

AMI: Ubuntu 20.04 LTS
Instance type: t2.micro (free tier)
Ports:
22 (SSH)
3000 (App)
80 (HTTP)

2️⃣ Connect via SSH

chmod 400 your-key.pem
ssh -i your-key.pem ubuntu@<ec2-ip>

3️⃣ Install Server Tools

sudo apt update
sudo apt install nodejs npm git

4️⃣ Clone and Setup Project

git clone https://github.com/your-username/your-project.git
cd your-project
npm install

5️⃣ Set Environment Variables

export MONGO_URI="your-mongo-url"
export JWT_SECRET="your-secret-key"

6️⃣ Start Server

node index.js

Bonus: Use pm2 to manage your app in production:

npm install -g pm2
pm2 start index.js

7️⃣ Visit the Live App

`http://<ec2-public-ip>:3000`

🔄 Reverse Proxies & Process Managers
A reverse proxy forwards client requests to your application. It adds a layer of abstraction and security.

🔁 How Nginx Works:

Listens on port 80

Forwards traffic to backend on port 3000

Enables HTTPS, load balancing, and caching

🔧** Nginx Sample Config:**

server {
  listen 80;
  server_name yourdomain.com;

  location / {
    proxy_pass http://localhost:3000;
    proxy_http_version 1.1;
    proxy_set_header Upgrade $http_upgrade;
    proxy_set_header Connection 'upgrade';
    proxy_set_header Host $host;
    proxy_cache_bypass $http_upgrade;
  }
}

pm2 ensures your app stays running even after disconnection or crashes.

📈 Streamlined Workflows & CI/CD Thinking
DevOps isn’t just tools—it’s about efficiency and automation:

✅ Using Git branches with meaningful names

✅ Creating shell scripts for setup

✅ Setting up .env files with secrets

✅ Planning CI/CD pipelines (coming next week)

These practices help maintain consistency, speed, and scalability in your projects.

🧠 Summary

This week I:
✅ Set up Git, GitHub, and learned version control
✅ Practiced terminal commands and system navigation
✅ Connected to cloud servers using SSH
✅ Hosted my backend project on AWS
✅ Learned the purpose of reverse proxies and process managers

⏭️ What’s Coming in Week 2?

Next, I plan to learn:
🔸Docker and DockerHub
🔸CI/CD pipeline

🙌 Final Thoughts

DevOps is a journey, not a destination. It’s a mindset, a toolset, and a continuous practice. Week 1 gave me the confidence to build, deploy, and scale more effectively—and I’m just getting started!

Let’s keep building 💻
If you’re on a similar journey, feel free to comment, connect, or collaborate.

✍️ By Lav Kushwaha
📅 Week 1 of My #100DaysOfDevOps

DEV Community: Lav kushwaha

My DevOps Journey – Week 1