Deploy a Flask + MariaDB Note App on EC2 (Amazon Linux 2023) — Complete Guide

July 17th, 2025·Calculating...·

awspythonlinux

This guide walks you through deploying a simple Flask web app connected to a MariaDB database on a free-tier Amazon EC2 instance running Amazon Linux 2023.

Prerequisites

An AWS account
EC2 instance (Amazon Linux 2023)
Security group with port 5000 open (or port 80 if using a web server)
SSH access to the instance
Basic knowledge of Python & Linux terminal

Step 1 : Connect to your EC2 instance

We will login using Keypair method and Powershell or Terminal on Linux by Using SSH command.

ssh -i your-key.pem ec2-user@<your-ec2-public-ip>

Step 2 : Install the required packages and setting up the environment.

Here is a list of all python packages needed for the deployment. Keep in mind the current working Python version is (3.9.23)

This command is for installing the required packages

sudo dnf install -y python3 python3-pip mariadb105-server mariadb105 git

Note: You need to enable mariadb and start it to make it work correctly with the web app.

sudo systemctl enable mariadb
sudo systemctl start mariadb

Step 3 : Creating the folder structure and writing the required codes for the app.

noteapp/
├── app.py               # Main Flask application
├── config.py            # App configuration (DB URI, secret key)
├── models.py            # SQLAlchemy models (Note table)
├── requirements.txt     # Python dependencies
├── templates/
│   └── index.html       # HTML template for the app UI
└── venv/                # Python virtual environment (auto-created)

Python Files

app.py

from flask import Flask, request, redirect, render_template
from config import SQLALCHEMY_DATABASE_URI, SECRET_KEY
from models import db, Note

app = Flask(__name__)
app.config['SQLALCHEMY_DATABASE_URI'] = SQLALCHEMY_DATABASE_URI
app.config['SECRET_KEY'] = SECRET_KEY

db.init_app(app)

with app.app_context():
    db.create_all()

@app.route('/', methods=['GET', 'POST'])
def index():
    if request.method == 'POST':
        content = request.form['content']
        if content:
            new_note = Note(content=content)
            db.session.add(new_note)
            db.session.commit()
        return redirect('/')
    notes = Note.query.all()
    return render_template('index.html', notes=notes)

if __name__ == '__main__':
    app.run(host='0.0.0.0', port=5000)

config.py

Remember to update your database username and password

import os

DB_USER = 'root'
DB_PASSWORD = 'maro1234'
DB_HOST = 'localhost'
DB_NAME = 'notesdb'

SQLALCHEMY_DATABASE_URI = f'mysql+pymysql://:@/'
SQLALCHEMY_TRACK_MODIFICATIONS = False
SECRET_KEY = os.urandom(24)

models.py

from flask_sqlalchemy import SQLAlchemy

db = SQLAlchemy()

class Note(db.Model):
    id = db.Column(db.Integer, primary_key=True)
    content = db.Column(db.Text, nullable=False)

requirements.txt

Flask==3.1.1
Flask-SQLAlchemy==3.1.1
PyMySQL==1.1.0

templates/index.html

<!DOCTYPE html>
<html>
<head>
    <title>Notes</title>
</head>
<body>
    <h1>My Notes</h1>
    <form method="POST">
        <textarea name="content" required></textarea><br>
        <button type="submit">Add Note</button>
    </form>
    <ul>
        
            <li>}</li>
        
    </ul>
</body>
</html>

Step 4 : Creating the virtual environment and running the application

We need to setup the virtual environment for the app for many useful reason:

Keeps your app’s dependencies isolated from the system.
Prevents version conflicts.
Enables reproducibility on other systems or servers.

python3 -m venv venv
source venv/bin/activate
pip install --upgrade pip
pip install Flask Flask-SQLAlchemy PyMySQL

Step 5 : Running the application

We will write this command in the virtual environment terminal

python app.py

To access the application , open in the browser :

http://<your-ec2-public-ip>:5000

You need to replace the placeholder with your EC2 Public IP address

Here is a screenshot of the app while its running.

Summary for the project requirements

Amazon Linux + MariaDB + Flask app
Systemd starts the DB
Flask reads from MariaDB using SQLAlchemy and PyMySQL
Public IP + port 5000 = access from anywhere

Backing up the database on a mounted EBS Volume.

Attach & Mount EBS Volume.

Important Note : You need to know the correct name of the attached volume by using lsblk command and replace it in the /dev/…

sudo mkfs -t xfs /dev/nvme1n1   # format the disk (only once!) 
sudo mkdir /mariadb
sudo mount /dev/nvme1n1 /mariadb

Persist Across reboots

echo "/dev/nvme1n1 /mariadb xfs defaults,nofail 0 0" | sudo tee -a /etc/fstab

Stop MariaDB

sudo systemctl stop mariadb

Setting Permissions

sudo chown -R mysql:mysql /mariadb/mysql

Restarting MariaDB

sudo systemctl start mariadb

Backing up the DB

sudo mysqldump -u root -p notesdb > /mariadb/notesdb_backup.sql

To confirm the backup is successful you need to run this command

ls -lh /mariadb

The output should be like this

-rw-r--r-- 1 root root 12K Jul 16 10:25 notesdb_backup.sql

📂 GitHub Repository

View on GitHub: maroayman/depi-project-1

Prerequisites

Step 1 : Connect to your EC2 instance

Step 2 : Install the required packages and setting up the environment.

Step 3 : Creating the folder structure and writing the required codes for the app.

Python Files

Step 4 : Creating the virtual environment and running the application

Step 5 : Running the application

Summary for the project requirements

Backing up the database on a mounted EBS Volume.

Attach & Mount EBS Volume.

Persist Across reboots

Stop MariaDB

Setting Permissions

Restarting MariaDB

Backing up the DB

📂 GitHub Repository

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