So you want to self host your Launch library?

What is it?

Self hosting your Adobe Launch library means that instead of letting Adobe (aka Akamai) host your Launch Library code, you host it yourself (well duh). In reality this means that instead of using the url that Launch gives you in the installation instructions of an environment, you would use your own url. For example, if your url is www.example.com your Launch library would be www.example.com/launch-library.js instead of the usual https://assets.adobedtm.com/.... It also means that you need to handle the caching of the library on your own so that changes to the library are reflected on your website as soon as possible.

Why do it?

Adobe lists a litany of reasons for wanting to self host, which you can read here. The only real reason in my opinion is that it makes Launch not automatically blocked by ad blockers. Since most ad blockers are looking to block requests to assets.adobedtm.com, if your library is self-hosted (i.e., coming from your own domain), it will (most likely) not be blocked. Now, this doesn't mean that your pixels will not be blocked by ad blockers, just that the Launch library will not be blocked. This can help you pick up traffic from users who use ad blockers that would otherwise be lost.

While self hosting is ultimately unnecessary for my little blog, it was a fun challenge. As of this writing, Launch is self hosted on www.perpetua.digital under cdn.perpetua.digital/production/launch. That being said, it costs me money to have this up and my sponsorship checks have not cleared yet. Depending on when you read this I may have reverted back to Akamai hosting.

Steps to self host Launch via AWS

Prerequisites

1. As with any AWS project, a credit card is required :)
2. An AWS account
3. A domain name or DNS access
4. A website
5. A basic understanding of AWS services
6. AWS Cloudfront enabled (it was disabled by default for me)
7. Know how to work with Public/Private keys and encryption

Basic Steps in pseudo order

1. Create/Acquire an SFTP server
2. Create an SFTP Host in Launch
3. Attach SFTP Host to Production Environment
4. Build & Publish Library to Production
5. Transfer production Launch files from SFTP server to S3 Bucket, automation or manually
6. Setup Cloudfront CDN to serve from S3 Bucket
7. Update Launch Library URL on your website
8. Setup cache invalidation for Cloudfront

Demo Videos: I hesitated to write out exactly what to do in a full post because this was more of an

experiment than a prescription. It also would just be a wall of bash commands that would likely be incorrect by the time I publish this. So I decided to just let the videos speak for themselves.

Part 1: SFTP Server, EC2, Hosts, and Keys

The first video is mostly me setting up an SFTP server in an EC2 instance. I create a special user for Launch to connect with and set up the server so this user can connect via private keys instead of a password. Launch does not offer a password connection option for SFTP hosts. This is a lot of steps, but its alot cheaper than Amazon Transfer Family App (Amazon's FTP service).

After that, I setup the host and build a few Launch libraries to prove that its working by looking at the files on the server via an FTP client.

Watch on 1.5x speed because I think a lot between sentences :)

Part 2: S3 Bucket transfers, Cloudfront CDN, DNS Settings, and Launch Library URL Update

In the second part I show how I transfer files from my SFTP server to an S3 bucket, setup a Cloudfront CDN, and update my Launch Library URL. There are some ins and outs of managing SSL certificates in AWS, using custom domains for cloudfront, and caching. Enjoy!

One final note Finally, I would like to add that unless you know exactly why you want to self host,

you probably don't need to.