AWS CloudFormation Exercise 1: EC2 Instance creation

Exercise 1: Cloud Formation Template for EC2 Instance with Apache UserData

In This Exercise, we are going to create EC2 Instance using the Cloud Formation Template written in YAML format. For this exercise, we need to keep few things ready.

1.   VPC (Default or Custom)

2.   Public Subnets

3.   Security Groups

4.   KeyPair

We are going to create EC2 Instance in Mumbai Region (ap-south-1), so we have used image-id “ami-0732b62d310b80e97”, we have already created KeyPair separately to access our instance, the security group is configured with Port 22 and 80 inbound, the subnet we are using here is ap-south-1a.

To get the Stack click on the link: https://github.com/pranavdhopey and save it to server say under /opt directory.

1.   Login to AWS Management Console. AWS Console

2.   On Management Console click on “Cloud Formation” under the “Management and Governance” section. 

3.   Now you will land on Cloud Formation Console. In Cloud Formation Console
click on the “Create Stack” button.

Now follow the below steps to create a stack for this exercise.

Step 1: Specify template

In this section choose the “Template is Ready” button and select “Upload a template file”. Now choose a file to upload from your personal computer where it is saved and upload. Now click on next.

Step 2: Specify stack details

Now Specify “Stack name” for e.g. Say “EC2Stack” for this exercise. Now provide the values for parameters need to create EC2 stack, here we are giving the below parameter values.

1. MyInstanceType: t2.micro(Choose From DropDown)
2. MyKeyName: MumbaiKP(Provide your KeyPair Name)
3. MyAvailabilityZone: ap-south-1a(Value to be replace)
4. MySubnetId: subnet-xxxxxxxxxx(Value to be replace)
6. MySecurityGroups: sg-xxxxxxxxxx(Value to be replace)

Step 3: Configure stack options

On the “Configure stack options” page leave all settings default and click on next.

Step 4: Review Stack

In this step review all the settings that you have filled in and click on create stack.

After some time stack will be created and you can view and access resources created by the cloud formation stack.

Click below to get started:

Create Stack

We can also create a stack using AWS CLI.

AWS CLI for creating stack:

1.   To validate cloudformation template template

#aws cloudformation validate-template --template-body file://<path-to-file>/CFNTemplatesWithApacheUserData.yml

2.   To create stack

#aws cloudformation create-stack --stack-name EC2Stack1 --template-body

file://<path-to-file>/CFNTemplatesWithApacheUserData.yml --parameters

ParameterKey=MyKeyName,ParameterValue=MumbaiKP

ParameterKey=MyInstanceType,ParameterValue=t2.micro

ParameterKey=MyAvailabilityZone,ParameterValue=ap-south-1a

ParameterKey=MySecurityGroups,ParameterValue=sg-xxxxxxxxxx

ParameterKey=MySubnetId,ParameterValue=subnet-xxxxxxxxxx

3.   To describe stack
#aws cloudformation describe-stacks --stack-name EC2Stack

4.   To view the stack events
#aws cloudformation describe-stack-events --stack-name EC2Stack

5.   To delete the stack

#aws cloudformation delete-stack --stack-name EC2Stack

This completes EC2 instance creation using a cloud formation stack with various parameters.