Create VPC and EC2

Create VPC and EC2

The AWS CloudFormation template you provided will create an EC2 instance within a VPC and allow you to access it via SSM. The template defines the following resources:

• A VPC
• A subnet
• An internet gateway
• A route table
• A route
• A subnet route table association
• A security group
• An IAM role
• An IAM instance profile
• An EC2 instance

The template uses the following mappings:

• AWSInstanceType2Arch: This mapping maps an EC2 instance type to its architecture.
• AWSRegionArch2AMI: This mapping maps an AWS region and architecture to an AMI ID.

The template also uses the following CloudFormation intrinsic functions:

• Fn::FindInMap: This function returns the value of a mapping at a specific key.

To deploy the template, you can use the following command:

aws cloudformation deploy --template-file CloudFormationTemplate.yaml --stack-name MyStack

Once the template has been deployed, you can access the EC2 instance via SSM by using the following command:

aws ssm start-session --target <instance-id>

This command will start a session with the EC2 instance and allow you to execute commands on the instance.

Explanation of CloudFormation Template

This template creates an EC2 instance within a VPC and allows access to the instance through AWS Systems Manager (SSM). Below is a detailed description of the sections in the template:

• AWSTemplateFormatVersion: The version of the template format.
• Description: A brief description of the template.
• Parameters: Defines parameters that can be used to customize the deployment process.
• InstanceType: A parameter to specify the EC2 instance type. The default is “t2.small”, and it only allows values “t2.small” or “t2.medium”.
• Mappings: Defines mappings between values. In this case, mappings are used to associate EC2 instance types with their corresponding image IDs.
• Resources: Defines the resources that the template creates.
• VPC: Creates a Virtual Private Cloud (VPC).
• Subnet: Creates a subnet within the VPC.
• InternetGateway: Creates an Internet Gateway to connect the VPC to the Internet.
• AttachGateway: Attaches the Internet Gateway to the VPC.
• RouteTable: Creates a Route Table for the VPC.
• Route: Adds a route in the Route Table to allow traffic to the Internet through the Internet Gateway.
• SubnetRouteTableAssociation: Associates the subnet with the Route Table.
• InstanceSecurityGroup: Creates a Security Group to manage data flows and security rules for the EC2 instance.
• RoleForEC2: Creates an IAM role to be assigned to the EC2 instance, allowing it to access AWS services.
• InstanceProfile: Creates an Instance Profile to be associated with the EC2 instance, enabling it to use the created IAM role.
• WebServeerInstance: Creates an EC2 instance using the specified parameters and associates it with the VPC, Subnet, Security Group, and IAM role created.

This template creates a simple environment for deploying an EC2 instance within a VPC and allowing access through AWS Systems Manager (SSM).

Creating AWS CloudFormation Resources

1. In the previous section, we used AWS CloudFormation to create a Lambda function. In this section, we will create networking infrastructure (VPC and VPC components) along with an EC2 instance and an SSM role.

1. Navigate to the directory containing the template and use the following command to deploy the stack:

aws cloudformation create-stack \
 --stack-name cfn-vpc-demo \
 --template-body file://vpc.yaml \
 --parameters ParameterKey=InstanceType,ParameterValue=t2.medium \
 --capabilities CAPABILITY_NAMED_IAM

3. After 5 minutes, you can check the CloudFormation console and the event log to see that the resources have been created.

4. Check the Resources section to see that the resources have been created.

5. Check the EC2 console to see that a new instance has been created.

• Click CConnect.

6. In the Connect to instance dialog, select Session Manager and click Connect.

7. A new session is opened and you can try pinging a website using the following command:

ping amazon.com -c5

Conclusion

In this section, we learned how to use AWS CloudFormation to create networking infrastructure (VPC and VPC components) along with an EC2 instance and an SSM role.