Syntax Properties Return values Remarks Examples See also

AWS::AutoScaling::LaunchConfiguration

The AWS::AutoScaling::LaunchConfiguration resource specifies the launch configuration that can be used by an Auto Scaling group to configure Amazon EC2 instances.

When you update the launch configuration for an Auto Scaling group, CloudFormation deletes that resource and creates a new launch configuration with the updated properties and a new name. Existing instances are not affected. To update existing instances when you update the AWS::AutoScaling::LaunchConfiguration resource, you can specify an UpdatePolicy attribute for the group. You can find sample update policies for rolling updates in Configure Amazon EC2 Auto Scaling resources.

Note

Amazon EC2 Auto Scaling configures instances launched as part of an Auto Scaling group using either a launch template or a launch configuration. We strongly recommend that you do not use launch configurations. For more information, see Launch configurations in the Amazon EC2 Auto Scaling User Guide.

For help migrating from launch configurations to launch templates, see Migrate AWS CloudFormation stacks from launch configurations to launch templates in the Amazon EC2 Auto Scaling User Guide.

Syntax

To declare this entity in your AWS CloudFormation template, use the following syntax:

JSON


{
  "Type" : "AWS::AutoScaling::LaunchConfiguration",
  "Properties" : {
      "AssociatePublicIpAddress" : Boolean,
      "BlockDeviceMappings" : [ BlockDeviceMapping, ... ],
      "ClassicLinkVPCId" : String,
      "ClassicLinkVPCSecurityGroups" : [ String, ... ],
      "EbsOptimized" : Boolean,
      "IamInstanceProfile" : String,
      "ImageId" : String,
      "InstanceId" : String,
      "InstanceMonitoring" : Boolean,
      "InstanceType" : String,
      "KernelId" : String,
      "KeyName" : String,
      "LaunchConfigurationName" : String,
      "MetadataOptions" : MetadataOptions,
      "PlacementTenancy" : String,
      "RamDiskId" : String,
      "SecurityGroups" : [ String, ... ],
      "SpotPrice" : String,
      "UserData" : String
    }
}

YAML


Type: AWS::AutoScaling::LaunchConfiguration
Properties:
  AssociatePublicIpAddress: Boolean
  BlockDeviceMappings: 
    - BlockDeviceMapping
  ClassicLinkVPCId: String
  ClassicLinkVPCSecurityGroups: 
    - String
  EbsOptimized: Boolean
  IamInstanceProfile: String
  ImageId: String
  InstanceId: String
  InstanceMonitoring: Boolean
  InstanceType: String
  KernelId: String
  KeyName: String
  LaunchConfigurationName: String
  MetadataOptions: 
    MetadataOptions
  PlacementTenancy: String
  RamDiskId: String
  SecurityGroups: 
    - String
  SpotPrice: String
  UserData: String

Properties

AssociatePublicIpAddress

Specifies whether to assign a public IPv4 address to the group's instances. If the instance is launched into a default subnet, the default is to assign a public IPv4 address, unless you disabled the option to assign a public IPv4 address on the subnet. If the instance is launched into a nondefault subnet, the default is not to assign a public IPv4 address, unless you enabled the option to assign a public IPv4 address on the subnet.

If you specify true, each instance in the Auto Scaling group receives a unique public IPv4 address. For more information, see Provide network connectivity for your Auto Scaling instances using Amazon VPC in the Amazon EC2 Auto Scaling User Guide.

If you specify this property, you must specify at least one subnet for VPCZoneIdentifier when you create your group.

Required: No

Type: Boolean

Update requires: Replacement

BlockDeviceMappings

The block device mapping entries that define the block devices to attach to the instances at launch. By default, the block devices specified in the block device mapping for the AMI are used. For more information, see Block device mappings in the Amazon EC2 User Guide.

Required: No

Type: Array of BlockDeviceMapping

Update requires: Replacement

ClassicLinkVPCId

Available for backward compatibility.

Required: No

Type: String

Update requires: Replacement

ClassicLinkVPCSecurityGroups

Available for backward compatibility.

Required: Conditional

Type: Array of String

Update requires: Replacement

EbsOptimized

Specifies whether the launch configuration is optimized for EBS I/O (true) or not (false). The optimization provides dedicated throughput to Amazon EBS and an optimized configuration stack to provide optimal I/O performance. This optimization is not available with all instance types. Additional fees are incurred when you enable EBS optimization for an instance type that is not EBS-optimized by default. For more information, see Amazon EBS-optimized instances in the Amazon EC2 User Guide.

The default value is false.

Required: No

Type: Boolean

Update requires: Replacement

IamInstanceProfile

The name or the Amazon Resource Name (ARN) of the instance profile associated with the IAM role for the instance. The instance profile contains the IAM role. For more information, see IAM role for applications that run on Amazon EC2 instances in the Amazon EC2 Auto Scaling User Guide.

Required: No

Type: String

Update requires: Replacement

ImageId

The ID of the Amazon Machine Image (AMI) that was assigned during registration. For more information, see Find a Linux AMI in the Amazon EC2 User Guide.

If you specify InstanceId, an ImageId is not required.

Required: Conditional

Type: String

Update requires: Replacement

InstanceId

The ID of the Amazon EC2 instance to use to create the launch configuration. When you use an instance to create a launch configuration, all properties are derived from the instance with the exception of BlockDeviceMapping and AssociatePublicIpAddress. You can override any properties from the instance by specifying them in the launch configuration.

Required: No

Type: String

Update requires: Replacement

InstanceMonitoring

Controls whether instances in this group are launched with detailed (true) or basic (false) monitoring.

The default value is true (enabled).

Important

When detailed monitoring is enabled, Amazon CloudWatch generates metrics every minute and your account is charged a fee. When you disable detailed monitoring, CloudWatch generates metrics every 5 minutes. For more information, see Configure monitoring for Auto Scaling instances in the Amazon EC2 Auto Scaling User Guide.

Required: No

Type: Boolean

Update requires: Replacement

InstanceType

Specifies the instance type of the EC2 instance. For information about available instance types, see Available instance types in the Amazon EC2 User Guide.

If you specify InstanceId, an InstanceType is not required.

Required: Conditional

Type: String

Update requires: Replacement

KernelId

The ID of the kernel associated with the AMI.

Note

We recommend that you use PV-GRUB instead of kernels and RAM disks. For more information, see User provided kernels in the Amazon EC2 User Guide.

Required: No

Type: String

Update requires: Replacement

KeyName

The name of the key pair. For more information, see Amazon EC2 key pairs and Amazon EC2 instances in the Amazon EC2 User Guide.

Required: No

Type: String

Update requires: Replacement

LaunchConfigurationName

The name of the launch configuration. This name must be unique per Region per account.

Required: No

Type: String

Minimum: 1

Maximum: 255

Update requires: Replacement

MetadataOptions

The metadata options for the instances. For more information, see Configure the instance metadata options in the Amazon EC2 Auto Scaling User Guide.

Required: No

Type: MetadataOptions

Update requires: Replacement

PlacementTenancy

The tenancy of the instance, either default or dedicated. An instance with dedicated tenancy runs on isolated, single-tenant hardware and can only be launched into a VPC. To launch dedicated instances into a shared tenancy VPC (a VPC with the instance placement tenancy attribute set to default), you must set the value of this property to dedicated.

If you specify PlacementTenancy, you must specify at least one subnet for VPCZoneIdentifier when you create your group.

Valid values: default | dedicated

Required: No

Type: String

Update requires: Replacement

RamDiskId

The ID of the RAM disk to select.

Note

We recommend that you use PV-GRUB instead of kernels and RAM disks. For more information, see User provided kernels in the Amazon EC2 User Guide.

Required: No

Type: String

Update requires: Replacement

SecurityGroups

A list that contains the security groups to assign to the instances in the Auto Scaling group. The list can contain both the IDs of existing security groups and references to SecurityGroup resources created in the template.

For more information, see Control traffic to resources using security groups in the Amazon Virtual Private Cloud User Guide.

Required: No

Type: Array of String

Update requires: Replacement

SpotPrice

The maximum hourly price to be paid for any Spot Instance launched to fulfill the request. Spot Instances are launched when the price you specify exceeds the current Spot price. For more information, see Request Spot Instances for fault-tolerant and flexible applications in the Amazon EC2 Auto Scaling User Guide.

Valid Range: Minimum value of 0.001

Note

When you change your maximum price by creating a new launch configuration, running instances will continue to run as long as the maximum price for those running instances is higher than the current Spot price.

Required: No

Type: String

Update requires: Replacement

UserData

The Base64-encoded user data to make available to the launched EC2 instances. For more information, see Instance metadata and user data in the Amazon EC2 User Guide for Linux Instances.

Required: No

Type: String

Maximum: 21847

Update requires: Replacement

Return values

Ref

When you pass the logical ID of this resource to the intrinsic Ref function, Ref returns the resource name. For example: mystack-mylaunchconfig-1DDYF1E3B3I.

For more information about using the Ref function, see Ref.

Remarks

CloudFormation marks the Auto Scaling group as successful (by setting its status to CREATE_COMPLETE) when its desired capacity is reached. However, if SpotPrice is set in the launch configuration, then desired capacity is not used as a criteria for success. Whether your request is fulfilled depends on Spot Instance capacity and your maximum price. If the current Spot price is less than your specified maximum price, Amazon EC2 Auto Scaling uses the desired capacity as the target capacity for the group. If the request for Spot Instances is unsuccessful, it keeps trying.

If your Auto Scaling instances receive a public IPv4 address and are launched in a VPC that is defined in the same stack template, you must use the DependsOn attribute to declare a dependency on the VPC-gateway attachment.

Examples

The following examples create launch configurations that can be used by an Auto Scaling group to configure Amazon EC2 instances.

Amazon EBS-backed AMI and defined block device mappings
Instance store-backed AMI with Spot price and IAM role
Provisioned IOPS EBS-optimized volume with key-pair name and user data

Amazon EBS-backed AMI and defined block device mappings

This example shows a launch configuration with a BlockDeviceMappings property that lists two devices: a 30 gigabyte EBS root volume mapped to /dev/sda1 and a 100 gigabyte EBS volume mapped to /dev/sdm. The /dev/sdm volume uses the default EBS volume type based on the region and is not deleted when terminating the instance it is attached to.

CloudFormation supports parameters from the AWS Systems Manager Parameter Store. In this example, the ImageId property references the latest Amazon Linux 2 AMI (EBS-backed image) from the Parameter Store. For more information, see AWS Systems Manager Parameter Store in the AWS Systems Manager User Guide and the blog post Query for the latest Amazon Linux AMI IDs using AWS Systems Manager Parameter Store on the AWS Compute Blog.

JSON


{
  "AWSTemplateFormatVersion": "2010-09-09",
  "Parameters": {
    "LatestAmiId": {
      "Description": "Region specific image from the Parameter Store",
      "Type": "AWS::SSM::Parameter::Value<AWS::EC2::Image::Id>",
      "Default": "/aws/service/ami-amazon-linux-latest/amzn2-ami-hvm-x86_64-gp2"
    },
    "InstanceType": {
      "Description": "Amazon EC2 instance type for the instances",
      "Type": "String",
      "AllowedValues": [
        "t3.micro",
        "t3.small",
        "t3.medium"
      ],
      "Default": "t3.micro"
    }
  },  
  "Resources":{
    "myLaunchConfig":{
      "Type":"AWS::AutoScaling::LaunchConfiguration",
      "Properties":{
        "ImageId":{ "Ref":"LatestAmiId" },
        "SecurityGroups":[ { "Ref":"myEC2SecurityGroup" } ],
        "InstanceType":{ "Ref":"InstanceType" },
        "BlockDeviceMappings":[
          {
            "DeviceName":"/dev/sda1",
            "Ebs":{
              "VolumeSize":"30",
              "VolumeType":"gp3"
            }
          },
          {
            "DeviceName":"/dev/sdm",
            "Ebs":{
              "VolumeSize":"100",
              "DeleteOnTermination":"false"
            }
          }
        ]
      }
    }
  }
}

YAML


---
AWSTemplateFormatVersion: 2010-09-09
Parameters:
  LatestAmiId:
    Description: Region specific image from the Parameter Store
    Type: 'AWS::SSM::Parameter::Value<AWS::EC2::Image::Id>'
    Default: '/aws/service/ami-amazon-linux-latest/amzn2-ami-hvm-x86_64-gp2'
  InstanceType:
    Description: Amazon EC2 instance type for the instances
    Type: String
    AllowedValues:
      - t3.micro
      - t3.small
      - t3.medium
    Default: t3.micro
Resources:
  myLaunchConfig: 
    Type: AWS::AutoScaling::LaunchConfiguration
    Properties:
      ImageId: !Ref LatestAmiId
      SecurityGroups: 
        - !Ref myEC2SecurityGroup
      InstanceType: 
        !Ref InstanceType
      BlockDeviceMappings: 
        - DeviceName: /dev/sda1
          Ebs: 
            VolumeSize: '30'
            VolumeType: gp3
        - DeviceName: /dev/sdm
          Ebs: 
            VolumeSize: '100'
            DeleteOnTermination: false

Instance store-backed AMI with Spot price and IAM role

This example shows a launch configuration that launches Spot Instances in the Auto Scaling group. This launch configuration will only be active if the current Spot price is less than the price in the template specification (0.045). It also demonstrates a launch configuration that uses the IamInstanceProfile property. For an example of a full template, including the definition of, and further references from the InstanceProfile object referenced here as RootInstanceProfile, see auto_scaling_with_instance_profile.template.

In this example, the ImageId property references the latest Amazon Linux AMI (instance store/S3-backed image) from the Parameter Store. The BlockDeviceMappings property lists a virtual device ephemeral0 mapped to /dev/sdc.

JSON


{
  "AWSTemplateFormatVersion": "2010-09-09",
  "Parameters": {
    "LatestAmiId": {
      "Description": "Region specific image from the Parameter Store",
      "Type": "AWS::SSM::Parameter::Value<AWS::EC2::Image::Id>",
      "Default": "/aws/service/ami-amazon-linux-latest/amzn-ami-hvm-x86_64-s3"
    }
  },
  "Resources":{
    "myLaunchConfig":{
      "Type":"AWS::AutoScaling::LaunchConfiguration",
      "Properties":{
        "ImageId":{ "Ref":"LatestAmiId" },
        "SecurityGroups":[ { "Ref":"myEC2SecurityGroup" } ],
        "InstanceType":"m3.medium",
        "SpotPrice":"0.045",
        "IamInstanceProfile":{ "Ref":"RootInstanceProfile" },
        "BlockDeviceMappings": [
          {
            "DeviceName": "/dev/sdc",
            "VirtualName": "ephemeral0"
          }
        ]
      }
    }
  }
}

YAML


---
AWSTemplateFormatVersion: 2010-09-09
Parameters:
  LatestAmiId:
    Description: Region specific image from the Parameter Store
    Type: 'AWS::SSM::Parameter::Value<AWS::EC2::Image::Id>'
    Default: '/aws/service/ami-amazon-linux-latest/amzn-ami-hvm-x86_64-s3'
Resources:
  myLaunchConfig: 
    Type: AWS::AutoScaling::LaunchConfiguration
    Properties: 
      ImageId: !Ref LatestAmiId
      SecurityGroups: 
        - !Ref myEC2SecurityGroup
      InstanceType: m3.medium
      SpotPrice: '0.045'
      IamInstanceProfile: !Ref RootInstanceProfile
      BlockDeviceMappings:
      - DeviceName: /dev/sdc
        VirtualName: ephemeral0

Provisioned IOPS EBS-optimized volume with key-pair name and user data

This example demonstrates a launch configuration that configures the EbsOptmized property to launch instances with a provisioned IOPS EBS-optimized volume. This can increase the performance of your EBS-backed instances.

Note

For instances that are not EBS–optimized by default, you must enable EBS optimization to achieve the level of performance described in the Amazon EBS-optimized instances documentation in the Amazon Elastic Compute Cloud User Guide. For current generation instance types, EBS-optimization is enabled by default at no additional cost. Enabling EBS optimization for a previous generation instance type that is not EBS-optimized by default incurs additional fees.

When you use a launch configuration such as this one, your m1.large instances will contain optimized EBS root volumes with the provisioned IOPS settings that you specified in the AMI. Because you cannot specify the IOPS settings in a launch configuration, the AMI must be configured with a block device mapping that specifies the desired number of IOPS. The following are key attributes of this EBS-optimized instance configuration:

An instance type of m1.large or greater. This is required for EBS optimization. This optimization is only available for certain instance types and sizes.
An EBS-backed AMI with a volume type of io1 and the number of IOPS you want to provision for the volume.
The size of the EBS volume must accommodate the IOPS you need. There is a 50:1 ratio between IOPS and Gibibytes (GiB) of storage.

For more information about IOPS performance with provisioned IOPS volumes, see Provisioned IOPS SSD (io1 and io2) volumes in the Amazon Elastic Compute Cloud User Guide.

For more performance tips, see Amazon EBS volume performance on Linux instances in the Amazon Elastic Compute Cloud User Guide.

JSON


{
  "Resources":{
    "myLaunchConfig":{
      "Type":"AWS::AutoScaling::LaunchConfiguration",
      "Properties":{
        "ImageId":"ami-02354e95b3example",
        "SecurityGroups":[ { "Ref":"myEC2SecurityGroup" }, "myExistingEC2SecurityGroup" ],
        "InstanceType":"m1.large",
        "UserData": {"Fn::Base64": {"Fn::Join": ["", [
          "#!/bin/bash -x\n",
          "/opt/aws/bin/cfn-signal -e $? --stack ", {"Ref": "AWS::StackName"}, " --resource myASG ", " --region ", {"Ref": "AWS::Region"}, "\n"
        ]]}},
        "EbsOptimized":"true"
      }
    }
  }
}

YAML


---
Resources:
  myLaunchConfig: 
    Type: AWS::AutoScaling::LaunchConfiguration
    Properties: 
      ImageId: ami-02354e95b3example
      SecurityGroups: 
        - !Ref myEC2SecurityGroup
        - myExistingEC2SecurityGroup
      InstanceType: m1.large
      UserData: !Base64 |
        #!/bin/bash -x
        yum install -y aws-cfn-bootstrap
        /opt/aws/bin/cfn-signal -e $? --stack !Ref 'AWS::StackName' --resource myASG --region !Ref 'AWS::Region'
      EbsOptimized: true