Configuring the CloudFormation CLI Tools for Windows

To prepare the install location

1. Open a Terminal window by doing one of the following:

   • Open the Windows Start menu, click All Programs, then Accessories, and finally Command Prompt.

   • Open the Windows Start menu and type Command in the Search Programs and Files text box. Click the Command Prompt entry.

2. In your command prompt, create the installation directory by typing:

   > mkdir %USERPROFILE%\awstools

   This will create a directory (if it doesn't already exist) called "awstools" in your home directory.

To install the CLI tools

1. Change your working directory to %USERPROFILE%\awstools. You can do this on the command-line with:

   > cd %USERPROFILE%\awstools

2. Move the unzipped AWSCloudFormation-#.#.# directory to the install location, by typing:

   > move Downloads\AWSCloudFormation-cli\AWSCloudFormation-#.#.# .

   Downloads represents your downloads folder, which depends on your browser. Typical values are C:\Downloads or %USERPROFILE%\Downloads. Replace all instances of # with the appropriate version number for your installation.

To add your AWS credentials to the AWS credential file

1. Go to the AWS CloudFormation CLI tools install directory from the command-line, using:

   > cd %USERPROFILE%\awstools\AWSCloudFormation-#.#.#

   This assumes that you installed the CLI tools into %USERPROFILE%\awstools. If you did not, replace the location in the example above with the pathname to the location where you installed the CLI tools. Replace all instances of # with the appropriate version number for your installation.

2. Copy or rename the credential-file-path.template file to a filename of your choosing (you can even use credential-file-path.template as the filename, but I prefer something that better describes its purpose). For the purposes of this article, we'll use "myAWSCredentials.txt":

   > copy credential-file-path.template myAWSCredentials.txt

3. Edit the file with your favorite text editor, enter your AWS credentials, then save and close the file. The file should contain two lines in it, like this:

   AWSAccessKeyId=AKIAIOSFODNN7EXAMPLE
   AWSSecretKey=wJalrXUtnFEMI/K7MDENG/bPxRfiCYEXAMPLEKEY

   Note: These are example values, and won't work for an actual connection to AWS. Instead, use your own AWS security credentials here.

To add the CloudFormation CLI tools environment variables:

1. Edit %USERPROFILE%\profile.bat in your favorite editor. If it does not exist yet, create it.

2. In %USERPROFILE%\profile.bat, add the following lines:

   REM CloudFormation CLI tools setup
   set JAVA_HOME=C:\Program Files (x86)\Java\jre#
   set AWS_CLOUDFORMATION_HOME=%USERPROFILE%\awstools\AWSCloudFormation-#.#.#
   set AWS_CREDENTIAL_FILE=%AWS_CLOUDFORMATION_HOME%\myAWSCredentials.txt
   set PATH=%PATH%;%AWS_CLOUDFORMATION_HOME%\bin
   

   Replace all instances of # with the appropriate version number for your installation..

   • This example assumes that you installed the CLI tools into %USERPROFILE%\awstools. If you did not, replace $USERPROFILE with the pathname to the location where you installed the CLI tools.

   • This example uses the 32-bit version of the JRE. To use the 64-bit version, set JAVA_HOME to "C:\Program Files\Java\jre#, where # represents the Java version number (usually 6 or 7).

   • If you did not add your AWS access keys to an external file (such as the myAWSCredentials.txt file specified above), you should not assign the AWS_CREDENTIAL_FILE environment variable. Instead, remove or comment-out that line.

3. Create a shortcut that starts a command-line prompt and then loads your batchfile. To do this:

   1. Right-click your Windows desktop and choose New, then Shortcut in the context menu.

   2. In the Create Shortcut dialog, type C:\Windows\System32\cmd.exe /k %USERPROFILE%\profile.bat and click Next.

   3. Choose a name for your shortcut, such as AWS Command Prompt, and click Finish to create the shortcut on your Windows desktop.

4. To load your environment variables, quit your current command prompt session and then restart it by using the shortcut you just created.

5. Test your installation by running cfn-cmd:

   > cfn-cmd

   This will list all of the available CloudFormation CLI tools, their usage, and the available options for cfn-cmd itself (there are two options: help and version).