Using CloudFormer to Create AWS CloudFormation Templates from Existing AWS Resources

To launch CloudFormer with the AWS Management Console

1. Log in to the AWS CloudFormation Console. If you have not done this before, see Logging in to the AWS CloudFormation Console for instructions.

2. Click Create New Stack, which will bring up the Create Stack dialog.

3. On the Create Stack dialog, name your stack, then click Use a Sample Template and select CloudFormer - create a template from your existing resources in the drop-down list.

   
   
   

4. Click Continue to move to the Specify Parameters page.

   The CloudFormer stack runs on a t1.micro instance for lowest cost. There are no parameters for this stack.

5. On the Specify Parameters page, check the box labeled "I acknowledge that this template may create IAM resources" and click Continue to move to the Review page.

6. On the Review page, examine the information about the stack that will be created, then click Continue to begin creating the CloudFormer stack.

   Note: Since CloudFormer is an AWS CloudFormation stack itself, it will go through the normal stack creation process, from CREATE_IN_PROGRESS to CREATE_COMPLETE.

7. Once the CloudFormer stack's state is CREATE_COMPLETE, click its entry in your AWS CloudFormation Management Console, and select the Outputs tab in the stack information pane.

8. In Outputs, click the URL to begin using the CloudFormer tool.

   The AWS CloudFormer interface will be displayed.

   
   
   

To use CloudFormer to create a template from your AWS resources

1. Select the region in which you'd like to create your template, and click Create Template.

   You'll move to the Intro page, which allows you to enter a description for your template and select resources with a filter or by selecting all resources in your account. We'll hand-pick the resources, so leave those fields blank and unchecked, respectively.

2. On the Intro page, enter a description for your template and click Continue.

   This will bring you to the DNS Names page. If you have any Route53 DNS records that are used by your instance, you can select them here. We don't have any, so we'll skip this screen.

3. On the DNS Names page, click Continue.

   This will bring you to the Network Resources page. Here, you can select any Amazon EC2 Elastic IP addresses, Elastic Load Balancers or CloudFront distributions. We have an Elastic IP Address, so we'll add it here.

4. Select the Amazon EC2 Elastic IP address that you'd like to include in your template, and click Continue.

   This will bring you to the Compute Resources page. You can select any Auto Scaling groups or Amazon EC2 Instances to include in your template. If you have already associated the Elastic IP Address with an EC2 instance, that instance will be pre-selected here.

5. Make sure that your EC2 instance is selected, and click Continue.

   This will bring you to the System Configuration page. Here, you can select any AWS AutoScaling Launch Configurations to add them your template.

6. On the System Configuration page, click Continue.

   This brings you to the Storage page, which allows you to add Amazon Elastic Block Storage (EBS) volumes, Amazon RDS Database Instances and S3 Buckets to your template.

7. On the Storage Page, click Continue.

   This will bring you to the Security Groups page, where you can select any Amazon EC2 or RDS security groups to add to your template. If you have associated any security groups with your EC2 instance, they will be pre-selected here.

8. Make sure that your EC2 security group is selected, and click Continue.

   This takes you to the Application Services page (called "Other" on the CloudFormer timeline), where you can select any SQS Queues or Amazon SimpleDB Domains to add to your template.

9. On the Application Services page, click Continue.

   This brings you to the Operational Resources page, which allows you to add any auto-scaling triggers that you have set up. We have none, so we'll skip this step.

10. on the Operational Resources page, click Continue.

    This brings you to the Summary page, which serves a number of purposes:

    • It is a chance to review the resources you've added to your template, and to go back and re-select them if you want.

    • It gives you an opportunity to change the auto-generated logical resource names for your resources.

    • It gives you an opportunity to specify outputs that will provide necessary information, such as your site's IP address or URL, the Availability Zone, or other bits of information that will be useful for configuring and using your stack.

11. On the Summary page, examine the resources you've selected. You should have one Amazon Elastic IP Address, one Amazon EC2 instance, and one Amazon EC2 Security Group.

    To rename a resource with a logical name you specify, type its name in the Logical Name box. To choose an Output field to expose to the Outputs tab of the stack information pane, click the outputs here.

12. On the Summary page, verify your selections, change the logical names of your resources, and add Outputs. When you are satisfied with the changes you've made, click Continue.

    The next page shows you the template that was generated for your resources. Using this template will create a stack that contains all of the resources you selected. You can use this template to deploy your resources as a combined set with AWS CloudFormation, or you can use it as a base template for further modification.

    You can also save your stack directly to an S3 bucket by clicking the Save Stack button, so you can launch the stack from the URL by entering it in the Provide a Template URL field when creating a new stack.

13. Click Save to save the stack to S3. This action also gives you the option to launch an instance of the stack immediately. If you do this, the S3 URL will be automatically selected to create the stack.