CloudFormation – Create and customize a windows server using user data

This blog demonstrates how to

• create a windows server via CloudFormation
• create a user directory
• install the aws cli
• add the aws cli to the windows path
• Create a log file to track the output of the commands executed in the user data section
• Download a file from an s3 bucket

By using these commands, you can download and install software after the Windows instance is created.

The IAM profile assigned to the EC2 instance should have access to the s3 bucket used.

The code is below:

AWSTemplateFormatVersion: 2010-09-09
Description: Innovate - Create App and Web Servers
Resources:
  rMyBastionInstance:
    Type: 'AWS::EC2::Instance'
    Properties:
      ImageId: 'ami-I-want-to-use'
      KeyName: 'my_windows_key'
      IamInstanceProfile: 'My-IAM-profile'
      InstanceType: 'm4.2xlarge'
      SecurityGroupIds: 
        - sg-security-group-id
      SubnetId: 'my-subnet-id'
      BlockDeviceMappings:
        - DeviceName: /dev/sda1
          Ebs:
                VolumeType: gp2
                DeleteOnTermination: true
                VolumeSize: 100
                Encrypted: true
      UserData:
        'Fn::Base64': !Sub |
          <script>
              cd \
              mkdir tempdc
              msiexec.exe /i https://awscli.amazonaws.com/AWSCLIV2.msi /qn
              cd \tempdc
              echo Current date and time > c:\tempdc\s3_output.txt
              echo %DATE% %TIME% >> c:\tempdc\s3_output.txt
              SET PATH=%PATH%;C:\Program Files\Amazon\AWSCLIV2
              echo %PATH% >> c:\tempdc\s3_output.txt
              aws s3 cp s3://mybucket/my-file.exe c:\tempdc\my-file.exe >> c:\tempdc\s3_output.txt
          </script>
      Tags:
        - Key: Name
          Value: MyWindowsInstance