CloudFormation 101 – Part 02

In the previous blog, I had created a VPC and internet gateway and attached the internet gateway to the VPC. I will add a public and private subnet in one availability zone in this post.

Some definitions:
Subnets
A subnet is a range of IP addresses in your VPC. You can launch AWS resources into a specified subnet.

Public subnet
A public subnet contains resources that will be connected from and to the internet—for example, load balancers, web servers, etc.

Private subnet
A private subnet contains resources that will not be accessed directly from the internet—for example, application servers, databases, etc.

It is critical to place your resources in the appropriate subnet. Placing resources with sensitive code or information in a public subnet would open them up to compromise by bad actors, of which there are many on the internet 😊.

The code is below:

AWSTemplateFormatVersion: '2010-09-09'
#
## The Description section (optional) enables you to include comments about your template.
#
Description:  
  Create VPC, an internet gateway, and attach the internet gateway to the VPC
#
## Parameters section to customize your templates
#
Parameters:
  VPCName:
    Description: Name of the VPC
    Type: String
    Default: "MyVPC"    
    MinLength: '1'
    MaxLength: '30'
    AllowedPattern: '^[a-zA-Z]+[0-9a-zA-Z\-]*$'
    ConstraintDescription: Must contain alphabets and/or numbers.

  VpcCIDR:
    Description: Please enter the IP range (CIDR notation) for this VPC
    Type: String
    Default: 10.0.0.0/16    
    MinLength: '10'
    MaxLength: '18'
    AllowedPattern: "(\\d{1,3})\\.(\\d{1,3})\\.(\\d{1,3})\\.(\\d{1,3})/(\\d{1,2})"
    ConstraintDescription: Must be a valid CIDR range of the form x.x.x.x/x.

  PublicSubnet1CIDR:
    Description: Please enter the IP range (CIDR notation) for the public subnet in the first Availability Zone
    Type: String
    Default: 10.0.1.0/24
    MinLength: '10'
    MaxLength: '18'
    AllowedPattern: "(\\d{1,3})\\.(\\d{1,3})\\.(\\d{1,3})\\.(\\d{1,3})/(\\d{1,2})"
    ConstraintDescription: Must be a valid CIDR range of the form x.x.x.x/x.

  PrivateSubnet1CIDR:
    Description: Please enter the IP range (CIDR notation) for the private subnet in the first Availability Zone
    Type: String
    Default: 10.0.3.0/24
    MinLength: '10'
    MaxLength: '18'
    AllowedPattern: "(\\d{1,3})\\.(\\d{1,3})\\.(\\d{1,3})\\.(\\d{1,3})/(\\d{1,2})"
    ConstraintDescription: Must be a valid CIDR range of the form x.x.x.x/x.

#
## Resources created by the stack
#
Resources:
  #
  ## Create the VPC
  ##
  ## Uses the intrinsic function Ref to get the value of the VPC Name
  ## from parameters above
  #
  VPC:
    Type: AWS::EC2::VPC
    Properties:
      CidrBlock: !Ref VpcCIDR
      EnableDnsSupport: true
      EnableDnsHostnames: true
      Tags:
        - Key: Name
          Value: !Ref VPCName
  #
  ## Create the IGW
  #
  InternetGateway:
    Type: AWS::EC2::InternetGateway
    Properties:
      Tags:
        - Key: Name
          Value: !Ref VPCName
  #
  ## Connect the IGW to the VPC
  #
  InternetGatewayAttachment:
    Type: AWS::EC2::VPCGatewayAttachment
    Properties:
      InternetGatewayId: !Ref InternetGateway
      VpcId: !Ref VPC
  #
  ## Create a public subnet
  ##
  ## The VpcId is obtained by referring back to the VPC created above
  ##
  ## The CIDR block is from the parameters
  ##
  ## The Availability Zone is obtained by querying the available availability
  ## zones in this region and returning the first (offset 0) entry
  ##
  ## The MapPublicIpOnLaunch is set to true indicating that instances launched 
  ## in this subnet receive a public IPv4 address
  #
  PublicSubnet1:
    Type: AWS::EC2::Subnet
    Properties:
      VpcId: !Ref VPC
      AvailabilityZone: !Select [ 0, !GetAZs '' ]
      CidrBlock: !Ref PublicSubnet1CIDR
      MapPublicIpOnLaunch: true
      Tags:
        - Key: Name
          Value: !Sub ${VPCName} Public Subnet (AZ1)
  #
  ## Create a private subnet
  ##
  ## The MapPublicIpOnLaunch is set to false, indicating that instances launched 
  ## in this subnet will not receive a public IPv4 address
  #
  PrivateSubnet1:
    Type: AWS::EC2::Subnet
    Properties:
      VpcId: !Ref VPC
      AvailabilityZone: !Select [ 0, !GetAZs  '' ]
      CidrBlock: !Ref PrivateSubnet1CIDR
      MapPublicIpOnLaunch: false
      Tags:
        - Key: Name
          Value: !Sub ${VPCName} Private Subnet (AZ1)

#
## Resources created by the stack
##
## Uses the intrinsic function Sub to get the stack name 
## from parameters above and substitute it into the name of
## the internet gateway
#          
Outputs:
  VPC:
    Description: Name of the VPC
    Value: !Ref VPC
    Export:
      Name: !Sub '${AWS::StackName}'

  InternetGateway:
    Description: Internet Gateway 
    Value: !Ref InternetGateway
    Export:
      Name: !Sub '${AWS::StackName}-InternetGateway'

  PublicSubnet1:
    Description: AZ1 - public subnet
    Value: !Ref PublicSubnet1
    Export:
      Name: !Sub '${AWS::StackName}-PublicSubnet1'
      
  PrivateSubnet1:
    Description: AZ1 - private subnet 01
    Value: !Ref PrivateSubnet1
    Export:
      Name: !Sub '${AWS::StackName}-PrivateSubnet1'

CloudFormation 101 – Part 01

Some quick blogs on using CloudFormation to provision AWS infrastructure using code. I have attempted to put descriptive comments in line to explain what each sub-unit of code is doing.

This YAML code creates a VPC, an internet gateway, and attaches the gateway to the VPC.

Some definitions:
VPC
Amazon Virtual Private Cloud (Amazon VPC) enables you to launch AWS resources into a virtual network that you’ve defined. This virtual network closely resembles a traditional network that you’d operate in your own data center, with the benefits of using the scalable infrastructure of AWS.

Internet Gateway
An internet gateway is a horizontally scaled, redundant, and highly available VPC component that allows communication between your VPC and the internet.

VPC Gateway Attachment
Attaches an internet gateway, or a virtual private gateway to a VPC, enabling connectivity between the internet and the VPC.

The code is below:

AWSTemplateFormatVersion: '2010-09-09'
#
## The Description section (optional) enables you to include comments about your template.
#
Description:  
  Create VPC, an internet gateway, and attach the internet gateway to the VPC
#
## Parameters section to customize your templates
#
Parameters:
  VPCName:
    Description: Name of the VPC
    Type: String
    Default: "MyVPC"    
    MinLength: '1'
    MaxLength: '30'
    AllowedPattern: '^[a-zA-Z]+[0-9a-zA-Z\-]*$'
    ConstraintDescription: Must contain alphabets and/or numbers.

  VpcCIDR:
    Description: Please enter the IP range (CIDR notation) for this VPC
    Type: String
    Default: 10.0.0.0/16    
    MinLength: '10'
    MaxLength: '18'
    AllowedPattern: "(\\d{1,3})\\.(\\d{1,3})\\.(\\d{1,3})\\.(\\d{1,3})/(\\d{1,2})"
    ConstraintDescription: Must be a valid CIDR range of the form x.x.x.x/x.

#
## Resources created by the stack
#
Resources:
  #
  ## Create the VPC
  ##
  ## Uses the intrinsic function Ref to get the value of the VPC Name
  ## from parameters above
  #
  VPC:
    Type: AWS::EC2::VPC
    Properties:
      CidrBlock: !Ref VpcCIDR
      EnableDnsSupport: true
      EnableDnsHostnames: true
      Tags:
        - Key: Name
          Value: !Ref VPCName
  #
  ## Create the IGW
  #
  InternetGateway:
    Type: AWS::EC2::InternetGateway
    Properties:
      Tags:
        - Key: Name
          Value: !Ref VPCName
  #
  ## Connect the IGW to the VPC
  #
  InternetGatewayAttachment:
    Type: AWS::EC2::VPCGatewayAttachment
    Properties:
      InternetGatewayId: !Ref InternetGateway
      VpcId: !Ref VPC

#
## Resources created by the stack
##
## Uses the intrinsic function Sub to get the stack name 
## from parameters above and substitute it into the name of
## the internet gateway
#          
Outputs:
  VPC:
    Description: Name of the VPC
    Value: !Ref VPC
    Export:
      Name: !Sub '${AWS::StackName}'

  InternetGateway:
    Description: Internet Gateway 
    Value: !Ref InternetGateway
    Export:
      Name: !Sub '${AWS::StackName}-InternetGateway'