AWS - Creating VPC with CloudFormation

In this post, we'll create a VPC via CloudFormation templates.

The first one within 1 AZ and 2nd one across 2 AZs.

Each AZ will have two subnets (public/private), and the public subnet associated with public route table which has internet gateway.

The VPC will have 10.0.0.0/12 CIDR which means we'll have 10.0.x.x IPs.

Pictures from https://www.qwiklabs.com

Here is the first template (vpc1.yaml):

AWSTemplateFormatVersion: 2010-09-09
Description: Deploy a VPC with public/private subnets

Resources:
  VPC:
    Type: AWS::EC2::VPC
    Properties:
      CidrBlock: 10.0.0.0/16
      EnableDnsHostnames: true
      Tags:
      - Key: Name
        Value: myVPC

  InternetGateway:
    Type: AWS::EC2::InternetGateway
    Properties:
      Tags:
      - Key: Name
        Value: myVPC Internet Gateway

  AttachGateway:
    Type: AWS::EC2::VPCGatewayAttachment
    Properties:
      VpcId: !Ref VPC
      InternetGatewayId: !Ref InternetGateway

  PublicSubnet1:
    Type: AWS::EC2::Subnet
    Properties:
      VpcId: !Ref VPC
      CidrBlock: 10.0.0.0/24
      AvailabilityZone: !Select
        - '0'
        - !GetAZs ''
      Tags:
        - Key: Name
          Value: Public Subnet 1

  PrivateSubnet1:
    Type: AWS::EC2::Subnet
    Properties:
      VpcId: !Ref VPC
      CidrBlock: 10.0.1.0/24
      AvailabilityZone: !Select 
        - '0'
        - !GetAZs ''
      Tags:
        - Key: Name
          Value: Private Subnet 1

  PublicRouteTable:
    Type: AWS::EC2::RouteTable
    Properties:
      VpcId: !Ref VPC
      Tags:
        - Key: Name
          Value: Public Route Table

  PublicRoute:
    Type: AWS::EC2::Route
    Properties:
      RouteTableId: !Ref PublicRouteTable
      DestinationCidrBlock: 0.0.0.0/0
      GatewayId: !Ref InternetGateway

  PublicSubnetRouteTableAssociation1:
    Type: AWS::EC2::SubnetRouteTableAssociation
    Properties:
      SubnetId: !Ref PublicSubnet1
      RouteTableId: !Ref PublicRouteTable

  PrivateRouteTable:
    Type: AWS::EC2::RouteTable
    Properties:
      VpcId: !Ref VPC
      Tags:
      - Key: Name
        Value: Private Route Table

  PrivateSubnetRouteTableAssociation1:
    Type: AWS::EC2::SubnetRouteTableAssociation
    Properties:
      SubnetId: !Ref PrivateSubnet1
      RouteTableId: !Ref PrivateRouteTable

Outputs:
  VPC:
    Description: VPC
    Value: !Ref VPC
  AZ1:
    Description: Availability Zone 1
    Value: !GetAtt 
      - PublicSubnet1
      - AvailabilityZone

Note that we made a couple of references:

1. Ref - returns the value of the specified resource.

  PublicSubnet1:
    Type: AWS::EC2::Subnet
    Properties:
      VpcId: !Ref VPC
      CidrBlock: 10.0.0.0/24
      AvailabilityZone: !Select 
        - '0'
        - !GetAZs ''
      Tags:
        - Key: Name
          Value: Public Subnet 1

2. Select & GetAZs - the AvailabilityZone is using !Select and !GetAZs functions. Basically, it is retrieving a list of availability zones and referencing the the first element ('0') from the list.

3. GetAtt - the AZ1 output is using !GetAtt function to retrieve the attribute of the resources: it is retrieving "AvailabilityZone" attribute from "PublicSubnet1".

Outputs:
  VPC:
    Description: VPC
    Value: !Ref VPC
  AZ1:
    Description: Availability Zone 1
    Value: !GetAtt 
      - PublicSubnet1
      - AvailabilityZone

Let's look at the VPC section of the template:

AWSTemplateFormatVersion: 2010-09-09
Description: Deploy a VPC with public/private subnets

Resources:
  VPC:
    Type: AWS::EC2::VPC
    Properties:
      CidrBlock: 10.0.0.0/16
      EnableDnsHostnames: true
      Tags:
      - Key: Name
        Value: myVPC

The Type declares the resource being created. The Properties specifies additional information about the resource.

1. CidrBlock: IP range of the VPC
2. EnableDnsHostnames: Indicates whether the instances launched in the VPC get public DNS hostnames. If this attribute is "true", instances in the VPC get public DNS hostnames.

An internet gateway serves two purposes: to provide a target in our VPC route tables for internet-routable traffic, and to perform network address translation (NAT) for instances that have been assigned public IPv4 addresses. The "VPCGatewayAttachment" creates relationship between Internet gateway and the VPC.

  InternetGateway:
    Type: AWS::EC2::InternetGateway
    Properties:
      Tags:
      - Key: Name
        Value: myVPC Internet Gateway

  AttachGateway:
    Type: AWS::EC2::VPCGatewayAttachment
    Properties:
      VpcId: !Ref VPC
      InternetGatewayId: !Ref InternetGateway

Two subnets:

    Type: AWS::EC2::Subnet
    Properties:
      VpcId: !Ref VPC
      CidrBlock: 10.0.0.0/24
      AvailabilityZone: !Select 
        - '0'
        - !GetAZs ''
      Tags:
        - Key: Name
          Value: Public Subnet 1

  PrivateSubnet1:
    Type: AWS::EC2::Subnet
    Properties:
      VpcId: !Ref VPC
      CidrBlock: 10.0.1.0/24
      AvailabilityZone: !Select 
        - '0'
        - !GetAZs ''
      Tags:
        - Key: Name
          Value: Private Subnet 1

1. Public subnet 1: connected to internet via Internet Gateway.
2. Private subnet 1: no internet connection.

The properties are:

1. VpcId: refers to the VPC that contains the subnet.
2. CidrBlock: 0.0.0.0/24 (public), 0.0.1.0/24 (private).
3. AvailabilityZone: gets the first AZ retrieved from the list of AZs.

RouteTables

Public Route Table:

  PublicRouteTable:
    Type: AWS::EC2::RouteTable
    Properties:
      VpcId: !Ref VPC
      Tags:
        - Key: Name
          Value: Public Route Table

  PublicRoute:
    Type: AWS::EC2::Route
    Properties:
      RouteTableId: !Ref PublicRouteTable
      DestinationCidrBlock: 0.0.0.0/0
      GatewayId: !Ref InternetGateway

Note that in "PublicRoute" resource, the "DestinationCidrBlock" is set as "0.0.0.0/0" which refers to the traffic bound to the internet, and the traffic is routed to Internet Gateway.

As we can see from the public route table, traffic within the VPC (10.0.0.0/16) is routed only to "local".

Private Route Table:

  PrivateRouteTable:
    Type: AWS::EC2::RouteTable
    Properties:
      VpcId: !Ref VPC
      Tags:
      - Key: Name
        Value: Private Route Table

  PrivateSubnetRouteTableAssociation1:
    Type: AWS::EC2::SubnetRouteTableAssociation
    Properties:
      SubnetId: !Ref PrivateSubnet1
      RouteTableId: !Ref PrivateRouteTable

The Route Tables should be associated to the appropriate subnets:

  PublicSubnetRouteTableAssociation1:
    Type: AWS::EC2::SubnetRouteTableAssociation
    Properties:
      SubnetId: !Ref PublicSubnet1
      RouteTableId: !Ref PublicRouteTable
...
  PrivateSubnetRouteTableAssociation1:
    Type: AWS::EC2::SubnetRouteTableAssociation
    Properties:
      SubnetId: !Ref PrivateSubnet1
      RouteTableId: !Ref PrivateRouteTable

Public:

Private:

Lastly, the CloudFormation template has a section for Outputs which returns information about the created resources:

Outputs:
  VPC:
    Description: VPC
    Value: !Ref VPC
  AZ1:
    Description: Availability Zone 1
    Value: !GetAtt 
      - PublicSubnet1
      - AvailabilityZone

In this section, we'll update the VPC so that it has additional public/private subnets in another AZ.

Here is the updated yaml file (myVPC-2.yaml):

AWSTemplateFormatVersion: 2010-09-09
Description: Deploy a VPC with public/private subnets

Resources:
  VPC:
    Type: AWS::EC2::VPC
    Properties:
      CidrBlock: 10.0.0.0/16
      EnableDnsHostnames: true
      Tags:
      - Key: Name
        Value: myVPC

  InternetGateway:
    Type: AWS::EC2::InternetGateway
    Properties:
      Tags:
      - Key: Name
        Value: myVPC Internet Gateway

  AttachGateway:
    Type: AWS::EC2::VPCGatewayAttachment
    Properties:
      VpcId: !Ref VPC
      InternetGatewayId: !Ref InternetGateway

  PublicSubnet1:
    Type: AWS::EC2::Subnet
    Properties:
      VpcId: !Ref VPC
      CidrBlock: 10.0.0.0/24
      AvailabilityZone: !Select 
        - '0'
        - !GetAZs ''
      Tags:
        - Key: Name
          Value: Public Subnet 1

  PrivateSubnet1:
    Type: AWS::EC2::Subnet
    Properties:
      VpcId: !Ref VPC
      CidrBlock: 10.0.1.0/24
      AvailabilityZone: !Select 
        - '0'
        - !GetAZs ''
      Tags:
        - Key: Name
          Value: Private Subnet 1

  PublicSubnet2:
    Type: AWS::EC2::Subnet
    Properties:
      VpcId: !Ref VPC
      CidrBlock: 10.0.2.0/24
      AvailabilityZone: !Select 
        - '1'
        - !GetAZs ''
      Tags:
        - Key: Name
          Value: Public Subnet 2

  PrivateSubnet2:
    Type: AWS::EC2::Subnet
    Properties:
      VpcId: !Ref VPC
      CidrBlock: 10.0.3.0/24
      AvailabilityZone: !Select 
        - '1'
        - !GetAZs ''
      Tags:
        - Key: Name
          Value: Private Subnet 2

  PublicRouteTable:
    Type: AWS::EC2::RouteTable
    Properties:
      VpcId: !Ref VPC
      Tags:
        - Key: Name
          Value: Public Route Table

  PublicRoute:
    Type: AWS::EC2::Route
    Properties:
      RouteTableId: !Ref PublicRouteTable
      DestinationCidrBlock: 0.0.0.0/0
      GatewayId: !Ref InternetGateway

  PublicSubnetRouteTableAssociation1:
    Type: AWS::EC2::SubnetRouteTableAssociation
    Properties:
      SubnetId: !Ref PublicSubnet1
      RouteTableId: !Ref PublicRouteTable

  PublicSubnetRouteTableAssociation2:
    Type: AWS::EC2::SubnetRouteTableAssociation
    Properties:
      SubnetId: !Ref PublicSubnet2
      RouteTableId: !Ref PublicRouteTable

  PrivateRouteTable:
    Type: AWS::EC2::RouteTable
    Properties:
      VpcId: !Ref VPC
      Tags:
      - Key: Name
        Value: Private Route Table

  PrivateSubnetRouteTableAssociation1:
    Type: AWS::EC2::SubnetRouteTableAssociation
    Properties:
      SubnetId: !Ref PrivateSubnet1
      RouteTableId: !Ref PrivateRouteTable

  PrivateSubnetRouteTableAssociation2:
    Type: AWS::EC2::SubnetRouteTableAssociation
    Properties:
      SubnetId: !Ref PrivateSubnet2
      RouteTableId: !Ref PrivateRouteTable

Outputs:
  VPC:
    Description: VPC
    Value: !Ref VPC
  AZ1:
    Description: Availability Zone 1
    Value: !GetAtt 
      - PublicSubnet1
      - AvailabilityZone  
  AZ2:
    Description: Availability Zone 2
    Value: !GetAtt 
      - PublicSubnet2
      - AvailabilityZone

AWS (Amazon Web Services)

1. AWS : EKS (Elastic Container Service for Kubernetes)
2. AWS : Creating a snapshot (cloning an image)
3. AWS : Attaching Amazon EBS volume to an instance
4. AWS : Adding swap space to an attached volume via mkswap and swapon
5. AWS : Creating an EC2 instance and attaching Amazon EBS volume to the instance using Python boto module with User data
6. AWS : Creating an instance to a new region by copying an AMI
7. AWS : S3 (Simple Storage Service) 1
8. AWS : S3 (Simple Storage Service) 2 - Creating and Deleting a Bucket
9. AWS : S3 (Simple Storage Service) 3 - Bucket Versioning
10. AWS : S3 (Simple Storage Service) 4 - Uploading a large file
11. AWS : S3 (Simple Storage Service) 5 - Uploading folders/files recursively
12. AWS : S3 (Simple Storage Service) 6 - Bucket Policy for File/Folder View/Download
13. AWS : S3 (Simple Storage Service) 7 - How to Copy or Move Objects from one region to another
14. AWS : S3 (Simple Storage Service) 8 - Archiving S3 Data to Glacier
15. AWS : Creating a CloudFront distribution with an Amazon S3 origin
16. AWS : Creating VPC with CloudFormation
17. AWS : WAF (Web Application Firewall) with preconfigured CloudFormation template and Web ACL for CloudFront distribution
18. AWS : CloudWatch & Logs with Lambda Function / S3
19. AWS : Lambda Serverless Computing with EC2, CloudWatch Alarm, SNS
20. AWS : Lambda and SNS - cross account
21. AWS : CLI (Command Line Interface)
22. AWS : CLI (ECS with ALB & autoscaling)
23. AWS : ECS with cloudformation and json task definition
24. AWS Application Load Balancer (ALB) and ECS with Flask app
25. AWS : Load Balancing with HAProxy (High Availability Proxy)
26. AWS : VirtualBox on EC2
27. AWS : NTP setup on EC2
28. AWS: jq with AWS
29. AWS & OpenSSL : Creating / Installing a Server SSL Certificate
30. AWS : OpenVPN Access Server 2 Install
31. AWS : VPC (Virtual Private Cloud) 1 - netmask, subnets, default gateway, and CIDR
32. AWS : VPC (Virtual Private Cloud) 2 - VPC Wizard
33. AWS : VPC (Virtual Private Cloud) 3 - VPC Wizard with NAT
34. DevOps / Sys Admin Q & A (VI) - AWS VPC setup (public/private subnets with NAT)
35. AWS - OpenVPN Protocols : PPTP, L2TP/IPsec, and OpenVPN
36. AWS : Autoscaling group (ASG)
37. AWS : Setting up Autoscaling Alarms and Notifications via CLI and Cloudformation
38. AWS : Adding a SSH User Account on Linux Instance
39. AWS : Windows Servers - Remote Desktop Connections using RDP
40. AWS : Scheduled stopping and starting an instance - python & cron
41. AWS : Detecting stopped instance and sending an alert email using Mandrill smtp
42. AWS : Elastic Beanstalk with NodeJS
43. AWS : Elastic Beanstalk Inplace/Rolling Blue/Green Deploy
44. AWS : Identity and Access Management (IAM) Roles for Amazon EC2
45. AWS : Identity and Access Management (IAM) Policies, sts AssumeRole, and delegate access across AWS accounts
46. AWS : Identity and Access Management (IAM) sts assume role via aws cli2
47. AWS : Creating IAM Roles and associating them with EC2 Instances in CloudFormation
48. AWS Identity and Access Management (IAM) Roles, SSO(Single Sign On), SAML(Security Assertion Markup Language), IdP(identity provider), STS(Security Token Service), and ADFS(Active Directory Federation Services)
49. AWS : Amazon Route 53
50. AWS : Amazon Route 53 - DNS (Domain Name Server) setup
51. AWS : Amazon Route 53 - subdomain setup and virtual host on Nginx
52. AWS Amazon Route 53 : Private Hosted Zone
53. AWS : SNS (Simple Notification Service) example with ELB and CloudWatch
54. AWS : Lambda with AWS CloudTrail
55. AWS : SQS (Simple Queue Service) with NodeJS and AWS SDK
56. AWS : Redshift data warehouse
57. AWS : CloudFormation
58. AWS : CloudFormation Bootstrap UserData/Metadata
59. AWS : CloudFormation - Creating an ASG with rolling update
60. AWS : Cloudformation Cross-stack reference
61. AWS : OpsWorks
62. AWS : Network Load Balancer (NLB) with Autoscaling group (ASG)
63. AWS CodeDeploy : Deploy an Application from GitHub
64. AWS EC2 Container Service (ECS)
65. AWS EC2 Container Service (ECS) II
66. AWS Hello World Lambda Function
67. AWS Lambda Function Q & A
68. AWS Node.js Lambda Function & API Gateway
69. AWS API Gateway endpoint invoking Lambda function
70. AWS API Gateway invoking Lambda function with Terraform
71. AWS API Gateway invoking Lambda function with Terraform - Lambda Container
72. Amazon Kinesis Streams
73. AWS: Kinesis Data Firehose with Lambda and ElasticSearch
74. Amazon DynamoDB
75. Amazon DynamoDB with Lambda and CloudWatch
76. Loading DynamoDB stream to AWS Elasticsearch service with Lambda
77. Amazon ML (Machine Learning)
78. Simple Systems Manager (SSM)
79. AWS : RDS Connecting to a DB Instance Running the SQL Server Database Engine
80. AWS : RDS Importing and Exporting SQL Server Data
81. AWS : RDS PostgreSQL & pgAdmin III
82. AWS : RDS PostgreSQL 2 - Creating/Deleting a Table
83. AWS : MySQL Replication : Master-slave
84. AWS : MySQL backup & restore
85. AWS RDS : Cross-Region Read Replicas for MySQL and Snapshots for PostgreSQL
86. AWS : Restoring Postgres on EC2 instance from S3 backup
87. AWS : Q & A
88. AWS : Security
89. AWS : Security groups vs. network ACLs
90. AWS : Scaling-Up
91. AWS : Networking
92. AWS : Single Sign-on (SSO) with Okta
93. AWS : JIT (Just-in-Time) with Okta