Deploying an instance

Deploy CloudFormation Template

1. Download the LinuxMachineDeploy.yaml CloudFormation template to your machine.

2. Go to the AWS CloudFormation console at https://console.aws.amazon.com/cloudformation and click Create Stack > With new resources

3. Leave Prepare template setting as-is

   • For Template source select Upload a template file
   • Click Choose file and supply the CloudFormation template you downloaded: LinuxMachineDeploy.yaml

4. Click Next

5. For Stack name use LinuxMachineDeploy

6. Parameters

   • Look over the Parameters and their default values.

   • None of these parameters need to be changed, but are available if you wish to try different settings

   • Stack name – Use LinuxMachineDeploy (case sensitive)

   • CloudWatchNameSpace - The CloudWatch NameSpace to use instead of the default

   • InstanceAMI – This will auto-populate with the latest version of the Amazon Linux 2 AMI

   • InstanceType - Instance Type, defaults to t3.large but can use any size supported by Linux in the region you have chosen

   • MetricAggregationInterval - How often should the CloudWatch Agent send data into CloudWatch.

   • MetricCollectionInterval - How often should the CloudWatch Agent collect information from the Operating System.

   • PrimaryNodeLabel - The additional label assigned to the EC2 instance to use for searching within CloudWatch Explorer. This is done by adding an extra Tag to the EC2 instance.

   • VPCImportName - The name of the stack you created in the previous step that will be used to launch the instance into.

   • Click Next

7. For Configure stack options we recommend configuring tags, which are key-value pairs, that can help you identify your stacks and the resources they create. For example, enter Owner in the left column which is the key, and your email address in the right column which is the value. We will not use additional permissions or advanced options so click Next. For more information, see Setting AWS CloudFormation Stack Options.

8. For Review

   • Review the contents of the page
   • At the bottom of the page, select I acknowledge that AWS CloudFormation might create IAM resources with custom names
   • Click Create stack

9. This will take you to the CloudFormation stack status page, showing the stack creation in progress.

   • Click on the Events tab
   • Scroll through the listing. It shows the activities performed by CloudFormation (newest events at top), such as starting to create a resource and then completing the resource creation.
   • Any errors encountered during the creation of the stack will be listed in this tab.

10. When it shows status CREATE_COMPLETE, then you are finished with this step.