AWS Cloudformation trouble with VPC and Autoscalled Windows instances

Question

I am trying to combine the Cloud formation template multi-tier-web-app-in-vpc.template with the cloudformation template used by viusal studio to create Load Balanced instances. The goal is to create 2 application servers within a private subnet of a VPC. The template works fine but when I start plugging in windows instances they just fail. Error Message CREATE_FAILED WaitCondition timed out. Received 0 conditions when expecting 1 The following resource(s) failed to create: [FrontendWaitCondition]. . Rollback requested by user.

Template used to create the cloud formation https://s3.amazonaws.com/hg-optimise/Windows-Multi-Tier.template

I am trying to use the following Amazon templates as guides.

Amazon Visual Studio Template https://s3.amazonaws.com/hg-optimise/Visual-Studio.template

Amazon Multi-tier Web Sample - http://aws.amazon.com/cloudformation/aws-cloudformation-templates/ https://s3.amazonaws.com/cloudformation-templates-us-east-1/multi-tier-web-app-in-vpc.template

Answer 1

It looks like you are taking on too much, trying to get everything working all at once. I would try to take it one step at a time. Create a template that gets one instance up, then add auto scaling, then load balancer, then subnet, routing, etc. The problem that presents itself now is likely because you have not signaled success for the wait condition.

Below is the Properties section of an Instance resource. This snipet was taken from an AWS documentation page. Note that the "UserData" section has a call to cfn-init.exe in order to perform the actions specified in the Instance's Cloud Formation section, and has a call to cfn-signal.exe to signal to the WaitCondition that the instance is up.

"Properties": {
  "InstanceType" : { "Ref" : "InstanceType" },
  "ImageId" : { "Fn::FindInMap" : [ "AWSRegionArch2AMI", { "Ref" : "AWS::Region" },
                { "Fn::FindInMap" : [ "AWSInstanceType2Arch", { "Ref" : "InstanceType" }, "Arch" ] } ] },
  "SecurityGroups" : [ {"Ref" : "SharePointFoundationSecurityGroup"} ],
  "KeyName" : { "Ref" : "KeyPairName" },
  "UserData" : { "Fn::Base64" : { "Fn::Join" : ["", [
    "<script>\n",

    "cfn-init.exe -v -s ", { "Ref" : "AWS::StackName" },
    " -r SharePointFoundation",
    " --region ", { "Ref" : "AWS::Region" }, "\n",

    "cfn-signal.exe -e %ERRORLEVEL% ", { "Fn::Base64" : { "Ref" : "SharePointFoundationWaitHandle" }}, "\n",

    "</script>"
    ]]}}
  }

Answer 2

You have set the front end wait condition to basically wait until your FrontendFleet is up and running. You should set a desired capacity for your front end fleet.

When you get this error, what is the state of your autoscaling group FrontendFleet? If this is still bringing up instances, then your timeout is simply to short.

I honestly wouldn't worry about the waitcondtions unless you really need them.