Skip to main content

Deploying Network Infrastructures in AWS Using CloudFormation

Image

AWS is undoubtedly the most complete cloud services provider. Even though its services are not always the best compared to other similar services, it is able to provide a variety of tools to help us build any kind of internet-based services. When we initially create an account in AWS, we instantly receive the ability to create a complex network within a Virtual Private Cloud (VPC). We can develop a VPC in a region on multiple data centers or availability zones. AWS allows us to configure and deploy our infrastructures using an IaC-based (Infrastructure as Code) service called CloudFormation.

For instance, we will deploy a VPC with several network components in it. The components include internet gateway, subnet, NAT gateway, and routing tables. The VPC will be available in a single availability zone and hosts two subnets which are private and public.


Firstly, we define the variables that will be referred to in the configuration within the Parameters block. It contains only the declaration of the variable's names. The related values will be stored in a different file.

# file: network.yml

Parameters:
  ProjectName:
    Description: Name of the project
    Type: String
  VpcCIDR:
    Description: CIDR of VPC
    Type: String
    Default: 10.0.0.0/16
  PrivateSubnetCIDR:
    Description: CIDR of private subnet
    Type: String
    Default: 10.0.1.0/24
  PublicSubnetCIDR:
    Description: CIDR of public subnet
    Type: String
    Default: 10.0.2.0/24

For example, we store the values in the network-params.json file.

[
  {
    "ParameterKey": "ProjectName",
    "ParameterValue": "MyProject"
  },
  {
    "ParameterKey": "VpcCIDR",
    "ParameterValue": "10.0.0.0/16"
  },
  {
    "ParameterKey": "PrivateSubnetCIDR",
    "ParameterValue": "10.0.0.0/24"
  },
  {
    "ParameterKey": "PublicSubnetCIDR",
    "ParameterValue": "10.0.128.0/24"
  }
]

Now, we will define all resources in the Resources block. The first component that is required to be defined is the VPC itself. The component's name is up to us. In this example, it is named as VPC. The most important property is the type. For deploying the VPC it should be AWS::EC2::VPC. CloudFormation can translate a reference by using the !Ref function. We can refer to other resources' names or configuration parameter names by using the same function. 

  VPC:
    Type: AWS::EC2::VPC
    Properties:
      CidrBlock: !Ref VpcCIDR
      EnableDnsSupport: true
      EnableDnsHostnames: true
      Tags:
        - Key: Name
          Value: !Ref ProjectName

Then, we need to deploy an internet gateway and attach it to the VPC network. The internet gateway is required to allow all components in our network to communicate with the outside world through the internet. 

  InetGW:
    Type: AWS::EC2::InternetGateway
    Properties:
      Tags:
        - Key: Name
          Value: !Ref ProjectName
  
  InetGWAttachment:
    Type: AWS::EC2::VPCGatewayAttachment
    Properties:
      InternetGatewayId: !Ref InetGW
      VpcId: !Ref VPC

The next are the subnets. The private subnet doesn't need to provide public IP addresses while the public subnet needs it. The !Sub function is used in a text to transform the parameter to the referred value. CloudFormation is shipped to support many built-in functions, one of them is the !GetAZs function for retrieving the list of availability zones (AZ) in a region. In this example, we take only the first result because we deploy the subnets in a single AZ. 

  PrivateSubnet:
    Type: AWS::EC2::Subnet
    Properties:
      VpcId: !Ref VPC
      CidrBlock: !Ref PrivateSubnetCIDR
      AvailabilityZone: !Select [0, !GetAZs '']
      MapPublicIpOnLaunch: false
      Tags:
        - Key: Name
          Value: !Sub ${ProjectName} Private Subnet (AZ1)
  
  PublicSubnet:
    Type: AWS::EC2::Subnet
    Properties:
      VpcId: !Ref VPC
      CidrBlock: !Ref PublicSubnetCIDR
      AvailabilityZone: !Select [0, !GetAZs '']
      MapPublicIpOnLaunch: true
      Tags:
        - Key: Name
          Value: !Sub ${ProjectName} Public Subnet (AZ1)

The resources in the private subnet typically still need some dependencies which may be available only on the internet. Therefore, we need to deploy a NAT gateway that allows outbound traffic from private resources. The NAT gateway should be deployed on the public subnet so that it can access the internet. It also requires an allocated IP for allowing inbound traffic from specific clients that need to access the private resources. 

  NatGatewayEIP:
    Type: AWS::EC2::EIP
    DependsOn: InetGWAttachment
    Properties:
      Domain: vpc
  
  NatGateway:
    Type: AWS::EC2::NatGateway
    Properties:
      AllocationId: !GetAtt NatGatewayEIP.AllocationId
      SubnetId: !Ref PublicSubnet

We need route tables for public and private subnets so that the gateways can direct traffic correctly. The route table can host multiple route configurations. Then, we need to define the association between a routing table and a subnet. In the public routing configuration, we use the GatewayId property. Meanwhile, in the private routing configuration, we use the NatGatewayId property. 

  PublicRouteTable:
    Type: AWS::EC2::RouteTable
    Properties:
      VpcId: !Ref VPC
      Tags:
        - Key: Name
          Value: !Sub ${ProjectName} Public Routing

  DefaultPublicRoute:
    Type: AWS::EC2::Route
    DependsOn: InetGWAttachment
    Properties:
      RouteTableId: !Ref PublicRouteTable
      DestinationCidrBlock: 0.0.0.0/0
      GatewayId: !Ref InetGW
  
  PublicSubnetRouteTableAssociation:
    Type: AWS::EC2::SubnetRouteTableAssociation
    Properties:
      RouteTableId: !Ref PublicRouteTable
      SubnetId: !Ref PublicSubnet
  
  PrivateRouteTable:
    Type: AWS::EC2::RouteTable
    Properties:
      VpcId: !Ref VPC
      Tags:
        - Key: Name
          Value: !Sub ${ProjectName} Private Routing AZ1
  
  DefaultPrivateRoute:
    Type: AWS::EC2::Route
    Properties:
      RouteTableId: !Ref PrivateRouteTable
      DestinationCidrBlock: 0.0.0.0/0
      NatGatewayId: !Ref NatGateway
  
  PrivateSubnetRouteTableAssociation:
    Type: AWS::EC2::SubnetRouteTableAssociation
    Properties:
      RouteTableId: !Ref PrivateRouteTable
      SubnetId: !Ref PrivateSubnet

After we define all resources, we may need to know the IDs of the deployed components or the allocated IPs of the elastic IP resources. The values can also be referred to by other stack declarations within different configuration files. We can expose those values by declaring custom output variables in the Outputs block. The values are accessed by other files using their exported names.

  oVPC:
    Description: Reference to created VPC
    Value: !Ref VPC
    Export:
      Name: !Sub ${ProjectName}-VPCID

  oVPCPublicRouteTable:
    Description: Public Routing
    Value: !Ref PublicRouteTable
    Export:
      Name: !Sub ${ProjectName}-PubRouteID

  oVPCPrivateRouteTable:
    Description: Private Routing AZ1
    Value: !Ref PrivateRouteTable
    Export:
      Name: !Sub ${ProjectName}-PrivRouteID
  
  oPublicSubnets:
    Description: List of public subnets
    Value: !Join [ ',', [!Ref PublicSubnet] ]
    Export:
      Name: !Sub ${ProjectName}-PubNets

  oPrivateSubnets:
    Description: List of private subnets
    Value: !Join [ ',', [!Ref PrivateSubnet] ]
    Export:
      Name: !Sub ${ProjectName}-PrivNets
  
  oNatGatewayEIP:
    Description: Elastic IP address of the NAT gateway
    Value: !Ref NatGatewayEIP
    Export:
      Name: !Sub ${ProjectName}-NatGatewayEIP

Lastly, we can deploy the infrastructures using the AWS CLI tool.

aws --region ap-southeast-1 cloudformation create-stack \
  --stack-name myStack \
  --template-body file://network.yml \
  --parameters file://network-params.json

The final configuration file that we run is as follows.

Labels:

Comments

Post a Comment

Popular posts from this blog

Configuring Swap Memory on Ubuntu Using Ansible

If we maintain a Linux machine with a low memory capacity while we are required to run an application with high memory consumption, enabling swap memory is an option. Ansible can be utilized as a helper tool to automate the creation of swap memory. A swap file can be allocated in the available storage of the machine. The swap file then can be assigned as a swap memory. Firstly, we should prepare the inventory file. The following snippet is an example, you must provide your own configuration. [server] 192.168.1.2 [server:vars] ansible_user=root ansible_ssh_private_key_file=~/.ssh/id_rsa Secondly, we need to prepare the task file that contains not only the tasks but also some variables and connection information. For instance, we set /swapfile  as the name of our swap file. We also set the swap memory size to 2GB and the swappiness level to 60. - hosts: server become: true vars: swap_vars: size: 2G swappiness: 60 For simplicity, we only check the...
3 comments
Read more

Rangkaian Sensor Infrared dengan Photo Dioda

Keunggulan photodioda dibandingkan LDR adalah photodioda lebih tidak rentan terhadap noise karena hanya menerima sinar infrared, sedangkan LDR menerima seluruh cahaya yang ada termasuk infrared. Rangkaian yang akan kita gunakan adalah seperti gambar di bawah ini. Pada saat intensitas Infrared yang diterima Photodiode besar maka tahanan Photodiode menjadi kecil, sedangkan jika intensitas Infrared yang diterima Photodiode kecil maka tahanan yang dimiliki photodiode besar. Jika  tahanan photodiode kecil  maka tegangan  V- akan kecil . Misal tahanan photodiode mengecil menjadi 10kOhm. Maka dengan teorema pembagi tegangan: V- = Rrx/(Rrx + R2) x Vcc V- = 10 / (10+10) x Vcc V- = (1/2) x 5 Volt V- = 2.5 Volt Sedangkan jika  tahanan photodiode besar  maka tegangan  V- akan besar  (mendekati nilai Vcc). Misal tahanan photodiode menjadi 150kOhm. Maka dengan teorema pembagi tegangan: V- = Rrx/(Rrx + R2) x Vcc V- = 150 / (1...
7 comments
Read more

Installing VSCode Server Manually on Ubuntu

I've ever gotten stuck on updating the VSCode server on my remote server because of an unstable connection between my remote server and visualstudio.com that host the updated server source codes. The download and update process failed over and over so I couldn't remotely access my remote files through VSCode. The solution is by downloading the server source codes through a host with a stable connection which in my case I downloaded from a cloud VPS server. Then I transfer the downloaded source codes as a compressed file to my remote server through SCP. Once the file had been on my remote sever, I extracted them and align the configuration. The more detailed steps are as follows. First, we should get the commit ID of our current VSCode application by clicking on the About option on the Help menu. The commit ID is a hexadecimal number like  92da9481c0904c6adfe372c12da3b7748d74bdcb . Then we can download the compressed server source codes as a single file from the host. ...
Post a Comment
Read more

API Gateway Using KrakenD

The increasing demands of users for high-quality web services create the need to integrate various technologies into our application. This will cause the code base to grow larger, making maintenance more difficult over time. A microservices approach offers a solution, where the application is built by combining multiple smaller services, each with a distinct function. For example, one service handles authentication, another manages business functions, another maintains file uploads, and so on. These services communicate and integrate through a common channel. On the client side, users don't need to understand how the application is built or how it functions internally. They simply send a request to a single endpoint, and processes like authentication, caching, or database querying happen seamlessly. This is where an API gateway is effective. It handles user requests and directs them to the appropriate handler. There are several tools available for building an API gateway, su...
Post a Comment
Read more

Deploying a Web Server on UpCloud using Terraform Modules

In my earlier post , I shared an example of deploying UpCloud infrastructure using Terraform from scratch. In this post, I want to share how to deploy the infrastructure using available Terraform modules to speed up the set-up process, especially for common use cases like preparing a web server. For instance, our need is to deploy a website with some conditions as follows. The website can be accessed through HTTPS. If the request is HTTP, it will be redirected to HTTPS. There are 2 domains, web1.yourdomain.com and web2.yourdomain.com . But, users should be redirected to "web2" if they are visiting "web1". There are 4 main modules that we need to set up the environment. Private network. It allows the load balancer to connect with the server and pass the traffic. Server. It is used to host the website. Load balancer. It includes backend and frontend configuration. Dynamic certificate. It is requ...
Post a Comment
Read more

Manage Kubernetes Cluster using Rancher

Recently, I sought a simpler method to deploy and maintain Kubernetes clusters across various cloud providers. The goal was to use it for development purposes with the ability to manage the infrastructure and costs effortlessly. After exploring several options, I decided to experiment with Rancher. Rancher offers a comprehensive software stack for teams implementing container technology. It tackles both the operational and security hurdles associated with managing numerous Kubernetes clusters. Additionally, it equips DevOps teams with integrated tools essential for managing containerized workloads. Rancher also offers an open-source version, allowing free deployment within one's infrastructure. The Rancher platform can be deployed either as a Docker container or within a Kubernetes cluster utilizing the K3s engine. We can read the documentation on how to install Rancher on K3s using Helm . Rancher itself enables the creation and provisioning of Kubernetes clusters and ...
Post a Comment
Read more