# Best scalable approach to bootstrapping an EC2 server from within AWS Cloudformation? **URL:** \ **Category:** Ansible Project\ **Tags:** aws\ **Created:** [February 25, 2016, 7:03pm UTC](https://forum.ansible.com/t/best-scalable-approach-to-bootstrapping-an-ec2-server-from-within-aws-cloudformation/20681 "2016-02-25T19:03:13Z")\ **Posts on this page:** 5\ **Page:** 1
**Author:** ![KeithA](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/k/ac91a4/32.png) [@KeithA](https://forum.ansible.com/u/KeithA)\ **Post date:** [February 25, 2016, 7:03pm UTC](https://forum.ansible.com/t/best-scalable-approach-to-bootstrapping-an-ec2-server-from-within-aws-cloudformation/20681/1 "2016-02-25T19:03:13Z")
I am relatively new to Ansible (and config. management in general) so please excuse me if I sound confused. I encourage you to correct me or clarify me if I am wrong. I have setup an AWS Cloudformation template through AWS and not Ansible, have defined my infrastructure, auto-scaling group and launch configurations for out-scaling servers in a VPC. I understand I have a few choices to bootstrap the servers as they are launched: (I’m not 100% sure if these are the correct ways to implement the choices) 1. Use metadata & cloud-init in Cloudformation to run bash scripts directly 2. Pre-bake AMI’s with packages and run playbooks locally when the server is launched. 3. Install packages, Ansible, copy playbooks from a private repo, and run playbooks locally 4. Install packages, Ansible, and use ‘ansible-pull’ What I am confused about is that choices #2,3,4 require Ansible to be installed just to run a local playbook. But would the servers even use Ansible after it’s initial bootstrap? Is it really necessary to have Ansible on the remote server (if so, could you explain a use case)? I’m assuming after it’s ready I would no longer use Ansible on the remote server and instead provision/update the servers from my control server. I want to make it automated so that I don’t have to: 1. install Ansible on the remote server _if_ I don’t have to or it can be done another, more scalable, way. 2. SSH into the remote server to install all the initial packages and code manually. I was considering choice #1 because I can install packages, start nginx, and my application through bash directly in the cloud-init/metadata. However I am assuming it’s not very dynamic. What are your thoughts/opinions/advice? Thank you for your help in advance! ---
**Author:** ![viper233](https://sea1.discourse-cdn.com/ansible/user_avatar/forum.ansible.com/viper233/32/2060_2.png) [@viper233](https://forum.ansible.com/u/viper233)\ **Post date:** [February 25, 2016, 8:06pm UTC](https://forum.ansible.com/t/best-scalable-approach-to-bootstrapping-an-ec2-server-from-within-aws-cloudformation/20681/2 "2016-02-25T20:06:02Z")
I’ve been implementing a bit of 1, 3, 4 to bring up ASG instances. I, like many people dislike having unnecessary software on my hosts (instances) so thought this could be another way to carry out the same process - Running Ansible from AWS Lambda [https://medium.com/@jacoelho/ansible-in-aws-lambda-980bb8b5791b#.u8t6gsbvp](https://medium.com/@jacoelho/ansible-in-aws-lambda-980bb8b5791b#.u8t6gsbvp) Though I haven’t yet figured out how to do this yet with the 2.0 api of Ansible. It would be really nice because then you could further restrict the access/rights that the instances have. It’s really annoying when you aren’t using an elb and have to then also update route53 values when the instances comes up. ---
**Author:** ![KeithA](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/k/ac91a4/32.png) [@KeithA](https://forum.ansible.com/u/KeithA)\ **Post date:** [February 26, 2016, 1:02am UTC](https://forum.ansible.com/t/best-scalable-approach-to-bootstrapping-an-ec2-server-from-within-aws-cloudformation/20681/3 "2016-02-26T01:02:28Z")
How are you implementing these? I was thinking of taking advantage of AWS’s [Lifecycle Hooks](http://docs.aws.amazon.com/AutoScaling/latest/DeveloperGuide/lifecycle-hooks.html) to trigger a Lambda function to have Ansible run playbooks on the pending server but I think that may be a little too much. ---
**Author:** ![viper233](https://sea1.discourse-cdn.com/ansible/user_avatar/forum.ansible.com/viper233/32/2060_2.png) [@viper233](https://forum.ansible.com/u/viper233)\ **Post date:** [February 26, 2016, 4:05am UTC](https://forum.ansible.com/t/best-scalable-approach-to-bootstrapping-an-ec2-server-from-within-aws-cloudformation/20681/4 "2016-02-26T04:05:20Z")
1. Use metadata & cloud-init in Cloudformation to run bash scripts directly 2. Install packages, Ansible, copy playbooks from a private repo, and run playbooks locally 3. Install packages, Ansible, and use ‘ansible-pull’ I get the lc user data script to install ansible, pull from an s3 bucket and then just run Ansible locally (not ansible-pull). I have it run a bootstrap playbook which get’s the instance tags from the metadata. In the ASG configuration I have a tag, ansible\_host\_group which includes the host groups this instance will belong to in the Ansible (dynamic ec2) inventory. The bootstrap playbook uses add\_host to add the localhost i.e. the instance to the ansible\_host\_group group, site.yml is then included. site.yml includes the other application tier playbooks, webserver.yml, database.yml etc. The hosts: value restricts what instances run the plays/roles. # webserver.yml ---
**Author:** ![KeithA](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/k/ac91a4/32.png) [@KeithA](https://forum.ansible.com/u/KeithA)\ **Post date:** [February 26, 2016, 4:45am UTC](https://forum.ansible.com/t/best-scalable-approach-to-bootstrapping-an-ec2-server-from-within-aws-cloudformation/20681/5 "2016-02-26T04:45:22Z")
Cool, so I feel like I’m on the right track! I was thinking of doing it similarly. Thank you for replying so quickly.