How to create an AWS Auto Scaling Group via AWS Cli?

June 29, 2020 / Nirav Shah

How to create an AWS Auto Scaling Group via AWS Cli?

a.What is Amazon Auto Scaling Group?

As per AWS “AWS Auto Scaling monitors your applications and automatically adjusts capacity to maintain steady, predictable performance at the lowest possible cost” . Using AWS Auto Scaling, it’s easy to setup application scaling for multiple resources across multiple services in minutes. The service provides a simple, powerful user interface that lets you build scaling plans for resources including Amazon EC2 instances and Spot Fleets, Amazon ECS tasks, Amazon DynamoDB tables and indexes, and Amazon Aurora Replicas. AWS Auto Scaling makes scaling simple with recommendations that allow you to optimize performance, costs, or balance between them. If you’re already using Amazon EC2 Auto Scaling to dynamically scale your Amazon EC2 instances, you can now combine it with AWS Auto Scaling to scale additional resources for other AWS services. With AWS Auto Scaling, your applications always have the right resources at the right time.

It’s easy to get started with AWS Auto Scaling using the AWS Management Console, Command Line Interface (CLI), or SDK. AWS Auto Scaling is available at no additional charge. You pay only for the AWS resources needed to run your applications and Amazon CloudWatch monitoring fees.

b.To create an Auto Scaling group using a launch configuration

This example creates an Auto Scaling group in a VPC using a launch configuration to specify the type of EC2 instance that Amazon EC2 Auto Scaling creates
- aws autoscaling create-auto-scaling-group –auto-scaling-group-name test-asg –launch-configuration-name test-launch-config –min-size 1 –max-size 3 –vpc-zone-identifier “subnet-5ea0c127,subnet-6194ea3b,subnet-c934b782”
This example creates an Auto Scaling group and configures it to use an Elastic Load Balancing load balancer.
- aws autoscaling create-auto-scaling-group –auto-scaling-group-name test-asg –launch-configuration-name test-launch-config –load-balancer-names test-load-balancer –health-check-type ELB –health-check-grace-period 120 –min-size 1 –max-size 3 –vpc-zone-identifier “subnet-5ea0c127,subnet-6194ea3b,subnet-c934b782”
This example specifies a desired capacity as well as a minimum and maximum capacity. It also launches instances into a placement group and sets the termination policy to terminate the oldest instances first.
- aws autoscaling create-auto-scaling-group –auto-scaling-group-name test-asg –launch-configuration-name test-launch-config –min-size 1 –max-size 3 –desired-capacity 1 –placement-group test-placement-group –termination-policies “OldestInstance” –availability-zones us-west-2c
c.To create an Auto Scaling group using an EC2 instance.
This example creates an Auto Scaling group from the specified EC2 instance and assigns a tag to instances in the group.
- aws autoscaling create-auto-scaling-group –auto-scaling-group-name test-asg –instance-id i-22c99e2a –min-size 1 –max-size 3 –vpc-zone-identifier “subnet-5ea0c127,subnet-6194ea3b,subnet-c934b782” –tags “ResourceId=test-asg,ResourceType=auto-scaling-group,Key=Role,Value=WebServer,PropagateAtLaunch=true
d.To create an Auto Scaling group using a launch template.
This example creates an Auto Scaling group in a VPC using a launch template to specify the type of EC2 instance that Amazon EC2 Auto Scaling creates.
- aws autoscaling create-auto-scaling-group –auto-scaling-group-name test-asg –launch-template “LaunchTemplateName=test-template-for-auto-scaling,Version=1” –min-size 1 –max-size 3 –vpc-zone-identifier “subnet-5ea0c127,subnet-6194ea3b,subnet-c934b782”
This example uses the default version of the specified launch template. It specifies Availability Zones and subnets and enables the instance protection setting.
- aws autoscaling create-auto-scaling-group –auto-scaling-group-name test-asg –launch-template LaunchTemplateId=lt-0a4872e2c396d941c –min-size 1 –max-size 3 –desired-capacity 2 –availability-zones us-west-2a us-west-2b us-west-2c –vpc-zone-identifier “subnet-5ea0c127,subnet-6194ea3b,subnet-c934b782” –new-instances-protected-from-scale-in
This example creates an Auto Scaling group that launches a single instance using a launch template to optionally specify the ID of an existing network interface (ENI ID) to use. It specifies an Availability Zone that matches the specified network interface
- aws autoscaling create-auto-scaling-group –auto-scaling-group-name test-asg-single-instance –launch-template “LaunchTemplateName=test-single-instance-asg-template,Version=2” –min-size 1 –max-size 1 –availability-zones us-west-2a

e.Commands

create-auto-scaling-group
–auto-scaling-group-name
[–launch-configuration-name ]
[–launch-template ]
[–mixed-instances-policy ]
[–instance-id ]
–min-size
–max-size
[–desired-capacity ]
[–default-cooldown ]
[–availability-zones ]
[–load-balancer-names ]
[–target-group-arns ]
[–health-check-type ]
[–health-check-grace-period ]
[–placement-group ]
[–vpc-zone-identifier ]
[–termination-policies ]
[–new-instances-protected-from-scale-in | –no-new-instances-protected-from-scale-in]
[–lifecycle-hook-specification-list ]
[–tags ]
[–service-linked-role-arn ]
[–max-instance-lifetime ]
[–cli-input-json ]
[–generate-cli-skeleton ]

a.Commands Explanation

–auto-scaling-group-name (string)
- The name of the Auto Scaling group. This name must be unique per Region per account.
–launch-configuration-name (string)
- The name of the launch configuration.
- If you do not specify LaunchConfigurationName , you must specify one of the following parameters: InstanceId , LaunchTemplate , or MixedInstancesPolicy.
–launch-template (structure)
- The launch template to use to launch instances.
- If you do not specify LaunchTemplate , you must specify one of the following parameters: InstanceId , LaunchConfigurationName , or MixedInstancesPolicy.
Shorthand Syntax
- LaunchTemplateId=string,LaunchTemplateName=string,Version=string

JSON Syntax

			{
			  "LaunchTemplateId": "string",
			  "LaunchTemplateName": "string",
			  "Version": "string"
			}

–mixed-instances-policy (structure)
- An embedded object that specifies a mixed instances policy. The required parameters must be specified. If optional parameters are unspecified, their default values are used.
- You must specify one of the following parameters in your request: LaunchConfigurationName , LaunchTemplate , InstanceId , or MixedInstancesPolicy.

JSON Syntax

			{
			  "LaunchTemplate": {
			    "LaunchTemplateSpecification": {
			      "LaunchTemplateId": "string",
			      "LaunchTemplateName": "string",
			      "Version": "string"
			    },
			    "Overrides": [
			      {
			        "InstanceType": "string",
			        "WeightedCapacity": "string"
			      }
			      ...
			    ]
			  },
			  "InstancesDistribution": {
			    "OnDemandAllocationStrategy": "string",
			    "OnDemandBaseCapacity": integer,
			    "OnDemandPercentageAboveBaseCapacity": integer,
			    "SpotAllocationStrategy": "string",
			    "SpotInstancePools": integer,
			    "SpotMaxPrice": "string"
			  }
			}

–instance-id (string)
- The ID of the instance used to create a launch configuration for the group.
- When you specify an ID of an instance, Amazon EC2 Auto Scaling creates a new launch configuration and associates it with the group. This launch configuration derives its attributes from the specified instance, except for the block device mapping.
- You must specify one of the following parameters in your request: LaunchConfigurationName , LaunchTemplate , InstanceId , or MixedInstancesPolicy.
–min-size (integer)
- The minimum size of the group.
–max-size (integer)
- The maximum size of the group.
–desired-capacity (integer)
- The number of Amazon EC2 instances that the Auto Scaling group attempts to maintain. This number must be greater than or equal to the minimum size of the group and less than or equal to the maximum size of the group. If you do not specify a desired capacity, the default is the minimum size of the group.
–default-cooldown (integer)
- The amount of time, in seconds, after a scaling activity completes before another scaling activity can start. The default value is 300.
–availability-zones (list)
- One or more Availability Zones for the group. This parameter is optional if you specify one or more subnets for VPCZoneIdentifier.
- Conditional: If your account supports EC2-Classic and VPC, this parameter is required to launch instances into EC2-Classic.
Syntax
- “string” “string” …
–load-balancer-names (list)
- A list of Classic Load Balancers associated with this Auto Scaling group. For Application Load Balancers and Network Load Balancers, specify a list of target groups using the TargetGroupARNs property instead.
Syntax
- “string” “string” …
–target-group-arns (list)
- The Amazon Resource Names (ARN) of the target groups to associate with the Auto Scaling group. Instances are registered as targets in a target group, and traffic is routed to the target group.
Syntax
- “string” “string” …
–health-check-type (string)
- The service to use for the health checks. The valid values are EC2 and ELB . The default value is EC2 . If you configure an Auto Scaling group to use ELB health checks, it considers the instance unhealthy if it fails either the EC2 status checks or the load balancer health checks.
–health-check-grace-period (integer)
- The amount of time, in seconds, that Amazon EC2 Auto Scaling waits before checking the health status of an EC2 instance that has come into service. During this time, any health check failures for the instance are ignored. The default value is 0.
–placement-group (string)
- The name of the placement group into which to launch your instances, if any. A placement group is a logical grouping of instances within a single Availability Zone. You cannot specify multiple Availability Zones and a placement group.
–vpc-zone-identifier (string)
- A comma-separated list of subnet IDs for your virtual private cloud (VPC).
- If you specify VPCZoneIdentifier with AvailabilityZones , the subnets that you specify for this parameter must reside in those Availability Zones.
- Conditional: If your account supports EC2-Classic and VPC, this parameter is required to launch instances into a VPC.
–termination-policies (list)
- One or more termination policies used to select the instance to terminate. These policies are executed in the order that they are listed.
Syntax
- “string” “string” …
–new-instances-protected-from-scale-in | –no-new-instances-protected-from-scale-in (boolean)
- Indicates whether newly launched instances are protected from termination by Amazon EC2 Auto Scaling when scaling in.
–lifecycle-hook-specification-list (list)
- One or more lifecycle hooks.
Shorthand Syntax
- LifecycleHookName=string,LifecycleTransition=string,NotificationMetadata=string,HeartbeatTimeout=integer,DefaultResult=string,NotificationTargetARN=string,RoleARN=string …

JSON Syntax

			[
			  	{
			    "LifecycleHookName": "string",
			    "LifecycleTransition": "string",
			    "NotificationMetadata": "string",
			    "HeartbeatTimeout": integer,
			    "DefaultResult": "string",
			    "NotificationTargetARN": "string",
			    "RoleARN": "string"
			  }
			  …
			]

–tags (list)
- One or more tags.
Shorthand Syntax
- ResourceId=string,ResourceType=string,Key=string,Value=string,PropagateAtLaunch=boolean …

JSON Syntax

			[
			  {
			    "ResourceId": "string",
			    "ResourceType": "string",
			    "Key": "string",
			    "Value": "string",
			    "PropagateAtLaunch": true|false
			  }
			  …
			]

–service-linked-role-arn (string)
- The Amazon Resource Name (ARN) of the service-linked role that the Auto Scaling group uses to call other AWS services on your behalf. By default, Amazon EC2 Auto Scaling uses a service-linked role named AWSServiceRoleForAutoScaling, which it creates if it does not exist.
–max-instance-lifetime (integer)
- The maximum amount of time, in seconds, that an instance can be in service.
- Valid Range: Minimum value of 604800.
- –cli-input-json (string) Performs service operation based on the JSON string provided. The JSON string follows the format provided by –generate-cli-skeleton. If other arguments are provided on the command line, the CLI values will override the JSON-provided values. It is not possible to pass arbitrary binary values using a JSON-provided value as the string will be taken literally.
- –generate-cli-skeleton (string) Prints a JSON skeleton to standard output without sending an API request. If provided with no value or the value input, print a sample input JSON that can be used as an argument for –cli-input-json. If provided with the value output, it validates the command inputs and returns a sample output JSON for that command.

Also Read : How to launch spot instance using AWS CLI

FAQs:

1. How do I create a new instance in Auto Scaling group?

2. Can I use Auto Scaling group without load balancer?

3. Can you modify Auto Scaling group?

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Nirav Shah

As a Director of Eternal Web Private Ltd an AWS consulting partner company, Nirav is responsible for its operations. AWS, cloud-computing and digital transformation are some of his favorite topics to talk about. His key focus is to help enterprises adopt technology, to solve their business problem with the right cloud solutions.