At least one Resources member must be defined ...error in cloud formation ec2

Question

I tried other templates from the net but still getting the same error. Error

message: Template contains errors.: Template format error: At least one Resources member must be defined.

{
"AWSTemplateFormatVersion" : "2010-09-09",

"Description" : "TTND AWS CloudFormation template to launch first instance",

"Parameters" : {

"KeyName" : {
"Description" : "EC2 Key Pair for SSH Access",
"Default" : "sample",
"MinLength": "1",
"MaxLength": "64",
"AllowedPattern" : "[-_ a-zA-Z0-9]*",
"ConstraintDescription" : "can contain only alphanumeric characters, spaces, dashes and underscores."
},
"InstanceType" : {
"Description" : "Instance1 EC2 instance type",
"Type" : "String",
"Default" : "t2.micro",
"AllowedValues" : [ "t2.micro","m1.small","m1.medium","m1.large"],
"ConstraintDescription" : "must be a valid EC2 instance type."
}
},
"Mappings" : {
    "AWSInstanceMapping" : {
      "t2.micro"    : { "Arch" : "64" },
      "t2.small"    : { "Arch" : "64" },
      "t2.medium"   : { "Arch" : "64" },
      "t2.large"    : { "Arch" : "64" },
      "m3.medium"   : { "Arch" : "64" },
      "m4.large"   : { "Arch" : "64" },
      "m4.xlarge"  : { "Arch" : "64" },
      "m4.2xlarge"  : { "Arch" : "64" }
    }
    },

    "InstanceAMI" : {
      "us-east-1"      : { "64" : "ami-09ca8e1e" }
    },

I tried other templates for net but same error I am getting

"Resources" : {

    "VPC" : {
      "Type" : "AWS::EC2::VPC",
      "Properties" : {
        "CidrBlock" : "10.0.0.0/16",
        "Tags" : [
          {"Key" : "Application", "Value" : { "Ref" : "AWS::StackId"} },
          { "Key": "Name", "Value": "Project_VPC"},
          {"Key" : "Network", "Value" : "Public" }
        ]
      }
    },

    "PublicSubnet" : {
      "Type" : "AWS::EC2::Subnet",
      "Properties" : {
        "VpcId" : { "Ref" : "VPC" },
        "CidrBlock" : "10.0.0.0/24",
        "Tags" : [
          {"Key" : "Application", "Value" : { "Ref" : "AWS::StackId"} },
          {"Key" : "Network", "Value" : "Public" },
          { "Key": "Name", "Value": "Project_Public_Subnet"}
        ]
      }
    },

    "InternetGateway" : {
      "Type" : "AWS::EC2::InternetGateway",
      "Properties" : {
        "Tags" : [
          {"Key" : "Application", "Value" : { "Ref" : "AWS::StackId"} },
          {"Key" : "Network", "Value" : "Public" },
          { "Key": "Name", "Value": "Project_Internetgateway"}
        ]
      }
    },

    "AttachGateway" : {
       "Type" : "AWS::EC2::VPCGatewayAttachment",
       "Properties" : {
         "VpcId" : { "Ref" : "VPC" },
         "InternetGatewayId" : { "Ref" : "InternetGateway" }
       }
    },
"PublicRouteTable" : {
      "Type" : "AWS::EC2::RouteTable",
      "Properties" : {
        "VpcId" : {"Ref" : "VPC"},
        "Tags" : [
          {"Key" : "Application", "Value" : { "Ref" : "AWS::StackId"} },
          {"Key" : "Network", "Value" : "Public" },
          { "Key": "Name", "Value": "cloudwords_public_routetable"}
        ]
      }
    },                                                           

some of code I deleted for posting it is giving large code error so

"Outputs" : {
 "InstanceId" : {
 "Description" : "InstanceId of the newly created instance",
 "Value" : { "Ref" : "Instance" }
 },
    }
}

If anyone has a simple template of Launching an AWS EC2 instance using CloudFormation Template please post

Answer 1

Your examples don't appear to have defined any AWS::EC2::Instance resources, which are what tell CloudFormation to provision EC2 instances.

Here's a very minimalist CloudFormation template that will create one t2.micro instance. Check out the AWS::EC2::Instance resource definition for details on what properties can be added to customize it.

{
  "AWSTemplateFormatVersion": "2010-09-09",
  "Resources": {
    "ExampleEc2Instance": {
      "Type": "AWS::EC2::Instance",
      "Properties": {
        "InstanceType": "t2.micro",
        "ImageId" : "ami-a0cfeed8"
      }
    }
  }
}

Finding a valid AMI for a particular operating system, configuration, and region can be a bit tricky. This walkthrough discusses a strategy to automate the looking up of AMIs using AWS Lambda.