Generate CloudFormation / Terraform / Troposphere templates from your existing AWS resources
Former2 allows you to generate Infrastructure-as-Code outputs from your existing resources within your AWS account. By making the relevant calls using the AWS JavaScript SDK, Former2 will scan across your infrastructure and present you with the list of resources for you to choose which to generate outputs for.
Though some AWS services do not require it, you will need to install the Former2 Helper browser extension in order to have support for all AWS services. The extension exists to bypass a lack of CORS on some services, such as S3 and IAM.
Install Former2 Helper for Google Chrome
Install Former2 Helper for Mozilla Firefox
Alternatively, you can download and install the extension yourself.
Visit former2.com to start.
You will need an IAM key pair to authenticate your requests. It is recommended that you provide only read access with these credentials and suggest you assign the ReadOnlyAccess policy.
Once authenticated you can navigate via the dashboard or sidebar to specific services, select the resources to add to your outputs and finally click the “Generate” button at the top of the screen.
The following outputs are currently supported:
Calls to the AWS service API endpoints are made either directly with the JavaScript SDK or via the browser extension (which also hits endpoints directly). Recording data is kept entirely in memory or on local disk and is never sent over the internet or anywhere else. You should take care to remove any sensitive data (passwords etc.) when sharing your generated code/templates with others.
If you prefer not to use a publicly hosted site to use Former2, you can host your own version by running a HTTP server from the root of the repository. Extension support will also be available if you host on 127.0.0.1 or localhost, otherwise you can modify the extension as needed.
So I can put an existing resource directly into a CloudFormation stack?
Unfortunately not. This service will only generate the templates you’d need to recreate your resources in a new stack. You may need to remove your existing resources before you create your stack if they are uniquely named (like S3 Buckets).
Does this replace Console Recorder?
Console Recorder still fills a certain gap and has features this tool does not support (such as Get/List outputs). I’ll be maintaining both for as long as I can.
I found an issue / I’m missing an output / Something’s wrong. Can you help?
If you find a bug or want to raise a feature request, please do so via the issues page.
One Cloud Please