Upload a file from local machine to s3 bucket via cloudformation script

Solution 1:

If I understand you correctly, you're asking if there's a way to upload a file to an S3 bucket via the CloudFormation stack that creates the bucket. Then answer is yes, but it is not simple or direct.

There are two ways to accomplish this.

1) Create an EC2 instance that uploads the file on startup. You probably don't want to start an EC2 instance and leave it running just to submit a single file, but it would work.

2) Use a Lambda-backed custom resource. See http://docs.aws.amazon.com/AWSCloudFormation/latest/UserGuide/template-custom-resources.html for information about custom resources. In CloudFormation you could create the Lambda function itself, then create a custom resource based on that Lambda function. When the custom resource is created, the Lambda function would get called and you could use that function invocation to upload the file.

Note, that both approaches would also require creating an IAM role to grant the permissions required to perform the S3 upload.

Solution 2:

Please see AWS Docs:

• https://docs.aws.amazon.com/AWSCloudFormation/latest/UserGuide/using-cfn-cli-package.html
• https://docs.aws.amazon.com/cli/latest/reference/cloudformation/package.html

For some resource properties that require an Amazon S3 location (a bucket name and filename), you can specify local references instead. For example, you might specify the S3 location of your AWS Lambda function's source code or an Amazon API Gateway REST API's OpenAPI (formerly Swagger) file. Instead of manually uploading the files to an S3 bucket and then adding the location to your template, you can specify local references, called local artifacts, in your template and then use the package command to quickly upload them. A local artifact is a path to a file or folder that the package command uploads to Amazon S3. For example, an artifact can be a local path to your AWS Lambda function's source code or an Amazon API Gateway REST API's OpenAPI file.

I've just tested it with AWS SAM for a Glue job ScriptLocation and it worked a charm 👌

Also see this answer for more complex use cases.