This backend for Hiera can retrieve information from:

• the outputs of a CloudFormation stack
• the metadata of a resource in a stack

gem install hiera-cloudformation

Add the backend to the list of backends in hiera.yaml:

---
:backends:
  - yaml
  - cloudformation

To provide the backend with an AWS access key, you can add the following configuration to the :cloudformation section in hiera.yaml:

:cloudformation:
  :access_key_id: Your_AWS_Access_Key_ID_Here
  :secret_access_key: Your_AWS_Secret_Access_Key_Here

If you do not add these keys to your configuration file, the access keys will be looked up from the AWS_ACCESS_KEY_ID and AWS_SECRET_ACCESS_KEY environment variables, or from an IAM instance role (if you are running Hiera on an EC2 instance with an IAM role assigned).

The AWS region to use can also be configured in the :cloudformation section of hiera.yaml. You can also tell the backend to convert string literals "true", "false", "3.14", etc to Boolean or Number types with the :parse_metadata configuration option; this may be useful as CloudFormation will convert Booleans and Numbers in the template JSON metadata into Strings when retrieved from a stack resource:

:cloudformation:
  :region: 'us-west-1'
  :parse_metadata: true

To use this backend you also need to add entries to your "hierarchy" in your hiera.yaml file. If you put an entry of this form in your hierarchy:

cfstack/<stack name>/outputs

the backend will request the outputs of the stack named <stack name> and search for an output named the same as the requested key. If an output named the same as the key is found, the backend will return the value of that output (as a string). If you put an entry of this form in your hierarchy:

cfstack/<stack name>/resources/<logical resource ID>

the backend will request the JSON metadata of the logical resource identified by the given ID, in the named stack, and look for a JSON object under the top-level key "hiera" in the metadata. If a JSON object is present under the top-level key "hiera", the backend will search for the requested key in that JSON object, and return the value of the key if present.

The recommended way of constructing your hierarchy so that Puppet-managed nodes can retrieve data relating to the CloudFormation stack they're part of, is to create facts on the Puppet nodes describing what CloudFormation stack they're part of and what logical resource ID corresponds to their instance. Then, assuming you have two facts "cloudformation_stack" and "cloudformation_resource" reported on your node, you can add these entries to the "hierarchy" in hiera.yaml:

- cfstack/%{cloudformation_stack}/outputs
- cfstack/%{cloudformation_stack}/resources/%{cloudformation_resource}

and Hiera will replace the %{...} placeholders with the value of the facts on the node, enabling the node to look up information about the stack it "belongs" to.

For example, if this snippet is included in your CloudFormation template, and you include an entry

cfstack/<stack name>/outputs

in your hierarchy, you can look up the key "example_key" in Hiera and get the value of the logical resource identified by "AWSEC2Instance" (for example, this might be an EC2 instance, so Hiera would return the instance ID)

"Outputs" : {
  "example_key": {
    "Description" : "AWSEC2Instance is the logical resource ID of the instance that was created",
    "Value" : { "Ref": "AWSEC2Instance" }
  }
}

As another example, if you define an EC2 instance with the following snippet in your CloudFormation template, including some metadata:

"Resources" : {
  "MyIAMKey" : {
    "Type" : "AWS::IAM::AccessKey",
    ...
  },
  "AWSEC2Instance" : {
    "Type" : "AWS::EC2::Instance",
    "Properties" : {
      ...
    },
    "Metadata" : {
      "hiera" : {
        "class::access_key_id": { "Ref": "MyIAMKey" },
        "class::secret_access_key": { "Fn::GetAtt" : [ "MyIAMKey" , "SecretAccessKey" ] }
      }
    }
  }
}

and you include an entry:

cfstack/<stack name>/resources/AWSEC2Instance

in your hierarchy, you can query hiera for the key "class::access_key_id" or "class::secret_access_key" and retrieve the attributes of the "MyIAMKey" resource created by CloudFormation.

Requires ruby 1.9+ for minitest

rake test