Using AWS Tags to add servers to groups

Instead of manually adding servers to a group, a group can be configured to automatically add new servers based on their AWS tags. Furthermore, if a tag is removed from a server, that server will automatically be removed from all corresponding groups as well.

Note – If this option is enabled for a group, it will not be possible to manually add servers to that group - only servers with the corresponding tags assigned in AWS will be added. If this option is then disabled, servers can manually be added again but the servers that were assigned based on their tags will be lost from the group.

First of all you need to configure the tags in AWS:

  1. Log in to your AWS account.

  2. Find the server that you need to add the tag to.

  3. Navigate to the Tags tab.

  4. Click Add/Edit Tags.

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  5. Click Create Tag and then add a Key and a Value to the empty tag that is added. This might be something like ‘Owner’ and ‘Steve’ or ‘Group’ and ‘SysAdmins’.

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  6. Click Save.

Once the tags have been added to the server, configure CMM to detect the tags:

  1. Log in to your CMM account.

  2. Go to the ADMIN menu and select MANAGE GROUPS – this will take you to the Manage Groups page where all existing groups are listed in the grid.

  3. Find the group that you want to detect AWS tags and click the Edit link – this will take you to the Basic Details tab.

  4. Enable the Automatically assign servers to this group based on AWS Tag option.

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    When this option is enabled, a series of extra options will appear below.

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  5. All Keys that have been added in your AWS account will appear in the Key drop down menu. Select the relevant Key for this group. (If a Key does not appear, click the Refresh button to update the list).

  6. Manually enter any Values that you want to add to this group. To add multiple values for a single key, separate them by a comma. Use a wildcard character (*) to match any value – in other words, if a value exists for the selected Key, it will be added.

    For example, if you want to add all servers that belong to Steve, David and Mark in AWS, you may have a Key called ‘Owners’ and then Values would be set as ‘Steve, David, Mark’. Alternatively, if these 3 owners are actually the only owners in AWS, set Values to ‘*’ to simply include them 3 of them.

  7. Click Save.