When deploying Elasticsearch 5.1 via Cloudformation there are 2 important things to know. Both are Advanced Options for Elasticsearch that are listed as optional, but your CFN stack will FAIL to deploy if they are not set.
Symptoms:
- In AWS console it will show stack as CREATE_IN_PROGRESS for ~1hr
- Stack will rollback with ‘Cluster did not stabilize’
- Same stack with v2.3 will deploy fine…
Im sure by the time someone else finds this post it will be fixed, but if not, see below.