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Deploy With Installer

The Cloud Installer is a small CloudFormation stack you install once, into a region of your choosing. It then gives you a web dashboard where you pick a Neo version and modules, fill in parameters, and deploy — no local toolchain.

This is the recommended way to stand up ESP RainMaker Neo, and the route most take. If you intend to modify the backend, or want the deployment under your own CI, use Deploy from Source instead.

Install it once per AWS account. One installer manages deployments in every region, so a second one in the same account collides with the first over shared bucket and table names.

What you need

An AWS account you own, signed in as a user or role with administrator access. The installer creates IAM roles, Lambda functions, DynamoDB tables, S3 buckets, Cognito pools and API Gateway APIs, and then deploys the Neo stacks on your behalf.

1. Deploy the installer stack​

Enter the email address(es) that should be allowed to sign in to the installer dashboard and pick the region to install into, then click Install ESP RainMaker Neo. One Cognito user is created per address.

Separate multiple addresses with commas. Each one becomes an initial admin user for Neo.

Where the installer stack itself is created. You choose the region for the ESP RainMaker Neo deployment separately, in the installer dashboard.


The CloudFormation Quick create stack page opens with the template, the stack name ESP-RainMaker-Neo-Installer and the InstallerEmails parameter already filled in. On that page:

  1. Scroll to the bottom and tick I acknowledge that AWS CloudFormation might create IAM resources with custom names.
  2. Choose Create stack.

Tick the IAM acknowledgement, then choose Create stack

The stack takes about 5 to 10 minutes to reach CREATE_COMPLETE.

2. Sign in to the installer dashboard​

Open the stack's Outputs tab and follow AdminLoginUrl. It opens the installer login page with the first InstallerEmails address and its one-time temporary password already filled in, and makes you set a new password before you get in.

Open the Outputs tab and follow AdminLoginUrl

Why a stack output rather than an email

Corporate mail servers routinely block or spam-filter Cognito's automated mails, so the temporary password is never emailed — it exists only in the AdminLoginUrl and AdminTemporaryPassword outputs.

3. Pick a version and modules​

  • Version — listed newest-first. Once you have deployed a version, downgrades are blocked.
  • AWS region — the region your Neo deployment lives in. Independent of the region the installer itself runs in, and you can deploy to several.
  • Modules — the ESP RainMaker Neo package is free, and the modules marked Required are always installed:
    • ESP RainMaker Neo Identity — standalone identity management system.
    • ESP RainMaker Neo — core IoT cloud, and the Admin Dashboard you administer it from.
    • Voice Assistants — control your devices with Alexa, Google Home and SmartThings.
    • Assisted Claiming — Cloud-signed node onboarding, with the CA held in AWS KMS.

The Enterprise Plan modules below it are paid and stay locked until Espressif enables them for your account.

The RainMaker Neo package with its Required modules and the optional Assisted Claiming

Choose Install.

4. Fill in the parameters and deploy​

The installer prompts only for the parameters the selected modules need.

  1. Set AdminEmails on espuser-core to a comma-separated list of the emails you want created as super admin users of the Admin Dashboard. Include your own: it is what you sign in to the Admin Dashboard with.

    The Parameters step with AdminEmails filled in on ESP User Core

  2. Choose Next.

  3. Review the deployment plan.

  4. Choose Deploy.

Stacks deploy stage by stage, with the stacks inside a stage running in parallel. A full deployment takes roughly an hour.

Your deployment is live​

The installer home page is where you pick up the rest of the setup: