Getting ID of an instance newly launched with ec2-api-tools

Question

I'm launching an EC2 instance, by invoking ec2-run-instances from simple a bash script, and want to perform further operations on that instance (e.g. associate elastic IP), for which I need the instance id.

The command is something like ec2-run-instances ami-dd8ea5a9 -K pk.pem -C cert.pem --region eu-west-1 -t c1.medium -n 1, and its output:

RESERVATION r-b6ea58c1    696664755663 default

INSTANCE    i-945af9e3   ami-dd8ea5b9   pending 0 c1.medium    2010-04-15T10:47:56+0000 eu-west-1a    aki-b02a01c4 ari-39c2e94d   

In this example, i-945af9e3 is the id I'm after.

So, I'd need a simple way to parse the id from what the command returns - how would you go about doing it? My AWK is a little rusty... Feel free to use any tool available on a typical Linux box. (If there's a way to get it directly using EC2-API-tools, all the better. But afaik there's no EC2 command to e.g. return the id of the most recently launched instance.)

Answer 1

This AWK command should work:

instance_id=$(ec2-run-instances ami-dd8ea5a9 [...] | awk '/INSTANCE/{print $2}') 

Also, check out this script which can create instances, execute some AWK commands, and then deletes the instance.

AMI=ami-12345678

# Create your key pair first, for instance on the Web interface

KEY=test-b

KEYDIR=.

# The user name to use depends on the AMI. "root" is common but check

# the documentation of the AMI.

USERNAME=root

# Needs to be a legal Unix group of commands

COMMANDS="(uname -a; df -h; cat /etc/debian_version)"

MAX_CONNECTS=4

MAX_TESTS=6

# If you want to change from the default region, set the environment

# variable EC2_URL for instance 'export

# EC2_URL=https://ec2.eu-west-1.amazonaws.com' to use the 'eu-west-1'

# region

# Also, be sure your default security group allows incoming SSH.

if [ "${EC2_PRIVATE_KEY}" = "" ] || [ "${EC2_CERT}" = "" ]; then

    echo "You need to have X.509 certificate and private key locally, and to set the environment variables EC2_PRIVATE_KEY and EC2_CERT to indicate their locations" 1>&2

    exit 1

fi

start=$(ec2-run-instances --key ${KEY} $AMI)

if [ $? != 0 ]; then

    echo "Machine did not start" 1>&2

    exit 1

fi

AMI_E=$(echo "$start" | awk '/^INSTANCE/ {print $3}')

if [ "$AMI_E" != "$AMI" ]; then

    echo "AMI does not match (got $AMI_E instead of $AMI), the machine probably did not start" 1>&2

    exit 1

fi

INSTANCE=$(echo "$start" | awk '/^INSTANCE/ {print $2}')

# I do not find a way to block until the machine is ready. We

# apparently have to poll.

OVER=0

TESTS=0

while [ $OVER != 1 ] && [ $TESTS -lt $MAX_TESTS ]; do

    description=$(ec2-describe-instances ${INSTANCE})

    STATE=$(echo "$description" | awk '/^INSTANCE/ {print $6}')

    NAME=$(echo "$description" | awk '/^INSTANCE/ {print $4}')

    if [ "$NAME" = "" ]; then

        echo "No instance ${INSTANCE} available. Crashed or was terminated." 1>&2

        exit 1

    fi

    if [ $STATE = "running" ]; then

        OVER=1

    else

        # I like bc but 'echo $(( TESTS+=1 ))' should work, too. Or expr.

        TESTS=$(echo $TESTS+1 | bc)

        sleep 2

    fi

done

if [ $TESTS = $MAX_TESTS ]; then

    echo "${INSTANCE} never got to running state" 1>&2

    ec2-terminate-instances ${INSTANCE}

    exit 1

fi

echo "$INSTANCE is running, name is $NAME"

# The SSH server does not seem reachable immediately. We again have to poll

OVER=0

TESTS=0

while [ $OVER != 1 ] && [ $TESTS -lt $MAX_CONNECTS ]; do

    ssh -o "StrictHostKeyChecking no" -i ${KEYDIR}/${KEY}.pem ${USERNAME}@$NAME "${COMMANDS}"

    if [ $? != 255 ]; then

        # It means we connected successfully (even if the remote command failed)

        OVER=1

    else

        TESTS=$(echo $TESTS+1 | bc)

        sleep 3

    fi

done

if [ $TESTS = $MAX_CONNECTS ]; then

    echo "Cannot connect to ${NAME}" 1>&2

fi

ec2-terminate-instances ${INSTANCE}