Amazon Elastic Compute Cloud

User Guide for Windows Instances

 Amazon Elastic Compute Cloud
User Guide for Windows Instances

Amazon Elastic Compute Cloud: User Guide for Windows Instances

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 Amazon Elastic Compute Cloud
User Guide for Windows Instances

Table of Contents
What is Amazon EC2? ......................................................................................................................... 1
Features of Amazon EC2 ............................................................................................................. 1
How to get started with Amazon EC2 ........................................................................................... 1
Related services ......................................................................................................................... 2
Access Amazon EC2 .................................................................................................................... 3
Pricing for Amazon EC2 .............................................................................................................. 3
PCI DSS compliance .................................................................................................................... 4
Set up .............................................................................................................................................. 5
Sign up for AWS ........................................................................................................................ 5
Create a key pair ........................................................................................................................ 5
Create a security group ............................................................................................................... 6
Get started tutorial ............................................................................................................................ 9
Overview ................................................................................................................................... 9
Prerequisites ............................................................................................................................ 10
Step 1: Launch an instance ........................................................................................................ 10
Step 2: Connect to your instance ............................................................................................... 11
Step 3: Clean up your instance .................................................................................................. 17
Next steps ............................................................................................................................... 17
Best practices .................................................................................................................................. 18
Amazon Machine Images ................................................................................................................... 21
Boot modes ............................................................................................................................. 21
Considerations ................................................................................................................. 22
Requirements for launching an instance with UEFI ................................................................ 22
Determine the boot mode parameter of an AMI ................................................................... 22
Determine the supported boot modes of an instance type ..................................................... 23
Determine the boot mode of an instance ............................................................................ 24
Determine the boot mode of the OS .................................................................................. 25
Set the boot mode of an AMI ............................................................................................ 25
AWS Windows AMIs .................................................................................................................. 27
Select an initial Windows AMI ............................................................................................ 28
Keep your AMIs up-to-date ................................................................................................ 28
Virtualization types .......................................................................................................... 28
Managed AWS Windows AMIs ............................................................................................ 29
Create a custom Windows AMI ........................................................................................... 37
Deregister your Windows AMI ............................................................................................ 52
Specialized Windows AMIs ................................................................................................. 53
AWS Windows AMI Version History ..................................................................................... 59
Find a Windows AMI ............................................................................................................... 100
Find a Windows AMI using the Amazon EC2 console ........................................................... 100
Find an AMI using the AWS Tools for Windows PowerShell ................................................... 101
Find an AMI using the AWS CLI ........................................................................................ 101
Find the latest Windows AMI using Systems Manager .......................................................... 102
Use a Systems Manager parameter to find an AMI .............................................................. 102
Shared AMIs ........................................................................................................................... 105
Find shared AMIs ............................................................................................................ 105
Make an AMI public ........................................................................................................ 107
Share an AMI with specific AWS accounts .......................................................................... 109
Use bookmarks .............................................................................................................. 111
Best Practices for shared Windows AMIs ............................................................................ 111
Paid AMIs .............................................................................................................................. 112
Sell your AMI ................................................................................................................. 113
Find a paid AMI .............................................................................................................. 113
Purchase a paid AMI ....................................................................................................... 114
Get the product code for your instance ............................................................................. 115

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Use paid support ............................................................................................................ 115

Bills for paid and supported AMIs ..................................................................................... 115
Manage your AWS Marketplace subscriptions ..................................................................... 115
AMI lifecycle .......................................................................................................................... 116
Create an AMI ................................................................................................................ 116
Copy an AMI .................................................................................................................. 116
Store and restore an AMI ................................................................................................ 121
Deprecate an AMI ........................................................................................................... 127
Automate the EBS-backed AMI lifecycle ............................................................................ 130
Use encryption with EBS-backed AMIs ....................................................................................... 130
Instance-launching scenarios ............................................................................................ 131
Image-copying scenarios .................................................................................................. 133
Understand AMI billing ........................................................................................................... 134
AMI billing fields ............................................................................................................ 135
Find AMI billing information ............................................................................................ 136
Verify AMI charges on your bill ........................................................................................ 138
Instances ....................................................................................................................................... 139
Windows instances ................................................................................................................. 139
Instances and AMIs ......................................................................................................... 139
Differences between Windows Server and Windows instances ............................................... 140
Design your applications to run on Windows instances ........................................................ 142
Instance types ........................................................................................................................ 142
Available instance types .................................................................................................. 143
Hardware specifications ................................................................................................... 146
Instances built on the Nitro System .................................................................................. 147
Networking and storage features ...................................................................................... 148
Instance limits ................................................................................................................ 151
General purpose ............................................................................................................. 151
Compute optimized ........................................................................................................ 195
Memory optimized .......................................................................................................... 201
Storage optimized .......................................................................................................... 212
Accelerated computing .................................................................................................... 218
Find an instance type ...................................................................................................... 232
Change the instance type ................................................................................................ 233
Get recommendations ..................................................................................................... 238
Instance purchasing options ..................................................................................................... 241
Determine the instance lifecycle ....................................................................................... 242
On-Demand Instances ..................................................................................................... 243
Reserved Instances ......................................................................................................... 247
Scheduled Instances ........................................................................................................ 283
Spot Instances ................................................................................................................ 284
Dedicated Hosts ............................................................................................................. 331
Dedicated Instances ........................................................................................................ 363
On-Demand Capacity Reservations ................................................................................... 370
Instance lifecycle .................................................................................................................... 390
Instance launch .............................................................................................................. 391
Instance stop and start (Amazon EBS-backed instances only) ................................................ 391
Instance hibernate (Amazon EBS-backed instances only) ...................................................... 392
Instance reboot .............................................................................................................. 392
Instance retirement ......................................................................................................... 393
Instance termination ....................................................................................................... 393
Differences between reboot, stop, hibernate, and terminate ................................................. 393
Launch .......................................................................................................................... 394
Connect ......................................................................................................................... 417
Stop and start ................................................................................................................ 429
Hibernate ...................................................................................................................... 432
Reboot .......................................................................................................................... 443

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Retire ............................................................................................................................ 444

Terminate ...................................................................................................................... 446
Recover ......................................................................................................................... 452
Configure instances ................................................................................................................. 454
EC2Launch v2 ................................................................................................................ 454
EC2Launch ..................................................................................................................... 494
EC2Config service ........................................................................................................... 502
PV drivers ...................................................................................................................... 528
AWS NVMe drivers .......................................................................................................... 547
Optimize CPU options ..................................................................................................... 549
Set the time .................................................................................................................. 568
Set the password ............................................................................................................ 572
Add Windows components .............................................................................................. 573
Configure a secondary private IPv4 Address ....................................................................... 576
Run commands at launch ................................................................................................ 581
Instance metadata and user data ...................................................................................... 588
SQL Server Clustering in EC2 ........................................................................................... 634
Upgrade Windows instances .................................................................................................... 640
Perform an in-place upgrade ........................................................................................... 641
Perform an automated upgrade ....................................................................................... 645
Migrate to latest generation instance types ....................................................................... 651
Migrate Microsoft SQL Server from Windows to Linux ......................................................... 657
Troubleshoot an upgrade ................................................................................................. 664
Identify instances ................................................................................................................... 664
Inspect the instance identity document ............................................................................. 664
Inspect the system UUID ................................................................................................. 664
Set up a Windows HPC cluster ................................................................................................. 665
Prerequisites .................................................................................................................. 665
Step 1: Create your security groups .................................................................................. 665
Step 2: Set up your Active Directory domain controller ........................................................ 668
Step 3: Configure your head node .................................................................................... 669
Step 4: Set up the compute node ..................................................................................... 670
Step 5: Scale your HPC compute nodes (optional) ............................................................... 671
Fleets ............................................................................................................................................ 673
EC2 Fleet ............................................................................................................................... 673
EC2 Fleet limitations ....................................................................................................... 674
Burstable performance instances ...................................................................................... 674
EC2 Fleet request types ................................................................................................... 675
EC2 Fleet configuration strategies .................................................................................... 693
Work with EC2 Fleets ...................................................................................................... 701
Spot Fleet .............................................................................................................................. 720
Spot Fleet request types ................................................................................................. 720
Spot Fleet configuration strategies ................................................................................... 720
Work with Spot Fleets ..................................................................................................... 728
CloudWatch metrics for Spot Fleet ................................................................................... 747
Automatic scaling for Spot Fleet ...................................................................................... 749
Monitor fleet events ............................................................................................................... 755
EC2 Fleet event types ..................................................................................................... 755
Spot Fleet event types .................................................................................................... 760
Create EventBridge rules ................................................................................................. 764
Tutorials ................................................................................................................................ 769
Tutorial: Use EC2 Fleet with instance weighting .................................................................. 769
Tutorial: Use EC2 Fleet with On-Demand as the primary capacity .......................................... 772
Tutorial: Launch On-Demand Instances using targeted Capacity Reservations .......................... 773
Tutorial: Use Spot Fleet with instance weighting ................................................................. 778
Example configurations ........................................................................................................... 780
EC2 Fleet example configurations ..................................................................................... 780

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Spot Fleet example configurations .................................................................................... 792

Fleet quotas ........................................................................................................................... 803
Elastic Graphics .............................................................................................................................. 805
Elastic Graphics basics ............................................................................................................. 805
Pricing for Elastic Graphics ...................................................................................................... 807
Elastic Graphics limitations ...................................................................................................... 807
Work with Elastic Graphics ...................................................................................................... 807
Configure your security groups ......................................................................................... 808
Launch an instance with an Elastic Graphics accelerator ....................................................... 809
Install the required software for Elastic Graphics ................................................................ 810
Verify Elastic Graphics functionality on your instance .......................................................... 810
View Elastic Graphics information ..................................................................................... 812
Submit feedback ............................................................................................................ 812
Use CloudWatch metrics to monitor Elastic Graphics ................................................................... 813
Elastic Graphics metrics ................................................................................................... 813
Elastic Graphics dimensions ............................................................................................. 813
View CloudWatch metrics for Elastic Graphics .................................................................... 814
Create CloudWatch alarms to monitor Elastic Graphics ........................................................ 814
Troubleshoot .......................................................................................................................... 814
Investigate application performance issues ........................................................................ 815
Resolve unhealthy status issues ........................................................................................ 816
Monitor ......................................................................................................................................... 818
Automated and manual monitoring .......................................................................................... 819
Automated monitoring tools ............................................................................................ 819
Manual monitoring tools ................................................................................................. 820
Best practices for monitoring ................................................................................................... 820
Monitor the status of your instances ......................................................................................... 821
Instance status checks ..................................................................................................... 821
Scheduled events ........................................................................................................... 828
Monitor your instances using CloudWatch .................................................................................. 851
Enable detailed monitoring .............................................................................................. 851
List available metrics ...................................................................................................... 853
Get statistics for metrics .................................................................................................. 865
Graph metrics ................................................................................................................ 873
Create an alarm ............................................................................................................. 873
Create alarms that stop, terminate, reboot, or recover an instance ........................................ 875
Automate Amazon EC2 with EventBridge .................................................................................. 886
Log API calls with AWS CloudTrail ............................................................................................ 886
Amazon EC2 and Amazon EBS information in CloudTrail ...................................................... 887
Understand Amazon EC2 and Amazon EBS log file entries ................................................... 887
Audit users that connect via EC2 Instance Connect ............................................................. 888
Monitor your .NET and SQL Server applications .......................................................................... 889
Networking .................................................................................................................................... 891
Regions and Zones ................................................................................................................. 891
Regions ......................................................................................................................... 892
Availability Zones ........................................................................................................... 896
Local Zones ................................................................................................................... 898
Wavelength Zones .......................................................................................................... 901
AWS Outposts ................................................................................................................ 903
Instance IP addressing ............................................................................................................. 904
Private IPv4 addresses and internal DNS hostnames ............................................................ 904
Public IPv4 addresses and external DNS hostnames ............................................................ 905
Elastic IP addresses (IPv4) ................................................................................................ 906
Amazon DNS server ........................................................................................................ 906
IPv6 addresses ............................................................................................................... 906
Work with the IPv4 addresses for your instances ................................................................ 907
Work with the IPv6 addresses for your instances ................................................................ 910

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Multiple IP addresses ...................................................................................................... 912

Bring your own IP addresses .................................................................................................... 919
Requirements and quotas ................................................................................................ 920
Configure your BYOIP address range ................................................................................. 920
Work with your address range .......................................................................................... 927
Learn more .................................................................................................................... 928
Assigning prefixes ................................................................................................................... 928
Basics for assigning prefixes ............................................................................................. 929
Considerations and limits for prefixes ............................................................................... 929
Work with prefixes .......................................................................................................... 929
Elastic IP addresses ................................................................................................................. 939
Elastic IP address pricing ................................................................................................. 939
Elastic IP address basics .................................................................................................. 940
Work with Elastic IP addresses ......................................................................................... 940
Use reverse DNS for email applications ............................................................................. 946
Elastic IP address limit .................................................................................................... 947
Network interfaces ................................................................................................................. 948
Network interface basics ................................................................................................. 948
IP addresses per network interface per instance type .......................................................... 950
Work with network interfaces .......................................................................................... 961
Scenarios for network interfaces ...................................................................................... 968
Best practices for configuring network interfaces ................................................................ 970
Requester-managed network interfaces ............................................................................. 971
Network bandwidth ................................................................................................................ 972
Available instance bandwidth ........................................................................................... 972
Monitor instance bandwidth ............................................................................................ 973
Enhanced networking .............................................................................................................. 973
Enhanced networking support .......................................................................................... 974
Enable enhanced networking on your instance ................................................................... 974
Enhanced networking: ENA .............................................................................................. 974
Enhanced networking: Intel 82599 VF ............................................................................... 981
Operating system optimizations ....................................................................................... 985
Network performance metrics .......................................................................................... 986
Placement groups ................................................................................................................... 988
Cluster placement groups ................................................................................................ 989
Partition placement groups .............................................................................................. 989
Spread placement groups ................................................................................................ 990
Placement group rules and limitations .............................................................................. 991
Create a placement group ............................................................................................... 992
Tag a placement group ................................................................................................... 993
Launch instances in a placement group ............................................................................. 995
Describe instances in a placement group ........................................................................... 996
Change the placement group for an instance ..................................................................... 998
Delete a placement group ............................................................................................... 999
Network MTU ....................................................................................................................... 1000
Jumbo frames (9001 MTU) ............................................................................................ 1000
Path MTU Discovery ...................................................................................................... 1001
Check the path MTU between two hosts .......................................................................... 1001
Check and set the MTU on your Windows instance ............................................................ 1002
Troubleshoot ................................................................................................................ 1004
Virtual private clouds ............................................................................................................ 1004
Amazon VPC documentation .......................................................................................... 1004
Ports and Protocols .............................................................................................................. 1005
AllJoyn Router .............................................................................................................. 1005
Cast to Device .............................................................................................................. 1006
Core Networking ........................................................................................................... 1008
Delivery Optimization .................................................................................................... 1026

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Diag Track ................................................................................................................... 1027

DIAL Protocol Server ..................................................................................................... 1027
Distributed File System (DFS) Management ...................................................................... 1027
File and Printer Sharing ................................................................................................. 1028
File Server Remote Management .................................................................................... 1030
ICMP v4 All .................................................................................................................. 1031
Multicast ...................................................................................................................... 1031
Remote Desktop ........................................................................................................... 1032
Windows Device Management ........................................................................................ 1034
Windows Firewall Remote Management ........................................................................... 1034
Windows Remote Management ...................................................................................... 1035
EC2-Classic ........................................................................................................................... 1035
Detect supported platforms ........................................................................................... 1035
Instance types available in EC2-Classic ............................................................................ 1037
Differences between instances in EC2-Classic and a VPC .................................................... 1037
Share and access resources between EC2-Classic and a VPC ................................................ 1042
ClassicLink ................................................................................................................... 1043
Migrate from EC2-Classic to a VPC .................................................................................. 1054
Security ....................................................................................................................................... 1064
Infrastructure security ........................................................................................................... 1065
Network isolation ......................................................................................................... 1065
Isolation on physical hosts ............................................................................................. 1065
Controlling network traffic ............................................................................................. 1065
Interface VPC endpoints ........................................................................................................ 1067
Create an interface VPC endpoint ................................................................................... 1067
Create an interface VPC endpoint policy .......................................................................... 1067
Resilience ............................................................................................................................. 1068
Data protection .................................................................................................................... 1069
Encryption at rest ......................................................................................................... 1069
Encryption in transit ..................................................................................................... 1070
Identity and access management ............................................................................................ 1071
Network access to your instance ..................................................................................... 1071
Amazon EC2 permission attributes .................................................................................. 1072
IAM and Amazon EC2 .................................................................................................... 1072
IAM policies ................................................................................................................. 1073
AWS managed policies .................................................................................................. 1127
IAM roles ..................................................................................................................... 1128
Network access ............................................................................................................. 1137
Key pairs ............................................................................................................................. 1140
Create a key pair using Amazon EC2 ............................................................................... 1141
Create a key pair using a third-party tool and import the public key to Amazon EC2 ............... 1143
Tag a public key ........................................................................................................... 1144
Retrieve the public key from the private key .................................................................... 1146
Retrieve the public key through instance metadata ........................................................... 1146
Identify the key pair that was specified at launch ............................................................. 1146
Verify your key pair's fingerprint ..................................................................................... 1147
Delete your key pair ...................................................................................................... 1147
Connect to your Windows instance if you lose your private key ........................................... 1148
Security groups .................................................................................................................... 1148
Security group rules ...................................................................................................... 1150
Connection tracking ...................................................................................................... 1151
Default and custom security groups ................................................................................ 1153
Work with security groups ............................................................................................. 1154
Security group rules for different use cases ...................................................................... 1163
Configuration management .................................................................................................... 1168
Update management ............................................................................................................ 1169
Change management ............................................................................................................ 1169

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Compliance validation ........................................................................................................... 1169

Audit and accountability ........................................................................................................ 1170
Storage ....................................................................................................................................... 1172
Amazon EBS ........................................................................................................................ 1173
Features of Amazon EBS ................................................................................................ 1174
EBS volumes ................................................................................................................ 1174
EBS snapshots .............................................................................................................. 1220
Amazon Data Lifecycle Manager ..................................................................................... 1285
EBS data services .......................................................................................................... 1328
EBS volumes and NVMe ................................................................................................ 1355
EBS optimization .......................................................................................................... 1357
EBS performance .......................................................................................................... 1374
EBS CloudWatch metrics ................................................................................................ 1388
EBS CloudWatch events ................................................................................................. 1394
EBS quotas .................................................................................................................. 1405
Instance store ....................................................................................................................... 1405
Instance store lifetime ................................................................................................... 1406
Instance store volumes .................................................................................................. 1406
Add instance store volumes ........................................................................................... 1413
SSD instance store volumes ........................................................................................... 1416
File storage .......................................................................................................................... 1417
Amazon S3 .................................................................................................................. 1418
Amazon EFS ................................................................................................................. 1419
Amazon FSx ................................................................................................................. 1419
Instance volume limits ........................................................................................................... 1420
Nitro System volume limits ............................................................................................ 1420
Windows-specific volume limits ...................................................................................... 1420
Bandwidth versus capacity ............................................................................................. 1421
Root device volume .............................................................................................................. 1421
Configure the root volume to persist ............................................................................... 1421
Confirm that a root volume is configured to persist ........................................................... 1423
Change the initial size of the root volume ....................................................................... 1424
Device names ....................................................................................................................... 1425
Available device names .................................................................................................. 1425
Device name considerations ........................................................................................... 1426
Block device mappings .......................................................................................................... 1426
Block device mapping concepts ...................................................................................... 1426
AMI block device mapping ............................................................................................. 1429
Instance block device mapping ....................................................................................... 1431
Map disks to volumes ............................................................................................................ 1435
List NVMe volumes ....................................................................................................... 1436
List volumes ................................................................................................................. 1440
Deploy Storage Spaces Direct ................................................................................................. 1445
Step 1: Launch and Domain Join Instances ....................................................................... 1447
Step 2: Install and Configure Instance Prerequisites ........................................................... 1449
Step 3: Create Failover Cluster ....................................................................................... 1450
Step 4: Enable S2D ....................................................................................................... 1451
Step 5: Provision Storage ............................................................................................... 1451
Step 6: Review the S2D Resources .................................................................................. 1452
Step 7: Clean Up .......................................................................................................... 1453
Additional Resources ..................................................................................................... 1453
Resources and tags ....................................................................................................................... 1454
Resource locations ................................................................................................................ 1454
Resource IDs ........................................................................................................................ 1455
List and filter your resources .................................................................................................. 1456
List and filter resources using the console ........................................................................ 1456
List and filter using the CLI and API ................................................................................ 1460

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List and filter resources across Regions using Amazon EC2 Global View ................................ 1462
Tag your resources ................................................................................................................ 1463
Tag basics .................................................................................................................... 1463
Tag your resources ........................................................................................................ 1464
Tag restrictions ............................................................................................................. 1467
Tags and access management ........................................................................................ 1468
Tag your resources for billing ......................................................................................... 1468
Work with tags using the console ................................................................................... 1468
Work with tags using the command line .......................................................................... 1472
Add tags to a resource using CloudFormation ................................................................... 1475
Service quotas ...................................................................................................................... 1475
View your current limits ................................................................................................ 1476
Request an increase ...................................................................................................... 1476
Restriction on email sent using port 25 ........................................................................... 1477
Usage reports ....................................................................................................................... 1477
Troubleshoot ................................................................................................................................ 1478
Troubleshoot launch issues .................................................................................................... 1478
Instance limit exceeded ................................................................................................. 1478
Insufficient instance capacity .......................................................................................... 1479
The requested configuration is currently not supported. Please check the documentation for
supported configurations. .............................................................................................. 1479
Instance terminates immediately .................................................................................... 1480
High CPU usage shortly after Windows starts ................................................................... 1481
Connect to your instance ....................................................................................................... 1481
Remote Desktop can't connect to the remote computer ..................................................... 1482
Error using the macOS RDP client ................................................................................... 1484
RDP displays a black screen instead of the desktop ........................................................... 1484
Unable to remotely log on to an instance with a user account that is not an administrator ....... 1485
Troubleshooting Remote Desktop issues using AWS Systems Manager ................................ 1485
Enable Remote Desktop on an EC2 Instance With Remote Registry ...................................... 1487
Troubleshoot an unreachable instance ..................................................................................... 1488
Get a screenshot of an unreachable instance .................................................................... 1489
Common screenshots .................................................................................................... 1490
Reset a lost or expired Windows administrator password ........................................................... 1497
Reset using EC2Launch v2 ............................................................................................. 1498
Reset Using EC2Config .................................................................................................. 1501
Reset using EC2Launch .................................................................................................. 1505
Stop your instance ................................................................................................................ 1508
Force stop the instance ................................................................................................. 1508
Create a replacement instance ........................................................................................ 1509
Terminate your instance ........................................................................................................ 1510
Instance terminates immediately .................................................................................... 1510
Delayed instance termination ......................................................................................... 1510
Terminated instance still displayed .................................................................................. 1511
Instances automatically launched or terminated ............................................................... 1511
Troubleshoot Sysprep ............................................................................................................ 1511
EC2Rescue for Windows Server ............................................................................................... 1512
Use the GUI ................................................................................................................. 1512
Use the command line .................................................................................................. 1516
Use Systems Manager ................................................................................................... 1521
EC2 Serial Console ................................................................................................................ 1524
Configure access to the EC2 Serial Console ...................................................................... 1524
Connect to the EC2 Serial Console .................................................................................. 1529
Terminate an EC2 Serial Console session .......................................................................... 1533
Troubleshoot your instance using the EC2 Serial Console ................................................... 1534
Send a diagnostic interrupt .................................................................................................... 1538
Supported instance types .............................................................................................. 1538

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Prerequisites ................................................................................................................ 1538

Send a diagnostic interrupt ............................................................................................ 1539
Common issues .................................................................................................................... 1539
EBS volumes don't initialize on Windows Server 2016 and later .......................................... 1539
Boot an EC2 Windows instance into Directory Services Restore Mode (DSRM) ........................ 1540
Instance loses network connectivity or scheduled tasks don't run when expected ................... 1542
Unable to get console output ......................................................................................... 1542
Windows Server 2012 R2 not available on the network ..................................................... 1543
Common messages ............................................................................................................... 1543
"Password is not available" ............................................................................................ 1543
"Password not available yet" .......................................................................................... 1544
"Cannot retrieve Windows password" ............................................................................... 1544
"Waiting for the metadata service" ................................................................................. 1544
"Unable to activate Windows" ........................................................................................ 1547
"Windows is not genuine (0x80070005)" .......................................................................... 1548
"No Terminal Server License Servers available to provide a license" ...................................... 1548
"Some settings are managed by your organization" ........................................................... 1549
AWS Systems Manager for Microsoft System Center VMM .................................................................. 1550
Features ................................................................................................................................ 364
Limitations ............................................................................................................................. 124
Requirements ....................................................................................................................... 1551
Get started .......................................................................................................................... 1551
Set up ................................................................................................................................. 1551
Sign up for AWS ........................................................................................................... 1551
Set up access for users .................................................................................................. 1552
Deploy the add-in ......................................................................................................... 1554
Provide your AWS credentials ......................................................................................... 1554
Manage EC2 Instances ........................................................................................................... 1555
Create an EC2 Instance .................................................................................................. 1555
View your instances ...................................................................................................... 1557
Connect to your instance ............................................................................................... 1557
Reboot your instance .................................................................................................... 1558
Stop your instance ........................................................................................................ 1558
Start your instance ....................................................................................................... 1558
Terminate your instance ................................................................................................ 1559
Import Your VM .................................................................................................................... 1559
Prerequisites ................................................................................................................ 1559
Import your virtual machine .......................................................................................... 1560
Check the import task status ......................................................................................... 1561
Back up your imported instance ..................................................................................... 1561
Troubleshoot ........................................................................................................................ 1561
Error: Add-in cannot be installed .................................................................................... 1561
Installation errors ......................................................................................................... 1562
Check the log file ......................................................................................................... 1562
Errors importing a virtual machine .................................................................................. 1562
Uninstall the add-in ...................................................................................................... 1563
AWS Management Pack ................................................................................................................. 1564
Overview of AWS Management Pack for System Center 2012 ..................................................... 1564
Overview of AWS Management Pack for System Center 2007 R2 ................................................ 1566
Download ............................................................................................................................ 1567
System Center 2012 ...................................................................................................... 1567
System Center 2007 R2 ................................................................................................. 1568
Deploy ................................................................................................................................. 1568
Step 1: Install the AWS Management Pack ....................................................................... 1568
Step 2: Configure the watcher node ................................................................................ 1570
Step 3: Create an AWS Run As account ............................................................................ 1570
Step 4: Run the Add Monitoring wizard ........................................................................... 1574

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Step 5: Configure ports and endpoints ............................................................................ 1578

Use ..................................................................................................................................... 1578
Views .......................................................................................................................... 1579
Discoveries ................................................................................................................... 1593
Monitors ...................................................................................................................... 1594
Rules ........................................................................................................................... 1595
Events ......................................................................................................................... 1595
Health model ............................................................................................................... 1596
Customize the AWS Management Pack ............................................................................ 1598
Upgrade .............................................................................................................................. 1598
System Center 2012 ...................................................................................................... 1598
System Center 2007 R2 ................................................................................................. 1599
Uninstall .............................................................................................................................. 1599
System Center 2012 ...................................................................................................... 1599
System Center 2007 R2 ................................................................................................. 1600
Troubleshoot ........................................................................................................................ 1600
Errors 4101 and 4105 ................................................................................................... 1600
Error 4513 ................................................................................................................... 1600
Event 623 .................................................................................................................... 1601
Events 2023 and 2120 .................................................................................................. 1601
Event 6024 .................................................................................................................. 1601
General troubleshooting for System Center 2012 — Operations Manager ............................. 1601
General troubleshooting for System Center 2007 R2 ......................................................... 1602
Related information ...................................................................................................................... 1603
Document history ......................................................................................................................... 1605
History for previous years ...................................................................................................... 1612

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Features of Amazon EC2

What is Amazon EC2?

Amazon Elastic Compute Cloud (Amazon EC2) provides scalable computing capacity in the Amazon Web
Services (AWS) Cloud. Using Amazon EC2 eliminates your need to invest in hardware up front, so you
can develop and deploy applications faster. You can use Amazon EC2 to launch as many or as few virtual
servers as you need, configure security and networking, and manage storage. Amazon EC2 enables you
to scale up or down to handle changes in requirements or spikes in popularity, reducing your need to
forecast traffic.

For more information about cloud computing, see What is cloud computing?

Features of Amazon EC2

Amazon EC2 provides the following features:

• Virtual computing environments, known as instances

• Preconfigured templates for your instances, known as Amazon Machine Images (AMIs), that package
the bits you need for your server (including the operating system and additional software)
• Various configurations of CPU, memory, storage, and networking capacity for your instances, known as
instance types
• Secure login information for your instances using key pairs (AWS stores the public key, and you store
the private key in a secure place)
• Storage volumes for temporary data that's deleted when you stop, hibernate, or terminate your
instance, known as instance store volumes
• Persistent storage volumes for your data using Amazon Elastic Block Store (Amazon EBS), known as
Amazon EBS volumes
• Multiple physical locations for your resources, such as instances and Amazon EBS volumes, known as
Regions and Availability Zones
• A firewall that enables you to specify the protocols, ports, and source IP ranges that can reach your
instances using security groups
• Static IPv4 addresses for dynamic cloud computing, known as Elastic IP addresses
• Metadata, known as tags, that you can create and assign to your Amazon EC2 resources
• Virtual networks you can create that are logically isolated from the rest of the AWS Cloud, and that
you can optionally connect to your own network, known as virtual private clouds (VPCs)

For more information about the features of Amazon EC2, see the Amazon EC2 product page.

Amazon EC2 enables you to run any compatible Windows-based solution on our high-performance,
reliable, cost-effective, cloud computing platform. For more information, see Windows Server on AWS.

For more information about running your website on AWS, see Web Hosting.

How to get started with Amazon EC2

First, you need to get set up to use Amazon EC2. After you are set up, you are ready to complete the Get
Started tutorial for Amazon EC2. Whenever you need more information about an Amazon EC2 feature,
you can read the technical documentation.

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Related services

Get up and running

• Set up to use Amazon EC2 (p. 5)

• Tutorial: Get started with Amazon EC2 Windows instances (p. 9)

Basics

• Amazon EC2 Windows instances (p. 139)

• Instance types (p. 142)
• Tags (p. 1463)

Networking and security

• Key pairs (p. 1140)

• Security groups (p. 1148)
• Elastic IP addresses (p. 939)
• Virtual private clouds (p. 1004)

Storage

• Amazon EBS (p. 1173)

• Instance store (p. 1405)

Working with Windows instances

• AWS Systems Manager Run Command in the AWS Systems Manager User Guide

If you have questions about whether AWS is right for you, contact AWS Sales. If you have technical
questions about Amazon EC2, use the Amazon EC2 forum.

Related services
You can provision Amazon EC2 resources, such as instances and volumes, directly using Amazon EC2.
You can also provision Amazon EC2 resources using other services in AWS. For more information, see the
following documentation:

• Amazon EC2 Auto Scaling User Guide

• AWS CloudFormation User Guide
• AWS Elastic Beanstalk Developer Guide
• AWS OpsWorks User Guide

To automatically distribute incoming application traffic across multiple instances, use Elastic Load
Balancing. For more information, see the Elastic Load Balancing User Guide.

To get a managed relational database in the cloud, use Amazon Relational Database Service (Amazon
RDS) to launch a database instance. Although you can set up a database on an EC2 instance, Amazon
RDS offers the advantage of handling your database management tasks, such as patching the software,
backing up, and storing the backups. For more information, see the Amazon Relational Database Service
Developer Guide.

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Access Amazon EC2

To make it easier to manage Docker containers on a cluster of EC2 instances, use Amazon Elastic
Container Service (Amazon ECS). For more information, see the Amazon Elastic Container Service
Developer Guide or the Amazon Elastic Container Service User Guide for AWS Fargate.

To monitor basic statistics for your instances and Amazon EBS volumes, use Amazon CloudWatch. For
more information, see the Amazon CloudWatch User Guide.

To detect potentially unauthorized or malicious use of your EC2 instances, use Amazon GuardDuty. For
more information see the Amazon GuardDuty User Guide.

Access Amazon EC2

Amazon EC2 provides a web-based user interface, the Amazon EC2 console. If you've signed up for an
AWS account, you can access the Amazon EC2 console by signing into the AWS Management Console and
selecting EC2 from the console home page.

If you prefer to use a command line interface, you have the following options:

AWS Command Line Interface (CLI)

Provides commands for a broad set of AWS products, and is supported on Windows, Mac, and Linux.
To get started, see AWS Command Line Interface User Guide. For more information about the
commands for Amazon EC2, see ec2 in the AWS CLI Command Reference.
AWS Tools for Windows PowerShell

Provides commands for a broad set of AWS products for those who script in the PowerShell
environment. To get started, see the AWS Tools for Windows PowerShell User Guide. For more
information about the cmdlets for Amazon EC2, see the AWS Tools for PowerShell Cmdlet
Reference.

Amazon EC2 supports creating resources using AWS CloudFormation. You create a template, in JSON
or YAML, that describes your AWS resources, and AWS CloudFormation provisions and configures
those resources for you. You can reuse your CloudFormation templates to provision the same resources
multiple times, whether in the same Region and account or in multiple Regions and accounts. For more
information about the resource types and properties for Amazon EC2, see EC2 resource type reference in
the AWS CloudFormation User Guide.

Amazon EC2 provides a Query API. These requests are HTTP or HTTPS requests that use the HTTP verbs
GET or POST and a Query parameter named Action. For more information about the API actions for
Amazon EC2, see Actions in the Amazon EC2 API Reference.

If you prefer to build applications using language-specific APIs instead of submitting a request over
HTTP or HTTPS, AWS provides libraries, sample code, tutorials, and other resources for software
developers. These libraries provide basic functions that automate tasks such as cryptographically signing
your requests, retrying requests, and handling error responses, making it is easier for you to get started.
For more information, see Tools to Build on AWS.

Pricing for Amazon EC2

When you sign up for AWS, you can get started with Amazon EC2 for free using the AWS Free Tier.

Amazon EC2 provides the following purchasing options for instances:

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PCI DSS compliance

On-Demand Instances

Pay for the instances that you use by the hour, with no long-term commitments or upfront
payments.
Savings Plans

You can reduce your Amazon EC2 costs by making a commitment to a consistent amount of usage,
in USD per hour, for a term of 1 or 3 years.
Reserved Instances

You can reduce your Amazon EC2 costs by making a commitment to a specific instance
configuration, including instance type and Region, for a term of 1 or 3 years.
Spot Instances

Request unused EC2 instances, which can reduce your Amazon EC2 costs significantly.

For a complete list of charges and prices for Amazon EC2, see Amazon EC2 pricing.

To calculate the cost of a sample provisioned environment, see Cloud Economics Center.

To see your bill, go to the Billing and Cost Management Dashboard in the AWS Billing and Cost
Management console. Your bill contains links to usage reports that provide details about your bill. To
learn more about AWS account billing, see AWS Billing and Cost Management User Guide.

If you have questions concerning AWS billing, accounts, and events, contact AWS Support.

For an overview of Trusted Advisor, a service that helps you optimize the costs, security, and performance
of your AWS environment, see AWS Trusted Advisor.

PCI DSS compliance

Amazon EC2 supports the processing, storage, and transmission of credit card data by a merchant or
service provider, and has been validated as being compliant with Payment Card Industry (PCI) Data
Security Standard (DSS). For more information about PCI DSS, including how to request a copy of the
AWS PCI Compliance Package, see PCI DSS Level 1.

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Sign up for AWS

Set up to use Amazon EC2

Complete the tasks in this section to get set up for launching an Amazon EC2 instance for the first time:

1. Sign up for AWS (p. 5)

2. Create a key pair (p. 5)
3. Create a security group (p. 6)

When you are finished, you will be ready for the Amazon EC2 Getting started (p. 9) tutorial.

Sign up for AWS

When you sign up for Amazon Web Services, your AWS account is automatically signed up for all services
in AWS , including Amazon EC2. You are charged only for the services that you use.

With Amazon EC2, you pay only for what you use. If you are a new AWS customer, you can get started
with Amazon EC2 for free. For more information, see AWS Free Tier.

If you have an AWS account already, skip to the next task. If you don't have an AWS account, use the
following procedure to create one.

To create an AWS account

1. Open https://portal.aws.amazon.com/billing/signup.
2. Follow the online instructions.

Part of the sign-up procedure involves receiving a phone call and entering a verification code on the
phone keypad.

Create a key pair

AWS uses public-key cryptography to secure the login information for your instance. You specify
the name of the key pair when you launch your instance, then provide the private key to obtain the
administrator password for your Windows instance so you can log in using RDP.

If you haven't created a key pair already, you can create one by using the Amazon EC2 console. Note that
if you plan to launch instances in multiple Regions, you'll need to create a key pair in each Region. For
more information about Regions, see Regions and Zones (p. 891).

To create your key pair

1. Open the Amazon EC2 console at https://console.aws.amazon.com/ec2/.

2. In the navigation pane, choose Key Pairs.
3. Choose Create key pair.

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Create a security group

4. For Name, enter a descriptive name for the key pair. Amazon EC2 associates the public key with the
name that you specify as the key name. A key name can include up to 255 ASCII characters. It can’t
include leading or trailing spaces.
5. For Key pair type, choose either RSA or ED25519. Note that ED25519 keys are not supported for
Windows instances, EC2 Instance Connect, or EC2 Serial Console.
6. For Private key file format, choose the format in which to save the private key. To save the private
key in a format that can be used with OpenSSH, choose pem. To save the private key in a format
that can be used with PuTTY, choose ppk.

If you chose ED25519 in the previous step, the Private key file format options do not appear, and
the private key format defaults to pem.
7. Choose Create key pair.
8. The private key file is automatically downloaded by your browser. The base file name is the name
you specified as the name of your key pair, and the file name extension is determined by the file
format you chose. Save the private key file in a safe place.
Important
This is the only chance for you to save the private key file.

For more information, see Amazon EC2 key pairs and Windows instances (p. 1140).

Create a security group

Security groups act as a firewall for associated instances, controlling both inbound and outbound traffic
at the instance level. You must add rules to a security group that enable you to connect to your instance
from your IP address using RDP. You can also add rules that allow inbound and outbound HTTP and
HTTPS access from anywhere.

Note that if you plan to launch instances in multiple Regions, you'll need to create a security group in
each Region. For more information about Regions, see Regions and Zones (p. 891).

Prerequisites

You'll need the public IPv4 address of your local computer. The security group editor in the Amazon
EC2 console can automatically detect the public IPv4 address for you. Alternatively, you can use the
search phrase "what is my IP address" in an Internet browser, or use the following service: Check IP. If
you are connecting through an Internet service provider (ISP) or from behind a firewall without a static IP
address, you need to find out the range of IP addresses used by client computers.

You can create a custom security group using one of the following methods.

New console

To create a security group with least privilege

1. Open the Amazon EC2 console at https://console.aws.amazon.com/ec2/.

2. From the top navigation bar, select a Region for the security group. Security groups are specific
to a Region, so you should select the same Region in which you created your key pair.
3. In the left navigation pane, choose Security Groups.
4. Choose Create security group.
5. For Basic details, do the following:

a. Enter a name for the new security group and a description. Use a name that is easy for
you to remember, such as your user name, followed by _SG_, plus the Region name. For
example, me_SG_uswest2.

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Create a security group

b. In the VPC list, select your default VPC for the Region.
6. For Inbound rules, create rules that allow specific traffic to reach your instance. For example,
use the following rules for a web server that accepts HTTP and HTTPS traffic. For more
examples, see Security group rules for different use cases (p. 1163).

a. Choose Add rule. For Type, choose HTTP. For Source, choose Anywhere.
b. Choose Add rule. For Type, choose HTTPS. For Source, choose Anywhere.
c. Choose Add rule. For Type, choose RDP. For Source, do one of the following:

• Choose My IP to automatically add the public IPv4 address of your local computer.
• Choose Custom and specify the public IPv4 address of your computer or network in CIDR
notation. To specify an individual IP address in CIDR notation, add the routing suffix /32,
for example, 203.0.113.25/32. If your company or your router allocates addresses
from a range, specify the entire range, such as 203.0.113.0/24.

Warning
For security reasons, do not choose Anywhere for Source with a rule for RDP. This
would allow access to your instance from all IP addresses on the internet. This is
acceptable for a short time in a test environment, but it is unsafe for production
environments.
7. For Outbound rules, keep the default rule, which allows all outbound traffic.
8. Choose Create security group.

Old console

To create a security group with least privilege

1. Open the Amazon EC2 console at https://console.aws.amazon.com/ec2/.

2. In the left navigation pane, choose Security Groups.
3. Choose Create Security Group.
4. Enter a name for the new security group and a description. Use a name that is easy for you
to remember, such as your user name, followed by _SG_, plus the Region name. For example,
me_SG_uswest2.
5. In the VPC list, select your default VPC for the Region.
6. On the Inbound rules tab, create the following rules (choose Add rule for each new rule):

• Choose HTTP from the Type list, and make sure that Source is set to Anywhere (0.0.0.0/0).
• Choose HTTPS from the Type list, and make sure that Source is set to Anywhere
(0.0.0.0/0).
• Choose RDP from the Type list. In the Source box, choose My IP to automatically populate
the field with the public IPv4 address of your local computer. Alternatively, choose Custom
and specify the public IPv4 address of your computer or network in CIDR notation. To
specify an individual IP address in CIDR notation, add the routing suffix /32, for example,
203.0.113.25/32. If your company allocates addresses from a range, specify the entire
range, such as 203.0.113.0/24.
Warning
For security reasons, do not allow RDP access from all IP addresses to your instance.
This is acceptable for a short time in a test environment, but it is unsafe for
production environments.
7. On the Outbound rules tab, keep the default rule, which allows all outbound traffic.
8. Choose Create security group.

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Create a security group

Command line

To create a security group with least privilege

Use one of the following commands:

• create-security-group (AWS CLI)

• New-EC2SecurityGroup (AWS Tools for Windows PowerShell)

For more information, see Amazon EC2 security groups for Windows instances (p. 1148).

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Overview

Tutorial: Get started with Amazon

EC2 Windows instances
Use this tutorial to get started with Amazon Elastic Compute Cloud (Amazon EC2). You'll learn how to
launch, connect to, and use a Windows instance. An instance is a virtual server in the AWS Cloud. With
Amazon EC2, you can set up and configure the operating system and applications that run on your
instance.

When you sign up for AWS, you can get started with Amazon EC2 using the AWS Free Tier. If you created
your AWS account less than 12 months ago, and have not already exceeded the free tier benefits for
Amazon EC2, it will not cost you anything to complete this tutorial, because we help you select options
that are within the free tier benefits. Otherwise, you'll incur the standard Amazon EC2 usage fees from
the time that you launch the instance until you terminate the instance (which is the final task of this
tutorial), even if it remains idle.

Contents
• Overview (p. 9)
• Prerequisites (p. 10)
• Step 1: Launch an instance (p. 10)
• Step 2: Connect to your instance (p. 11)
• Step 3: Clean up your instance (p. 17)
• Next steps (p. 17)

Related tutorials

• If you'd prefer to launch a Linux instance, see this tutorial in the Amazon EC2 User Guide for Linux
Instances: Get started with Amazon EC2 Linux instances.
• If you'd prefer to use the command line, see this tutorial in the AWS Command Line Interface User
Guide: Using Amazon EC2 through the AWS CLI.

Overview
The instance is an Amazon EBS-backed instance (meaning that the root volume is an EBS volume).
You can either specify the Availability Zone in which your instance runs, or let Amazon EC2 select an
Availability Zone for you. When you launch your instance, you secure it by specifying a key pair and
security group. When you connect to your instance, you must specify the private key of the key pair that
you specified when launching your instance.

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Prerequisites

Prerequisites
Before you begin, be sure that you've completed the steps in Set up to use Amazon EC2 (p. 5).

Step 1: Launch an instance

You can launch a Windows instance using the AWS Management Console as described in the following
procedure. This tutorial is intended to help you launch your first instance quickly, so it doesn't cover all
possible options. For more information about the advanced options, see Launch an instance using the
Launch Instance Wizard (p. 396). For information about other ways to launch your instance, see Launch
your instance (p. 394).

To launch an instance

1. Open the Amazon EC2 console at https://console.aws.amazon.com/ec2/.

2. From the console dashboard, choose Launch Instance.
3. The Choose an Amazon Machine Image (AMI) page displays a list of basic configurations, called
Amazon Machine Images (AMIs), that serve as templates for your instance. Select the AMI for
Windows Server 2016 Base or later. Notice that these AMIs are marked "Free tier eligible."
4. On the Choose an Instance Type page, you can select the hardware configuration of your instance.
Select the t2.micro instance type, which is selected by default. The t2.micro instance type
is eligible for the free tier. In Regions where t2.micro is unavailable, you can use a t3.micro
instance under the free tier. For more information, see AWS Free Tier.
5. On the Choose an Instance Type page, choose Review and Launch to let the wizard complete the
other configuration settings for you.
6. On the Review Instance Launch page, under Security Groups, you'll see that the wizard created and
selected a security group for you. You can use this security group, or alternatively you can select the
security group that you created when getting set up using the following steps:

a. Choose Edit security groups.

b. On the Configure Security Group page, ensure that Select an existing security group is
selected.

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Step 2: Connect to your instance

c. Select your security group from the list of existing security groups, and then choose Review and
Launch.
7. On the Review Instance Launch page, choose Launch.
8. When prompted for a key pair, select Choose an existing key pair, then select the key pair that you
created when getting set up.
Warning
Don't select Proceed without a key pair. If you launch your instance without a key pair,
then you can't connect to it.

When you are ready, select the acknowledgement check box, and then choose Launch Instances.
9. A confirmation page lets you know that your instance is launching. Choose View Instances to close
the confirmation page and return to the console.
10. On the Instances screen, you can view the status of the launch. It takes a short time for an instance
to launch. When you launch an instance, its initial state is pending. After the instance starts, its
state changes to running and it receives a public DNS name. (If the Public IPv4 DNS column is

hidden, choose the settings icon ( ) in the top-right corner, toggle on Public IPv4 DNS, and
choose Confirm.
11. It can take a few minutes for the instance to be ready so that you can connect to it. Check that your
instance has passed its status checks; you can view this information in the Status check column.

Step 2: Connect to your instance

To connect to a Windows instance, you must retrieve the initial administrator password and then enter
this password when you connect to your instance using Remote Desktop. It takes a few minutes after
instance launch before this password is available.

The name of the administrator account depends on the language of the operating system. For
example, for English, it's Administrator, for French it's Administrateur, and for Portuguese it's
Administrador. For more information, see Localized Names for Administrator Account in Windows in
the Microsoft TechNet Wiki.

If you've joined your instance to a domain, you can connect to your instance using domain credentials
you've defined in AWS Directory Service. On the Remote Desktop login screen, instead of using the local
computer name and the generated password, use the fully-qualified user name for the administrator (for
example, corp.example.com\Admin), and the password for this account.

If you receive an error while attempting to connect to your instance, see Remote Desktop can't connect
to the remote computer (p. 1482).

New console

To connect to your Windows instance using an RDP client

1. Open the Amazon EC2 console at https://console.aws.amazon.com/ec2/.

2. In the navigation pane, select Instances. Select the instance and then choose Connect.
3. On the Connect to instance page, choose the RDP client tab, and then choose Get password.

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Step 2: Connect to your instance

4. Choose Browse and navigate to the private key (.pem) file you created when you launched the
instance. Select the file and choose Open to copy the entire contents of the file to this window.
5. Choose Decrypt Password. The console displays the default administrator password for the
instance under Password, replacing the Get password link shown previously. Save the password
in a safe place. This password is required to connect to the instance.

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Step 2: Connect to your instance

6. Choose Download remote desktop file. Your browser prompts you to either open or save the
RDP shortcut file. When you have finished downloading the file, choose Cancel to return to the
Instances page.

• If you opened the RDP file, you'll see the Remote Desktop Connection dialog box.
• If you saved the RDP file, navigate to your downloads directory, and open the RDP file to
display the dialog box.
7. You may get a warning that the publisher of the remote connection is unknown. Choose
Connect to continue to connect to your instance.

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Step 2: Connect to your instance

8. The administrator account is chosen by default. Copy and paste the password that you saved
previously.
Tip
If you receive a "Password Failed" error, try entering the password manually. Copying
and pasting content can corrupt it.
9. Due to the nature of self-signed certificates, you may get a warning that the security certificate
could not be authenticated. Use the following steps to verify the identity of the remote
computer, or simply choose Yes (Windows) or Continue (Mac OS X) if you trust the certificate.

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Step 2: Connect to your instance

a. If you are using Remote Desktop Connection on a Windows computer, choose View
certificate. If you are using Microsoft Remote Desktop on a Mac, choose Show Certificate.
b. Choose the Details tab, and scroll down to Thumbprint (Windows) or SHA1 Fingerprints
(Mac OS X). This is the unique identifier for the remote computer's security certificate.
c. In the Amazon EC2 console, select the instance, choose Actions, Monitor and troubleshoot,
Get system log.
d. In the system log output, look for RDPCERTIFICATE-THUMBPRINT. If this value matches
the thumbprint or fingerprint of the certificate, you have verified the identity of the remote
computer.
e. If you are using Remote Desktop Connection on a Windows computer, return to the
Certificate dialog box and choose OK. If you are using Microsoft Remote Desktop on a
Mac, return to the Verify Certificate and choose Continue.
f. [Windows] Choose Yes in the Remote Desktop Connection window to connect to your
instance.

[Mac OS X] Log in as prompted, using the default administrator account and the default
administrator password that you recorded or copied previously. Note that you might need
to switch spaces to see the login screen. For more information, see Add spaces and switch
between them.

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Step 2: Connect to your instance

Old console

To connect to your Windows instance using an RDP client

1. In the Amazon EC2 console, select the instance, and then choose Connect.
2. In the Connect To Your Instance dialog box, choose Get Password (it will take a few minutes
after the instance is launched before the password is available).
3. Choose Browse and navigate to the private key (.pem) file you created when you launched
the instance. Select the file and choose Open to copy the entire contents of the file into the
Contents field.
4. Choose Decrypt Password. The console displays the default administrator password for the
instance in the Connect To Your Instance dialog box, replacing the link to Get Password shown
previously with the actual password.
5. Record the default administrator password, or copy it to the clipboard. You need this password
to connect to the instance.
6. Choose Download Remote Desktop File. Your browser prompts you to either open or save
the .rdp file. Either option is fine. When you have finished, you can choose Close to dismiss the
Connect To Your Instance dialog box.

• If you opened the .rdp file, you'll see the Remote Desktop Connection dialog box.
• If you saved the .rdp file, navigate to your downloads directory, and open the .rdp file to
display the dialog box.
7. You may get a warning that the publisher of the remote connection is unknown. You can
continue to connect to your instance.
8. When prompted, log in to the instance, using the administrator account for the operating
system and the password that you recorded or copied previously. If your Remote Desktop
Connection already has an administrator account set up, you might have to choose the Use
another account option and type the user name and password manually.
Note
Sometimes copying and pasting content can corrupt data. If you encounter a "Password
Failed" error when you log in, try typing in the password manually.
9. Due to the nature of self-signed certificates, you may get a warning that the security certificate
could not be authenticated. Use the following steps to verify the identity of the remote
computer, or simply choose Yes or Continue to continue if you trust the certificate.

a. If you are using Remote Desktop Connection from a Windows PC, choose View certificate.
If you are using Microsoft Remote Desktop on a Mac, choose Show Certificate.
b. Choose the Details tab, and scroll down to the Thumbprint entry on a Windows PC, or the
SHA1 Fingerprints entry on a Mac. This is the unique identifier for the remote computer's
security certificate.
c. In the Amazon EC2 console, select the instance, choose Actions, and then choose Get
System Log.
d. In the system log output, look for an entry labeled RDPCERTIFICATE-THUMBPRINT. If this
value matches the thumbprint or fingerprint of the certificate, you have verified the identity
of the remote computer.
e. If you are using Remote Desktop Connection from a Windows PC, return to the Certificate
dialog box and choose OK. If you are using Microsoft Remote Desktop on a Mac, return to
the Verify Certificate and choose Continue.
f. [Windows] Choose Yes in the Remote Desktop Connection window to connect to your
instance.

[Mac OS] Log in as prompted, using the default administrator account and the default
administrator password that you recorded or copied previously. Note that you might

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Step 3: Clean up your instance

need to switch spaces to see the login screen. For more information about spaces, see
support.apple.com/en-us/HT204100.
g. If you receive an error while attempting to connect to your instance, see Remote Desktop
can't connect to the remote computer (p. 1482).

Step 3: Clean up your instance

After you've finished with the instance that you created for this tutorial, you should clean up by
terminating the instance. If you want to do more with this instance before you clean up, see Next
steps (p. 17).
Important
Terminating an instance effectively deletes it; you can't reconnect to an instance after you've
terminated it.

If you launched an instance that is not within the AWS Free Tier, you'll stop incurring charges for that
instance as soon as the instance status changes to shutting down or terminated. To keep your
instance for later, but not incur charges, you can stop the instance now and then start it again later. For
more information, see Stop and start your instance (p. 429).

To terminate your instance

1. In the navigation pane, choose Instances. In the list of instances, select the instance.
2. Choose Instance state, Terminate instance.
3. Choose Terminate when prompted for confirmation.

Amazon EC2 shuts down and terminates your instance. After your instance is terminated, it remains
visible on the console for a short while, and then the entry is automatically deleted. You cannot
remove the terminated instance from the console display yourself.

Next steps
After you start your instance, you might want to try some of the following exercises:

• Learn how to remotely manage your EC2 instance using Run Command. For more information, see
AWS Systems Manager Run Command in the AWS Systems Manager User Guide.
• Configure a CloudWatch alarm to notify you if your usage exceeds the Free Tier. For more information,
see Tracking your AWS Free Tier usage in the AWS Billing and Cost Management User Guide.
• Add an EBS volume. For more information, see Create an Amazon EBS volume (p. 1196) and Attach an
Amazon EBS volume to an instance (p. 1199).

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User Guide for Windows Instances

Best practices for Windows on

Amazon EC2
This list of practices will help you get the best results from running Windows on Amazon EC2.

Update Windows drivers

Maintain the latest drivers on all Windows EC2 instances to ensure the latest issue fixes and performance
enhancements are applied across your fleet. Depending on your instance type, you should update AWS
PV, ENA, and NVMe drivers.

• Leverage Trusted Advisor to keep Amazon EC2 Windows up to date with AWS-provided Windows
drivers.
• Use SNS topics to receive updates for new driver releases.
• Use the AWS Systems Manager SSM document AWSSupport-UpgradeWindowsAWSDrivers to easily
apply the updates across your instances.

Launch new instances with the latest Windows AMIs

AWS releases new Windows AMIs each month, which contain the latest OS patches, drivers, and launch
agents. You should leverage the latest AMI when you launch new instances or when you build your own
custom images.

• To build with the latest available AMIs, see Query for the Latest Windows AMI Using Systems Manager
Parameter Store.

Test system/application performance before migration

Migrating enterprise applications to AWS can involve many variables and configurations. Always
performance test the EC2 solution to ensure that:

• Instance types are properly configured, including instance size, enhanced networking, and tenancy
(shared or dedicated).
• Instance topology is appropriate for the workload and leverages high-performance features when
necessary (dedicated tenancy, placement groups, instance store volumes, bare metal).

Update launch agents

Update to the latest EC2Launch v2 (Windows Server 2008 and later) agent to ensure that the latest
issue fixes are applied across your fleet. To update, see the instructions at Install the latest version
ofEC2Launch v2.

If you want to continue to use the EC2Config (Windows Server 2012 R2 and earlier) or EC2Launch
(Windows Server 2016 and later) agents, ensure that the latest issue fixes are applied across your fleet.

• For EC2Config update instructions, see Installing the Latest Version of EC2Config.
• For EC2Launch update instructions, see Installing the Latest Version of EC2Launch.

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User Guide for Windows Instances

Security

When securing Windows instances, we recommend that you implement Active Directory Domain Services
to enable a scalable, secure, and manageable infrastructure for distributed locations. Additionally, after
launching instances through the AWS Console or using an Amazon EC2 provisioning tool, such as AWS
CloudFormation, it is good practice to utilize native OS features, such as Microsoft Windows PowerShell
DSC to maintain configuration state in the event that configuration drift occurs.

Windows instances in AWS should adhere to the following high-level best practices:

• Least Access: Grant access only to systems and locations that are trusted and expected. This applies
to all Microsoft products such as Active Directory, Microsoft business productivity servers, and
infrastructure services such as Remote Desktop Services, reverse proxy servers, IIS web servers, etc.
Use AWS capabilities such as Amazon EC2 instance security groups, network access control lists (ACLs),
and Amazon VPC public/private subnets to layer security across multiple locations in an architecture.
Within a Windows instance, customers can use Windows Firewall to further layer a defense-in-depth
strategy within their deployment. Install only the OS components and applications that are necessary
for the system to function as designed. Configure infrastructure services such as IIS to run under
service accounts or to use features such as application pool identities to access resources locally and
remotely across your infrastructure.
• Least Privilege: Determine the minimum set of privileges that instances and accounts need in order to
perform their functions. Restrict these servers and users to only allow these defined permissions. Use
techniques such as Role Based Access Controls to reduce the surface area of administrative accounts
and create the most limited roles to accomplish a task. Use OS features such as Encrypting File System
(EFS) within NTFS to encrypt sensitive data at rest and control application and user access to it.
• Configuration Management: Create a baseline server configuration that incorporates up-to-date
security patches and host-based protection suites that include anti-virus, anti-malware, intrusion
detection/prevention, and file integrity monitoring. Assess each server against the current recorded
baseline to identify and flag any deviations. Ensure each server is configured to generate and securely
store appropriate log and audit data. For more information about updating your Windows instance,
see Update your Windows instance.
• Change Management: Create processes to control changes to server configuration baselines and
work toward fully automated change processes. Also, leverage Just Enough Administration (JEA) with
Windows PowerShell DSC to limit administrative access to the minimum required functions.
• Audit Logs: Audit access and all changes to Amazon EC2 instances to verify server integrity and ensure
only authorized changes are made. Leverage features such as Enhanced Logging for IIS to enhance
default logging capabilities. AWS capabilities such as VPC Flow Logs and AWS CloudTrail are also
available to audit network access, including allowed/denied requests and API calls, respectively.

Storage

• Use separate Amazon EBS volumes for the operating system versus your data. Ensure that the volume
with your data persists after instance termination. For more information, see Preserve Amazon EBS
volumes on instance termination (p. 450).
• Use the instance store available for your instance to store temporary data. Remember that the data
stored in instance store is deleted when you stop, hibernate, or terminate your instance. If you use
instance store for database storage, ensure that you have a cluster with a replication factor that
ensures fault tolerance.
• Encrypt EBS volumes and snapshots. For more information, see Amazon EBS encryption (p. 1340).

Resource management

• Use instance metadata and custom resource tags to track and identify your AWS resources. For
more information, see Instance metadata and user data (p. 588) and Tag your Amazon EC2
resources (p. 1463).

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 Amazon Elastic Compute Cloud
User Guide for Windows Instances

• View your current limits for Amazon EC2. Plan to request any limit increases in advance of the time
that you'll need them. For more information, see Amazon EC2 service quotas (p. 1475).

Backup and recovery

• Regularly back up your EBS volumes using Amazon EBS snapshots (p. 1220), and create an Amazon
Machine Image (AMI) (p. 21) from your instance to save the configuration as a template for
launching future instances.
• Deploy critical components of your application across multiple Availability Zones, and replicate your
data appropriately.
• Design your applications to handle dynamic IP addressing when your instance restarts. For more
information, see Amazon EC2 instance IP addressing (p. 904).
• Monitor and respond to events. For more information, see Monitor Amazon EC2 (p. 818).
• Ensure that you are prepared to handle failover. For a basic solution, you can manually attach a
network interface or Elastic IP address to a replacement instance. For more information, see Elastic
network interfaces (p. 948). For an automated solution, you can use Amazon EC2 Auto Scaling. For
more information, see the Amazon EC2 Auto Scaling User Guide.
• Regularly test the process of recovering your instances and Amazon EBS volumes if they fail.

Networking

• Set the time-to-live (TTL) value for your applications to 255, for IPv4 and IPv6. If you use a smaller
value, there is a risk that the TTL will expire while application traffic is in transit, causing reachability
issues for your instances.

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Boot modes

Amazon Machine Images (AMI)

An Amazon Machine Image (AMI) provides the information required to launch an instance. You must
specify an AMI when you launch an instance. You can launch multiple instances from a single AMI when
you need multiple instances with the same configuration. You can use different AMIs to launch instances
when you need instances with different configurations.

An AMI includes the following:

• One or more Amazon Elastic Block Store (Amazon EBS) snapshots, or, for instance-store-backed AMIs,
a template for the root volume of the instance (for example, an operating system, an application
server, and applications).
• Launch permissions that control which AWS accounts can use the AMI to launch instances.
• A block device mapping that specifies the volumes to attach to the instance when it's launched.

Contents
• Boot modes (p. 21)
• AWS Windows AMIs (p. 27)
• Find a Windows AMI (p. 100)
• Shared AMIs (p. 105)
• Paid AMIs (p. 112)
• AMI lifecycle (p. 116)
• Use encryption with EBS-backed AMIs (p. 130)
• Understand AMI billing information (p. 134)

Boot modes
When a computer boots, the first software that it runs is responsible for initializing the platform and
providing an interface for the operating system to perform platform-specific operations.

Default boot modes

In EC2, two variants of the boot mode software are supported: Legacy BIOS and Unified Extensible
Firmware Interface (UEFI). By default, Intel and AMD instance types run on Legacy BIOS, and Graviton
instance types run on UEFI.

Running Intel and AMD instances types on UEFI

Most Intel and AMD instance types can run on both UEFI and Legacy BIOS. To use UEFI, you must select
an AMI with the boot mode parameter set to uefi, and the operating system contained in the AMI must
be configured to support UEFI.

Purpose of the AMI boot mode parameter

The AMI boot mode parameter signals to EC2 which boot mode to use when launching an instance.
When the boot mode parameter is set to uefi, EC2 attempts to launch the instance on UEFI. If the
operating system is not configured to support UEFI, the instance launch might be unsuccessful.
Warning
Setting the boot mode parameter does not automatically configure the operating system
for the specified boot mode. The configuration is specific to the operating system. For the
configuration instructions, see the manual for your operating system.

Possible boot mode parameter on an AMI

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User Guide for Windows Instances
Considerations

The AMI boot mode parameter is optional. An AMI can have one of the following boot mode parameter
values: uefi or legacy-bios. Some AMIs do not have a boot mode parameter. For AMIs with no boot mode
parameter, the instances launched from these AMIs use the default value of the instance type—uefi on
Graviton, and legacy-bios on all Intel and AMD instance types.

Topics
• Considerations (p. 22)
• Requirements for launching an instance with UEFI (p. 22)
• Determine the boot mode parameter of an AMI (p. 22)
• Determine the supported boot modes of an instance type (p. 23)
• Determine the boot mode of an instance (p. 24)
• Determine the boot mode of the OS (p. 25)
• Set the boot mode of an AMI (p. 25)

Considerations
• Default boot modes:
• Intel and AMD instance types: Legacy BIOS
• Graviton instance types: UEFI
• Intel and AMD instance types that support UEFI, in addition to Legacy BIOS:
• Virtualized: C5, C5a, C5ad, C5d, C5n, D3, D3en, G4, I3en, M5, M5a, M5ad, M5d, M5dn, M5n, M5zn,
R5, R5a, R5ad, R5b, R5d, R5dn, R5n, T3, T3a, and z1d
• UEFI Secure Boot is currently not supported.

Requirements for launching an instance with UEFI

To launch an instance in UEFI mode, you must select an instance type that supports UEFI, and configure
the AMI and the OS for UEFI, as follows:

• Instance type – When launching an instance, you must select an instance type that supports UEFI. For
more information, see Determine the supported boot modes of an instance type (p. 23).
• AMI – When launching an instance, you must select an AMI that is configured for UEFI. The AMI must
be configured as follows:
• OS – The operating system contained in the AMI must be configured to use UEFI; otherwise, the
instance launch will fail. For more information, see Determine the boot mode of the OS (p. 25).
• AMI boot mode parameter – The boot mode parameter of the AMI must be set to uefi. For more
information, see Determine the boot mode parameter of an AMI (p. 22).

AWS does not provide AMIs that are already configured to support UEFI. You must configure the
AMI (p. 25), import the AMI through VM Import/Export, or import the AMI through CloudEndure.

Determine the boot mode parameter of an AMI

The AMI boot mode parameter is optional. An AMI can have one of the following boot mode parameter
values: uefi and legacy-bios.

Some AMIs do not have a boot mode parameter. When an AMI has no boot mode parameter, the
instances launched from the AMI use the default value of the instance type, which is uefi on Graviton,
and legacy-bios on Intel and AMD instance types.

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Determine the supported boot modes of an instance type

To determine the boot mode parameter of an AMI (console)

1. Open the Amazon EC2 console at https://console.aws.amazon.com/ec2/.

2. In the navigation pane, choose AMIs, and then select the AMI.
3. On the Details tab, inspect the Boot mode field.

To determine the boot mode parameter of an AMI when launching an instance (console)

When launching an instance using the launch instance wizard, at the step to select an AMI, inspect the
Boot mode field. For more information, see Step 1: Choose an Amazon Machine Image (AMI) (p. 396).

To determine the boot mode parameter of an AMI (AWS CLI version 1.19.34 and later and version
2.1.32 and later)

Use the describe-images command to determine the boot mode of an AMI.

aws ec2 --region us-east-1 describe-images --image-id ami-0abcdef1234567890

Expected output

{
"Images": [
{
...
],
"EnaSupport": true,
"Hypervisor": "xen",
"ImageOwnerAlias": "amazon",
"Name": "UEFI_Boot_Mode_Enabled-Windows_Server-2016-English-Full-
Base-2020.09.30",
"RootDeviceName": "/dev/sda1",
"RootDeviceType": "ebs",
"SriovNetSupport": "simple",
"VirtualizationType": "hvm",
"BootMode": "uefi"
}
]
}

Determine the supported boot modes of an instance

type
To determine the supported boot modes of an instance type (AWS CLI version 1.19.34 and later and
version 2.1.32 and later)

Use the describe-instance-types command to determine the supported boot modes of an instance type.
By including the --query parameter, you can filter the output. In this example, the output is filtered to
return only the supported boot modes.

The following example shows that m5.2xlarge supports both UEFI and Legacy BIOS boot modes.

aws ec2 --region us-east-1 describe-instance-types --instance-types m5.2xlarge --query

"InstanceTypes[*].SupportedBootModes"

Expected output

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Determine the boot mode of an instance

[
[
"legacy-bios",
"uefi"
]
]

The following example shows that t2.xlarge supports only Legacy BIOS.

aws ec2 --region us-east-1 describe-instance-types --instance-types t2.xlarge --query

"InstanceTypes[*].SupportedBootModes"

Expected output

[
[
"legacy-bios"
]
]

Determine the boot mode of an instance

When an instance is launched, the value for its boot mode parameter is determined by the value of the
boot mode parameter of the AMI used to launch it, as follows:

• An AMI with a boot mode parameter of uefi creates an instance with a boot mode parameter of uefi.
• An AMI with a boot mode parameter of legacy-bios creates an instance with no boot mode parameter.
An instance with no boot mode parameter uses its default value, which is legacy-bios in this case.
• An AMI with no boot mode parameter value creates an instance with no boot mode parameter value.

The value of the instance's boot mode parameter determines the mode in which it boots. If there is
no value, the default boot mode is used, which is uefi on Graviton, and legacy-bios on Intel and AMD
instance types.

To determine the boot mode of an instance (console)

1. Open the Amazon EC2 console at https://console.aws.amazon.com/ec2/.

2. In the navigation pane, choose Instances, and then select your instance.
3. On the Details tab, inspect the Boot mode field.

To determine the boot mode of an instance (AWS CLI version 1.19.34 and later and version 2.1.32
and later)

Use the describe-instances command to determine the boot mode of an instance.

aws ec2 --region us-east-1 describe-instances --instance-ids i-1234567890abcdef0

Expected output

{
"Reservations": [
{

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Determine the boot mode of the OS

"Groups": [],
"Instances": [
{
"AmiLaunchIndex": 0,
"ImageId": "ami-0e2063e7f6dc3bee8",
"InstanceId": "i-1234567890abcdef0",
"InstanceType": "m5.2xlarge",
...
},
"BootMode": "uefi"
}
],
"OwnerId": "1234567890",
"ReservationId": "r-1234567890abcdef0"
}
]
}

Determine the boot mode of the OS

The boot mode of the OS guides EC2 on which boot mode to use to boot an instance. To view whether
the operating system of your instance is configured for UEFI, you need to connect to your instance via
RDP.

To determine the boot mode of the instance’s OS

1. Connect to your Windows instance using RDP (p. 417).

2. Go to System Information and check the BIOS Mode row.

Set the boot mode of an AMI

When you create an AMI using the register-image command, you can set the boot mode of the AMI to
either uefi or legacy-bios.

To convert an existing Legacy BIOS-based instance to UEFI, or an existing UEFI-based instance to Legacy
BIOS, you need to perform a number of steps: First, modify the instance's volume and OS to support the
selected boot mode. Then, create a snapshot of the volume. Finally, use register-image to create the AMI
using the snapshot.

You can't set the boot mode of an AMI using the create-image command. With create-image, the AMI
inherits the boot mode of the EC2 instance used for creating the AMI. For example, if you create an AMI
from an EC2 instance running on Legacy BIOS, the AMI boot mode will be configured as legacy-bios.
Warning
Before proceeding with these steps, you must first make suitable modifications to the instance's
volume and OS to support booting via the selected boot mode; otherwise, the resulting AMI
will not be usable. For example, if you are converting a Legacy BIOS-based instance to UEFI,
you can use the MBR2GPT tool from Microsoft to convert the system disk from MBR to GPT. The
modifications that are required are operating system-specific. For more information, see the
manual for your operating system.

To set the boot mode of an AMI (AWS CLI version 1.19.34 and later and version 2.1.32 and
later)

1. Make suitable modifications to the instance's volume and OS to support booting via the selected
boot mode. The modifications that are required are operating system-specific. For more information,
see the manual for your operating system.

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 Amazon Elastic Compute Cloud
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Set the boot mode of an AMI

Note
If you don't perform this step, the AMI will not be usable.
2. To find the volume ID of the instance, use the describe-instances command. You'll create a snapshot
of this volume in the next step.

aws ec2 describe-instances --region us-east-1 --instance-ids i-1234567890abcdef0

Expected output

...
"BlockDeviceMappings": [
{
"DeviceName": "/dev/sda1",
"Ebs": {
"AttachTime": "",
"DeleteOnTermination": true,
"Status": "attached",
"VolumeId": "vol-1234567890abcdef0"
}
}
...

3. To create a snapshot of the volume, use the create-snapshot command. Use the volume ID from the
previous step.

aws ec2 create-snapshot --region us-east-1 --volume-id vol-1234567890abcdef0

--description "add text"

Expected output

{
"Description": "add text",
"Encrypted": false,
"OwnerId": "123",
"Progress": "",
"SnapshotId": "snap-01234567890abcdef",
"StartTime": "",
"State": "pending",
"VolumeId": "vol-1234567890abcdef0",
"VolumeSize": 30,
"Tags": []
}

4. Note the snapshot ID in the output from the previous step.

5. Wait until the snapshot creation is completed before going to the next step. To query the state of
the snapshot, use the describe-snapshots command.

aws ec2 describe-snapshots --region us-east-1 --snapshot-ids snap-01234567890abcdef

Example output

{
"Snapshots": [
{
"Description": "This is my snapshot",
"Encrypted": false,
"VolumeId": "vol-049df61146c4d7901",
"State": "completed",

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 Amazon Elastic Compute Cloud
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AWS Windows AMIs

"VolumeSize": 8,
"StartTime": "2019-02-28T21:28:32.000Z",
"Progress": "100%",
"OwnerId": "012345678910",
"SnapshotId": "snap-01234567890abcdef",
...

6. To create a new AMI, use the register-image command. Use the snapshot ID that you noted in
the earlier step. To set the boot mode to UEFI, add the --boot-mode uefi parameter to the
command.

aws ec2 register-image \

--region us-east-1 \
--description "add description" \
--name "add name" \
--block-device-mappings "DeviceName=/dev/
sda1,Ebs={SnapshotId=snap-01234567890abcdef,DeleteOnTermination=true}" \
--architecture x86_64 \
--root-device-name /dev/sda1 \
--virtualization-type hvm \
--ena-support \
--boot-mode uefi

Expected output

{
"ImageId": "ami-new_ami_123"
}

7. To verify that the newly-created AMI has the boot mode that you specified in the previous step, use
the describe-images command.

aws ec2 describe-images --region us-east-1 --image-id ami-new_ami_123

Expected output

{
"Images": [
{
"Architecture": "x86_64",
"CreationDate": "2021-01-06T14:31:04.000Z",
"ImageId": "ami-new_ami_123",
"ImageLocation": "",
...
"BootMode": "uefi"
}
]
}

8. Launch a new instance using the newly-created AMI. All new instances created from this AMI will
inherit the same boot mode.
9. To verify that the new instance has the expected boot mode, use the describe-instances command.

AWS Windows AMIs

AWS provides a set of publicly available AMIs that contain software configurations specific to the
Windows platform. Using these AMIs, you can quickly start building and deploying your applications
using Amazon EC2. First choose the AMI that meets your specific requirements, and then launch an

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Select an initial Windows AMI

instance using that AMI. You retrieve the password for the administrator account and then log in to the
instance using Remote Desktop Connection, just as you would with any other Windows server.

When you launch an instance from a Windows AMI, the root device for the Windows instance is an
Amazon Elastic Block Store (Amazon EBS) volume. Windows AMIs do not support instance store for the
root device.

Some Windows AMIs include an edition of Microsoft SQL Server (SQL Enterprise Edition, SQL Server
Standard, SQL Server Express, or SQL Server Web). Launching an instance from a Windows AMI with
Microsoft SQL Server enables you to run the instance as a database server. Alternatively, you can launch
an instance from any Windows AMI and then install the database software that you need on the instance.

Microsoft no longer supports Windows Server 2003, 2008, and 2008 R2. We recommend that you launch
new EC2 instances using a supported version of Windows Server. If you have existing EC2 instances
that are running an unsupported version of Windows Server, we recommend that you upgrade those
instances to a supported version of Windows Server. For more information, see Upgrade an Amazon EC2
Windows instance to a newer version of Windows Server (p. 640).

Windows AMI topics

• Select an initial Windows AMI (p. 28)
• Keep your AMIs up-to-date (p. 28)
• Virtualization types (p. 28)
• Managed AWS Windows AMIs (p. 29)
• Create a custom Windows AMI (p. 37)
• Deregister your Windows AMI (p. 52)
• Specialized Windows AMIs (p. 53)
• AWS Windows AMI Version History (p. 59)

Select an initial Windows AMI

To view the Windows AMIs provided by AWS, you can use the Amazon EC2 console or AWS Marketplace.
For more information, see Find a Windows AMI (p. 100).

You can also create an AMI from your own Windows computer. For more information, see the following
services:

• AWS Server Migration Service

• VM Import/Export

Keep your AMIs up-to-date

AWS provides updated, fully-patched Windows AMIs within five business days of Microsoft's patch
Tuesday (the second Tuesday of each month). For more information, see Details about AWS Windows AMI
versions (p. 30).

The AWS Windows AMIs contain the latest security updates available at the time they were created. For
more information, see Patches, security updates, and AMI IDs (p. 30).

Virtualization types
AMIs use one of two types of virtualization: paravirtual (PV) or hardware virtual machine (HVM). The
main differences between PV and HVM AMIs are the way in which they boot and whether they can take
advantage of special hardware extensions for better performance. Windows AMIs are HVM AMIs.

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 Amazon Elastic Compute Cloud
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Managed AWS Windows AMIs

HVM AMIs are presented with a fully virtualized set of hardware and boot by executing the master boot
record of the root block device of your image. This virtualization type provides the ability to run an
operating system directly on top of a virtual machine without any modification, as if it were run on the
bare-metal hardware. The Amazon EC2 host system emulates some or all of the underlying hardware
that is presented to the guest.

HVM guests can take advantage of hardware extensions that provide fast access to the underlying
hardware on the host system. HVM AMIs are required to take advantage of enhanced networking and
GPU processing. In order to pass through instructions to specialized network and GPU devices, the OS
needs to be able to have access to the native hardware platform; HVM virtualization provides this access.

Paravirtual guests traditionally performed better with storage and network operations than HVM guests
because they could leverage special drivers for I/O that avoided the overhead of emulating network
and disk hardware, whereas HVM guests had to translate these instructions to emulated hardware.
Now PV drivers are available for HVM guests, so Windows instances can get performance advantages in
storage and network I/O by using them. With these PV on HVM drivers, HVM guests can get the same
performance as paravirtual guests, or better.

Managed AWS Windows AMIs

AWS provides managed Amazon Machine Images (AMIs) that include various versions and configurations
of Windows Server. In general, the AWS Windows AMIs are configured with the default settings used by
the Microsoft installation media. However, there are customizations. For example, the AWS Windows
AMIs come with the following software and drivers:

• EC2Launch v2 (Windows Server 2022)

• EC2Launch (Windows Server 2016 and 2019)
• EC2Config service (through Windows Server 2012 R2)
• AWS Systems Manager
• AWS CloudFormation
• AWS Tools for Windows PowerShell
• Network drivers (SRIOV, ENA, Citrix PV)
• Storage drivers (NVMe, AWS PV, Citrix PV)
• Graphics drivers (NVidia GPU, Elastic GPU)
• Spot Instance hibernation

For information about other customizations, see AWS Windows AMIs (p. 27).

Contents
• Details about AWS Windows AMI versions (p. 30)
• What to expect in an official AWS Windows AMI (p. 30)
• How AWS decides which Windows AMIs to offer (p. 30)
• Patches, security updates, and AMI IDs (p. 30)
• Semiannual channel releases (p. 31)
• Configuration changes for AWS Windows AMIs (p. 31)
• Update your Windows instance (p. 33)
• Upgrade or migrate to a newer version of Windows Server (p. 34)
• Subscribe to Windows AMI notifications (p. 34)
• Changes in Windows Server 2016 and later AMIs (p. 35)
• Docker container conflict on Windows Server 2016 instances (p. 35)
• Issue with the Hibernate Agent (2018.03.16 AMIs) (p. 36)

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 Amazon Elastic Compute Cloud
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Managed AWS Windows AMIs

Details about AWS Windows AMI versions

What to expect in an official AWS Windows AMI
AWS provides AMIs with a variety of configurations for all supported Windows Operating System
versions. For each of these images, AWS:

• Installs all Microsoft recommended Windows security patches. We release images shortly after the
monthly Microsoft patches are made available.
• Installs the latest drivers for AWS hardware, including network and disk drivers, EC2WinUtil for
troubleshooting, as well as GPU drivers in selected AMIs.
• Includes AWS helper software, like EC2Config (p. 502) for Server 2012 R2 and earlier,
EC2Launch (p. 494) for Server 2016 and 2019, or EC2Launch v2 (p. 454) for Server 2022.
• Configures Windows Time to use the Set the time for a Windows instance (p. 568).
• Makes changes in all power schemes to set the display to never turn off.
• Performs minor bug fixes – generally one-line registry changes to enable or disable features that we
have found to improve performance on AWS.

Other than the adjustments listed above, we keep our AMIs as close as possible to the default install.
This means we default to the “stock” PowerShell or .NET framework versions, don’t install Windows
Features, and generally don’t change the AMI.

How AWS decides which Windows AMIs to offer

Each AMI is extensively tested prior to release to the general public. We periodically streamline our AMI
offerings to simplify customer choice and to reduce costs.

• New AMI offerings are created for new OS releases. You can count on AWS releasing “Base,” “Core/
Container,” and “SQL Express/Standard/Web/Enterprise” offerings in English and other widely used
languages. The primary difference between Base and Core offerings is that Base offerings have a
desktop/GUI whereas Core offerings are PowerShell command line only. For more information about
Windows Server Core, see https://docs.microsoft.com/en-us/windows-server/administration/server-
core/what-is-server-core.
• New AMI offerings are created to support new platforms – for example, the Deep Learning and
“NVidia” AMIs were created to support customers using our GPU-based instance types (P2 and P3, G2
and G3, etc.).
• Less popular AMIs are sometimes removed. If we see a particular AMI is launched only a few times in
its entire lifespan, we will remove it in favor of more widely used options.

If there is an AMI variant that you would like to see, let us know by filing a ticket with Cloud Support, or
by providing feedback through one of our established channels.

Patches, security updates, and AMI IDs

AWS provides updated, fully-patched Windows AMIs within five business days of Microsoft's patch
Tuesday (the second Tuesday of each month). The new AMIs are available immediately through the
Images page in the Amazon EC2 console. The new AMIs are available in the AWS Marketplace and the
Quick Start tab of the launch instance wizard within a few days of their release.
Note
Instances launched from Windows Server 2019 and later AMIs may show a Windows Update
dialog message stating "Some settings are managed by your organization." This message
appears as a result of changes in Windows Server 2019 and does not impact the behavior of
Windows Update or your ability to manage update settings.

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To remove this warning, see "Some settings are managed by your organization".

To ensure that customers have the latest security updates by default, AWS keeps Windows AMIs available
for three months. After releasing new Windows AMIs, AWS makes the Windows AMIs that are older than
three months private within 10 days. After an AMI has been made private, if you look at an instance
launched from that AMI in the console, the AMI ID field states, "Cannot load detail for ami-xxxxx. You
may not be permitted to view it." You can still retrieve the AMI ID using the AWS CLI or an AWS SDK.

The Windows AMIs in each release have new AMI IDs. Therefore, we recommend that you write scripts
that locate the latest AWS Windows AMIs by their names, rather than by their IDs. For more information,
see the following examples:

• Get-EC2ImageByName (AWS Tools for Windows PowerShell)

• Query for the Latest Windows AMI Using Systems Manager Parameter Store
• Walkthrough: Looking Up Amazon Machine Image IDs (AWS Lambda, AWS CloudFormation)

Semiannual channel releases

AWS provides Windows Server semiannual channel releases that combine the scale, performance, and
elasticity of AWS with the new capabilities in the Semiannual channel release versions of Windows
Server.

Configuration changes for AWS Windows AMIs

The following changes are applied to each AWS Windows AMI.

Clean and prepare

Change Applies to

Check for pending file renames or reboots, and reboot as needed All AMIs

Delete .dmp files All AMIs

Delete logs (event logs, Systems Manager, EC2Config) All AMIs

Delete temporary folders and files for sysprep All AMIs

Clear recent history (Start menu, Windows Explorer, and so on) Windows Server 2012 R2 and
earlier

Perform virus scan All AMIs

Pre-compile queued .NET assemblies (before sysprep) All AMIs

Run Windows maintenance tools Windows Server 2012 R2 and

later

Restore default values for Internet Explorer All AMIs

Restore default values for EC2Config Windows Server 2012 R2 and

earlier

Set EC2Launch to run at the next launch Windows Server 2016 and 2019

Reset the Windows wallpaper All AMIs

Run sysprep All AMIs

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Install and configure

Change Applies to

Add links to the Amazon EC2 Windows Guide All AMIs

Attach instance storage volumes to extended mount points All AMIs

Install the current AWS Tools for Windows PowerShell All AMIs

Install the current AWS CloudFormation helper scripts All AMIs

Install the current EC2Config and SSM Agent Windows Server 2012 R2 and
earlier

Install the current EC2Launch and SSM Agent Windows Server 2016 and 2019

Install the current EC2Launch v2 and SSM Agent Windows Server 2022 and later

Install the current AWS PV, ENA, and NVMe drivers Windows Server 2008 R2 and
later

Install the current SRIOV drivers Windows Server 2012 R2 and

later

Install the current Citrix PV driver Windows Server 2008 SP2 and
earlier

Install the current EC2WinUtil driver Windows Server 2008 R2 and

later

Install PowerShell 2.0 and 3.0 Windows Server 2008 SP2 and
R2

If Microsoft SQL Server is installed: All AMIs

• Install service packs

• Configure to start automatically
• Add BUILTIN\Administrators to the SysAdmin role
• Open TCP port 1433 and UDP port 1434

Apply the following hotfixes: Windows Server 2008 SP2 and

R2
• MS15-011
• KB2582281
• KB2634328
• KB2800213
• KB2922223
• KB2394911
• KB2780879

Allow ICMP traffic through the firewall Windows Server 2012 R2 and
earlier

Enable file and printer sharing Windows Server 2012 R2 and

earlier

Disable RunOnce for Internet Explorer All AMIs

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Change Applies to

Enable remote PowerShell All AMIs

Configure a paging file on the system volume as follows: All AMIs

• Windows Server 2019 - Managed by the system

• Windows Server 2016 -Managed by the system
• Windows Server 2012 R2 - Initial size and max size are 8 GB
• Windows Server 2012 and earlier - Initial size is 512 MB, max size
is 8 GB

Configure an additional system managed paging file on Z:, if Windows Server 2012 R2 and
available earlier

Disable hibernation and delete the hibernation file All AMIs

Set the performance options for best performance All AMIs

Set the power setting to high performance All AMIs

Disable the screen saver password All AMIs

Set the RealTimeIsUniversal registry key All AMIs

Set the timezone to UTC All AMIs

Disable Windows updates and notifications All AMIs

Run Windows Update and reboot until there are no pending All AMIs
updates

Set the display in all power schemes to never turn off All AMIs

Set the PowerShell execution policy to "Unrestricted" All AMIs

Update your Windows instance

After you launch a Windows instance, you are responsible for installing updates on it. You can manually
install only the updates that interest you, or you can start from a current AWS Windows AMI and build
a new Windows instance. For information about finding the current AWS Windows AMIs, see Find a
Windows AMI (p. 100).
Note
Instances should be stateless when updating. For more information, see Managing Your AWS
Infrastructure at Scale.

For Windows instances, you can install updates to the following services or applications:

• Microsoft Windows Server

• Microsoft SQL Server
• Windows PowerShell
• Install the latest version of EC2Launch v2 (p. 459)
• Install the latest version of EC2Launch (p. 495)
• Install the latest version of EC2Config (p. 503)
• AWS Systems Manager SSM Agent

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• Enable enhanced networking on Windows (p. 976)

• Install or upgrade AWS NVMe drivers (p. 547)
• Upgrade PV drivers on Windows instances (p. 533)
• AWS Tools for Windows PowerShell
• AWS CloudFormation helper scripts

You can reboot a Windows instance after installing updates. For more information, see Reboot your
instance (p. 443).

Upgrade or migrate to a newer version of Windows Server

For information about how to upgrade or migrate a Windows instance to a newer version of Windows
Server, see Upgrade an Amazon EC2 Windows instance to a newer version of Windows Server (p. 640).

Subscribe to Windows AMI notifications

To be notified when new AMIs are released or when previously released AMIs are made private, subscribe
for notifications using Amazon SNS.

To subscribe to Windows AMI notifications

1. Open the Amazon SNS console at https://console.aws.amazon.com/sns/v3/home.

2. In the navigation bar, change the Region to US East (N. Virginia), if necessary. You must use this
Region because the SNS notifications that you are subscribing to were created in this Region.
3. In the navigation pane, choose Subscriptions.
4. Choose Create subscription.
5. For the Create subscription dialog box, do the following:

a. For Topic ARN, copy and paste one of the following Amazon Resource Names (ARNs):

• arn:aws:sns:us-east-1:801119661308:ec2-windows-ami-update
• arn:aws:sns:us-east-1:801119661308:ec2-windows-ami-private

For AWS GovCloud (US):

arn:aws-us-gov:sns:us-gov-west-1:077303321853:ec2-windows-ami-update
b. For Protocol, choose Email.
c. For Endpoint, type an email address that you can use to receive the notifications.
d. Choose Create subscription.
6. You'll receive a confirmation email with the subject line AWS Notification - Subscription
Confirmation. Open the email and choose Confirm subscription to complete your subscription.

Whenever Windows AMIs are released, we send notifications to the subscribers of the ec2-windows-
ami-update topic. Whenever released Windows AMIs are made private, we send notifications to
the subscribers of the ec2-windows-ami-private topic. If you no longer want to receive these
notifications, use the following procedure to unsubscribe.

To unsubscribe from Windows AMI notifications

1. Open the Amazon SNS console at https://console.aws.amazon.com/sns/v3/home.

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2. In the navigation bar, change the Region to US East (N. Virginia), if necessary. You must use this
Region because the SNS notifications were created in this Region.
3. In the navigation pane, choose Subscriptions.
4. Select the subscriptions and then choose Actions, Delete subscriptions When prompted for
confirmation, choose Delete.

Changes in Windows Server 2016 and later AMIs

AWS provides AMIs for Windows Server 2016 and later. These AMIs include the following high-level
changes from earlier Windows AMIs:

• To accommodate the change from .NET Framework to .NET Core, the EC2Config service has been
deprecated on Windows Server 2016 AMIs and replaced by EC2Launch. EC2Launch is a bundle of
Windows PowerShell scripts that perform many of the tasks performed by the EC2Config service.
For more information, see Configure a Windows instance using EC2Launch (p. 494). EC2Launch
v2 replaces EC2Launch in Windows Server 2022 and later. For more information, see Configure a
Windows instance using EC2Launch (p. 494).
• On earlier versions of Windows Server AMIs, you can use the EC2Config service to join an EC2 instance
to a domain and configure integration with Amazon CloudWatch. On Windows Server 2016 and later
AMIs, you can use the CloudWatch agent to configure integration with Amazon CloudWatch. For
more information about configuring instances to send log data to CloudWatch, see Collect Metrics
and Logs from Amazon EC2 Instances and On-Premises Servers with the CloudWatch Agent. For
information about joining an EC2 instance to a domain, see Join an Instance to a Domain Using the
AWS-JoinDirectoryServiceDomain JSON Document in the AWS Systems Manager User Guide.

Other Differences

Note these additional important differences for instances created from Windows Server 2016 and later
AMIs.

• By default, EC2Launch does not initialize secondary EBS volumes. You can configure EC2Launch to
initialize disks automatically by either scheduling the script to run or by calling EC2Launch in user data.
For the procedure to initialize disks using EC2Launch, see "Initialize Drives and Drive Letter Mappings"
in Configure EC2Launch (p. 496).
• If you previously enabled CloudWatch integration on your instances by using a local configuration file
(AWS.EC2.Windows.CloudWatch.json), you can configure the file to work with the SSM Agent on
instances created from Windows Server 2016 and later AMIs.

For more information, see Windows Server on Microsoft.com.

Docker container conflict on Windows Server 2016 instances

If you run the Docker service on Windows Server 2016 AMIs, the service is configured to use a different
CIDR value than the default internal IP address prefix value. The default value is 172.16.0.0/12. Windows
Server 2016 AMIs use 172.17.0.0/16 to avoid a conflict with the default Amazon EC2 VPC/subnet. If
you don't change VPC/subnet settings for your EC2 instances, then you don't need to do anything.
The conflict is essentially avoided because of the different CIDR values. If you do change VPC/subnet
settings, be aware of these internal IP address prefix values and avoid creating a conflict. For more
information, read the following section.
Important
If you plan to run Docker on a Windows Server 2016 instance, you must create the instance
from the following Amazon Machine Image (AMI) or an AMI based on an image with
Windows_Server-2016-English-Full-Containers in the name. Otherwise, if you use a

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different Windows Server 2016 AMI, instances fail to boot correctly after installing Docker and
then running Sysprep.

Issue with the Hibernate Agent (2018.03.16 AMIs)

After the release of the 2018.03.16 Windows AMIs, we discovered an unquoted path in the configuration
of the Amazon EC2 Hibernate Agent. The agent was included in the AMIs for Windows Server 2008
through Windows Server 2016. This issue does not impact the AMIs for Windows Server 2003.

AWS has removed the Windows AMIs dated 2018.03.16. To be notified when new Windows AMIs are
available, see Subscribe to Windows AMI notifications (p. 34).

To mitigate the issue, you can use one of the following procedures to add the missing quotation marks.
If the agent is running, you must also restart the agent. Alternatively, you can terminate any instances
that you launched from a 2018.03.16 Windows AMI and replace them with instances launched using a
different AMI.

Windows PowerShell

1. On your Windows instance, open Windows Powershell.

2. Use the following command to update the configuration, adding the missing quotation marks:

cmd /c 'sc config EC2HibernateAgent binPath="\"%ProgramFiles%\Amazon\Hibernate

\EC2HibernateAgent.exe\""'

3. Use the following command to view the updated configuration:

(Get-ItemProperty -Path Registry::HKEY_LOCAL_MACHINE\SYSTEM\CurrentControlSet\Services

\EC2HibernateAgent\).ImagePath

Verify that the response is enclosed in quotation marks, as shown in the following example:

"C:\Program Files\Amazon\Hibernate\EC2HibernateAgent.exe"

4. Use the following command to check whether Status is Running:

Get-Service EC2HibernateAgent

If the agent is running, you must restart it using the following command so that the change takes
effect:

Restart-Service EC2HibernateAgent

Command Prompt

1. On your Windows instance, open a Command Prompt window.

2. Use the following command to update the configuration, adding the missing quotation marks:

sc config EC2HibernateAgent binPath="\"%ProgramFiles%\Amazon\Hibernate

\EC2HibernateAgent.exe\""

3. Use the following command to view the updated configuration:

sc qc EC2HibernateAgent

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Verify that the path in BINARY_PATH_NAME is enclosed in quotation marks, as shown in the
following example:

"C:\Program Files\Amazon\Hibernate\EC2HibernateAgent.exe"

4. Use the following command to check whether STATE is RUNNING:

sc query EC2HibernateAgent

If the agent is running, you must restart it using the following command so that the change takes
effect:

sc stop EC2HibernateAgent && sc start EC2HibernateAgent

Create a custom Windows AMI

You can launch an instance from an existing Windows AMI, customize the instance, and then save this
updated configuration as a custom AMI. Instances launched from this new custom AMI include the
customizations that you made when you created the AMI.

To help categorize and manage your AMIs, you can assign custom tags to them. For more information,
see Tag your Amazon EC2 resources (p. 1463).

To create a custom Linux AMI, use the procedure for the type of volume for the instance. For more
information, see Create an Amazon EBS-backed Linux AMI or Create an instance store-backed Linux AMI
in the Amazon EC2 User Guide for Linux Instances.

Topics
• How the creation of a custom AMI works (p. 37)
• Create a Windows AMI from a running instance (p. 38)
• Create a standardized Amazon Machine Image (AMI) using Sysprep (p. 40)

How the creation of a custom AMI works

First, launch an instance from an AMI that's similar to the AMI that you'd like to create. You can connect
to your instance and customize it. When the instance is set up the way you want it, ensure data integrity
by stopping the instance before you create an AMI and then create the image. We automatically register
the AMI for you.

During the AMI-creation process, Amazon EC2 creates snapshots of your instance's root volume
and any other EBS volumes attached to your instance. You're charged for the snapshots until you
deregister the AMI and delete the snapshots. For more information, see Deregister your Windows
AMI (p. 52). If any volumes attached to the instance are encrypted, the new AMI only launches
successfully on instance types that support Amazon EBS encryption. For more information, see Amazon
EBS encryption (p. 1340).

Depending on the size of the volumes, it can take several minutes for the AMI-creation process to
complete (sometimes up to 24 hours). You may find it more efficient to create snapshots of your volumes
prior to creating your AMI. This way, only small, incremental snapshots need to be created when the AMI
is created, and the process completes more quickly (the total time for snapshot creation remains the
same). For more information, see Create Amazon EBS snapshots (p. 1224).

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After the process completes, you have a new AMI and snapshot created from the root volume of the
instance. When you launch an instance using the new AMI, we create a new EBS volume for its root
volume using the snapshot.
Note
A Windows AMI must be created from an Amazon EC2 instance. Creation of a Windows AMI from
an EBS snapshot is currently not supported as it might cause issues with billing, performance,
and general operation.

If you add instance store volumes or Amazon Elastic Block Store (Amazon EBS) volumes to your instance
in addition to the root device volume, the block device mapping for the new AMI contains information
for these volumes, and the block device mappings for instances that you launch from the new AMI
automatically contain information for these volumes. The instance store volumes specified in the
block device mapping for the new instance are new and don't contain any data from the instance
store volumes of the instance you used to create the AMI. The data on EBS volumes persists. For more
information, see Block device mappings (p. 1426).
Note
When you create a new instance from a custom AMI, you should initialize both its root volume
and any additional EBS storage before putting it into production. For more information, see
Initialize Amazon EBS volumes.

Create a Windows AMI from a running instance

You can create an AMI using the AWS Management Console or the command line. The following diagram
summarizes the process for creating an AMI from a running EC2 instance. Start with an existing AMI,
launch an instance, customize it, create a new AMI from it, and finally launch an instance of your new
AMI. The steps in the following diagram match the steps in the procedure below. If you already have a
running Windows instance, you can go directly to step 4.

To create an AMI from an instance using the console

1. Open the Amazon EC2 console at https://console.aws.amazon.com/ec2/.

2. In the navigation pane, choose Images, AMIs.
3. Use the Filter options to scope the list of AMIs to the Windows AMIs that meet your needs. For
example, to view the Windows AMIs provided by AWS, choose Public images from the drop-down
list. Choose the Search bar. Choose Owner from the menu and choose Amazon images. Choose
Source from the menu and type one of the following, depending on the version of Windows Server
that you need:

• amazon/Windows_Server-2022
• amazon/Windows_Server-2019
• amazon/Windows_Server-2016
• amazon/Windows_Server-2012
• amazon/Windows_Server-2008

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Add any other filters that you need. When you have chosen an AMI, select its check box.
4. Choose Launch. Accept the default values as you step through the wizard. For more information, see
Launch an instance using the Launch Instance Wizard (p. 396). When the instance is ready, connect
to it. For more information, see Connect to your Windows instance (p. 417).
5. You can perform any of the following actions on your instance to customize it for your needs:

• Install software and applications

• Copy data
• Reduce start time by deleting temporary files, defragmenting your hard drive, and zeroing out
free space
• Attach additional EBS volumes
• Create a new user account and add it to the Administrators group

If you are sharing your AMI, these credentials can be supplied for RDP access without disclosing
your default administrator password.
• [Windows Server 2022 and later] Configure settings using EC2Launch v2. To generate a random
password at launch time, configure the setAdminAccount task. For more information, see
setAdminAccount (p. 480).
• [Windows Server 2016 and 2019] Configure settings using EC2Launch. To generate a random
password at launch time, use the adminPasswordType setting. For more information, see
Configure EC2Launch (p. 496).
• [Windows Server 2012 R2 and earlier] Configure settings using EC2Config. To generate a
random password at launch time, enable the Ec2SetPassword plugin; otherwise, the current
administrator password is used. For more information, see EC2Config settings files (p. 509).
• [Windows Server 2008 R2] If the instance uses RedHat drivers to access Xen virtualized hardware,
upgrade to Citrix drivers before you create an AMI. For more information, see Upgrade Windows
Server 2008 and 2008 R2 instances (Redhat to Citrix PV upgrade) (p. 536).
6. In the navigation pane, choose Instances and select your instance. Choose Actions, Image and
templates, and Create image.
Tip
If this option is disabled, your instance isn't an Amazon EBS-backed instance.
7. Specify a unique name for the image and an optional description (up to 255 characters).

By default, Amazon EC2 shuts down the instance, takes snapshots of any attached volumes, creates
and registers the AMI, and then reboots the instance. Choose No reboot if you don't want your
instance to be shut down.
Warning
If you choose No reboot, we can't guarantee the file system integrity of the created image.

(Optional) Modify the root volume, EBS volumes, and instance store volumes as needed. For
example:

• To change the size of the root volume, locate the Root volume in the Type column, and fill in the
Size field.
• To suppress an EBS volume specified by the block device mapping of the AMI used to launch the
instance, locate the EBS volume in the list and choose Delete.
• To add an EBS volume, choose Add New Volume, Type, and EBS, and fill in the fields. When you
then launch an instance from your new AMI, these additional volumes are automatically attached
to the instance. Empty volumes must be formatted and mounted. Volumes based on a snapshot
must be mounted.

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• To suppress an instance store volume specified by the block device mapping of the AMI used to
launch the instance, locate the volume in the list and choose Delete.
• To add an instance store volume, choose Add New Volume, Type, and Instance Store, and select
a device name from the Device list. When you launch an instance from your new AMI, these
additional volumes are automatically initialized and mounted. These volumes don't contain data
from the instance store volumes of the running instance from which you based your AMI.

When you are finished, choose Create Image.

8. While your AMI is being created, you can choose AMIs in the navigation pane to view its status.
Initially, this is pending. After a few minutes, the status should change to available.

(Optional) Choose Snapshots in the navigation pane to view the snapshot that was created for the
new AMI. When you launch an instance from this AMI, we use this snapshot to create its root device
volume.
9. Launch an instance from your new AMI. For more information, see Launch an instance using the
Launch Instance Wizard (p. 396). The new running instance contains all of the customizations you
applied in previous steps, and any additional customization you add when launching the instance,
such as user data (scripts that run when the instance starts).

Create an AMI from an instance using the command line

You can use one of the following commands. For more information about these command line interfaces,
see Access Amazon EC2 (p. 3).

• create-image (AWS CLI)

• New-EC2Image (AWS Tools for Windows PowerShell)

Create a standardized Amazon Machine Image (AMI) using

Sysprep
The Microsoft System Preparation (Sysprep) tool simplifies the process of duplicating a customized
installation of Windows. You can use Sysprep to create a standardized Amazon Machine Image (AMI). You
can then create new Amazon EC2 instances for Windows from this standardized image.

We recommend that you use EC2 Image Builder to automate the creation, management, and deployment
of customized, secure, and up-to-date "golden" server images that are pre-installed and preconfigured
with software and settings.

If you use Sysprep to create a standardized AMI, we recommend that you run Sysprep with EC2Launch
v2 (p. 454). If you are still using the EC2Config (Windows Server 2012 R2 and earlier) or EC2Launch
(Windows Server 2016 and 2019) agents, see the documentation for using Sysprep with EC2Config and
EC2Launch below.
Important
Do not use Sysprep to create an instance backup. Sysprep removes system-specific information;
removing this information might have unintended consequences for an instance backup.

To troubleshoot Sysprep, see Troubleshoot Sysprep (p. 1511).

Contents
• Before you begin (p. 41)
• Use Sysprep with EC2Launch v2 (p. 41)
• Use Sysprep with EC2Launch (p. 44)

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• Use Sysprep with EC2Config (p. 48)

Before you begin

• Before performing Sysprep, we recommend that you remove all local user accounts and all account
profiles other than a single administrator account under which Sysprep will be run. If you perform
Sysprep with additional accounts and profiles, unexpected behavior could result, including loss of
profile data or failure to complete Sysprep.
• Learn more about Sysprep on Microsoft TechNet.
• Learn which server roles are supported for Sysprep.

Use Sysprep with EC2Launch v2

This section contains details about the different Sysprep execution phases and the tasks performed by
the EC2Launch v2 service as the image is prepared. It also includes the steps to create a standardized
AMI using Sysprep with the EC2Launch v2 service.

Sysprep with EC2Launch v2 topics

• Sysprep phases (p. 41)
• Sysprep actions (p. 41)
• Post Sysprep (p. 43)
• Run Sysprep with EC2Launch v2 (p. 43)

Sysprep phases

Sysprep runs through the following phases:

• Generalize: The tool removes image-specific information and configurations. For example, Sysprep
removes the security identifier (SID), the computer name, the event logs, and specific drivers, to name
a few. After this phase is completed, the operating system (OS) is ready to create an AMI.
Note
When you run Sysprep with the EC2Launch v2 service, the system prevents drivers from being
removed because the PersistAllDeviceInstalls setting is set to true by default.
• Specialize: Plug and Play scans the computer and installs drivers for any detected devices. The tool
generates OS requirements, like the computer name and SID. Optionally, you can run commands in
this phase.
• Out-of-Box Experience (OOBE): The system runs an abbreviated version of Windows Setup and asks
you to enter information such as system language, time zone, and registered organization. When you
run Sysprep with EC2Launch v2, the answer file automates this phase.

Sysprep actions

Sysprep and EC2Launch v2 perform the following actions when preparing an image.

1. When you choose Shutdown with Sysprep in the EC2Launch settings dialog box, the system runs the
ec2launch sysprep command.
2. EC2Launch v2 edits the content of the unattend.xml file by reading the registry value at
HKEY_USERS\.DEFAULT\Control Panel\International\LocaleName. This file is located in the
following directory: C:\ProgramData\Amazon\EC2Launch\sysprep.
3. The system run the BeforeSysprep.cmd. This command creates a registry key as follows:

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reg add "HKEY_LOCAL_MACHINE\SYSTEM\CurrentControlSet\Control\Terminal Server" /v

fDenyTSConnections /t REG_DWORD /d 1 /f

The registry key disables RDP connections until they are re-enabled. Disabling RDP connections is
a necessary security measure because, during the first boot session after Sysprep has run, there is a
short period of time where RDP allows connections and the Administrator password is blank.
4. The EC2Launch v2 service calls Sysprep by running the following command:

sysprep.exe /oobe /generalize /shutdown /unattend: "C:\ProgramData\Amazon\EC2Launch

\sysprep\unattend.xml"

Generalize phase

• EC2Launch v2 removes image-specific information and configurations, such as the computer name and
the SID. If the instance is a member of a domain, it is removed from the domain. The unattend.xml
answer file includes the following settings that affect this phase:
• PersistAllDeviceInstalls: This setting prevents Windows Setup from removing and reconfiguring
devices, which speeds up the image preparation process because Amazon AMIs require certain
drivers to run and re-detection of those drivers would take time.
• DoNotCleanUpNonPresentDevices: This setting retains Plug and Play information for devices that
are not currently present.
• Sysprep shuts down the OS as it prepares to create the AMI. The system either launches a new instance
or starts the original instance.

Specialize phase

The system generates OS-specific requirements, such as a computer name and an SID. The system also
performs the following actions based on configurations that you specify in the unattend.xml answer
file.

• CopyProfile: Sysprep can be configured to delete all user profiles, including the built-in Administrator
profile. This setting retains the built-in Administrator account so that any customizations you make to
that account are carried over to the new image. The default value is True.

CopyProfile replaces the default profile with the existing local administrator profile. All accounts that
you log in to after running Sysprep receive a copy of that profile and its contents at first login.

If you don’t have specific user-profile customizations that you want to carry over to the new image,
then change this setting to False. Sysprep will remove all user profiles (this saves time and disk
space).
• TimeZone: The time zone is set to Coordinate Universal Time (UTC) by default.
• Synchronous command with order 1: The system runs the following command, which enables the
administrator account and specifies the password requirement:

net user Administrator /ACTIVE:YES /LOGONPASSWORDCHG:NO /EXPIRES:NEVER /

PASSWORDREQ:YES
• Synchronous command with order 2: The system scrambles the administrator password. This security
measure is designed to prevent the instance from being accessible after Sysprep completes if you did
not enable the ec2setpassword setting.

C:\Program Files\Amazon\Ec2ConfigService\ScramblePassword.exe" -u Administrator

• Synchronous command with order 3: The system runs the following command:

C:\Program Files\Amazon\Ec2ConfigService\Scripts\SysprepSpecializePhase.cmd

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This command adds the following registry key, which re-enables RDP:

reg add "HKEY_LOCAL_MACHINE\SYSTEM\CurrentControlSet\Control\Terminal Server" /v

fDenyTSConnections /t REG_DWORD /d 0 /f

OOBE phase

1. The system specifies the following configurations using the EC2Launch v2 answer file:
• <InputLocale>en-US</InputLocale>
• <SystemLocale>en-US</SystemLocale>
• <UILanguage>en-US</UILanguage>
• <UserLocale>en-US</UserLocale>
• <HideEULAPage>true</HideEULAPage>
• <HideWirelessSetupInOOBE>true</HideWirelessSetupInOOBE>
• <ProtectYourPC>3</ProtectYourPC>
• <BluetoothTaskbarIconEnabled>false</BluetoothTaskbarIconEnabled>
• <TimeZone>UTC</TimeZone>
• <RegisteredOrganization>Amazon.com</RegisteredOrganization>
• <RegisteredOwner>EC2</RegisteredOwner>
Note
During the generalize and specialize phases, EC2Launch v2 monitors the status of the OS.
If EC2Launch v2 detects that the OS is in a Sysprep phase, then it publishes the following
message to the system log:
Windows is being configured. SysprepState=IMAGE_STATE_UNDEPLOYABLE
2. The system runs EC2Launch v2.

Post Sysprep

After Sysprep completes, EC2Launch v2 sends the following message to the console output:

Windows sysprep configuration complete.

EC2Launch v2 then performs the following actions:

1. Reads the content of the agent-config.yml file and runs configured tasks.
2. Executes all tasks in the preReady stage.
3. After it is finished, sends a Windows is ready message to the instance system logs.
4. Executes all tasks in the PostReady stage.

For more information about EC2Launch v2 , see Configure a Windows instance using EC2Launch
v2 (p. 454).

Run Sysprep with EC2Launch v2

Use the following procedure to create a standardized AMI using Sysprep with EC2Launch v2.

1. In the Amazon EC2 console, locate or create (p. 37) an AMI that you want to duplicate.
2. Launch and connect to your Windows instance.
3. Customize it.

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4. From the Windows Start menu, search for and choose Amazon EC2Launch settings. For more
information about the options and settings in the Amazon EC2Launch settings dialog box, see
EC2Launch v2 settings (p. 463).
5. Select Shutdown with Sysprep or Shutdown without Sysprep.

When you are asked to confirm that you want to run Sysprep and shut down the instance, click Yes.
EC2Launch v2 runs Sysprep. Next, you are logged off the instance, and the instance shuts down. If you
check the Instances page in the Amazon EC2 console, the instance state changes from Running to
Stopping to Stopped. At this point, it's safe to create an AMI from this instance.

You can manually invoke the Sysprep tool from the command line using the following command:

"%programfiles%\amazon\ec2launch\ec2launch.exe" sysprep --shutdown=true

Use Sysprep with EC2Launch

EC2Launch offers a default answer file and batch files for Sysprep that automate and secure the
image-preparation process on your AMI. Modifying these files is optional. These files are located in the
following directory by default: C:\ProgramData\Amazon\EC2-Windows\Launch\Sysprep.
Important
Do not use Sysprep to create an instance backup. Sysprep removes system-specific information.
If you remove this information there might be unintended consequences for an instance backup.

Sysprep with EC2Launch topics

• EC2Launch answer and batch files for Sysprep (p. 44)
• Run Sysprep with EC2Launch (p. 44)
• Update metadata/KMS routes for Server 2016 and later when launching a custom AMI (p. 48)

EC2Launch answer and batch files for Sysprep

The EC2Launch answer file and batch files for Sysprep include the following:

Unattend.xml

This is the default answer file. If you run SysprepInstance.ps1 or choose ShutdownWithSysprep
in the user interface, the system reads the setting from this file.
BeforeSysprep.cmd

Customize this batch file to run commands before EC2Launch runs Sysprep.
SysprepSpecialize.cmd

Customize this batch file to run commands during the Sysprep specialize phase.

Run Sysprep with EC2Launch

On the full installation of Windows Server 2016 and later (with a desktop experience), you can run
Sysprep with EC2Launch manually or by using the EC2 Launch Settings application.

To run Sysprep using the EC2Launch Settings application

1. In the Amazon EC2 console, locate or create a Windows Server 2016 or later AMI.
2. Launch a Windows instance from the AMI.

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3. Connect to your Windows instance and customize it.

4. Search for and run the EC2LaunchSettings application. It is located in the following directory by
default: C:\ProgramData\Amazon\EC2-Windows\Launch\Settings.

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5. Select or clear options as needed. These settings are stored in the LaunchConfig.json file.
6. For Administrator Password, do one of the following:

• Choose Random. EC2Launch generates a password and encrypts it using the user's key. The
system disables this setting after the instance is launched so that this password persists if the
instance is rebooted or stopped and started.
• Choose Specify and type a password that meets the system requirements. The password is
stored in LaunchConfig.json as clear text and is deleted after Sysprep sets the administrator
password. If you shut down now, the password is set immediately. EC2Launch encrypts the
password using the user's key.
• Choose DoNothing and specify a password in the unattend.xml file. If you don't specify a
password in unattend.xml, the administrator account is disabled.
7. Choose Shutdown with Sysprep.

To manually run Sysprep using EC2Launch

1. In the Amazon EC2 console locate or create a Windows Server 2016 or later Datacenter edition AMI
that you want to duplicate.
2. Launch and connect to your Windows instance.
3. Customize the instance.
4. Specify settings in the LaunchConfig.json file. This file is located in the C:\ProgramData
\Amazon\EC2-Windows\Launch\Config directory by default.

For adminPasswordType, specify one of the following values:

Random

EC2Launch generates a password and encrypts it using the user's key. The system disables this
setting after the instance is launched so that this password persists if the instance is rebooted or
stopped and started.
Specify

EC2Launch uses the password you specify in adminPassword. If the password does not meet
the system requirements, EC2Lauch generates a random password instead. The password is
stored in LaunchConfig.json as clear text and is deleted after Sysprep sets the administrator
password. EC2Launch encrypts the password using the user's key.
DoNothing

EC2Launch uses the password you specify in the unattend.xml file. If you don't specify a
password in unattend.xml, the administrator account is disabled.
5. (Optional) Specify settings in unattend.xml and other configuration files. If plan to attend to
the installation, then you don't need to make changes in these files. The files are located in the
following directory by default: C:\ProgramData\Amazon\EC2-Windows\Launch\Sysprep.
6. In Windows PowerShell, run ./InitializeInstance.ps1 -Schedule. The script is located in
the following directory, by default: C:\ProgramData\Amazon\EC2-Windows\Launch\Scripts.
This script schedules the instance to initialize during the next boot. You must run this script before
you run the SysprepInstance.ps1 script in the next step.
7. In Windows PowerShell, run ./SysprepInstance.ps1. The script is located in the following
directory by default: C:\ProgramData\Amazon\EC2-Windows\Launch\Scripts.

You are logged off the instance and the instance shuts down. If you check the Instances page in the
Amazon EC2 console, the instance state changes from Running to Stopping, and then to Stopped. At
this point, it is safe to create an AMI from this instance.

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Update metadata/KMS routes for Server 2016 and later when launching a custom AMI
To update metadata/KMS routes for Server 2016 and later when launching a custom AMI, do one of the
following:

• Run the EC2LaunchSettings GUI (C:\ProgramData\Amazon\EC2-Windows\Launch\Settings

\Ec2LaunchSettings.exe) and select the option to shut down with Sysprep.
• Run EC2LaunchSettings and shut down without Sysprep before creating the AMI. This sets the EC2
Launch Initialize tasks to run at the next boot, which will set routes based on the subnet for the
instance.
• Manually reschedule EC2 Launch initialize tasks before creating an AMI from PowerShell (p. 496).
Important
Take note of the default password reset behavior before rescheduling tasks.
• To update the routes on a running instance that is experiencing Windows activation or communication
with instance metadata failures, see "Unable to activate Windows" (p. 1547).

Use Sysprep with EC2Config

This section contains details about the different Sysprep execution phases and the tasks performed by
the EC2Config service as the image is prepared. It also includes the steps to create a standardized AMI
using Sysprep with the EC2Config service.

Sysprep with EC2Config topics

• Sysprep phases (p. 41)
• Sysprep actions (p. 48)
• Post Sysprep (p. 51)
• Run Sysprep with the EC2Config service (p. 51)

Sysprep phases
Sysprep runs through the following phases:

• Generalize: The tool removes image-specific information and configurations. For example, Sysprep
removes the security identifier (SID), the computer name, the event logs, and specific drivers, to name
a few. After this phase is completed, the operating system (OS) is ready to create an AMI.
Note
When you run Sysprep with the EC2Config service, the system prevents drivers from being
removed because the PersistAllDeviceInstalls setting is set to true by default.
• Specialize: Plug and Play scans the computer and installs drivers for any detected devices. The tool
generates OS requirements like the computer name and SID. Optionally, you can run commands in this
phase.
• Out-of-Box Experience (OOBE): The system runs an abbreviated version of Windows Setup and asks
the user to enter information such as a system language, the time zone, and a registered organization.
When you run Sysprep with EC2Config, the answer file automates this phase.

Sysprep actions
Sysprep and the EC2Config service perform the following actions when preparing an image.

1. When you choose Shutdown with Sysprep in the EC2 Service Properties dialog box, the system runs
the ec2config.exe –sysprep command.
2. The EC2Config service reads the content of the BundleConfig.xml file. This file is located in the
following directory, by default: C:\Program Files\Amazon\Ec2ConfigService\Settings.

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The BundleConfig.xml file includes the following settings. You can change these settings:
• AutoSysprep: Indicates whether to use Sysprep automatically. You do not need to change this value
if you are running Sysprep from the EC2 Service Properties dialog box. The default value is No.
• SetRDPCertificate: Sets a self-signed certificate for the Remote Desktop server. This enables you
to securely use the Remote Desktop Protocol (RDP) to connect to the instance. Change the value
to Yes if new instances should use a certificate. This setting is not used with Windows Server
2008 or Windows Server 2012 instances because these operating systems can generate their own
certificates. The default value is No.
• SetPasswordAfterSysprep: Sets a random password on a newly launched instance, encrypts it with
the user launch key, and outputs the encrypted password to the console. Change the value to No if
new instances should not be set to a random encrypted password. The default value is Yes.
• PreSysprepRunCmd: The location of the command to run. The command is located in the
following directory, by default: C:\Program Files\Amazon\Ec2ConfigService\Scripts
\BeforeSysprep.cmd
3. The system runs BeforeSysprep.cmd. This command creates a registry key as follows:

reg add "HKEY_LOCAL_MACHINE\SYSTEM\CurrentControlSet\Control\Terminal Server" /v

fDenyTSConnections /t REG_DWORD /d 1 /f

The registry key disables RDP connections until they are re-enabled. Disabling RDP connections is
a necessary security measure because, during the first boot session after Sysprep has run, there is a
short period of time where RDP allows connections and the Administrator password is blank.
4. The EC2Config service calls Sysprep by running the following command:

sysprep.exe /unattend: "C:\Program Files\Amazon\Ec2ConfigService\sysprep2008.xml" /oobe /

generalize /shutdown

Generalize phase

• The tool removes image-specific information and configurations such as the computer name and the
SID. If the instance is a member of a domain, it is removed from the domain. The sysprep2008.xml
answer file includes the following settings that affect this phase:
• PersistAllDeviceInstalls: This setting prevents Windows Setup from removing and reconfiguring
devices, which speeds up the image preparation process because Amazon AMIs require certain
drivers to run and re-detection of those drivers would take time.
• DoNotCleanUpNonPresentDevices: This setting retains Plug and Play information for devices that
are not currently present.
• Sysprep shuts down the OS as it prepares to create the AMI. The system either launches a new instance
or starts the original instance.

Specialize phase

The system generates OS specific requirements such as a computer name and a SID. The system also
performs the following actions based on configurations that you specify in the sysprep2008.xml answer
file.

• CopyProfile: Sysprep can be configured to delete all user profiles, including the built-in Administrator
profile. This setting retains the built-in Administrator account so that any customizations you made to
that account are carried over to the new image. The default value is True.

CopyProfile replaces the default profile with the existing local administrator profile. All accounts
logged into after running Sysprep will receive a copy of that profile and its contents at first login.

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If you don’t have specific user-profile customizations that you want to carry over to the new image
then change this setting to False. Sysprep will remove all user profiles; this saves time and disk space.
• TimeZone: The time zone is set to Coordinate Universal Time (UTC) by default.
• Synchronous command with order 1: The system runs the following command that enables the
administrator account and specifies the password requirement.

net user Administrator /ACTIVE:YES /LOGONPASSWORDCHG:NO /EXPIRES:NEVER /

PASSWORDREQ:YES
• Synchronous command with order 2: The system scrambles the administrator password. This security
measure is designed to prevent the instance from being accessible after Sysprep completes if you did
not enable the ec2setpassword setting.

C:\Program Files\Amazon\Ec2ConfigService\ScramblePassword.exe" -u Administrator

• Synchronous command with order 3: The system runs the following command:

C:\Program Files\Amazon\Ec2ConfigService\Scripts\SysprepSpecializePhase.cmd

This command adds the following registry key, which re-enables RDP:

reg add "HKEY_LOCAL_MACHINE\SYSTEM\CurrentControlSet\Control\Terminal Server" /v

fDenyTSConnections /t REG_DWORD /d 0 /f

OOBE phase

1. Using the EC2Config service answer file, the system specifies the following configurations:
• <InputLocale>en-US</InputLocale>
• <SystemLocale>en-US</SystemLocale>
• <UILanguage>en-US</UILanguage>
• <UserLocale>en-US</UserLocale>
• <HideEULAPage>true</HideEULAPage>
• <HideWirelessSetupInOOBE>true</HideWirelessSetupInOOBE>
• <NetworkLocation>Other</NetworkLocation>
• <ProtectYourPC>3</ProtectYourPC>
• <BluetoothTaskbarIconEnabled>false</BluetoothTaskbarIconEnabled>
• <TimeZone>UTC</TimeZone>
• <RegisteredOrganization>Amazon.com</RegisteredOrganization>
• <RegisteredOwner>Amazon</RegisteredOwner>
Note
During the generalize and specialize phases the EC2Config service monitors the status of the
OS. If EC2Config detects that the OS is in a Sysprep phase, then it publishes the following
message to the system log:
EC2ConfigMonitorState: 0 Windows is being configured.
SysprepState=IMAGE_STATE_UNDEPLOYABLE
2. After the OOBE phase completes, the system runs SetupComplete.cmd from the following location:
C:\Windows\Setup\Scripts\SetupComplete.cmd. In Amazon public AMIs before April 2015 this
file was empty and ran nothing on the image. In public AMIs dated after April 2015, the file includes
the following value: call "C:\Program Files\Amazon\Ec2ConfigService\Scripts\PostSysprep.cmd".
3. The system runs PostSysprep.cmd, which performs the following operations:
• Sets the local Administrator password to not expire. If the password expired, Administrators might
not be able to log on.
• Sets the MSSQLServer machine name (if installed) so that the name will be in sync with the AMI.

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Post Sysprep

After Sysprep completes, the EC2Config services sends the following message to the console output:

Windows sysprep configuration complete.

Message: Sysprep Start
Message: Sysprep End

EC2Config then performs the following actions:

1. Reads the content of the config.xml file and lists all enabled plug-ins.
2. Executes all “Before Windows is ready” plug-ins at the same time.
• Ec2SetPassword
• Ec2SetComputerName
• Ec2InitializeDrives
• Ec2EventLog
• Ec2ConfigureRDP
• Ec2OutputRDPCert
• Ec2SetDriveLetter
• Ec2WindowsActivate
• Ec2DynamicBootVolumeSize
3. After it is finished, sends a “Windows is ready” message to the instance system logs.
4. Runs all “After Windows is ready” plug-ins at the same time.
• Amazon CloudWatch Logs
• UserData
• AWS Systems Manager (Systems Manager)

For more information about Windows plug-ins, see Configure a Windows instance using the EC2Config
service (p. 502).

Run Sysprep with the EC2Config service

Use the following procedure to create a standardized AMI using Sysprep and the EC2Config service.

1. In the Amazon EC2 console, locate or create (p. 37) an AMI that you want to duplicate.
2. Launch and connect to your Windows instance.
3. Customize it.
4. Specify configuration settings in the EC2Config service answer file:

C:\Program Files\Amazon\Ec2ConfigService\sysprep2008.xml
5. From the Windows Start menu, choose All Programs, and then choose EC2ConfigService Settings.
6. Choose the Image tab in the Ec2 Service Properties dialog box. For more information about the
options and settings in the Ec2 Service Properties dialog box, see Ec2 Service Properties (p. 502).
7. Select an option for the Administrator password, and then select Shutdown with Sysprep or
Shutdown without Sysprep. EC2Config edits the settings files based on the password option that you
selected.
• Random: EC2Config generates a password, encrypts it with user's key, and displays the encrypted
password to the console. We disable this setting after the first launch so that this password persists
if the instance is rebooted or stopped and started.
• Specify: The password is stored in the Sysprep answer file in unencrypted form (clear text). When
Sysprep runs next, it sets the Administrator password. If you shut down now, the password is set

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immediately. When the service starts again, the Administrator password is removed. It's important
to remember this password, as you can't retrieve it later.
• Keep Existing: The existing password for the Administrator account doesn't change when Sysprep is
run or EC2Config is restarted. It's important to remember this password, as you can't retrieve it later.
8. Choose OK.

When you are asked to confirm that you want to run Sysprep and shut down the instance, click Yes. You'll
notice that EC2Config runs Sysprep. Next, you are logged off the instance, and the instance is shut down.
If you check the Instances page in the Amazon EC2 console, the instance state changes from Running to
Stopping, and then finally to Stopped. At this point, it's safe to create an AMI from this instance.

You can manually invoke the Sysprep tool from the command line using the following command:

"%programfiles%\amazon\ec2configservice\"ec2config.exe -sysprep""

Note
The double quotation marks in the command are not required if your CMD shell is already in the
C:\Program Files\Amazon\EC2ConfigService\ directory.

However, you must be very careful that the XML file options specified in the Ec2ConfigService
\Settings folder are correct; otherwise, you might not be able to connect to the instance. For
more information about the settings files, see EC2Config settings files (p. 509). For an example of
configuring and then running Sysprep from the command line, see Ec2ConfigService\Scripts
\InstallUpdates.ps1.

Deregister your Windows AMI

You can deregister a Windows AMI when you have finished using it. After you deregister an AMI, you
can't use it to launch new instances.

When you deregister an AMI, it doesn't affect any instances that you've already launched from the AMI
or any snapshots created during the AMI creation process. You'll continue to incur usage costs for these
instances and storage costs for the snapshot. Therefore, you should terminate any instances that you
finished with and delete any snapshots that you are finished with.

The following diagram illustrates the process for cleaning up your Windows AMI.

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To clean up your Windows AMI

1. Open the Amazon EC2 console at https://console.aws.amazon.com/ec2/.

2. In the navigation pane, choose AMIs. Select the AMI and take note of its ID — this can help you find
the correct snapshot in the next step. Choose Actions, and then Deregister. When prompted for
confirmation, choose Continue.
Note
It can take a few minutes before the console removes the AMI from the list. Choose Refresh
to refresh the status.
3. In the navigation pane, choose Snapshots, and select the snapshot (look for the AMI ID in the
Description column). Choose Actions, and then choose Delete Snapshot. When prompted for
confirmation, choose Yes, Delete.
4. (Optional) If you are finished with an instance that you launched from the AMI, terminate it. In the
navigation pane, choose Instances. Select the instance, choose Instance state, Terminate instance.
When prompted for confirmation, choose Terminate.

Specialized Windows AMIs

This section contains information about specialized Windows AMIs and Windows AMIs developed for
Microsoft workload solutions.

Topics

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• SQL Server AMIs provided by AWS (p. 54)

• Amazon EC2 Windows Server AMIs for STIG compliance (p. 54)

SQL Server AMIs provided by AWS

For SQL Server license-included AMIs, use the installation and setup media included in C:
\SQLServerSetup to make changes to the default installation, add new features, or install additional
named instances.

Amazon EC2 Windows Server AMIs for STIG compliance

Security Technical Implementation Guides (STIGs) are the configuration standards created by the
Defense Information Systems Agency (DISA) to secure information systems and software. To make
your systems compliant with STIG standards, you must install, configure, and test a variety of security
settings. Amazon EC2 Windows Server AMIs for STIG Compliance are pre-configured with over 160
required security settings. STIG-compliant operating systems include Windows Server 2012 R2, Windows
Server 2016, and Windows Server 2019. The STIG-compliant AMIs include updated Department of
Defense (DoD) certificates to help you get started and achieve STIG compliance. There are no additional
charges for using STIG-compliant AMIs.

Amazon EC2 Windows Server AMIs for STIG compliance are available in all public AWS and GovCloud
Regions. You can launch instances from these AMIs directly from the Amazon EC2 console. They are
billed using standard Windows pricing.

The STIG-compliant Amazon EC2 AMIs for Windows Server can be found in the Community AMIs when
you create an instance. The AMI names are as follows:
Note
The date suffix for the AMI (YYYY.MM.DD) is the date on which the latest version was created.
You can search for the version without the date suffix.

• Windows_Server-2019-English-STIG-Full-YYYY.MM.DD
• Windows_Server-2019-English-STIG-Core-YYYY.MM.DD
• Windows_Server-2016-English-STIG-Full-YYYY.MM.DD
• Windows_Server-2016-English-STIG-Core-YYYY.MM.DD
• Windows_Server-2012-R2-English-STIG-Full-YYYY.MM.DD
• Windows_Server-2012-R2-English-STIG-Core-YYYY.MM.DD

Compliance levels

• High (Category I)

The most severe risk. Includes any vulnerability that can result in loss of confidentiality, availability, or
integrity.
• Medium (Category II)

Includes any vulnerability that could result in loss of confidentiality, availability, or integrity but where
the risks could be mitigated.
• Low (Category III)

Includes any vulnerability that degrades measures to protect against loss of confidentiality, availability,
or integrity.

The following sections show the STIGs that have been applied to Windows Operating Systems and
components.

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Topics
• Core and base operating systems (p. 55)
• Microsoft .NET Framework 4.0 STIG V2 Release 1 (p. 57)
• Windows Firewall STIG V1 Release 7 (p. 57)
• Internet Explorer (IE) 11 STIG V1 Release 19 (p. 58)
• Version history (p. 58)

Core and base operating systems

STIG-compliant Amazon EC2 AMIs are designed for use as standalone servers, and have the highest level
of STIG settings applied (Category 1). Each compliance level includes all STIG settings from lower levels,
which means that the highest level has all applicable settings from all levels.

Some STIG settings are not automatically applied. This can be due to technical limitations – for instance,
the STIG setting might not be applicable for standalone servers. Organization-specific policies can also
prevent automatic application of STIG settings, such as a requirement for administrators to review
document settings. For more details about which STIGs are applied to Amazon EC2 Windows AMIs, you
can download our spreadsheet.

For a complete list of Windows STIGs, see the STIGs Document Library. For information about how to
view the complete list, see How to View SRGs and STIGs .

Windows Server 2019 STIG V2 Release 2

All of the following STIG settings for Windows operating systems are applied:

• Windows\Low

V-205691, V-205819, V-205858, V-205859, V-205860, V-205870, V-205871, and V-205923

• Windows\Medium

V-205625, V-205626, V-205627, V-205629, V-205630, V-205633, V-205634, V-205635, V-205636,

V-205637, V-205638, V-205639, V-205643, V-205644, V-205648, V-205649, V-205650, V-205651,
V-205652, V-205655, V-205656, V-205659, V-205660, V-205662, V-205671, V-205672, V-205673,
V-205675, V-205676, V-205678, V-205679, V-205680, V-205681, V-205682, V-205683, V-205684,
V-205685, V-205686, V-205687, V-205688, V-205689, V-205690, V-205692, V-205693, V-205694,
V-205697, V-205698, V-205708, V-205709, V-205712, V-205714, V-205716, V-205717, V-205718,
V-205719, V-205720, V-205722, V-205729, V-205730, V-205733, V-205747, V-205751, V-205752,
V-205754, V-205756, V-205758, V-205759, V-205760, V-205761, V-205762, V-205764, V-205765,
V-205766, V-205767, V-205768, V-205769, V-205770, V-205771, V-205772, V-205773, V-205774,
V-205775, V-205776, V-205777, V-205778, V-205779, V-205780, V-205781, V-205782, V-205783,
V-205784, V-205795, V-205796, V-205797, V-205798, V-205801, V-205808, V-205809, V-205810,
V-205811, V-205812, V-205813, V-205814, V-205815, V-205816, V-205817, V-205821, V-205822,
V-205823, V-205824, V-205825, V-205826, V-205827, V-205828, V-205830, V-205831, V-205832,
V-205833, V-205834, V-205835, V-205836, V-205837, V-205838, V-205839, V-205840, V-205841,
V-205861, V-205863, V-205865, V-205866, V-205867, V-205868, V-205869, V-205872, V-205873,
V-205874, V-205878, V-205879, V-205880, V-205881, V-205889, V-205891, V-205905, V-205911,
V-205912, V-205915, V-205916, V-205917, V-205918, V-205920, V-205921, V-205922, V-205924,
V-205925, and V-236001
• Windows\High

V-205653, V-205654, V-205711, V-205713, V-205724, V-205725, V-205757, V-205802, V-205804,

V-205805, V-205806, V-205849, V-205908, V-205913, V-205914, and V-205919

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Windows Server 2016 STIG V2 Release 2

All of the following STIG settings for Windows operating systems are applied:

• Windows\Low

V-224916, V-224917, V-224918, V-224919, V-224931, V-224942, and V-225060

• Windows\Medium

V-224850, V-224852, V-224853, V-224854, V-224855, V-224856, V-224857, V-224858, V-224859,

V-224866, V-224867, V-224868, V-224869, V-224870, V-224871, V-224872, V-224873, V-224881,
V-224882, V-224883, V-224884, V-224885, V-224886, V-224887, V-224888, V-224889, V-224890,
V-224891, V-224892, V-224893, V-224894, V-224895, V-224896, V-224897, V-224898, V-224899,
V-224900, V-224901, V-224902, V-224903, V-224904, V-224905, V-224906, V-224907, V-224908,
V-224909, V-224910, V-224911, V-224912, V-224913, V-224914, V-224915, V-224920, V-224922,
V-224924, V-224925, V-224926, V-224927, V-224928, V-224929, V-224930, V-224935, V-224936,
V-224937, V-224938, V-224939, V-224940, V-224941, V-224943, V-224944, V-224945, V-224946,
V-224947, V-224948, V-224949, V-224951, V-224952, V-224953, V-224955, V-224956, V-224957,
V-224959, V-224960, V-224962, V-224963, V-225010, V-225013, V-225014, V-225015, V-225016,
V-225017, V-225018, V-225019, V-225021, V-225022, V-225023, V-225024, V-225028, V-225029,
V-225030, V-225031, V-225032, V-225033, V-225034, V-225035, V-225038, V-225039, V-225040,
V-225041, V-225042, V-225043, V-225047, V-225049, V-225050, V-225051, V-225052, V-225055,
V-225056, V-225057, V-225058, V-225061, V-225062, V-225063, V-225064, V-225065, V-225066,
V-225067, V-225068, V-225069, V-225072, V-225073, V-225074, V-225076, V-225078, V-225080,
V-225081, V-225082, V-225083, V-225084, V-225086, V-225087, V-225088, V-225089, V-225092,
V-225093, and V-236000
• Windows\High

V-224874, V-224932, V-224933, V-224934, V-224954, V-224958, V-224961, V-225025, V-225044,

V-225045, V-225046, V-225048, V-225053, V-225054, and V-225079

Windows Server 2012 R2 STIG V3 Release 2

All of the following STIG settings for Windows operating systems are applied:

• Windows\Low

V-225537, V-225536, V-225526, V-225525, V-225514, V-225511, V-225490, V-225489, V-225488,

V-225487, V-225485, V-225484, V-225483, V-225482, V-225481, V-225480, V-225479, V-225476,
V-225473, V-225468, V-225462, V-225460, V-225459, V-225412, V-225394, V-225392, V-225376,
V-225363, V-225362, V-225360, V-225359, V-225358, V-225357, V-225355, V-225343, V-225342,
V-225336, V-225335, V-225334, V-225333, V-225332, V-225331, V-225330, V-225328, V-225327,
V-225324, V-225319, V-225318, and V-225250
• Windows\Medium

V-225574, V-225573, V-225572, V-225571, V-225570, V-225569, V-225568, V-225567, V-225566,

V-225565, V-225564, V-225563, V-225562, V-225561, V-225560, V-225559, V-225558, V-225557,
V-225555, V-225554, V-225553, V-225551, V-225550, V-225549, V-225548, V-225546, V-225545,
V-225544, V-225543, V-225542, V-225541, V-225540, V-225539, V-225538, V-225535, V-225534,
V-225533, V-225532, V-225531, V-225530, V-225529, V-225528, V-225527, V-225524, V-225523,
V-225522, V-225521, V-225520, V-225519, V-225518, V-225517, V-225516, V-225515, V-225513,
V-225510, V-225509, V-225508, V-225506, V-225504, V-225503, V-225502, V-225501, V-225500,
V-225494, V-225486, V-225478, V-225477, V-225475, V-225474, V-225472, V-225471, V-225470,
V-225469, V-225464, V-225463, V-225461, V-225458, V-225457, V-225456, V-225455, V-225454,
V-225453, V-225452, V-225448, V-225443, V-225442, V-225441, V-225415, V-225414, V-225413,
V-225411, V-225410, V-225409, V-225408, V-225407, V-225406, V-225405, V-225404, V-225402,
V-225401, V-225400, V-225398, V-225397, V-225395, V-225393, V-225391, V-225389, V-225386,

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V-225385, V-225384, V-225383, V-225382, V-225381, V-225380, V-225379, V-225378, V-225377,

V-225375, V-225374, V-225373, V-225372, V-225371, V-225370, V-225369, V-225368, V-225367,
V-225356, V-225353, V-225352, V-225351, V-225350, V-225349, V-225348, V-225347, V-225346,
V-225345, V-225344, V-225341, V-225340, V-225339, V-225338, V-225337, V-225329, V-225326,
V-225325, V-225323, V-225322, V-225321, V-225320, V-225317, V-225316, V-225315, V-225314,
V-225305, V-225304, V-225303, V-225302, V-225301, V-225300, V-225299, V-225298, V-225297,
V-225296, V-225295, V-225294, V-225293, V-225292, V-225291, V-225290, V-225289, V-225288,
V-225287, V-225286, V-225285, V-225284, V-225283, V-225282, V-225281, V-225280, V-225279,
V-225278, V-225277, V-225276, V-225275, V-225273, V-225272, V-225271, V-225270, V-225269,
V-225268, V-225267, V-225266, V-225265, V-225264, V-225263, V-225261, V-225260, V-225259,
and V-225239
• Windows\High

V-225556, V-225552, V-225547, V-225507, V-225505, V-225498, V-225497, V-225496, V-225493,

V-225492, V-225491, V-225449, V-225444, V-225399, V-225396, V-225390, V-225366, V-225365,
V-225364, V-225354, and V-225274

Microsoft .NET Framework 4.0 STIG V2 Release 1

The following list contains STIG settings that are applied to Windows operating system components
for STIG-compliant Amazon EC2 AMIs. Some STIG settings are not automatically applied. This can be
due to technical limitations – for instance, the STIG setting might not be applicable for standalone
servers. Organization-specific policies can also prevent automatic application of STIG settings, such as
a requirement for administrators to review document settings. For more details about which STIGs are
applied to Amazon EC2 Windows AMIs, you can download our spreadsheet.

For a complete list of Windows STIGs, see the STIGs Document Library. For information about how to
view the complete list, see How to View SRGs and STIGs .

• Windows\Low

No STIG settings are applied to the Microsoft .NET Framework for Category III vulnerabilities.
• Windows\Medium

V-225238
• Windows\High

No additional STIG settings are applied for Category I vulnerabilities.

Windows Firewall STIG V1 Release 7

The following list contains STIG settings that are applied to Windows operating system components
for STIG-compliant Amazon EC2 AMIs. Some STIG settings are not automatically applied. This can be
due to technical limitations – for instance, the STIG setting might not be applicable for standalone
servers. Organization-specific policies can also prevent automatic application of STIG settings, such as
a requirement for administrators to review document settings. For more details about which STIGs are
applied to Amazon EC2 Windows AMIs, you can download our spreadsheet.

For a complete list of Windows STIGs, see the STIGs Document Library. For information about how to
view the complete list, see How to View SRGs and STIGs .

• Windows\Low

V-17425, V-17426, V-17427, V-17435, V-17436, V-17437, V-17445, V-17446, and V-17447
• Windows\Medium

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V-17415, V-17416, V-17417, V-17419, V-17429, and V-17439

• Windows\High

V-17418, V-17428, and V-17438

Internet Explorer (IE) 11 STIG V1 Release 19

The following list contains STIG settings that are applied to Windows operating system components
for STIG-compliant Amazon EC2 AMIs. Some STIG settings are not automatically applied. This can be
due to technical limitations – for instance, the STIG setting might not be applicable for standalone
servers. Organization-specific policies can also prevent automatic application of STIG settings, such as
a requirement for administrators to review document settings. For more details about which STIGs are
applied to Amazon EC2 Windows AMIs, you can download our spreadsheet.

For a complete list of Windows STIGs, see the STIGs Document Library. For information about how to
view the complete list, see How to View SRGs and STIGs .

• Windows\Low

V-46477, V-46629, and V-97527

• Windows\Medium

V-46473, V-46475, V-46481, V-46483, V-46501, V-46507, V-46509, V-46511, V-46513, V-46515,
V-46517, V-46521, V-46523, V-46525, V-46543, V-46545, V-46547, V-46549, V-46553, V-46555,
V-46573, V-46575, V-46577, V-46579, V-46581, V-46583, V-46587, V-46589, V-46591, V-46593,
V-46597, V-46599, V-46601, V-46603, V-46605, V-46607, V-46609, V-46615, V-46617, V-46619,
V-46621, V-46625, V-46633, V-46635, V-46637, V-46639, V-46641, V-46643, V-46645, V-46647,
V-46649, V-46653, V-46663, V-46665, V-46669, V-46681, V-46685, V-46689, V-46691, V-46693,
V-46695, V-46701, V-46705, V-46709, V-46711, V-46713, V-46715, V-46717, V-46719, V-46721,
V-46723, V-46725, V-46727, V-46729, V-46731, V-46733, V-46779, V-46781, V-46787, V-46789,
V-46791, V-46797, V-46799, V-46801, V-46807, V-46811, V-46815, V-46819, V-46829, V-46841,
V-46847, V-46849, V-46853, V-46857, V-46859, V-46861, V-46865, V-46869, V-46879, V-46883,
V-46885, V-46889, V-46893, V-46895, V-46897, V-46903, V-46907, V-46921, V-46927, V-46939,
V-46975, V-46981, V-46987, V-46995, V-46997, V-46999, V-47003, V-47005, V-47009, V-64711,
V-64713, V-64715, V-64717, V-64719, V-64721, V-64723, V-64725, V-64729, V-72757, V-72759,
V-72761, V-72763, V-75169, and V-75171
• Windows\High

No additional STIG settings are applied for Category I vulnerabilities.

Version history
The following table shows version history updates for STIG settings that are applied to Windows
operating systems and Windows components.

Date AMIs Details

6/9/2021 Windows Server 2019 STIG V2 R2 Updated versions where applicable, and
applied STIGs.
Windows Server 2016 STIG V2 R2

Windows Server 2012 R2 STIG V3 R2

Microsoft .NET Framework 4.0 STIG V2 R1

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Date AMIs Details

Windows Firewall STIG V1 R7

Internet Explorer 11 STIG V1 R19

4/5/2021 Windows Server 2019 STIG V2 R 1 Updated versions where applicable, and
applied STIGs.
Windows Server 2016 STIG V2 R 1

Windows Server 2012 R2 STIG V3 R 1

Microsoft .NET Framework 4.0 STIG V2 R 1

Windows Firewall STIG V1 R 7

Internet Explorer 11 STIG V1 R 19

9/18/2020 Windows Server 2019 STIG V1 R 5 Updated versions and applied STIGs.

Windows Server 2016 STIG V1 R 12

Windows Server 2012 R2 STIG V2 R 19

Internet Explorer 11 STIG V1 R 19

Microsoft .NET Framework 4.0 STIG V1 R 9

Windows Firewall STIG V1 R 7

12/6/2019 Server 2012 R2 Core and Base V2 R17 Updated versions and applied STIGs.

Server 2016 Core and Base V1 R11

Internet Explorer 11 V1 R18

Microsoft .NET Framework 4.0 V1 R9

Windows Firewall STIG V1 R17

9/17/2019 Server 2012 R2 Core and Base V2 R16 Initial release.

Server 2016 Core and Base V1 R9

Server 2019 Core and Base V1 R2

Internet Explorer 11 V1 R17

Microsoft .NET Framework 4.0 V1 R8

AWS Windows AMI Version History

The following tables summarize the changes to each release of the AWS Windows AMIs. Note that some
changes apply to all AWS Windows AMIs while others apply to only a subset of these AMIs.

Contents
• Monthly AMI updates for 2021 (to date) (p. 60)
• Monthly AMI updates for 2020 (to date) (p. 67)
• Monthly AMI updates for 2019 (p. 72)

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• Monthly AMI updates for 2018 (p. 78)

• Monthly AMI updates for 2017 (p. 84)
• Monthly AMI updates for 2016 (p. 89)
• Monthly AMI updates for 2015 (p. 92)
• Monthly AMI updates for 2014 (p. 95)
• Monthly AMI updates for 2013 (p. 96)
• Monthly AMI updates for 2012 (p. 98)
• Monthly AMI updates for 2011 and earlier (p. 99)

For more information about components included in these AMIs, see the following:

• EC2Launch v2 version history

• EC2Launch version history
• EC2Config version history (p. 515)
• Systems Manager SSM Agent Release Notes
• Amazon ENA driver versions
• AWS PV drivers

Monthly AMI updates for 2021 (to date)

For more information about Microsoft updates, see Description of Software Update Services and
Windows Server Update Services changes in content for 2021.

Release Changes

2021.09.15 All AMIs

• Windows security updates current to September 14th, 2021

• AWS Tools for Windows PowerShell version 3.15.1398
• SSM version 3.1.282.0
• SQL Server CUs installed:
• SQL_2019: CU12
• SQL_2017: CU 25

Windows Server 2022 and EC2LaunchV2_Preview AMIs

• EC2Launch v2 version 2.0.592

Windows Server 2012 RTM and R2 AMIs

• EC2Config version 4.9.4500

Previous versions of Amazon-published Windows AMIs dated May 12th, 2021 and
earlier were made private.

2021.09.01 New Windows AMIs

• Windows_Server-2022-English-Full-Base-2021.08.25
• Windows_Server-2022-English-Full-ContainersLatest-2021.08.25

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Release Changes
• Windows_Server-2022-English-Core-Base-2021.08.25
• Windows_Server-2022-English-Core-ContainersLatest-2021.08.25
• Windows_Server-2022-Chinese_Simplified-Full-Base-2021.08.25
• Windows_Server-2022-Chinese_Traditional-Full-Base-2021.08.25
• Windows_Server-2022-Czech-Full-Base-2021.08.25
• Windows_Server-2022-Dutch-Full-Base-2021.08.25
• Windows_Server-2022-French-Full-Base-2021.08.25
• Windows_Server-2022-German-Full-Base-2021.08.25
• Windows_Server-2022-Hungarian-Full-Base-2021.08.25
• Windows_Server-2022-Italian-Full-Base-2021.08.25
• Windows_Server-2022-Japanese-Full-Base-2021.08.25
• Windows_Server-2022-Korean-Full-Base-2021.08.25
• Windows_Server-2022-Polish-Full-Base-2021.08.25
• Windows_Server-2022-Portuguese_Brazil-Full-Base-2021.08.25
• Windows_Server-2022-Portuguese_Portugal-Full-Base-2021.08.25
• Windows_Server-2022-Russian-Full-Base-2021.08.25
• Windows_Server-2022-Spanish-Full-Base-2021.08.25
• Windows_Server-2022-Swedish-Full-Base-2021.08.25
• Windows_Server-2022-Turkish-Full-Base-2021.08.25

Windows Server 2022 AMIs include EC2Launch v2 by default. For more

information, see EC2Launch v2 overview (p. 455).

EC2LaunchV2_Preview AMIs

• EC2Launch v2 version 2.0.592

2021.08.11 All AMIs

• Windows security updates current to August 10th, 2021

• AWS Tools for Windows PowerShell version 3.15.13571
• EC2Launch version 1.3.2003411
• SSM version 3.0.1181.0
• SQL Server CUs installed:
• SQL_2019: CU11

EC2LaunchV2_Preview AMIs

• EC2Launch v2 version 2.0.548

Previous versions of Amazon-published Windows AMIs dated April 14th, 2021 and
earlier were made private.

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Release Changes

2021.07.14 All AMIs

• Windows security updates current to July 13th, 2021

• AWS Tools for Windows PowerShell version 3.15.1350
• EC2Launch version 1.3.2003364
• SQL Server CUs installed:
• SQL_2017: CU24

2021.07.07 All AMIs

Out-of-band AMI release that applies the July out-of-band security update
recently released by Microsoft as an additional mitigation to CVE-34527.
Note
HKEY_LOCAL_MACHINE\SOFTWARE\Policies\Microsoft\Windows
NT\Printers\PointAndPrint is not defined on AWS-provided
windows AMIs, which is the default state.

For more information, see:

• https://msrc.microsoft.com/update-guide/vulnerability/CVE-2021-34527
• https://support.microsoft.com/en-us/topic/kb5005010-restricting-
installation-of-new-printer-drivers-after-applying-the-july-6-2021-
updates-31b91c02-05bc-4ada-a7ea-183b129578a7

Previous versions of Amazon-published Windows AMIs dated March 10th, 2021

and earlier were made private.

2021.06.09 All AMIs

• Windows security updates current to June 8th, 2021

• AWS Tools for Windows PowerShell version 3.15.1326
• SSM version 3.0.1124.0

Windows Server 2012RTM/2012 R2 AMIs

• EC2Config version 4.9.4419

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Release Changes

2021.05.12 All AMIs

• Windows security updates current to May 11th, 2021

• AWS Tools for Windows PowerShell version 3.15.1302
• EC2Launch version 1.3.2003312
• SQL Server CUs installed:
• SQL_2019: CU10
• Previous versions of Amazon-published Windows AMIs dated February 10th,
2021 and earlier were made private.

Windows Server 2012RTM/2012 R2 AMIs

• EC2Config version 4.9.4381

• SSM version 3.0.529.0

NVIDIA GPU AMIs

• GRID version 462.31

• Tesla version 462.31

Radeon GPU AMIs

• Radeon version 20.10.25.04

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Release Changes

2021.04.14 All AMIs

• Windows security updates current to April 13th, 2021

• AWS Tools for Windows PowerShell version 3.15.1280
• AWS PV version 8.4.0
• cfn-init version 2.0.6. This package includes Microsoft Visual C++ 2015-2019
Redistributable version 14.28.29913.0 as a dependency.
• AWS ENA version 2.2.3
• EC2Launch version 1.3.2003284
• SQL Server CUs installed:
• SQL_2017: CU23
• Previous versions of Amazon-published Windows AMIs dated January 13th,
2021 and earlier were made private.
• Note
Windows Server 1909 reaches End of Support on May 11th, 2021.
All public versions of the following images will be made private on
May 11th, 2021. Existing instances and custom images owned by your
account that are based on Windows Server 1909 will not be impacted.
To retain access to Windows Server 1909, create a custom image in
your account prior to May 11th, 2021.
• Windows_Server-1909-English-Core-Base
• Windows_Server-1909-English-Core-ContainersLatest

EC2LaunchV2_Preview AMIs

• EC2Launch v2 version 2.0.285

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Release Changes

2021.03.11 All AMIs

• Windows security updates current to March 9th, 2021

• AWS Tools for Windows PowerShell version 3.15.1248
• cfn-init version 2.0.5. This package includes Microsoft Visual C++ 2015-2019
Redistributable version 14.28.29910.0 as a dependency.
• EC2Launch version 1.3.2003236
• SSM Agent version 3.0.529.0
• NVIDIA GRID version 461.33
• SQL Server CUs installed:
• SQL 2016_SP2: CU16
• SQL 2019: CU9
• KB4577586 update for the removal of Adobe Flash Player installed on all
applicable images (Adobe Flash player is not enabled by default on all images).

Note
Amazon Root CAs have been added to the Trusted Root Certification
Authorities certificate store on all AMIs. For more information, see
https://www.amazontrust.com/repository/#rootcas.

Windows Server 2016 and 2019 AMIs

• Updated from default .NET framework versions to version 4.8.

Windows Server 2012RTM/2012 R2 AMIs

• EC2Config version 4.9.4326

• SSM Agent version 3.0.431.0

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Release Changes

2021.02.10 All AMIs

• Windows security updates current to February 9th, 2021

• AWS Tools for Windows PowerShell version 3.15.1224
• NVIDIA GRID version 461.09

Beginning in March 2021, AWS-provided Windows AMIs include Amazon Root CAs
in the certificate store to minimize potential disruption from the upcoming S3
and CloudFront certificate migration, which is scheduled for March 23rd, 2021.
For more information, see the following:

• https://aws.amazon.com/blogs/security/how-to-prepare-for-aws-move-to-its-
own-certificate-authority/
• https://forums.aws.amazon.com/ann.jspa?annID=7541

Additionally, AWS will apply "update for Removal of Adobe Flash

Player" (KB4577586) to all Windows AMIs in March to remove the built-in Adobe
Flash player, which ended support on December 31st, 2020. If your use case
requires the built-in Adobe Flash player, we recommend creating a custom image
based on AMIs with version 2021.02.10 or earlier. For more information on the
End of Support of Adobe Flash Player, see:

• https://blogs.windows.com/msedgedev/2020/09/04/update-adobe-flash-end-
support/
• https://www.adobe.com/products/flashplayer/end-of-life.html

EC2LaunchV2_Preview AMIs

• EC2Launch v2 version 2.0.207

New Windows AMIs

• Windows_Server-2016-Japanese-Full-SQL_2019_Enterprise-2021.02.10
• Windows_Server-2016-Japanese-Full-SQL_2019_Standard-2021.02.10
• Windows_Server-2016-Japanese-Full-SQL_2019_Web-2021.02.10
• Windows_Server-2019-Japanese-Full-SQL_2019_Enterprise-2021.02.10
• Windows_Server-2019-Japanese-Full-SQL_2019_Standard-2021.02.10
• Windows_Server-2019-Japanese-Full-SQL_2019_Web-2021.02.10

2021.01.13 All AMIs

• Windows security updates current to January 12th, 2021

• AWS Tools for Windows PowerShell version 3.15.1204
• AWS ENA version 2.2.2
• EC2Launch v1 version 1.3.2003210

Windows Server SAC/2019/2016 AMIs

• SSM Agent version 3.0.431.0

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AWS Windows AMI Version History

Monthly AMI updates for 2020 (to date)

For more information about Microsoft updates, see Description of Software Update Services and
Windows Server Update Services changes in content for 2020.

Release Changes

2020.12.09 All AMIs

• Windows security updates current to December 8th, 2020

• AWS Tools for Windows PowerShell version 3.15.1181
• All SQL Server Enterprise, Standard, and Web AMIs now include SQL Server
installation media at C:\SQLServerSetup
• EC2Launch v1 version 1.3.2003189
• Previous versions of Amazon-published Windows AMIs dated September 9th,
2020 and earlier were made private.

Windows Server 2012/2012 R2 AMIs

• EC2Config version 4.9.4279

• SSM Agent version 2.3.871.0

EC2LaunchV2_Preview AMIs

• EC2Launch v2 version 2.0.160

2020.11.11 All AMIs

• Windows security updates current to November 10th, 2020

• AWS Tools for Windows PowerShell version 3.15.1160
• SQL Server CUs installed:
• SQL 2016 SP2: CU15
• SQL 2017: CU22
• SQL 2019: CU8
• SSM Agent version 2.3.1644.0
• EC2Launch v2 Preview AMIs: EC2Launch version 2.0.153
• Previous versions of Amazon-published Windows AMIs dated August 12th,
2020 and earlier were made private.

New Windows AMIs

• Windows_Server-20H2-English-Core-Base-2020.11.11
• Windows_Server-20H2-English-Core-ContainersLatest-2020.11.11

2020.10.14 All AMIs

• Windows security updates current to October 13th, 2020

• AWS Tools for Windows PowerShell version 3.15.1140
• NVIDIA GRID version 452.39
• EC2Launch v2 Preview AMIs: EC2Launch version 2.0.146
• AWS ENA version 2.2.1

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Release Changes
• cfn-init version 1.4.34
• Previous versions of Amazon-published Windows AMIs dated July 15th, 2020
and earlier were made private.

2020.9.25 A new version of Amazon Machine Images with SQL Server 2019 dated
2020.09.25 has been released. This release includes the same software
components as the previous release dated 2020.09.09 but does not include
CU7 for SQL 2019, which has recently been removed from public availability by
Microsoft due to a known issue with reliability of the database snapshot feature.
For more information, please see the following Microsoft blog post: https://
techcommunity.microsoft.com/t5/sql-server/cumulative-update-7-for-sql-
server-2019-rtm-removed/ba-p/1629317.

New Windows AMIs

• Windows_Server-2016-English-Full-SQL_2019_Enterprise-2020.09.25
• Windows_Server-2016-English-Full-SQL_2019_Express-2020.09.25
• Windows_Server-2016-English-Full-SQL_2019_Standard-2020.09.25
• Windows_Server-2016-English-Full-SQL_2019_Web-2020.09.25
• Windows_Server-2019-English-Full-SQL_2019_Enterprise-2020.09.25
• Windows_Server-2019-English-Full-SQL_2019_Express-2020.09.25
• Windows_Server-2019-English-Full-SQL_2019_Standard-2020.09.25
• Windows_Server-2019-English-Full-SQL_2019_Web-2020.09.25

EC2LaunchV2_Preview AMIs

• EC2LaunchV2_Preview-Windows_Server-2019-English-Full-
SQL_2019_Express-2020.09.25

2020.9.9 All AMIs

• Windows security updates current to September 8th, 2020

• AWS PV drivers version 8.3.4
• AWS ENA version 2.2.0
• AWS Tools for Windows PowerShell version 3.15.1110
• SQL Server CUs installed
• SQL_2016_SP2: CU14
• SQL_2019: CU7
• Previous versions of Amazon-published Windows AMIs dated June 10th, 2020
and earlier were made private.

Windows Server 2016/2019/1809/1903/1909/2004 AMIs

• EC2Launch version 1.3.2003155

• SSM Agent version 2.3.1319.0

EC2LaunchV2_Preview AMIs

• EC2Launch v2 version 2.0.124

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Release Changes

2020.8.12 All AMIs

• Windows security updates current to August 11th, 2020

• AWS Tools for Windows PowerShell version 3.15.1084
• G3 AMIs: NVIDIA GRID version 451.48
• EC2Launch v2 Preview AMIs: EC2Launch version 2.0.104
• SQL CUs installed
• SQL_2019: CU6
• Previous versions of Amazon-published Windows AMIs dated May 13th, 2020
and earlier were made private.

2020.7.15 All AMIs

• Windows security updates current to July 14th, 2020

• AWS Tools for Windows PowerShell version 3.15.1064
• ENA version 2.1.5
• SQL Server CUs installed
• SQL_2017: CU21
• SQL_2019: CU5
• Previous versions of Amazon-published Windows AMIs dated April 15th, 2020
and earlier were made private.

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Release Changes

2020.7.01 A new version of Amazon Machine Images has been released. These images
include EC2Launch v2 and serve as a functional preview of the new launch agent
in advance of it being included by default on all Windows AMIs currently provided
by AWS later this year. Note that some SSM documents and dependent services,
such as EC2 Image Builder, may require updates to support EC2 Launch v2. These
updates will follow in the coming weeks. These images are not recommended
for use in production environments. You can read more about EC2Launch v2
at https://aws.amazon.com/about-aws/whats-new/2020/07/introducing-ec2-
launch-v2-simplify-customizing-windows-instances/ and Configure a Windows
instance using EC2Launch v2 (p. 454). All current Windows Server AMIs will
continue to be provided without changes to the current launch agent, either
EC2Config (Server 2012 RTM or 2012 R2) or EC2Launch v1 (Server 2016 or later),
for the next several months. In the near future, all Windows Server AMIs currently
provided by AWS will be migrated to use EC2Launch v2 by default as part of
the monthly release. EC2LaunchV2_Preview AMIs will be updated monthly and
remain available until this migration occurs.

New Windows AMIs

• EC2LaunchV2_Preview-Windows_Server-2004-English-Core-Base-2020.06.30
• EC2LaunchV2_Preview-Windows_Server-2019-English-Full-Base-2020.06.30
• EC2LaunchV2_Preview-Windows_Server-2019-English-Core-Base-2020.06.30
• EC2LaunchV2_Preview-Windows_Server-2016-English-Full-Base-2020.06.30
• EC2LaunchV2_Preview-Windows_Server-2016-English-Core-Base-2020.06.30
• EC2LaunchV2_Preview-Windows_Server-2012_R2_RTM-English-Full-
Base-2020.06.30
• EC2LaunchV2_Preview-Windows_Server-2012_R2_RTM-English-Core-
Base-2020.06.30
• EC2LaunchV2_Preview-Windows_Server-2012_RTM-English-Full-
Base-2020.06.30
• EC2LaunchV2_Preview-Windows_Server-2019-English-Full-
SQL_2019_Express-2020.06.30
• EC2LaunchV2_Preview-Windows_Server-2016-English-Full-
SQL_2017_Express-2020.06.30

2020.6.10 All AMIs

• Windows security updates current to June 9th, 2020

• AWS Tools for Windows PowerShell version 3.15.1034
• cfn-init version 1.4.33
• SQL CU installed: SQL_2016_SP2: CU13

2020.5.27 New Windows AMIs

• Windows_Server-2004-English-Core-Base-2020.05.27
• Windows_Server-2004-English-Core-ContainersLatest-2020.05.27

2020.5.13 All AMIs

• Windows security updates current to May 12th, 2020

• AWS Tools for Windows PowerShell version 3.15.1013
• EC2Launch version 1.3.2003150

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Release Changes

2020.4.15 All AMIs

• Windows security updates current to April 14th, 2020

• AWS Tools for Windows PowerShell version 3.15.998
• EC2Config version 4.9.4222
• EC2Launch version 1.3.2003040
• SSM Agent version 2.3.842.0
• SQL Server CUs installed:
• SQL_2017: CU 20
• SQL_2019: CU 4

2020.3.18 Windows Server 2019 AMIs

Resolves an intermittent issue discovered in the 2020.3.11 release in which the

Background Intelligent Transfer Service (BITS) may not start within the expected
time after initial OS boot, potentially resulting in timeouts, BITS errors in the
event log, or failures of cmdlets involving BITS invoked quickly after the initial
boot. Other Windows Server AMIs are not affected by this issue, and their latest
version remains 2020.03.11.

2020.3.11 All AMIs

• Windows security updates current to March 10th, 2020

• AWS Tools for Windows PowerShell version 3.15.969
• EC2Config version 4.9.4122
• EC2Launch version 1.3.2002730
• SSM Agent version 2.3.814.0
• SQL Server CUs installed:
• SQL_2016_SP2: CU 12
• SQL_2017: CU 19
• SQL_2019: CU 2 not applied due to known issue with SQL Agent
• Out of band security update (KB4551762) for server core 1909 and 1903
applied to mitigate CVE-2020-0796. Other Windows Server versions are not
impacted by this issue. For details, see https://portal.msrc.microsoft.com/en-
US/security-guidance/advisory/CVE-2020-0796

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Release Changes

2020.2.12 All AMIs

• Windows security updates current to February 11th, 2020

• AWS Tools for Windows PowerShell version 3.15.945
• Intel SRIOV driver updates
• 2019/1903/1909: version 2.1.185.0
• 2016/1809: version 2.1.186.0
• 2012 R2: version 1.2.199.0
• SQL Server CUs installed:
• SQL_2019: CU 1
• SQL_2017: CU 18
• SQL_2016_SP2: CU 11

Microsoft Windows Server 2008 SP2 and Windows Server 2008 R2

Windows Server 2008 SP2 and Window Server 2008 R2 reached End of Support
(EOS) on 01/14/20 and will no longer receive regular security updates from
Microsoft. AWS will no longer publish or distribute Windows Server 2008 SP2 or
Windows Server 2008 R2 AMIs. Existing 2008 SP2/R2 instances and custom AMIs
in your account are not impacted, and you can continue to use them after the EOS
date.

For more information about Microsoft End of Service on AWS, including upgrade
and import options, as well as a full list of AMIs that are no longer published as of
01/14/2020, see End of Support (EOS) for Microsoft Products.

2020.1.15 All AMIs

• Microsoft security updates current to January 14, 2020

• AWS Tools for Windows PowerShell version 3.15.925
• ENA version 2.1.4

Microsoft Windows Server 2008 SP2 and Windows Server 2008 R2

Windows Server 2008 SP2 and Window Server 2008 R2 reached End of Support
(EOS) on 01/14/20 and will no longer receive regular security updates from
Microsoft. AWS will no longer publish or distribute Windows Server 2008 SP2 or
Windows Server 2008 R2 AMIs. Existing 2008 SP2/R2 instances and custom AMIs
in your account are not impacted, and you can continue to use them after the EOS
date.

For more information about Microsoft End of Service on AWS, including upgrade
and import options, as well as a full list of AMIs that are no longer published as of
01/14/2020, see End of Support (EOS) for Microsoft Products.

Monthly AMI updates for 2019

For more information about Microsoft updates, see Description of Software Update Services and
Windows Server Update Services changes in content for 2019.

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Release Changes

2019.12.16 All AMIs

• Microsoft security updates current to December 10, 2019

• AWS Tools for Windows PowerShell version 3.15.903

Microsoft Windows Server 2008 SP2 and Windows Server 2008 R2

Microsoft will end mainstream support for Windows Server 2008 SP2 and
Windows Server 2008 R2 on January 14, 2020. On this date, AWS will no longer
publish or distribute Windows Server 2008 SP2 or Windows Server 2008 R2 AMIs.
Existing 2008 SP2/R2 instances and custom AMIs in your account will not be
impacted and you can continue to use them after the end-of-service (EOS) date.

For more information about Microsoft EOS on AWS, including upgrade and
import options, along with a full list of AMIS that will no longer be published or
distributed on January 14, 2020, see End of Support (EOS) for Microsoft Products.

2019.11.13 All AMIs

• AWS Tools for Windows PowerShell version 3.15.876

• Windows security updates current to November 12th, 2019
• EC2 Config version 4.9.3865
• EC2 Launch version 1.3.2002240
• SSM Agent v2.3.722.0

Previous versions of AMIs have been marked private.

New Windows AMIs

• Windows_Server-1909-English-Core-Base-2019.11.13
• Windows_Server-1909-English-Core-ContainersLatest-2019.11.13
• Windows_Server-2016-English-Full-SQL_2019_Enterprise-2019.11.13
• Windows_Server-2016-English-Full-SQL_2019_Express-2019.11.13
• Windows_Server-2016-English-Full-SQL_2019_Standard-2019.11.13
• Windows_Server-2016-English-Full-SQL_2019_Web-2019.11.13
• Windows_Server-2019-English-Full-SQL_2019_Enterprise-2019.11.13
• Windows_Server-2019-English-Full-SQL_2019_Express-2019.11.13
• Windows_Server-2019-English-Full-SQL_2019_Standard-2019.11.13
• Windows_Server-2019-English-Full-SQL_2019_Web-2019.11.13

2019.11.05 New Windows AMIs

New SQL AMIs available:

• Windows_Server-2016-English-Full-SQL_2019_Enterprise-2019.11.05
• Windows_Server-2016-English-Full-SQL_2019_Express-2019.11.05
• Windows_Server-2016-English-Full-SQL_2019_Standard-2019.11.05
• Windows_Server-2016-English-Full-SQL_2019_Web-2019.11.05
• Windows_Server-2019-English-Full-SQL_2019_Enterprise-2019.11.05
• Windows_Server-2019-English-Full-SQL_2019_Express-2019.11.05

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Release Changes
• Windows_Server-2019-English-Full-SQL_2019_Standard-2019.11.05
• Windows_Server-2019-English-Full-SQL_2019_Web-2019.11.05

2019.10.09 All AMIs

• AWS Tools for Windows PowerShell version 3.15.846

• Windows security updates current to October 8th, 2019
• Windows Defender platform updates current and update block via registry
removed. For details, see https://support.microsoft.com/en-us/help/4513240/
sfc-incorrectly-flags-windows-defender-ps-files-as-corrupted

New Windows AMIs

New ECS-optimized AMI available:

• Windows_Server-2019-English-Core-ECS_Optimized-2019.10.09

2019.09.12 New Windows AMI

• amzn2-ami-hvm-2.0.20190618-x86_64-gp2-mono

.NET Core 2.2, Mono 5.18, and PowerShell 6.2 pre-installed to run your .NET
applications on Amazon Linux 2 with Long Term Support (LTS)

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Release Changes

2019.09.11 All AMIs

• AWS PV driver version 8.3.2

• AWS NVMe driver version 1.3.2
• AWS Tools for Windows PowerShell version 3.15.826
• NLA enabled on all OS 2012 RTM to 2019 AMIs
• Intel 82599 VF driver reverted to version 2.0.210.0 (Server 2016) or version
2.1.138.0 (Server 2019) due to customer reported issues. Engagement with
Intel concerning these issues ongoing.
• Windows security updates current to September 10th, 2019
• Windows Defender platform update blocked via registry due to SFC failures
introduced by latest client. Will be reenabled when patch available. See
https://support.microsoft.com/en-us/help/4513240/sfc-incorrectly-flags-
windows-defender-ps-files-as-corrupted. Platform update block: HKLM:
\SOFTWARE\Microsoft\Windows Defender\Miscellaneous Configuration
\PreventPlatformUpdate type=DWORD, value=1

Previous versions of AMIs have been marked private.

New Windows AMIs

New STIG-compliant AMIs available:

• Windows_Server-2012-R2-English-STIG-Full
• Windows_Server-2012-R2-English-STIG-Core
• Windows_Server-2016-English-STIG-Full
• Windows_Server-2016-English-STIG-Core
• Windows_Server-2019-English-STIG-Full
• Windows_Server-2019-English-STIG-Core

Windows Server 2008 R2 SP1

Includes the following updates, which are required for Microsoft Extended
Security (ESU) updates.

• KB4490628
• KB4474419
• KB4516655

Windows Server 2008 SP2

Includes the following updates, which are required for Microsoft Extended
Security (ESU) updates.

• KB4493730
• KB4474419
• KB4517134

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Release Changes
Note
NLA is now enabled on all 2012 RTM, 2012 R2, and 2016 AMIs to
increase default RDP security posture. NLA remains enabled on 2019
AMIs.

2019.08.16 All AMIs

• Microsoft security updates current to August 13th, 2019. Includes KBs

addressing CVE-2019-1181, CVE-2019-1182, CVE-2019-1222, and
CVE-2019-1226.
• EC2Config version 4.9.3519
• SSM Agent version 2.3.634.0
• AWS Tools for Windows PowerShell version 3.15.802
• Windows Defender platform update blocked via registry due to SFC failures
introduced by update. Update will be re-enabled when new patch is available.
Note
Starting in September, NLA will be enabled on all 2012 RTM, 2012 R2,
and 2016 AMIs to increase default RDP security posture.

2019.07.19 New Windows AMIs

• Windows_Server-2016-English-Full-ECS_Optimized-2019.07.19
• Windows_Server-2019-English-Full-ECS_Optimized-2019.07.19

2019.07.12 All AMIs

• Microsoft security updates current to July 9th, 2019

2019.06.12 All AMIs

• Microsoft security updates current to June 11th, 2019

• AWS SDK version 3.15.756
• AWS PV driver version 8.2.7
• AWS NVMe driver version 1.3.1
• The following "P3" AMIs will be renamed as "Tesla" AMIs. These AMIs will
support all GPU-backed AWS instances using the Tesla driver. P3 AMIs will no
longer be updated after this release and will be removed as part of our regular
cycle.
• Windows_Server-2012-R2_RTM-English-P3-2019.06.12 replaced with
Windows_Server-2012-R2_RTM-English-Tesla-2019.06.12
• Windows_Server-2016-English-P3-2016.06.12 replaced with
Windows_Server-2016-English-Tesla-2019.06.12

New Windows AMIs

• Windows_Server-2019-English-Tesla-2019.06.12

Previous versions of AMIs have been marked private.

2019.05.21 Windows Server, version 1903

• AMIs are now available

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Release Changes

2019.05.15 All AMIs

• Microsoft security updates current to May 14th, 2019

• EC2Config version 4.9.3429
• SSM Agent version 2.3.542.0
• AWS SDK version 3.15.735

2019.04.26 All AMIs

• Fixed AMIs for Windows Server 2019 with SQL to address edge cases where
the first launch of an instance may result in Instance Impairment and Windows
displays the message "Please wait for the User Profile Service".

2019.04.21 All AMIs

• AWS PV Driver rollback to version 8.2.6 from version 8.3.0

2019.04.10 All AMIs

• Microsoft security updates current to April 9, 2019

• AWS SDK version 3.15.715
• AWS PV Driver version 8.3.0
• EC2Launch version 1.3.2001360

New Windows AMIs

• Windows_Server-2016-English-Full-SQL_2012_SP4_Standard-2019.04.10
• Windows_Server-2016-English-Full-SQL_2014_SP3_Standard-2019.04.10
• Windows_Server-2016-English-Full-SQL_2014_SP3_Enterprise-2019.04.10

2019.03.13 All AMIs

• Microsoft security updates current to March 12, 2019

• AWS SDK version 3.15.693
• EC2Launch version 1.3.2001220
• NVIDIA Tesla driver version 412.29 for Deep Learning and P3 AMIs (https://
nvidia.custhelp.com/app/answers/detail/a_id/4772)

Previous versions of AMIs have been marked private

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Release Changes

2019.02.13 All AMIs

• Microsoft security updates current to February 12, 2019

• SSM Agent version 2.3.444.0
• AWS SDK version 3.15.666
• EC2Launch version 1.3.2001040
• EC2Config version 4.9.3289
• AWS PV driver 8.2.6
• EBS NVMe tool

SQL 2014 with Service Pack 2 and SQL 2016 with Service Pack 1 will no longer be
updated after this release.

2019.02.09 All AMIs

• Windows AMIs have been updated. New AMIs can be found with the following
date versions:

November "2018.11.29"

December "2018.12.13"

January "2019.02.09"

Previous versions of AMIs have been marked private

2019.01.10 All AMIs

• Microsoft security updates current to January 10, 2019

• SSM Agent version 2.3.344.0
• AWS SDK version 3.15.647
• EC2Launch version 1.3.2000930
• EC2Config version 4.9.3160

All AMIs with SQL Server

• Latest cumulative updates

Monthly AMI updates for 2018

For more information about Microsoft updates, see Description of Software Update Services and
Windows Server Update Services changes in content for 2018.

Release Changes

2018.12.12 All AMIs

• Microsoft security updates current to December 12, 2018

• SSM Agent version 2.3.274.0
• AWS SDK version 3.15.629

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Release Changes
• EC2Launch version 1.3.2000760

New Windows AMIs

• Windows_Server-2012-R2_RTM-Japanese-64Bit-
SQL_2014_SP3_Standard-2018.12.12
• Windows_Server-2012-R2_RTM-Japanese-64Bit-
SQL_2014_SP3_Express-2018.12.12
• Windows_Server-2012-R2_RTM-English-64Bit-
SQL_2014_SP3_Enterprise-2018.12.12
• Windows_Server-2012-R2_RTM-English-64Bit-
SQL_2014_SP3_Standard-2018.12.12
• Windows_Server-2012-R2_RTM-English-64Bit-
SQL_2014_SP3_Express-2018.12.12
• Windows_Server-2012-R2_RTM-English-64Bit-
SQL_2014_SP3_Web-2018.12.12
• Windows_Server-2012-RTM-Japanese-64Bit-
SQL_2014_SP3_Express-2018.12.12
• Windows_Server-2012-RTM-Japanese-64Bit-
SQL_2014_SP3_Standard-2018.12.12
• Windows_Server-2012-RTM-Japanese-64Bit-SQL_2014_SP3_Web-2018.12.12
• Windows_Server-2012-RTM-English-64Bit-
SQL_2014_SP3_Standard-2018.12.12
• Windows_Server-2012-RTM-English-64Bit-SQL_2014_SP3_Express-2018.12.12
• Windows_Server-2012-RTM-English-64Bit-SQL_2014_SP3_Web-2018.12.12
• Windows_Server-2012-R2_RTM-Japanese-64Bit-
SQL_2016_SP2_Web-2018.12.12
• Windows_Server-2012-R2_RTM-Japanese-64Bit-
SQL_2016_SP2_Express-2018.12.12
• Windows_Server-2012-R2_RTM-English-64Bit-
SQL_2016_SP2_Enterprise-2018.12.12
• Windows_Server-2012-R2_RTM-English-64Bit-
SQL_2016_SP2_Standard-2018.12.12
• Windows_Server-2012-R2_RTM-English-64Bit-
SQL_2016_SP2_Express-2018.12.12
• Windows_Server-2012-R2_RTM-English-64Bit-
SQL_2016_SP2_Web-2018.12.12
• Windows_Server-2012-R2_RTM-Japanese-64Bit-
SQL_2016_SP2_Standard-2018.12.12
• Windows_Server-2016-Korean-Full-SQL_2016_SP2_Standard-2018.12.12
• Windows_Server-2016-Japanese-Full-SQL_2016_SP2_Enterprise-2018.12.12
• Windows_Server-2016-Japanese-Full-SQL_2016_SP2_Web-2018.12.12
• Windows_Server-2016-English-Full-SQL_2016_SP2_Web-2018.12.12
• Windows_Server-2016-Japanese-Full-SQL_2016_SP2_Standard-2018.12.12
• Windows_Server-2016-English-Full-SQL_2016_SP2_Express-2018.12.12
• Windows_Server-2016-English-Full-SQL_2016_SP2_Standard-2018.12.12
• Windows_Server-2016-English-Core-SQL_2016_SP2_Enterprise-2018.12.12
• Windows_Server-2016-English-Core-SQL_2016_SP2_Web-2018.12.12

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Release Changes
• Windows_Server-2016-English-Core-SQL_2016_SP2_Express-2018.12.12
• Windows_Server-2016-English-Core-SQL_2016_SP2_Standard-2018.12.12
• Windows_Server-2016-Japanese-Full-SQL_2016_SP2_Standard-2018.12.12
• Windows_Server-2016-Korean-Full-SQL_2016_SP2_Standard-2018.12.12
• Windows_Server-2019-Spanish-Full-Base-2018.12.12
• Windows_Server-2019-Japanese-Full-Base-2018.12.12
• Windows_Server-2019-Portuguese_Portugal-Full-Base-2018.12.12
• Windows_Server-2019-Chinese_Traditional-Full-Base-2018.12.12
• Windows_Server-2019-Italian-Full-Base-2018.12.12
• Windows_Server-2019-Swedish-Full-Base-2018.12.12
• Windows_Server-2019-English-Core-Base-2018.12.12
• Windows_Server-2019-Hungarian-Full-Base-2018.12.12
• Windows_Server-2019-Polish-Full-Base-2018.12.12
• Windows_Server-2019-Turkish-Full-Base-2018.12.12
• Windows_Server-2019-Korean-Full-Base-2018.12.12
• Windows_Server-2019-Dutch-Full-Base-2018.12.12
• Windows_Server-2019-German-Full-Base-2018.12.12
• Windows_Server-2019-Russian-Full-Base-2018.12.12
• Windows_Server-2019-Czech-Full-Base-2018.12.12
• Windows_Server-2019-English-Full-Base-2018.12.12
• Windows_Server-2019-French-Full-Base-2018.12.12
• Windows_Server-2019-Portuguese_Brazil-Full-Base-2018.12.12
• Windows_Server-2019-Chinese_Simplified-Full-Base-2018.12.12
• Windows_Server-2019-English-Full-HyperV-2018.12.12
• Windows_Server-2019-English-Full-ContainersLatest-2018.12.12
• Windows_Server-2019-English-Core-ContainersLatest-2018.12.12
• Windows_Server-2019-English-Full-SQL_2017_Enterprise-2018.12.12
• Windows_Server-2019-English-Full-SQL_2017_Standard-2018.12.12
• Windows_Server-2019-English-Full-SQL_2017_Web-2018.12.12
• Windows_Server-2019-English-Full-SQL_2017_Express-2018.12.12
• Windows_Server-2019-English-Full-SQL_2016_SP2_Enterprise-2018.12.12
• Windows_Server-2019-English-Full-SQL_2016_SP2_Standard-2018.12.12
• Windows_Server-2019-English-Full-SQL_2016_SP2_Web-2018.12.12
• Windows_Server-2019-English-Full-SQL_2016_SP2_Express-2018.12.12

Updated Linux AMI

• amzn2-ami-hvm-2.0.20180622.1-x86_64-gp2-dotnetcore-2018.12.12

2018.11.28 All AMIs

• SSM Agent version 2.3.235.0

• Changes in all power schemes to set the display to never turn off

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Release Changes

2018.11.20 Windows_Server-2016-English-Deep-Learning

Windows_Server-2016-English-Deep-Learning

• TensorFlow version 1.12

• MXNet version 1.3
• NVIDIA version 392.05

2018.11.19 All AMIs

• Microsoft security updates current to November 19, 2018

• AWS SDK version 3.15.602.0
• SSM Agent version 2.3.193.0
• EC2Config version 4.9.3067
• Intel Chipset INF configurations to support new instance types

Windows Server, version 1809

• AMIs are now available.

2018.10.14 All AMIs

• Microsoft security updates current to October 9, 2018

• AWS Tools for Windows PowerShell version 3.3.365.0
• CloudFormation version 1.4.31
• AWS PV Driver version 8.2.4
• AWS PCI Serial Driver version 1.0.0.0 (support for Windows 2008R2 and 2012
on Bare Metal instances
• ENA Driver version 1.5.0

Microsoft Windows Server 2016 Datacenter and Standard Editions for Nano
Server

Microsoft ended mainstream support for Windows Server 2016 Datacenter and
Standard Editions for Nano Server installation options as of April 10, 2018.

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Release Changes

2018.09.15 All AMIs

• Microsoft security updates current to September 12, 2018

• AWS Tools for Windows PowerShell version 3.3.343
• EC2Launch version 1.3.2000430
• AWS NVMe Driver version 1.3 0
• EC2 WinUtil Driver version 2.0.0

Microsoft Windows Server 2016 Base Nano

Access to all public versions of Windows_Server-2016-English-Nano-Base will be

removed in September 2018. Additional information about Nano Server lifecycle,
including details on launching Nano Server as a Container, can be found here:
https://docs.microsoft.com/en-us/windows-server/get-started/nano-in-semi-
annual-channel.

2018.08.15 All AMIs

• Microsoft security updates current to August 14, 2018

• AWS Tools for Windows PowerShell version 3.3.335
• AMIs now default to use Amazon's NTP service at IP 169.254.169.123 for time
synchronization. For more information, see Default network time protocol
(NTP) settings for Amazon Windows AMIs (p. 570).

Microsoft Windows Server 2016 Base Nano

Access to all public versions of Windows_Server-2016-English-Nano-Base will be

removed in September 2018. Additional information about Nano Server lifecycle,
including details on launching Nano Server as a Container, can be found here:
https://docs.microsoft.com/en-us/windows-server/get-started/nano-in-semi-
annual-channel.

2018.07.11 All AMIs

• Microsoft security updates current to July 10, 2018

• EC2Config version 4.9.2756
• SSM Agent 2.2.800.0

2018.06.22 Windows Server 2008 R2

• Resolves an issue with the 2018.06.13 AMIs when changing an instance from a
previous generation to a current generation (for example, M4 to M5).

2018.06.13 All AMIs

• Microsoft security updates current to June 12, 2018

• EC2Config version 4.9.2688
• SSM Agent 2.2.619.0
• AWS Tools for Windows PowerShell 3.3.283.0
• AWS NVMe driver 1.2.0
• AWS PV driver 8.2.3

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Release Changes

2018.05.09 All AMIs

• Microsoft security updates current to May 9, 2018

• EC2Config version 4.9.2644
• SSM Agent 2.2.493.0
• AWS Tools for Windows PowerShell 3.3.270.0

Windows Server, version 1709 and Windows Server, version 1803

• AMIs are now available. For more information, see Windows Server version
1709 and 1803 AMIs for Amazon EC2.

2018.04.11 All AMIs

• Microsoft security updates current to April 10, 2018

• EC2Config version 4.9.2586
• SSM Agent 2.2.392.0
• AWS Tools for Windows PowerShell 3.3.256.0
• AWS CloudFormation templates 1.4.30
• Serial INF and Intel Chipset INF configurations to support new instance types

SQL Server 2017

• Cumulative update 5 (CU5)

SQL Server 2016 SP1

• Cumulative update 8 (CU8)

2018.03.24 All AMIs

• Microsoft security updates current to March 13, 2018

• EC2Config version 4.9.2565
• SSM Agent 2.2.355.0
• AWS Tools for Windows PowerShell 3.3.245.0
• AWS PV driver 8.2
• AWS ENA driver 1.2.3.0
• Amazon EC2 Hibernate Agent 1.0 (rollback from 2.1.0 in the 2018.03.16 AMI
release)
• AWS EC2WinUtilDriver 1.0.1 (for troubleshooting)

Windows Server 2016

• EC2Launch 1.3.2000080

2018.03.16 AWS has removed all Windows AMIs dated 2018.03.16 due to an issue with
an unquoted path in the configuration for the Amazon EC2 Hibernate Agent.
For more information, see Issue with the Hibernate Agent (2018.03.16
AMIs) (p. 36).

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Release Changes

2018.03.06 All AMIs

• AWS PV driver 8.2.1

2018.02.23 All AMIs

• AWS PV driver 7.4.6 (rollback from 8.2 in the 2018.02.13 AMI release)

2018.02.13 All AMIs

• Microsoft security updates current to February 13, 2018

• EC2Config version 4.9.2400
• SSM Agent 2.2.160.0
• AWS Tools for Windows PowerShell 3.3.225.1
• AWS PV driver 8.2
• AWS ENA driver 1.2.3.0
• AWS NVMe driver 1.0.0.146
• Amazon EC2 HibernateAgent 1.0.0

Windows Server 2016

• EC2Launch 1.3.740

2018.01.12 All AMIs

• Microsoft security updates current to January 9, 2018

2018.01.05 All AMIs

• Microsoft security updates current to January 2018

• Registry settings to enable mitigations for the Spectre and Meltdown exploits
• AWS Tools for Windows PowerShell 3.3.215
• EC2Config version 4.9.2262

Monthly AMI updates for 2017

For more information about Microsoft updates, see Description of Software Update Services and
Windows Server Update Services changes in content for 2017.

Release Changes

2017.12.13 All AMIs

• Microsoft security updates current to December 12, 2017

• EC2Config version 4.9.2218
• AWS CloudFormation templates 1.4.27
• AWS NVMe driver 1.02
• SSM Agent 2.2.93.0
• AWS Tools for Windows PowerShell 3.3.201

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Release Changes

2017.11.29 All AMIs

• Removed components for Volume Shadow Copy Service (VSS) included in

2017.11.18 and 2017.11.19 due to a compatibility issue with Windows Backup.

2017.11.19 All AMIs

• EC2 Hibernate Agent 1.0 (supports hibernation for Spot Instances)

2017.11.18 All AMIs

• Microsoft security updates current to November 14, 2017

• EC2Config version 4.9.2218
• SSM Agent 2.2.64.0
• AWS Tools for Windows PowerShell 3.3.182
• Elastic Network Adapter (ENA) driver 1.08 (rollback from 1.2.2 in the
2017.10.13 AMI release)
• Query for the latest Windows AMI using Systems Manager Parameter Store

Windows Server 2016

• EC2Launch 1.3.640

2017.10.13 All AMIs

• Microsoft security updates current to October 11, 2017

• EC2Config version 4.9.2188
• SSM Agent 2.2.30.0
• AWS CloudFormation templates 1.4.24
• Elastic Network Adapter (ENA) driver 1.2.2. (Windows Server 2008 R2 through
Windows Server 2016)

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Release Changes

2017.10.04 Microsoft SQL Server

Windows Server 2016 with Microsoft SQL Server 2017 AMIs are now public in all
regions.

• Windows_Server-2016-English-Full-SQL_2017_Enterprise-2017.10.04
• Windows_Server-2016-English-Full-SQL_2017_Standard-2017.10.04
• Windows_Server-2016-English-Full-SQL_2017_Web-2017.10.04
• Windows_Server-2016-English-Full-SQL_2017_Express-2017.10.04

Microsoft SQL Server 2017 supports the following features:

• Machine Learning Services with Python (ML and AI) and R language support
• Automatic database tuning
• Clusterless Availability Groups
• Runs on Red Hat Enterprise Linux (RHEL), SUSE Linux Enterprise Server
(SLES), and Ubuntu. For more information, see the following Microsoft article:
Installation guidance for SQL Server on Linux. Not supported on Amazon Linux.
• Windows-Linux cross-OS migrations
• Resumable online index rebuild
• Improved adaptive query processing
• Graph data support

2017.09.13 All AMIs

• Microsoft security updates current to September 13, 2017

• EC2Config version 4.9.2106
• SSM Agent 2.0.952.0
• AWS Tools for Windows PowerShell 3.3.143
• AWS CloudFormation templates 1.4.21

2017.08.09 All AMIs

• Microsoft security updates current to August 9, 2017

• EC2Config version 4.9.2016
• SSM Agent 2.0.879.0

Windows Server 2012 R2

• Due to an internal error, these AMIs were released with an older version of AWS
Tools for Windows PowerShell, 3.3.58.0.

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Release Changes

2017.07.13 All AMIs

• Microsoft security updates current to July 13, 2017

• EC2Config version 4.9.1981
• SSM Agent 2.0.847.0

Windows Server 2016

• Intel SRIOV Driver 2.0.210.0

2017.06.14 All AMIs

• Microsoft security updates current to June 14, 2017

• Updates for .NET Framework 4.7 installed from Windows Update
• Microsoft updates to address the "privilege not held" error using the PowerShell
Stop-Computer cmdlet. For more information, see Privilege not held error on
the Microsoft site.
• EC2Config version 4.9.1900
• SSM Agent 2.0.805.0
• AWS Tools for Windows PowerShell 3.3.99.0
• Internet Explorer 11 for the desktop is the default, instead of the immersive
Internet Explorer

Windows Server 2016

• EC2Launch 1.3.610

2017.05.30 The Windows_Server-2008-SP2-English-32Bit-Base-2017.05.10 AMI was updated

to the Windows_Server-2008-SP2-English-32Bit-Base-2017.05.30 AMI to resolve
an issue with password generation.

2017.05.22 The Windows_Server-2016-English-Full-Base-2017.05.10 AMI was updated to

the Windows_Server-2016-English-Full-Base-2017.05.22 AMI after some log
cleaning.

2017.05.10 All AMIs

• Microsoft security updates current to May 9, 2017

• AWS PV Driver v7.4.6
• AWS Tools for Windows PowerShell 3.3.83.0

Windows Server 2016

• SSM Agent 2.0.767

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Release Changes

2017.04.12 All AMIs

• Microsoft security updates current to April 11, 2017

• AWS Tools for Windows PowerShell 3.3.71.0
• AWS CloudFormation templates 1.4.18

Windows Server 2003 to Windows Server 2012

• EC2Config version 4.9.1775

• SSM Agent 2.0.761.0

Windows Server 2016

• SSM Agent 2.0.730.0

2017.03.15 All AMIs

• Microsoft security updates current to March 14, 2017

• Current AWS Tools for Windows PowerShell
• Current AWS CloudFormation templates

Windows Server 2003 to Windows Server 2012

• EC2Config version 4.7.1631

• SSM Agent 2.0.682.0

Windows Server 2016

• SSM Agent 2.0.706.0

• EC2Launch v1.3.540

2017.02.21 Microsoft recently announced that they will not release monthly patches or
security updates for the month of February. All February patches and security
updates will be included in the March update.

Amazon Web Services did not release updated Windows Server AMIs in February.

2017.01.11 All AMIs

• Microsoft security updates current to January 10, 2017

• Current AWS Tools for Windows PowerShell
• Current AWS CloudFormation templates

Windows Server 2003 to Windows Server 2012

• EC2Config version 4.2.1442

• SSM Agent 2.0.599.0

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Monthly AMI updates for 2016

For more information about Microsoft updates, see Description of Software Update Services and
Windows Server Update Services changes in content for 2016.

Release Changes

2016.12.14 All AMIs

• Microsoft security updates current to December 13, 2016

• Current AWS Tools for Windows PowerShell

Windows Server 2003 to Windows Server 2012

• Released EC2Config version 4.1.1396

• Elastic Network Adapter (ENA) driver 1.0.9.0 (Windows Server 2008 R2 only)

Windows Server 2016

New AMIs available in all regions:

• Windows_Server-2016-English-Core-Base

Microsoft SQL Server

All Microsoft SQL Server AMIs with the latest service pack are now public in all
regions. These new AMIs replace old SQL Service Pack AMIs going forward.

• Windows_Server-2008-R2_SP1-English-64Bit-
SQL_2012_SP3_edition-2016.12.14
• Windows_Server-2012-RTM-English-64Bit-
SQL_2012_SP3_edition-2016.12.14
• Windows_Server-2012-R2_RTM-English-64Bit-
SQL_2014_SP2_edition-2016.12.14
• Windows_Server-2012-RTM-English-64Bit-
SQL_2014_SP2_edition-2016.12.14
• Windows_Server-2012-R2_RTM-English-64Bit-
SQL_2016_SP1_edition-2016.12.14
• Windows_Server-2016-English-Full-SQL_2016_SP1_edition-2016.12.14

SQL Server 2016 SP1 is a major release. The following features, which were
previously available in Enterprise edition only, are now enabled in Standard, Web,
and Express editions with SQL Server 2016 SP1:

• Row-level security
• Dynamic Data Masking
• Change Data Capture
• Database snapshot
• Column store
• Partitioning
• Compression

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Release Changes
• In Memory OLTP
• Always Encrypted

2016.11.23 Windows Server 2003 to Windows Server 2012

• Released EC2Config version 4.1.1378

• The AMIs released this month, and going forward, use the EC2Config service
to process boot-time configurations and SSM Agent to process AWS Systems
Manager Run Command and Config requests. EC2Config no longer processes
requests for Systems Manager Run Command and State Manager. The latest
EC2Config installer installs SSM Agent side-by-side with the EC2Config service.
For more information, see Configure a Windows instance using the EC2Config
service (p. 502).

2016.11.09 All AMIs

• Microsoft security updates current to November 8 2016

• Released AWS PV driver, version 7.4.3.0 for Windows 2008 R2 and later
• Current AWS Tools for Windows PowerShell

2016.10.18 All AMIs

• Microsoft security updates current to October 12, 2016

• Current AWS Tools for Windows PowerShell

Windows Server 2016

• Released AMIs for Windows Server 2016. These AMIs include significant
changes. For example, they don't include the EC2Config service. For more
information, see Changes in Windows Server 2016 and later AMIs (p. 35).

2016.9.14 All AMIs

• Microsoft security updates current to September 13, 2016

• Current AWS Tools for Windows PowerShell
• Renamed AMI Windows_Server-2012-RTM-Japanese-64Bit-
SQL_2008_R3_SP2_Standard to Windows_Server-2012-RTM-Japanese-64Bit-
SQL_2008_R2_SP3_Standard

2016.8.26 All Windows Server 2008 R2 AMIs dated 2016.08.11 were updated to fix a known
issue. New AMIs are dated 2016.08.25.

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Release Changes

2016.8.11 All AMIs

• Ec2Config v3.19.1153
• Microsoft security updates current to August 10, 2016
• Enabled the registry key User32 exception handler hardening feature in
Internet Explorer for MS15-124

Windows Server 2008 R2, Windows Server 2012 RTM, and Windows
Server 2012 R2

• Elastic Network Adapter (ENA) Driver 1.0.8.0

• ENA AMI property set to enabled
• AWS PV Driver for Windows Server 2008 R2 was re-released this month
because of a known issue. Windows Server 2008 R2 AMI's were removed in July
because of this issue.

2016.8.2 All Windows Server 2008 R2 AMIs for July were removed and rolled back to AMIs
dated 2016.06.15, because of an issue discovered in the AWS PV driver. The AWS
PV driver issue has been fixed. The August AMI release will include Windows
Server 2008 R2 AMIs with the fixed AWS PV driver and July/August Windows
updates.

2016.7.26 All AMIs

• Ec2Config v3.18.1118
• 2016.07.13 AMIs were missing security patches. AMIs were re-patched.
Additional processes were put in place to verify successful patch installations
going forward.

2016.7.13 All AMIs

• Microsoft security updates current to July 2016

• Current AWS Tools for Windows PowerShell
• Updated AWS PV Driver 7.4.2.0
• AWS PV Driver for Windows Server 2008 R2

2016.6.16 All AMIs

• Microsoft security updates current to June 2016

• Current AWS Tools for Windows PowerShell
• EC2Config service version 3.17.1032

Microsoft SQL Server

• Released 10 AMIs that include 64-bit versions of Microsoft SQL Server

2016. If using the Amazon EC2 console, navigate to Images, AMIs, Public
Images, and type Windows_Server-2012-R2_RTM-English-64Bit-
SQL_2016_Standard in the search bar. For more information, see What's New
in SQL Server 2016 on MSDN.

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Release Changes

2016.5.11 All AMIs

• Microsoft security updates current to May 2016

• Current AWS Tools for Windows PowerShell
• EC2Config service version 3.16.930
• MS15-011 Active Directory patch installed

Windows Server 2012 R2

• Intel SRIOV Driver 1.0.16.1

2016.4.13 All AMIs

• Microsoft security updates current to April 2016

• Current AWS Tools for Windows PowerShell
• EC2Config service version 3.15.880

2016.3.9 All AMIs

• Microsoft security updates current to March 2016

• Current AWS Tools for Windows PowerShell
• EC2Config service version 3.14.786

2016.2.10 All AMIs

• Microsoft security updates current to February 2016

• Current AWS Tools for Windows PowerShell
• EC2Config service version 3.13.727

2016.1.25 All AMIs

• Microsoft security updates current to January 2016

• Current AWS Tools for Windows PowerShell
• EC2Config service version 3.12.649

2016.1.5 All AMIs

• Current AWS Tools for Windows PowerShell

Monthly AMI updates for 2015

For more information about Microsoft updates, see Description of Software Update Services and
Windows Server Update Services changes in content for 2015.

Release Changes

2015.12.15 All AMIs

• Microsoft security updates current to December 2015

• Current AWS Tools for Windows PowerShell

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Release Changes

2015.11.11 All AMIs

• Microsoft security updates current to November 2015

• Current AWS Tools for Windows PowerShell
• EC2Config service version 3.11.521
• CFN Agent updated to latest version

2015.10.26 Corrected boot volume sizes of base AMIs to be 30GB instead of 35GB

2015.10.14 All AMIs

• Microsoft security updates current to October 2015

• EC2Config service version 3.10.442
• Current AWS Tools for Windows PowerShell
• Updated SQL Service Packs to latest versions for all SQL variants
• Removed old entries in Event Logs
• AMI Names have been changed to reflect the latest service pack.
For example, the latest AMI with Server 2012 and SQL 2014
Standard is named “Windows_Server-2012-RTM-English-64Bit-
SQL_2014_SP1_Standard-2015.10.26“, not “Windows_Server-2012-RTM-
English-64Bit-SQL_2014_RTM_Standard-2015.10.26“.

2015.9.9 All AMIs

• Microsoft security updates current to September 2015

• EC2Config service version 3.9.359
• Current AWS Tools for Windows PowerShell
• Current AWS CloudFormation helper scripts

2015.8.18 All AMIs

• Microsoft security updates current to August 2015

• EC2Config service version 3.8.294
• Current AWS Tools for Windows PowerShell

Only AMIs with Windows Server 2012 and Windows Server 2012 R2

• AWS PV Driver 7.3.2

2015.7.21 All AMIs

• Microsoft security updates current to July 2015

• EC2Config service version 3.7.308
• Current AWS Tools for Windows PowerShell
• Modified AMI descriptions of SQL images for consistency

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2015.6.10 All AMIs

• Microsoft security updates current to June 2015

• EC2Config service version 3.6.269
• Current AWS Tools for Windows PowerShell
• Current AWS CloudFormation helper scripts

Only AMIs with Windows Server 2012 R2

• AWS PV Driver 7.3.1

2015.5.13 All AMIs

• Microsoft security updates current to May 2015

• EC2Config service version 3.5.228
• Current AWS Tools for Windows PowerShell

2015.04.15 All AMIs

• Microsoft security updates current to April 2015

• EC2Config service version 3.3.174
• Current AWS Tools for Windows PowerShell

2015.03.11 All AMIs

• Microsoft security updates current to March 2015

• EC2Config service version 3.2.97
• Current AWS Tools for Windows PowerShell

Only AMIs with Windows Server 2012 R2

• AWS PV Driver 7.3.0

2015.02.11 All AMIs

• Microsoft security updates current to February 2015

• EC2Config service version 3.0.54
• Current AWS Tools for Windows PowerShell
• Current AWS CloudFormation helper scripts

2015.01.14 All AMIs

• Microsoft security updates current to January 2015

• EC2Config service version 2.3.313
• Current AWS Tools for Windows PowerShell
• Current AWS CloudFormation helper scripts

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Monthly AMI updates for 2014

For more information about Microsoft updates, see Description of Software Update Services and
Windows Server Update Services changes in content for 2014.

Release Changes

2014.12.10 All AMIs

• Microsoft security updates current to December 2014

• EC2Config service version 2.2.12
• Current AWS Tools for Windows PowerShell

2014.11.19 All AMIs

• Microsoft security updates current to November 2014

• EC2Config service version 2.2.11
• Current AWS Tools for Windows PowerShell

2014.10.15 All AMIs

• Microsoft security updates current to October 2014

• EC2Config service version 2.2.10
• Current AWS Tools for Windows PowerShell

Only AMIs with Windows Server 2012 R2

• AWS PV Driver 7.2.4.1 (resolves the issues with Plug and Play Cleanup, which is
now enabled by default)

2014.09.10 All AMIs

• Microsoft security updates current to September 2014

• EC2Config service version 2.2.8
• Current AWS Tools for Windows PowerShell

Only AMIs with Windows Server 2012 R2

• Disable Plug and Play Cleanup (see Important information)

• AWS PV Driver 7.2.2.1 (resolves issues with the uninstaller)

2014.08.13 All AMIs

• Microsoft security updates current to August 2014

• EC2Config service version 2.2.7
• Current AWS Tools for Windows PowerShell

Only AMIs with Windows Server 2012 R2

• AWS PV Driver 7.2.2.1 (improves disk performance, resolves issues with

reconnecting multiple network interfaces and lost network settings)

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2014.07.10 All AMIs

• Microsoft security updates current to July 2014

• EC2Config service version 2.2.5
• Current AWS Tools for Windows PowerShell

2014.06.12 All AMIs

• Microsoft security updates current to June 2014

• EC2Config service version 2.2.4
• Removed NVIDIA drivers (except for Windows Server 2012 R2 AMIs)
• Current AWS Tools for Windows PowerShell

2014.05.14 All AMIs

• Microsoft security updates current to May 2014

• EC2Config service version 2.2.2
• Current AWS Tools for Windows PowerShell
• AWS CloudFormation helper scripts version 1.4.0

2014.04.09 All AMIs

• Microsoft security updates current to April 2014

• Current AWS Tools for Windows PowerShell
• Current AWS CloudFormation helper scripts

2014.03.12 All AMIs

• Microsoft security updates current to March 2014

2014.02.12 All AMIs

• Microsoft security updates current to February 2014

• EC2Config service version 2.2.1
• Current AWS Tools for Windows PowerShell
• KB2634328
• Remove the BCDEdit useplatformclock value

Only AMIs with Microsoft SQL Server

• Microsoft SQL Server 2012 SP1 cumulative update package 8

• Microsoft SQL Server 2008 R2 cumulative update package 10

Monthly AMI updates for 2013

Release Changes

2013.11.13 All AMIs

• Microsoft security updates current to November 2013

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Release Changes
• EC2Config service version 2.1.19
• Current AWS Tools for Windows PowerShell
• Configure NTP to synchronize the time once a day (the default is every seven
days)

Only AMIs with Windows Server 2012

• Clean up the WinSXS folder using the following command: dism /online /
cleanup-image /StartComponentCleanup

2013.09.11 All AMIs

• Microsoft security updates current to September 2013

• EC2Config service version 2.1.18
• Current AWS Tools for Windows PowerShell
• AWS CloudFormation helper scripts version 1.3.15

2013.07.10 All AMIs

• Microsoft security updates current to July 2013

• EC2Config service version 2.1.16
• Expanded the root volume to 50 GB
• Set the page file to 512 MB, expanding to 8 GB as needed
• Current AWS Tools for Windows PowerShell

2013.06.12 All AMIs

• Microsoft security updates current to June 2013

• Current AWS Tools for Windows PowerShell

Only AMIs with Microsoft SQL Server

• Microsoft SQL Server 2012 SP1 with cumulative update package 4

2013.05.15 All AMIs

• Microsoft security updates current to May 2013

• EC2Config service version 2.1.15
• All instance store volumes attached by default
• Remote PowerShell enabled by default
• Current AWS Tools for Windows PowerShell

2013.04.14 All AMIs

• Microsoft security updates current to April 2013

• Current AWS Tools for Windows PowerShell
• AWS CloudFormation helper scripts version 1.3.14

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Release Changes

2013.03.14 All AMIs

• Microsoft security updates current to March 2013

• EC2Config service version 2.1.14
• Citrix Agent with CPU heartbeat fix
• Current AWS Tools for Windows PowerShell
• AWS CloudFormation helper scripts version 1.3.11

2013.02.22 All AMIs

• Microsoft security updates current to February 2013

• KB2800213
• Windows PowerShell 3.0 upgrade
• EC2Config service version 2.1.13
• Citrix Agent with time fix
• Citrix PV drivers dated 2011.07.19
• Current AWS Tools for Windows PowerShell
• AWS CloudFormation helper scripts version 1.3.8

Only AMIs with Microsoft SQL Server

• Microsoft SQL Server 2012 cumulative update package 5

Monthly AMI updates for 2012

Release Changes

2012.12.12 All AMIs

• Microsoft security updates current to December 2012

• Set the ActiveTimeBias registry value to 0
• Disable IPv6 for the network adapter
• EC2Config service version 2.1.9
• Add AWS Tools for Windows PowerShell and set the policy to allow import-
module

2012.11.15 All AMIs

• Microsoft security updates current to November 2012

• EC2Config service version 2.1.7

2012.10.10 All AMIs

• Microsoft security updates current to October 2012

2012.08.15 All AMIs

• Microsoft security updates current to August 2012

• EC2Config service version 2.1.2

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• KB2545227

2012.07.11 All AMIs

• Microsoft security updates current to July 2012

2012.06.12 All AMIs

• Microsoft security updates current to June 2012

• Set page file to 4 GB
• Remove installed language packs
• Set performance option to "Adjust for best performance"
• Set the screen saver to no longer display the logon screen on resume
• Remove previous RedHat driver versions using pnputil
• Remove duplicate bootloaders and set bootstatuspolicy to ignoreallfailures
using bcdedit

2012.05.10 All AMIs

• Microsoft security updates current to May 2012

• EC2Config service version 2.1.0

2012.04.11 All AMIs

• Microsoft security updates current to April 2012

• KB2582281
• Current version of EC2Config
• System time in UTC instead of GMT

2012.03.13 All AMIs

• Microsoft security updates current to March 2012

2012.02.24 All AMIs

• Microsoft security updates current to February 2012

• Standardize AMI names and descriptions

2012.01.12 All AMIs

• Microsoft security updates current to January 2012

• RedHat PV driver version 1.3.10

Monthly AMI updates for 2011 and earlier

Release Changes

2011.09.11 All AMIs

• Microsoft security updates current to September 2011

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Release Changes

1.04 All AMIs

• Current Microsoft security updates

• Update network driver
• Fix issue with instances in a VPC losing connectivity when changing the time
zone of the instance

1.02 All AMIs

• Current Microsoft security updates

• Update network driver
• Add support for licensing activation for instances in a VPC

1.01 All AMIs

• Current Microsoft security updates

• Fix issue with password improperly generated while waiting for network
availability

1.0 All AMIs

• Initial release

Find a Windows AMI

Before you can launch an instance, you must select an AMI to use. As you select an AMI, consider the
following requirements you might have for the instances that you'll launch:

• The Region
• The operating system
• The architecture: 32-bit (i386) or 64-bit (x86_64)
• The provider (for example, Amazon Web Services)
• Additional software (for example, SQL server)

If you need to find a Linux AMI, see Find a Linux AMI in the Amazon EC2 User Guide for Linux Instances.

Contents
• Find a Windows AMI using the Amazon EC2 console (p. 100)
• Find an AMI using the AWS Tools for Windows PowerShell (p. 101)
• Find an AMI using the AWS CLI (p. 101)
• Find the latest Windows AMI using Systems Manager (p. 102)
• Use a Systems Manager parameter to find an AMI (p. 102)

Find a Windows AMI using the Amazon EC2 console

You can find Windows AMIs using the Amazon EC2 console. You can select from the list of AMIs when
you use the launch wizard to launch an instance, or you can search through all available AMIs using the
Images page. AMI IDs are unique to each AWS Region.

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Find an AMI using the AWS Tools for Windows PowerShell

To find a Windows AMI using the launch wizard

1. Open the Amazon EC2 console at https://console.aws.amazon.com/ec2/.

2. From the navigation bar, select the Region in which to launch your instances. You can select any
Region that's available to you, regardless of your location.
3. From the console dashboard, choose Launch instance.
4. On the Quick Start tab, select from one of the commonly used AMIs in the list. If you don't
see the AMI that you need, select the My AMIs, AWS Marketplace, or Community AMIs tab
to find additional AMIs. For more information, see Step 1: Choose an Amazon Machine Image
(AMI) (p. 396).

To find a Windows AMI using the Images page

1. Open the Amazon EC2 console at https://console.aws.amazon.com/ec2/.

2. From the navigation bar, select the Region in which to launch your instances. You can select any
Region that's available to you, regardless of your location.
3. In the navigation pane, choose AMIs.
4. (Optional) Use the Filter options to scope the list of displayed AMIs to see only the AMIs that
interest you. For example, to list all Windows AMIs provided by AWS, select Public images. Choose
the Search bar and select Owner from the menu, then select Amazon images. Choose the Search
bar again to select Platform and then the operating system from the list provided.
5. (Optional) Choose the Show/Hide Columns icon to select which image attributes to display, such as
the root device type. Alternatively, you can select an AMI from the list and view its properties in the
Details tab.
6. To launch an instance from this AMI, select it and then choose Launch. For more information about
launching an instance using the console, see Launching your instance from an AMI (p. 397). If
you're not ready to launch the instance now, make note of the AMI ID for later.

Find an AMI using the AWS Tools for Windows

PowerShell
You can use cmdlets for Amazon EC2 or AWS Systems Manager to list only the Windows AMIs that meet
your needs. After locating an AMI that meets your needs, make note of its ID so that you can use it to
launch instances. For more information, see Launch an Instance Using Windows PowerShell in the AWS
Tools for Windows PowerShell User Guide.

Amazon EC2

For information and examples, see Find an AMI Using Windows PowerShell in the AWS Tools for Windows
PowerShell User Guide.

Systems Manager Parameter Store

For information and examples, see Query for the Latest Windows AMI Using Systems Manager Parameter
Store.

Find an AMI using the AWS CLI

You can use AWS CLI commands for Amazon EC2 or AWS Systems Manager to list only the Windows AMIs
that meet your needs. After locating an AMI that meets your needs, make note of its ID so that you can
use it to launch instances. For more information, see Launching an Instance Using the AWS CLI in the
AWS Command Line Interface User Guide.

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Amazon EC2

The describe-images command supports filtering parameters. For example, use the --owners parameter
to display public AMIs owned by Amazon.

aws ec2 describe-images --owners self amazon

You can add the following filter to the previous command to display only Windows AMIs:

--filters "Name=platform,Values=windows"

Important
Omitting the --owners flag from the describe-images command will return all images for
which you have launch permissions, regardless of ownership.

Systems Manager Parameter Store

For information and examples, see Query for the Latest Windows AMI Using Systems Manager Parameter
Store.

Find the latest Windows AMI using Systems Manager

Amazon EC2 provides AWS Systems Manager public parameters for AWS-maintained public AMIs that
you can use when launching instances.

The Amazon EC2 AMI public parameters are available from the following path:

/aws/service/ami-windows-latest

You can view a list of all Windows AMIs in the current AWS Region by using the following command in
the AWS CLI.

aws ssm get-parameters-by-path --path /aws/service/ami-windows-latest --query

"Parameters[].Name"

For more information, see Using public parameters in the AWS Systems Manager User Guide and Query
for the Latest Windows AMI Using AWS Systems Manager Parameter Store.

Use a Systems Manager parameter to find an AMI

When you launch an instance using the EC2 launch wizard in the console, you can either select an AMI
from the list, or you can select an AWS Systems Manager parameter that points to an AMI ID. If you use
automation code to launch your instances, you can specify the Systems Manager parameter instead of
the AMI ID.

A Systems Manager parameter is a customer-defined key-value pair that you can create in Systems
Manager Parameter Store. The Parameter Store provides a central store to externalize your application
configuration values. For more information, see AWS Systems Manager Parameter Store in the AWS
Systems Manager User Guide.

When you create a parameter that points to an AMI ID, make sure that you specify the data type as
aws:ec2:image. This data type ensures that when the parameter is created or modified, the parameter
value is validated as an AMI ID. For more information, see Native parameter support for Amazon Machine
Image IDs in the AWS Systems Manager User Guide.

Contents

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• Use cases (p. 103)

• Launch an instance using a Systems Manager parameter (p. 103)
• Permissions (p. 104)
• Limitations (p. 105)

Use cases
By using Systems Manager parameters to point to AMI IDs, you can make it easier for your users to select
the correct AMI when launching instances, and you can simplify the maintenance of automation code.

Easier for users

If you require instances to be launched using a specific AMI, and if that AMI is updated regularly, we
recommend that you require your users to select a Systems Manager parameter to find the AMI. By
requiring your users to select a Systems Manager parameter, you can ensure that the latest AMI is used
to launch instances.

For example, every month in your organization you might create a new version of your AMI that has
the latest operating system and application patches. You also require your users to launch instances
using the latest version of your AMI. To ensure that your users use the latest version, you can create a
Systems Manager parameter (for example, golden-ami) that points to the correct AMI ID. Each time a
new version of the AMI is created, you update the AMI ID value in the parameter so that it always points
to the latest AMI. Your users don't need to know about the periodic updates to the AMI, because they
continue to select the same Systems Manager parameter every time. By having users select a Systems
Manager parameter, you make it easier for them to select the correct AMI for an instance launch.

Simplify automation code maintenance

If you use automation code to launch your instances, you can specify the Systems Manager parameter
instead of the AMI ID. If a new version of the AMI is created, you change the AMI ID value in the
parameter so that it points to the latest AMI. The automation code that references the parameter doesn’t
need to be modified every time a new version of the AMI is created. This greatly simplifies maintenance
of automation and helps drive down deployment costs.
Note
Running instances are not affected when you change the AMI ID to which the Systems Manager
parameter points.

Launch an instance using a Systems Manager parameter

You can launch an instance using the console or the AWS CLI. Instead of specifying an AMI ID, you can
specify an AWS Systems Manager parameter that points to an AMI ID.

To find a Windows AMI using a Systems Manager parameter (console)

1. Open the Amazon EC2 console at https://console.aws.amazon.com/ec2/.

2. From the navigation bar, select the Region in which to launch your instances. You can select any
Region that's available to you, regardless of your location.
3. From the console dashboard, choose Launch instance.
4. Choose Search by Systems Manager parameter (at top right).
5. For Systems Manager parameter, select a parameter. The corresponding AMI ID appears next to
Currently resolves to.
6. Choose Search. The AMIs that match the AMI ID appear in the list.
7. Select the AMI from the list, and choose Select.

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For more information about launching an instance from an AMI using the launch wizard, see Step 1:
Choose an Amazon Machine Image (AMI) (p. 396).

To launch an instance using an AWS Systems Manager parameter instead of an AMI ID (AWS CLI)

The following example uses the Systems Manager parameter golden-ami to launch an m5.xlarge
instance. The parameter points to an AMI ID.

To specify the parameter in the command, use the following syntax: resolve:ssm:/parameter-name,
where resolve:ssm is the standard prefix and parameter-name is the unique parameter name. Note
that the parameter name is case-sensitive. Backslashes for the parameter name are only necessary when
the parameter is part of a hierarchy, for example, /amis/production/golden-ami. You can omit the
backslash if the parameter is not part of a hierarchy.

In this example, the --count and --security-group parameters are not included. For --count, the
default is 1. If you have a default VPC and a default security group, they are used.

aws ec2 run-instances

--image-id resolve:ssm:/golden-ami
--instance-type m5.xlarge
...

To launch an instance using a specific version of an AWS Systems Manager parameter (AWS CLI)

Systems Manager parameters have version support. Each iteration of a parameter is assigned a unique
version number. You can reference the version of the parameter as follows resolve:ssm:parameter-
name:version, where version is the unique version number. By default, the latest version of the
parameter is used when no version is specified.

The following example uses version 2 of the parameter.

In this example, the --count and --security-group parameters are not included. For --count, the
default is 1. If you have a default VPC and a default security group, they are used.

aws ec2 run-instances

--image-id resolve:ssm:/golden-ami:2
--instance-type m5.xlarge
...

To launch an instance using a public parameter provided by AWS

Amazon EC2 provides Systems Manager public parameters for public AMIs provided by AWS. For
example, the public parameter /aws/service/ami-amazon-linux-latest/amzn2-ami-hvm-x86_64-gp2 is
available in all Regions and always points to the latest version of the Amazon Linux 2 AMI in the Region.

aws ec2 run-instances

--image-id resolve:ssm:/aws/service/ami-amazon-linux-latest/amzn2-ami-hvm-x86_64-gp2
--instance-type m5.xlarge
...

Permissions
If you use Systems Manager parameters that point to AMI IDs in the launch instance wizard,
you must add ssm:DescribeParameters and ssm:GetParameters to your IAM policy.
ssm:DescribeParameters grants your IAM users the permission to view and select Systems Manager
parameters. ssm:GetParameters grants your IAM users the permission to get the values of the
Systems Manager parameters. You can also restrict access to specific Systems Manager parameters. For
more information, see Use the EC2 launch wizard (p. 1120).

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Shared AMIs

Limitations
AMIs and Systems Manager parameters are Region specific. To use the same Systems Manager parameter
name across Regions, create a Systems Manager parameter in each Region with the same name (for
example, golden-ami). In each Region, point the Systems Manager parameter to an AMI in that Region.

Shared AMIs
A shared AMI is an AMI that a developer created and made available for others to use. One of the easiest
ways to get started with Amazon EC2 is to use a shared AMI that has the components you need and then
add custom content. You can also create your own AMIs and share them with others.

You use a shared AMI at your own risk. Amazon can't vouch for the integrity or security of AMIs shared
by other Amazon EC2 users. Therefore, you should treat shared AMIs as you would any foreign code that
you might consider deploying in your own data center and perform the appropriate due diligence. We
recommend that you get an AMI from a trusted source.

Amazon's public images have an aliased owner, which appears as amazon in the account field. This
enables you to find AMIs from Amazon easily. Other users can't alias their AMIs.

For information about creating an AMI, see Create a custom Windows AMI. For information about
building, delivering, and maintaining your applications on the AWS Marketplace, see the AWS
Marketplace Documentation.

Contents
• Find shared AMIs (p. 105)
• Make an AMI public (p. 107)
• Share an AMI with specific AWS accounts (p. 109)
• Use bookmarks (p. 111)
• Best Practices for shared Windows AMIs (p. 111)

Find shared AMIs

You can use the Amazon EC2 console or the command line to find shared AMIs.

AMIs are a regional resource. Therefore, when searching for a shared AMI (public or private), you must
search for it from within the Region from which it is being shared. To make an AMI available in a different
Region, copy the AMI to the Region and then share it. For more information, see Copy an AMI (p. 116).

Topics
• Find a shared AMI (console) (p. 105)
• Find a shared AMI (Tools for Windows PowerShell) (p. 106)
• Find a shared AMI (AWS CLI) (p. 106)

Find a shared AMI (console)

To find a shared private AMI using the console

1. Open the Amazon EC2 console at https://console.aws.amazon.com/ec2/.

2. In the navigation pane, choose AMIs.
3. In the first filter, choose Private images. All AMIs that have been shared with you are listed. To
granulate your search, choose the Search bar and use the filter options provided in the menu.

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Find shared AMIs

To find a shared public AMI using the console

1. Open the Amazon EC2 console at https://console.aws.amazon.com/ec2/.

2. In the navigation pane, choose AMIs.
3. In the first filter, choose Public images. To granulate your search, choose the Search bar and use the
filter options provided in the menu.
4. Use filters to list only the types of AMIs that interest you. For example, choose Owner : and then
choose Amazon images to display only Amazon's public images.

Find a shared AMI (Tools for Windows PowerShell)

Use the Get-EC2Image command (Tools for Windows PowerShell) to list AMIs. You can scope the list to
the types of AMIs that interest you, as shown in the following examples.

Example: List all public AMIs

The following command lists all public AMIs, including any public AMIs that you own.

PS C:\> Get-EC2Image -ExecutableUser all

Example: List AMIs with explicit launch permissions

The following command lists the AMIs for which you have explicit launch permissions. This list does not
include any AMIs that you own.

PS C:\> Get-EC2Image -ExecutableUser self

Example: List AMIs owned by Amazon

The following command lists the AMIs owned by Amazon. Amazon's public AMIs have an aliased owner,
which appears as amazon in the account field. This enables you to find AMIs from Amazon easily. Other
users can't alias their AMIs.

PS C:\> Get-EC2Image -Owner amazon

Example: List AMIs owned by an account

The following command lists the AMIs owned by the specified AWS account.

PS C:\> Get-EC2Image -Owner 123456789012

Example: Scope AMIs using a filter

To reduce the number of displayed AMIs, use a filter to list only the types of AMIs that interest you. For
example, use the following filter to display only EBS-backed AMIs.

-Filter @{ Name="root-device-type"; Values="ebs" }

Find a shared AMI (AWS CLI)

Use the describe-images command (AWS CLI) to list AMIs. You can scope the list to the types of AMIs that
interest you, as shown in the following examples.

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Example: List all public AMIs

The following command lists all public AMIs, including any public AMIs that you own.

aws ec2 describe-images --executable-users all

Example: List AMIs with explicit launch permissions

The following command lists the AMIs for which you have explicit launch permissions. This list does not
include any AMIs that you own.

aws ec2 describe-images --executable-users self

Example: List AMIs owned by Amazon

The following command lists the AMIs owned by Amazon. Amazon's public AMIs have an aliased owner,
which appears as amazon in the account field. This enables you to find AMIs from Amazon easily. Other
users can't alias their AMIs.

aws ec2 describe-images --owners amazon

Example: List AMIs owned by an account

The following command lists the AMIs owned by the specified AWS account.

aws ec2 describe-images --owners 123456789012

Example: Scope AMIs using a filter

To reduce the number of displayed AMIs, use a filter to list only the types of AMIs that interest you. For
example, use the following filter to display only EBS-backed AMIs.

--filters "Name=root-device-type,Values=ebs"

Make an AMI public

Amazon EC2 enables you to share your AMIs with other AWS accounts. You can allow all AWS accounts to
use the AMI to launch instances (by making the AMI public), or only allow a few specific accounts to use
the AMI to launch instances (see Share an AMI with specific AWS accounts (p. 109)). You are not billed
when your AMI is used by other AWS accounts to launch instances; only the accounts launching instances
using the AMI are billed for the instances they launch.

AMIs with encrypted volumes cannot be made public.

AMIs are a regional resource. Therefore, sharing an AMI makes it available in that Region. To make an AMI
available in a different Region, copy the AMI to the Region and then share it. For more information, see
Copy an AMI (p. 116).

If an AMI has a product code, or contains a snapshot of an encrypted volume, you can't make it public;
you can share the AMI only with specific AWS accounts.

Topics
• Share an AMI with all AWS accounts (console) (p. 108)
• Share an AMI with all AWS accounts (Tools for Windows PowerShell) (p. 108)
• Share an AMI with all AWS accounts (AWS CLI) (p. 108)

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Share an AMI with all AWS accounts (console)

After you make an AMI public, it is available in Community AMIs when you launch an instance in the
same Region using the console. Note that it can take a short while for an AMI to appear in Community
AMIs after you make it public. It can also take a short while for an AMI to be removed from Community
AMIs after you make it private again.

To share a public AMI using the console

1. Open the Amazon EC2 console at https://console.aws.amazon.com/ec2/.

2. In the navigation pane, choose AMIs.
3. Select your AMI from the list, and then choose Actions, Modify Image Permissions.
4. Choose Public and choose Save.

Share an AMI with all AWS accounts (Tools for Windows

PowerShell)
Each AMI has a launchPermission property that controls which AWS accounts, besides the owner's,
are allowed to use that AMI to launch instances. By modifying the launchPermission property of an
AMI, you can make the AMI public (which grants launch permissions to all AWS accounts) or share it with
only the AWS accounts that you specify.

You can add or remove account IDs from the list of accounts that have launch permissions for an AMI. To
make the AMI public, specify the all group. You can specify both public and explicit launch permissions.

To make an AMI public

1. Use the Edit-EC2ImageAttribute command as follows to add the all group to the
launchPermission list for the specified AMI.

PS C:\> Edit-EC2ImageAttribute -ImageId ami-0abcdef1234567890 -Attribute

launchPermission -OperationType add -UserGroup all

2. To verify the launch permissions of the AMI, use the following Get-EC2ImageAttribute command.

PS C:\> Get-EC2ImageAttribute -ImageId ami-0abcdef1234567890 -Attribute

launchPermission

3. (Optional) To make the AMI private again, remove the all group from its launch permissions.
Note that the owner of the AMI always has launch permissions and is therefore unaffected by this
command.

PS C:\> Edit-EC2ImageAttribute -ImageId ami-0abcdef1234567890 -Attribute

launchPermission -OperationType remove -UserGroup all

Share an AMI with all AWS accounts (AWS CLI)

Each AMI has a launchPermission property that controls which AWS accounts, besides the owner's,
are allowed to use that AMI to launch instances. By modifying the launchPermission property of an
AMI, you can make the AMI public (which grants launch permissions to all AWS accounts) or share it with
only the AWS accounts that you specify.

You can add or remove account IDs from the list of accounts that have launch permissions for an AMI. To
make the AMI public, specify the all group. You can specify both public and explicit launch permissions.

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To make an AMI public

1. Use the modify-image-attribute command as follows to add the all group to the
launchPermission list for the specified AMI.

aws ec2 modify-image-attribute \

--image-id ami-0abcdef1234567890 \
--launch-permission "Add=[{Group=all}]"

2. To verify the launch permissions of the AMI, use the describe-image-attribute command.

aws ec2 describe-image-attribute \

--image-id ami-0abcdef1234567890 \
--attribute launchPermission

3. (Optional) To make the AMI private again, remove the all group from its launch permissions.
Note that the owner of the AMI always has launch permissions and is therefore unaffected by this
command.

aws ec2 modify-image-attribute \

--image-id ami-0abcdef1234567890 \
--launch-permission "Remove=[{Group=all}]"

Share an AMI with specific AWS accounts

You can share an AMI with specific AWS accounts without making the AMI public. All you need is the AWS
account IDs. You can only share AMIs that have unencrypted volumes and volumes that are encrypted
with a customer managed key. If you share an AMI with encrypted volumes, you must also share any
customer managed keys used to encrypt them. For more information, see Share an Amazon EBS
snapshot (p. 1247). You cannot share an AMI that has volumes that are encrypted with an AWS managed
key.

AMIs are a regional resource. Therefore, sharing an AMI makes it available in that Region. To make an AMI
available in a different Region, copy the AMI to the Region and then share it. For more information, see
Copy an AMI (p. 116).

There is no limit to the number of AWS accounts with which an AMI can be shared. User-defined tags
that you attach to a shared AMI are available only to your AWS account and not to the other accounts
that the AMI is shared with.

Share an AMI (console)

To grant explicit launch permissions using the console

1. Open the Amazon EC2 console at https://console.aws.amazon.com/ec2/.

2. In the navigation pane, choose AMIs.
3. Select your AMI in the list, and then choose Actions, Modify Image Permissions.
4. Specify the AWS account number of the user with whom you want to share the AMI in the AWS
Account Number field, then choose Add Permission.

To share this AMI with multiple users, repeat this step until you have added all the required users.
Note
You do not need to share the Amazon EBS snapshots that an AMI references in order to
share the AMI. Only the AMI itself needs to be shared; the system automatically provides

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the instance access to the referenced Amazon EBS snapshots for the launch. However, you
do need to share any KMS keys used to encrypt snapshots that the AMI references. For more
information, see Share an Amazon EBS snapshot (p. 1247).
5. Choose Save when you are done.
6. (Optional) To view the AWS account IDs with which you have shared the AMI, select the AMI in
the list, and choose the Permissions tab. To find AMIs that are shared with you, see Find shared
AMIs (p. 105).

Share an AMI (Tools for Windows PowerShell)

Use the Edit-EC2ImageAttribute command (Tools for Windows PowerShell) to share an AMI as shown in
the following examples.

To grant explicit launch permissions

The following command grants launch permissions for the specified AMI to the specified AWS account.

PS C:\> Edit-EC2ImageAttribute -ImageId ami-0abcdef1234567890 -Attribute launchPermission -

OperationType add -UserId "123456789012"

Note
You do not need to share the Amazon EBS snapshots that an AMI references in order to share
the AMI. Only the AMI itself needs to be shared; the system automatically provides the instance
access to the referenced Amazon EBS snapshots for the launch. However, you do need to share
any KMS keys used to encrypt snapshots that the AMI references. For more information, see
Share an Amazon EBS snapshot (p. 1247).

To remove launch permissions for an account

The following command removes launch permissions for the specified AMI from the specified AWS
account:

PS C:\> Edit-EC2ImageAttribute -ImageId ami-0abcdef1234567890 -Attribute launchPermission -

OperationType remove -UserId "123456789012"

To remove all launch permissions

The following command removes all public and explicit launch permissions from the specified AMI. Note
that the owner of the AMI always has launch permissions and is therefore unaffected by this command.

PS C:\> Reset-EC2ImageAttribute -ImageId ami-0abcdef1234567890 -Attribute launchPermission

Share an AMI (AWS CLI)

Use the modify-image-attribute command (AWS CLI) to share an AMI as shown in the following
examples.

To grant explicit launch permissions

The following command grants launch permissions for the specified AMI to the specified AWS account.

aws ec2 modify-image-attribute \

--image-id ami-0abcdef1234567890 \
--launch-permission "Add=[{UserId=123456789012}]"

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Use bookmarks

Note
You do not need to share the Amazon EBS snapshots that an AMI references in order to share
the AMI. Only the AMI itself needs to be shared; the system automatically provides the instance
access to the referenced Amazon EBS snapshots for the launch. However, you do need to share
any KMS keys used to encrypt snapshots that the AMI references. For more information, see
Share an Amazon EBS snapshot (p. 1247).

To remove launch permissions for an account

The following command removes launch permissions for the specified AMI from the specified AWS
account:

aws ec2 modify-image-attribute \

--image-id ami-0abcdef1234567890 \
--launch-permission "Remove=[{UserId=123456789012}]"

To remove all launch permissions

The following command removes all public and explicit launch permissions from the specified AMI. Note
that the owner of the AMI always has launch permissions and is therefore unaffected by this command.

aws ec2 reset-image-attribute \

--image-id ami-0abcdef1234567890 \
--attribute launchPermission

Use bookmarks
If you have created a public AMI, or shared an AMI with another AWS user, you can create a bookmark
that allows a user to access your AMI and launch an instance in their own account immediately. This is an
easy way to share AMI references, so users don't have to spend time finding your AMI in order to use it.

Note that your AMI must be public, or you must have shared it with the user to whom you want to send
the bookmark.

To create a bookmark for your AMI

1. Type a URL with the following information, where region is the Region in which your AMI resides:

https://console.aws.amazon.com/ec2/v2/home?
region=region#LaunchInstanceWizard:ami=ami_id

For example, this URL launches an instance from the ami-0abcdef1234567890 AMI in the us-east-1
Region:

https://console.aws.amazon.com/ec2/v2/home?region=us-
east-1#LaunchInstanceWizard:ami=ami-0abcdef1234567890

2. Distribute the link to users who want to use your AMI.

3. To use a bookmark, choose the link or copy and paste it into your browser. The launch wizard opens,
with the AMI already selected.

Best Practices for shared Windows AMIs

Use the following guidelines to reduce the attack surface and improve the reliability of the AMIs you
create.

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• No list of security guidelines can be exhaustive. Build your shared AMIs carefully and take time to
consider where you might expose sensitive data.
• Develop a repeatable process for building, updating, and republishing AMIs.
• Build AMIs using the most up-to-date operating systems, packages, and software.
• Download and install the latest version of the EC2Config service. For more information about installing
this service, see Install the latest version of EC2Config (p. 503).
• Verify that Ec2SetPassword, Ec2WindowsActivate and Ec2HandleUserData are enabled.
• Verify that no guest accounts or Remote Desktop user accounts are present.
• Disable or remove unnecessary services and programs to reduce the attack surface of your AMI.
• Remove instance credentials, such as your key pair, from the AMI (if you saved them on the AMI). Store
the credentials in a safe location.
• Ensure that the administrator password and passwords on any other accounts are set to an appropriate
value for sharing. These passwords are available for anyone who launches your shared AMI.
• Test your AMI before you share it.

Paid AMIs
After you create an AMI, you can keep it private so that only you can use it, or you can share it with a
specified list of AWS accounts. You can also make your custom AMI public so that the community can use
it. Building a safe, secure, usable AMI for public consumption is a fairly straightforward process, if you
follow a few simple guidelines. For information about how to create and use shared AMIs, see Shared
AMIs (p. 105).

You can purchase AMIs from a third party, including AMIs that come with service contracts from
organizations such as Red Hat. You can also create an AMI and sell it to other Amazon EC2 users.

A paid AMI is an AMI that you can purchase from a developer.

Amazon EC2 integrates with AWS Marketplace, enabling developers to charge other Amazon EC2 users
for the use of their AMIs or to provide support for instances.

The AWS Marketplace is an online store where you can buy software that runs on AWS, including AMIs
that you can use to launch your EC2 instance. The AWS Marketplace AMIs are organized into categories,
such as Developer Tools, to enable you to find products to suit your requirements. For more information
about AWS Marketplace, see the AWS Marketplace site.

Launching an instance from a paid AMI is the same as launching an instance from any other AMI. No
additional parameters are required. The instance is charged according to the rates set by the owner of
the AMI, as well as the standard usage fees for the related web services, for example, the hourly rate for
running an m1.small instance type in Amazon EC2. Additional taxes might also apply. The owner of the
paid AMI can confirm whether a specific instance was launched using that paid AMI.
Important
Amazon DevPay is no longer accepting new sellers or products. AWS Marketplace is now
the single, unified e-commerce platform for selling software and services through AWS. For
information about how to deploy and sell software from AWS Marketplace, see Selling in AWS
Marketplace. AWS Marketplace supports AMIs backed by Amazon EBS.

Contents
• Sell your AMI (p. 113)
• Find a paid AMI (p. 113)
• Purchase a paid AMI (p. 114)
• Get the product code for your instance (p. 115)

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• Use paid support (p. 115)

• Bills for paid and supported AMIs (p. 115)
• Manage your AWS Marketplace subscriptions (p. 115)

Sell your AMI

You can sell your AMI using AWS Marketplace. AWS Marketplace offers an organized shopping
experience. Additionally, AWS Marketplace also supports AWS features such as Amazon EBS-backed
AMIs, Reserved Instances, and Spot Instances.

For information about how to sell your AMI on the AWS Marketplace, see Selling in AWS Marketplace.

Find a paid AMI

There are several ways that you can find AMIs that are available for you to purchase. For example, you
can use AWS Marketplace, the Amazon EC2 console, or the command line. Alternatively, a developer
might let you know about a paid AMI themselves.

Find a paid AMI using the console

To find a paid AMI using the console

1. Open the Amazon EC2 console at https://console.aws.amazon.com/ec2/.

2. In the navigation pane, choose AMIs.
3. Choose Public images for the first filter.
4. In the Search bar, choose Owner, then AWS Marketplace.
5. If you know the product code, choose Product Code, then type the product code.

Find a paid AMI using AWS Marketplace

To find a paid AMI using AWS Marketplace

1. Open AWS Marketplace.

2. Enter the name of the operating system in the search box, and click Go.
3. To scope the results further, use one of the categories or filters.
4. Each product is labeled with its product type: either AMI or Software as a Service.

Find a paid AMI using the Tools for Windows PowerShell

You can find a paid AMI using the following Get-EC2Image command.

PS C:\> Get-EC2Image -Owner aws-marketplace

The output for a paid AMI includes the product code.

ProductCodeId ProductCodeType
------------- ---------------
product_code marketplace

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If you know the product code, you can filter the results by product code. This example returns the most
recent AMI with the specified product code.

PS C:\> (Get-EC2Image -Owner aws-marketplace -Filter @{"Name"="product-

code";"Value"="product_code"} | sort CreationDate -Descending | Select-Object -First
1).ImageId

Find a paid AMI using the AWS CLI

You can find a paid AMI using the following describe-images command (AWS CLI).

aws ec2 describe-images

--owners aws-marketplace

This command returns numerous details that describe each AMI, including the product code for a paid
AMI. The output from describe-images includes an entry for the product code like the following:

"ProductCodes": [
{
"ProductCodeId": "product_code",
"ProductCodeType": "marketplace"
}
],

If you know the product code, you can filter the results by product code. This example returns the most
recent AMI with the specified product code.

aws ec2 describe-images

--owners aws-marketplace \
--filters "Name=product-code,Values=product_code" \
--query "sort_by(Images, &CreationDate)[-1].[ImageId]"

Purchase a paid AMI

You must sign up for (purchase) a paid AMI before you can launch an instance using the AMI.

Typically a seller of a paid AMI presents you with information about the AMI, including its price and a
link where you can buy it. When you click the link, you're first asked to log into AWS, and then you can
purchase the AMI.

Purchase a paid AMI using the console

You can purchase a paid AMI by using the Amazon EC2 launch wizard. For more information, see Launch
an AWS Marketplace instance (p. 416).

Subscribe to a product using AWS Marketplace

To use the AWS Marketplace, you must have an AWS account. To launch instances from AWS Marketplace
products, you must be signed up to use the Amazon EC2 service, and you must be subscribed to the
product from which to launch the instance. There are two ways to subscribe to products in the AWS
Marketplace:

• AWS Marketplace website: You can launch preconfigured software quickly with the 1-Click
deployment feature.

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• Amazon EC2 launch wizard: You can search for an AMI and launch an instance directly from the
wizard. For more information, see Launch an AWS Marketplace instance (p. 416).

Get the product code for your instance

You can retrieve the AWS Marketplace product code for your instance using its instance metadata. For
more information about retrieving metadata, see Instance metadata and user data (p. 588).

To retrieve a product code, use the following command:

PS C:\> Invoke-RestMethod -uri http://169.254.169.254/latest/meta-data/product-codes

If the instance has a product code, Amazon EC2 returns it.

Use paid support

Amazon EC2 also enables developers to offer support for software (or derived AMIs). Developers can
create support products that you can sign up to use. During sign-up for the support product, the
developer gives you a product code, which you must then associate with your own AMI. This enables
the developer to confirm that your instance is eligible for support. It also ensures that when you run
instances of the product, you are charged according to the terms for the product specified by the
developer.
Important
You can't use a support product with Reserved Instances. You always pay the price that's
specified by the seller of the support product.

To associate a product code with your AMI, use one of the following commands, where ami_id is the ID of
the AMI and product_code is the product code:

• modify-image-attribute (AWS CLI)

aws ec2 modify-image-attribute --image-id ami_id --product-codes "product_code"

• Edit-EC2ImageAttribute (AWS Tools for Windows PowerShell)

PS C:\> Edit-EC2ImageAttribute -ImageId ami_id -ProductCode product_code

After you set the product code attribute, it cannot be changed or removed.

Bills for paid and supported AMIs

At the end of each month, you receive an email with the amount your credit card has been charged for
using any paid or supported AMIs during the month. This bill is separate from your regular Amazon EC2
bill. For more information, see Paying for products in the AWS Marketplace Buyer Guide.

Manage your AWS Marketplace subscriptions

On the AWS Marketplace website, you can check your subscription details, view the vendor's usage
instructions, manage your subscriptions, and more.

To check your subscription details

1. Log in to the AWS Marketplace.

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2. Choose Your Marketplace Account.

3. Choose Manage your software subscriptions.
4. All your current subscriptions are listed. Choose Usage Instructions to view specific instructions for
using the product, for example, a user name for connecting to your running instance.

To cancel an AWS Marketplace subscription

1. Ensure that you have terminated any instances running from the subscription.

a. Open the Amazon EC2 console at https://console.aws.amazon.com/ec2/.

b. In the navigation pane, choose Instances.
c. Select the instance, and choose Actions, Instance State, Terminate.
d. Choose Yes, Terminate when prompted for confirmation.
2. Log in to the AWS Marketplace, and choose Your Marketplace Account, then Manage your software
subscriptions.
3. Choose Cancel subscription. You are prompted to confirm your cancellation.
Note
After you've canceled your subscription, you are no longer able to launch any instances
from that AMI. To use that AMI again, you need to resubscribe to it, either on the AWS
Marketplace website, or through the launch wizard in the Amazon EC2 console.

AMI lifecycle
Topics
• Create an AMI (p. 116)
• Copy an AMI (p. 116)
• Store and restore an AMI using S3 (p. 121)
• Deprecate an AMI (p. 127)
• Automate the EBS-backed AMI lifecycle (p. 130)

Create an AMI
For information about how to create a Windows AMI, see Create a custom Windows AMI (p. 37).

For information about how to create a Linux AMI, see Create an Amazon EBS-backed Linux AMI and
Create an instance store-backed Linux AMI.

Copy an AMI
You can copy an Amazon Machine Image (AMI) within or across AWS Regions. You can copy both Amazon
EBS-backed AMIs and instance-store-backed AMIs. You can copy AMIs with encrypted snapshots and also
change encryption status during the copy process. You can copy AMIs that are shared with you.

Copying a source AMI results in an identical but distinct target AMI with its own unique identifier. You can
change or deregister the source AMI with no effect on the target AMI. The reverse is also true.

With an Amazon EBS-backed AMI, each of its backing snapshots is copied to an identical but distinct
target snapshot. If you copy an AMI to a new Region, the snapshots are complete (non-incremental)
copies. If you encrypt unencrypted backing snapshots or encrypt them to a new KMS key, the snapshots

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are complete (non-incremental) copies. Subsequent copy operations of an AMI result in incremental
copies of the backing snapshots.

There are no charges for copying an AMI. However, standard storage and data transfer rates apply. If you
copy an EBS-backed AMI, you will incur charges for the storage of any additional EBS snapshots.

Considerations

• You can use IAM policies to grant or deny users permissions to copy AMIs. Resource-level permissions
specified for the CopyImage action apply only to the new AMI. You cannot specify resource-level
permissions for the source AMI.
• AWS does not copy launch permissions, user-defined tags, or Amazon S3 bucket permissions from the
source AMI to the new AMI. After the copy operation is complete, you can apply launch permissions,
user-defined tags, and Amazon S3 bucket permissions to the new AMI.
• If you are using an AWS Marketplace AMI, or an AMI that was directly or indirectly derived from an
AWS Marketplace AMI, you cannot copy it across accounts. Instead, launch an EC2 instance using the
AWS Marketplace AMI and then create an AMI from the instance. For more information, see Create a
custom Windows AMI (p. 37).

Contents
• Permissions for copying an instance store-backed AMI (p. 117)
• Copy an AMI (p. 118)
• Stop a pending AMI copy operation (p. 119)
• Cross-Region copying (p. 119)
• Cross-account copying (p. 120)
• Encryption and copying (p. 121)

Permissions for copying an instance store-backed AMI

If you use an IAM user to copy an instance store-backed AMI, the user must have the following Amazon
S3 permissions: s3:CreateBucket, s3:GetBucketAcl, s3:ListAllMyBuckets, s3:GetObject,
s3:PutObject, and s3:PutObjectAcl.

The following example policy allows the user to copy the AMI source in the specified bucket to the
specified Region.

{
"Version": "2012-10-17",
"Statement": [
{
"Effect": "Allow",
"Action": "s3:ListAllMyBuckets",
"Resource": [
"arn:aws:s3:::*"
]
},
{
"Effect": "Allow",
"Action": "s3:GetObject",
"Resource": [
"arn:aws:s3:::ami-source-bucket/*"
]
},
{
"Effect": "Allow",

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"Action": [
"s3:CreateBucket",
"s3:GetBucketAcl",
"s3:PutObjectAcl",
"s3:PutObject"
],
"Resource": [
"arn:aws:s3:::amis-for-123456789012-in-us-east-1*"
]
}
]
}

To find the Amazon Resource Name (ARN) of the AMI source bucket, open the Amazon EC2 console at
https://console.aws.amazon.com/ec2/, in the navigation pane choose AMIs, and locate the bucket name
in the Source column.
Note
The s3:CreateBucket permission is only needed the first time that the IAM user copies an
instance store-backed AMI to an individual Region. After that, the Amazon S3 bucket that is
already created in the Region is used to store all future AMIs that you copy to that Region.

Copy an AMI
You can copy an AMI using the AWS Management Console, the AWS Command Line Interface or SDKs, or
the Amazon EC2 API, all of which support the CopyImage action.

Prerequisite

Create or obtain an AMI backed by an Amazon EBS snapshot. Note that you can use the Amazon EC2
console to search a wide variety of AMIs provided by AWS. For more information, see Create a custom
Windows AMI (p. 37) and Finding an AMI.

To copy an AMI using the console

1. Open the Amazon EC2 console at https://console.aws.amazon.com/ec2/.

2. From the console navigation bar, select the Region that contains the AMI. In the navigation pane,
choose Images, AMIs to display the list of AMIs available to you in the Region.
3. Select the AMI to copy and choose Actions, Copy AMI.
4. In the Copy AMI dialog box, specify the following information and then choose Copy AMI:

• Destination region: The Region in which to copy the AMI. For more information, see Cross-Region
copying (p. 119).
• Name: A name for the new AMI. You can include operating system information in the name, as we
do not provide this information when displaying details about the AMI.
• Description: By default, the description includes information about the source AMI so that you can
distinguish a copy from its original. You can change this description as needed.
• Encryption: Select this field to encrypt the target snapshots, or to re-encrypt them using a
different key. If you have enabled encryption by default (p. 1344), the Encryption option is set
and cannot be unset. For more information, see Encryption and copying (p. 121).
• KMS Key: The KMS key to used to encrypt the target snapshots.
5. We display a confirmation page to let you know that the copy operation has been initiated and to
provide you with the ID of the new AMI.

To check on the progress of the copy operation immediately, follow the provided link. To check on
the progress later, choose Done, and then when you are ready, use the navigation bar to switch to
the target Region (if applicable) and locate your AMI in the list of AMIs.

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The initial status of the target AMI is pending and the operation is complete when the status is
available.

To copy an AMI using the AWS CLI

You can copy an AMI using the copy-image command. You must specify both the source and destination
Regions. You specify the source Region using the --source-region parameter. You can specify
the destination Region using either the --region parameter or an environment variable. For more
information, see Configuring the AWS Command Line Interface.

When you encrypt a target snapshot during copying, you must specify these additional parameters: --
encrypted and --kms-key-id.

To copy an AMI using the Tools for Windows PowerShell

You can copy an AMI using the Copy-EC2Image command. You must specify both the source and
destination Regions. You specify the source Region using the -SourceRegion parameter. You can
specify the destination Region using either the -Region parameter or the Set-AWSDefaultRegion
command. For more information, see Specifying AWS Regions.

When you encrypt a target snapshot during copying, you must specify these additional parameters: -
Encrypted and -KmsKeyId.

Stop a pending AMI copy operation

You can stop a pending AMI copy as follows.

To stop an AMI copy operation using the console

1. Open the Amazon EC2 console at https://console.aws.amazon.com/ec2/.

2. From the navigation bar, select the destination Region from the Region selector.
3. In the navigation pane, choose AMIs.
4. Select the AMI to stop copying and choose Actions, Deregister.
5. When asked for confirmation, choose Continue.

To stop an AMI copy operation using the command line

You can use one of the following commands. For more information about these command line interfaces,
see Access Amazon EC2 (p. 3).

• deregister-image (AWS CLI)

• Unregister-EC2Image (AWS Tools for Windows PowerShell)

Cross-Region copying
Copying an AMI across geographically diverse Regions provides the following benefits:

• Consistent global deployment: Copying an AMI from one Region to another enables you to launch
consistent instances in different Regions based on the same AMI.
• Scalability: You can more easily design and build global applications that meet the needs of your users,
regardless of their location.
• Performance: You can increase performance by distributing your application, as well as locating critical
components of your application in closer proximity to your users. You can also take advantage of
Region-specific features, such as instance types or other AWS services.

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• High availability: You can design and deploy applications across AWS Regions, to increase availability.

The following diagram shows the relations among a source AMI and two copied AMIs in different
Regions, as well as the EC2 instances launched from each. When you launch an instance from an AMI, it
resides in the same Region where the AMI resides. If you make changes to the source AMI and want those
changes to be reflected in the AMIs in the target Regions, you must recopy the source AMI to the target
Regions.

When you first copy an instance store-backed AMI to a Region, we create an Amazon S3 bucket for the
AMIs copied to that Region. All instance store-backed AMIs that you copy to that Region are stored in this
bucket. The bucket names have the following format: amis-for-account-in-region-hash. For example:
amis-for-123456789012-in-us-east-2-yhjmxvp6.

Prerequisite

Prior to copying an AMI, you must ensure that the contents of the source AMI are updated to support
running in a different Region. For example, you should update any database connection strings or similar
application configuration data to point to the appropriate resources. Otherwise, instances launched from
the new AMI in the destination Region may still use the resources from the source Region, which can
impact performance and cost.

Limits

• Destination Regions are limited to 100 concurrent AMI copies.

Cross-account copying
You can share an AMI with another AWS account. Sharing an AMI does not affect the ownership of the
AMI. The owning account is charged for the storage in the Region. For more information, see Share an
AMI with specific AWS accounts (p. 109).

If you copy an AMI that has been shared with your account, you are the owner of the target AMI in your
account. The owner of the source AMI is charged standard Amazon EBS or Amazon S3 transfer fees, and
you are charged for the storage of the target AMI in the destination Region.

Resource Permissions

To copy an AMI that was shared with you from another account, the owner of the source AMI must grant
you read permissions for the storage that backs the AMI, either the associated EBS snapshot (for an

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Amazon EBS-backed AMI) or an associated S3 bucket (for an instance store-backed AMI). If the shared
AMI has encrypted snapshots, the owner must share the key or keys with you as well.

Encryption and copying

The following table shows encryption support for various AMI-copying scenarios. While it is possible to
copy an unencrypted snapshot to yield an encrypted snapshot, you cannot copy an encrypted snapshot
to yield an unencrypted one.

Scenario Description Supported

1 Unencrypted-to-unencrypted Yes

2 Encrypted-to-encrypted Yes

3 Unencrypted-to-encrypted Yes

4 Encrypted-to-unencrypted No

Note
Encrypting during the CopyImage action applies only to Amazon EBS-backed AMIs. Because
an instance store-backed AMI does not rely on snapshots, you cannot use copying to change its
encryption status.

By default (i.e., without specifying encryption parameters), the backing snapshot of an AMI is copied with
its original encryption status. Copying an AMI backed by an unencrypted snapshot results in an identical
target snapshot that is also unencrypted. If the source AMI is backed by an encrypted snapshot, copying
it results in an identical target snapshot that is encrypted by the same AWS KMS key. Copying an AMI
backed by multiple snapshots preserves, by default, the source encryption status in each target snapshot.

If you specify encryption parameters while copying an AMI, you can encrypt or re-encrypt its backing
snapshots. The following example shows a non-default case that supplies encryption parameters to the
CopyImage action in order to change the target AMI's encryption state.

Copy an unencrypted source AMI to an encrypted target AMI

In this scenario, an AMI backed by an unencrypted root snapshot is copied to an AMI with an encrypted
root snapshot. The CopyImage action is invoked with two encryption parameters, including a customer
managed key. As a result, the encryption status of the root snapshot changes, so that the target AMI is
backed by a root snapshot containing the same data as the source snapshot, but encrypted using the
specified key. You incur storage costs for the snapshots in both AMIs, as well as charges for any instances
you launch from either AMI.
Note
Enabling encryption by default (p. 1344) has the same effect as setting the Encrypted
parameter to true for all snapshots in the AMI.

Setting the Encrypted parameter encrypts the single snapshot for this instance. If you do not specify
the KmsKeyId parameter, the default customer managed key is used to encrypt the snapshot copy.

For more information about copying AMIs with encrypted snapshots, see Use encryption with EBS-
backed AMIs (p. 130).

Store and restore an AMI using S3

You can store an Amazon Machine Image (AMI) in an Amazon S3 bucket, copy the AMI to another S3
bucket, and then restore it from the S3 bucket. By storing and restoring an AMI using S3 buckets, you can

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copy AMIs from one AWS partition to another, for example, from the main commercial partition to the
AWS GovCloud (US) partition. You can also make archival copies of AMIs by storing them in an S3 bucket.

The supported APIs for storing and restoring an AMI using S3 are CreateStoreImageTask,
DescribeStoreImageTasks, and CreateRestoreImageTask.

CopyImage is the recommended API to use for copying AMIs within an AWS partition. However,
CopyImage can’t copy an AMI to another partition.
Warning
Ensure that you comply with all applicable laws and business requirements when moving
data between AWS partitions or AWS Regions, including, but not limited to, any applicable
government regulations and data residency requirements.

Topics
• Use cases (p. 122)
• How the AMI store and restore APIs work (p. 123)
• Limitations (p. 124)
• Costs (p. 125)
• Securing your AMIs (p. 125)
• Permissions for storing and restoring AMIs using S3 (p. 125)
• Work with the AMI store and restore APIs (p. 126)

Use cases
Use the store and restore APIs to do the following:
• Copy an AMI from one AWS partition to another AWS partition (p. 122)
• Make archival copies of AMIs (p. 123)

Copy an AMI from one AWS partition to another AWS partition

By storing and restoring an AMI using S3 buckets, you can copy an AMI from one AWS partition to
another, or from one AWS Region to another. In the following example, you copy an AMI from the main
commercial partition to the AWS GovCloud (US) partition, specifically from the us-east-2 Region to the
us-gov-east-1 Region.

To copy an AMI from one partition to another, follow these steps:

• Store the AMI in an S3 bucket in the current Region by using CreateStoreImageTask. In this
example, the S3 bucket is located in us-east-2. For an example command, see Store an AMI in an S3
bucket (p. 126).
• Monitor the progress of the store task by using DescribeStoreImageTasks. The object becomes
visible in the S3 bucket when the task is completed. For an example command, see Describe the
progress of an AMI store task (p. 126).
• Copy the stored AMI object to an S3 bucket in the target partition using a procedure of your choice. In
this example, the S3 bucket is located in us-gov-east-1.
Note
Because you need different AWS credentials for each partition, you can’t copy an S3 object
directly from one partition to another. The process for copying an S3 object across partitions
is outside the scope of this documentation. We provide the following copy processes as
examples, but you must use the copy process that meets your security requirements.
• To copy one AMI across partitions, the copy process could be as straightforward as the
following: Download the object from the source bucket to an intermediate host (for

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example, an EC2 instance or a laptop), and then upload the object from the intermediate
host to the source bucket. For each stage of the process, use the AWS credentials for the
partition.
• For more sustained usage, consider developing an application that manages the copies,
potentially using S3 multipart downloads and uploads.
• Restore the AMI from the S3 bucket in the target partition by using CreateRestoreImageTask. In
this example, the S3 bucket is located in us-gov-east-1. For an example command, see Restore an
AMI from an S3 bucket (p. 127).
• Monitor the progress of the restore task by describing the AMI to check when its state becomes
available. You can also monitor the progress percentages of the snapshots that make up the restored
AMI by describing the snapshots.

Make archival copies of AMIs

You can make archival copies of AMIs by storing them in an S3 bucket. For an example command, see
Store an AMI in an S3 bucket (p. 126).

The AMI is packed into a single object in S3, and all of the AMI metadata (excluding sharing information)
is preserved as part of the stored AMI. The AMI data is compressed as part of the storage process. AMIs
that contain data that can easily be compressed will result in smaller objects in S3. To reduce costs,
you can use less expensive S3 storage tiers. For more information, see Amazon S3 Storage Classes and
Amazon S3 pricing

How the AMI store and restore APIs work

To store and restore an AMI using S3, you use the following APIs:

• CreateStoreImageTask – Stores the AMI in an S3 bucket

• DescribeStoreImageTasks – Provides the progress of the AMI store task
• CreateRestoreImageTask – Restores the AMI from an S3 bucket

How the APIs work

• CreateStoreImageTask (p. 123)
• DescribeStoreImageTasks (p. 124)
• CreateRestoreImageTask (p. 124)

CreateStoreImageTask
The CreateStoreImageTask (p. 126) API stores an AMI as a single object in an S3 bucket.

The API creates a task that reads all of the data from the AMI and its snapshots, and then uses an S3
multipart upload to store the data in an S3 object. The API takes all of the components of the AMI,
including most of the non-Region-specific AMI metadata, and all the EBS snapshots contained in the
AMI, and packs them into a single object in S3. The data is compressed as part of the upload process to
reduce the amount of space used in S3, so the object in S3 might be smaller than the sum of the sizes of
the snapshots in the AMI.

If there are AMI and snapshot tags visible to the account calling this API, they are preserved.

The object in S3 has the same ID as the AMI, but with a .bin extension. The following data is also stored
as S3 metadata tags on the S3 object: AMI name, AMI description, AMI registration date, AMI owner
account, and a timestamp for the store operation.

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The time it takes to complete the task depends on the size of the AMI. It also depends on how many
other tasks are in progress because tasks are queued. You can track the progress of the task by calling
the DescribeStoreImageTasks (p. 126) API.

The sum of the sizes of all the AMIs in progress is limited to 600 GB of EBS snapshot data per account.
Further task creation will be rejected until the tasks in progress are less than the limit. For example,
if an AMI with 100 GB of snapshot data and another AMI with 200 GB of snapshot data are currently
being stored, another request will be accepted, because the total in progress is 300 GB, which is less than
the limit. But if a single AMI with 800 GB of snapshot data is currently being stored, further tasks are
rejected until the task is completed.

DescribeStoreImageTasks
The DescribeStoreImageTasks (p. 126) API describes the progress of the AMI store tasks. You can
describe tasks for specified AMIs. If you don't specify AMIs, you get a paginated list of all of the store
image tasks that have been processed in the last 31 days.

For each AMI task, the response indicates if the task is InProgress, Completed, or Failed. For tasks
InProgress, the response shows an estimated progress as a percentage.

Tasks are listed in reverse chronological order.

Currently, only tasks from the previous month can be viewed.

CreateRestoreImageTask
The CreateRestoreImageTask (p. 127) API starts a task that restores an AMI from an S3 object that was
previously created by using a CreateStoreImageTask (p. 126) request.

The restore task can be performed in the same or a different Region in which the store task was
performed.

The S3 bucket from which the AMI object will be restored must be in the same Region in which the
restore task is requested. The AMI will be restored in this Region.

The AMI is restored with its metadata, such as the name, description, and block device mappings
corresponding to the values of the stored AMI. The name must be unique for AMIs in the Region for this
account. If you do not provide a name, the new AMI gets the same name as the original AMI. The AMI
gets a new AMI ID that is generated at the time of the restore process.

The time it takes to complete the AMI restoration task depends on the size of the AMI. It also depends on
how many other tasks are in progress because tasks are queued. You can view the progress of the task by
describing the AMI (describe-images) or its EBS snapshots (describe-snapshots). If the task fails, the AMI
and snapshots are moved to a failed state.

The sum of the sizes of all of the AMIs in progress is limited to 300 GB (based on the size after
restoration) of EBS snapshot data per account. Further task creation will be rejected until the tasks in
progress are less than the limit.

Limitations
• Only EBS-backed AMIs can be stored using these APIs.
• Paravirtual (PV) AMIs are not supported.
• The size of an AMI (before compression) that can be stored is limited to the size limit of a single S3
object, which is 1 TB.
• Quota on store image (p. 126) requests: 600 GB of storage work (snapshot data) in progress.
• Quota on restore image (p. 127) requests: 300 GB of restore work (snapshot data) in progress.

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• For the duration of the store task, the snapshots must not be deleted and the IAM principal doing the
store must have access to the snapshots, otherwise the store process will fail.
• You can’t create multiple copies of an AMI in the same S3 bucket.
• An AMI that is stored in an S3 bucket can’t be restored with its original AMI ID. You can mitigate this by
using AMI aliasing.
• Currently the store and restore APIs are only supported by using the AWS Command Line Interface,
AWS SDKs, and Amazon EC2 API. You can’t store and restore an AMI using the Amazon EC2 console.

Costs
When you store and restore AMIs using S3, you are charged for the services that are used by the store
and restore APIs, and for data transfer. The APIs use S3 and the EBS Direct API (used internally by these
APIs to access the snapshot data). For more information, see Amazon S3 pricing and Amazon EBS pricing.

Securing your AMIs

To use the store and restore APIs, the S3 bucket and the AMI must be in the same Region. It is important
to ensure that the S3 bucket is configured with sufficient security to secure the content of the AMI and
that the security is maintained for as long as the AMI objects remain in the bucket. If this can’t be done,
use of these APIs is not recommended. Ensure that public access to the S3 bucket is not allowed. We
recommend enabling Server Side Encryption for the S3 buckets in which you store the AMIs, although it’s
not required.

For information about how to set the appropriate security settings for your S3 buckets, review the
following security topics:

• Blocking public access to your Amazon S3 storage

• Setting default server-side encryption behavior for Amazon S3 buckets
• What S3 bucket policy should I use to comply with the AWS Config rule s3-bucket-ssl-requests-only?
• Enabling Amazon S3 server access logging

When the AMI snapshots are copied to the S3 object, the data is then copied over TLS connections. You
can store AMIs with encrypted snapshots, but the snapshots are decrypted as part of the store process.

Permissions for storing and restoring AMIs using S3

If your IAM principals will store or restore AMIs using S3, you need to grant them the required
permissions.

The following example policy includes all of the actions that are required to allow an IAM principal to
carry out the store and restore tasks.

You can also craft policies so that IAM principals can only access named resources. For more example
policies, see Access management for AWS resources in the IAM User Guide.

{
"Version": "2012-10-17",
"Statement": [
{
"Effect": "Allow",
"Action": [
"s3:DeleteObject",
"s3:GetObject",
"s3:ListBucket",
"s3:PutObject",
"s3:AbortMultipartUpload",

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"ebs:CompleteSnapshot",
"ebs:GetSnapshotBlock",
"ebs:ListChangedBlocks",
"ebs:ListSnapshotBlocks",
"ebs:PutSnapshotBlock",
"ebs:StartSnapshot",
"ec2:CreateStoreImageTask",
"ec2:DescribeStoreImageTasks",
"ec2:CreateRestoreImageTask",
"ec2:GetEbsEncryptionByDefault",
"ec2:DescribeTags"
],
"Resource": "*"
}
]
}

Work with the AMI store and restore APIs

Topics
• Store an AMI in an S3 bucket (p. 126)
• Describe the progress of an AMI store task (p. 126)
• Restore an AMI from an S3 bucket (p. 127)

Store an AMI in an S3 bucket

To store an AMI (AWS CLI)

Use the create-store-image-task command. Specify the ID of the AMI and the name of the S3 bucket in
which to store the AMI.

aws ec2 create-store-image-task \

--image-id ami-1234567890abcdef0 \
--bucket myamibucket

Expected output

{
"ObjectKey": "ami-1234567890abcdef0.bin"
}

Describe the progress of an AMI store task

To describe the progress of an AMI store task (AWS CLI)

Use the describe-store-image-tasks command.

aws ec2 describe-store-image-tasks

Expected output

{
"AmiId": "ami-1234567890abcdef0",
"Bucket": "myamibucket",
"ProgressPercentage": 17,
"S3ObjectKey": "ami-1234567890abcdef0.bin",
"StoreTaskState": "InProgress",

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"StoreTaskFailureReason": null,
"TaskStartTime": "2021-01-01T01:01:01.001Z"
}

Restore an AMI from an S3 bucket

To restore an AMI (AWS CLI)

Use the create-restore-image-task command. Using the values for S3ObjectKey and Bucket from the
describe-store-image-tasks output, specify the object key of the AMI and the name of the S3
bucket to which the AMI was copied. Also specify a name for the restored AMI. The name must be unique
for AMIs in the Region for this account.
Note
The restored AMI gets a new AMI ID.

aws ec2 create-restore-image-task \

--object-key ami-1234567890abcdef0.bin \
--bucket myamibucket \
--name "New AMI Name"

Expected output

{
"ImageId": "ami-0eab20fe36f83e1a8"
}

Deprecate an AMI
You can deprecate an AMI to indicate that it is out of date and should not be used. You can also specify a
future deprecation date for an AMI, indicating when the AMI will be out of date. For example, you might
deprecate an AMI that is no longer actively maintained, or you might deprecate an AMI that has been
superseded by a newer version. By default, deprecated AMIs do not appear in AMI listings, preventing
new users from using out-of-date AMIs. However, existing users and launch services, such as launch
templates and Auto Scaling groups, can continue to use a deprecated AMI by specifying its ID. To delete
the AMI so that users and services cannot use it, you must deregister (p. 52) it.

After an AMI is deprecated:

• For AMI users, the deprecated AMI does not appear in DescribeImages API calls unless you specify
its ID or specify that deprecated AMIs must appear. AMI owners continue to see deprecated AMIs in
DescribeImages API calls.
• For AMI users, the deprecated AMI is not available to select via the EC2 console. For example, a
deprecated AMI does not appear in the AMI catalog in the launch instance wizard. AMI owners
continue to see deprecated AMIs in the EC2 console.
• For AMI users, if you know the ID of a deprecated AMI, you can continue to launch instances using the
deprecated AMI by using the API, CLI, or the SDKs.
• Launch services, such as launch templates and Auto Scaling groups, can continue to reference
deprecated AMIs.
• EC2 instances that were launched using an AMI that is subsequently deprecated are not affected, and
can be stopped, started, and rebooted.

You can deprecate both private and public AMIs.

You can also create Amazon Data Lifecycle Manager EBS-backed AMI policies to automate the
deprecation of EBS-backed AMIs. For more information, see Automate AMI lifecycles (p. 1297).

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Topics
• Costs (p. 128)
• Limitations (p. 124)
• Deprecate an AMI (p. 128)
• Describe deprecated AMIs (p. 128)
• Cancel the deprecation of an AMI (p. 130)

Costs
When you deprecate an AMI, the AMI is not deleted. The AMI owner continues to pay for the
AMI's snapshots. To stop paying for the snapshots, the AMI owner must delete the AMI by
deregistering (p. 52) it.

Limitations
• To deprecate an AMI, you must be the owner of the AMI.
• You can’t use the EC2 console to deprecate an AMI or to cancel the deprecation of an AMI.

Deprecate an AMI
You can deprecate an AMI on a specific date and time. You must be the AMI owner to perform this
procedure.

To deprecate an AMI on a specific date (AWS CLI)

Use the enable-image-deprecation command. Specify the ID of the AMI and the date and time on which
to deprecate the AMI. If you specify a value for seconds, Amazon EC2 rounds the seconds to the nearest
minute.

aws ec2 enable-image-deprecation \

--image-id ami-1234567890abcdef0 \
--deprecate-at "2021-10-15T13:17:12.000Z"

Expected output

{
"RequestID": "59dbff89-35bd-4eac-99ed-be587EXAMPLE",
"Return": "true"
}

Describe deprecated AMIs

When you describe all AMIs using the describe-images command, the results are different depending on
whether you are an AMI user or the AMI owner.

• If you are an AMI user:

By default, when you describe all AMIs using the describe-images command, deprecated AMIs that are
not owned by you, but which are shared with you, do not appear in the results. To include deprecated
AMIs in the results, you must specify the --include-deprecated true parameter. The default
value for --include-deprecated is false. If you omit this parameter, deprecated AMIs do not
appear in the results.
• If you are the AMI owner:

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When you describe all AMIs using the describe-images command, all the AMIs that you own, including
deprecated AMIs, appear in the results. You do not need to specify the --include-deprecated
true parameter. Furthermore, you cannot exclude deprecated AMIs that you own from the results by
using --include-deprecated false.

If an AMI is deprecated, the DeprecationTime field appears in the results.

Note
A deprecated AMI is an AMI whose deprecation date is in the past. If you have set the
deprecation date to a date in the future, the AMI is not yet deprecated.

To include all deprecated AMIs when describing all AMIs (AWS CLI)

Use the describe-images command and specify the --include-deprecated parameter with a value of
true to include all deprecated AMIs that are not owned by you in the results.

aws ec2 describe-images \

--region us-east-1 \
--owners 123456example
--include-deprecated true

To describe the deprecation date of an AMI (AWS CLI)

Use the describe-images command and specify the ID of the AMI.

Note that if you specify --include-deprecated false together with the AMI ID, the deprecated AMI
will be returned in the results.

aws ec2 describe-images \

--region us-east-1 \
--image-ids ami-1234567890EXAMPLE

Expected output

The DeprecationTime field displays the date on which the AMI is set to be deprecated. If the AMI is not
set to be deprecated, the DeprecationTime field does not appear in the output.

{
"Images": [
{
"VirtualizationType": "hvm",
"Description": "Provided by Red Hat, Inc.",
"PlatformDetails": "Red Hat Enterprise Linux",
"EnaSupport": true,
"Hypervisor": "xen",
"State": "available",
"SriovNetSupport": "simple",
"ImageId": "ami-1234567890EXAMPLE",
"DeprecationTime": "2021-05-10T13:17:12.000Z"
"UsageOperation": "RunInstances:0010",
"BlockDeviceMappings": [
{
"DeviceName": "/dev/sda1",
"Ebs": {
"SnapshotId": "snap-111222333444aaabb",
"DeleteOnTermination": true,
"VolumeType": "gp2",
"VolumeSize": 10,
"Encrypted": false
}

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}
],
"Architecture": "x86_64",
"ImageLocation": "123456789012/RHEL-8.0.0_HVM-20190618-x86_64-1-Hourly2-GP2",
"RootDeviceType": "ebs",
"OwnerId": "123456789012",
"RootDeviceName": "/dev/sda1",
"CreationDate": "2019-05-10T13:17:12.000Z",
"Public": true,
"ImageType": "machine",
"Name": "RHEL-8.0.0_HVM-20190618-x86_64-1-Hourly2-GP2"
}
]
}

Cancel the deprecation of an AMI

You can cancel the deprecation an AMI, which removes the DeprecationTime field from the describe-
images output. You must be the AMI owner to perform this procedure.

To cancel the deprecation of an AMI (AWS CLI)

Use the disable-image-deprecation command and specify the ID of the AMI.

aws ec2 disable-image-deprecation \

--image-id ami-1234567890abcdef0

Expected output

{
"RequestID": "11aabb229-4eac-35bd-99ed-be587EXAMPLE",
"Return": "true"
}

Automate the EBS-backed AMI lifecycle

You can use Amazon Data Lifecycle Manager to automate the creation, retention, copy, deprecation,
and deregistration of Amazon EBS-backed AMIs and their backing snapshots. For more information, see
Amazon Data Lifecycle Manager (p. 1285).

Use encryption with EBS-backed AMIs

AMIs that are backed by Amazon EBS snapshots can take advantage of Amazon EBS encryption.
Snapshots of both data and root volumes can be encrypted and attached to an AMI. You can launch
instances and copy images with full EBS encryption support included. Encryption parameters for these
operations are supported in all Regions where AWS KMS is available.

EC2 instances with encrypted EBS volumes are launched from AMIs in the same way as other instances.
In addition, when you launch an instance from an AMI backed by unencrypted EBS snapshots, you can
encrypt some or all of the volumes during launch.

Like EBS volumes, snapshots in AMIs can be encrypted by either your default AWS KMS key, or to a
customer managed key that you specify. You must in all cases have permission to use the selected KMS
key.

AMIs with encrypted snapshots can be shared across AWS accounts. For more information, see Shared
AMIs (p. 105).

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Instance-launching scenarios

Encryption with EBS-backed AMIs topics

• Instance-launching scenarios (p. 131)
• Image-copying scenarios (p. 133)

Instance-launching scenarios
Amazon EC2 instances are launched from AMIs using the RunInstances action with parameters
supplied through block device mapping, either by means of the AWS Management Console or directly
using the Amazon EC2 API or CLI. For more information about block device mapping, see Block device
mapping. For examples of controlling block device mapping from the AWS CLI, see Launch, List, and
Terminate EC2 Instances.

By default, without explicit encryption parameters, a RunInstances action maintains the existing
encryption state of an AMI's source snapshots while restoring EBS volumes from them. If Encryption by
default (p. 1344) is enabled, all volumes created from the AMI (whether from encrypted or unencrypted
snapshots) will be encrypted. If encryption by default is not enabled, then the instance maintains the
encryption state of the AMI.

You can also launch an instance and simultaneously apply a new encryption state to the resulting
volumes by supplying encryption parameters. Consequently, the following behaviors are observed:

Launch with no encryption parameters

• An unencrypted snapshot is restored to an unencrypted volume, unless encryption by default is

enabled, in which case all the newly created volumes will be encrypted.
• An encrypted snapshot that you own is restored to a volume that is encrypted to the same KMS key.
• An encrypted snapshot that you do not own (for example, the AMI is shared with you) is restored to a
volume that is encrypted by your AWS account's default KMS key.

The default behaviors can be overridden by supplying encryption parameters. The available parameters
are Encrypted and KmsKeyId. Setting only the Encrypted parameter results in the following:

Instance launch behaviors with Encrypted set, but no KmsKeyId specified

• An unencrypted snapshot is restored to an EBS volume that is encrypted by your AWS account's
default KMS key.
• An encrypted snapshot that you own is restored to an EBS volume encrypted by the same KMS key. (In
other words, the Encrypted parameter has no effect.)
• An encrypted snapshot that you do not own (i.e., the AMI is shared with you) is restored to a volume
that is encrypted by your AWS account's default KMS key. (In other words, the Encrypted parameter
has no effect.)

Setting both the Encrypted and KmsKeyId parameters allows you to specify a non-default KMS key for
an encryption operation. The following behaviors result:

Instance with both Encrypted and KmsKeyId set

• An unencrypted snapshot is restored to an EBS volume encrypted by the specified KMS key.
• An encrypted snapshot is restored to an EBS volume encrypted not to the original KMS key, but
instead to the specified KMS key.

Submitting a KmsKeyId without also setting the Encrypted parameter results in an error.

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Instance-launching scenarios

The following sections provide examples of launching instances from AMIs using non-default encryption
parameters. In each of these scenarios, parameters supplied to the RunInstances action result in a
change of encryption state during restoration of a volume from a snapshot.

For information about using the console to launch an instance from an AMI, see Launch your
instance (p. 394).

Encrypt a volume during launch

In this example, an AMI backed by an unencrypted snapshot is used to launch an EC2 instance with an
encrypted EBS volume.

The Encrypted parameter alone results in the volume for this instance being encrypted. Providing a
KmsKeyId parameter is optional. If no KMS key ID is specified, the AWS account's default KMS key is
used to encrypt the volume. To encrypt the volume to a different KMS key that you own, supply the
KmsKeyId parameter.

Re-encrypt a volume during launch

In this example, an AMI backed by an encrypted snapshot is used to launch an EC2 instance with an EBS
volume encrypted by a new KMS key.

If you own the AMI and supply no encryption parameters, the resulting instance has a volume encrypted
by the same KMS key as the snapshot. If the AMI is shared rather than owned by you, and you supply no
encryption parameters, the volume is encrypted by your default KMS key. With encryption parameters
supplied as shown, the volume is encrypted by the specified KMS key.

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Change encryption state of multiple volumes during launch

In this more complex example, an AMI backed by multiple snapshots (each with its own encryption state)
is used to launch an EC2 instance with a newly encrypted volume and a re-encrypted volume.

In this scenario, the RunInstances action is supplied with encryption parameters for each of the source
snapshots. When all possible encryption parameters are specified, the resulting instance is the same
regardless of whether you own the AMI.

Image-copying scenarios
Amazon EC2 AMIs are copied using the CopyImage action, either through the AWS Management Console
or directly using the Amazon EC2 API or CLI.

By default, without explicit encryption parameters, a CopyImage action maintains the existing
encryption state of an AMI's source snapshots during copy. You can also copy an AMI and simultaneously
apply a new encryption state to its associated EBS snapshots by supplying encryption parameters.
Consequently, the following behaviors are observed:

Copy with no encryption parameters

• An unencrypted snapshot is copied to another unencrypted snapshot, unless encryption by default is

enabled, in which case all the newly created snapshots will be encrypted.
• An encrypted snapshot that you own is copied to a snapshot encrypted with the same KMS key.
• An encrypted snapshot that you do not own (that is, the AMI is shared with you) is copied to a
snapshot that is encrypted by your AWS account's default KMS key.

All of these default behaviors can be overridden by supplying encryption parameters. The available
parameters are Encrypted and KmsKeyId. Setting only the Encrypted parameter results in the
following:

Copy-image behaviors with Encrypted set, but no KmsKeyId specified

• An unencrypted snapshot is copied to a snapshot encrypted by the AWS account's default KMS key.
• An encrypted snapshot is copied to a snapshot encrypted by the same KMS key. (In other words, the
Encrypted parameter has no effect.)
• An encrypted snapshot that you do not own (i.e., the AMI is shared with you) is copied to a volume that
is encrypted by your AWS account's default KMS key. (In other words, the Encrypted parameter has
no effect.)

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Setting both the Encrypted and KmsKeyId parameters allows you to specify a customer managed KMS
key for an encryption operation. The following behaviors result:

Copy-image behaviors with both Encrypted and KmsKeyId set

• An unencrypted snapshot is copied to a snapshot encrypted by the specified KMS key.

• An encrypted snapshot is copied to a snapshot encrypted not to the original KMS key, but instead to
the specified KMS key.

Submitting a KmsKeyId without also setting the Encrypted parameter results in an error.

The following section provides an example of copying an AMI using non-default encryption parameters,
resulting in a change of encryption state.

For detailed instructions using the console, see Copy an AMI (p. 116).

Encrypt an unencrypted image during copy

In this scenario, an AMI backed by an unencrypted root snapshot is copied to an AMI with an encrypted
root snapshot. The CopyImage action is invoked with two encryption parameters, including a customer
managed key. As a result, the encryption status of the root snapshot changes, so that the target AMI is
backed by a root snapshot containing the same data as the source snapshot, but encrypted using the
specified key. You incur storage costs for the snapshots in both AMIs, as well as charges for any instances
you launch from either AMI.
Note
Enabling encryption by default (p. 1344) has the same effect as setting the Encrypted
parameter to true for all snapshots in the AMI.

Setting the Encrypted parameter encrypts the single snapshot for this instance. If you do not specify
the KmsKeyId parameter, the default customer managed key is used to encrypt the snapshot copy.
Note
You can also copy an image with multiple snapshots and configure the encryption state of each
individually.

Understand AMI billing information

There are many Amazon Machine Images (AMIs) to choose from when launching your instances, and they
support a variety of operating system platforms and features. To understand how the AMI you choose
when launching your instance affects the bottom line on your AWS bill, you can research the associated
operating system platform and billing information. Do this before you launch any On-Demand or Spot
Instances, or purchase a Reserved Instance.

Here are two examples of how researching your AMI in advance can help you choose the AMI that best
suits your needs:

• For Spot Instances, you can use the AMI Platform details to confirm that the AMI is supported for Spot
Instances.
• When purchasing a Reserved Instance, you can make sure that you select the operating system
platform (Platform) that maps to the AMI Platform details.

For more information about instance pricing, see Amazon EC2 pricing.

Contents

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AMI billing fields

• AMI billing information fields (p. 135)

• Finding AMI billing and usage details (p. 136)
• Verify AMI charges on your bill (p. 138)

AMI billing information fields

The following fields provide billing information associated with an AMI:

Platform details

The platform details associated with the billing code of the AMI. For example, Red Hat
Enterprise Linux.
Usage operation

The operation of the Amazon EC2 instance and the billing code that is associated with the AMI. For
example, RunInstances:0010. Usage operation corresponds to the lineitem/Operation column on
your AWS Cost and Usage Report (CUR) and in the AWS Price List API.

You can view these fields on the Instances or AMIs page in the Amazon EC2 console, or in the response
that is returned by the describe-images command.

Sample data: usage operation by platform

The following table lists some of the platform details and usage operation values that can be displayed
on the Instances or AMIs pages in the Amazon EC2 console, or in the response that is returned by the
describe-images command.

Platform details Usage operation **

Linux/UNIX RunInstances

Red Hat BYOL Linux RunInstances:00g0

Red Hat Enterprise Linux RunInstances:0010

Red Hat Enterprise Linux with HA RunInstances:1010

Red Hat Enterprise Linux with SQL Server RunInstances:1014

Standard and HA

Red Hat Enterprise Linux with SQL Server RunInstances:1110

Enterprise and HA

Red Hat Enterprise Linux with SQL Server RunInstances:0014

Standard

Red Hat Enterprise Linux with SQL Server Web RunInstances:0210

Red Hat Enterprise Linux with SQL Server RunInstances:0110

Enterprise

SQL Server Enterprise RunInstances:0100

SQL Server Standard RunInstances:0004

SQL Server Web RunInstances:0200

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Platform details Usage operation **

SUSE Linux RunInstances:000g

Windows RunInstances:0002

Windows BYOL RunInstances:0800

Windows with SQL Server Enterprise * RunInstances:0102

Windows with SQL Server Standard * RunInstances:0006

Windows with SQL Server Web * RunInstances:0202

* If two software licenses are associated with an AMI, the Platform details field shows both.

** If you are running Spot Instances, the lineitem/Operation on your AWS Cost and Usage Report
might be different from the Usage operation value that is listed here. For example, if lineitem/
Operation displays RunInstances:0010:SV006, it means that Amazon EC2 is running Red Hat
Enterprise Linux Spot Instance-hour in US East (Virginia) in VPC Zone #6.

Finding AMI billing and usage details

In the Amazon EC2 console, you can view the AMI billing information from the AMIs page or from the
Instances page. You can also find billing information using the AWS CLI or the instance metadata service.

The following fields can help you verify AMI charges on your bill:

• Platform details
• Usage operation
• AMI ID

Find AMI billing information (console)

Follow these steps to view AMI billing information in the Amazon EC2 console:

Look up AMI billing information from the AMIs page

1. Open the Amazon EC2 console at https://console.aws.amazon.com/ec2/.

2. In the navigation pane, choose AMIs, and then select an AMI.
3. On the Details tab, check the values for Platform details and Usage operation.

Look up AMI billing information from the Instances page

1. Open the Amazon EC2 console at https://console.aws.amazon.com/ec2/.

2. In the navigation pane, choose Instances, and then select an instance.
3. On the Details tab (or the Description tab if you are using the prior version of the console), check
the values for Platform details and Usage operation.

Find AMI billing information (AWS CLI)

To find the AMI billing information using the AWS CLI, you need to know the AMI ID. If you don't know
the AMI ID, you can get it from the instance using the describe-instances command.

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Find AMI billing information

To find the AMI ID

If you know the instance ID, you can get the AMI ID for the instance by using the describe-instances
command.

aws ec2 describe-instances --instance-ids i-123456789abcde123

In the output, the AMI ID is specified in the ImageId field.

..."Instances": [
{
"AmiLaunchIndex": 0,
"ImageId": "ami-0123456789EXAMPLE",
"InstanceId": "i-123456789abcde123",
...
}]

To find the AMI billing information

If you know the AMI ID, you can use the describe-images command to get the AMI platform and usage
operation details.

$ aws ec2 describe-images --image-ids ami-0123456789EXAMPLE

The following example output shows the PlatformDetails and UsageOperation fields. In this
example, the ami-0123456789EXAMPLE platform is Red Hat Enterprise Linux and the usage
operation and billing code is RunInstances:0010.

{
"Images": [
{
"VirtualizationType": "hvm",
"Description": "Provided by Red Hat, Inc.",
"Hypervisor": "xen",
"EnaSupport": true,
"SriovNetSupport": "simple",
"ImageId": "ami-0123456789EXAMPLE",
"State": "available",
"BlockDeviceMappings": [
{
"DeviceName": "/dev/sda1",
"Ebs": {
"SnapshotId": "snap-111222333444aaabb",
"DeleteOnTermination": true,
"VolumeType": "gp2",
"VolumeSize": 10,
"Encrypted": false
}
}
],
"Architecture": "x86_64",
"ImageLocation": "123456789012/RHEL-8.0.0_HVM-20190618-x86_64-1-Hourly2-GP2",
"RootDeviceType": "ebs",
"OwnerId": "123456789012",
"PlatformDetails": "Red Hat Enterprise Linux",
"UsageOperation": "RunInstances:0010",
"RootDeviceName": "/dev/sda1",
"CreationDate": "2019-05-10T13:17:12.000Z",
"Public": true,
"ImageType": "machine",
"Name": "RHEL-8.0.0_HVM-20190618-x86_64-1-Hourly2-GP2"

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Verify AMI charges on your bill

}
]
}

Verify AMI charges on your bill

To ensure that you're not incurring unplanned costs, you can verify that the billing information for an
instance in your AWS Cost and Usage Report (CUR) matches the billing information that's associated with
the AMI that you used to launch the instance.

To verify the billing information, find the instance ID in your CUR and check the corresponding value
in the lineitem/Operation column. That value should match the value for Usage operation that's
associated with the AMI.

For example, the AMI ami-0123456789EXAMPLE has the following billing information:

• Platform details = Red Hat Enterprise Linux

• Usage operation = RunInstances:0010

If you launched an instance using this AMI, you can find the instance ID in your CUR, and check the
corresponding value in the lineitem/Operation column. In this example, the value should be
RunInstances:0010.

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Windows instances

Amazon EC2 instances

If you're new to Amazon EC2, see the following topics to get started:

• What is Amazon EC2? (p. 1)

• Set up to use Amazon EC2 (p. 5)
• Tutorial: Get started with Amazon EC2 Windows instances (p. 9)
• Instance lifecycle (p. 390)

Before you launch a production environment, you need to answer the following questions.

Q. What instance type best meets my needs?

Amazon EC2 provides different instance types to enable you to choose the CPU, memory, storage,
and networking capacity that you need to run your applications. For more information, see Instance
types (p. 142).
Q. What purchasing option best meets my needs?

Amazon EC2 supports On-Demand Instances (the default), Spot Instances, and Reserved Instances.
For more information, see Instance purchasing options (p. 241).
Q. Can I remotely manage a fleet of EC2 instances and machines in my hybrid environment?

AWS Systems Manager enables you to remotely and securely manage the configuration of your
Amazon EC2 instances, and your on-premises instances and virtual machines (VMs) in hybrid
environments, including VMs from other cloud providers. For more information, see the AWS
Systems Manager User Guide.

Amazon EC2 Windows instances

The following is an introduction to key components of Amazon EC2 and how a Windows instance
compares to running Windows Server on premises.

Instances and AMIs

An Amazon Machine Image (AMI) is a template that contains a software configuration (for example, an
operating system, an application server, and applications). From an AMI, you launch instances, which are
copies of the AMI running as virtual servers in the cloud.

Amazon publishes many AMIs that contain common software configurations for public use. In addition,
members of the AWS developer community have published their own custom AMIs. You can also create
your own custom AMI or AMIs; doing so enables you to quickly and easily start new instances that
have everything you need. For example, if your application is a website or web service, your AMI could
include a web server, the associated static content, and the code for the dynamic pages. As a result, after
you launch an instance from this AMI, your web server starts, and your application is ready to accept
requests.

You can launch different types of instances from a single AMI. An instance type essentially determines
the hardware of the host computer used for your instance. Each instance type offers different compute
and memory facilities. Select an instance type based on the amount of memory and computing
power that you need for the applications or software that you plan to run on the instance. For more
information about the hardware specifications for each Amazon EC2 instance type, see Amazon EC2
Instance Types. You can also launch multiple instances from an AMI, as shown in the following figure.

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Differences between Windows
Server and Windows instances

Your Windows instances keep running until you stop or terminate them, or until they fail. If an instance
fails, you can launch a new one from the AMI.

Your AWS account has a limit on the number of instances that you can have running. For more
information about this limit, and how to request an increase, see How many instances can I run in
Amazon EC2 in the Amazon EC2 General FAQ.

Differences between Windows Server and Windows

instances
After you launch your Amazon EC2 Windows instance, it behaves like a traditional server running
Windows Server. For example, both Windows Server and an Amazon EC2 instance can be used to
run your web applications, conduct batch processing, or manage applications requiring large-scale
computations. However, there are important differences between the server hardware model and the
cloud computing model. The way an Amazon EC2 instance runs is not the same as the way a traditional
server running Windows Server runs.

Before you begin launching Amazon EC2 Windows instances, you should be aware that the architecture
of applications running on cloud servers can differ significantly from the architecture for traditional
application models running on your hardware. Implementing applications on cloud servers requires a
shift in your design process.

The following table describes some key differences between Windows Server and an Amazon EC2
Windows instance.

Windows Server Amazon EC2 Windows Instance

Resources and capacity are physically limited. Resources and capacity are scalable.

You pay for the infrastructure, even if you don't You pay for the usage of the infrastructure. We
use it. stop charging you for the instance as soon as you
stop or terminate it.

Occupies physical space and must be maintained Doesn't occupy physical space and does not
on a regular basis. require regular maintenance.

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Server and Windows instances
Windows Server Amazon EC2 Windows Instance

Starts with push of the power button (known as Starts with the launch of the instance.
cold booting).

You can keep the server running until it is time to You can keep the server running, or stop and
shut it down, or put it in a sleep or hibernation restart it (during which the instance is moved to a
state (during which the server is powered down). new host computer).

When you shut down the server, all resources When you terminate the instance, its
remain intact and in the state they were in when infrastructure is no longer available to you. You
you switched it off. Information you stored on the can't connect to or restart an instance after you've
hard drives persists and can be accessed whenever terminated it. However, you can create an image
it's needed. You can restore the server to the from your instance while it's running, and launch
running state by powering it on. new instances from the image at any time.

A traditional server running Windows Server goes through the states shown in the following diagram.

An Amazon EC2 Windows instance is similar to the traditional Windows Server, as you can see by
comparing the following diagram with the previous diagram for Windows Server. After you launch
an instance, it briefly goes into the pending state while registration takes place, then it goes into the
running state. The instance remains active until you stop or terminate it. You can't restart an instance
after you terminate it. You can create a backup image of your instance while it's running, and launch a
new instance from that backup image.

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Design your applications to run on Windows instances

Design your applications to run on Windows

instances
It is important that you consider the differences mentioned in the previous section when you design your
applications to run on Amazon EC2 Windows instances.

Applications built for Amazon EC2 use the underlying computing infrastructure on an as-needed basis.
They draw on necessary resources (such as storage and computing) on demand in order to perform a job,
and relinquish the resources when done. In addition, they often dispose of themselves after the job is
done. While in operation, the application scales up and down elastically based on resource requirements.
An application running on an Amazon EC2 instance can terminate and recreate the various components
at will in case of infrastructure failures.

When designing your Windows applications to run on Amazon EC2, you can plan for rapid deployment
and rapid reduction of compute and storage resources, based on your changing needs.

When you run an Amazon EC2 Windows instance, you don't need to provision the exact system package
of hardware, software, and storage, the way you do with Windows Server. Instead, you can focus on
using a variety of cloud resources to improve the scalability and overall performance of your Windows
application.

With Amazon EC2, designing for failure and outages is an integral and crucial part of the architecture.
As with any scalable and redundant system, architecture of your system should account for computing,
network, and storage failures. You have to build mechanisms in your applications that can handle
different kinds of failures. The key is to build a modular system with individual components that
are not tightly coupled, can interact asynchronously, and treat one another as black boxes that are
independently scalable. Thus, if one of your components fails or is busy, you can launch more instances
of that component without breaking your current system.

Another key element to designing for failure is to distribute your application geographically. Replicating
your application across geographically distributed Regions improves high availability in your system.

Amazon EC2 infrastructure is programmable and you can use scripts to automate the deployment
process, to install and configure software and applications, and to bootstrap your virtual servers.

You should implement security in every layer of your application architecture running on an Amazon
EC2 Windows instance. If you are concerned about storing sensitive and confidential data within your
Amazon EC2 environment, you should encrypt the data before uploading it.

Instance types
When you launch an instance, the instance type that you specify determines the hardware of the host
computer used for your instance. Each instance type offers different compute, memory, and storage
capabilities, and is grouped in an instance family based on these capabilities. Select an instance type
based on the requirements of the application or software that you plan to run on your instance.

Amazon EC2 provides each instance with a consistent and predictable amount of CPU capacity,
regardless of its underlying hardware.

Amazon EC2 dedicates some resources of the host computer, such as CPU, memory, and instance
storage, to a particular instance. Amazon EC2 shares other resources of the host computer, such as the
network and the disk subsystem, among instances. If each instance on a host computer tries to use
as much of one of these shared resources as possible, each receives an equal share of that resource.
However, when a resource is underused, an instance can consume a higher share of that resource while
it's available.

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Available instance types

Each instance type provides higher or lower minimum performance from a shared resource. For example,
instance types with high I/O performance have a larger allocation of shared resources. Allocating a larger
share of shared resources also reduces the variance of I/O performance. For most applications, moderate
I/O performance is more than enough. However, for applications that require greater or more consistent
I/O performance, consider an instance type with higher I/O performance.

Contents
• Available instance types (p. 143)
• Hardware specifications (p. 146)
• Instances built on the Nitro System (p. 147)
• Networking and storage features (p. 148)
• Instance limits (p. 151)
• General purpose instances (p. 151)
• Compute optimized instances (p. 195)
• Memory optimized instances (p. 201)
• Storage optimized instances (p. 212)
• Windows accelerated computing instances (p. 218)
• Find an Amazon EC2 instance type (p. 232)
• Change the instance type (p. 233)
• Get recommendations for an instance type (p. 238)

Available instance types

Amazon EC2 provides a wide selection of instance types optimized for different use cases. To determine
which instance types meet your requirements, such as supported Regions, compute resources, or storage
resources, see Find an Amazon EC2 instance type (p. 232).

Current generation instances

For the best performance, we recommend that you use the following instance types when you launch
new instances. For more information, see Amazon EC2 Instance Types.

Type Sizes Use case

C4 c4.large | c4.xlarge | c4.2xlarge | c4.4xlarge | c4.8xlarge Compute

optimized (p. 195)

C5 c5.large | c5.xlarge | c5.2xlarge | c5.4xlarge | c5.9xlarge | Compute

c5.12xlarge | c5.18xlarge | c5.24xlarge | c5.metal optimized (p. 195)

C5a c5a.large | c5a.xlarge | c5a.2xlarge | c5a.4xlarge | c5a.8xlarge Compute

| c5a.12xlarge | c5a.16xlarge | c5a.24xlarge optimized (p. 195)

C5ad c5ad.large | c5ad.xlarge | c5ad.2xlarge | c5ad.4xlarge | Compute

c5ad.8xlarge | c5ad.12xlarge | c5ad.16xlarge | c5ad.24xlarge optimized (p. 195)

C5d c5d.large | c5d.xlarge | c5d.2xlarge | c5d.4xlarge | c5d.9xlarge Compute

| c5d.12xlarge | c5d.18xlarge | c5d.24xlarge | c5d.metal optimized (p. 195)

C5n c5n.large | c5n.xlarge | c5n.2xlarge | c5n.4xlarge | c5n.9xlarge Compute

| c5n.18xlarge | c5n.metal optimized (p. 195)

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Available instance types

Type Sizes Use case

D2 d2.xlarge | d2.2xlarge | d2.4xlarge | d2.8xlarge Storage

optimized (p. 212)

D3 d3.xlarge | d3.2xlarge | d3.4xlarge | d3.8xlarge Storage

optimized (p. 212)

D3en d3en.large | d3en.xlarge | d3en.2xlarge | d3en.4xlarge | Storage

d3en.6xlarge | d3en.8xlarge | d3en.12xlarge optimized (p. 212)

F1 f1.2xlarge | f1.4xlarge | f1.16xlarge Accelerated

computing (p. 218)

G3 g3s.xlarge | g3.4xlarge | g3.8xlarge | g3.16xlarge Accelerated

computing (p. 218)

G4ad g4ad.xlarge | g4ad.2xlarge | g4ad.4xlarge | g4ad.8xlarge | Accelerated

g4ad.16xlarge computing (p. 218)

G4dn g4dn.xlarge | g4dn.2xlarge | g4dn.4xlarge | g4dn.8xlarge | Accelerated

g4dn.12xlarge | g4dn.16xlarge | g4dn.metal computing (p. 218)

H1 h1.2xlarge | h1.4xlarge | h1.8xlarge | h1.16xlarge Storage

optimized (p. 212)

I3 i3.large | i3.xlarge | i3.2xlarge | i3.4xlarge | i3.8xlarge | Storage

i3.16xlarge | i3.metal optimized (p. 212)

I3en i3en.large | i3en.xlarge | i3en.2xlarge | i3en.3xlarge | Storage

i3en.6xlarge | i3en.12xlarge | i3en.24xlarge | i3en.metal optimized (p. 212)

M4 m4.large | m4.xlarge | m4.2xlarge | m4.4xlarge | m4.10xlarge | General

m4.16xlarge purpose (p. 151)

M5 m5.large | m5.xlarge | m5.2xlarge | m5.4xlarge | m5.8xlarge | General

m5.12xlarge | m5.16xlarge | m5.24xlarge | m5.metal purpose (p. 151)

M5a m5a.large | m5a.xlarge | m5a.2xlarge | m5a.4xlarge | m5a.8xlarge General

| m5a.12xlarge | m5a.16xlarge | m5a.24xlarge purpose (p. 151)

M5ad m5ad.large | m5ad.xlarge | m5ad.2xlarge | m5ad.4xlarge | General

m5ad.8xlarge | m5ad.12xlarge | m5ad.16xlarge | m5ad.24xlarge purpose (p. 151)

M5d m5d.large | m5d.xlarge | m5d.2xlarge | m5d.4xlarge | m5d.8xlarge General

| m5d.12xlarge | m5d.16xlarge | m5d.24xlarge | m5d.metal purpose (p. 151)

M5dn m5dn.large | m5dn.xlarge | m5dn.2xlarge | m5dn.4xlarge | General

m5dn.8xlarge | m5dn.12xlarge | m5dn.16xlarge | m5dn.24xlarge | purpose (p. 151)
m5dn.metal

M5n m5n.large | m5n.xlarge | m5n.2xlarge | m5n.4xlarge | m5n.8xlarge General

| m5n.12xlarge | m5n.16xlarge | m5n.24xlarge | m5n.metal purpose (p. 151)

M5zn m5zn.large | m5zn.xlarge | m5zn.2xlarge | m5zn.3xlarge | General

m5zn.6xlarge | m5zn.12xlarge | m5zn.metal purpose (p. 151)

M6i m6i.large | m6i.xlarge | m6i.2xlarge | m6i.4xlarge | m6i.8xlarge General

| m6i.12xlarge | m6i.16xlarge | m6i.24xlarge | m6i.32xlarge purpose (p. 151)

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Available instance types

Type Sizes Use case

P2 p2.xlarge | p2.8xlarge | p2.16xlarge Accelerated

computing (p. 218)

P3 p3.2xlarge | p3.8xlarge | p3.16xlarge Accelerated

computing (p. 218)

P3dn p3dn.24xlarge Accelerated

computing (p. 218)

R4 r4.large | r4.xlarge | r4.2xlarge | r4.4xlarge | r4.8xlarge | Memory

r4.16xlarge optimized (p. 201)

R5 r5.large | r5.xlarge | r5.2xlarge | r5.4xlarge | r5.8xlarge | Memory

r5.12xlarge | r5.16xlarge | r5.24xlarge | r5.metal optimized (p. 201)

R5a r5a.large | r5a.xlarge | r5a.2xlarge | r5a.4xlarge | r5a.8xlarge Memory

| r5a.12xlarge | r5a.16xlarge | r5a.24xlarge optimized (p. 201)

R5ad r5ad.large | r5ad.xlarge | r5ad.2xlarge | r5ad.4xlarge | Memory

r5ad.8xlarge | r5ad.12xlarge | r5ad.16xlarge | r5ad.24xlarge optimized (p. 201)

R5b r5b.large | r5b.xlarge | r5b.2xlarge | r5b.4xlarge | r5b.8xlarge Memory

| r5b.12xlarge | r5b.16xlarge | r5b.24xlarge | r5b.metal optimized (p. 201)

R5d r5d.large | r5d.xlarge | r5d.2xlarge | r5d.4xlarge | r5d.8xlarge Memory

| r5d.12xlarge | r5d.16xlarge | r5d.24xlarge | r5d.metal optimized (p. 201)

R5dn r5dn.large | r5dn.xlarge | r5dn.2xlarge | r5dn.4xlarge | Memory

r5dn.8xlarge | r5dn.12xlarge | r5dn.16xlarge | r5dn.24xlarge | optimized (p. 201)
r5dn.metal

R5n r5n.large | r5n.xlarge | r5n.2xlarge | r5n.4xlarge | r5n.8xlarge Memory

| r5n.12xlarge | r5n.16xlarge | r5n.24xlarge | r5n.metal optimized (p. 201)

T2 t2.nano | t2.micro | t2.small | t2.medium | t2.large | t2.xlarge | General

t2.2xlarge purpose (p. 151)

T3 t3.nano | t3.micro | t3.small | t3.medium | t3.large | t3.xlarge | General

t3.2xlarge purpose (p. 151)

T3a t3a.nano | t3a.micro | t3a.small | t3a.medium | t3a.large | General

t3a.xlarge | t3a.2xlarge purpose (p. 151)

High u-6tb1.56xlarge | u-6tb1.112xlarge | u-6tb1.metal | Memory

memory u-9tb1.112xlarge | u-9tb1.metal | u-12tb1.112xlarge | optimized (p. 201)
(u-*) u-12tb1.metal | u-18tb1.metal | u-24tb1.metal

X1 x1.16xlarge | x1.32xlarge Memory

optimized (p. 201)

X1e x1e.xlarge | x1e.2xlarge | x1e.4xlarge | x1e.8xlarge | Memory

x1e.16xlarge | x1e.32xlarge optimized (p. 201)

z1d z1d.large | z1d.xlarge | z1d.2xlarge | z1d.3xlarge | z1d.6xlarge Memory

| z1d.12xlarge | z1d.metal optimized (p. 201)

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Hardware specifications

Previous generation instances

Amazon Web Services offers previous generation instance types for users who have optimized their
applications around them and have yet to upgrade. We encourage you to use current generation instance
types to get the best performance, but we continue to support the following previous generation
instance types. For more information about which current generation instance type would be a suitable
upgrade, see Previous Generation Instances.

Type Sizes

C1 c1.medium | c1.xlarge

C3 c3.large | c3.xlarge | c3.2xlarge | c3.4xlarge | c3.8xlarge

G2 g2.2xlarge | g2.8xlarge

I2 i2.xlarge | i2.2xlarge | i2.4xlarge | i2.8xlarge

M1 m1.small | m1.medium | m1.large | m1.xlarge

M2 m2.xlarge | m2.2xlarge | m2.4xlarge

M3 m3.medium | m3.large | m3.xlarge | m3.2xlarge

R3 r3.large | r3.xlarge | r3.2xlarge | r3.4xlarge | r3.8xlarge

T1 t1.micro

Hardware specifications
For more information about the hardware specifications for each Amazon EC2 instance type, see Amazon
EC2 Instance Types.

To determine which instance type best meets your needs, we recommend that you launch an instance
and use your own benchmark application. Because you pay by the instance second, it's convenient and
inexpensive to test multiple instance types before making a decision.

If your needs change, even after you make a decision, you can resize your instance later. For more
information, see Change the instance type (p. 233).
Note
Amazon EC2 instances typically run on 64-bit virtual Intel processors as specified in the instance
type product pages. For more information about the hardware specifications for each Amazon
EC2 instance type, see Amazon EC2 Instance Types. However, confusion may result from
industry naming conventions for 64-bit CPUs. Chip manufacturer Advanced Micro Devices
(AMD) introduced the first commercially successful 64-bit architecture based on the Intel x86
instruction set. Consequently, the architecture is widely referred to as AMD64 regardless of the
chip manufacturer. Windows and several Linux distributions follow this practice. This explains
why the internal system information on an Ubuntu or Windows EC2 instance displays the CPU
architecture as AMD64 even though the instances are running on Intel hardware.

Processor features
Intel processor features

Amazon EC2 instances that run on Intel processors may include the following features. Not all of the
following processor features are supported by all instance types. For detailed information about which
features are available for each instance type, see Amazon EC2 Instance Types.

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Instances built on the Nitro System

• Intel AES New Instructions (AES-NI) — Intel AES-NI encryption instruction set improves upon the
original Advanced Encryption Standard (AES) algorithm to provide faster data protection and greater
security. All current generation EC2 instances support this processor feature.
• Intel Advanced Vector Extensions (Intel AVX, Intel AVX2, and Intel AVX-512) — Intel AVX and Intel
AVX2 are 256-bit, and Intel AVX-512 is a 512-bit instruction set extension designed for applications
that are Floating Point (FP) intensive. Intel AVX instructions improve performance for applications like
image and audio/video processing, scientific simulations, financial analytics, and 3D modeling and
analysis. These features are only available on instances launched with HVM AMIs.
• Intel Turbo Boost Technology — Intel Turbo Boost Technology processors automatically run cores
faster than the base operating frequency.
• Intel Deep Learning Boost (Intel DL Boost) — Accelerates AI deep learning use cases. The 2nd Gen
Intel Xeon Scalable processors extend Intel AVX-512 with a new Vector Neural Network Instruction
(VNNI/INT8) that significantly increases deep learning inference performance over previous generation
Intel Xeon Scalable processors (with FP32) for image recognition/segmentation, object detection,
speech recognition, language translation, recommendation systems, reinforcement learning, and more.
VNNI may not be compatible with all Linux distributions.

The following instances support VNNI: M5n, R5n, M5dn, M5zn, R5b, R5dn, D3, and D3en. C5 and C5d
instances support VNNI for only 12xlarge, 24xlarge, and metal instances.

Instances built on the Nitro System

The Nitro System is a collection of AWS-built hardware and software components that enable high
performance, high availability, and high security. For more information, see AWS Nitro System.

The Nitro System provides bare metal capabilities that eliminate virtualization overhead and support
workloads that require full access to host hardware. Bare metal instances are well suited for the
following:

• Workloads that require access to low-level hardware features (for example, Intel VT) that are not
available or fully supported in virtualized environments
• Applications that require a non-virtualized environment for licensing or support

Nitro components

The following components are part of the Nitro System:

• Nitro card
• Local NVMe storage volumes
• Networking hardware support
• Management
• Monitoring
• Security
• Nitro security chip, integrated into the motherboard
• Nitro hypervisor - A lightweight hypervisor that manages memory and CPU allocation and delivers
performance that is indistinguishable from bare metal for most workloads.

Instance types

The following instances are built on the Nitro System:

• Virtualized: C5, C5a, C5ad, C5d, C5n, D3, D3en, G4, I3en, M5, M5a, M5ad, M5d, M5dn, M5n, M5zn, M6i,
p3dn.24xlarge, R5, R5a, R5ad, R5b, R5d, R5dn, R5n, T3, T3a, high memory (u-*), and z1d

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Networking and storage features

• Bare metal: c5.metal, c5d.metal, c5n.metal, i3.metal, i3en.metal, m5.metal, m5d.metal,

m5dn.metal, m5n.metal, m5zn.metal, r5.metal, r5b.metal, r5d.metal, r5dn.metal,
r5n.metal, u-6tb1.metal, u-9tb1.metal, u-12tb1.metal, u-18tb1.metal, u-24tb1.metal,
and z1d.metal

Learn more

For more information, see the following videos:

• AWS re:Invent 2017: The Amazon EC2 Nitro System Architecture

• AWS re:Invent 2017: Amazon EC2 Bare Metal Instances
• AWS re:Invent 2019: Powering next-gen Amazon EC2: Deep dive into the Nitro system
• AWS re:Inforce 2019: Security Benefits of the Nitro Architecture

Networking and storage features

When you select an instance type, this determines the networking and storage features that are
available. To describe an instance type, use the describe-instance-types command.

Networking features

• IPv6 is supported on all current generation instance types and the C3, R3, and I2 previous generation
instance types.
• To maximize the networking and bandwidth performance of your instance type, you can do the
following:
• Launch supported instance types into a cluster placement group to optimize your instances for
high performance computing (HPC) applications. Instances in a common cluster placement group
can benefit from high-bandwidth, low-latency networking. For more information, see Placement
groups (p. 988).
• Enable enhanced networking for supported current generation instance types to get significantly
higher packet per second (PPS) performance, lower network jitter, and lower latencies. For more
information, see Enhanced networking on Windows (p. 973).
• Current generation instance types that are enabled for enhanced networking have the following
networking performance attributes:
• Traffic within the same Region over private IPv4 or IPv6 can support 5 Gbps for single-flow traffic
and up to 25 Gbps for multi-flow traffic (depending on the instance type).
• Traffic to and from Amazon S3 buckets within the same Region over the public IP address space or
through a VPC endpoint can use all available instance aggregate bandwidth.
• The maximum transmission unit (MTU) supported varies across instance types. All Amazon EC2
instance types support standard Ethernet V2 1500 MTU frames. All current generation instances
support 9001 MTU, or jumbo frames, and some previous generation instances support them as well.
For more information, see Network maximum transmission unit (MTU) for your EC2 instance (p. 1000).

Storage features

• Some instance types support EBS volumes and instance store volumes, while other instance types
support only EBS volumes. Some instance types that support instance store volumes use solid state
drives (SSD) to deliver very high random I/O performance. Some instance types support NVMe
instance store volumes. Some instance types support NVMe EBS volumes. For more information, see
Amazon EBS and NVMe on Windows instances (p. 1355) and NVMe SSD volumes (p. 1416).

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• To obtain additional, dedicated capacity for Amazon EBS I/O, you can launch some instance types as
EBS–optimized instances. Some instance types are EBS–optimized by default. For more information,
see Amazon EBS–optimized instances (p. 1357).

Summary of networking and storage features

The following table summarizes the networking and storage features supported by current generation
instance types.

  EBS only NVMe EBS Instance store Placement Enhanced

group networking

C4 Yes No No Yes Intel 82599 VF

C5 Yes Yes No Yes ENA

C5a Yes Yes No Yes ENA

C5ad No Yes NVMe * Yes ENA

C5d No Yes NVMe * Yes ENA

C5n Yes Yes No Yes ENA

D2 No No HDD Yes Intel 82599 VF

D3 No Yes NVMe * Yes ENA

D3en No Yes NVMe * Yes ENA

F1 No No NVMe * Yes ENA

G3 Yes No No Yes ENA

G4ad No Yes NVMe * Yes ENA

G4dn No Yes NVMe * Yes ENA

H1 No No HDD * Yes ENA

I3 No No NVMe * Yes ENA

I3en No Yes NVMe * Yes ENA

M4 Yes No No Yes m4.16xlarge:

ENA

All other sizes:

Intel 82599 VF

M5 Yes Yes No Yes ENA

M5a Yes Yes No Yes ENA

M5ad No Yes NVMe * Yes ENA

M5d No Yes NVMe * Yes ENA

M5dn No Yes NVMe * Yes ENA

M5n Yes Yes No Yes ENA

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  EBS only NVMe EBS Instance store Placement Enhanced

group networking

M5zn Yes Yes No Yes ENA

M6i Yes Yes No Yes ENA

P2 Yes No No Yes ENA

P3 Yes No No Yes ENA

P3dn No Yes NVMe * Yes ENA

R4 Yes No No Yes ENA

R5 Yes Yes No Yes ENA

R5a Yes Yes No Yes ENA

R5ad No Yes NVMe * Yes ENA

R5b Yes Yes No Yes ENA

R5d No Yes NVMe * Yes ENA

R5dn No Yes NVMe * Yes ENA

R5n Yes Yes No Yes ENA

T2 Yes No No No No

T3 Yes Yes No No ENA

T3a Yes Yes No No ENA

High memory Yes Yes No Virtualized: Yes ENA

(u-*)
Bare metal: No

X1 No No SSD * Yes ENA

X1e No No SSD * Yes ENA

z1d No Yes NVMe * Yes ENA

* The root device volume must be an Amazon EBS volume.

The following table summarizes the networking and storage features supported by previous generation
instance types.

  Instance store Placement group Enhanced networking

C3 SSD Yes Intel 82599 VF

G2 SSD Yes No

I2 SSD Yes Intel 82599 VF

M3 SSD No No

R3 SSD Yes Intel 82599 VF

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Instance limits

Instance limits
There is a limit on the total number of instances that you can launch in a region, and there are additional
limits on some instance types.

For more information about the default limits, see How many instances can I run in Amazon EC2?

For more information about viewing your current limits or requesting an increase in your current limits,
see Amazon EC2 service quotas (p. 1475).

General purpose instances

General purpose instances provide a balance of compute, memory, and networking resources, and can be
used for a wide range of workloads.

M5 and M5a instances

These instances provide an ideal cloud infrastructure, offering a balance of compute, memory, and
networking resources for a broad range of applications that are deployed in the cloud. They are well-
suited for the following:

• Small and midsize databases

• Data processing tasks that require additional memory
• Caching fleets
• Backend servers for SAP, Microsoft SharePoint, cluster computing, and other enterprise applications

For more information, see Amazon EC2 M5 Instances.

Bare metal instances, such as m5.metal, provide your applications with direct access to physical
resources of the host server, such as processors and memory.

M5zn
These instances are ideal for applications that benefit from extremely high single-thread performance,
high throughput, and low latency networking. They are well-suited for the following:

• Gaming
• High performance computing
• Simulation modeling

For more information, see Amazon EC2 M5 Instances.

Bare metal instances, such as m5zn.metal, provide your applications with direct access to physical
resources of the host server, such as processors and memory.

M6i instances
These instances are well suited for general-purpose workloads such as the following:

• Application servers and web servers

• Microservices
• High performance computing
• App development
• Small and midsize databases
• Caching fleets

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For more information, see Amazon EC2 M6i Instances.

T2, T3, and T3a instances

These instances provide a baseline level of CPU performance with the ability to burst to a higher level
when required by your workload. An Unlimited instance can sustain high CPU performance for any
period of time whenever required. For more information, see Burstable performance instances (p. 161).
They are well-suited for the following:

• Websites and web applications

• Code repositories
• Development, build, test, and staging environments
• Microservices

For more information, see Amazon EC2 T2 Instances and Amazon EC2 T3 Instances.

Contents
• Hardware specifications (p. 152)
• Instance performance (p. 155)
• Network performance (p. 155)
• SSD I/O performance (p. 158)
• Instance features (p. 160)
• Release notes (p. 160)
• Burstable performance instances (p. 161)

Hardware specifications
The following is a summary of the hardware specifications for general purpose instances.

Instance type Default vCPUs Memory (GiB)

m4.large 2 8

m4.xlarge 4 16

m4.2xlarge 8 32

m4.4xlarge 16 64

m4.10xlarge 40 160

m4.16xlarge 64 256

m5.large 2 8

m5.xlarge 4 16

m5.2xlarge 8 32

m5.4xlarge 16 64

m5.8xlarge 32 128

m5.12xlarge 48 192

m5.16xlarge 64 256

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Instance type Default vCPUs Memory (GiB)

m5.24xlarge 96 384

m5.metal 96 384

m5a.large 2 8

m5a.xlarge 4 16

m5a.2xlarge 8 32

m5a.4xlarge 16 64

m5a.8xlarge 32 128

m5a.12xlarge 48 192

m5a.16xlarge 64 256

m5a.24xlarge 96 384

m5ad.large 2 8

m5ad.xlarge 4 16

m5ad.2xlarge 8 32

m5ad.4xlarge 16 64

m5ad.8xlarge 32 128

m5ad.12xlarge 48 192

m5ad.16xlarge 64 256

m5ad.24xlarge 96 384

m5d.large 2 8

m5d.xlarge 4 16

m5d.2xlarge 8 32

m5d.4xlarge 16 64

m5d.8xlarge 32 128

m5d.12xlarge 48 192

m5d.16xlarge 64 256

m5d.24xlarge 96 384

m5d.metal 96 384

m5dn.large 2 8

m5dn.xlarge 4 16

m5dn.2xlarge 8 32

m5dn.4xlarge 16 64

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Instance type Default vCPUs Memory (GiB)

m5dn.8xlarge 32 128

m5dn.12xlarge 48 192

m5dn.16xlarge 64 256

m5dn.24xlarge 96 384

m5dn.metal 96 384

m5n.large 2 8

m5n.xlarge 4 16

m5n.2xlarge 8 32

m5n.4xlarge 16 64

m5n.8xlarge 32 128

m5n.12xlarge 48 192

m5n.16xlarge 64 256

m5n.24xlarge 96 384

m5n.metal 96 384

m5zn.large 2 8

m5zn.xlarge 4 16

m5zn.2xlarge 8 32

m5zn.3xlarge 12 48

m5zn.6xlarge 24 96

m5zn.12xlarge 48 192

m5zn.metal 48 192

m6i.large 2 8

m6i.xlarge 4 16

m6i.2xlarge 8 32

m6i.4xlarge 16 64

m6i.8xlarge 32 128

m6i.12xlarge 48 192

m6i.16xlarge 64 256

m6i.24xlarge 96 384

m6i.32xlarge 128 512

t2.nano 1 0.5

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Instance type Default vCPUs Memory (GiB)

t2.micro 1 1

t2.small 1 2

t2.medium 2 4

t2.large 2 8

t2.xlarge 4 16

t2.2xlarge 8 32

t3.nano 2 0.5

t3.micro 2 1

t3.small 2 2

t3.medium 2 4

t3.large 2 8

t3.xlarge 4 16

t3.2xlarge 8 32

t3a.nano 2 0.5

t3a.micro 2 1

t3a.small 2 2

t3a.medium 2 4

t3a.large 2 8

t3a.xlarge 4 16

t3a.2xlarge 8 32

For more information about the hardware specifications for each Amazon EC2 instance type, see Amazon
EC2 Instance Types.

For more information about specifying CPU options, see Optimize CPU options (p. 549).

Instance performance
EBS-optimized instances enable you to get consistently high performance for your EBS volumes by
eliminating contention between Amazon EBS I/O and other network traffic from your instance. Some
general purpose instances are EBS-optimized by default at no additional cost. For more information, see
Amazon EBS–optimized instances (p. 1357).

Network performance
You can enable enhanced networking on supported instance types to provide lower latencies, lower
network jitter, and higher packet-per-second (PPS) performance. Most applications do not consistently
need a high level of network performance, but can benefit from access to increased bandwidth when
they send or receive data. For more information, see Enhanced networking on Windows (p. 973).

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The following is a summary of network performance for general purpose instances that support
enhanced networking.

Instance type Network performance Enhanced networking

T2 Up to 1 Gbps Not supported

T3 | T3a Up to 5 Gbps † ENA (p. 974)

m4.large Moderate Intel 82599 VF (p. 981)

m4.xlarge | m4.2xlarge | High Intel 82599 VF (p. 981)

m4.4xlarge

m5.4xlarge and smaller | Up to 10 Gbps † ENA (p. 974)

m5a.8xlarge and smaller |
m5ad.8xlarge and smaller |
m5d.4xlarge and smaller

m4.10xlarge 10 Gbps Intel 82599 VF (p. 981)

m5.8xlarge | m5.12xlarge 10 Gbps ENA (p. 974)

| m5a.12xlarge |
m5ad.12xlarge |
m5d.8xlarge | m5d.12xlarge

m5a.16xlarge | 12 Gbps ENA (p. 974)

m5ad.16xlarge

m6i.4xlarge and smaller Up to 12.5 Gbps † ENA (p. 974)

m6i.8xlarge 12.5 Gbps ENA (p. 974)

m6i.12xlarge 18.75 Gbps ENA (p. 974)

m5.16xlarge | m5a.24xlarge 20 Gbps ENA (p. 974)

| m5ad.24xlarge |
m5d.16xlarge

m5dn.4xlarge and smaller Up to 25 Gbps † ENA (p. 974)

| m5n.4xlarge and smaller |
m5zn.3xlarge and smaller

m4.16xlarge | m5.24xlarge 25 Gbps ENA (p. 974)

| m5.metal | m5d.24xlarge |
m5d.metal | m5dn.8xlarge |
m5n.8xlarge | m6i.16xlarge

m6i.24xlarge 37.5 Gbps ENA (p. 974)

m5dn.12xlarge 50 Gbps ENA (p. 974)

| m5n.12xlarge
| m5zn.6xlarge |
m6i.32xlarge

m5dn.16xlarge | 75 Gbps ENA (p. 974)

m5n.16xlarge

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Instance type Network performance Enhanced networking

m5dn.24xlarge | m5dn.metal 100 Gbps ENA (p. 974)

| m5n.24xlarge | m5n.metal |
m5zn.12xlarge | m5zn.metal

† These instances have a baseline bandwidth and can use a network I/O credit mechanism to burst
beyond their baseline bandwidth on a best effort basis. For more information, see instance network
bandwidth (p. 972).

Instance type Baseline bandwidth (Gbps) Burst bandwidth (Gbps)

m5.large .75 10

m5.xlarge 1.25 10

m5.2xlarge 2.5 10

m5.4xlarge 5 10

m5a.large .75 10

m5a.xlarge 1.25 10

m5a.2xlarge 2.5 10

m5a.4xlarge 5 10

m5ad.large .75 10

m5ad.xlarge 1.25 10

m5ad.2xlarge 2.5 10

m5ad.4xlarge 5 10

m5d.large .75 10

m5d.xlarge 1.25 10

m5d.2xlarge 2.5 10

m5d.4xlarge 5 10

m5dn.large 2.1 25

m5dn.xlarge 4.1 25

m5dn.2xlarge 8.125 25

m5dn.4xlarge 16.25 25

m5n.large 2.1 25

m5n.xlarge 4.1 25

m5n.2xlarge 8.125 25

m5n.4xlarge 16.25 25

m5zn.large 3 25

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Instance type Baseline bandwidth (Gbps) Burst bandwidth (Gbps)

m5zn.xlarge 5 25

m5zn.2xlarge 10 25

m5zn.3xlarge 15 25

m6i.large .781 12.5

m6i.xlarge 1.562 12.5

m6i.2xlarge 3.125 12.5

m6i.4xlarge 6.25 12.5

t3.nano .032 5

t3.micro .064 5

t3.small .128 5

t3.medium .256 5

t3.large .512 5

t3.xlarge 1.024 5

t3.2xlarge 2.048 5

t3a.nano .032 5

t3a.micro .064 5

t3a.small .128 5

t3a.medium .256 5

t3a.large .512 5

t3a.xlarge 1.024 5

t3a.2xlarge 2.048 5

SSD I/O performance

If you use all the SSD-based instance store volumes available to your instance, you get the IOPS (4,096
byte block size) performance listed in the following table (at queue depth saturation). Otherwise, you get
lower IOPS performance.

Instance Size 100% Random Read IOPS Write IOPS

m5ad.large * 30,000 15,000

m5ad.xlarge * 59,000 29,000

m5ad.2xlarge * 117,000 57,000

m5ad.4xlarge * 234,000 114,000

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Instance Size 100% Random Read IOPS Write IOPS

m5ad.8xlarge 466,666 233,333

m5ad.12xlarge 700,000 340,000

m5ad.16xlarge 933,333 466,666

m5ad.24xlarge 1,400,000 680,000

m5d.large * 30,000 15,000

m5d.xlarge * 59,000 29,000

m5d.2xlarge * 117,000 57,000

m5d.4xlarge * 234,000 114,000

m5d.8xlarge 466,666 233,333

m5d.12xlarge 700,000 340,000

m5d.16xlarge 933,333 466,666

m5d.24xlarge 1,400,000 680,000

m5d.metal 1,400,000 680,000

m5dn.large * 30,000 15,000

m5dn.xlarge * 59,000 29,000

m5dn.2xlarge * 117,000 57,000

m5dn.4xlarge * 234,000 114,000

m5dn.8xlarge 466,666 233,333

m5dn.12xlarge 700,000 340,000

m5dn.16xlarge 933,333 466,666

m5dn.24xlarge 1,400,000 680,000

m5dn.metal 1,400,000 680,000

* For these instances, you can get up to the specified performance.

As you fill the SSD-based instance store volumes for your instance, the number of write IOPS that
you can achieve decreases. This is due to the extra work the SSD controller must do to find available
space, rewrite existing data, and erase unused space so that it can be rewritten. This process of
garbage collection results in internal write amplification to the SSD, expressed as the ratio of SSD write
operations to user write operations. This decrease in performance is even larger if the write operations
are not in multiples of 4,096 bytes or not aligned to a 4,096-byte boundary. If you write a smaller
amount of bytes or bytes that are not aligned, the SSD controller must read the surrounding data and
store the result in a new location. This pattern results in significantly increased write amplification,
increased latency, and dramatically reduced I/O performance.

SSD controllers can use several strategies to reduce the impact of write amplification. One such strategy
is to reserve space in the SSD instance storage so that the controller can more efficiently manage the
space available for write operations. This is called over-provisioning. The SSD-based instance store

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volumes provided to an instance don't have any space reserved for over-provisioning. To reduce write
amplification, we recommend that you leave 10% of the volume unpartitioned so that the SSD controller
can use it for over-provisioning. This decreases the storage that you can use, but increases performance
even if the disk is close to full capacity.

For instance store volumes that support TRIM, you can use the TRIM command to notify the SSD
controller whenever you no longer need data that you've written. This provides the controller with more
free space, which can reduce write amplification and increase performance. For more information, see
Instance store volume TRIM support (p. 1417).

Instance features
The following is a summary of features for general purpose instances:

  EBS only NVMe EBS Instance store Placement group

M4 Yes No No Yes

M5 Yes Yes No Yes

M5a Yes Yes No Yes

M5ad No Yes NVMe * Yes

M5d No Yes NVMe * Yes

M5dn No Yes NVMe * Yes

M5n Yes Yes No Yes

M5zn Yes Yes No Yes

M6i Yes Yes No Yes

T2 Yes No No No

T3 Yes Yes No No

T3a Yes Yes No No

* The root device volume must be an Amazon EBS volume.

For more information, see the following:

• Amazon EBS and NVMe on Windows instances (p. 1355)

• Amazon EC2 instance store (p. 1405)
• Placement groups (p. 988)

Release notes
• M5, M5d, and T3 instances feature a 3.1 GHz Intel Xeon Platinum 8000 series processor from either the
first generation (Skylake-SP) or second generation (Cascade Lake).
• M5a, M5ad, and T3a instances feature a 2.5 GHz AMD EPYC 7000 series processor.
• M5zn instances are powered by Intel Cascade Lake CPUs that deliver all-core turbo frequency of up to
4.5 GHz and up to 100 Gbps network bandwidth.

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• M6i instances feature third generation Intel Xeon Scalable processors (Ice Lake) and support the Intel
Advanced Vector Extensions 512 (Intel AVX-512) instruction set.
• Instances built on the Nitro System (p. 147), M4, t2.large and larger, t3.large and larger, and
t3a.large and larger instance types require 64-bit HVM AMIs. They have high-memory, and require
a 64-bit operating system to take advantage of that capacity. HVM AMIs provide superior performance
in comparison to paravirtual (PV) AMIs on high-memory instance types. In addition, you must use an
HVM AMI to take advantage of enhanced networking.
• Instances built on the Nitro System (p. 147) have the following requirements:
• NVMe drivers (p. 1355) must be installed
• Elastic Network Adapter (ENA) drivers (p. 974) must be installed

The current AWS Windows AMIs (p. 27) meet these requirements.
• To get the best performance from your M6i instances, ensure that they have ENA driver version 2.2.3
or later. Using an ENA driver earlier than version 2.0.0 with these instances causes network interface
attachment failures. The following AMIs have a compatible ENA driver.
• AWS Windows AMI from May 2021 or later
• Instances built on the Nitro System support a maximum of 28 attachments, including network
interfaces, EBS volumes, and NVMe instance store volumes. For more information, see Nitro System
volume limits (p. 1420).
• Launching a bare metal instance boots the underlying server, which includes verifying all hardware and
firmware components. This means that it can take 20 minutes from the time the instance enters the
running state until it becomes available over the network.
• To attach or detach EBS volumes or secondary network interfaces from a bare metal instance requires
PCIe native hotplug support.
• Bare metal instances use a PCI-based serial device rather than an I/O port-based serial device. The
upstream Linux kernel and the latest Amazon Linux AMIs support this device. Bare metal instances also
provide an ACPI SPCR table to enable the system to automatically use the PCI-based serial device. The
latest Windows AMIs automatically use the PCI-based serial device.
• There is a limit on the total number of instances that you can launch in a Region, and there are
additional limits on some instance types. For more information, see How many instances can I run in
Amazon EC2? in the Amazon EC2 FAQ.

Burstable performance instances

Many general purpose workloads are on average not busy, and do not require a high level of sustained
CPU performance. The following graph illustrates the CPU utilization for many common workloads that
customers run in the AWS Cloud today.

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These low-to-moderate CPU utilization workloads lead to wastage of CPU cycles and, as a result, you
pay for more than you use. To overcome this, you can leverage the low-cost burstable general purpose
instances, which are the T instances.

The T instance family provides a baseline CPU performance with the ability to burst above the baseline
at any time for as long as required. The baseline CPU is defined to meet the needs of the majority
of general purpose workloads, including large-scale micro-services, web servers, small and medium
databases, data logging, code repositories, virtual desktops, development and test environments,
and business-critical applications. The T instances offer a balance of compute, memory, and network
resources, and provide you with the most cost-effective way to run a broad spectrum of general purpose
applications that have a low-to-moderate CPU usage. They can save you up to 15% in costs when
compared to M instances, and can lead to even more cost savings with smaller, more economical instance
sizes, offering as low as 2 vCPUs and 0.5 GiB of memory. The smaller T instance sizes, such as nano,
micro, small, and medium, are well suited for workloads that need a small amount of memory and do
not expect high CPU usage.

EC2 burstable instance types

The EC2 burstable instances consist of T3a and T3 instance types, and the previous generation T2
instance types.

The T4g instance types are the latest generation of burstable instances. They provide the best price for
performance, and provide you with the lowest cost of all the EC2 instance types. The T4g instance types
are powered by Arm-based AWS Graviton2 processors with extensive ecosystem support from operating
systems vendors, independent software vendors, and popular AWS services and applications.

The following table summarizes the key differences between the burstable instance types.

Type Description Processor family

Latest generation

T4g Lowest cost EC2 instance type AWS Graviton2 processors with
with up to 40% higher price/ Arm Neoverse N1 cores

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Type Description Processor family

performance and 20% lower
costs vs T3

T3a Lowest cost x86-based instances AMD 1st gen EPYC processors
with 10% lower costs vs T3
instances

T3 Best peak price/performance Intel Xeon Scalable (Skylake,

for x86 workloads with up to Cascade Lake processors)
30% lower price/performance vs
previous generation T2 instances

Previous generation

T2 Previous generation burstable Intel Xeon processors

instances

For more information about instance pricing and additional specifications, see Amazon EC2 Pricing and
Amazon EC2 Instance Types.

If your account is less than 12 months old, you can use a t2.micro instance for free (or a t3.micro
instance in Regions where t2.micro is unavailable) within certain usage limits. For more information,
see AWS Free Tier.

Supported purchasing options for T instances

• On-Demand Instances
• Reserved Instances
• Dedicated Instances (T3 only)
• Dedicated Hosts (T3 only, in standard mode only)
• Spot Instances

For more information, see Instance purchasing options (p. 241).

Contents
• Best practices (p. 163)
• Key concepts and definitions for burstable performance instances (p. 164)
• Unlimited mode for burstable performance instances (p. 170)
• Standard mode for burstable performance instances (p. 177)
• Work with burstable performance instances (p. 186)
• Monitor your CPU credits (p. 191)

Best practices
Follow these best practices to get the maximum benefit from burstable performance instances.

• Ensure that the instance size you choose passes the minimum memory requirements of your operating
system and applications. Operating systems with graphical user interfaces that consume significant
memory and CPU resources (for example, Windows) might require a t3.micro or larger instance size
for many use cases. As the memory and CPU requirements of your workload grow over time, you have
the flexibility with the T instances to scale to larger instance sizes of the same instance type, or to
select another instance type.

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• Enable AWS Compute Optimizer for your account and review the Compute Optimizer
recommendations for your workload. Compute Optimizer can help assess whether instances should be
upsized to improve performance or downsized for cost savings.
• For additional requirements, see Release notes (p. 160).

Key concepts and definitions for burstable performance instances

Traditional Amazon EC2 instance types provide fixed CPU resources, while burstable performance
instances provide a baseline level of CPU utilization with the ability to burst CPU utilization above the
baseline level. This ensures that you pay only for baseline CPU plus any additional burst CPU usage
resulting in lower compute costs. The baseline utilization and ability to burst are governed by CPU
credits. Burstable performance instances are the only instance types that use credits for CPU usage.

Each burstable performance instance continuously earns credit when it stays below the CPU baseline,
and continuously spends credits when it bursts above the baseline. The amount of credits earned or
spent depends on the CPU utilization of the instance:

• If the CPU utilization is below baseline, then credits earned are greater than credits spent.
• If the CPU utilization is equal to baseline, then credits earned are equal to credits spent.
• If the CPU utilization is higher than baseline, then credits spent are higher than credits earned.

When the credits earned are greater than credits spent, then the difference is called accrued credits,
which can be used later to burst above baseline CPU utilization. Similarly, when the credits spent are
more than credits earned, then the instance behavior depends on the credit configuration mode—
Standard mode or Unlimited mode.

In Standard mode, when credits spent are more than credits earned, the instance uses the accrued credits
to burst above baseline CPU utilization. If there are no accrued credits remaining, then the instance
gradually comes down to baseline CPU utilization and cannot burst above baseline until it accrues more
credits.

In Unlimited mode, if the instance bursts above baseline CPU utilization, then the instance first uses
the accrued credits to burst. If there are no accrued credits remaining, then the instance spends surplus
credits to burst. When its CPU utilization falls below the baseline, it uses the CPU credits that it earns
to pay down the surplus credits that it spent earlier. The ability to earn CPU credits to pay down surplus
credits enables Amazon EC2 to average the CPU utilization of an instance over a 24-hour period. If the
average CPU usage over a 24-hour period exceeds the baseline, the instance is billed for the additional
usage at a flat additional rate per vCPU-hour.

Contents
• Key concepts and definitions (p. 164)
• Earn CPU credits (p. 167)
• CPU credit earn rate (p. 168)
• CPU credit accrual limit (p. 168)
• Accrued CPU credits life span (p. 169)
• Baseline utilization (p. 169)

Key concepts and definitions

The following key concepts and definitions are applicable to burstable performance instances.

CPU utilization

CPU utilization is the percentage of allocated EC2 compute units that are currently in use on the
instance. This metric measures the percentage of allocated CPU cycles that are being utilized on an

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instance. The CPU Utilization CloudWatch metric shows CPU usage per instance and not CPU usage
per core. The baseline CPU specification of an instance is also based on the CPU usage per instance.
To measure CPU utilization using the AWS Management Console or the AWS CLI, see Get statistics
for a specific instance (p. 865).
CPU credit

A unit of vCPU-time.

Examples:

1 CPU credit = 1 vCPU * 100% utilization * 1 minute.

1 CPU credit = 1 vCPU * 50% utilization * 2 minutes

1 CPU credit = 2 vCPU * 25% utilization * 2 minutes

Baseline utilization

The baseline utilization is the level at which the CPU can be utilized for a net credit balance of zero,
when the number CPU credits being earned matches the number of CPU credits being used. Baseline
utilization is also known as the baseline. Baseline utilization is expressed as a percentage of vCPU
utilization, which is calculated as follows: Baseline utilization % = (number of credits earned/number
of vCPUs)/60 minutes
Earned credits

Credits earned continuously by an instance when it is running.

Number of credits earned per hour = % baseline utilization * number of vCPUs * 60 minutes

Example:

A t3.nano with 2 vCPUs and a baseline utilization of 5% earns 6 credits per hour, calculated as
follows:

2 vCPUs * 5% baseline * 60 minutes = 6 credits per hour

Spent or used credits

Credits used continuously by an instance when it is running.

CPU credits spent per minute = Number of vCPUs * CPU utilization * 1 minute
Accrued credits

Unspent CPU credits when an instance uses fewer credits than is required for baseline utilization. In
other words, accrued credits = (Earned credits – Used credits) below baseline.

Example:

If a t3.nano is running at 2% CPU utilization, which is below its baseline of 5% for an hour, the
accrued credits is calculated as follows:

Accrued CPU credits = (Earned credits per hour – Used credits per hour) = 6 – 2 vCPUs * 2% CPU
utilization * 60 minutes = 6 – 2.4 = 3.6 accrued credits per hour
Credit accrual limit

Depends on the instance size but in general is equal to the number of maximum credits earned in 24
hours.

Example:

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For t3.nano, the credit accrual limit = 24 * 6 = 144 credits

Launch credits

Only applicable for T2 instances configured for Standard mode. Launch credits are a limited number
of CPU credits that are allocated to a new T2 instance so that, when launched in Standard mode, it
can burst above the baseline.
Surplus credits

Credits that are spent by an instance after it depletes its accrued credit balance. The surplus credits
are designed for burstable instances to sustain high performance for an extended period of time,
and are only used in Unlimited mode. The surplus credits balance is used to determine how many
credits were used by the instance for bursting in Unlimited mode.
Standard mode

Credit configuration mode, which allows an instance to burst above the baseline by spending credits
it has accrued in its credit balance.
Unlimited mode

Credit configuration mode, which allows an instance to burst above the baseline by sustaining high
CPU utilization for any period of time whenever required. The hourly instance price automatically
covers all CPU usage spikes if the average CPU utilization of the instance is at or below the baseline
over a rolling 24-hour period or the instance lifetime, whichever is shorter. If the instance runs at
higher CPU utilization for a prolonged period, it can do so for a flat additional rate per vCPU-hour.

The following table summarizes the key credit differences between the burstable instance types.

Type Type of CPU credits Credit configuration Accrued CPU credits

supported modes lifespan between
instance starts and
stops

Latest generation

T4g Earned credits, Standard, Unlimited 7 days (credits persist

Accrued credits, Spent (default) for 7 days after an
credits, Surplus credits instance stops)
(Unlimited mode only)

T3a Earned credits, Standard, Unlimited 7 days (credits persist

Accrued credits, Spent (default) for 7 days after an
credits, Surplus credits instance stops)
(Unlimited mode only)

T3 Earned credits, Standard, Unlimited 7 days (credits persist

Accrued credits, Spent (default) for 7 days after an
credits, Surplus credits instance stops)
(Unlimited mode only)

Previous generation

T2 Earned credits, Standard (default), 0 days (credits are lost

Accrued credits, Spent Unlimited when an instance stops)
credits, Launch credits
(Standard mode
only), Surplus credits
(Unlimited mode only)

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Note
Unlimited mode is not supported for T3 instances that are launched on a Dedicated Host.

Earn CPU credits

Each burstable performance instance continuously earns (at a millisecond-level resolution) a set rate
of CPU credits per hour, depending on the instance size. The accounting process for whether credits
are accrued or spent also happens at a millisecond-level resolution, so you don't have to worry about
overspending CPU credits; a short burst of CPU uses a small fraction of a CPU credit.

If a burstable performance instance uses fewer CPU resources than is required for baseline utilization
(such as when it is idle), the unspent CPU credits are accrued in the CPU credit balance. If a burstable
performance instance needs to burst above the baseline utilization level, it spends the accrued credits.
The more credits that a burstable performance instance has accrued, the more time it can burst beyond
its baseline when more CPU utilization is needed.

The following table lists the burstable performance instance types, the rate at which CPU credits are
earned per hour, the maximum number of earned CPU credits that an instance can accrue, the number of
vCPUs per instance, and the baseline utilization as a percentage of a full core (using a single vCPU).

Instance type CPU credits Maximum earned vCPUs*** Baseline utilization

earned per hour credits that can per vCPU
be accrued*

T2

t2.nano 3 72 1 5%

t2.micro 6 144 1 10%

t2.small 12 288 1 20%

t2.medium 24 576 2 20%**

t2.large 36 864 2 30%**

t2.xlarge 54 1296 4 22.5%**

t2.2xlarge 81.6 1958.4 8 17%**

T3

t3.nano 6 144 2 5%**

t3.micro 12 288 2 10%**

t3.small 24 576 2 20%**

t3.medium 24 576 2 20%**

t3.large 36 864 2 30%**

t3.xlarge 96 2304 4 40%**

t3.2xlarge 192 4608 8 40%**

T3a

t3a.nano 6 144 2 5%**

t3a.micro 12 288 2 10%**

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Instance type CPU credits Maximum earned vCPUs*** Baseline utilization

earned per hour credits that can per vCPU
be accrued*

t3a.small 24 576 2 20%**

t3a.medium 24 576 2 20%**

t3a.large 36 864 2 30%**

t3a.xlarge 96 2304 4 40%**

t3a.2xlarge 192 4608 8 40%**

* The number of credits that can be accrued is equivalent to the number of credits that can be earned
in a 24-hour period.

** The percentage baseline utilization in the table is per vCPU. In CloudWatch, CPU utilization is shown
per vCPU. For example, the CPU utilization for a t3.large instance operating at the baseline level
is shown as 30% in CloudWatch CPU metrics. For information about how to calculate the baseline
utilization, see Baseline utilization (p. 169).

*** Each vCPU is a thread of either an Intel Xeon core or an AMD EPYC core, except for T2 instances.

CPU credit earn rate

The number of CPU credits earned per hour is determined by the instance size. For example, a t3.nano
earns six credits per hour, while a t3.small earns 24 credits per hour. The preceding table lists the
credit earn rate for all instances.

CPU credit accrual limit

While earned credits never expire on a running instance, there is a limit to the number of earned credits
that an instance can accrue. The limit is determined by the CPU credit balance limit. After the limit is
reached, any new credits that are earned are discarded, as indicated by the following image. The full
bucket indicates the CPU credit balance limit, and the spillover indicates the newly earned credits that
exceed the limit.

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The CPU credit balance limit differs for each instance size. For example, a t3.micro instance can accrue
a maximum of 288 earned CPU credits in the CPU credit balance. The preceding table lists the maximum
number of earned credits that each instance can accrue.

T2 Standard instances also earn launch credits. Launch credits do not count towards the CPU credit
balance limit. If a T2 instance has not spent its launch credits, and remains idle over a 24-hour period
while accruing earned credits, its CPU credit balance appears as over the limit. For more information, see
Launch credits (p. 178).

T3a and T3 instances do not earn launch credits. These instances launch as unlimited by default, and
therefore can burst immediately upon start without any launch credits. T3 instances launched on a
Dedicated Host launch as standard by default; de>unlimited mode is not supported for T3 instances
on a Dedicated Host.

Accrued CPU credits life span

CPU credits on a running instance do not expire.

For T2, the CPU credit balance does not persist between instance stops and starts. If you stop a T2
instance, the instance loses all its accrued credits.

For T3a and T3, the CPU credit balance persists for seven days after an instance stops and the credits are
lost thereafter. If you start the instance within seven days, no credits are lost.

For more information, see CPUCreditBalance in the CloudWatch metrics table (p. 192).

Baseline utilization

The baseline utilization is the level at which the CPU can be utilized for a net credit balance of zero,
when the number of CPU credits being earned matches the number of CPU credits being used. Baseline
utilization is also known as the baseline.

Baseline utilization is expressed as a percentage of vCPU utilization, which is calculated as follows:

(number of credits earned/number of vCPUs)/60 minutes = % baseline utilization

For example, a t3.nano instance, with 2 vCPUs, earns 6 credits per hour, resulting in a baseline
utilization of 5% , which is calculated as follows:

(6 credits earned/2 vCPUs)/60 minutes = 5% baseline utilization

A t3.xlarge instance, with 4 vCPUs, earns 96 credits per hour, resulting in a baseline utilization of 40%
((96/4)/60).

The following graph provides an example of a t3.large with an average CPU utilization below the
baseline.

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Unlimited mode for burstable performance instances

A burstable performance instance configured as unlimited can sustain high CPU utilization for any
period of time whenever required. The hourly instance price automatically covers all CPU usage spikes
if the average CPU utilization of the instance is at or below the baseline over a rolling 24-hour period or
the instance lifetime, whichever is shorter.

For the vast majority of general-purpose workloads, instances configured as unlimited provide
ample performance without any additional charges. If the instance runs at higher CPU utilization for a
prolonged period, it can do so for a flat additional rate per vCPU-hour. For information about pricing, see
Amazon EC2 pricing and T2/T3/T4 Unlimited Mode Pricing.

If you use a t2.micro or t3.micro instance under the AWS Free Tier offer and use it in unlimited
mode, charges might apply if your average utilization over a rolling 24-hour period exceeds the baseline
utilization (p. 169) of the instance.

T3a and T3 instances launch as unlimited by default. If the average CPU usage over a 24-hour
period exceeds the baseline, you incur charges for surplus credits. If you launch Spot Instances as
unlimited and plan to use them immediately and for a short duration, with no idle time for accruing
CPU credits, you incur charges for surplus credits. We recommend that you launch your Spot Instances
in standard (p. 177) mode to avoid paying higher costs. For more information, see Surplus credits can
incur charges (p. 173) and Burstable performance instances (p. 330).
Note
T3 instances launched on a Dedicated Host launch as standard by default; unlimited mode is
not supported for T3 instances on a Dedicated Host.

Contents
• Unlimited mode concepts (p. 171)
• How Unlimited burstable performance instances work (p. 171)
• When to use unlimited mode versus fixed CPU (p. 171)
• Surplus credits can incur charges (p. 173)
• No launch credits for T2 Unlimited instances (p. 173)

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• Enable unlimited mode (p. 174)

• What happens to credits when switching between Unlimited and Standard (p. 174)
• Monitor credit usage (p. 174)
• Unlimited mode examples (p. 174)
• Example 1: Explain credit use with T3 Unlimited (p. 174)
• Example 2: Explain credit use with T2 Unlimited (p. 176)

Unlimited mode concepts

The unlimited mode is a credit configuration option for burstable performance instances. It can be
enabled or disabled at any time for a running or stopped instance. You can set unlimited as the default
credit option at the account level per AWS Region, per burstable performance instance family, so that all
new burstable performance instances in the account launch using the default credit option.

How Unlimited burstable performance instances work

If a burstable performance instance configured as unlimited depletes its CPU credit balance, it can
spend surplus credits to burst beyond the baseline (p. 169). When its CPU utilization falls below
the baseline, it uses the CPU credits that it earns to pay down the surplus credits that it spent earlier.
The ability to earn CPU credits to pay down surplus credits enables Amazon EC2 to average the CPU
utilization of an instance over a 24-hour period. If the average CPU usage over a 24-hour period exceeds
the baseline, the instance is billed for the additional usage at a flat additional rate per vCPU-hour.

The following graph shows the CPU usage of a t3.large. The baseline CPU utilization for a t3.large
is 30%. If the instance runs at 30% CPU utilization or less on average over a 24-hour period, there is
no additional charge because the cost is already covered by the instance hourly price. However, if the
instance runs at 40% CPU utilization on average over a 24-hour period, as shown in the graph, the
instance is billed for the additional 10% CPU usage at a flat additional rate per vCPU-hour.

For more information about the baseline utilization per vCPU for each instance type and how many
credits each instance type earns, see the credit table (p. 167).

When to use unlimited mode versus fixed CPU

When determining whether you should use a burstable performance instance in unlimited mode,
such as T3, or a fixed performance instance, such as M5, you need to determine the breakeven CPU
usage. The breakeven CPU usage for a burstable performance instance is the point at which a burstable
performance instance costs the same as a fixed performance instance. The breakeven CPU usage helps
you determine the following:

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• If the average CPU usage over a 24-hour period is at or below the breakeven CPU usage, use a
burstable performance instance in unlimited mode so that you can benefit from the lower price of a
burstable performance instance while getting the same performance as a fixed performance instance.
• If the average CPU usage over a 24-hour period is above the breakeven CPU usage, the burstable
performance instance will cost more than the equivalently-sized fixed performance instance. If a T3
instance continuously bursts at 100% CPU, you end up paying approximately 1.5 times the price of an
equivalently-sized M5 instance.

The following graph shows the breakeven CPU usage point where a t3.large costs the same as an
m5.large. The breakeven CPU usage point for a t3.large is 42.5%. If the average CPU usage is at
42.5%, the cost of running the t3.large is the same as an m5.large, and is more expensive if the
average CPU usage is above 42.5%. If the workload needs less than 42.5% average CPU usage, you can
benefit from the lower price of the t3.large while getting the same performance as an m5.large.

The following table shows how to calculate the breakeven CPU usage threshold so that you can
determine when it's less expensive to use a burstable performance instance in unlimited mode or a
fixed performance instance. The columns in the table are labeled A through K.

Instance vCPUs T3 M5 Price T3 Charge Charge AdditionalAdditional

Breakeven
type price*/ price*/ differencebaseline per per burst CPU % CPU %
hour hour utilization vCPU vCPU minutes available
per hour minute available
vCPU for per
(%) surplus vCPU
credits

A B C D E= F G H= I= J = (I / K=
D-C G / 60 E/H 60) / B F+J

t3.large 2 $0.0835 $0.096 $0.0125 30% $0.05 $0.000833 15 12.5% 42.5%

* Price is based on us-east-1 and Linux OS.

The table provides the following information:

• Column A shows the instance type, t3.large.

• Column B shows the number of vCPUs for the t3.large.
• Column C shows the price of a t3.large per hour.
• Column D shows the price of an m5.large per hour.
• Column E shows the price difference between the t3.large and the m5.large.

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• Column F shows the baseline utilization per vCPU of the t3.large, which is 30%. At the baseline, the
hourly cost of the instance covers the cost of the CPU usage.
• Column G shows the flat additional rate per vCPU-hour that an instance is charged if it bursts at 100%
CPU after it has depleted its earned credits.
• Column H shows the flat additional rate per vCPU-minute that an instance is charged if it bursts at
100% CPU after it has depleted its earned credits.
• Column I shows the number of additional minutes that the t3.large can burst per hour at 100% CPU
while paying the same price per hour as an m5.large.
• Column J shows the additional CPU usage (in %) over baseline that the instance can burst while paying
the same price per hour as an m5.large.
• Column K shows the breakeven CPU usage (in %) that the t3.large can burst without paying more
than the m5.large. Anything above this, and the t3.large costs more than the m5.large.

The following table shows the breakeven CPU usage (in %) for T3 instance types compared to the
similarly-sized M5 instance types.

T3 instance type Breakeven CPU usage (in %) for T3 compared to

M5

t3.large 42.5%

t3.xlarge 52.5%

t3.2xlarge 52.5%

Surplus credits can incur charges

If the average CPU utilization of an instance is at or below the baseline, the instance incurs no additional
charges. Because an instance earns a maximum number of credits (p. 167) in a 24-hour period (for
example, a t3.micro instance can earn a maximum of 288 credits in a 24-hour period), it can spend
surplus credits up to that maximum without being charged.

However, if CPU utilization stays above the baseline, the instance cannot earn enough credits to pay
down the surplus credits that it has spent. The surplus credits that are not paid down are charged at
a flat additional rate per vCPU-hour. For information about the rate, see T2/T3/T4g Unlimited Mode
Pricing.

Surplus credits that were spent earlier are charged when any of the following occurs:

• The spent surplus credits exceed the maximum number of credits (p. 167) the instance can earn in a
24-hour period. Spent surplus credits above the maximum are charged at the end of the hour.
• The instance is stopped or terminated.
• The instance is switched from unlimited to standard.

Spent surplus credits are tracked by the CloudWatch metric CPUSurplusCreditBalance. Surplus
credits that are charged are tracked by the CloudWatch metric CPUSurplusCreditsCharged. For more
information, see Additional CloudWatch metrics for burstable performance instances (p. 192).

No launch credits for T2 Unlimited instances

T2 Standard instances receive launch credits (p. 178), but T2 Unlimited instances do not. A T2
Unlimited instance can burst beyond the baseline at any time with no additional charge, as long as
its average CPU utilization is at or below the baseline over a rolling 24-hour window or its lifetime,
whichever is shorter. As such, T2 Unlimited instances do not require launch credits to achieve high
performance immediately after launch.

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If a T2 instance is switched from standard to unlimited, any accrued launch credits are removed from
the CPUCreditBalance before the remaining CPUCreditBalance is carried over.

T3a and T3 instances never receive launch credits because they support Unlimited mode. The Unlimited
mode credit configuration enables T4g, T3a and T3 instances to use as much CPU as needed to burst
beyond baseline and for as long as needed.

Enable unlimited mode

You can switch from unlimited to standard, and from standard to unlimited, at any time on
a running or stopped instance. For more information, see Launch a burstable performance instance
as Unlimited or Standard (p. 187) and Modify the credit specification of a burstable performance
instance (p. 190).

You can set unlimited as the default credit option at the account level per AWS Region, per burstable
performance instance family, so that all new burstable performance instances in the account launch
using the default credit option. For more information, see Set the default credit specification for the
account (p. 191).

You can check whether your burstable performance instance is configured as unlimited or standard
using the Amazon EC2 console or the AWS CLI. For more information, see View the credit specification of
a burstable performance instance (p. 189) and View the default credit specification (p. 191).

What happens to credits when switching between Unlimited and Standard

CPUCreditBalance is a CloudWatch metric that tracks the number of credits accrued by an instance.
CPUSurplusCreditBalance is a CloudWatch metric that tracks the number of surplus credits spent by
an instance.

When you change an instance configured as unlimited to standard, the following occurs:

• The CPUCreditBalance value remains unchanged and is carried over.

• The CPUSurplusCreditBalance value is immediately charged.

When a standard instance is switched to unlimited, the following occurs:

• The CPUCreditBalance value containing accrued earned credits is carried over.

• For T2 Standard instances, any launch credits are removed from the CPUCreditBalance value, and
the remaining CPUCreditBalance value containing accrued earned credits is carried over.

Monitor credit usage

To see if your instance is spending more credits than the baseline provides, you can use CloudWatch
metrics to track usage, and you can set up hourly alarms to be notified of credit usage. For more
information, see Monitor your CPU credits (p. 191).

Unlimited mode examples

The following examples explain credit use for instances that are configured as unlimited.

Examples
• Example 1: Explain credit use with T3 Unlimited (p. 174)
• Example 2: Explain credit use with T2 Unlimited (p. 176)

Example 1: Explain credit use with T3 Unlimited

In this example, you see the CPU utilization of a t3.nano instance launched as unlimited, and how it
spends earned and surplus credits to sustain CPU utilization.

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A t3.nano instance earns 144 CPU credits over a rolling 24-hour period, which it can redeem for 144
minutes of vCPU use. When it depletes its CPU credit balance (represented by the CloudWatch metric
CPUCreditBalance), it can spend surplus CPU credits—that it has not yet earned—to burst for as long
as it needs. Because a t3.nano instance earns a maximum of 144 credits in a 24-hour period, it can
spend surplus credits up to that maximum without being charged immediately. If it spends more than
144 CPU credits, it is charged for the difference at the end of the hour.

The intent of the example, illustrated by the following graph, is to show how an instance can burst using
surplus credits even after it depletes its CPUCreditBalance. The following workflow references the
numbered points on the graph:

P1 – At 0 hours on the graph, the instance is launched as unlimited and immediately begins to earn
credits. The instance remains idle from the time it is launched—CPU utilization is 0%—and no credits are
spent. All unspent credits are accrued in the credit balance. For the first 24 hours, CPUCreditUsage is at
0, and the CPUCreditBalance value reaches its maximum of 144.

P2 – For the next 12 hours, CPU utilization is at 2.5%, which is below the 5% baseline. The instance
earns more credits than it spends, but the CPUCreditBalance value cannot exceed its maximum of 144
credits.

P3 – For the next 24 hours, CPU utilization is at 7% (above the baseline), which requires a spend of 57.6
credits. The instance spends more credits than it earns, and the CPUCreditBalance value reduces to
86.4 credits.

P4 – For the next 12 hours, CPU utilization decreases to 2.5% (below the baseline), which requires a
spend of 36 credits. In the same time, the instance earns 72 credits. The instance earns more credits than
it spends, and the CPUCreditBalance value increases to 122 credits.

P5 – For the next 5 hours, the instance bursts at 100% CPU utilization, and spends a total of 570 credits
to sustain the burst. About an hour into this period, the instance depletes its entire CPUCreditBalance
of 122 credits, and starts to spend surplus credits to sustain the high CPU utilization, totaling 448
surplus credits in this period (570-122=448). When the CPUSurplusCreditBalance value reaches
144 CPU credits (the maximum a t3.nano instance can earn in a 24-hour period), any surplus credits
spent thereafter cannot be offset by earned credits. The surplus credits spent thereafter amounts to 304
credits (448-144=304), which results in a small additional charge at the end of the hour for 304 credits.

P6 – For the next 13 hours, CPU utilization is at 5% (the baseline). The instance earns as
many credits as it spends, with no excess to pay down the CPUSurplusCreditBalance. The
CPUSurplusCreditBalance value remains at 144 credits.

P7 – For the last 24 hours in this example, the instance is idle and CPU utilization is 0%. During this time,
the instance earns 144 credits, which it uses to pay down the CPUSurplusCreditBalance.

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Example 2: Explain credit use with T2 Unlimited

In this example, you see the CPU utilization of a t2.nano instance launched as unlimited, and how it
spends earned and surplus credits to sustain CPU utilization.

A t2.nano instance earns 72 CPU credits over a rolling 24-hour period, which it can redeem for 72
minutes of vCPU use. When it depletes its CPU credit balance (represented by the CloudWatch metric
CPUCreditBalance), it can spend surplus CPU credits—that it has not yet earned—to burst for as long
as it needs. Because a t2.nano instance earns a maximum of 72 credits in a 24-hour period, it can spend
surplus credits up to that maximum without being charged immediately. If it spends more than 72 CPU
credits, it is charged for the difference at the end of the hour.

The intent of the example, illustrated by the following graph, is to show how an instance can burst using
surplus credits even after it depletes its CPUCreditBalance. You can assume that, at the start of the
time line in the graph, the instance has an accrued credit balance equal to the maximum number of
credits it can earn in 24 hours. The following workflow references the numbered points on the graph:

1 – In the first 10 minutes, CPUCreditUsage is at 0, and the CPUCreditBalance value remains at its
maximum of 72.

2 – At 23:40, as CPU utilization increases, the instance spends CPU credits and the CPUCreditBalance
value decreases.

3 – At around 00:47, the instance depletes its entire CPUCreditBalance, and starts to spend surplus
credits to sustain high CPU utilization.

4 – Surplus credits are spent until 01:55, when the CPUSurplusCreditBalance value reaches 72 CPU
credits. This is equal to the maximum a t2.nano instance can earn in a 24-hour period. Any surplus
credits spent thereafter cannot be offset by earned credits within the 24-hour period, which results in a
small additional charge at the end of the hour.

5 – The instance continues to spend surplus credits until around 02:20. At this time, CPU utilization
falls below the baseline, and the instance starts to earn credits at 3 credits per hour (or 0.25
credits every 5 minutes), which it uses to pay down the CPUSurplusCreditBalance. After the
CPUSurplusCreditBalance value reduces to 0, the instance starts to accrue earned credits in its
CPUCreditBalance at 0.25 credits every 5 minutes.

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Calculating the bill

Surplus credits cost $0.096 per vCPU-hour. The instance spent approximately 25 surplus credits between
01:55 and 02:20, which is equivalent to 0.42 vCPU-hours.

Additional charges for this instance are 0.42 vCPU-hours x $0.096/vCPU-hour = $0.04032, rounded to
$0.04.

Here is the month-end bill for this T2 Unlimited instance:

You can set billing alerts to be notified every hour of any accruing charges, and take action if required.

Standard mode for burstable performance instances

A burstable performance instance configured as standard is suited to workloads with an average
CPU utilization that is consistently below the baseline CPU utilization of the instance. To burst above
the baseline, the instance spends credits that it has accrued in its CPU credit balance. If the instance
is running low on accrued credits, CPU utilization is gradually lowered to the baseline level, so that
the instance does not experience a sharp performance drop-off when its accrued CPU credit balance
is depleted. For more information, see Key concepts and definitions for burstable performance
instances (p. 164).

Contents
• Standard mode concepts (p. 177)
• How standard burstable performance instances work (p. 178)
• Launch credits (p. 178)
• Launch credit limits (p. 178)
• Differences between launch credits and earned credits (p. 179)
• Standard mode examples (p. 179)
• Example 1: Explain credit use with T3 Standard (p. 179)
• Example 2: Explain credit use with T2 Standard (p. 181)
• Period 1: 1 – 24 hours (p. 181)
• Period 2: 25 – 36 hours (p. 182)
• Period 3: 37 – 61 hours (p. 182)
• Period 4: 62 – 72 hours (p. 183)
• Period 5: 73 – 75 hours (p. 184)
• Period 6: 76 – 90 hours (p. 185)
• Period 7: 91 – 96 hours (p. 186)

Standard mode concepts

The standard mode is a configuration option for burstable performance instances. It can be enabled
or disabled at any time for a running or stopped instance. You can set standard as the default credit
option at the account level per AWS Region, per burstable performance instance family, so that all new
burstable performance instances in the account launch using the default credit option.

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How standard burstable performance instances work

When a burstable performance instance configured as standard is in a running state, it continuously
earns (at a millisecond-level resolution) a set rate of earned credits per hour. For T2 Standard, when
the instance is stopped, it loses all its accrued credits, and its credit balance is reset to zero. When it
is restarted, it receives a new set of launch credits, and begins to accrue earned credits. For T3a and
T3 Standard instances, the CPU credit balance persists for seven days after the instance stops and the
credits are lost thereafter. If you start the instance within seven days, no credits are lost.

T2 Standard instances receive two types of CPU credits: earned credits and launch credits. When a T2
Standard instance is in a running state, it continuously earns (at a millisecond-level resolution) a set rate
of earned credits per hour. At start, it has not yet earned credits for a good startup experience; therefore,
to provide a good startup experience, it receives launch credits at start, which it spends first while it
accrues earned credits.

T3a and T3 instances do not receive launch credits because they support Unlimited mode. The Unlimited
mode credit configuration enables T4g, T3a and T3 instances to use as much CPU as needed to burst
beyond baseline and for as long as needed.

Launch credits
T2 Standard instances get 30 launch credits per vCPU at launch or start. For example, a t2.micro
instance has one vCPU and gets 30 launch credits, while a t2.xlarge instance has four vCPUs and gets
120 launch credits. Launch credits are designed to provide a good startup experience to allow instances
to burst immediately after launch before they have accrued earned credits.

Launch credits are spent first, before earned credits. Unspent launch credits are accrued in the CPU
credit balance, but do not count towards the CPU credit balance limit. For example, a t2.micro instance
has a CPU credit balance limit of 144 earned credits. If it is launched and remains idle for 24 hours,
its CPU credit balance reaches 174 (30 launch credits + 144 earned credits), which is over the limit.
However, after the instance spends the 30 launch credits, the credit balance cannot exceed 144. For more
information about the CPU credit balance limit for each instance size, see the credit table (p. 167).

The following table lists the initial CPU credit allocation received at launch or start, and the number of
vCPUs.

Instance type Launch credits vCPUs

t1.micro 15 1

t2.nano 30 1

t2.micro 30 1

t2.small 30 1

t2.medium 60 2

t2.large 60 2

t2.xlarge 120 4

t2.2xlarge 240 8

Launch credit limits

There is a limit to the number of times T2 Standard instances can receive launch credits. The default limit
is 100 launches or starts of all T2 Standard instances combined per account, per Region, per rolling 24-
hour period. For example, the limit is reached when one instance is stopped and started 100 times within

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a 24-hour period, or when 100 instances are launched within a 24-hour period, or other combinations
that equate to 100 starts. New accounts may have a lower limit, which increases over time based on your
usage.
Tip
To ensure that your workloads always get the performance they need, switch to Unlimited mode
for burstable performance instances (p. 170) or consider using a larger instance size.

Differences between launch credits and earned credits

The following table lists the differences between launch credits and earned credits.

Launch credits Earned credits

Credit earn T2 Standard instances get 30 launch Each T2 instance continuously earns (at
rate credits per vCPU at launch or start. a millisecond-level resolution) a set rate
of CPU credits per hour, depending on
If a T2 instance is switched from the instance size. For more information
unlimited to standard, it does not get about the number of CPU credits
launch credits at the time of switching. earned per instance size, see the credit
table (p. 167).

Credit earn The limit for receiving launch credits is A T2 instance cannot accrue more credits
limit 100 launches or starts of all T2 Standard than the CPU credit balance limit. If the
instances combined per account, per CPU credit balance has reached its limit,
Region, per rolling 24-hour period. New any credits that are earned after the limit
accounts may have a lower limit, which is reached are discarded. Launch credits
increases over time based on your usage. do not count towards the limit. For more
information about the CPU credit balance
limit for each T2 instance size, see the
credit table (p. 167).

Credit use Launch credits are spent first, before Earned credits are spent only after all
earned credits. launch credits are spent.

Credit When a T2 Standard instance is running, When a T2 instance is running, earned

expiration launch credits do not expire. When a T2 credits that have accrued do not expire.
Standard instance stops or is switched to When the T2 instance stops, all accrued
T2 Unlimited, all launch credits are lost. earned credits are lost.

The number of accrued launch credits and accrued earned credits is tracked by the CloudWatch metric
CPUCreditBalance. For more information, see CPUCreditBalance in the CloudWatch metrics
table (p. 192).

Standard mode examples

The following examples explain credit use when instances are configured as standard.

Examples
• Example 1: Explain credit use with T3 Standard (p. 179)
• Example 2: Explain credit use with T2 Standard (p. 181)

Example 1: Explain credit use with T3 Standard

In this example, you see how a t3.nano instance launched as standard earns, accrues, and spends
earned credits. You see how the credit balance reflects the accrued earned credits.

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A running t3.nano instance earns 144 credits every 24 hours. Its credit balance limit is 144 earned
credits. After the limit is reached, new credits that are earned are discarded. For more information about
the number of credits that can be earned and accrued, see the credit table (p. 167).

You might launch a T3 Standard instance and use it immediately. Or, you might launch a T3 Standard
instance and leave it idle for a few days before running applications on it. Whether an instance is used or
remains idle determines if credits are spent or accrued. If an instance remains idle for 24 hours from the
time it is launched, the credit balance reaches it limit, which is the maximum number of earned credits
that can be accrued.

This example describes an instance that remains idle for 24 hours from the time it is launched, and walks
you through seven periods of time over a 96-hour period, showing the rate at which credits are earned,
accrued, spent, and discarded, and the value of the credit balance at the end of each period.

The following workflow references the numbered points on the graph:

P1 – At 0 hours on the graph, the instance is launched as standard and immediately begins to earn
credits. The instance remains idle from the time it is launched—CPU utilization is 0%—and no credits are
spent. All unspent credits are accrued in the credit balance. For the first 24 hours, CPUCreditUsage is at
0, and the CPUCreditBalance value reaches its maximum of 144.

P2 – For the next 12 hours, CPU utilization is at 2.5%, which is below the 5% baseline. The instance
earns more credits than it spends, but the CPUCreditBalance value cannot exceed its maximum of 144
credits. Any credits that are earned in excess of the limit are discarded.

P3 – For the next 24 hours, CPU utilization is at 7% (above the baseline), which requires a spend of 57.6
credits. The instance spends more credits than it earns, and the CPUCreditBalance value reduces to
86.4 credits.

P4 – For the next 12 hours, CPU utilization decreases to 2.5% (below the baseline), which requires a
spend of 36 credits. In the same time, the instance earns 72 credits. The instance earns more credits than
it spends, and the CPUCreditBalance value increases to 122 credits.

P5 – For the next two hours, the instance bursts at 100% CPU utilization, and depletes its entire
CPUCreditBalance value of 122 credits. At the end of this period, with the CPUCreditBalance at
zero, CPU utilization is forced to drop to the baseline utilization level of 5%. At the baseline, the instance
earns as many credits as it spends.

P6 – For the next 14 hours, CPU utilization is at 5% (the baseline). The instance earns as many credits as
it spends. The CPUCreditBalance value remains at 0.

P7 – For the last 24 hours in this example, the instance is idle and CPU utilization is 0%. During this time,
the instance earns 144 credits, which it accrues in its CPUCreditBalance.

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Example 2: Explain credit use with T2 Standard

In this example, you see how a t2.nano instance launched as standard earns, accrues, and spends
launch and earned credits. You see how the credit balance reflects not only accrued earned credits, but
also accrued launch credits.

A t2.nano instance gets 30 launch credits when it is launched, and earns 72 credits every 24 hours. Its
credit balance limit is 72 earned credits; launch credits do not count towards the limit. After the limit is
reached, new credits that are earned are discarded. For more information about the number of credits
that can be earned and accrued, see the credit table (p. 167). For more information about limits, see
Launch credit limits (p. 178).

You might launch a T2 Standard instance and use it immediately. Or, you might launch a T2 Standard
instance and leave it idle for a few days before running applications on it. Whether an instance is used
or remains idle determines if credits are spent or accrued. If an instance remains idle for 24 hours from
the time it is launched, the credit balance appears to exceed its limit because the balance reflects both
accrued earned credits and accrued launch credits. However, after CPU is used, the launch credits are
spent first. Thereafter, the limit always reflects the maximum number of earned credits that can be
accrued.

This example describes an instance that remains idle for 24 hours from the time it is launched, and walks
you through seven periods of time over a 96-hour period, showing the rate at which credits are earned,
accrued, spent, and discarded, and the value of the credit balance at the end of each period.

Period 1: 1 – 24 hours

At 0 hours on the graph, the T2 instance is launched as standard and immediately gets 30 launch
credits. It earns credits while in the running state. The instance remains idle from the time it is launched
—CPU utilization is 0%—and no credits are spent. All unspent credits are accrued in the credit balance.
At approximately 14 hours after launch, the credit balance is 72 (30 launch credits + 42 earned credits),
which is equivalent to what the instance can earn in 24 hours. At 24 hours after launch, the credit
balance exceeds 72 credits because the unspent launch credits are accrued in the credit balance—the
credit balance is 102 credits: 30 launch credits + 72 earned credits.

Credit Spend Rate 0 credits per 24 hours (0% CPU utilization)

Credit Earn Rate 72 credits per 24 hours

Credit Discard Rate 0 credits per 24 hours

Credit Balance 102 credits (30 launch credits + 72 earned credits)

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Conclusion

If there is no CPU utilization after launch, the instance accrues more credits than what it can earn in 24
hours (30 launch credits + 72 earned credits = 102 credits).

In a real-world scenario, an EC2 instance consumes a small number of credits while launching and
running, which prevents the balance from reaching the maximum theoretical value in this example.

Period 2: 25 – 36 hours

For the next 12 hours, the instance continues to remain idle and earn credits, but the credit balance does
not increase. It plateaus at 102 credits (30 launch credits + 72 earned credits). The credit balance has
reached its limit of 72 accrued earned credits, so newly earned credits are discarded.

Credit Spend Rate 0 credits per 24 hours (0% CPU utilization)

Credit Earn Rate 72 credits per 24 hours (3 credits per hour)

Credit Discard Rate 72 credits per 24 hours (100% of credit earn rate)

Credit Balance 102 credits (30 launch credits + 72 earned credits)

—balance is unchanged

Conclusion

An instance constantly earns credits, but it cannot accrue more earned credits if the credit balance
has reached its limit. After the limit is reached, newly earned credits are discarded. Launch credits do
not count towards the credit balance limit. If the balance includes accrued launch credits, the balance
appears to be over the limit.

Period 3: 37 – 61 hours

For the next 25 hours, the instance uses 2% CPU, which requires 30 credits. In the same period, it earns
75 credits, but the credit balance decreases. The balance decreases because the accrued launch credits
are spent first, while newly earned credits are discarded because the credit balance is already at its limit
of 72 earned credits.

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Credit Spend Rate 28.8 credits per 24 hours (1.2 credits per hour,
2% CPU utilization, 40% of credit earn rate)—30
credits over 25 hours

Credit Earn Rate 72 credits per 24 hours

Credit Discard Rate 72 credits per 24 hours (100% of credit earn rate)

Credit Balance 72 credits (30 launch credits were spent; 72

earned credits remain unspent)

Conclusion

An instance spends launch credits first, before spending earned credits. Launch credits do not count
towards the credit limit. After the launch credits are spent, the balance can never go higher than what
can be earned in 24 hours. Furthermore, while an instance is running, it cannot get more launch credits.

Period 4: 62 – 72 hours

For the next 11 hours, the instance uses 2% CPU, which requires 13.2 credits. This is the same CPU
utilization as in the previous period, but the balance does not decrease. It stays at 72 credits.

The balance does not decrease because the credit earn rate is higher than the credit spend rate. In the
time that the instance spends 13.2 credits, it also earns 33 credits. However, the balance limit is 72
credits, so any earned credits that exceed the limit are discarded. The balance plateaus at 72 credits,
which is different from the plateau of 102 credits during Period 2, because there are no accrued launch
credits.

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Credit Spend Rate 28.8 credits per 24 hours (1.2 credits per hour, 2%
CPU utilization, 40% of credit earn rate)—13.2
credits over 11 hours

Credit Earn Rate 72 credits per 24 hours

Credit Discard Rate 43.2 credits per 24 hours (60% of credit earn rate)

Credit Balance 72 credits (0 launch credits, 72 earned credits)—

balance is at its limit

Conclusion

After launch credits are spent, the credit balance limit is determined by the number of credits that an
instance can earn in 24 hours. If the instance earns more credits than it spends, newly earned credits over
the limit are discarded.

Period 5: 73 – 75 hours

For the next three hours, the instance bursts at 20% CPU utilization, which requires 36 credits. The
instance earns nine credits in the same three hours, which results in a net balance decrease of 27 credits.
At the end of three hours, the credit balance is 45 accrued earned credits.

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Credit Spend Rate 288 credits per 24 hours (12 credits per hour, 20%
CPU utilization, 400% of credit earn rate)—36
credits over 3 hours

Credit Earn Rate 72 credits per 24 hours (9 credits over 3 hours)

Credit Discard Rate 0 credits per 24 hours

Credit Balance 45 credits (previous balance (72) - spent credits

(36) + earned credits (9))—balance decreases at
a rate of 216 credits per 24 hours (spend rate
288/24 + earn rate 72/24 = balance decrease rate
216/24)

Conclusion

If an instance spends more credits than it earns, its credit balance decreases.

Period 6: 76 – 90 hours

For the next 15 hours, the instance uses 2% CPU, which requires 18 credits. This is the same CPU
utilization as in Periods 3 and 4. However, the balance increases in this period, whereas it decreased in
Period 3 and plateaued in Period 4.

In Period 3, the accrued launch credits were spent, and any earned credits that exceeded the credit limit
were discarded, resulting in a decrease in the credit balance. In Period 4, the instance spent fewer credits
than it earned. Any earned credits that exceeded the limit were discarded, so the balance plateaued at its
maximum of 72 credits.

In this period, there are no accrued launch credits, and the number of accrued earned credits in the
balance is below the limit. No earned credits are discarded. Furthermore, the instance earns more credits
than it spends, resulting in an increase in the credit balance.

Credit Spend Rate 28.8 credits per 24 hours (1.2 credits per hour,
2% CPU utilization, 40% of credit earn rate)—18
credits over 15 hours

Credit Earn Rate 72 credits per 24 hours (45 credits over 15 hours)

Credit Discard Rate 0 credits per 24 hours

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Credit Balance 72 credits (balance increases at a rate of 43.2

credits per 24 hours—change rate = spend rate
28.8/24 + earn rate 72/24)

Conclusion

If an instance spends fewer credits than it earns, its credit balance increases.

Period 7: 91 – 96 hours

For the next six hours, the instance remains idle—CPU utilization is 0%—and no credits are spent. This is
the same CPU utilization as in Period 2, but the balance does not plateau at 102 credits—it plateaus at
72 credits, which is the credit balance limit for the instance.

In Period 2, the credit balance included 30 accrued launch credits. The launch credits were spent in
Period 3. A running instance cannot get more launch credits. After its credit balance limit is reached, any
earned credits that exceed the limit are discarded.

Credit Spend Rate 0 credits per 24 hours (0% CPU utilization)

Credit Earn Rate 72 credits per 24 hours

Credit Discard Rate 72 credits per 24 hours (100% of credit earn rate)

Credit Balance 72 credits (0 launch credits, 72 earned credits)

Conclusion

An instance constantly earns credits, but cannot accrue more earned credits if the credit balance limit has
been reached. After the limit is reached, newly earned credits are discarded. The credit balance limit is
determined by the number of credits that an instance can earn in 24 hours. For more information about
credit balance limits, see the credit table (p. 167).

Work with burstable performance instances

The steps for launching, monitoring, and modifying these instances are similar. The key difference is the
default credit specification when they launch. If you do not change the default credit specification, the
default is that:

• T3a and T3 instances launch as unlimited

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• T3 instances on a Dedicated Host launch as standard

• T2 instances launch as standard

Contents
• Launch a burstable performance instance as Unlimited or Standard (p. 187)
• Use an Auto Scaling group to launch a burstable performance instance as Unlimited (p. 187)
• View the credit specification of a burstable performance instance (p. 189)
• Modify the credit specification of a burstable performance instance (p. 190)
• Set the default credit specification for the account (p. 191)
• View the default credit specification (p. 191)

Launch a burstable performance instance as Unlimited or Standard

You can launch your instances as unlimited or standard using the Amazon EC2 console, an AWS SDK,
a command line tool, or with an Auto Scaling group. For more information, see Use an Auto Scaling
group to launch a burstable performance instance as Unlimited (p. 187).

To launch a burstable performance instance as Unlimited or Standard (console)

1. Follow the Launch an instance using the Launch Instance Wizard (p. 396) procedure.
2. On the Choose an Instance Type page, select an instance type, and choose Next: Configure
Instance Details.
3. Choose a credit specification.

a. To launch a T3a and T3 instance as standard, clear Unlimited.

b. To launch a T2 instance as unlimited, select Unlimited.
4. Continue as prompted by the wizard. When you've finished reviewing your options on the Review
Instance Launch page, choose Launch. For more information, see Launch an instance using the
Launch Instance Wizard (p. 396).

To launch a burstable performance instance as Unlimited or Standard (AWS CLI)

Use the run-instances command to launch your instances. Specify the credit specification using the --
credit-specification CpuCredits= parameter. Valid credit specifications are unlimited and
standard.

• For T3a and T3, if you do not include the --credit-specification parameter, the instance
launches as unlimited by default.
• For T2, if you do not include the --credit-specification parameter, the instance launches as
standard by default.

aws ec2 run-instances --image-id ami-abc12345 --count 1 --instance-type t3.micro --key-

name MyKeyPair --credit-specification "CpuCredits=unlimited"

Use an Auto Scaling group to launch a burstable performance instance as Unlimited

When burstable performance instances are launched or started, they require CPU credits for a good
bootstrapping experience. If you use an Auto Scaling group to launch your instances, we recommend
that you configure your instances as unlimited. If you do, the instances use surplus credits when
they are automatically launched or restarted by the Auto Scaling group. Using surplus credits prevents
performance restrictions.

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Create a launch template

You must use a launch template for launching instances as unlimited in an Auto Scaling group. A
launch configuration does not support launching instances as unlimited.
Note
unlimited mode is not supported for T3 instances that are launched on a Dedicated Host.

To create a launch template that launches instances as Unlimited (console)

1. Follow the Creating a Launch Template for an Auto Scaling Group procedure.
2. In Launch template contents, for Instance type, choose an instance size.
3. To launch instances as unlimited in an Auto Scaling group, under Advanced details, for Credit
specification, choose Unlimited.
4. When you've finished defining the launch template parameters, choose Create launch template.
For more information, see Creating a Launch Template for an Auto Scaling Group in the Amazon EC2
Auto Scaling User Guide.

To create a launch template that launches instances as Unlimited (AWS CLI)

Use the create-launch-template command and specify unlimited as the credit specification.

• For T3a and T3, if you do not include the CreditSpecification={CpuCredits=unlimited}

value, the instance launches as unlimited by default.
• For T2, if you do not include the CreditSpecification={CpuCredits=unlimited} value, the
instance launches as standard by default.

aws ec2 create-launch-template --launch-template-name MyLaunchTemplate

--version-description FirstVersion --launch-template-data
ImageId=ami-8c1be5f6,InstanceType=t3.medium,CreditSpecification={CpuCredits=unlimited}

Associate an Auto Scaling group with a launch template

To associate the launch template with an Auto Scaling group, create the Auto Scaling group using the
launch template, or add the launch template to an existing Auto Scaling group.

To create an Auto Scaling group using a launch template (console)

1. Open the Amazon EC2 console at https://console.aws.amazon.com/ec2/.

2. On the navigation bar at the top of the screen, select the same Region that you used when you
created the launch template.
3. In the navigation pane, choose Auto Scaling Groups, Create Auto Scaling group.
4. Choose Launch Template, select your launch template, and then choose Next Step.
5. Complete the fields for the Auto Scaling group. When you've finished reviewing your configuration
settings on the Review page, choose Create Auto Scaling group. For more information, see Creating
an Auto Scaling Group Using a Launch Template in the Amazon EC2 Auto Scaling User Guide.

To create an Auto Scaling group using a launch template (AWS CLI)

Use the create-auto-scaling-group AWS CLI command and specify the --launch-template parameter.

To add a launch template to an existing Auto Scaling group (console)

1. Open the Amazon EC2 console at https://console.aws.amazon.com/ec2/.

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2. On the navigation bar at the top of the screen, select the same Region that you used when you
created the launch template.
3. In the navigation pane, choose Auto Scaling Groups.
4. From the Auto Scaling group list, select an Auto Scaling group, and choose Actions, Edit.
5. On the Details tab, for Launch Template, choose a launch template, and then choose Save.

To add a launch template to an existing Auto Scaling group (AWS CLI)

Use the update-auto-scaling-group AWS CLI command and specify the --launch-template parameter.

View the credit specification of a burstable performance instance

You can view the credit specification (unlimited or standard) of a running or stopped instance.

New console

To view the credit specification of a burstable instance

1. Open the Amazon EC2 console at https://console.aws.amazon.com/ec2/.

2. In the left navigation pane, choose Instances.
3. Select the instance.
4. Choose Details and view the Credit specification field. The value is either unlimited or
standard.

Old console

To view the credit specification of a burstable instance

1. Open the Amazon EC2 console at https://console.aws.amazon.com/ec2/.

2. In the left navigation pane, choose Instances.
3. Select the instance.
4. Choose Description and view the T2/T3 Unlimited field.

• If the value is Enabled, then your instance is configured as unlimited.

• If the value is Disabled, then your instance is configured as standard.

To describe the credit specification of a burstable performance instance (AWS CLI)

Use the describe-instance-credit-specifications command. If you do not specify one or more instance
IDs, all instances with the credit specification of unlimited are returned, as well as instances that were
previously configured with the unlimited credit specification. For example, if you resize a T3 instance
to an M4 instance, while it is configured as unlimited, Amazon EC2 returns the M4 instance.

Example

aws ec2 describe-instance-credit-specifications --instance-id i-1234567890abcdef0

The following is example output:

{
"InstanceCreditSpecifications": [
{
"InstanceId": "i-1234567890abcdef0",
"CpuCredits": "unlimited"
}

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]
}

Modify the credit specification of a burstable performance instance

You can switch the credit specification of a running or stopped instance at any time between unlimited
and standard.

New console

To modify the credit specification of a burstable performance instance

1. Open the Amazon EC2 console at https://console.aws.amazon.com/ec2/.

2. In the left navigation pane, choose Instances.
3. Select the instance. To modify the credit specification for several instances at one time, select all
applicable instances.
4. Choose Actions, Instance settings, Change credit specification. This option is enabled only if
you selected a burstable performance instance.
5. To change the credit specification to unlimited, select the check box next to the instance ID.
To change the credit specification to standard, clear the check box next to the instance ID.

Old console

To modify the credit specification of a burstable performance instance

1. Open the Amazon EC2 console at https://console.aws.amazon.com/ec2/.

2. In the left navigation pane, choose Instances.
3. Select the instance. To modify the credit specification for several instances at one time, select all
applicable instances.
4. Choose Actions, Instance Settings, Change T2/T3 Unlimited. This option is enabled only if you
selected a burstable performance instance.
5. The current credit specification appears in parentheses after the instance ID. To change the
credit specification to unlimited, choose Enable. To change the credit specification to
standard, choose Disable.

To modify the credit specification of a burstable performance instance (AWS CLI)

Use the modify-instance-credit-specification command. Specify the instance and its credit specification
using the --instance-credit-specification parameter. Valid credit specifications are unlimited
and standard.

Example

aws ec2 modify-instance-credit-specification --region us-east-1 --instance-credit-

specification "InstanceId=i-1234567890abcdef0,CpuCredits=unlimited"

The following is example output:

{
"SuccessfulInstanceCreditSpecifications": [
{
"InstanceId": "i- 1234567890abcdef0"
}
],
"UnsuccessfulInstanceCreditSpecifications": []

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Set the default credit specification for the account

You can set the default credit specification for each burstable performance instance family at the
account level per AWS Region.

If you use the Launch Instance Wizard in the EC2 console to launch instances, the value you select for
the credit specification overrides the account-level default credit specification. If you use the AWS CLI to
launch instances, all new burstable performance instances in the account launch using the default credit
specification. The credit specification for existing running or stopped instances is not affected.

Consideration

The default credit specification for an instance family can be modified only once in a rolling 5-minute
period, and up to four times in a rolling 24-hour period.

To set the default credit specification at the account level (console)

1. Open the Amazon EC2 console at https://console.aws.amazon.com/ec2/.

2. On the left navigation pane, choose EC2 Dashboard.
3. From Account attributes, choose Default credit specification.
4. Choose Manage.
5. For each instance family, choose Unlimited or Standard, and then choose Update.

To set the default credit specification at the account level (AWS CLI)

Use the modify-default-credit-specification command. Specify the AWS Region, instance family, and the
default credit specification using the --cpu-credits parameter. Valid default credit specifications are
unlimited and standard.

aws ec2 modify-default-credit-specification --region us-east-1 --instance-family t2 --cpu-

credits unlimited

View the default credit specification

You can view the default credit specification of a burstable performance instance family at the account
level per AWS Region.

To view the default credit specification at the account level (console)

1. Open the Amazon EC2 console at https://console.aws.amazon.com/ec2/.

2. On the left navigation pane, choose EC2 Dashboard.
3. From Account attributes, choose Default credit specification.

To view the default credit specification at the account level (AWS CLI)

Use the get-default-credit-specification command. Specify the AWS Region and instance family.

aws ec2 get-default-credit-specification --region us-east-1 --instance-family t2

Monitor your CPU credits

You can see the credit balance for each instance in the Amazon EC2 per-instance metrics of the
CloudWatch console.

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Contents
• Additional CloudWatch metrics for burstable performance instances (p. 192)
• Calculate CPU credit usage (p. 193)

Additional CloudWatch metrics for burstable performance instances

Burstable performance instances have these additional CloudWatch metrics, which are updated every
five minutes:

• CPUCreditUsage – The number of CPU credits spent during the measurement period.
• CPUCreditBalance – The number of CPU credits that an instance has accrued. This balance is
depleted when the CPU bursts and CPU credits are spent more quickly than they are earned.
• CPUSurplusCreditBalance – The number of surplus CPU credits spent to sustain CPU utilization
when the CPUCreditBalance value is zero.
• CPUSurplusCreditsCharged – The number of surplus CPU credits exceeding the maximum number
of CPU credits (p. 167) that can be earned in a 24-hour period, and thus attracting an additional
charge.

The last two metrics apply only to instances configured as unlimited.

The following table describes the CloudWatch metrics for burstable performance instances. For more
information, see List the available CloudWatch metrics for your instances (p. 853).

Metric Description

CPUCreditUsage The number of CPU credits spent by the instance for CPU
utilization. One CPU credit equals one vCPU running at 100%
utilization for one minute or an equivalent combination of vCPUs,
utilization, and time (for example, one vCPU running at 50%
utilization for two minutes or two vCPUs running at 25% utilization
for two minutes).

CPU credit metrics are available at a five-minute frequency only. If

you specify a period greater than five minutes, use the Sum statistic
instead of the Average statistic.

Units: Credits (vCPU-minutes)

CPUCreditBalance The number of earned CPU credits that an instance has

accrued since it was launched or started. For T2 Standard, the
CPUCreditBalance also includes the number of launch credits
that have been accrued.

Credits are accrued in the credit balance after they are earned,
and removed from the credit balance when they are spent. The
credit balance has a maximum limit, determined by the instance
size. After the limit is reached, any new credits that are earned are
discarded. For T2 Standard, launch credits do not count towards the
limit.

The credits in the CPUCreditBalance are available for the

instance to spend to burst beyond its baseline CPU utilization.

When an instance is running, credits in the CPUCreditBalance

do not expire. When a T3a or T3 instance stops, the

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Metric Description
CPUCreditBalance value persists for seven days. Thereafter,
all accrued credits are lost. When a T2 instance stops, the
CPUCreditBalance value does not persist, and all accrued credits
are lost.

CPU credit metrics are available at a five-minute frequency only.

Units: Credits (vCPU-minutes)

CPUSurplusCreditBalance The number of surplus credits that have been spent by an

unlimited instance when its CPUCreditBalance value is zero.

The CPUSurplusCreditBalance value is paid down by earned

CPU credits. If the number of surplus credits exceeds the maximum
number of credits that the instance can earn in a 24-hour period,
the spent surplus credits above the maximum incur an additional
charge.

Units: Credits (vCPU-minutes)

CPUSurplusCreditsCharged The number of spent surplus credits that are not paid down by
earned CPU credits, and which thus incur an additional charge.

Spent surplus credits are charged when any of the following occurs:

• The spent surplus credits exceed the maximum number of credits

that the instance can earn in a 24-hour period. Spent surplus
credits above the maximum are charged at the end of the hour.
• The instance is stopped or terminated.
• The instance is switched from unlimited to standard.

Units: Credits (vCPU-minutes)

Calculate CPU credit usage

The CPU credit usage of instances is calculated using the instance CloudWatch metrics described in the
preceding table.

Amazon EC2 sends the metrics to CloudWatch every five minutes. A reference to the prior value of a
metric at any point in time implies the previous value of the metric, sent five minutes ago.

Calculate CPU credit usage for Standard instances

• The CPU credit balance increases if CPU utilization is below the baseline, when the credits spent are
less than the credits earned in the prior five-minute interval.
• The CPU credit balance decreases if CPU utilization is above the baseline, when the credits spent are
more than the credits earned in the prior five-minute interval.

Mathematically, this is captured by the following equation:

Example

CPUCreditBalance = prior CPUCreditBalance + [Credits earned per hour * (5/60) -

CPUCreditUsage]

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The size of the instance determines the number of credits that the instance can earn per hour and the
number of earned credits that it can accrue in the credit balance. For information about the number of
credits earned per hour, and the credit balance limit for each instance size, see the credit table (p. 167).

Example

This example uses a t3.nano instance. To calculate the CPUCreditBalance value of the instance, use
the preceding equation as follows:

• CPUCreditBalance – The current credit balance to calculate.

• prior CPUCreditBalance – The credit balance five minutes ago. In this example, the instance had
accrued two credits.
• Credits earned per hour – A t3.nano instance earns six credits per hour.
• 5/60 – Represents the five-minute interval between CloudWatch metric publication. Multiply the
credits earned per hour by 5/60 (five minutes) to get the number of credits that the instance earned in
the past five minutes. A t3.nano instance earns 0.5 credits every five minutes.
• CPUCreditUsage – How many credits the instance spent in the past five minutes. In this example, the
instance spent one credit in the past five minutes.

Using these values, you can calculate the CPUCreditBalance value:

Example

CPUCreditBalance = 2 + [0.5 - 1] = 1.5

Calculate CPU credit usage for Unlimited instances

When a burstable performance instance needs to burst above the baseline, it always spends accrued
credits before spending surplus credits. When it depletes its accrued CPU credit balance, it can spend
surplus credits to burst CPU for as long as it needs. When CPU utilization falls below the baseline, surplus
credits are always paid down before the instance accrues earned credits.

We use the term Adjusted balance in the following equations to reflect the activity that occurs in
this five-minute interval. We use this value to arrive at the values for the CPUCreditBalance and
CPUSurplusCreditBalance CloudWatch metrics.

Example

Adjusted balance = [prior CPUCreditBalance - prior CPUSurplusCreditBalance] + [Credits

earned per hour * (5/60) - CPUCreditUsage]

A value of 0 for Adjusted balance indicates that the instance spent all its earned credits
for bursting, and no surplus credits were spent. As a result, both CPUCreditBalance and
CPUSurplusCreditBalance are set to 0.

A positive Adjusted balance value indicates that the instance accrued earned credits, and previous
surplus credits, if any, were paid down. As a result, the Adjusted balance value is assigned to
CPUCreditBalance, and the CPUSurplusCreditBalance is set to 0. The instance size determines the
maximum number of credits (p. 167) that it can accrue.

Example

CPUCreditBalance = min [max earned credit balance, Adjusted balance]

CPUSurplusCreditBalance = 0

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A negative Adjusted balance value indicates that the instance spent all its earned credits that it
accrued and, in addition, also spent surplus credits for bursting. As a result, the Adjusted balance
value is assigned to CPUSurplusCreditBalance and CPUCreditBalance is set to 0. Again, the
instance size determines the maximum number of credits (p. 167) that it can accrue.

Example

CPUSurplusCreditBalance = min [max earned credit balance, -Adjusted balance]

CPUCreditBalance = 0

If the surplus credits spent exceed the maximum credits that the instance can accrue, the surplus credit
balance is set to the maximum, as shown in the preceding equation. The remaining surplus credits are
charged as represented by the CPUSurplusCreditsCharged metric.

Example

CPUSurplusCreditsCharged = max [-Adjusted balance - max earned credit balance, 0]

Finally, when the instance terminates, any surplus credits tracked by the CPUSurplusCreditBalance
are charged. If the instance is switched from unlimited to standard, any remaining
CPUSurplusCreditBalance is also charged.

Compute optimized instances

Compute optimized instances are ideal for compute-bound applications that benefit from high-
performance processors.

C5 and C5n instances

These instances are well suited for the following:

• Batch processing workloads

• Media transcoding
• High-performance web servers
• High-performance computing (HPC)
• Scientific modeling
• Dedicated gaming servers and ad serving engines
• Machine learning inference and other compute-intensive applications

Bare metal instances, such as c5.metal, provide your applications with direct access to physical
resources of the host server, such as processors and memory.

For more information, see Amazon EC2 C5 Instances.

Contents
• Hardware specifications (p. 196)
• Instance performance (p. 197)
• Network performance (p. 197)
• SSD I/O performance (p. 199)
• Instance features (p. 200)

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• Release notes (p. 200)

Hardware specifications
The following is a summary of the hardware specifications for compute optimized instances.

Instance type Default vCPUs Memory (GiB)

c4.large 2 3.75

c4.xlarge 4 7.5

c4.2xlarge 8 15

c4.4xlarge 16 30

c4.8xlarge 36 60

c5.large 2 4

c5.xlarge 4 8

c5.2xlarge 8 16

c5.4xlarge 16 32

c5.9xlarge 36 72

c5.12xlarge 48 96

c5.18xlarge 72 144

c5.24xlarge 96 192

c5.metal 96 192

c5a.large 2 4

c5a.xlarge 4 8

c5a.2xlarge 8 16

c5a.4xlarge 16 32

c5a.8xlarge 32 64

c5a.12xlarge 48 96

c5a.16xlarge 64 128

c5a.24xlarge 96 192

c5ad.large 2 4

c5ad.xlarge 4 8

c5ad.2xlarge 8 16

c5ad.4xlarge 16 32

c5ad.8xlarge 32 64

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Instance type Default vCPUs Memory (GiB)

c5ad.12xlarge 48 96

c5ad.16xlarge 64 128

c5ad.24xlarge 96 192

c5d.large 2 4

c5d.xlarge 4 8

c5d.2xlarge 8 16

c5d.4xlarge 16 32

c5d.9xlarge 36 72

c5d.12xlarge 48 96

c5d.18xlarge 72 144

c5d.24xlarge 96 192

c5d.metal 96 192

c5n.large 2 5.25

c5n.xlarge 4 10.5

c5n.2xlarge 8 21

c5n.4xlarge 16 42

c5n.9xlarge 36 96

c5n.18xlarge 72 192

c5n.metal 72 192

For more information about the hardware specifications for each Amazon EC2 instance type, see Amazon
EC2 Instance Types.

For more information about specifying CPU options, see Optimize CPU options (p. 549).

Instance performance
EBS-optimized instances enable you to get consistently high performance for your EBS volumes by
eliminating contention between Amazon EBS I/O and other network traffic from your instance. Some
compute optimized instances are EBS-optimized by default at no additional cost. For more information,
see Amazon EBS–optimized instances (p. 1357).

Network performance
You can enable enhanced networking on supported instance types to provide lower latencies, lower
network jitter, and higher packet-per-second (PPS) performance. Most applications do not consistently
need a high level of network performance, but can benefit from access to increased bandwidth when
they send or receive data. For more information, see Enhanced networking on Windows (p. 973).

The following is a summary of network performance for compute optimized instances that support
enhanced networking.

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Instance type Network performance Enhanced networking

c4.large Moderate Intel 82599

VF (p. 981)

c4.xlarge | c4.2xlarge | c4.4xlarge High Intel 82599

VF (p. 981)

c5.4xlarge and smaller | c5a.4xlarge Up to 10 Gbps † ENA (p. 974)

and smaller | c5ad.4xlarge and smaller |
c5d.4xlarge and smaller

c4.8xlarge 10 Gbps Intel 82599

VF (p. 981)

c5.9xlarge | c5a.8xlarge | c5ad.8xlarge | 10 Gbps ENA (p. 974)

c5d.9xlarge

c5.12xlarge | c5a.12xlarge | 12 Gbps ENA (p. 974)

c5ad.12xlarge | c5d.12xlarge

c5n.4xlarge and smaller Up to 25 Gbps † ENA (p. 974)

c5.18xlarge | c5.24xlarge | c5.metal | 25 Gbps ENA (p. 974)

c5d.18xlarge | c5d.24xlarge | c5d.metal

c5n.9xlarge 50 Gbps ENA (p. 974)

c5n.18xlarge | c5n.metal 100 Gbps ENA (p. 974)

† These instances have a baseline bandwidth and can use a network I/O credit mechanism to burst
beyond their baseline bandwidth on a best effort basis. For more information, see instance network
bandwidth (p. 972).

Instance type Baseline bandwidth (Gbps) Burst bandwidth (Gbps)

c5.large .75 10

c5.xlarge 1.25 10

c5.2xlarge 2.5 10

c5.4xlarge 5 10

c5a.large .75 10

c5a.xlarge 1.25 10

c5a.2xlarge 2.5 10

c5a.4xlarge 5 10

c5ad.large .75 10

c5ad.xlarge 1.25 10

c5ad.2xlarge 2.5 10

c5ad.4xlarge 5 10

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Instance type Baseline bandwidth (Gbps) Burst bandwidth (Gbps)

c5d.large .75 10

c5d.xlarge 1.25 10

c5d.2xlarge 2.5 10

c5d.4xlarge 5 10

c5n.large 3 25

c5n.xlarge 5 25

c5n.2xlarge 10 25

c5n.4xlarge 15 25

SSD I/O performance

If you use all the SSD-based instance store volumes available to your instance, you get the IOPS (4,096
byte block size) performance listed in the following table (at queue depth saturation). Otherwise, you get
lower IOPS performance.

Instance Size 100% Random Read IOPS Write IOPS

c5ad.large 16,283 7,105

c5ad.xlarge 32,566 14,211

c5ad.2xlarge 65,132 28,421

c5ad.4xlarge 130,263 56,842

c5ad.8xlarge 260,526 113,684

c5ad.12xlarge 412,500 180,000

c5ad.16xlarge 521,053 227,368

c5ad.24xlarge 825,000 360,000

c5d.large * 20,000 9,000

c5d.xlarge * 40,000 18,000

c5d.2xlarge * 80,000 37,000

c5d.4xlarge * 175,000 75,000

c5d.9xlarge 350,000 170,000

c5d.12xlarge 700,000 340,000

c5d.18xlarge 700,000 340,000

c5d.24xlarge 1,400,000 680,000

c5d.metal 1,400,000 680,000

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* For these instances, you can get up to the specified performance.

As you fill the SSD-based instance store volumes for your instance, the number of write IOPS that
you can achieve decreases. This is due to the extra work the SSD controller must do to find available
space, rewrite existing data, and erase unused space so that it can be rewritten. This process of
garbage collection results in internal write amplification to the SSD, expressed as the ratio of SSD write
operations to user write operations. This decrease in performance is even larger if the write operations
are not in multiples of 4,096 bytes or not aligned to a 4,096-byte boundary. If you write a smaller
amount of bytes or bytes that are not aligned, the SSD controller must read the surrounding data and
store the result in a new location. This pattern results in significantly increased write amplification,
increased latency, and dramatically reduced I/O performance.

SSD controllers can use several strategies to reduce the impact of write amplification. One such strategy
is to reserve space in the SSD instance storage so that the controller can more efficiently manage the
space available for write operations. This is called over-provisioning. The SSD-based instance store
volumes provided to an instance don't have any space reserved for over-provisioning. To reduce write
amplification, we recommend that you leave 10% of the volume unpartitioned so that the SSD controller
can use it for over-provisioning. This decreases the storage that you can use, but increases performance
even if the disk is close to full capacity.

For instance store volumes that support TRIM, you can use the TRIM command to notify the SSD
controller whenever you no longer need data that you've written. This provides the controller with more
free space, which can reduce write amplification and increase performance. For more information, see
Instance store volume TRIM support (p. 1417).

Instance features
The following is a summary of features for compute optimized instances:

  EBS only NVMe EBS Instance store Placement group

C4 Yes No No Yes

C5 Yes Yes No Yes

C5a Yes Yes No Yes

C5ad No Yes NVMe * Yes

C5d No Yes NVMe * Yes

C5n Yes Yes No Yes

* The root device volume must be an Amazon EBS volume.

For more information, see the following:

• Amazon EBS and NVMe on Windows instances (p. 1355)

• Amazon EC2 instance store (p. 1405)
• Placement groups (p. 988)

Release notes
• C5 and C5d instances feature a 3.1 GHz Intel Xeon Platinum 8000 series processor from either the first
generation (Skylake-SP) or second generation (Cascade Lake).

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• C5a and C5ad instances feature a second-generation AMD EPYC processor (Rome) running at
frequencies as high as 3.3. GHz.
• C4 instances and instances built on the Nitro System (p. 147) require 64-bit EBS-backed HVM AMIs.
They have high-memory and require a 64-bit operating system to take advantage of that capacity.
HVM AMIs provide superior performance in comparison to paravirtual (PV) AMIs on high-memory
instance types. In addition, you must use an HVM AMI to take advantage of enhanced networking.
• Instances built on the Nitro System have the following requirements:
• NVMe drivers (p. 1355) must be installed
• Elastic Network Adapter (ENA) drivers (p. 974) must be installed

The current AWS Windows AMIs (p. 27) meet these requirements.
• Instances built on the Nitro System instances support a maximum of 28 attachments, including
network interfaces, EBS volumes, and NVMe instance store volumes. For more information, see Nitro
System volume limits (p. 1420).
• Launching a bare metal instance boots the underlying server, which includes verifying all hardware and
firmware components. This means that it can take 20 minutes from the time the instance enters the
running state until it becomes available over the network.
• To attach or detach EBS volumes or secondary network interfaces from a bare metal instance requires
PCIe native hotplug support.
• Bare metal instances use a PCI-based serial device rather than an I/O port-based serial device. The
upstream Linux kernel and the latest Amazon Linux AMIs support this device. Bare metal instances also
provide an ACPI SPCR table to enable the system to automatically use the PCI-based serial device. The
latest Windows AMIs automatically use the PCI-based serial device.
• There is a limit on the total number of instances that you can launch in a Region, and there are
additional limits on some instance types. For more information, see How many instances can I run in
Amazon EC2? in the Amazon EC2 FAQ.

Memory optimized instances

Memory optimized instances are designed to deliver fast performance for workloads that process large
data sets in memory.

R5, R5a, R5b, and R5n instances

These instances are well suited for the following:

• High-performance, relational (MySQL) and NoSQL (MongoDB, Cassandra) databases.

• Distributed web scale cache stores that provide in-memory caching of key-value type data
(Memcached and Redis).
• In-memory databases using optimized data storage formats and analytics for business intelligence (for
example, SAP HANA).
• Applications performing real-time processing of big unstructured data (financial services, Hadoop/
Spark clusters).
• High-performance computing (HPC) and Electronic Design Automation (EDA) applications.

R5b instances support io2 Block Express volumes. All io2 volumes attached to an R5b instance during
or after launch automatically run on EBS Block Express. For more information, see io2 Block Express
volumes.

Bare metal instances, such as r5.metal, provide your applications with direct access to physical
resources of the host server, such as processors and memory.

For more information, see Amazon EC2 R5 Instances.

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High memory (u-*) instances

These instances offer 6 TiB, 9 TiB, 12 TiB, 18 TiB, and 24 TiB of memory per instance. They are designed
to run large in-memory databases, including production deployments of the SAP HANA in-memory
database.

For more information, see Amazon EC2 High Memory Instances and Storage Configuration for SAP
HANA. For information about supported operating systems, see Migrating SAP HANA on AWS to an EC2
High Memory Instance.

X1 instances

These instances are well suited for the following:

• In-memory databases such as SAP HANA, including SAP-certified support for Business Suite S/4HANA,
Business Suite on HANA (SoH), Business Warehouse on HANA (BW), and Data Mart Solutions on HANA.
For more information, see SAP HANA on the AWS Cloud.
• Big-data processing engines such as Apache Spark or Presto.
• High-performance computing (HPC) applications.

For more information, see Amazon EC2 X1 Instances.

X1e instances

These instances are well suited for the following:

• High-performance databases.
• In-memory databases such as SAP HANA. For more information, see SAP HANA on the AWS Cloud.
• Memory-intensive enterprise applications.

For more information, see Amazon EC2 X1e Instances.

z1d instances

These instances deliver both high compute and high memory and are well-suited for the following:

• Electronic Design Automation (EDA)

• Relational database workloads

z1d.metal instances provide your applications with direct access to physical resources of the host
server, such as processors and memory.

For more information, see Amazon EC2 z1d Instances.

Contents
• Hardware specifications (p. 203)
• Memory performance (p. 206)
• Instance performance (p. 206)
• Network performance (p. 206)
• SSD I/O performance (p. 208)
• Instance features (p. 210)
• High availability and reliability (X1) (p. 211)
• Support for vCPUs (p. 211)

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• Release notes (p. 212)

Hardware specifications
The following is a summary of the hardware specifications for memory optimized instances.

Instance type Default vCPUs Memory (GiB)

r4.large 2 15.25

r4.xlarge 4 30.5

r4.2xlarge 8 61

r4.4xlarge 16 122

r4.8xlarge 32 244

r4.16xlarge 64 488

r5.large 2 16

r5.xlarge 4 32

r5.2xlarge 8 64

r5.4xlarge 16 128

r5.8xlarge 32 256

r5.12xlarge 48 384

r5.16xlarge 64 512

r5.24xlarge 96 768

r5.metal 96 768

r5a.large 2 16

r5a.xlarge 4 32

r5a.2xlarge 8 64

r5a.4xlarge 16 128

r5a.8xlarge 32 256

r5a.12xlarge 48 384

r5a.16xlarge 64 512

r5a.24xlarge 96 768

r5ad.large 2 16

r5ad.xlarge 4 32

r5ad.2xlarge 8 64

r5ad.4xlarge 16 128

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Instance type Default vCPUs Memory (GiB)

r5ad.8xlarge 32 256

r5ad.12xlarge 48 384

r5ad.16xlarge 64 512

r5ad.24xlarge 96 768

r5b.large 2 16

r5b.xlarge 4 32

r5b.2xlarge 8 64

r5b.4xlarge 16 128

r5b.8xlarge 32 256

r5b.12xlarge 48 384

r5b.16xlarge 64 512

r5b.24xlarge 96 768

r5b.metal 96 768

r5d.large 2 16

r5d.xlarge 4 32

r5d.2xlarge 8 64

r5d.4xlarge 16 128

r5d.8xlarge 32 256

r5d.12xlarge 48 384

r5d.16xlarge 64 512

r5d.24xlarge 96 768

r5d.metal 96 768

r5dn.large 2 16

r5dn.xlarge 4 32

r5dn.2xlarge 8 64

r5dn.4xlarge 16 128

r5dn.8xlarge 32 256

r5dn.12xlarge 48 384

r5dn.16xlarge 64 512

r5dn.24xlarge 96 768

r5dn.metal 96 768

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Instance type Default vCPUs Memory (GiB)

r5n.large 2 16

r5n.xlarge 4 32

r5n.2xlarge 8 64

r5n.4xlarge 16 128

r5n.8xlarge 32 256

r5n.12xlarge 48 384

r5n.16xlarge 64 512

r5n.24xlarge 96 768

r5n.metal 96 768

u-6tb1.56xlarge 224 6,144

u-6tb1.112xlarge 448 6,144

u-6tb1.metal 448 * 6,144

u-9tb1.112xlarge 448 9,216

u-9tb1.metal 448 * 9,216

u-12tb1.112xlarge 448 12,288

u-12tb1.metal 448 * 12,288

u-18tb1.metal 448 * 18,432

u-24tb1.metal 448 * 24,576

x1.16xlarge 64 976

x1.32xlarge 128 1,952

x1e.xlarge 4 122

x1e.2xlarge 8 244

x1e.4xlarge 16 488

x1e.8xlarge 32 976

x1e.16xlarge 64 1,952

x1e.32xlarge 128 3,904

z1d.large 2 16

z1d.xlarge 4 32

z1d.2xlarge 8 64

z1d.3xlarge 12 96

z1d.6xlarge 24 192

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Instance type Default vCPUs Memory (GiB)

z1d.12xlarge 48 384

z1d.metal 48 384

* Each logical processor is a hyperthread on 224 cores.

For more information about the hardware specifications for each Amazon EC2 instance type, see Amazon
EC2 Instance Types.

For more information about specifying CPU options, see Optimize CPU options (p. 549).

Memory performance
X1 instances include Intel Scalable Memory Buffers, providing 300 GiB/s of sustainable memory-read
bandwidth and 140 GiB/s of sustainable memory-write bandwidth.

For more information about how much RAM can be enabled for memory optimized instances, see
Hardware specifications (p. 203).

Memory optimized instances have high memory and require 64-bit HVM AMIs to take advantage of that
capacity. HVM AMIs provide superior performance in comparison to paravirtual (PV) AMIs on memory
optimized instances. .

Instance performance
Memory optimized instances enable increased cryptographic performance through the latest Intel AES-
NI feature, support Intel Transactional Synchronization Extensions (TSX) to boost the performance of in-
memory transactional data processing, and support Advanced Vector Extensions 2 (Intel AVX2) processor
instructions to expand most integer commands to 256 bits.

Network performance
You can enable enhanced networking on supported instance types to provide lower latencies, lower
network jitter, and higher packet-per-second (PPS) performance. Most applications do not consistently
need a high level of network performance, but can benefit from access to increased bandwidth when
they send or receive data. For more information, see Enhanced networking on Windows (p. 973).

The following is a summary of network performance for memory optimized instances that support
enhanced networking.

Instance type Network performance Enhanced networking

r4.4xlarge and smaller | r5.4xlarge Up to 10 Gbps † ENA (p. 974)

and smaller | r5a.8xlarge and smaller |
r5ad.8xlarge and smaller | r5b.4xlarge
and smaller | r5d.4xlarge and smaller |
x1e.8large and smaller | z1d.3xlarge and
smaller

r4.8xlarge | r5.8xlarge | r5.12xlarge 10 Gbps ENA (p. 974)

| r5a.12xlarge | r5ad.12xlarge |
r5b.8xlarge | r5b.12xlarge | r5d.8xlarge |

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Instance type Network performance Enhanced networking

r5d.12xlarge | x1.16xlarge | x1e.16xlarge
| z1d.6xlarge

r5a.16xlarge | r5ad.16xlarge 12 Gbps ENA (p. 974)

r5.16xlarge | r5a.24xlarge | 20 Gbps ENA (p. 974)

r5ad.24xlarge | r5b.16xlarge |
r5d.16xlarge

r5dn.4xlarge and smaller | r5n.4xlarge and Up to 25 Gbps † ENA (p. 974)

smaller

r4.16xlarge | r5.24xlarge | r5.metal | 25 Gbps ENA (p. 974)

r5b.24xlarge | r5b.metal | r5d.24xlarge
| r5d.metal | r5dn.8xlarge | r5n.8xlarge |
x1.32xlarge | x1e.32xlarge | z1d.12xlarge
| z1d.metal

r5dn.12xlarge | r5n.12xlarge 50 Gbps ENA (p. 974)

r5dn.16xlarge | r5n.16xlarge 75 Gbps ENA (p. 974)

r5dn.24xlarge | r5dn.metal | r5n.24xlarge 100 Gbps ENA (p. 974)

| r5n.metal | u-6tb1.56xlarge |
u-6tb1.112xlarge | u-6tb1.metal * |
u-9tb1.112xlarge | u-9tb1.metal * |
u-12tb1.112xlarge | u-12tb1.metal * |
u-18tb1.metal | u-24tb1.metal

* Instances of this type launched after March 12, 2020 provide network performance of 100 Gbps.
Instances of this type launched before March 12, 2020 might only provide network performance of 25
Gbps. To ensure that instances launched before March 12, 2020 have a network performance of 100
Gbps, contact your account team to upgrade your instance at no additional cost.

† These instances have a baseline bandwidth and can use a network I/O credit mechanism to burst
beyond their baseline bandwidth on a best effort basis. For more information, see instance network
bandwidth (p. 972).

Instance type Baseline bandwidth (Gbps) Burst bandwidth (Gbps)

r5.large .75 10

r5.xlarge 1.25 10

r5.2xlarge 2.5 10

r5.4xlarge 5 10

r5a.large .75 10

r5a.xlarge 1.25 10

r5a.2xlarge 2.5 10

r5a.4xlarge 5 10

r5a.8xlarge 7.5 10

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Instance type Baseline bandwidth (Gbps) Burst bandwidth (Gbps)

r5ad.large .75 10

r5ad.xlarge 1.25 10

r5ad.2xlarge 2.5 10

r5ad.4xlarge 5 10

r5ad.8xlarge 7.5 10

r5b.large .75 10

r5b.xlarge 1.25 10

r5b.2xlarge 2.5 10

r5b.4xlarge 5 10

r5d.large .75 10

r5d.xlarge 1.25 10

r5d.2xlarge 2.5 10

r5d.4xlarge 5 10

r5dn.large 2.1 25

r5dn.xlarge 4.1 25

r5dn.2xlarge 8.125 25

r5dn.4xlarge 16.25 25

r5n.large 2.1 25

r5n.xlarge 4.1 25

r5n.2xlarge 8.125 25

r5n.4xlarge 16.25 25

z1d.large .75 10

z1d.xlarge 1.25 10

z1d.2xlarge 2.5 10

z1d.3xlarge 5 10

SSD I/O performance

If you use all the SSD-based instance store volumes available to your instance, you get the IOPS (4,096
byte block size) performance listed in the following table (at queue depth saturation). Otherwise, you get
lower IOPS performance.

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Instance Size 100% Random Read IOPS Write IOPS

r5ad.large * 30,000 15,000

r5ad.xlarge * 59,000 29,000

r5ad.2xlarge * 117,000 57,000

r5ad.4xlarge * 234,000 114,000

r5ad.8xlarge 466,666 233,333

r5ad.12xlarge 700,000 340,000

r5ad.16xlarge 933,333 466,666

r5ad.24xlarge 1,400,000 680,000

r5d.large * 30,000 15,000

r5d.xlarge * 59,000 29,000

r5d.2xlarge * 117,000 57,000

r5d.4xlarge * 234,000 114,000

r5d.8xlarge 466,666 233,333

r5d.12xlarge 700,000 340,000

r5d.16xlarge 933,333 466,666

r5d.24xlarge 1,400,000 680,000

r5d.metal 1,400,000 680,000

r5dn.large * 30,000 15,000

r5dn.xlarge * 59,000 29,000

r5dn.2xlarge * 117,000 57,000

r5dn.4xlarge * 234,000 114,000

r5dn.8xlarge 466,666 233,333

r5dn.12xlarge 700,000 340,000

r5dn.16xlarge 933,333 466,666

r5dn.24xlarge 1,400,000 680,000

r5dn.metal 1,400,000 680,000

z1d.large * 30,000 15,000

z1d.xlarge * 59,000 29,000

z1d.2xlarge * 117,000 57,000

z1d.3xlarge * 175,000 75,000

z1d.6xlarge 350,000 170,000

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Instance Size 100% Random Read IOPS Write IOPS

z1d.12xlarge 700,000 340,000

z1d.metal 700,000 340,000

* For these instances, you can get up to the specified performance.

As you fill the SSD-based instance store volumes for your instance, the number of write IOPS that
you can achieve decreases. This is due to the extra work the SSD controller must do to find available
space, rewrite existing data, and erase unused space so that it can be rewritten. This process of
garbage collection results in internal write amplification to the SSD, expressed as the ratio of SSD write
operations to user write operations. This decrease in performance is even larger if the write operations
are not in multiples of 4,096 bytes or not aligned to a 4,096-byte boundary. If you write a smaller
amount of bytes or bytes that are not aligned, the SSD controller must read the surrounding data and
store the result in a new location. This pattern results in significantly increased write amplification,
increased latency, and dramatically reduced I/O performance.

SSD controllers can use several strategies to reduce the impact of write amplification. One such strategy
is to reserve space in the SSD instance storage so that the controller can more efficiently manage the
space available for write operations. This is called over-provisioning. The SSD-based instance store
volumes provided to an instance don't have any space reserved for over-provisioning. To reduce write
amplification, we recommend that you leave 10% of the volume unpartitioned so that the SSD controller
can use it for over-provisioning. This decreases the storage that you can use, but increases performance
even if the disk is close to full capacity.

For instance store volumes that support TRIM, you can use the TRIM command to notify the SSD
controller whenever you no longer need data that you've written. This provides the controller with more
free space, which can reduce write amplification and increase performance. For more information, see
Instance store volume TRIM support (p. 1417).

Instance features
The following is a summary of features for memory optimized instances.

  EBS only NVMe EBS Instance store Placement group

R4 Yes No No Yes

R5 Yes Yes No Yes

R5a Yes Yes No Yes

R5ad No Yes NVME * Yes

R5b Yes ** Yes No Yes

R5d No Yes NVME * Yes

R5dn No Yes NVME * Yes

R5n Yes Yes No Yes

High Yes Yes No Virtualized: Yes

memory
Bare metal: No

X1 No No SSD Yes

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  EBS only NVMe EBS Instance store Placement group

X1e No No SSD * Yes

z1d No Yes NVME * Yes

** All io2 volumes attached to an R5b instance during or after launch automatically run on EBS Block
Express. For more information, see io2 Block Express volumes.

* The root device volume must be an Amazon EBS volume.

For more information, see the following:

• Amazon EBS and NVMe on Windows instances (p. 1355)

• Amazon EC2 instance store (p. 1405)
• Placement groups (p. 988)

High availability and reliability (X1)

X1 instances support Single Device Data Correction (SDDC +1), which detects and corrects multi-bit
errors. SDDC +1 uses error checking and correction code to identify and disable a failed single DRAM
device.

In addition, you can implement high availability (HA) and disaster recovery (DR) solutions to meet
recovery point objective (RPO), recovery time objective (RTO), and cost requirements by leveraging
Amazon CloudFormation and Recover your instance (p. 452).

If you run an SAP HANA production environment, you also have the option of using HANA System
Replication (HSR) on X1 instances. For more information about architecting HA and DR solutions on X1
instances, see SAP HANA on the Amazon Web Services Cloud: Quick Start Reference Deployment.

Support for vCPUs

Memory optimized instances provide a high number of vCPUs, which can cause launch issues with
operating systems that have a lower vCPU limit. We strongly recommend that you use the latest AMIs
when you launch memory optimized instances.

The following AMIs support launching memory optimized instances:

• Amazon Linux 2 (HVM)

• Amazon Linux AMI 2016.03 (HVM) or later
• Ubuntu Server 14.04 LTS (HVM)
• Red Hat Enterprise Linux 7.1 (HVM)
• SUSE Linux Enterprise Server 12 SP1 (HVM)
• Windows Server 2019
• Windows Server 2016
• Windows Server 2012 R2
• Windows Server 2012
• Windows Server 2008 R2 64-bit
• Windows Server 2008 SP2 64-bit

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Release notes
• R4 instances feature up to 64 vCPUs and are powered by two AWS-customized Intel XEON processors
based on E5-2686v4 that feature high-memory bandwidth and larger L3 caches to boost the
performance of in-memory applications.
• R5, R5b, and R5d instances feature a 3.1 GHz Intel Xeon Platinum 8000 series processor from either
the first generation (Skylake-SP) or second generation (Cascade Lake).
• R5a and R5ad instances feature a 2.5 GHz AMD EPYC 7000 series processor.
• High memory instances (u-6tb1.metal, u-9tb1.metal, and u-12tb1.metal) are the first
instances to be powered by an eight-socket platform with the latest generation Intel Xeon Platinum
8176M (Skylake) processors that are optimized for mission-critical enterprise workloads. High Memory
instances with 18 TB and 24 TB of memory (u-18tb1.metal and u-24tb1.metal) are the first
instances powered by an 8-socket platform with 2nd Generation Intel Xeon Scalable 8280L (Cascade
Lake) processors.
• X1e and X1 instances feature up to 128 vCPUs and are powered by four Intel Xeon E7-8880 v3
processors that feature high-memory bandwidth and larger L3 caches to boost the performance of in-
memory applications.
• Instances built on the Nitro System have the following requirements:
• NVMe drivers (p. 1355) must be installed
• Elastic Network Adapter (ENA) drivers (p. 974) must be installed

The current AWS Windows AMIs (p. 27) meet these requirements.
• Instances built on the Nitro System instances support a maximum of 28 attachments, including
network interfaces, EBS volumes, and NVMe instance store volumes. For more information, see Nitro
System volume limits (p. 1420).
• All io2 volumes attached to an R5b instance during or after launch automatically run on EBS Block
Express. For more information, see io2 Block Express volumes.
• Launching a bare metal instance boots the underlying server, which includes verifying all hardware and
firmware components. This means that it can take 20 minutes from the time the instance enters the
running state until it becomes available over the network.
• To attach or detach EBS volumes or secondary network interfaces from a bare metal instance requires
PCIe native hotplug support.
• Bare metal instances use a PCI-based serial device rather than an I/O port-based serial device. The
upstream Linux kernel and the latest Amazon Linux AMIs support this device. Bare metal instances also
provide an ACPI SPCR table to enable the system to automatically use the PCI-based serial device. The
latest Windows AMIs automatically use the PCI-based serial device.
• You can't launch X1 instances using a Windows Server 2008 SP2 64-bit AMI, except for x1.16xlarge
instances.
• You can't launch X1e instances using a Windows Server 2008 SP2 64-bit AMI.
• With earlier versions of the Windows Server 2008 R2 64-bit AMI, you can't launch r4.large and
r4.4xlarge instances. If you experience this issue, update to the latest version of this AMI.
• There is a limit on the total number of instances that you can launch in a Region, and there are
additional limits on some instance types. For more information, see How many instances can I run in
Amazon EC2? in the Amazon EC2 FAQ.

Storage optimized instances

Storage optimized instances are designed for workloads that require high, sequential read and write
access to very large data sets on local storage. They are optimized to deliver tens of thousands of low-
latency, random I/O operations per second (IOPS) to applications.

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D2 instances

These instances are well suited for the following:

• Massive parallel processing (MPP) data warehouse

• MapReduce and Hadoop distributed computing
• Log or data processing applications

D3 and D3en instances

These instances offer scale out of instance storage and are well suited for the following:

• Distributed file systems for Hadoop workloads

• File storage workloads such as GPFC and BeeFS
• Large data lakes for HPC workloads

H1 instances

These instances are well suited for the following:

• Data-intensive workloads such as MapReduce and distributed file systems

• Applications requiring sequential access to large amounts of data on direct-attached instance storage
• Applications that require high-throughput access to large quantities of data

I3 and I3en instances

These instances are well suited for the following:

• High frequency online transaction processing (OLTP) systems

• Relational databases
• NoSQL databases
• Cache for in-memory databases (for example, Redis)
• Data warehousing applications
• Distributed file systems

Bare metal instances provide your applications with direct access to physical resources of the host server,
such as processors and memory.

For more information, see Amazon EC2 I3 Instances.

Contents
• Hardware specifications (p. 214)
• Instance performance (p. 215)
• Network performance (p. 215)
• SSD I/O performance (p. 216)
• Instance features (p. 217)
• Release notes (p. 218)

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Hardware specifications
The primary data storage for D2, D3, and D3en instances is HDD instance store volumes. The primary
data storage for I3 and I3en instances is non-volatile memory express (NVMe) SSD instance store
volumes.

Instance store volumes persist only for the life of the instance. When you stop, hibernate, or terminate
an instance, the applications and data in its instance store volumes are erased. We recommend that you
regularly back up or replicate important data in your instance store volumes. For more information, see
Amazon EC2 instance store (p. 1405) and SSD instance store volumes (p. 1416).

The following is a summary of the hardware specifications for storage optimized instances.

Instance type Default vCPUs Memory (GiB)

d2.xlarge 4 30.5

d2.2xlarge 8 61

d2.4xlarge 16 122

d2.8xlarge 36 244

d3.xlarge 4 32

d3.2xlarge 8 64

d3.4xlarge 16 128

d3.8xlarge 32 256

d3en.large 2 8

d3en.xlarge 4 16

d3en.2xlarge 8 32

d3en.4xlarge 16 64

d3en.6xlarge 24 96

d3en.8xlarge 32 128

d3en.12xlarge 48 192

h1.2xlarge 8 32

h1.4xlarge 16 64

h1.8xlarge 32 128

h1.16xlarge 64 256

i3.large 2 15.25

i3.xlarge 4 30.5

i3.2xlarge 8 61

i3.4xlarge 16 122

i3.8xlarge 32 244

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Instance type Default vCPUs Memory (GiB)

i3.16xlarge 64 488

i3.metal 72 512

i3en.large 2 16

i3en.xlarge 4 32

i3en.2xlarge 8 64

i3en.3xlarge 12 96

i3en.6xlarge 24 192

i3en.12xlarge 48 384

i3en.24xlarge 96 768

i3en.metal 96 768

For more information about the hardware specifications for each Amazon EC2 instance type, see Amazon
EC2 Instance Types.

For more information about specifying CPU options, see Optimize CPU options (p. 549).

Instance performance
For instances with NVMe instance store volumes, be sure to use the AWS NVMe driver. For more
information, see AWS NVMe drivers for Windows instances (p. 547).

EBS-optimized instances enable you to get consistently high performance for your EBS volumes by
eliminating contention between Amazon EBS I/O and other network traffic from your instance. Some
storage optimized instances are EBS-optimized by default at no additional cost. For more information,
see Amazon EBS–optimized instances (p. 1357).

Network performance
You can enable enhanced networking on supported instance types to provide lower latencies, lower
network jitter, and higher packet-per-second (PPS) performance. Most applications do not consistently
need a high level of network performance, but can benefit from access to increased bandwidth when
they send or receive data. For more information, see Enhanced networking on Windows (p. 973).

The following is a summary of network performance for storage optimized instances that support
enhanced networking.

Instance type Network performance Enhanced networking

d2.xlarge Moderate Intel 82599 VF (p. 981)

d2.2xlarge | d2.4xlarge High Intel 82599 VF (p. 981)

i3.4xlarge and smaller Up to 10 Gbps † ENA (p. 974)

d2.8xlarge 10 Gbps Intel 82599 VF (p. 981)

i3.8xlarge | h1.8xlarge 10 Gbps ENA (p. 974)

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Instance type Network performance Enhanced networking

d3.4xlarge and smaller Up to 15 Gbps † ENA (p. 974)

d3en.2xlarge and smaller | Up to 25 Gbps † ENA (p. 974)

i3en.3xlarge and smaller

d3.8xlarge | d3en.4xlarge 25 Gbps ENA (p. 974)

| i3.16xlarge | i3.metal
| i3en.6xlarge |
h1.16xlarge

d3en.6xlarge 40 Gbps ENA (p. 974)

d3.8xlarge | d3en.8xlarge | 50 Gbps ENA (p. 974)

i3en.12xlarge

d3en.12xlarge 75 Gbps ENA (p. 974)

i3en.24xlarge | i3en.metal 100 Gbps ENA (p. 974)

† These instances have a baseline bandwidth and can use a network I/O credit mechanism to burst
beyond their baseline bandwidth on a best effort basis. For more information, see instance network
bandwidth (p. 972).

Instance type Baseline bandwidth (Gbps) Burst bandwidth (Gbps)

d3.xlarge 3 15

d3.2xlarge 6 15

d3.4xlarge 12.5 15

d3en.large 3 25

d3en.xlarge 6 25

d3en.2xlarge 12.5 25

i3en.large 2.1 25

i3en.xlarge 4.2 25

i3en.2xlarge 8.4 25

i3en.3xlarge 12.5 25

SSD I/O performance

If you use all the SSD-based instance store volumes available to your instance, you get the IOPS (4,096
byte block size) performance listed in the following table (at queue depth saturation). Otherwise, you get
lower IOPS performance.

Instance Size 100% Random Read IOPS Write IOPS

i3.large * 100,125 35,000

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Instance Size 100% Random Read IOPS Write IOPS

i3.xlarge * 206,250 70,000

i3.2xlarge 412,500 180,000

i3.4xlarge 825,000 360,000

i3.8xlarge 1.65 million 720,000

i3.16xlarge 3.3 million 1.4 million

i3.metal 3.3 million 1.4 million

i3en.large * 42,500 32,500

i3en.xlarge * 85,000 65,000

i3en.2xlarge * 170,000 130,000

i3en.3xlarge 250,000 200,000

i3en.6xlarge 500,000 400,000

i3en.12xlarge 1 million 800,000

i3en.24xlarge 2 million 1.6 million

i3en.metal 2 million 1.6 million

* For these instances, you can get up to the specified performance.

As you fill your SSD-based instance store volumes, the I/O performance that you get decreases. This is
due to the extra work that the SSD controller must do to find available space, rewrite existing data, and
erase unused space so that it can be rewritten. This process of garbage collection results in internal write
amplification to the SSD, expressed as the ratio of SSD write operations to user write operations. This
decrease in performance is even larger if the write operations are not in multiples of 4,096 bytes or not
aligned to a 4,096-byte boundary. If you write a smaller amount of bytes or bytes that are not aligned,
the SSD controller must read the surrounding data and store the result in a new location. This pattern
results in significantly increased write amplification, increased latency, and dramatically reduced I/O
performance.

SSD controllers can use several strategies to reduce the impact of write amplification. One such strategy
is to reserve space in the SSD instance storage so that the controller can more efficiently manage the
space available for write operations. This is called over-provisioning. The SSD-based instance store
volumes provided to an instance don't have any space reserved for over-provisioning. To reduce write
amplification, we recommend that you leave 10% of the volume unpartitioned so that the SSD controller
can use it for over-provisioning. This decreases the storage that you can use, but increases performance
even if the disk is close to full capacity.

For instance store volumes that support TRIM, you can use the TRIM command to notify the SSD
controller whenever you no longer need data that you've written. This provides the controller with more
free space, which can reduce write amplification and increase performance. For more information, see
Instance store volume TRIM support (p. 1417).

Instance features
The following is a summary of features for storage optimized instances:

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  EBS only Instance store Placement group

D2 No HDD Yes

D3 No HDD * Yes

D3en No HDD * Yes

H1 No HDD * Yes

I3 No NVMe * Yes

I3en No NVMe * Yes

* The root device volume must be an Amazon EBS volume.

For more information, see the following:

• Amazon EBS and NVMe on Windows instances (p. 1355)

• Amazon EC2 instance store (p. 1405)
• Placement groups (p. 988)

Release notes
• You must launch storage optimized instances using an HVM AMI.
• Instances built on the Nitro System (p. 147) have the following requirements:
• NVMe drivers (p. 1355) must be installed
• Elastic Network Adapter (ENA) drivers (p. 974) must be installed

The current AWS Windows AMIs (p. 27) meet these requirements.
• Launching a bare metal instance boots the underlying server, which includes verifying all hardware and
firmware components. This means that it can take 20 minutes from the time the instance enters the
running state until it becomes available over the network.
• To attach or detach EBS volumes or secondary network interfaces from a bare metal instance requires
PCIe native hotplug support.
• Bare metal instances use a PCI-based serial device rather than an I/O port-based serial device. The
upstream Linux kernel and the latest Amazon Linux AMIs support this device. Bare metal instances also
provide an ACPI SPCR table to enable the system to automatically use the PCI-based serial device. The
latest Windows AMIs automatically use the PCI-based serial device.
• The d3.8xlarge and d3en.12xlarge instances support a maximum of three attachments, including
the root volume. If you exceed the attachment limit when you add a network interface or EBS volume,
this causes attachment issues on your instance.
• There is a limit on the total number of instances that you can launch in a Region, and there are
additional limits on some instance types. For more information, see How many instances can I run in
Amazon EC2? in the Amazon EC2 FAQ.

Windows accelerated computing instances

Accelerated computing instances use hardware accelerators, or co-processors, to perform some
functions, such as floating point number calculations, graphics processing, or data pattern matching,
more efficiently than is possible in software running on CPUs. These instances enable more parallelism
for higher throughput on compute-intensive workloads.

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Accelerated computing

If you require high processing capability, you'll benefit from using accelerated computing instances,
which provide access to hardware-based compute accelerators such as Graphics Processing Units (GPUs).

Contents
• GPU instances (p. 219)
• Hardware specifications (p. 220)
• Instance performance (p. 221)
• Network performance (p. 221)
• Instance features (p. 222)
• Release notes (p. 223)
• Install NVIDIA drivers on Windows instances (p. 224)
• Install AMD drivers on Windows instances (p. 229)
• Activate NVIDIA GRID Virtual Applications (p. 231)
• Optimize GPU settings (p. 231)

GPU instances
GPU-based instances provide access to NVIDIA GPUs with thousands of compute cores. You can use
these instances to accelerate scientific, engineering, and rendering applications by leveraging the
CUDA or Open Computing Language (OpenCL) parallel computing frameworks. You can also use them
for graphics applications, including game streaming, 3-D application streaming, and other graphics
workloads.

If your application needs a small amount of additional graphics acceleration, but is better suited for
an instance type with different compute, memory, or storage specifications, use an Elastic Graphics
accelerator instead. For more information, see Amazon Elastic Graphics (p. 805).

G4ad and G4dn instances

G4ad instances use AMD Radeon Pro V520 GPUs and 2nd generation AMD EPYC processors, and are well-
suited for graphics applications such as remote graphics workstations, game streaming, and rendering
that leverage industry-standard APIs such as OpenGL, DirectX, and Vulkan. They provide up to 4 AMD
Radeon Pro V520 GPUs, 64 vCPUs, 25 Gbps networking, and 2.4 TB local NVMe-based SSD storage.

G4dn instances use NVIDIA Tesla GPUs and provide a cost-effective, high-performance platform for
general purpose GPU computing using the CUDA or machine learning frameworks along with graphics
applications using DirectX or OpenGL. These instances provide high- bandwidth networking, powerful
half and single-precision floating-point capabilities, along with INT8 and INT4 precisions. Each GPU has
16 GiB of GDDR6 memory, making G4dn instances well-suited for machine learning inference, video
transcoding, and graphics applications like remote graphics workstations and game streaming in the
cloud.

For more information, see Amazon EC2 G4 Instances.

G4dn instances support NVIDIA GRID Virtual Workstation. For more information, see NVIDIA Marketplace
offerings.

G3 instances

These instances use NVIDIA Tesla M60 GPUs and provide a cost-effective, high-performance platform
for graphics applications using DirectX or OpenGL. G3 instances also provide NVIDIA GRID Virtual
Workstation features, such as support for four monitors with resolutions up to 4096x2160, and NVIDIA
GRID Virtual Applications. G3 instances are well-suited for applications such as 3D visualizations,
graphics-intensive remote workstations, 3D rendering, video encoding, virtual reality, and other server-
side graphics workloads requiring massively parallel processing power.

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For more information, see Amazon EC2 G3 Instances.

G3 instances support NVIDIA GRID Virtual Workstation and NVIDIA GRID Virtual Applications. To activate
either of these features, see Activate NVIDIA GRID Virtual Applications (p. 231).

G2 instances

These instances use NVIDIA GRID K520 GPUs and provide a cost-effective, high-performance platform
for graphics applications using DirectX or OpenGL. NVIDIA GRID GPUs also support NVIDIA’s fast capture
and encode API operations. Example applications include video creation services, 3D visualizations,
streaming graphics-intensive applications, and other server-side graphics workloads.

P3 instances

These instances use NVIDIA Tesla V100 GPUs and are designed for general purpose GPU computing
using the CUDA or OpenCL programming models or through a machine learning framework. P3
instances provide high-bandwidth networking, powerful half, single, and double-precision floating-
point capabilities, and up to 32 GiB of memory per GPU, which makes them ideal for deep learning,
computational fluid dynamics, computational finance, seismic analysis, molecular modeling, genomics,
rendering, and other server-side GPU compute workloads. Tesla V100 GPUs do not support graphics
mode.

For more information, see Amazon EC2 P3 Instances.

P3 instances support NVIDIA NVLink peer to peer transfers. For more information, see NVIDIA NVLink.

P2 instances

P2 instances use NVIDIA Tesla K80 GPUs and are designed for general purpose GPU computing using
the CUDA or OpenCL programming models. P2 instances provide high-bandwidth networking, powerful
single and double precision floating-point capabilities, and 12 GiB of memory per GPU, which makes
them ideal for deep learning, graph databases, high-performance databases, computational fluid
dynamics, computational finance, seismic analysis, molecular modeling, genomics, rendering, and other
server-side GPU compute workloads.

P2 instances support NVIDIA GPUDirect peer to peer transfers. For more information, see NVIDIA
GPUDirect.

Hardware specifications
The following is a summary of the hardware specifications for accelerated computing instances.

Instance type Default vCPUs Memory (GiB) Accelerators

p2.xlarge 4 61 1

p2.8xlarge 32 488 8

p2.16xlarge 64 732 16

p3.2xlarge 8 61 1

p3.8xlarge 32 244 4

p3.16xlarge 64 488 8

p3dn.24xlarge 96 768 8

g2.2xlarge 8 15 1

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Instance type Default vCPUs Memory (GiB) Accelerators

g2.8xlarge 32 60 4

g3s.xlarge 4 30.5 1

g3.4xlarge 16 122 1

g3.8xlarge 32 244 2

g3.16xlarge 64 488 4

g4ad.xlarge 4 16 1

g4ad.2xlarge 8 32 1

g4ad.4xlarge 16 64 1

g4ad.8xlarge 32 128 2

g4ad.16xlarge 64 256 4

g4dn.xlarge 4 16 1

g4dn.2xlarge 8 32 1

g4dn.4xlarge 16 64 1

g4dn.8xlarge 32 128 1

g4dn.12xlarge 48 192 4

g4dn.16xlarge 64 256 1

g4dn.metal 96 384 8

f1.2xlarge 8 122 1

f1.4xlarge 16 244 2

f1.16xlarge 64 976 8

For more information about the hardware specifications for each Amazon EC2 instance type, see Amazon
EC2 Instance Types.

For more information about specifying CPU options, see Optimize CPU options (p. 549).

Instance performance
EBS-optimized instances enable you to get consistently high performance for your EBS volumes
by eliminating contention between Amazon EBS I/O and other network traffic from your instance.
Some accelerated computing instances are EBS-optimized by default at no additional cost. For more
information, see Amazon EBS–optimized instances (p. 1357).

Network performance
You can enable enhanced networking on supported instance types to provide lower latencies, lower
network jitter, and higher packet-per-second (PPS) performance. Most applications do not consistently
need a high level of network performance, but can benefit from access to increased bandwidth when
they send or receive data. For more information, see Enhanced networking on Windows (p. 973).

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The following is a summary of network performance for accelerated computing instances that support
enhanced networking.

Instance type Network performance Enhanced networking

f1.4xlarge and smaller | Up to 10 Gbps † ENA (p. 974)

g3.4xlarge | g3s.xlarge |
g4ad.4xlarge and smaller |
p3.2xlarge

g3.8xlarge | p2.8xlarge | 10 Gbps ENA (p. 974)

p3.8xlarge

g4ad.8xlarge 15 Gbps ENA (p. 974)

g4dn.4xlarge and smaller Up to 25 Gbps † ENA (p. 974)

f1.16xlarge | g3.16xlarge 25 Gbps ENA (p. 974)

| g4ad.16xlarge |
p2.16xlarge | p3.16xlarge

g4dn.8xlarge | 50 Gbps ENA (p. 974)

g4dn.12xlarge |
g4dn.16xlarge

g4dn.metal | p3dn.24xlarge 100 Gbps ENA (p. 974)

† These instances have a baseline bandwidth and can use a network I/O credit mechanism to burst
beyond their baseline bandwidth on a best effort basis. For more information, see instance network
bandwidth (p. 972).

Instance type Baseline bandwidth (Gbps) Burst bandwidth (Gbps)

g4ad.xlarge 2 10

g4ad.2xlarge 4.167 10

g4ad.4xlarge 8.333 10

g4dn.xlarge 5 25

g4dn.2xlarge 10 25

g4dn.4xlarge 20 25

Instance features
The following is a summary of features for accelerated computing instances.

  EBS only NVMe EBS Instance store Placement group

F1 No No NVMe * Yes

G2 No No SSD Yes

G3 Yes No No Yes

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  EBS only NVMe EBS Instance store Placement group

G4ad No Yes NVMe * Yes

G4dn No Yes NVMe * Yes

P2 Yes No No Yes

P3 24xlarge: No 24xlarge: Yes 24xlarge: NVMe * Yes

All other sizes: Yes All other sizes: No

* The root device volume must be an Amazon EBS volume.

For more information, see the following:

• Amazon EBS and NVMe on Windows instances (p. 1355)

• Amazon EC2 instance store (p. 1405)
• Placement groups (p. 988)

Release notes
• You must launch the instance using an HVM AMI.
• Instances built on the Nitro System (p. 147) have the following requirements:
• NVMe drivers (p. 1355) must be installed
• Elastic Network Adapter (ENA) drivers (p. 974) must be installed

The current AWS Windows AMIs (p. 27) meet these requirements.
• GPU-based instances can't access the GPU unless the NVIDIA drivers are installed. For more
information, see Install NVIDIA drivers on Windows instances (p. 224).
• Launching a bare metal instance boots the underlying server, which includes verifying all hardware and
firmware components. This means that it can take 20 minutes from the time the instance enters the
running state until it becomes available over the network.
• To attach or detach EBS volumes or secondary network interfaces from a bare metal instance requires
PCIe native hotplug support.
• Bare metal instances use a PCI-based serial device rather than an I/O port-based serial device. The
upstream Linux kernel and the latest Amazon Linux AMIs support this device. Bare metal instances also
provide an ACPI SPCR table to enable the system to automatically use the PCI-based serial device. The
latest Windows AMIs automatically use the PCI-based serial device.
• There is a limit of 100 AFIs per Region.
• There is a limit on the total number of instances that you can launch in a Region, and there are
additional limits on some instance types. For more information, see How many instances can I run in
Amazon EC2? in the Amazon EC2 FAQ.
• If you launch a multi-GPU instance with a Windows AMI that was created on a single-GPU instance,
Windows does not automatically install the NVIDIA driver for all GPUs. You must authorize the driver
installation for the new GPU hardware. You can correct this manually in the Device Manager by
opening the Other device category (the inactive GPUs do not appear under Display Adapters). For
each inactive GPU, open the context (right-click) menu, choose Update Driver Software, and then
choose the default Automatic Update option.
• When using Microsoft Remote Desktop Protocol (RDP), GPUs that use the WDDM driver model are
replaced with a non-accelerated Remote Desktop display driver. We recommend that you use a
different remote access tool to access your GPU, such as Teradici Cloud Access Software, NICE Desktop

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Cloud Visualization (DCV), or VNC. You can also use one of the GPU AMIs from the AWS Marketplace
because they provide remote access tools that support 3D acceleration.

Install NVIDIA drivers on Windows instances

An instance with an attached NVIDIA GPU, such as a P3 or G4dn instance, must have the appropriate
NVIDIA driver installed. Depending on the instance type, you can either download a public NVIDIA driver,
download a driver from Amazon S3 that is available only to AWS customers, or use an AMI with the
driver pre-installed.

To install AMD drivers on an instance with an attached AMD GPU, such as a G4ad instance, see Install
AMD drivers on Windows instances (p. 229) instead.

Contents
• Types of NVIDIA drivers (p. 224)
• Available drivers by instance type (p. 225)
• Installation options (p. 225)
• Option 1: AMIs with the NVIDIA drivers installed (p. 225)
• Option 2: Public NVIDIA drivers (p. 226)
• Option 3: GRID drivers (G3 and G4dn instances) (p. 226)
• Option 4: NVIDIA gaming drivers (G4dn instances) (p. 227)
• Install an additional version of CUDA (p. 229)

Types of NVIDIA drivers

The following are the main types of NVIDIA drivers that can be used with GPU-based instances.

Tesla drivers

These drivers are intended primarily for compute workloads, which use GPUs for computational
tasks such as parallelized floating-point calculations for machine learning and fast Fourier
transforms for high performance computing applications.
GRID drivers

These drivers are certified to provide optimal performance for professional visualization applications
that render content such as 3D models or high-resolution videos. You can configure GRID drivers to
support two modes. Quadro Virtual Workstations provide access to four 4K displays per GPU. GRID
vApps provide RDSH App hosting capabilities.
Gaming drivers

These drivers contain optimizations for gaming and are updated frequently to provide performance
enhancements. They support a single 4K display per GPU.

Configured mode

On Windows, the Tesla drivers are configured to run in Tesla Compute Cluster (TCC) mode. The GRID and
gaming drivers are configured to run in Windows Display Driver Model (WDDM) mode. In TCC mode, the
card is dedicated to compute workloads. In WDDM mode, the card supports both compute and graphics
workloads.

NVIDIA control panel

The NVIDIA control panel is supported with GRID and Gaming drivers. It is not supported with Tesla
drivers.

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Supported APIs for Tesla drivers

• OpenCL
• NVIDIA CUDA and related libraries (for example, cuDNN, TensorRT, nvJPEG, and cuBLAS)
• NVENC for video encoding and NVDEC for video decoding

Supported APIs for GRID and gaming drivers

• DirectX, Direct2D, DirectX Video Acceleration, DirectX Raytracing

• OpenCL, OpenGL, and Vulkan
• NVIDIA CUDA and related libraries (for example, cuDNN, TensorRT, nvJPEG, and cuBLAS)
• NVENC for video encoding and NVDEC for video decoding

Available drivers by instance type

The following table summarizes the supported NVIDIA drivers for each GPU instance type.

Instance type Tesla driver GRID driver Gaming driver

G2 No Yes No

G3 Yes Yes No

G4dn Yes Yes Yes

P2 Yes No No

P3 Yes Yes † No

† Using Marketplace AMIs only

Installation options
Use one of the following options to get the NVIDIA drivers required for your GPU instance.

Options
• Option 1: AMIs with the NVIDIA drivers installed (p. 225)
• Option 2: Public NVIDIA drivers (p. 226)
• Option 3: GRID drivers (G3 and G4dn instances) (p. 226)
• Option 4: NVIDIA gaming drivers (G4dn instances) (p. 227)

Option 1: AMIs with the NVIDIA drivers installed

AWS and NVIDIA offer different Amazon Machine Images (AMI) that come with the NVIDIA drivers
installed.

• Marketplace offerings with the Tesla driver

• Marketplace offerings with the GRID driver
• Marketplace offerings with the Gaming driver

If you create a custom Windows AMI using one of the AWS Marketplace offerings, the AMI must be a
standardized image created using Sysprep (p. 40) to ensure that the GRID driver works.

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Option 2: Public NVIDIA drivers

The options offered by AWS come with the necessary license for the driver. Alternatively, you can install
the public drivers and bring your own license. To install a public driver, download it from the NVIDIA site
as described here.

Alternatively, you can use the options offered by AWS instead of the public drivers. To use a GRID driver
on a P3 instance, use the AWS Marketplace AMIs as described in Option 1 (p. 225). To use a GRID driver
on a G3 or G4dn instance, use the AWS Marketplace AMIs, as described in Option 1 or install the NVIDIA
drivers provided by AWS as described in Option 3 (p. 226).

To download a public NVIDIA driver

Log on to your Windows instance and download the 64-bit NVIDIA driver appropriate for the instance
type from http://www.nvidia.com/Download/Find.aspx. For Product Type, Product Series, and Product,
use the options in the following table.

Instance Product Type Product Series Product

G2 GRID GRID Series GRID K520

G3 Tesla M-Class M60

G4dn † Tesla T-Series T4

P2 Tesla K-Series K80

P3 Tesla V-Series V100

† G4dn instances require driver version 426.00 or later.

To install the NVIDIA driver on Windows

1. Open the folder where you downloaded the driver and launch the installation file. Follow the
instructions to install the driver and reboot your instance as required.
2. Disable the built-in display adapter using Device Manager. Install these Windows features: Media
Foundation and Quality Windows Audio Video Experience.
3. Check Device Manager to verify that the GPU is working correctly.
4. To achieve the best performance from your GPU, complete the optimization steps in Optimize GPU
settings (p. 231).

Option 3: GRID drivers (G3 and G4dn instances)

These downloads are available to AWS customers only. By downloading, you agree to use the
downloaded software only to develop AMIs for use with the NVIDIA Tesla T4 or NVIDIA Tesla M60
hardware. Upon installation of the software, you are bound by the terms of the NVIDIA GRID Cloud End
User License Agreement.

Prerequisites

• If you launch your Windows instance using a custom Windows AMI, the AMI must be a standardized
image created using Sysprep (p. 40) to ensure that the GRID driver works.
• Configure default credentials for the AWS Tools for Windows PowerShell on your Windows instance.
For more information, see Getting Started with the AWS Tools for Windows PowerShell in the AWS
Tools for Windows PowerShell User Guide.
• IAM users must have the permissions granted by the AmazonS3ReadOnlyAccess policy.

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To install the NVIDIA GRID driver on your Windows instance

1. Connect to your Windows instance and open a PowerShell window.

2. Download the drivers and the NVIDIA GRID Cloud End User License Agreement from Amazon S3 to
your desktop using the following PowerShell commands.

$Bucket = "ec2-windows-nvidia-drivers"
$KeyPrefix = "latest"
$LocalPath = "$home\Desktop\NVIDIA"
$Objects = Get-S3Object -BucketName $Bucket -KeyPrefix $KeyPrefix -Region us-east-1
foreach ($Object in $Objects) {
$LocalFileName = $Object.Key
if ($LocalFileName -ne '' -and $Object.Size -ne 0) {
$LocalFilePath = Join-Path $LocalPath $LocalFileName
Copy-S3Object -BucketName $Bucket -Key $Object.Key -LocalFile $LocalFilePath -
Region us-east-1
}
}

Multiple versions of the NVIDIA GRID driver are stored in this bucket. You can download all of the
available versions in the bucket by removing the -KeyPrefix $KeyPrefix option.

Starting with GRID version 11.0, you can use the drivers under latest for both G3 and G4dn
instances. We will not add versions later than 11.0 to g4/latest, but will keep version 11.0 and the
earlier versions specific to G4dn under g4/latest.
3. Navigate to the desktop and double-click the installation file to launch it (choose the driver version
that corresponds to your instance OS version). Follow the instructions to install the driver and reboot
your instance as required. To verify that the GPU is working properly, check Device Manager.
4. (Optional) Use the following command to disable the licensing page in the control panel to prevent
users from accidentally changing the product type (NVIDIA GRID Virtual Workstation is enabled by
default). For more information, see the GRID Licensing User Guide.

New-ItemProperty -Path "HKLM:\SOFTWARE\NVIDIA Corporation\Global\GridLicensing" -Name

"NvCplDisableManageLicensePage" -PropertyType "DWord" -Value "1"

5. (Optional) Depending on your use case, you might complete the following optional steps. If you do
not require this functionality, do not complete these steps.

a. To help take advantage of the four displays of up to 4K resolution, set up the high-performance
display protocol, NICE DCV.
b. NVIDIA Quadro Virtual Workstation mode is enabled by default. To activate GRID Virtual
Applications for RDSH Application hosting capabilities, complete the GRID Virtual Application
activation steps in Activate NVIDIA GRID Virtual Applications (p. 231).

Option 4: NVIDIA gaming drivers (G4dn instances)

These drivers are available to AWS customers only. By downloading them, you agree to use the
downloaded software only to develop AMIs for use with the NVIDIA Tesla T4 hardware. Upon installation
of the software, you are bound by the terms of the NVIDIA GRID Cloud End User License Agreement.

Prerequisites

• If you launch your Windows instance using a custom Windows AMI, the AMI must be a standardized
image created using Sysprep (p. 40) to ensure that the gaming driver works.
• Configure default credentials for the AWS Tools for Windows PowerShell on your Windows instance.
For more information, see Getting Started with the AWS Tools for Windows PowerShell in the AWS
Tools for Windows PowerShell User Guide.

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• IAM users must have the permissions granted by the AmazonS3ReadOnlyAccess policy.

To install the NVIDIA gaming driver on your Windows instance

1. Connect to your Windows instance and open a PowerShell window.

2. Download and install the gaming driver using the following PowerShell commands.

$Bucket = "nvidia-gaming"
$KeyPrefix = "windows/latest"
$LocalPath = "$home\Desktop\NVIDIA"
$Objects = Get-S3Object -BucketName $Bucket -KeyPrefix $KeyPrefix -Region us-east-1
foreach ($Object in $Objects) {
$LocalFileName = $Object.Key
if ($LocalFileName -ne '' -and $Object.Size -ne 0) {
$LocalFilePath = Join-Path $LocalPath $LocalFileName
Copy-S3Object -BucketName $Bucket -Key $Object.Key -LocalFile $LocalFilePath -
Region us-east-1
}
}

Multiple versions of the NVIDIA GRID driver are stored in this S3 bucket. You can download all of the
available versions in the bucket by removing the -KeyPrefix $KeyPrefix option.
3. Navigate to the desktop and double-click the installation file to launch it (choose the driver version
that corresponds to your instance OS version). Follow the instructions to install the driver and reboot
your instance as required. To verify that the GPU is working properly, check Device Manager.
4. Create a registry value in the HKEY_LOCAL_MACHINE\SOFTWARE\NVIDIA Corporation\Global
key with the name vGamingMarketplace, the type DWord, and the value 2. You can use either the
Command Prompt window or a 64-bit version of PowerShell as follows.
• Use the following PowerShell command to create this registry value. By default, the AWS Tools
for PowerShell in AWS Windows AMIs is a 32-bit version and this command fails. Instead, use
the 64-bit version of PowerShell included with the operating system.

New-ItemProperty -Path "HKLM:\SOFTWARE\NVIDIA Corporation\Global" -Name

"vGamingMarketplace" -PropertyType "DWord" -Value "2"

• Use the following registry command to create this registry value. You can run it using the
Command Prompt window or a 64-bit version of PowerShell.

reg add "HKLM\SOFTWARE\NVIDIA Corporation\Global" /v vGamingMarketplace /t

REG_DWORD /d 2

5. Use the following command to download the certification file, rename the file GridSwCert.txt,
and move the file to the Public Documents folder on your system drive. Typically, the folder path is
C:\Users\Public\Public Documents (Windows Explorer) or C:\Users\Public\Documents (Command
Prompt window).
• For version 461.40 or later:

Invoke-WebRequest -Uri "https://nvidia-gaming.s3.amazonaws.com/GridSwCert-Archive/

GridSwCertWindows_2021_10_2.cert" -OutFile "$Env:PUBLIC\Documents\GridSwCert.txt"

• For version 445.87:

Invoke-WebRequest -Uri "https://nvidia-gaming.s3.amazonaws.com/GridSwCert-Archive/

GridSwCert-Windows_2020_04.cert" -OutFile "$Env:PUBLIC\Documents\GridSwCert.txt"

• For earlier versions:

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Invoke-WebRequest -Uri "https://nvidia-gaming.s3.amazonaws.com/GridSwCert-Archive/

GridSwCert-Windows_2019_09.cert" -OutFile "$Env:PUBLIC\Documents\GridSwCert.txt"

6. Reboot your instance.

7. Verify the NVIDIA Gaming license using the following command.

"C:\Program Files\NVIDIA Corporation\NVSMI\nvidia-smi.exe" -q

The output should be similar to the following.

GRID Licensed Product

Product Name : GRID vGaming
License Status : Licensed

8. (Optional) To help take advantage of the single display of up to 4K resolution, set up the high-
performance display protocol NICE DCV. If you do not require this functionality, do not complete this
step.

Install an additional version of CUDA

After you install an NVIDIA graphics driver on your instance, you can install a version of CUDA other
than the version that is bundled with the graphics driver. The following procedure demonstrates how to
configure multiple versions of CUDA on the instance.

To install the CUDA toolkit

1. Connect to your Windows instance.

2. Open the NVIDIA website and select the version of CUDA that you need.
3. For Installer Type, select exe (local) and then choose Download.
4. Using your browser, run the downloaded install file. Follow the instructions to install the CUDA
toolkit. You might be required to reboot the instance.

Install AMD drivers on Windows instances

An instance with an attached AMD GPU, such as a G4ad instance, must have the appropriate AMD driver
installed. Depending on your requirements, you can either use an AMI with the driver preinstalled or
download a driver from Amazon S3.

To install NVIDIA drivers on an instance with an attached NVIDIA GPU, such as a G4dn instance, see
Install NVIDIA drivers on Windows instances (p. 224) instead.

Contents
• AMD Radeon Pro Software for Enterprise Driver (p. 229)
• AMIs with the AMD driver installed (p. 230)
• AMD driver download (p. 230)

AMD Radeon Pro Software for Enterprise Driver

The AMD Radeon Pro Software for Enterprise Driver is built to deliver support for professional-grade
graphics use cases. Using the driver, you can configure your instances with two 4K displays per GPU.

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Supported APIs

• OpenGL, OpenCL
• Vulkan
• DirectX 9 and later
• AMD Advanced Media Framework
• Microsoft Hardware Media Foundation Transform

AMIs with the AMD driver installed

AWS offers different Amazon Machine Images (AMI) that come with the AMD drivers installed. Open
Marketplace offerings with the AMD driver.

AMD driver download

If you aren't using an AMI with the AMD driver installed, you can download the AMD driver and install it
on your instance.

These downloads are available to AWS customers only. By downloading, you agree to use the
downloaded software only to develop AMIs for use with the AMD Radeon Pro V520 hardware. Upon
installation of the software, you are bound by the terms of the AMD Software End User License
Agreement.

Prerequisites

• Configure default credentials for the AWS Tools for Windows PowerShell on your Windows instance.
For more information, see Getting Started with the AWS Tools for Windows PowerShell in the AWS
Tools for Windows PowerShell User Guide.
• IAM users must have the permissions granted by the AmazonS3ReadOnlyAccess policy.

To install the AMD driver on your Windows instance

1. Connect to your Windows instance and open a PowerShell window.

2. Download the drivers from Amazon S3 to your desktop using the following PowerShell commands.

$Bucket = "ec2-amd-windows-drivers"
$KeyPrefix = "latest"
$LocalPath = "$home\Desktop\AMD"
$Objects = Get-S3Object -BucketName $Bucket -KeyPrefix $KeyPrefix -Region us-east-1
foreach ($Object in $Objects) {
$LocalFileName = $Object.Key
if ($LocalFileName -ne '' -and $Object.Size -ne 0) {
$LocalFilePath = Join-Path $LocalPath $LocalFileName
Copy-S3Object -BucketName $Bucket -Key $Object.Key -LocalFile $LocalFilePath -
Region us-east-1
}
}

3. Unzip the downloaded driver file and run the installer using the following PowerShell commands.

Expand-Archive $LocalFilePath -DestinationPath $home\Desktop -Verbose

$Driverdir = Get-ChildItem $home\Desktop\ -Directory -Filter "*WHQL*"
Write-Host $Driverdir
pnputil /add-driver $home\Desktop\$Driverdir\Drivers\Display\WT6A_INF\*inf /install

4. Follow the instructions to install the driver and reboot your instance as required.

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5. To verify that the GPU is working properly, check Device Manager. You should see "AMD Radeon Pro
V520 MxGPU" listed as a display adapter.
6. To help take advantage of the four displays of up to 4K resolution, set up the high-performance
display protocol, NICE DCV.

Activate NVIDIA GRID Virtual Applications

To activate the GRID Virtual Applications on G3 and G4dn instances (NVIDIA GRID Virtual Workstation is
enabled by default), you must define the product type for the driver in the registry.

To activate GRID Virtual Applications on Windows instances

1. Run regedit.exe to open the registry editor.

2. Navigate to HKEY_LOCAL_MACHINE\SOFTWARE\NVIDIA Corporation\Global
\GridLicensing.
3. Open the context (right-click) menu on the right pane and choose New, DWORD.
4. For Name, enter FeatureType and type Enter.
5. Open the context (right-click) menu on FeatureType and choose Modify.
6. For Value data, enter 0 for NVIDIA GRID Virtual Applications and choose OK.
7. Open the context (right-click) menu on the right pane and choose New, DWORD.
8. For Name, enter IgnoreSP and type Enter.
9. Open the context (right-click) menu on IgnoreSP and choose Modify.
10. For Value data, type 1 and choose OK.
11. Close the registry editor.

Optimize GPU settings

There are several GPU setting optimizations that you can perform to achieve the best performance on
G3, G4dn, P2, P3, and P3dn instances. With some of these instance types, the NVIDIA driver uses an
autoboost feature, which varies the GPU clock speeds. By disabling autoboost and setting the GPU clock
speeds to their maximum frequency, you can consistently achieve the maximum performance with your
GPU instances.

To optimize GPU settings

1. Open a PowerShell window and navigate to the NVIDIA installation folder.

cd "C:\Program Files\NVIDIA Corporation\NVSMI"

2. G2, G3, and P2 instances: Disable the autoboost feature for all GPUs on the instance.
Note
GPUs on G4dn, P3, and P3dn instances do not support autoboost.

.\nvidia-smi --auto-boost-default=0

3. Set all GPU clock speeds to their maximum frequency. Use the memory and graphics clock speeds
specified in the following commands.

Some versions of the NVIDIA driver do not support setting the application clock speed, and display
the error "Setting applications clocks is not supported for GPU...", which you can
ignore.

• G3 instances:

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.\nvidia-smi -ac "2505,1177"

• G4dn instances:

.\nvidia-smi -ac "5001,1590"

• P2 instances:

.\nvidia-smi -ac "2505,875"

• P3 and P3dn instances:

.\nvidia-smi -ac "877,1530"

Find an Amazon EC2 instance type

Before you can launch an instance, you must select an instance type to use. The instance type that you
choose might depend on your requirements for the instances that you'll launch. For example, you might
choose an instance type based on the following requirements:

• Availability Zone or Region

• Compute
• Memory
• Networking
• Pricing
• Storage

Find an instance type using the console

You can find an instance type that meets your needs using the Amazon EC2 console.

To find an instance type using the console

1. Open the Amazon EC2 console at https://console.aws.amazon.com/ec2/.

2. From the navigation bar, select the Region in which to launch your instances. You can select any
Region that's available to you, regardless of your location.
3. In the navigation pane, choose Instance Types.
4. (Optional) Choose the preferences (gear) icon to select which instance type attributes to display,
such as On-Demand Linux pricing, and then choose Confirm. Alternatively, select an instance type
and view all attributes using the Details pane.
5. Use the instance type attributes to filter the list of displayed instance types to only the instance
types that meet your needs. For example, you can list all instance types that have more than eight
vCPUs and also support hibernation.
6. (Optional) Select multiple instance types to see a side-by-side comparison across all attributes in the
Details pane.
7. (Optional) To save the list of instance types to a comma-separated values (.csv) file for further
review, choose Download list CSV. The file includes all instance types that match the filters you set.
8. After locating instance types that meet your needs, you can use them to launch instances. For more
information, see Launch an instance using the Launch Instance Wizard (p. 396).

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Find an instance type using the AWS CLI

You can use AWS CLI commands for Amazon EC2 to find an instance type that meet your needs.

To find an instance type using the AWS CLI

1. If you have not done so already, install the AWS CLI For more information, see the AWS Command
Line Interface User Guide.
2. Use the describe-instance-types command to filter instance types based on instance attributes. For
example, you can use the following command to display only instance types with 48 vCPUs.

aws ec2 describe-instance-types --filters "Name=vcpu-info.default-vcpus,Values=48"

3. Use the describe-instance-type-offerings command to filter instance types offered by location

(Region or Availability Zone). For example, you can use the following command to display the
instance types offered in the specified Availability Zone.

aws ec2 describe-instance-type-offerings --location-type "availability-zone" --filters

Name=location,Values=us-east-2a --region us-east-2

4. After locating instance types that meet your needs, make note of them so that you can use these
instance types when you launch instances. For more information, see Launching your instance in the
AWS Command Line Interface User Guide.

Change the instance type

As your needs change, you might find that your instance is over-utilized (the instance type is too small)
or under-utilized (the instance type is too large). If this is the case, you can resize your instance by
changing its instance type. For example, if your t2.micro instance is too small for its workload, you can
change it to another instance type that is appropriate for the workload.

You might also want to migrate from a previous generation instance type to a current generation
instance type to take advantage of some features; for example, support for IPv6.

If you want a recommendation for an instance type that is best able to handle your existing workload,
you can use AWS Compute Optimizer. For more information, see Get recommendations for an instance
type (p. 238).

Contents
• Requirements for changing the instance type (p. 233)
• Compatibility for changing the instance type (p. 234)
• Change the instance type of an Amazon EBS–backed instance (p. 234)
• Migrate to a new instance configuration (p. 237)

Requirements for changing the instance type

To resize your Amazon EC2 instance by changing its instance type, consider the following requirements:

• You must select an instance type that is compatible with the configuration of the instance. If the
instance type that you want is not compatible with the instance configuration you have, then you must
migrate your application to a new instance with the instance type that you need.
• To change the instance type, the instance must be in the stopped state.

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• You cannot resize an instance if hibernation is enabled.

Compatibility for changing the instance type

You can resize an instance only if its current instance type and the new instance type that you want are
compatible in the following ways:

• Architecture: AMIs are specific to the architecture of the processor, so you must select an instance type
with the same processor architecture as the current instance type. For example:
• If you are resizing an instance type with a processor based on the Arm architecture, you are limited
to the instance types that support a processor based on the Arm architecture, such as C6g and M6g.
• The following instance types are the only instance types that support 32-bit AMIs: t2.nano,
t2.micro, t2.small, t2.medium, c3.large, t1.micro, m1.small, m1.medium, and
c1.medium. If you are resizing a 32-bit instance, you are limited to these instance types.
• Network: Newer instance types must be launched in a VPC. Therefore, you can't resize an instance in
the EC2-Classic platform to a instance type that is available only in a VPC unless you have a nondefault
VPC. To check whether your instance is in a VPC, check the VPC ID value on the details pane of the
Instances screen in the Amazon EC2 console. For more information, see Migrate from EC2-Classic to a
VPC (p. 1054).
• Network adapters: If you switch from a driver for one network adapter to another, the network
adapter settings are reset when the operating system creates the new adapter. To reconfigure the
settings, you might need access to a local account with administrator permissions. The following are
examples of moving from one network adapter to another:
• AWS PV (T2 instances) to Intel 82599 VF (M4 instances)
• Intel 82599 VF (most M4 instances) to ENA (M5 instances)
• ENA (M5 instances) to high-bandwidth ENA (M5n instances)
• Enhanced networking: Instance types that support enhanced networking (p. 973) require the
necessary drivers installed. For example, instances based on the Nitro System (p. 147) require EBS-
backed AMIs with the Elastic Network Adapter (ENA) drivers installed. To resize an instance from a type
that does not support enhanced networking to a type that supports enhanced networking, you must
install the ENA drivers (p. 974) or ixgbevf drivers (p. 981) on the instance, as appropriate.
• NVMe: EBS volumes are exposed as NVMe block devices on instances built on the Nitro
System (p. 147). If you resize an instance from an instance type that does not support NVMe to an
instance type that supports NVMe, you must first install the NVMe drivers (p. 1355) on your instance.
Also, the device names for devices that you specify in the block device mapping are renamed using
NVMe device names (/dev/nvme[0-26]n1).
• AMI: For information about the AMIs required by instance types that support enhanced networking
and NVMe, see the Release Notes in the following documentation:
• General purpose instances (p. 151)
• Compute optimized instances (p. 195)
• Memory optimized instances (p. 201)
• Storage optimized instances (p. 212)

Change the instance type of an Amazon EBS–backed instance

Considerations
You must stop your Amazon EBS–backed instance before you can change its instance type. When you
stop and start an instance, be aware of the following:

• We move the instance to new hardware; however, the instance ID does not change.

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• If your instance has a public IPv4 address, we release the address and give it a new public IPv4 address.
The instance retains its private IPv4 addresses, any Elastic IP addresses, and any IPv6 addresses.
• When you resize an instance, the resized instance usually has the same number of instance store
volumes that you specified when you launched the original instance. With instance types that support
NVMe instance store volumes (which are available by default), the resized instance might have
additional instance store volumes, depending on the AMI. Otherwise, you can migrate your application
to an instance with a new instance type manually, specifying the number of instance store volumes
that you need when you launch the new instance.
• If your instance is in an Auto Scaling group, the Amazon EC2 Auto Scaling service marks the stopped
instance as unhealthy, and may terminate it and launch a replacement instance. To prevent this,
you can suspend the scaling processes for the group while you're resizing your instance. For more
information, see Suspending and Resuming Scaling Processes in the Amazon EC2 Auto Scaling User
Guide.
• If your instance is in a cluster placement group (p. 989) and, after changing the instance type, the
instance start fails, try the following: stop all the instances in the cluster placement group, change
the instance type for the affected instance, and then restart all the instances in the cluster placement
group.
• Ensure that you plan for downtime while your instance is stopped. Stopping and resizing an instance
may take a few minutes, and restarting your instance may take a variable amount of time depending
on your application's startup scripts.

For more information, see Stop and start your instance (p. 429).

Change the instance type

Use the following procedure to change the instance type of an Amazon EBS–backed instance using the
AWS Management Console.

New console

To change the instance type of an Amazon EBS–backed instance

1. (Optional) If the new instance type requires drivers that are not installed on the existing
instance, you must connect to your instance and install the drivers first. For more information,
see Compatibility for changing the instance type (p. 234).
Note
The AWS PV driver package should be updated before changing instance families. For
more information, see Upgrade PV drivers on Windows instances (p. 533).
2. (Optional) If you configured your Windows instance to use static IP addressing (p. 577) and
you resize the instance from a type that doesn't support enhanced networking to an instance
type that does support enhanced networking, you might get a warning about a potential
IP address conflict when you reconfigure static IP addressing. To prevent this, enable DHCP
on the network interface for your instance before you change the instance type. From your
instance, open the Network and Sharing Center, go to Internet Protocol Version 4 (TCP/IPv4)
Properties for the network interface, and choose Obtain an IP address automatically. Change
the instance type and reconfigure static IP addressing on the network interface.
3. Open the Amazon EC2 console.
4. [Windows Server 2016 and later] Connect to your Windows instance and run the following
EC2Launch PowerShell script to configure the instance after it is resized.

PS C:\> C:\ProgramData\Amazon\EC2-Windows\Launch\Scripts\InitializeInstance.ps1 -
Schedule

5. In the navigation pane, choose Instances.

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6. Select the instance and choose Actions, Instance state, Stop instance.
7. In the confirmation dialog box, choose Stop. It can take a few minutes for the instance to stop.
8. With the instance still selected, choose Actions, Instance settings, Change instance type. This
action is grayed out if the instance state is not stopped.
9. In the Change instance type dialog box, do the following:

a. From Instance type, select the instance type that you want. If the instance type that
you want does not appear in the list, then it is not compatible with the configuration of
your instance (for example, because of virtualization type). For more information, see
Compatibility for changing the instance type (p. 234).
b. (Optional) If the instance type that you selected supports EBS–optimization, select
EBS-optimized to enable EBS–optimization or deselect EBS-optimized to disable EBS–
optimization. If the instance type that you selected is EBS–optimized by default, EBS-
optimized is selected and you can't deselect it.
c. Choose Apply to accept the new settings.
10. To restart the stopped instance, select the instance and choose Instance state, Start instance. It
can take a few minutes for the instance to enter the running state.

Old console

To change the instance type of an Amazon EBS–backed instance

1. (Optional) If the new instance type requires drivers that are not installed on the existing
instance, you must connect to your instance and install the drivers first. For more information,
see Compatibility for changing the instance type (p. 234).
Note
The AWS PV driver package should be updated before changing instance families. For
more information, see Upgrade PV drivers on Windows instances (p. 533).
2. (Optional) If you configured your Windows instance to use static IP addressing (p. 577) and
you resize the instance from a type that doesn't support enhanced networking to an instance
type that does support enhanced networking, you might get a warning about a potential
IP address conflict when you reconfigure static IP addressing. To prevent this, enable DHCP
on the network interface for your instance before you change the instance type. From your
instance, open the Network and Sharing Center, go to Internet Protocol Version 4 (TCP/IPv4)
Properties for the network interface, and choose Obtain an IP address automatically. Change
the instance type and reconfigure static IP addressing on the network interface.
3. Open the Amazon EC2 console.
4. [Windows Server 2016 and later] Connect to your Windows instance and run the following
EC2Launch PowerShell script to configure the instance after it is resized.

PS C:\> C:\ProgramData\Amazon\EC2-Windows\Launch\Scripts\InitializeInstance.ps1 -
Schedule

5. In the navigation pane, choose Instances.

6. Select the instance and choose Actions, Instance State, Stop.
7. In the confirmation dialog box, choose Yes, Stop. It can take a few minutes for the instance to
stop.
8. With the instance still selected, choose Actions, Instance Settings, Change Instance Type. This
action is grayed out if the instance state is not stopped.
9. In the Change Instance Type dialog box, do the following:

a. From Instance Type, select the instance type that you want. If the instance type that
you want does not appear in the list, then it is not compatible with the configuration of

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your instance (for example, because of virtualization type). For more information, see
Compatibility for changing the instance type (p. 234).
b. (Optional) If the instance type that you selected supports EBS–optimization, select
EBS-optimized to enable EBS–optimization or deselect EBS-optimized to disable EBS–
optimization. If the instance type that you selected is EBS–optimized by default, EBS-
optimized is selected and you can't deselect it.
c. Choose Apply to accept the new settings.
10. To restart the stopped instance, select the instance and choose Actions, Instance State, Start.
11. In the confirmation dialog box, choose Yes, Start. It can take a few minutes for the instance to
enter the running state.

Migrate to a new instance configuration

If the current configuration of your instance is incompatible with the new instance type that you want,
then you can't resize the instance to that instance type. Instead, you can migrate your application to a
new instance with a configuration that is compatible with the new instance type that you want.

New console

To migrate your application to a compatible instance

1. Back up any data on your instance store volumes that you need to keep to persistent storage.
To migrate data on your EBS volumes that you need to keep, create a snapshot of the volumes
(see Create Amazon EBS snapshots (p. 1224)) or detach the volume from the instance so that
you can attach it to the new instance later (see Detach an Amazon EBS volume from a Windows
instance (p. 1217)).
2. Launch a new instance, selecting the following:

• If you are using an Elastic IP address, select the VPC that the original instance is currently
running in.
• Any EBS volumes that you detached from the original instance and want to attach to the new
instance, or new EBS volumes based on the snapshots that you created.
• If you want to allow the same traffic to reach the new instance, select the security group that
is associated with the original instance.
3. Install your application and any required software on the instance.
4. Restore any data that you backed up from the instance store volumes of the original instance.
5. If you are using an Elastic IP address, assign it to the newly launched instance as follows:

a. In the navigation pane, choose Elastic IPs.

b. Select the Elastic IP address that is associated with the original instance and choose
Actions, Disassociate Elastic IP address. When prompted for confirmation, choose
Disassociate.
c. With the Elastic IP address still selected, choose Actions, Associate Elastic IP address.
d. For Resource type, choose Instance.
e. For Instance, choose the instance with which to associate the Elastic IP address. You can
also enter text to search for a specific instance.
f. (Optional) For Private IP address, specify a private IP address with which to associate the
Elastic IP address.
g. Choose Associate.
6. (Optional) You can terminate the original instance if it's no longer needed. Select the instance
and verify that you are about to terminate the original instance, not the new instance (for
example, check the name or launch time). Choose Instance state, Terminate instance.

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Old console

To migrate your application to a compatible instance

1. Back up any data on your instance store volumes that you need to keep to persistent storage.
To migrate data on your EBS volumes that you need to keep, create a snapshot of the volumes
(see Create Amazon EBS snapshots (p. 1224)) or detach the volume from the instance so that
you can attach it to the new instance later (see Detach an Amazon EBS volume from a Windows
instance (p. 1217)).
2. Launch a new instance, selecting the following:

• If you are using an Elastic IP address, select the VPC that the original instance is currently
running in.
• Any EBS volumes that you detached from the original instance and want to attach to the new
instance, or new EBS volumes based on the snapshots that you created.
• If you want to allow the same traffic to reach the new instance, select the security group that
is associated with the original instance.
3. Install your application and any required software on the instance.
4. Restore any data that you backed up from the instance store volumes of the original instance.
5. If you are using an Elastic IP address, assign it to the newly launched instance as follows:

a. In the navigation pane, choose Elastic IPs.

b. Select the Elastic IP address that is associated with the original instance and choose
Actions, Disassociate address. When prompted for confirmation, choose Disassociate
address.
c. With the Elastic IP address still selected, choose Actions, Associate address.
d. From Instance, select the new instance, and then choose Associate.
6. (Optional) You can terminate the original instance if it's no longer needed. Select the instance
and verify that you are about to terminate the original instance, not the new instance (for
example, check the name or launch time). Choose Actions, Instance State, Terminate.

Get recommendations for an instance type

AWS Compute Optimizer provides Amazon EC2 instance recommendations to help you improve
performance, save money, or both. You can use these recommendations to decide whether to move to a
new instance type.

To make recommendations, Compute Optimizer analyzes your existing instance specifications and
utilization metrics. The compiled data is then used to recommend which Amazon EC2 instance types are
best able to handle the existing workload. Recommendations are returned along with per-hour instance
pricing.

This topic outlines how to view recommendations through the Amazon EC2 console. For more
information, see the AWS Compute Optimizer User Guide.
Note
To get recommendations from Compute Optimizer, you must first opt in to Compute Optimizer.
For more information, see Getting Started with AWS Compute Optimizer in the AWS Compute
Optimizer User Guide.

Contents
• Limitations (p. 239)
• Findings (p. 239)

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• View recommendations (p. 239)

• Considerations for evaluating recommendations (p. 241)
• Additional resources (p. 241)

Limitations
Compute Optimizer currently generates recommendations for M, C, R, T, and X instance types. Other
instance types are not considered by Compute Optimizer. If you're using other instance types, they will
not be listed in the Compute Optimizer recommendations view. For information about these and other
instance types, see Instance types (p. 142).

Findings
Compute Optimizer classifies its findings for EC2 instances as follows:

• Under-provisioned – An EC2 instance is considered under-provisioned when at least one specification

of your instance, such as CPU, memory, or network, does not meet the performance requirements of
your workload. Under-provisioned EC2 instances might lead to poor application performance.
• Over-provisioned – An EC2 instance is considered over-provisioned when at least one specification
of your instance, such as CPU, memory, or network, can be sized down while still meeting the
performance requirements of your workload, and when no specification is under-provisioned. Over-
provisioned EC2 instances might lead to unnecessary infrastructure cost.
• Optimized – An EC2 instance is considered optimized when all specifications of your instance, such as
CPU, memory, and network, meet the performance requirements of your workload, and the instance is
not over-provisioned. An optimized EC2 instance runs your workloads with optimal performance and
infrastructure cost. For optimized instances, Compute Optimizer might sometimes recommend a new
generation instance type.
• None – There are no recommendations for this instance. This might occur if you've been opted in to
Compute Optimizer for less than 12 hours, or when the instance has been running for less than 30
hours, or when the instance type is not supported by Compute Optimizer. For more information, see
Limitations (p. 239) in the previous section.

View recommendations
After you opt in to Compute Optimizer, you can view the findings that Compute Optimizer generates for
your EC2 instances in the EC2 console. You can then access the Compute Optimizer console to view the
recommendations. If you recently opted in, findings might not be reflected in the EC2 console for up to
12 hours.

New console

To view a recommendation for an EC2 instance through the EC2 console

1. Open the Amazon EC2 console at https://console.aws.amazon.com/ec2/.

2. In the navigation pane, choose Instances, and then choose the instance ID.
3. On the instance summary page, in the AWS Compute Optimizer banner near the bottom of the
page, choose View detail.

The instance opens in Compute Optimizer, where it is labeled as the Current instance. Up to
three different instance type recommendations, labeled Option 1, Option 2, and Option 3, are
provided. The bottom half of the window shows recent CloudWatch metric data for the current
instance: CPU utilization, Memory utilization, Network in, and Network out.

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4.
(Optional) In the Compute Optimizer console, choose the settings ( ) icon to change the
visible columns in the table, or to view the public pricing information for a different purchasing
option for the current and recommended instance types.
Note
If you’ve purchased a Reserved Instance, your On-Demand Instance might be billed as
a Reserved Instance. Before you change your current instance type, first evaluate the
impact on Reserved Instance utilization and coverage.

Old console

To view a recommendation for an EC2 instance through the EC2 console

1. Open the Amazon EC2 console at https://console.aws.amazon.com/ec2/.

2. In the navigation pane, choose Instances.
3. Select an instance, and on the Description tab, inspect the Finding field. Choose View detail.

The instance opens in Compute Optimizer, where it is labeled as the Current instance. Up to
three different instance type recommendations, labeled Option 1, Option 2, and Option 3, are
provided. The bottom half of the window shows recent CloudWatch metric data for the current
instance: CPU utilization, Memory utilization, Network in, and Network out.
4.
(Optional) In the Compute Optimizer console, choose the settings ( ) icon to change the
visible columns in the table, or to view the public pricing information for a different purchasing
option for the current and recommended instance types.
Note
If you’ve purchased a Reserved Instance, your On-Demand Instance might be billed as
a Reserved Instance. Before you change your current instance type, first evaluate the
impact on Reserved Instance utilization and coverage.

Determine whether you want to use one of the recommendations. Decide whether to optimize for
performance improvement, for cost reduction, or for a combination of the two. For more information,
see Viewing Resource Recommendations in the AWS Compute Optimizer User Guide.

To view recommendations for all EC2 instances across all Regions through the Compute
Optimizer console

1. Open the Compute Optimizer console at https://console.aws.amazon.com/compute-optimizer/.

2. Choose View recommendations for all EC2 instances.
3. You can perform the following actions on the recommendations page:

a. To filter recommendations to one or more AWS Regions, enter the name of the Region in the
Filter by one or more Regions text box, or choose one or more Regions in the drop-down list
that appears.
b. To view recommendations for resources in another account, choose Account, and then select a
different account ID.

This option is available only if you are signed in to a management account of an organization,
and you opted in all member accounts within the organization.
c. To clear the selected filters, choose Clear filters.
d. To change the purchasing option that is displayed for the current and recommended instance

types, choose the settings ( ) icon , and then choose On-Demand Instances, Reserved
Instances, standard 1-year no upfront, or Reserved Instances, standard 3-year no upfront.

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e. To view details, such as additional recommendations and a comparison of utilization metrics,

choose the finding (Under-provisioned, Over-provisioned, or Optimized) listed next to the
desired instance. For more information, see Viewing Resource Details in the AWS Compute
Optimizer User Guide.

Considerations for evaluating recommendations

Before changing an instance type, consider the following:

• The recommendations don’t forecast your usage. Recommendations are based on your historical usage
over the most recent 14-day time period. Be sure to choose an instance type that is expected to meet
your future resource needs.
• Focus on the graphed metrics to determine whether actual usage is lower than instance capacity.
You can also view metric data (average, peak, percentile) in CloudWatch to further evaluate your EC2
instance recommendations. For example, notice how CPU percentage metrics change during the day
and whether there are peaks that need to be accommodated. For more information, see Viewing
Available Metrics in the Amazon CloudWatch User Guide.
• Compute Optimizer might supply recommendations for burstable performance instances, which are
T3, T3a, and T2 instances. If you periodically burst above the baseline, make sure that you can continue
to do so based on the vCPUs of the new instance type. For more information, see Key concepts and
definitions for burstable performance instances (p. 164).
• If you’ve purchased a Reserved Instance, your On-Demand Instance might be billed as a Reserved
Instance. Before you change your current instance type, first evaluate the impact on Reserved Instance
utilization and coverage.
• Consider conversions to newer generation instances, where possible.
• When migrating to a different instance family, make sure the current instance type and the new
instance type are compatible, for example, in terms of virtualization, architecture, or network type. For
more information, see Compatibility for changing the instance type (p. 234).
• Finally, consider the performance risk rating that's provided for each recommendation. Performance
risk indicates the amount of effort you might need to spend in order to validate whether the
recommended instance type meets the performance requirements of your workload. We also
recommend rigorous load and performance testing before and after making any changes.

There are other considerations when resizing an EC2 instance. For more information, see Change the
instance type (p. 233).

Additional resources
For more information:

• Instance types (p. 142)

• AWS Compute Optimizer User Guide

Instance purchasing options

Amazon EC2 provides the following purchasing options to enable you to optimize your costs based on
your needs:

• On-Demand Instances – Pay, by the second, for the instances that you launch.
• Savings Plans – Reduce your Amazon EC2 costs by making a commitment to a consistent amount of
usage, in USD per hour, for a term of 1 or 3 years.

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• Reserved Instances – Reduce your Amazon EC2 costs by making a commitment to a consistent
instance configuration, including instance type and Region, for a term of 1 or 3 years.
• Spot Instances – Request unused EC2 instances, which can reduce your Amazon EC2 costs significantly.
• Dedicated Hosts – Pay for a physical host that is fully dedicated to running your instances, and bring
your existing per-socket, per-core, or per-VM software licenses to reduce costs.
• Dedicated Instances – Pay, by the hour, for instances that run on single-tenant hardware.
• Capacity Reservations – Reserve capacity for your EC2 instances in a specific Availability Zone for any
duration.

If you require a capacity reservation, purchase Reserved Instances or Capacity Reservations for a specific
Availability Zone. Spot Instances are a cost-effective choice if you can be flexible about when your
applications run and if they can be interrupted. Dedicated Hosts or Dedicated Instances can help you
address compliance requirements and reduce costs by using your existing server-bound software
licenses. For more information, see Amazon EC2 Pricing.

For more information about Savings Plans, see the Savings Plans User Guide.

Contents
• Determine the instance lifecycle (p. 242)
• On-Demand Instances (p. 243)
• Reserved Instances (p. 247)
• Scheduled Reserved Instances (p. 283)
• Spot Instances (p. 284)
• Dedicated Hosts (p. 331)
• Dedicated Instances (p. 363)
• On-Demand Capacity Reservations (p. 370)

Determine the instance lifecycle

The lifecycle of an instance starts when it is launched and ends when it is terminated. The purchasing
option that you choose affects the lifecycle of the instance. For example, an On-Demand Instance runs
when you launch it and ends when you terminate it. A Spot Instance runs as long as capacity is available
and your maximum price is higher than the Spot price.

Use the following procedure to determine the lifecycle of an instance.

New console

To determine the instance lifecycle using the console

1. Open the Amazon EC2 console at https://console.aws.amazon.com/ec2/.

2. In the navigation pane, choose Instances.
3. Select the instance.
4. On the Details tab, under Instance details, find Lifecycle. If the value is spot, the instance
is a Spot Instance. If the value is normal, the instance is either an On-Demand Instance or a
Reserved Instance.
5. On the Details tab, under Host and placement group, find Tenancy. If the value is host, the
instance is running on a Dedicated Host. If the value is dedicated, the instance is a Dedicated
Instance.

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6. (Optional) If you have purchased a Reserved Instance and want to verify that it is being applied,
you can check the usage reports for Amazon EC2. For more information, see Amazon EC2 usage
reports (p. 1477).

Old console

To determine the instance lifecycle using the console

1. Open the Amazon EC2 console at https://console.aws.amazon.com/ec2/.

2. In the navigation pane, choose Instances.
3. Select the instance.
4. On the Description tab, find Tenancy. If the value is host, the instance is running on a
Dedicated Host. If the value is dedicated, the instance is a Dedicated Instance.
5. On the Description tab, find Lifecycle. If the value is spot, the instance is a Spot Instance. If the
value is normal, the instance is either an On-Demand Instance or a Reserved Instance.
6. (Optional) If you have purchased a Reserved Instance and want to verify that it is being applied,
you can check the usage reports for Amazon EC2. For more information, see Amazon EC2 usage
reports (p. 1477).

To determine the instance lifecycle using the AWS CLI

Use the following describe-instances command:

aws ec2 describe-instances --instance-ids i-1234567890abcdef0

If the instance is running on a Dedicated Host, the output contains the following information:

"Tenancy": "host"

If the instance is a Dedicated Instance, the output contains the following information:

"Tenancy": "dedicated"

If the instance is a Spot Instance, the output contains the following information:

"InstanceLifecycle": "spot"

Otherwise, the output does not contain InstanceLifecycle.

On-Demand Instances
With On-Demand Instances, you pay for compute capacity by the hour with no long-term commitments.
You have full control over its lifecycle—you decide when to launch, stop, hibernate, start, reboot, or
terminate it.

There is no long-term commitment required when you purchase On-Demand Instances. You pay only for
the hours that your On-Demand Instances are in the running state. The price per hour for a running On-
Demand Instance is fixed, and is listed on the Amazon EC2 Pricing, On-Demand Pricing page.

We recommend that you use On-Demand Instances for applications with short-term, irregular workloads
that cannot be interrupted.

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On-Demand Instances

For significant savings over On-Demand Instances, use AWS Savings Plans, Spot Instances (p. 284), or
Reserved Instances (p. 247).

Contents
• Work with On-Demand Instances (p. 244)
• On-Demand Instance limits (p. 244)
• Calculate how many vCPUs you need (p. 245)
• Request a limit increase (p. 246)
• Monitor On-Demand Instance limits and usage (p. 246)
• Query the prices of On-Demand Instances (p. 247)

Work with On-Demand Instances

You can work with On-Demand Instances in the following ways:

• Launch your instance (p. 394)

• Connect to your Windows instance (p. 417)
• Stop and start your instance (p. 429)
• Hibernate your On-Demand or Reserved Windows instance (p. 432)
• Reboot your instance (p. 443)
• Instance retirement (p. 444)
• Terminate your instance (p. 446)
• Recover your instance (p. 452)
• Configure your Windows instance (p. 454)
• Identify EC2 Windows instances (p. 664)

If you're new to Amazon EC2, see How to get started with Amazon EC2 (p. 1).

On-Demand Instance limits

There is a limit on the number of running On-Demand Instances per AWS account per Region. On-
Demand Instance limits are managed in terms of the number of virtual central processing units (vCPUs)
that your running On-Demand Instances are using, regardless of the instance type.

The following table lists the On-Demand Instance limits. Each limit specifies the default vCPUs for one or
more instance families. For information about the different instance families, generations, and sizes, see
Amazon EC2 Instance Types.
Note
New AWS accounts might start with limits that are lower than these defaults. Amazon EC2
monitors your usage and raises your limits automatically based on your usage.

Limit Default vCPUs

Running On-Demand All Standard (A, C, D, H, I, M, 1,152

R, T, Z) instances

Running On-Demand All F instances 128

Running On-Demand All G instances 128

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Limit Default vCPUs

Running On-Demand High Memory (u-*) instances 448

Running On-Demand All Inf instances 128

Running On-Demand All P instances 128

Running On-Demand All X instances 128

You can launch any combination of instance types that meet your changing application needs, as long as
the number of vCPUs does not exceed your account limit. For example, with a Standard instance limit of
256 vCPUs, you could launch 32 m5.2xlarge instances (32 x 8 vCPUs) or 16 c5.4xlarge instances (16
x 16 vCPUs). For more information, see EC2 On-Demand Instance limits.

Calculate how many vCPUs you need

You can use the vCPU limits calculator to determine the number of vCPUs that you require for your
application needs.

When using the calculator, keep the following in mind: The calculator assumes that you have reached
your current limit. The value that you enter for Instance count is the number of instances that you need
to launch in addition to what is permitted by your current limit. The calculator adds your current limit to
the Instance count to arrive at a new limit.

The following screenshot shows the vCPU limits calculator.

You can view and use the following controls and information:

• Instance type – The instance types that you add to the vCPU limits calculator.
• Instance count – The number of instances that you require for the selected instance type.
• vCPU count – The number of vCPUs that corresponds to the Instance count.
• Current limit – Your current limit for the limit type to which the instance type belongs. The limit
applies to all instance types of the same limit type. For example, in the preceding screenshot, the
current limit for m5.2xlarge and c5.4xlarge is 1,920 vCPUs, which is the limit for all the instance
types that belong to the All Standard instances limit.

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• New limit – The new limit, in number of vCPUs, which is calculated by adding vCPU count and Current
limit.
• X – Choose the X to remove the row.
• Add instance type – Choose Add instance type to add another instance type to the calculator.
• Limits calculation – Displays the current limit, vCPUs needed, and new limit for the limit types.
• Instance limit name – The limit type for the instance types that you selected.
• Current limit – The current limit for the limit type.
• vCPUs needed – The number of vCPUs that corresponds to the number of instances that you
specified in Instance count. For the All Standard instances limit type, the vCPUs needed is calculated
by adding the values for vCPU count for all the instance types of this limit type.
• New limit – The new limit is calculated by adding Current limit and vCPUs needed.
• Options – Choose Request limit increase to request a limit increase for the corresponding limit
type.

To calculate the number of required vCPUs

1. Open the Amazon EC2 console at https://console.aws.amazon.com/ec2/.

2. From the navigation bar, select a Region.
3. From the left navigator, choose Limits.
4. Choose Calculate vCPU limit.
5. Choose Add instance type, choose the required instance type, and specify the required number of
instances. To add more instance types, choose Add instance type again.
6. View Limits calculation for the required new limit.
7. When you've finished using the calculator, choose Close.

Request a limit increase

You can request a limit increase for each On-Demand Instance limit type from the Limits page or the
vCPU limits calculator in the Amazon EC2 console. Complete the required fields on the AWS Support
Center limit increase form with your use case. For Primary Instance Type, select the limit type that
corresponds to the Instance limit name in the vCPU limits calculator. For the new limit value, use the
value that appears in the New limit column in the vCPU limits calculator. For more information about
requesting a limit increase, see Amazon EC2 service quotas (p. 1475).

Monitor On-Demand Instance limits and usage

You can view and manage your On-Demand Instance limits using the following:

• The Limits page in the Amazon EC2 console

• The Amazon EC2 Services quotas page in the Service Quotas console
• The get-service-quota AWS CLI
• The Service Limits page in the AWS Trusted Advisor console

For more information, see Amazon EC2 service quotas (p. 1475) in the Amazon EC2 User Guide for Linux
Instances, Viewing a Service Quota in the Service Quotas User Guide, and AWS Trusted Advisor.

With Amazon CloudWatch metrics integration, you can monitor EC2 usage against limits. You can
also configure alarms to warn about approaching limits. For more information, see Using Amazon
CloudWatch Alarms in the Service Quotas User Guide.

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Query the prices of On-Demand Instances

You can use the Price List Service API or the AWS Price List API to query the prices of On-Demand
Instances. For more information, see Using the AWS Price List API in the AWS Billing and Cost
Management User Guide.

Reserved Instances
Reserved Instances provide you with significant savings on your Amazon EC2 costs compared to On-
Demand Instance pricing. Reserved Instances are not physical instances, but rather a billing discount
applied to the use of On-Demand Instances in your account. These On-Demand Instances must match
certain attributes, such as instance type and Region, in order to benefit from the billing discount.

Savings Plans also offer significant savings on your Amazon EC2 costs compared to On-Demand Instance
pricing. With Savings Plans, you make a commitment to a consistent usage amount, measured in USD per
hour. This provides you with the flexibility to use the instance configurations that best meet your needs
and continue to save money, instead of making a commitment to a specific instance configuration. For
more information, see the AWS Savings Plans User Guide.

Reserved Instances topics

• Reserved Instance overview (p. 247)
• Key variables that determine Reserved Instance pricing (p. 248)
• Reserved Instance limits (p. 249)
• Regional and zonal Reserved Instances (scope) (p. 249)
• Types of Reserved Instances (offering classes) (p. 250)
• How Reserved Instances are applied (p. 251)
• Use your Reserved Instances (p. 256)
• How you are billed (p. 256)
• Buying Reserved Instances (p. 261)
• Sell in the Reserved Instance Marketplace (p. 269)
• Modify Reserved Instances (p. 275)
• Exchange Convertible Reserved Instances (p. 279)

Reserved Instance overview

The following diagram shows a basic overview of purchasing and using Reserved Instances.

In this scenario, you have a running On-Demand Instance (T2) in your account, for which you're currently
paying On-Demand rates. You purchase a Reserved Instance that matches the attributes of your running

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instance, and the billing benefit is immediately applied. Next, you purchase a Reserved Instance for
a C4 instance. You do not have any running instances in your account that match the attributes of
this Reserved Instance. In the final step, you launch an instance that matches the attributes of the C4
Reserved Instance, and the billing benefit is immediately applied.

Key variables that determine Reserved Instance pricing

The Reserved Instance pricing is determined by the following key variables.

Instance attributes
A Reserved Instance has four instance attributes that determine its price.

• Instance type: For example, m4.large. This is composed of the instance family (for example, m4) and
the instance size (for example, large).
• Region: The Region in which the Reserved Instance is purchased.
• Tenancy: Whether your instance runs on shared (default) or single-tenant (dedicated) hardware. For
more information, see Dedicated Instances (p. 363).
• Platform: The operating system; for example, Windows or Linux/Unix. For more information, see
Choosing a platform (p. 261).

Term commitment
You can purchase a Reserved Instance for a one-year or three-year commitment, with the three-year
commitment offering a bigger discount.

• One-year: A year is defined as 31536000 seconds (365 days).

• Three-year: Three years is defined as 94608000 seconds (1095 days).

Reserved Instances do not renew automatically; when they expire, you can continue using the EC2
instance without interruption, but you are charged On-Demand rates. In the above example, when the
Reserved Instances that cover the T2 and C4 instances expire, you go back to paying the On-Demand
rates until you terminate the instances or purchase new Reserved Instances that match the instance
attributes.

Payment options
The following payment options are available for Reserved Instances:

• All Upfront: Full payment is made at the start of the term, with no other costs or additional hourly
charges incurred for the remainder of the term, regardless of hours used.
• Partial Upfront: A portion of the cost must be paid upfront and the remaining hours in the term are
billed at a discounted hourly rate, regardless of whether the Reserved Instance is being used.
• No Upfront: You are billed a discounted hourly rate for every hour within the term, regardless of
whether the Reserved Instance is being used. No upfront payment is required.
Note
No Upfront Reserved Instances are based on a contractual obligation to pay monthly for the
entire term of the reservation. For this reason, a successful billing history is required before
you can purchase No Upfront Reserved Instances.

Generally speaking, you can save more money making a higher upfront payment for Reserved Instances.
You can also find Reserved Instances offered by third-party sellers at lower prices and shorter term
lengths on the Reserved Instance Marketplace. For more information, see Sell in the Reserved Instance
Marketplace (p. 269).

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Offering class
If your computing needs change, you might be able to modify or exchange your Reserved Instance,
depending on the offering class.

• Standard: These provide the most significant discount, but can only be modified. Standard Reserved
Instances can't be exchanged.
• Convertible: These provide a lower discount than Standard Reserved Instances, but can be exchanged
for another Convertible Reserved Instance with different instance attributes. Convertible Reserved
Instances can also be modified.

For more information, see Types of Reserved Instances (offering classes) (p. 250).

After you purchase a Reserved Instance, you cannot cancel your purchase. However, you might be able to
modify (p. 275), exchange (p. 279), or sell (p. 269) your Reserved Instance if your needs change.

For more information, see the Amazon EC2 Reserved Instances Pricing page.

Reserved Instance limits

There is a limit to the number of Reserved Instances that you can purchase per month. For each
Region you can purchase 20 regional (p. 251) Reserved Instances per month plus an additional 20
zonal (p. 251) Reserved Instances per month for each Availability Zone.

For example, in a Region with three Availability Zones, the limit is 80 Reserved Instances per month:
20 regional Reserved Instances for the Region plus 20 zonal Reserved Instances for each of the three
Availability Zones (20x3=60).

A regional Reserved Instance applies a discount to a running On-Demand Instance. The default On-
Demand Instance limit is 20. You cannot exceed your running On-Demand Instance limit by purchasing
regional Reserved Instances. For example, if you already have 20 running On-Demand Instances, and you
purchase 20 regional Reserved Instances, the 20 regional Reserved Instances are used to apply a discount
to the 20 running On-Demand Instances. If you purchase more regional Reserved Instances, you will not
be able to launch more instances because you have reached your On-Demand Instance limit.

Before purchasing regional Reserved Instances, make sure your On-Demand Instance limit matches or
exceeds the number of regional Reserved Instances you intend to own. If required, make sure you request
an increase to your On-Demand Instance limit before purchasing more regional Reserved Instances.

A zonal Reserved Instance—a Reserved Instance that is purchased for a specific Availability Zone—
provides capacity reservation as well as a discount. You can exceed your running On-Demand Instance
limit by purchasing zonal Reserved Instances. For example, if you already have 20 running On-Demand
Instances, and you purchase 20 zonal Reserved Instances, you can launch a further 20 On-Demand
Instances that match the specifications of your zonal Reserved Instances, giving you a total of 40 running
instances.

The Amazon EC2 console provides limit information. For more information, see View your current
limits (p. 1476).

Regional and zonal Reserved Instances (scope)

When you purchase a Reserved Instance, you determine the scope of the Reserved Instance. The scope is
either regional or zonal.

• Regional: When you purchase a Reserved Instance for a Region, it's referred to as a regional Reserved
Instance.
• Zonal: When you purchase a Reserved Instance for a specific Availability Zone, it's referred to as a
zonal Reserved Instance.

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The scope does not affect the price. You pay the same price for a regional or zonal Reserved Instance. For
more information about Reserved Instance pricing, see Key variables that determine Reserved Instance
pricing (p. 248) and Amazon EC2 Reserved Instances Pricing.

Differences between regional and zonal Reserved Instances

The following table highlights some key differences between regional Reserved Instances and zonal
Reserved Instances:

  Regional Reserved Instances Zonal Reserved Instances

Ability to reserve capacity A regional Reserved Instance A zonal Reserved Instance

does not reserve capacity. reserves capacity in the specified
Availability Zone.

Availability Zone flexibility The Reserved Instance discount No Availability Zone flexibility—
applies to instance usage in any the Reserved Instance discount
Availability Zone in the specified applies to instance usage in the
Region. specified Availability Zone only.

Instance size flexibility The Reserved Instance discount No instance size flexibility—
applies to instance usage within the Reserved Instance discount
the instance family, regardless of applies to instance usage for the
size. Only supported on Amazon specified instance type and size
Linux/Unix Reserved Instances only.
with default tenancy. For more
information, see Instance
size flexibility determined by
normalization factor (p. 252).

Queuing a purchase You can queue purchases for You can't queue purchases for
regional Reserved Instances. zonal Reserved Instances.

For more information and examples, see How Reserved Instances are applied (p. 251).

Types of Reserved Instances (offering classes)

The offering class of a Reserved Instance is either Standard or Convertible. A Standard Reserved Instance
provides a more significant discount than a Convertible Reserved Instance, but you can't exchange a
Standard Reserved Instance. You can exchange Convertible Reserved Instances. You can modify Standard
and Convertible Reserved Instances.

The configuration of a Reserved Instance comprises a single instance type, platform, scope, and tenancy
over a term. If your computing needs change, you might be able to modify or exchange your Reserved
Instance.

Differences between Standard and Convertible Reserved Instances

The following are the differences between Standard and Convertible Reserved Instances.

  Standard Reserved Instance Convertible Reserved Instance

Modifying Reserved Instances Some attributes can be Some attributes can be

modified. For more information, modified. For more information,
see Modify Reserved see Modify Reserved
Instances (p. 275). Instances (p. 275).

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  Standard Reserved Instance Convertible Reserved Instance

Exchanging Reserved Instances Can't be exchanged. Can be exchanged during the

term for another Convertible
Reserved Instance with
new attributes, including
instance family, instance type,
platform, scope, or tenancy.
For more information, see
Exchange Convertible Reserved
Instances (p. 279).

Selling in the Reserved Instance Can be sold in the Reserved Can't be sold in the Reserved
Marketplace Instance Marketplace. Instance Marketplace.

Buying in the Reserved Instance Can be bought in the Reserved Can't be bought in the Reserved
Marketplace Instance Marketplace. Instance Marketplace.

How Reserved Instances are applied

If you purchase a Reserved Instance and you already have a running instance that matches the
specifications of the Reserved Instance, the billing benefit is immediately applied. You do not have to
restart your instances. If you do not have an eligible running instance, launch an instance and ensure that
you match the same criteria that you specified for your Reserved Instance. For more information, see Use
your Reserved Instances (p. 256).

Reserved Instances apply to usage in the same manner, irrespective of the offering type (Standard or
Convertible), and are automatically applied to running On-Demand Instances with matching attributes.

How zonal Reserved Instances are applied

Reserved Instances assigned to a specific Availability Zone provide the Reserved Instance discount
to matching instance usage in that Availability Zone. For example, if you purchase two c4.xlarge
default tenancy Linux/Unix Standard Reserved Instances in Availability Zone us-east-1a, then up to two
c4.xlarge default tenancy Linux/Unix instances running in the Availability Zone us-east-1a can benefit
from the Reserved Instance discount. The attributes (tenancy, platform, Availability Zone, instance type,
and instance size) of the running instances must match that of the Reserved Instances.

How regional Reserved Instances are applied

Regional Reserved Instances are purchased for a Region and provide Availability Zone flexibility. The
Reserved Instance discount applies to instance usage in any Availability Zone in that Region.

Regional Reserved Instances also provide instance size flexibility where the Reserved Instance discount
applies to instance usage within the instance family, regardless of size.

Limitations for instance size flexibility

Instance size flexibility does not apply to the following Reserved Instances:

• Reserved Instances that are purchased for a specific Availability Zone (zonal Reserved Instances)
• Reserved Instances with dedicated tenancy
• Reserved Instances for Windows Server, Windows Server with SQL Standard, Windows Server with SQL
Server Enterprise, Windows Server with SQL Server Web, RHEL, and SUSE Linux Enterprise Server
• Reserved Instances for G4dn instances

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Instance size flexibility determined by normalization factor

Instance size flexibility is determined by the normalization factor of the instance size. The discount
applies either fully or partially to running instances of the same instance family, depending on the
instance size of the reservation, in any Availability Zone in the Region. The only attributes that must be
matched are the instance family, tenancy, and platform.

Instance size flexibility is applied from the smallest to the largest instance size within the instance family
based on the normalization factor.

The following table lists the different sizes within an instance family, and the corresponding
normalization factor per hour. This scale is used to apply the discounted rate of Reserved Instances to
the normalized usage of the instance family.

Instance size Normalization factor

nano 0.25

micro 0.5

small 1

medium 2

large 4

xlarge 8

2xlarge 16

3xlarge 24

4xlarge 32

6xlarge 48

8xlarge 64

9xlarge 72

10xlarge 80

12xlarge 96

16xlarge 128

18xlarge 144

24xlarge 192

32xlarge 256

56xlarge 448

112xlarge 896

For example, a t2.medium instance has a normalization factor of 2. If you purchase a t2.medium
default tenancy Amazon Linux/Unix Reserved Instance in the US East (N. Virginia) and you have two
running t2.small instances in your account in that Region, the billing benefit is applied in full to both
instances.

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Or, if you have one t2.large instance running in your account in the US East (N. Virginia) Region, the
billing benefit is applied to 50% of the usage of the instance.

The normalization factor is also applied when modifying Reserved Instances. For more information, see
Modify Reserved Instances (p. 275).

Normalization factor for bare metal instances

Instance size flexibility also applies to bare metal instances within the instance family. If you have
regional Amazon Linux/Unix Reserved Instances with shared tenancy on bare metal instances, you can
benefit from the Reserved Instance savings within the same instance family. The opposite is also true: if
you have regional Amazon Linux/Unix Reserved Instances with shared tenancy on instances in the same
family as a bare metal instance, you can benefit from the Reserved Instance savings on the bare metal
instance.

The metal instance size does not have a single normalization factor. A bare metal instance has the same
normalization factor as the equivalent virtualized instance size within the same instance family. For
example, an i3.metal instance has the same normalization factor as an i3.16xlarge instance.

Instance size Normalization

factor

m5zn.metal | z1d.metal 96

i3.metal | 128

c5n.metal 144

c5.metal | c5d.metal | i3en.metal | m5.metal | m5d.metal | m5dn.metal | 192

m5n.metal | r5.metal | r5b.metal | r5d.metal | r5dn.metal | r5n.metal

u-*.metal 896

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For example, an i3.metal instance has a normalization factor of 128. If you purchase an i3.metal
default tenancy Amazon Linux/Unix Reserved Instance in the US East (N. Virginia), the billing benefit can
apply as follows:

• If you have one running i3.16xlarge in your account in that Region, the billing benefit is applied in
full to the i3.16xlarge instance (i3.16xlarge normalization factor = 128).
• Or, if you have two running i3.8xlarge instances in your account in that Region, the billing benefit is
applied in full to both i3.8xlarge instances (i3.8xlarge normalization factor = 64).
• Or, if you have four running i3.4xlarge instances in your account in that Region, the billing benefit
is applied in full to all four i3.4xlarge instances (i3.4xlarge normalization factor = 32).

The opposite is also true. For example, if you purchase two i3.8xlarge default tenancy Amazon Linux/
Unix Reserved Instances in the US East (N. Virginia), and you have one running i3.metal instance in
that Region, the billing benefit is applied in full to the i3.metal instance.

Examples of applying Reserved Instances

The following scenarios cover the ways in which Reserved Instances are applied.

Example Scenario 1: Reserved Instances in a single account

You are running the following On-Demand Instances in account A:

• 4 x m3.large Linux, default tenancy instances in Availability Zone us-east-1a

• 2 x m4.xlarge Amazon Linux, default tenancy instances in Availability Zone us-east-1b
• 1 x c4.xlarge Amazon Linux, default tenancy instances in Availability Zone us-east-1c

You purchase the following Reserved Instances in account A:

• 4 x m3.large Linux, default tenancy Reserved Instances in Availability Zone us-east-1a (capacity is
reserved)
• 4 x m4.large Amazon Linux, default tenancy Reserved Instances in Region us-east-1
• 1 x c4.large Amazon Linux, default tenancy Reserved Instances in Region us-east-1

The Reserved Instance benefits are applied in the following way:

• The discount and capacity reservation of the four m3.large zonal Reserved Instances is used by the
four m3.large instances because the attributes (instance size, Region, platform, tenancy) between
them match.
• The m4.large regional Reserved Instances provide Availability Zone and instance size flexibility,
because they are regional Amazon Linux Reserved Instances with default tenancy.

An m4.large is equivalent to 4 normalized units/hour.

You've purchased four m4.large regional Reserved Instances, and in total, they are equal to 16
normalized units/hour (4x4). Account A has two m4.xlarge instances running, which is equivalent to
16 normalized units/hour (2x8). In this case, the four m4.large regional Reserved Instances provide
the billing benefit to an entire hour of usage of the two m4.xlarge instances.
• The c4.large regional Reserved Instance in us-east-1 provides Availability Zone and instance size
flexibility, because it is a regional Amazon Linux Reserved Instance with default tenancy, and applies
to the c4.xlarge instance. A c4.large instance is equivalent to 4 normalized units/hour and a
c4.xlarge is equivalent to 8 normalized units/hour.

In this case, the c4.large regional Reserved Instance provides partial benefit to c4.xlarge usage.
This is because the c4.large Reserved Instance is equivalent to 4 normalized units/hour of usage,

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but the c4.xlarge instance requires 8 normalized units/hour. Therefore, the c4.large Reserved
Instance billing discount applies to 50% of c4.xlarge usage. The remaining c4.xlarge usage is
charged at the On-Demand rate.

Example Scenario 2: Regional Reserved Instances in linked accounts

Reserved Instances are first applied to usage within the purchasing account, followed by qualifying usage
in any other account in the organization. For more information, see Reserved Instances and consolidated
billing (p. 258). For regional Reserved Instances that offer instance size flexibility, the benefit is applied
from the smallest to the largest instance size within the instance family.

You're running the following On-Demand Instances in account A (the purchasing account):

• 2 x m4.xlarge Linux, default tenancy instances in Availability Zone us-east-1a

• 1 x m4.2xlarge Linux, default tenancy instances in Availability Zone us-east-1b
• 2 x c4.xlarge Linux, default tenancy instances in Availability Zone us-east-1a
• 1 x c4.2xlarge Linux, default tenancy instances in Availability Zone us-east-1b

Another customer is running the following On-Demand Instances in account B—a linked account:

• 2 x m4.xlarge Linux, default tenancy instances in Availability Zone us-east-1a

You purchase the following regional Reserved Instances in account A:

• 4 x m4.xlarge Linux, default tenancy Reserved Instances in Region us-east-1

• 2 x c4.xlarge Linux, default tenancy Reserved Instances in Region us-east-1

The regional Reserved Instance benefits are applied in the following way:

• The discount of the four m4.xlarge Reserved Instances is used by the two m4.xlarge instances
and the single m4.2xlarge instance in account A (purchasing account). All three instances match
the attributes (instance family, Region, platform, tenancy). The discount is applied to instances in the
purchasing account (account A) first, even though account B (linked account) has two m4.xlarge that
also match the Reserved Instances. There is no capacity reservation because the Reserved Instances are
regional Reserved Instances.
• The discount of the two c4.xlarge Reserved Instances applies to the two c4.xlarge instances,
because they are a smaller instance size than the c4.2xlarge instance. There is no capacity
reservation because the Reserved Instances are regional Reserved Instances.

Example Scenario 3: Zonal Reserved Instances in a linked account

In general, Reserved Instances that are owned by an account are applied first to usage in that account.
However, if there are qualifying, unused Reserved Instances for a specific Availability Zone (zonal
Reserved Instances) in other accounts in the organization, they are applied to the account before regional
Reserved Instances owned by the account. This is done to ensure maximum Reserved Instance utilization
and a lower bill. For billing purposes, all the accounts in the organization are treated as one account. The
following example might help explain this.

You're running the following On-Demand Instance in account A (the purchasing account):

• 1 x m4.xlarge Linux, default tenancy instance in Availability Zone us-east-1a

A customer is running the following On-Demand Instance in linked account B:

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• 1 x m4.xlarge Linux, default tenancy instance in Availability Zone us-east-1b

You purchase the following regional Reserved Instances in account A:

• 1 x m4.xlarge Linux, default tenancy Reserved Instance in Region us-east-1

A customer also purchases the following zonal Reserved Instances in linked account C:

• 1 x m4.xlarge Linux, default tenancy Reserved Instances in Availability Zone us-east-1a

The Reserved Instance benefits are applied in the following way:

• The discount of the m4.xlarge zonal Reserved Instance owned by account C is applied to the
m4.xlarge usage in account A.
• The discount of the m4.xlarge regional Reserved Instance owned by account A is applied to the
m4.xlarge usage in account B.
• If the regional Reserved Instance owned by account A was first applied to the usage in account A, the
zonal Reserved Instance owned by account C remains unused and usage in account B is charged at On-
Demand rates.

For more information, see Reserved Instances in the Billing and Cost Management Report.

Use your Reserved Instances

Reserved Instances are automatically applied to running On-Demand Instances provided that the
specifications match. If you have no running On-Demand Instances that match the specifications of
your Reserved Instance, the Reserved Instance is unused until you launch an instance with the required
specifications.

If you're launching an instance to take advantage of the billing benefit of a Reserved Instance, ensure
that you specify the following information during launch:

• Platform: You must choose an Amazon Machine Image (AMI) that matches the platform (product
description) of your Reserved Instance. For example, if you specified Linux/UNIX, you can launch an
instance from an Amazon Linux AMI or an Ubuntu AMI.
• Instance type: Specify the same instance type as your Reserved Instance; for example, t2.large.
• Availability Zone: If you purchased a zonal Reserved Instance for a specific Availability Zone, you must
launch the instance into the same Availability Zone. If you purchased a regional Reserved Instance, you
can launch your instance into any Availability Zone.
• Tenancy: The tenancy of your instance must match the tenancy of the Reserved Instance; for example,
dedicated or shared. For more information, see Dedicated Instances (p. 363).

For more information, see Launch an instance using the Launch Instance Wizard (p. 396). For examples
of how Reserved Instances are applied to your running instances, see How Reserved Instances are
applied (p. 251).

You can use Amazon EC2 Auto Scaling or other AWS services to launch the On-Demand Instances that
use your Reserved Instance benefits. For more information, see the Amazon EC2 Auto Scaling User Guide.

How you are billed

All Reserved Instances provide you with a discount compared to On-Demand pricing. With Reserved
Instances, you pay for the entire term regardless of actual use. You can choose to pay for your Reserved

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Instance upfront, partially upfront, or monthly, depending on the payment option (p. 248) specified for
the Reserved Instance.

When Reserved Instances expire, you are charged On-Demand rates for EC2 instance usage. You can
queue a Reserved Instance for purchase up to three years in advance. This can help you ensure that you
have uninterrupted coverage. For more information, see Queue your purchase (p. 262).

The AWS Free Tier is available for new AWS accounts. If you are using the AWS Free Tier to run Amazon
EC2 instances, and you purchase a Reserved Instance, you are charged under standard pricing guidelines.
For information, see AWS Free Tier.

Contents
• Usage billing (p. 257)
• Viewing your bill (p. 258)
• Reserved Instances and consolidated billing (p. 258)
• Reserved Instance discount pricing tiers (p. 258)

Usage billing
Reserved Instances are billed for every clock-hour during the term that you select, regardless of whether
an instance is running. Each clock-hour starts on the hour (zero minutes and zero seconds past the hour)
of a standard 24-hour clock. For example, 1:00:00 to 1:59:59 is one clock-hour. For more information
about instance states, see Instance lifecycle (p. 390).

A Reserved Instance billing benefit can be applied to a running instance on a per-second basis.

A Reserved Instance billing benefit can apply to a maximum of 3600 seconds (one hour) of instance
usage per clock-hour. You can run multiple instances concurrently, but can only receive the benefit of the
Reserved Instance discount for a total of 3600 seconds per clock-hour; instance usage that exceeds 3600
seconds in a clock-hour is billed at the On-Demand rate.

For example, if you purchase one m4.xlarge Reserved Instance and run four m4.xlarge instances
concurrently for one hour, one instance is charged at one hour of Reserved Instance usage and the other
three instances are charged at three hours of On-Demand usage.

However, if you purchase one m4.xlarge Reserved Instance and run four m4.xlarge instances for 15
minutes (900 seconds) each within the same hour, the total running time for the instances is one hour,
which results in one hour of Reserved Instance usage and 0 hours of On-Demand usage.

If multiple eligible instances are running concurrently, the Reserved Instance billing benefit is applied
to all the instances at the same time up to a maximum of 3600 seconds in a clock-hour; thereafter, On-
Demand rates apply.

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Cost Explorer on the Billing and Cost Management console enables you to analyze the savings against
running On-Demand Instances. The Reserved Instances FAQ includes an example of a list value
calculation.

If you close your AWS account, On-Demand billing for your resources stops. However, if you have any
Reserved Instances in your account, you continue to receive a bill for these until they expire.

Viewing your bill

You can find out about the charges and fees to your account by viewing the AWS Billing and Cost
Management console.

• The Dashboard displays a spend summary for your account.

• On the Bills page, under Details expand the Elastic Compute Cloud section and the Region to get
billing information about your Reserved Instances.

You can view the charges online, or you can download a CSV file.

You can also track your Reserved Instance utilization using the AWS Cost and Usage Report. For
more information, see Reserved Instances under Cost and Usage Report in the AWS Billing and Cost
Management User Guide.

Reserved Instances and consolidated billing

The pricing benefits of Reserved Instances are shared when the purchasing account is part of a set of
accounts billed under one consolidated billing payer account. The instance usage across all member
accounts is aggregated in the payer account every month. This is typically useful for companies in which
there are different functional teams or groups; then, the normal Reserved Instance logic is applied to
calculate the bill. For more information, see Consolidated billing for AWS Organizations.

If you close the account that purchased the Reserved Instance, the payer account is charged for the
Reserved Instance until the Reserved Instance expires. After the closed account is permanently deleted in
90 days, the member accounts no longer benefit from the Reserved Instance billing discount.

Reserved Instance discount pricing tiers

If your account qualifies for a discount pricing tier, it automatically receives discounts on upfront and
instance usage fees for Reserved Instance purchases that you make within that tier level from that point

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on. To qualify for a discount, the list value of your Reserved Instances in the Region must be $500,000
USD or more.

The following rules apply:

• Pricing tiers and related discounts apply only to purchases of Amazon EC2 Standard Reserved
Instances.
• Pricing tiers do not apply to Reserved Instances for Windows with SQL Server Standard, SQL Server
Web, and SQL Server Enterprise.
• Pricing tiers do not apply to Reserved Instances for Linux with SQL Server Standard, SQL Server Web,
and SQL Server Enterprise.
• Pricing tier discounts only apply to purchases made from AWS. They do not apply to purchases of
third-party Reserved Instances.
• Discount pricing tiers are currently not applicable to Convertible Reserved Instance purchases.

Topics
• Calculate Reserved Instance pricing discounts (p. 259)
• Buy with a discount tier (p. 260)
• Crossing pricing tiers (p. 260)
• Consolidated billing for pricing tiers (p. 260)

Calculate Reserved Instance pricing discounts

You can determine the pricing tier for your account by calculating the list value for all of your Reserved
Instances in a Region. Multiply the hourly recurring price for each reservation by the total number of
hours for the term and add the undiscounted upfront price (also known as the fixed price) at the time of
purchase. Because the list value is based on undiscounted (public) pricing, it is not affected if you qualify
for a volume discount or if the price drops after you buy your Reserved Instances.

List value = fixed price + (undiscounted recurring hourly price * hours in term)

For example, for a 1-year Partial Upfront t2.small Reserved Instance, assume the upfront price is
$60.00 and the hourly rate is $0.007. This provides a list value of $121.32.

121.32 = 60.00 + (0.007 * 8760)

New console

To view the fixed price values for Reserved Instances using the Amazon EC2 console

1. Open the Amazon EC2 console at https://console.aws.amazon.com/ec2/.

2. In the navigation pane, choose Reserved Instances.
3.
To display the Upfront price column, choose the settings icon ( ) in the top-right corner,
toggle on Upfront price, and choose Confirm.

Old console

To view the fixed price values for Reserved Instances using the Amazon EC2 console

1. Open the Amazon EC2 console at https://console.aws.amazon.com/ec2/.

2. In the navigation pane, choose Reserved Instances.

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3.
To display the Upfront Price column, choose the settings icon ( ) in the top-right corner,
select Upfront Price, and choose Close.

To view the fixed price values for Reserved Instances using the command line

• describe-reserved-instances (AWS CLI)

• Get-EC2ReservedInstance (AWS Tools for Windows PowerShell)
• DescribeReservedInstances (Amazon EC2 API)

Buy with a discount tier

When you buy Reserved Instances, Amazon EC2 automatically applies any discounts to the part of your
purchase that falls within a discount pricing tier. You don't need to do anything differently, and you can
buy Reserved Instances using any of the Amazon EC2 tools. For more information, see Buying Reserved
Instances (p. 261).

After the list value of your active Reserved Instances in a Region crosses into a discount pricing tier,
any future purchase of Reserved Instances in that Region are charged at a discounted rate. If a single
purchase of Reserved Instances in a Region takes you over the threshold of a discount tier, then the
portion of the purchase that is above the price threshold is charged at the discounted rate. For more
information about the temporary Reserved Instance IDs that are created during the purchase process,
see Crossing pricing tiers (p. 260).

If your list value falls below the price point for that discount pricing tier—for example, if some of your
Reserved Instances expire—future purchases of Reserved Instances in the Region are not discounted.
However, you continue to get the discount applied against any Reserved Instances that were originally
purchased within the discount pricing tier.

When you buy Reserved Instances, one of four possible scenarios occurs:

• No discount—Your purchase within a Region is still below the discount threshold.

• Partial discount—Your purchase within a Region crosses the threshold of the first discount tier. No
discount is applied to one or more reservations and the discounted rate is applied to the remaining
reservations.
• Full discount—Your entire purchase within a Region falls within one discount tier and is discounted
appropriately.
• Two discount rates—Your purchase within a Region crosses from a lower discount tier to a higher
discount tier. You are charged two different rates: one or more reservations at the lower discounted
rate, and the remaining reservations at the higher discounted rate.

Crossing pricing tiers

If your purchase crosses into a discounted pricing tier, you see multiple entries for that purchase: one for
that part of the purchase charged at the regular price, and another for that part of the purchase charged
at the applicable discounted rate.

The Reserved Instance service generates several Reserved Instance IDs because your purchase crossed
from an undiscounted tier, or from one discounted tier to another. There is an ID for each set of
reservations in a tier. Consequently, the ID returned by your purchase CLI command or API action is
different from the actual ID of the new Reserved Instances.

Consolidated billing for pricing tiers

A consolidated billing account aggregates the list value of member accounts within a Region. When
the list value of all active Reserved Instances for the consolidated billing account reaches a discount

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pricing tier, any Reserved Instances purchased after this point by any member of the consolidated
billing account are charged at the discounted rate (as long as the list value for that consolidated account
stays above the discount pricing tier threshold). For more information, see Reserved Instances and
consolidated billing (p. 258).

Buying Reserved Instances

To purchase a Reserved Instance, search for Reserved Instance offerings from AWS and third-party sellers,
adjusting your search parameters until you find the exact match that you're looking for.

When you search for Reserved Instances to buy, you receive a quote on the cost of the returned offerings.
When you proceed with the purchase, AWS automatically places a limit price on the purchase price. The
total cost of your Reserved Instances won't exceed the amount that you were quoted.

If the price rises or changes for any reason, the purchase is not completed. If, at the time of purchase,
there are offerings similar to your choice but at a lower price, AWS sells you the offerings at the lower
price.

Before you confirm your purchase, review the details of the Reserved Instance that you plan to buy, and
make sure that all the parameters are accurate. After you purchase a Reserved Instance (either from a
third-party seller in the Reserved Instance Marketplace or from AWS), you cannot cancel your purchase.
Note
To purchase and modify Reserved Instances, ensure that your IAM user account has the
appropriate permissions, such as the ability to describe Availability Zones. For information,
see Example Policies for Working With the AWS CLI or an AWS SDK and Example Policies for
Working in the Amazon EC2 Console.

Topics
• Choosing a platform (p. 261)
• Queue your purchase (p. 262)
• Buy Standard Reserved Instances (p. 262)
• Buy Convertible Reserved Instances (p. 265)
• Buy from the Reserved Instance Marketplace (p. 267)
• View your Reserved Instances (p. 267)
• Cancel a queued purchase (p. 268)
• Renew a Reserved Instance (p. 268)

Choosing a platform
Amazon EC2 supports the following Windows platforms for Reserved Instances:

• Windows
• Windows with SQL Server Standard
• Windows with SQL Server Web
• Windows with SQL Server Enterprise

When you purchase a Reserved Instance, you must choose an offering for a platform that represents the
operating system for your instance.

• For Windows with SQL Standard, Windows with SQL Server Enterprise, and Windows with SQL Server
Web, you must choose offerings for those specific platforms.
• For all other Windows versions, choose an offering for the Windows platform.

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Important
If you plan to purchase a Reserved Instance to apply to an On-Demand Instance that was
launched from an AWS Marketplace AMI, first check the PlatformDetails field of the AMI.
The PlatformDetails field indicates which Reserved Instance to purchase. The platform
details of the AMI must match the platform of the Reserved Instance, otherwise the Reserved
Instance will not be applied to the On-Demand Instance. For information about how to view the
platform details of the AMI, see Understand AMI billing information (p. 134).

For information about the supported platforms for Linux, see Choosing a platform in the Amazon EC2
User Guide for Linux Instances.

Queue your purchase

By default, when you purchase a Reserved Instance, the purchase is made immediately. Alternatively,
you can queue your purchases for a future date and time. For example, you can queue a purchase for
around the time that an existing Reserved Instance expires. This can help you ensure that you have
uninterrupted coverage.

You can queue purchases for regional Reserved Instances, but not zonal Reserved Instances or Reserved
Instances from other sellers. You can queue a purchase up to three years in advance. On the scheduled
date and time, the purchase is made using the default payment method. After the payment is successful,
the billing benefit is applied.

You can view your queued purchases in the Amazon EC2 console. The status of a queued purchase is
queued. You can cancel a queued purchase any time before its scheduled time. For details, see Cancel a
queued purchase (p. 268).

Buy Standard Reserved Instances

You can buy Standard Reserved Instances in a specific Availability Zone and get a capacity reservation.
Alternatively, you can forego the capacity reservation and purchase a regional Standard Reserved
Instance.

New console

To buy Standard Reserved Instances using the console

1. Open the Amazon EC2 console at https://console.aws.amazon.com/ec2/.

2. In the navigation pane, choose Reserved Instances, and then choose Purchase Reserved
Instances.
3. For Offering class, choose Standard to display Standard Reserved Instances.
4. To purchase a capacity reservation, toggle on Only show offerings that reserve capacity in the
top-right corner of the purchase screen. When you toggle on this setting, the Availability Zone
field appears.

To purchase a regional Reserved Instance, toggle off this setting. When you toggle off this
setting, the Availability Zone field disappears.
5. Select other configurations as needed, and then choose Search.
6. For each Reserved Instance that you want to purchase, enter the desired quantity, and choose
Add to cart.

To purchase a Standard Reserved Instance from the Reserved Instance Marketplace, look for 3rd
party in the Seller column in the search results. The Term column displays non-standard terms.
For more information, see Buy from the Reserved Instance Marketplace (p. 267).
7. To see a summary of the Reserved Instances that you selected, choose View cart.
8. If Order on is Now, the purchase is completed immediately after you choose Order all. To
queue a purchase, choose Now and select a date. You can select a different date for each
eligible offering in the cart. The purchase is queued until 00:00 UTC on the selected date.

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9. To complete the order, choose Order all.

If, at the time of placing the order, there are offerings similar to your choice but with a lower
price, AWS sells you the offerings at the lower price.
10. Choose Close.

The status of your order is listed in the State column. When your order is complete, the State
value changes from Payment-pending to Active. When the Reserved Instance is Active, it is
ready to use.

Note
If the status goes to Retired, AWS might not have received your payment.
Old console

To buy Standard Reserved Instances using the console

1. Open the Amazon EC2 console at https://console.aws.amazon.com/ec2/.

2. In the navigation pane, choose Reserved Instances, and then choose Purchase Reserved
Instances.
3. For Offering Class, choose Standard to display Standard Reserved Instances.
4. To purchase a capacity reservation, choose Only show offerings that reserve capacity in the
top-right corner of the purchase screen. To purchase a regional Reserved Instance, leave the
check box unselected.
5. Select other configurations as needed and choose Search.

To purchase a Standard Reserved Instance from the Reserved Instance Marketplace, look for 3rd
Party in the Seller column in the search results. The Term column displays non-standard terms.
6. For each Reserved Instance that you want to purchase, enter the quantity, and choose Add to
Cart.
7. To see a summary of the Reserved Instances that you selected, choose View Cart.
8. If Order On is Now, the purchase is completed immediately. To queue a purchase, choose Now
and select a date. You can select a different date for each eligible offering in the cart. The
purchase is queued until 00:00 UTC on the selected date.
9. To complete the order, choose Order.

If, at the time of placing the order, there are offerings similar to your choice but with a lower
price, AWS sells you the offerings at the lower price.
10. Choose Close.

The status of your order is listed in the State column. When your order is complete, the State
value changes from payment-pending to active. When the Reserved Instance is active, it is
ready to use.

Note
If the status goes to retired, AWS might not have received your payment.

To buy a Standard Reserved Instance using the AWS CLI

1. Find available Reserved Instances using the describe-reserved-instances-offerings command. Specify

standard for the --offering-class parameter to return only Standard Reserved Instances.
You can apply additional parameters to narrow your results. For example, if you want to purchase
a regional t2.large Reserved Instance with a default tenancy for Linux/UNIX for a 1-year term
only:

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aws ec2 describe-reserved-instances-offerings \

--instance-type t2.large \
--offering-class standard \
--product-description "Linux/UNIX" \
--instance-tenancy default \
--filters Name=duration,Values=31536000 Name=scope,Values=Region

To find Reserved Instances on the Reserved Instance Marketplace only, use the marketplace filter
and do not specify a duration in the request, as the term might be shorter than a 1– or 3-year term.

aws ec2 describe-reserved-instances-offerings \

--instance-type t2.large \
--offering-class standard \
--product-description "Linux/UNIX" \
--instance-tenancy default \
--filters Name=marketplace,Values=true

When you find a Reserved Instance that meets your needs, take note of the offering ID. For example:

"ReservedInstancesOfferingId": "bec624df-a8cc-4aad-a72f-4f8abc34caf2"

2. Use the purchase-reserved-instances-offering command to buy your Reserved Instance. You must
specify the Reserved Instance offering ID you obtained the previous step and you must specify the
number of instances for the reservation.

aws ec2 purchase-reserved-instances-offering \

--reserved-instances-offering-id bec624df-a8cc-4aad-a72f-4f8abc34caf2 \
--instance-count 1

By default, the purchase is completed immediately. Alternatively, to queue the purchase, add the
following parameter to the previous call.

--purchase-time "2020-12-01T00:00:00Z"

3. Use the describe-reserved-instances command to get the status of your Reserved Instance.

aws ec2 describe-reserved-instances

Alternatively, use the following AWS Tools for Windows PowerShell commands:

• Get-EC2ReservedInstancesOffering
• New-EC2ReservedInstance
• Get-EC2ReservedInstance

After the purchase is complete, if you already have a running instance that matches the specifications
of the Reserved Instance, the billing benefit is immediately applied. You do not have to restart your
instances. If you do not have a suitable running instance, launch an instance and ensure that you match
the same criteria that you specified for your Reserved Instance. For more information, see Use your
Reserved Instances (p. 256).

For examples of how Reserved Instances are applied to your running instances, see How Reserved
Instances are applied (p. 251).

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Buy Convertible Reserved Instances

You can buy Convertible Reserved Instances in a specific Availability Zone and get a capacity reservation.
Alternatively, you can forego the capacity reservation and purchase a regional Convertible Reserved
Instance.

New console

To buy Convertible Reserved Instances using the console

1. Open the Amazon EC2 console at https://console.aws.amazon.com/ec2/.

2. In the navigation pane, choose Reserved Instances, and then choose Purchase Reserved
Instances.
3. For Offering class, choose Convertible to display Convertible Reserved Instances.
4. To purchase a capacity reservation, toggle on Only show offerings that reserve capacity in the
top-right corner of the purchase screen. When you toggle on this setting, the Availability Zone
field appears.

To purchase a regional Reserved Instance, toggle off this setting. When you toggle off this
setting, the Availability Zone field disappears.
5. Select other configurations as needed and choose Search.
6. For each Convertible Reserved Instance that you want to purchase, enter the quantity, and
choose Add to cart.
7. To see a summary of your selection, choose View cart.
8. If Order on is Now, the purchase is completed immediately after you choose Order all. To
queue a purchase, choose Now and select a date. You can select a different date for each
eligible offering in the cart. The purchase is queued until 00:00 UTC on the selected date.
9. To complete the order, choose Order all.

If, at the time of placing the order, there are offerings similar to your choice but with a lower
price, AWS sells you the offerings at the lower price.
10. Choose Close.

The status of your order is listed in the State column. When your order is complete, the State
value changes from Payment-pending to Active. When the Reserved Instance is Active, it is
ready to use.

Note
If the status goes to Retired, AWS might not have received your payment.
Old console

To buy Convertible Reserved Instances using the console

1. Open the Amazon EC2 console at https://console.aws.amazon.com/ec2/.

2. In the navigation pane, choose Reserved Instances, and then choose Purchase Reserved
Instances.
3. For Offering Class, choose Convertible to display Convertible Reserved Instances.
4. To purchase a capacity reservation, choose Only show offerings that reserve capacity in the
top-right corner of the purchase screen. To purchase a regional Reserved Instance, leave the
check box unselected.
5. Select other configurations as needed and choose Search.
6. For each Convertible Reserved Instance that you want to purchase, enter the quantity, and
choose Add to Cart.
7. To see a summary of your selection, choose View Cart.

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8. If Order On is Now, the purchase is completed immediately. To queue a purchase, choose Now
and select a date. You can select a different date for each eligible offering in the cart. The
purchase is queued until 00:00 UTC on the selected date.
9. To complete the order, choose Order.

If, at the time of placing the order, there are offerings similar to your choice but with a lower
price, AWS sells you the offerings at the lower price.
10. Choose Close.

The status of your order is listed in the State column. When your order is complete, the State
value changes from payment-pending to active. When the Reserved Instance is active, it is
ready to use.

Note
If the status goes to retired, AWS might not have received your payment.

To buy a Convertible Reserved Instance using the AWS CLI

1. Find available Reserved Instances using the describe-reserved-instances-offerings command.

Specify convertible for the --offering-class parameter to return only Convertible Reserved
Instances. You can apply additional parameters to narrow your results; for example, if you want to
purchase a regional t2.large Reserved Instance with a default tenancy for Linux/UNIX:

aws ec2 describe-reserved-instances-offerings \

--instance-type t2.large \
--offering-class convertible \
--product-description "Linux/UNIX" \
--instance-tenancy default \
--filters Name=scope,Values=Region

When you find a Reserved Instance that meets your needs, take note of the offering ID. For example:

"ReservedInstancesOfferingId": "bec624df-a8cc-4aad-a72f-4f8abc34caf2"

2. Use the purchase-reserved-instances-offering command to buy your Reserved Instance. You must
specify the Reserved Instance offering ID you obtained the previous step and you must specify the
number of instances for the reservation.

aws ec2 purchase-reserved-instances-offering \

--reserved-instances-offering-id bec624df-a8cc-4aad-a72f-4f8abc34caf2 \
--instance-count 1

By default, the purchase is completed immediately. Alternatively, to queue the purchase, add the
following parameter to the previous call.

--purchase-time "2020-12-01T00:00:00Z"

3. Use the describe-reserved-instances command to get the status of your Reserved Instance.

aws ec2 describe-reserved-instances

Alternatively, use the following AWS Tools for Windows PowerShell commands:

• Get-EC2ReservedInstancesOffering

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• New-EC2ReservedInstance
• Get-EC2ReservedInstance

If you already have a running instance that matches the specifications of the Reserved Instance, the
billing benefit is immediately applied. You do not have to restart your instances. If you do not have
a suitable running instance, launch an instance and ensure that you match the same criteria that you
specified for your Reserved Instance. For more information, see Use your Reserved Instances (p. 256).

For examples of how Reserved Instances are applied to your running instances, see How Reserved
Instances are applied (p. 251).

Buy from the Reserved Instance Marketplace

You can purchase Reserved Instances from third-party sellers who own Reserved Instances that they no
longer need from the Reserved Instance Marketplace. You can do this using the Amazon EC2 console
or a command line tool. The process is similar to purchasing Reserved Instances from AWS. For more
information, see Buy Standard Reserved Instances (p. 262).

There are a few differences between Reserved Instances purchased in the Reserved Instance Marketplace
and Reserved Instances purchased directly from AWS:

• Term – Reserved Instances that you purchase from third-party sellers have less than a full standard
term remaining. Full standard terms from AWS run for one year or three years.
• Upfront price – Third-party Reserved Instances can be sold at different upfront prices. The usage or
recurring fees remain the same as the fees set when the Reserved Instances were originally purchased
from AWS.
• Types of Reserved Instances – Only Amazon EC2 Standard Reserved Instances can be purchased
from the Reserved Instance Marketplace. Convertible Reserved Instances, Amazon RDS, and Amazon
ElastiCache Reserved Instances are not available for purchase on the Reserved Instance Marketplace.

Basic information about you is shared with the seller, for example, your ZIP code and country
information.

This information enables sellers to calculate any necessary transaction taxes that they have to remit to
the government (such as sales tax or value-added tax) and is provided as a disbursement report. In rare
circumstances, AWS might have to provide the seller with your email address, so that they can contact
you regarding questions related to the sale (for example, tax questions).

For similar reasons, AWS shares the legal entity name of the seller on the buyer's purchase invoice. If you
need additional information about the seller for tax or related reasons, contact AWS Support.

View your Reserved Instances

You can view the Reserved Instances you've purchased using the Amazon EC2 console, or a command line
tool.

To view your Reserved Instances in the console

1. Open the Amazon EC2 console at https://console.aws.amazon.com/ec2/.

2. In the navigation pane, choose Reserved Instances.
3. Your queued, active, and retired Reserved Instances are listed. The State column displays the state.
4. If you are a seller in the Reserved Instance Marketplace, the My Listings tab displays the status of a
reservation that's listed in the Reserved Instance Marketplace (p. 269). For more information, see
Reserved Instance listing states (p. 273).

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To view your Reserved Instances using the command line

• describe-reserved-instances (AWS CLI)

• Get-EC2ReservedInstance (Tools for Windows PowerShell)

Cancel a queued purchase

You can queue a purchase up to three years in advance. You can cancel a queued purchase any time
before its scheduled time.

New console

To cancel a queued purchase

1. Open the Amazon EC2 console at https://console.aws.amazon.com/ec2/.

2. In the navigation pane, choose Reserved Instances.
3. Select one or more Reserved Instances.
4. Choose Actions, Delete queued Reserved Instances.
5. When prompted for confirmation, choose Delete, and then Close.

Old console

To cancel a queued purchase

1. Open the Amazon EC2 console at https://console.aws.amazon.com/ec2/.

2. In the navigation pane, choose Reserved Instances.
3. Select one or more Reserved Instances.
4. Choose Actions, Delete Queued Reserved Instances.
5. When prompted for confirmation, choose Yes, Delete.

To cancel a queued purchase using the command line

• delete-queued-reserved-instances (AWS CLI)

• Remove-EC2QueuedReservedInstance (Tools for Windows PowerShell)

Renew a Reserved Instance

You can renew a Reserved Instance before it is scheduled to expire. Renewing a Reserved Instance queues
the purchase of a Reserved Instance with the same configuration until the current Reserved Instance
expires.

New console

To renew an Reserved Instance using a queued purchase

1. Open the Amazon EC2 console at https://console.aws.amazon.com/ec2/.

2. In the navigation pane, choose Reserved Instances.
3. Select one or more Reserved Instances.
4. Choose Actions, Renew Reserved Instances.
5. To complete the order, choose Order all, and then Close.

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Old console

To renew an Reserved Instance using a queued purchase

1. Open the Amazon EC2 console at https://console.aws.amazon.com/ec2/.

2. In the navigation pane, choose Reserved Instances.
3. Select one or more Reserved Instances.
4. Choose Actions, Renew Reserved Instances.
5. To complete the order, choose Order.

Sell in the Reserved Instance Marketplace

The Reserved Instance Marketplace is a platform that supports the sale of third-party and AWS
customers' unused Standard Reserved Instances, which vary in term lengths and pricing options. For
example, you might want to sell Reserved Instances after moving instances to a new AWS Region,
changing to a new instance type, ending projects before the term expiration, when your business needs
change, or if you have unneeded capacity.

As soon as you list your Reserved Instances in the Reserved Instance Marketplace, they are available
for potential buyers to find. All Reserved Instances are grouped according to the duration of the term
remaining and the hourly price.

To fulfill a buyer's request, AWS first sells the Reserved Instance with the lowest upfront price in the
specified grouping. Then, AWS sells the Reserved Instance with the next lowest price, until the buyer's
entire order is fulfilled. AWS then processes the transactions and transfers ownership of the Reserved
Instances to the buyer.

You own your Reserved Instance until it's sold. After the sale, you've given up the capacity reservation
and the discounted recurring fees. If you continue to use your instance, AWS charges you the On-
Demand price starting from the time that your Reserved Instance was sold.

If you want to sell your unused Reserved Instances on the Reserved Instance Marketplace, you must meet
certain eligibility criteria.

For information about buying Reserved Instances on the Reserved Instance Marketplace, see Buy from
the Reserved Instance Marketplace (p. 267).

Contents
• Restrictions and limitations (p. 269)
• Register as a seller (p. 270)
• Bank account for disbursement (p. 270)
• Tax information (p. 271)
• Price your Reserved Instances (p. 272)
• List your Reserved Instances (p. 272)
• Reserved Instance listing states (p. 273)
• Lifecycle of a listing (p. 273)
• After your Reserved Instance is sold (p. 274)
• Getting paid (p. 274)
• Information shared with the buyer (p. 275)

Restrictions and limitations

Before you can sell your unused reservations, you must register as a seller in the Reserved Instance
Marketplace. For information, see Register as a seller (p. 270).

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The following limitations and restrictions apply when selling Reserved Instances:

• Only Amazon EC2 Standard Reserved Instances can be sold in the Reserved Instance Marketplace.
Amazon EC2 Convertible Reserved Instances cannot be sold. Reserved Instances for other AWS
services, such as Amazon RDS and Amazon ElastiCache, cannot be sold.
• There must be at least one month remaining in the term of the Standard Reserved Instance.
• You cannot sell a Standard Reserved Instance in a Region that is disabled by default.
• The minimum price allowed in the Reserved Instance Marketplace is $0.00.
• You can sell No Upfront, Partial Upfront, or All Upfront Reserved Instances in the Reserved Instance
Marketplace. If there is an upfront payment on a Reserved Instance, it can be sold only after AWS has
received the upfront payment and the reservation has been active (you've owned it) for at least 30
days.
• You cannot modify your listing in the Reserved Instance Marketplace directly. However, you can
change your listing by first canceling it and then creating another listing with new parameters. For
information, see Price your Reserved Instances (p. 272). You can also modify your Reserved Instances
before listing them. For information, see Modify Reserved Instances (p. 275).
• In order to list a regional Reserved Instance in the marketplace, you must modify the scope to zonal as
it is not possible to sell regional Reserved Instances via the console.
• AWS charges a service fee of 12 percent of the total upfront price of each Standard Reserved Instance
you sell in the Reserved Instance Marketplace. The upfront price is the price the seller is charging for
the Standard Reserved Instance.
• When you register as a seller, the bank you specify must have a US address. For more information, see
Additional seller requirements for paid products in the AWS Marketplace Seller Guide.
• Amazon Internet Services Private Limited (AISPL) customers can't sell Reserved Instances in the
Reserved Instance Marketplace even if they have a US bank account. For more information, see What
are the differences between AWS accounts and AISPL accounts?

Register as a seller
Note
Only the AWS account root user can register an account as a seller.

To sell in the Reserved Instance Marketplace, you must first register as a seller. During registration, you
provide the following information:

• Bank information—AWS must have your bank information in order to disburse funds collected when
you sell your reservations. The bank you specify must have a US address. For more information, see
Bank account for disbursement (p. 270).
• Tax information—All sellers are required to complete a tax information interview to determine any
necessary tax reporting obligations. For more information, see Tax information (p. 271).

After AWS receives your completed seller registration, you receive an email confirming your registration
and informing you that you can get started selling in the Reserved Instance Marketplace.

Bank account for disbursement

AWS must have your bank information in order to disburse funds collected when you sell your Reserved
Instance. The bank you specify must have a US address. For more information, see Additional seller
requirements for paid products in the AWS Marketplace Seller Guide.

To register a default bank account for disbursements

1. Open the Reserved Instance Marketplace Seller Registration page and sign in using your AWS
credentials.

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2. On the Manage Bank Account page, provide the following information about the bank through to
receive payment:

• Bank account holder name

• Routing number
• Account number
• Bank account type

Note
If you are using a corporate bank account, you are prompted to send the information about
the bank account via fax (1-206-765-3424).

After registration, the bank account provided is set as the default, pending verification with the
bank. It can take up to two weeks to verify a new bank account, during which time you can't receive
disbursements. For an established account, it usually takes about two days for disbursements to
complete.

To change the default bank account for disbursement

1. On the Reserved Instance Marketplace Seller Registration page, sign in with the account that you
used when you registered.
2. On the Manage Bank Account page, add a new bank account or modify the default bank account as
needed.

Tax information
Your sale of Reserved Instances might be subject to a transaction-based tax, such as sales tax or value-
added tax. You should check with your business's tax, legal, finance, or accounting department to
determine if transaction-based taxes are applicable. You are responsible for collecting and sending the
transaction-based taxes to the appropriate tax authority.

As part of the seller registration process, you must complete a tax interview in the Seller Registration
Portal. The interview collects your tax information and populates an IRS form W-9, W-8BEN, or W-8BEN-
E, which is used to determine any necessary tax reporting obligations.

The tax information you enter as part of the tax interview might differ depending on whether you
operate as an individual or business, and whether you or your business are a US or non-US person or
entity. As you fill out the tax interview, keep in mind the following:

• Information provided by AWS, including the information in this topic, does not constitute tax, legal, or
other professional advice. To find out how the IRS reporting requirements might affect your business,
or if you have other questions, contact your tax, legal, or other professional advisor.
• To fulfill the IRS reporting requirements as efficiently as possible, answer all questions and enter all
information requested during the interview.
• Check your answers. Avoid misspellings or entering incorrect tax identification numbers. They can
result in an invalidated tax form.

Based on your tax interview responses and IRS reporting thresholds, Amazon might file Form 1099-K.
Amazon mails a copy of your Form 1099-K on or before January 31 in the year following the year that
your tax account reaches the threshold levels. For example, if your account reaches the threshold in
2018, your Form 1099-K is mailed on or before January 31, 2019.

For more information about IRS requirements and Form 1099-K, see the IRS website.

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Price your Reserved Instances

The upfront fee is the only fee that you can specify for the Reserved Instance that you're selling. The
upfront fee is the one-time fee that the buyer pays when they purchase a Reserved Instance.

The following are important limits to note:

• You can sell up to $50,000 in Reserved Instances. To increase this limit, complete the EC2 Reserved
Instance Sales form.
• You can sell up to 5,000 Reserved Instances. To increase this limit, complete the EC2 Reserved
Instance Sales form.
• The minimum price is $0. The minimum allowed price in the Reserved Instance Marketplace is $0.00.

You cannot modify your listing directly. However, you can change your listing by first canceling it and
then creating another listing with new parameters.

You can cancel your listing at any time, as long as it's in the active state. You cannot cancel the listing
if it's already matched or being processed for a sale. If some of the instances in your listing are matched
and you cancel the listing, only the remaining unmatched instances are removed from the listing.

Because the value of Reserved Instances decreases over time, by default, AWS can set prices to decrease
in equal increments month over month. However, you can set different upfront prices based on when
your reservation sells.

For example, if your Reserved Instance has nine months of its term remaining, you can specify the
amount that you would accept if a customer were to purchase that Reserved Instance with nine months
remaining. You could set another price with five months remaining, and yet another price with one
month remaining.

List your Reserved Instances

As a registered seller, you can choose to sell one or more of your Reserved Instances. You can choose
to sell all of them in one listing or in portions. In addition, you can list Reserved Instances with any
configuration of instance type, platform, and scope.

The console determines a suggested price. It checks for offerings that match your Reserved Instance and
matches the one with the lowest price. Otherwise, it calculates a suggested price based on the cost of
the Reserved Instance for its remaining time. If the calculated value is less than $1.01, the suggested
price is $1.01.

If you cancel your listing and a portion of that listing has already been sold, the cancellation is not
effective on the portion that has been sold. Only the unsold portion of the listing is no longer available
in the Reserved Instance Marketplace.

To list a Reserved Instance in the Reserved Instance Marketplace using the AWS Management
Console

1. Open the Amazon EC2 console at https://console.aws.amazon.com/ec2/.

2. In the navigation pane, choose Reserved Instances.
3. Select the Reserved Instances to list, and choose Actions, Sell Reserved Instances.
4. On the Configure Your Reserved Instance Listing page, set the number of instances to sell and the
upfront price for the remaining term in the relevant columns. See how the value of your reservation
changes over the remainder of the term by selecting the arrow next to the Months Remaining
column.
5. If you are an advanced user and you want to customize the pricing, you can enter different values for
the subsequent months. To return to the default linear price drop, choose Reset.
6. Choose Continue when you are finished configuring your listing.

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7. Confirm the details of your listing, on the Confirm Your Reserved Instance Listing page and if
you're satisfied, choose List Reserved Instance.

To view your listings in the console

1. Open the Amazon EC2 console at https://console.aws.amazon.com/ec2/.

2. In the navigation pane, choose Reserved Instances.
3. Select the Reserved Instance that you've listed and choose the My Listings tab near the bottom of
the page.

To manage Reserved Instances in the Reserved Instance Marketplace using the AWS CLI

1. Get a list of your Reserved Instances by using the describe-reserved-instances command.

2. Note the ID of the Reserved Instance you want to list and call create-reserved-instances-listing. You
must specify the ID of the Reserved Instance, the number of instances, and the pricing schedule.
3. To view your listing, use the describe-reserved-instances-listings command.
4. To cancel your listing, use the cancel-reserved-instances-listings command.

Reserved Instance listing states

Listing State on the My Listings tab of the Reserved Instances page displays the current status of your
listings:

The information displayed by Listing State is about the status of your listing in the Reserved Instance
Marketplace. It is different from the status information that is displayed by the State column in the
Reserved Instances page. This State information is about your reservation.

• active—The listing is available for purchase.

• canceled—The listing is canceled and isn't available for purchase in the Reserved Instance
Marketplace.
• closed—The Reserved Instance is not listed. A Reserved Instance might be closed because the sale of
the listing was completed.

Lifecycle of a listing
When all the instances in your listing are matched and sold, the My Listings tab shows that the Total
instance count matches the count listed under Sold. Also, there are no Available instances left for your
listing, and its Status is closed.

When only a portion of your listing is sold, AWS retires the Reserved Instances in the listing and creates
the number of Reserved Instances equal to the Reserved Instances remaining in the count. So, the listing
ID and the listing that it represents, which now has fewer reservations for sale, is still active.

Any future sales of Reserved Instances in this listing are processed this way. When all the Reserved
Instances in the listing are sold, AWS marks the listing as closed.

For example, you create a listing Reserved Instances listing ID 5ec28771-05ff-4b9b-aa31-9e57dexample

with a listing count of 5.

The My Listings tab in the Reserved Instance console page displays the listing this way:

Reserved Instance listing ID 5ec28771-05ff-4b9b-aa31-9e57dexample

• Total reservation count = 5

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• Sold = 0
• Available = 5
• Status = active

A buyer purchases two of the reservations, which leaves a count of three reservations still available for
sale. Because of this partial sale, AWS creates a new reservation with a count of three to represent the
remaining reservations that are still for sale.

This is how your listing looks in the My Listings tab:

Reserved Instance listing ID 5ec28771-05ff-4b9b-aa31-9e57dexample

• Total reservation count = 5

• Sold = 2
• Available = 3
• Status = active

If you cancel your listing and a portion of that listing has already sold, the cancelation is not effective
on the portion that has been sold. Only the unsold portion of the listing is no longer available in the
Reserved Instance Marketplace.

After your Reserved Instance is sold

When your Reserved Instance is sold, AWS sends you an email notification. Each day that there is any
kind of activity, you receive one email notification capturing all the activities of the day. Activities can
include when you create or sell a listing, or when AWS sends funds to your account.

To track the status of a Reserved Instance listing in the console

1. Open the Amazon EC2 console at https://console.aws.amazon.com/ec2/.

2. In the navigation page, choose Reserved Instances.
3. Choose the My Listings tab.

The My Listings tab contains the Listing State value. It also contains information about the term,
listing price, and a breakdown of how many instances in the listing are available, pending, sold, and
canceled.

You can also use the describe-reserved-instances-listings command with the appropriate filter to obtain
information about your listings.

Getting paid
As soon as AWS receives funds from the buyer, a message is sent to the registered owner account email
for the sold Reserved Instance.

AWS sends an Automated Clearing House (ACH) wire transfer to your specified bank account.
Typically, this transfer occurs between one to three days after your Reserved Instance has been sold.
Disbursements take place once a day. You will receive an email with a disbursement report after the
funds are released. Keep in mind that you can't receive disbursements until AWS receives verification
from your bank. This can take up to two weeks.

The Reserved Instance that you sold continues to appear when you describe your Reserved Instances.

You receive a cash disbursement for your Reserved Instances through a wire transfer directly into your
bank account. AWS charges a service fee of 12 percent of the total upfront price of each Reserved
Instance you sell in the Reserved Instance Marketplace.

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Information shared with the buyer

When you sell in the Reserved Instance Marketplace, AWS shares your company’s legal name on the
buyer’s statement in accordance with US regulations. In addition, if the buyer calls AWS Support because
the buyer needs to contact you for an invoice or for some other tax-related reason, AWS might need to
provide the buyer with your email address so that the buyer can contact you directly.

For similar reasons, the buyer's ZIP code and country information are provided to the seller in the
disbursement report. As a seller, you might need this information to accompany any necessary
transaction taxes that you remit to the government (such as sales tax and value-added tax).

AWS cannot offer tax advice, but if your tax specialist determines that you need specific additional
information, contact AWS Support.

Modify Reserved Instances

When your needs change, you can modify your Standard or Convertible Reserved Instances and continue
to benefit from the billing benefit. You can modify attributes such as the Availability Zone and scope of
your Reserved Instance.
Note
You can also exchange a Convertible Reserved Instance for another Convertible Reserved
Instance with a different configuration. For more information, see Exchange Convertible
Reserved Instances (p. 279).

After modification, the benefit of the Reserved Instances is applied only to instances that match the new
parameters. For example, if you change the Availability Zone of a reservation, the capacity reservation
and pricing benefits are automatically applied to instance usage in the new Availability Zone. Instances
that no longer match the new parameters are charged at the On-Demand rate, unless your account has
other applicable reservations.

If your modification request succeeds:

• The modified reservation becomes effective immediately and the pricing benefit is applied to the new
instances beginning at the hour of the modification request. For example, if you successfully modify
your reservations at 9:15PM, the pricing benefit transfers to your new instance at 9:00PM. You can
get the effective date of the modified Reserved Instances by using the describe-reserved-instances
command.
• The original reservation is retired. Its end date is the start date of the new reservation, and the end
date of the new reservation is the same as the end date of the original Reserved Instance. If you
modify a three-year reservation that had 16 months left in its term, the resulting modified reservation
is a 16-month reservation with the same end date as the original one.
• The modified reservation lists a $0 fixed price and not the fixed price of the original reservation.
• The fixed price of the modified reservation does not affect the discount pricing tier calculations
applied to your account, which are based on the fixed price of the original reservation.

If your modification request fails, your Reserved Instances maintain their original configuration, and are
immediately available for another modification request.

There is no fee for modification, and you do not receive any new bills or invoices.

You can modify your reservations as frequently as you like, but you cannot change or cancel a pending
modification request after you submit it. After the modification has completed successfully, you can
submit another modification request to roll back any changes you made, if needed.

Contents
• Requirements and restrictions for modification (p. 276)

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• Submit modification requests (p. 277)

• Troubleshoot modification requests (p. 278)

Requirements and restrictions for modification

You can modify these attributes as follows.

Modifiable attribute Supported platforms Limitations

Change Availability Zones Linux and Windows -

within the same Region

Change the scope from Linux and Windows If you change the scope from
Availability Zone to Region and Availability Zone to Region, you
vice versa lose the capacity reservation
benefit.

If you change the scope from

Region to Availability Zone, you
lose Availability Zone flexibility
and instance size flexibility
(if applicable). For more
information, see How Reserved
Instances are applied (p. 251).

Change the instance size within Linux/UNIX only The reservation must use
the same instance family default tenancy. Some instance
Instance size flexibility is not families are not supported,
available for Reserved Instances because there are no other sizes
on the other platforms, which available. For more information,
include Linux with SQL Server see Support for modifying
Standard, Linux with SQL Server instance sizes in the Amazon EC2
Web, Linux with SQL Server User Guide for Linux Instances.
Enterprise, Red Hat Enterprise
Linux, SUSE Linux, Windows,
Windows with SQL Standard,
Windows with SQL Server
Enterprise, and Windows with
SQL Server Web.

Change the network from EC2- Linux and Windows The network platform must be
Classic to Amazon VPC and vice available in your AWS account.
versa If you created your AWS account
after 2013-12-04, it does not
support EC2-Classic.

Requirements

Amazon EC2 processes your modification request if there is sufficient capacity for your new configuration
(if applicable), and if the following conditions are met:

• The Reserved Instance cannot be modified before or at the same time that you purchase it
• The Reserved Instance must be active
• There cannot be a pending modification request
• The Reserved Instance is not listed in the Reserved Instance Marketplace

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• The original Reserved Instances are all Standard Reserved Instances or all Convertible Reserved
Instances, not some of each type
• The original Reserved Instances must expire within the same hour, if they are Standard Reserved
Instances
• The Reserved Instance is not a G4 instance.

Submit modification requests

Before you modify your Reserved Instances, ensure that you have read the applicable
restrictions (p. 276).

New console

To modify your Reserved Instances using the AWS Management Console

1. Open the Amazon EC2 console at https://console.aws.amazon.com/ec2/.

2. On the Reserved Instances page, select one or more Reserved Instances to modify, and choose
Actions, Modify Reserved Instances.
Note
If your Reserved Instances are not in the active state or cannot be modified, Modify
Reserved Instances is disabled.
3. The first entry in the modification table displays attributes of the selected Reserved Instances,
and at least one target configuration beneath it. The Units column displays the total instance
size footprint. Choose Add for each new configuration to add. Modify the attributes as needed
for each configuration.

• Scope: Choose whether the configuration applies to an Availability Zone or to the whole
Region.
• Availability Zone: Choose the required Availability Zone. Not applicable for regional Reserved
Instances.
• Count: Specify the number of instances. To split the Reserved Instances into multiple
configurations, reduce the count, choose Add, and specify a count for the additional
configuration. For example, if you have a single configuration with a count of 10, you can
change its count to 6 and add a configuration with a count of 4. This process retires the
original Reserved Instance after the new Reserved Instances are activated.
4. Choose Continue.
5. To confirm your modification choices when you finish specifying your target configurations,
choose Submit modifications.
6. You can determine the status of your modification request by looking at the State column in the
Reserved Instances screen. The following are the possible states.

• active (pending modification) — Transition state for original Reserved Instances

• retired (pending modification) — Transition state for original Reserved Instances while new
Reserved Instances are being created
• retired — Reserved Instances successfully modified and replaced
• active — One of the following:
• New Reserved Instances created from a successful modification request
• Original Reserved Instances after a failed modification request

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Old console

To modify your Reserved Instances using the AWS Management Console

1. Open the Amazon EC2 console at https://console.aws.amazon.com/ec2/.

2. On the Reserved Instances page, select one or more Reserved Instances to modify, and choose
Actions, Modify Reserved Instances.
Note
If your Reserved Instances are not in the active state or cannot be modified, Modify
Reserved Instances is disabled.
3. The first entry in the modification table displays attributes of selected Reserved Instances, and
at least one target configuration beneath it. The Units column displays the total instance size
footprint. Choose Add for each new configuration to add. Modify the attributes as needed for
each configuration, and then choose Continue:

• Scope: Choose whether the configuration applies to an Availability Zone or to the whole
Region.
• Availability Zone: Choose the required Availability Zone. Not applicable for regional Reserved
Instances.
• Count: Specify the number of instances. To split the Reserved Instances into multiple
configurations, reduce the count, choose Add, and specify a count for the additional
configuration. For example, if you have a single configuration with a count of 10, you can
change its count to 6 and add a configuration with a count of 4. This process retires the
original Reserved Instance after the new Reserved Instances are activated.
4. To confirm your modification choices when you finish specifying your target configurations,
choose Submit Modifications.
5. You can determine the status of your modification request by looking at the State column in the
Reserved Instances screen. The following are the possible states.

• active (pending modification) — Transition state for original Reserved Instances

• retired (pending modification) — Transition state for original Reserved Instances while new
Reserved Instances are being created
• retired — Reserved Instances successfully modified and replaced
• active — One of the following:
• New Reserved Instances created from a successful modification request
• Original Reserved Instances after a failed modification request

To modify your Reserved Instances using the command line

1. To modify your Reserved Instances, you can use one of the following commands:
• modify-reserved-instances (AWS CLI)
• Edit-EC2ReservedInstance (AWS Tools for Windows PowerShell)
2. To get the status of your modification request (processing, fulfilled, or failed), use one of
the following commands:
• describe-reserved-instances-modifications (AWS CLI)
• Get-EC2ReservedInstancesModification (AWS Tools for Windows PowerShell)

Troubleshoot modification requests

If the target configuration settings that you requested were unique, you receive a message that your
request is being processed. At this point, Amazon EC2 has only determined that the parameters of
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your modification request are valid. Your modification request can still fail during processing due to
unavailable capacity.

In some situations, you might get a message indicating incomplete or failed modification requests
instead of a confirmation. Use the information in such messages as a starting point for resubmitting
another modification request. Ensure that you have read the applicable restrictions (p. 276) before
submitting the request.

Not all selected Reserved Instances can be processed for modification

Amazon EC2 identifies and lists the Reserved Instances that cannot be modified. If you receive a message
like this, go to the Reserved Instances page in the Amazon EC2 console and check the information for
the Reserved Instances.

Error in processing your modification request

You submitted one or more Reserved Instances for modification and none of your requests can be
processed. Depending on the number of reservations you are modifying, you can get different versions of
the message.

Amazon EC2 displays the reasons why your request cannot be processed. For example, you might have
specified the same target configuration—a combination of Availability Zone and platform—for one or
more subsets of the Reserved Instances you are modifying. Try submitting the modification requests
again, but ensure that the instance details of the reservations match, and that the target configurations
for all subsets being modified are unique.

Exchange Convertible Reserved Instances

You can exchange one or more Convertible Reserved Instances for another Convertible Reserved Instance
with a different configuration, including instance family, operating system, and tenancy. There are no
limits to how many times you perform an exchange, as long as the new Convertible Reserved Instance is
of an equal or higher value than the original Convertible Reserved Instances that you are exchanging.

When you exchange your Convertible Reserved Instance, the number of instances for your current
reservation is exchanged for a number of instances that cover the equal or higher value of the
configuration of the new Convertible Reserved Instance. Amazon EC2 calculates the number of Reserved
Instances that you can receive as a result of the exchange.

You can't exchange Standard Reserved Instances, but you can modify them. For more information, see
Modify Reserved Instances (p. 275) .

Contents
• Requirements for exchanging Convertible Reserved Instances (p. 279)
• Calculate Convertible Reserved Instances exchanges (p. 281)
• Merge Convertible Reserved Instances (p. 281)
• Exchange a portion of a Convertible Reserved Instance (p. 282)
• Submit exchange requests (p. 282)

Requirements for exchanging Convertible Reserved Instances

If the following conditions are met, Amazon EC2 processes your exchange request. Your Convertible
Reserved Instance must be:

• Active
• Not pending a previous exchange request

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The following rules apply:

• Convertible Reserved Instances can only be exchanged for other Convertible Reserved Instances
currently offered by AWS.
• Convertible Reserved Instances are associated with a specific Region, which is fixed for the duration
of the reservation's term. You cannot exchange a Convertible Reserved Instance for a Convertible
Reserved Instance in a different Region.
• You can exchange one or more Convertible Reserved Instances at a time for one Convertible Reserved
Instance only.
• To exchange a portion of a Convertible Reserved Instance, you can modify it into two or
more reservations, and then exchange one or more of the reservations for a new Convertible
Reserved Instance. For more information, see Exchange a portion of a Convertible Reserved
Instance (p. 282). For more information about modifying your Reserved Instances, see Modify
Reserved Instances (p. 275).
• All Upfront Convertible Reserved Instances can be exchanged for Partial Upfront Convertible Reserved
Instances, and vice versa.
Note
If the total upfront payment required for the exchange (true-up cost) is less than $0.00, AWS
automatically gives you a quantity of instances in the Convertible Reserved Instance that
ensures that true-up cost is $0.00 or more.
Note
If the total value (upfront price + hourly price * number of remaining hours) of the new
Convertible Reserved Instance is less than the total value of the exchanged Convertible
Reserved Instance, AWS automatically gives you a quantity of instances in the Convertible
Reserved Instance that ensures that the total value is the same or higher than that of the
exchanged Convertible Reserved Instance.
• To benefit from better pricing, you can exchange a No Upfront Convertible Reserved Instance for an All
Upfront or Partial Upfront Convertible Reserved Instance.
• You cannot exchange All Upfront and Partial Upfront Convertible Reserved Instances for No Upfront
Convertible Reserved Instances.
• You can exchange a No Upfront Convertible Reserved Instance for another No Upfront Convertible
Reserved Instance only if the new Convertible Reserved Instance's hourly price is the same or higher
than the exchanged Convertible Reserved Instance's hourly price.
Note
If the total value (hourly price * number of remaining hours) of the new Convertible Reserved
Instance is less than the total value of the exchanged Convertible Reserved Instance, AWS
automatically gives you a quantity of instances in the Convertible Reserved Instance that
ensures that the total value is the same or higher than that of the exchanged Convertible
Reserved Instance.
• If you exchange multiple Convertible Reserved Instances that have different expiration dates, the
expiration date for the new Convertible Reserved Instance is the date that's furthest in the future.
• If you exchange a single Convertible Reserved Instance, it must have the same term (1-year or 3-
years) as the new Convertible Reserved Instance. If you merge multiple Convertible Reserved Instances
with different term lengths, the new Convertible Reserved Instance has a 3-year term. For more
information, see Merge Convertible Reserved Instances (p. 281).
• After you exchange a Convertible Reserved Instance, the original reservation is retired. Its end date is
the start date of the new reservation, and the end date of the new reservation is the same as the end
date of the original Convertible Reserved Instance. For example, if you modify a three-year reservation
that had 16 months left in its term, the resulting modified reservation is a 16-month reservation with
the same end date as the original one.

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Calculate Convertible Reserved Instances exchanges

Exchanging Convertible Reserved Instances is free. However, you might be required to pay a true-up cost,
which is a prorated upfront cost of the difference between the original Convertible Reserved Instances
that you had and the new Convertible Reserved Instances that you receive from the exchange.

Each Convertible Reserved Instance has a list value. This list value is compared to the list value of the
Convertible Reserved Instances that you want in order to determine how many instance reservations you
can receive from the exchange.

For example: You have 1 x $35-list value Convertible Reserved Instance that you want to exchange for a
new instance type with a list value of $10.

$35/$10 = 3.5

You can exchange your Convertible Reserved Instance for three $10 Convertible Reserved Instances.
It's not possible to purchase half reservations; therefore you must purchase an additional Convertible
Reserved Instance to cover the remainder:

3.5 = 3 whole Convertible Reserved Instances + 1 additional Convertible Reserved Instance

The fourth Convertible Reserved Instance has the same end date as the other three. If you are
exchanging Partial or All Upfront Convertible Reserved Instances, you pay the true-up cost for the fourth
reservation. If the remaining upfront cost of your Convertible Reserved Instances is $500, and the new
reservation would normally cost $600 on a prorated basis, you are charged $100.

$600 prorated upfront cost of new reservations - $500 remaining upfront cost of original
reservations = $100 difference

Merge Convertible Reserved Instances

If you merge two or more Convertible Reserved Instances, the term of the new Convertible Reserved
Instance must be the same as the original Convertible Reserved Instances, or the highest of the original
Convertible Reserved Instances. The expiration date for the new Convertible Reserved Instance is the
expiration date that's furthest in the future.

For example, you have the following Convertible Reserved Instances in your account:

Reserved Instance ID Term Expiration date

aaaa1111 1-year 2018-12-31

bbbb2222 1-year 2018-07-31

cccc3333 3-year 2018-06-30

dddd4444 3-year 2019-12-31

• You can merge aaaa1111 and bbbb2222 and exchange them for a 1-year Convertible Reserved
Instance. You cannot exchange them for a 3-year Convertible Reserved Instance. The expiration date of
the new Convertible Reserved Instance is 2018-12-31.
• You can merge bbbb2222 and cccc3333 and exchange them for a 3-year Convertible Reserved
Instance. You cannot exchange them for a 1-year Convertible Reserved Instance. The expiration date of
the new Convertible Reserved Instance is 2018-07-31.

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• You can merge cccc3333 and dddd4444 and exchange them for a 3-year Convertible Reserved
Instance. You cannot exchange them for a 1-year Convertible Reserved Instance. The expiration date of
the new Convertible Reserved Instance is 2019-12-31.

Exchange a portion of a Convertible Reserved Instance

You can use the modification process to split your Convertible Reserved Instance into smaller
reservations, and then exchange one or more of the new reservations for a new Convertible Reserved
Instance. The following examples demonstrate how you can do this.

Example Example: Convertible Reserved Instance with multiple instances

In this example, you have a t2.micro Convertible Reserved Instance with four instances in the
reservation. To exchange two t2.micro instances for an m4.xlarge instance:

1. Modify the t2.micro Convertible Reserved Instance by splitting it into two t2.micro Convertible
Reserved Instances with two instances each.
2. Exchange one of the new t2.micro Convertible Reserved Instances for an m4.xlarge Convertible
Reserved Instance.

Submit exchange requests

You can exchange your Convertible Reserved Instances using the Amazon EC2 console or a command line
tool.

Exchange a Convertible Reserved Instance using the console

You can search for Convertible Reserved Instances offerings and select your new configuration from the
choices provided.

New console

To exchange Convertible Reserved Instances using the Amazon EC2 console

1. Open the Amazon EC2 console at https://console.aws.amazon.com/ec2/.

2. Choose Reserved Instances, select the Convertible Reserved Instances to exchange, and choose
Actions, Exchange Reserved Instance.
3. Select the attributes of the desired configuration, and choose Find offering.
4. Select a new Convertible Reserved Instance. At the bottom of the screen, you can view the
number of Reserved Instances that you receive for the exchange, and any additional costs.
5. When you have selected a Convertible Reserved Instance that meets your needs, choose Review.
6. Choose Exchange, and then Close.

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Old console

To exchange Convertible Reserved Instances using the Amazon EC2 console

1. Open the Amazon EC2 console at https://console.aws.amazon.com/ec2/.

2. Choose Reserved Instances, select the Convertible Reserved Instances to exchange, and choose
Actions, Exchange Reserved Instance.
3. Select the attributes of the desired configuration, and choose Find Offering.
4. Select a new Convertible Reserved Instance. The Instance Count column displays the number
of Reserved Instances that you receive for the exchange. When you have selected a Convertible
Reserved Instance that meets your needs, choose Exchange.

The Reserved Instances that were exchanged are retired, and the new Reserved Instances are displayed in
the Amazon EC2 console. This process can take a few minutes to propagate.

Exchange a Convertible Reserved Instance using the command line interface

To exchange a Convertible Reserved Instance, first find a new Convertible Reserved Instance that meets
your needs:

• describe-reserved-instances-offerings (AWS CLI)

• Get-EC2ReservedInstancesOffering (Tools for Windows PowerShell)

Get a quote for the exchange, which includes the number of Reserved Instances you get from the
exchange, and the true-up cost for the exchange:

• get-reserved-instances-exchange-quote (AWS CLI)

• GetEC2-ReservedInstancesExchangeQuote (Tools for Windows PowerShell)

Finally, perform the exchange:

• accept-reserved-instances-exchange-quote (AWS CLI)

• Confirm-EC2ReservedInstancesExchangeQuote (Tools for Windows PowerShell)

Scheduled Reserved Instances

With Scheduled Reserved Instances, you can reserve capacity that is scheduled to recur daily, weekly, or
monthly, with a specified start time and duration, for a one-year term. After you complete your purchase,
the instances are available to launch during the time windows that you specified.
Important
You cannot purchase Scheduled Reserved Instances at this time. AWS does not have any
capacity available for Scheduled Reserved Instances or any plans to make it available in the
future. To reserve capacity, use On-Demand Capacity Reservations (p. 370) instead. For
discounted rates, use Savings Plans.

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Spot Instances
A Spot Instance is an instance that uses spare EC2 capacity that is available for less than the On-Demand
price. Because Spot Instances enable you to request unused EC2 instances at steep discounts, you can
lower your Amazon EC2 costs significantly. The hourly price for a Spot Instance is called a Spot price. The
Spot price of each instance type in each Availability Zone is set by Amazon EC2, and is adjusted gradually
based on the long-term supply of and demand for Spot Instances. Your Spot Instance runs whenever
capacity is available and the maximum price per hour for your request exceeds the Spot price.

Spot Instances are a cost-effective choice if you can be flexible about when your applications run and if
your applications can be interrupted. For example, Spot Instances are well-suited for data analysis, batch
jobs, background processing, and optional tasks. For more information, see Amazon EC2 Spot Instances.

Topics

• Concepts (p. 284)

• How to get started (p. 285)
• Related services (p. 286)
• Pricing and savings (p. 286)

Concepts
Before you get started with Spot Instances, you should be familiar with the following concepts:

• Spot capacity pool – A set of unused EC2 instances with the same instance type (for example,
m5.large) and Availability Zone.
• Spot price – The current price of a Spot Instance per hour.
• Spot Instance request – Requests a Spot Instance. The request provides the maximum price per hour
that you are willing to pay for a Spot Instance. If you don't specify a maximum price, the default
maximum price is the On-Demand price. When the maximum price per hour for your request exceeds
the Spot price, Amazon EC2 fulfills your request if capacity is available. A Spot Instance request is
either one-time or persistent. Amazon EC2 automatically resubmits a persistent Spot Instance request
after the Spot Instance associated with the request is terminated.
• EC2 instance rebalance recommendation - Amazon EC2 emits an instance rebalance recommendation
signal to notify you that a Spot Instance is at an elevated risk of interruption. This signal gives you the
opportunity to proactively rebalance your workloads across existing or new Spot Instances without
having to wait for the two-minute Spot Instance interruption notice.
• Spot Instance interruption – Amazon EC2 terminates, stops, or hibernates your Spot Instance when
Amazon EC2 needs the capacity back or the Spot price exceeds the maximum price for your request.
Amazon EC2 provides a Spot Instance interruption notice, which gives the instance a two-minute
warning before it is interrupted.

Key differences between Spot Instances and On-Demand Instances

The following table lists the key differences between Spot Instances and On-Demand Instances.

  Spot Instances On-Demand Instances

Launch time Can only be launched immediately if Can only be launched immediately if
the Spot Instance request is active and you make a manual launch request and
capacity is available. capacity is available.

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  Spot Instances On-Demand Instances

Available If capacity is not available, the If capacity is not available when you
capacity Spot Instance request continues to make a launch request, you get an
automatically make the launch request insufficient capacity error (ICE).
until capacity becomes available.

Hourly price The hourly price for Spot Instances varies The hourly price for On-Demand
based on demand. Instances is static.

Rebalance The signal that Amazon EC2 emits for a You determine when an On-Demand
recommendation running Spot Instance when the instance Instance is interrupted (stopped,
is at an elevated risk of interruption. hibernated, or terminated).

Instance You can stop and start an Amazon You determine when an On-Demand
interruption EBS-backed Spot Instance. In addition, Instance is interrupted (stopped,
the Amazon EC2 Spot service can hibernated, or terminated).
interrupt (p. 319) an individual Spot
Instance if capacity is no longer available,
the Spot price exceeds your maximum
price, or demand for Spot Instances
increases.

Strategies for using Spot Instances

One strategy is to maintain a minimum level of guaranteed compute resources for your applications by
launching a core group of On-Demand Instances, and supplementing them with Spot Instances when the
opportunity arises.

Compare On-Demand and Spot Instances

How to get started

The first thing you need to do is get set up to use Amazon EC2. It can also be helpful to have experience
launching On-Demand Instances before launching Spot Instances.

Get up and running

• Set up to use Amazon EC2 (p. 5)

• Tutorial: Get started with Amazon EC2 Windows instances (p. 9)

Spot basics

• How Spot Instances work (p. 289)

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Working with Spot Instances

• Prepare for interruptions (p. 323)

• Create a Spot Instance request (p. 297)
• Get request status information (p. 314)

Related services
You can provision Spot Instances directly using Amazon EC2. You can also provision Spot Instances using
other services in AWS. For more information, see the following documentation.

Amazon EC2 Auto Scaling and Spot Instances

You can create launch templates or configurations with the maximum price that you are willing
to pay, so that Amazon EC2 Auto Scaling can launch Spot Instances. For more information, see
Requesting Spot Instances for fault-tolerant and flexible applications and Auto Scaling groups with
multiple instance types and purchase options in the Amazon EC2 Auto Scaling User Guide.
Amazon EMR and Spot Instances

There are scenarios where it can be useful to run Spot Instances in an Amazon EMR cluster. For
more information, see Spot Instances and When Should You Use Spot Instances in the Amazon EMR
Management Guide.
AWS CloudFormation templates

AWS CloudFormation enables you to create and manage a collection of AWS resources using
a template in JSON format. AWS CloudFormation templates can include the maximum price
you are willing to pay. For more information, see EC2 Spot Instance Updates - Auto Scaling and
CloudFormation Integration.
AWS SDK for Java

You can use the Java programming language to manage your Spot Instances. For more information,
see Tutorial: Amazon EC2 Spot Instances and Tutorial: Advanced Amazon EC2 Spot Request
Management.
AWS SDK for .NET

You can use the .NET programming environment to manage your Spot Instances. For more
information, see Tutorial: Amazon EC2 Spot Instances.

Pricing and savings

You pay the Spot price for Spot Instances, which is set by Amazon EC2 and adjusted gradually based on
the long-term supply of and demand for Spot Instances. If the maximum price for your request exceeds
the current Spot price, Amazon EC2 fulfills your request if capacity is available. Your Spot Instances run
until you terminate them, capacity is no longer available, the Spot price exceeds your maximum price, or
your Amazon EC2 Auto Scaling group terminates them during scale in.

If you or Amazon EC2 interrupts a running Spot Instance, you are charged for the seconds used or the full
hour, or you receive no charge, depending on the operating system used and who interrupted the Spot
Instance. For more information, see Billing for interrupted Spot Instances (p. 326).

View prices
To view the current (updated every five minutes) lowest Spot price per AWS Region and instance type,
see the Amazon EC2 Spot Instances Pricing page.

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To view the Spot price history for the past three months, use the Amazon EC2 console or the
describe-spot-price-history command (AWS CLI). For more information, see Spot Instance pricing
history (p. 291).

We independently map Availability Zones to codes for each AWS account. Therefore, you can get
different results for the same Availability Zone code (for example, us-west-2a) between different
accounts.

View savings
You can view the savings made from using Spot Instances for a single Spot Fleet or for all Spot Instances.
You can view the savings made in the last hour or the last three days, and you can view the average cost
per vCPU hour and per memory (GiB) hour. Savings are estimated and may differ from actual savings
because they do not include the billing adjustments for your usage. For more information about viewing
savings information, see Savings from purchasing Spot Instances (p. 292).

View billing
Your bill provides details about your service usage. For more information, see Viewing your bill in the
AWS Billing and Cost Management User Guide.

Best practices for EC2 Spot

Amazon EC2 Spot Instances are spare EC2 compute capacity in the AWS Cloud that are available to you
at savings of up to 90% off compared to On-Demand prices. The only difference between On-Demand
Instances and Spot Instances is that Spot Instances can be interrupted by Amazon EC2, with two minutes
of notification, when Amazon EC2 needs the capacity back.

Spot Instances are recommended for stateless, fault-tolerant, flexible applications. For example,
Spot Instances work well for big data, containerized workloads, CI/CD, stateless web servers, high
performance computing (HPC), and rendering workloads.

While running, Spot Instances are exactly the same as On-Demand Instances. However, Spot does
not guarantee that you can keep your running instances long enough to finish your workloads. Spot
also does not guarantee that you can get immediate availability of the instances that you are looking
for, or that you can always get the aggregate capacity that you requested. Moreover, Spot Instance
interruptions and capacity can change over time because Spot Instance availability varies based on
supply and demand, and past performance isn’t a guarantee of future results.

Spot Instances are not suitable for workloads that are inflexible, stateful, fault-intolerant, or tightly
coupled between instance nodes. It's also not recommended for workloads that are intolerant of
occasional periods when the target capacity is not completely available. We strongly warn against
using Spot Instances for these workloads or attempting to fail-over to On-Demand Instances to handle
interruptions.

Regardless of whether you're an experienced Spot user or new to Spot Instances, if you are currently
experiencing issues with Spot Instance interruptions or availability, we recommend that you follow these
best practices to have the best experience using the Spot service.

Spot best practices

• Prepare individual instances for interruptions (p. 288)
• Be flexible about instance types and Availability Zones (p. 288)
• Use EC2 Auto Scaling groups or Spot Fleet to manage your aggregate capacity (p. 288)
• Use the capacity optimized allocation strategy (p. 288)
• Use proactive capacity rebalancing (p. 289)
• Use integrated AWS services to manage your Spot Instances (p. 289)

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Prepare individual instances for interruptions

The best way for you to gracefully handle Spot Instance interruptions is to architect your application
to be fault-tolerant. To accomplish this, you can take advantage of EC2 instance rebalance
recommendations and Spot Instance interruption notices.

An EC2 Instance rebalance recommendation is a new signal that notifies you when a Spot Instance is
at elevated risk of interruption. The signal gives you the opportunity to proactively manage the Spot
Instance in advance of the two-minute Spot Instance interruption notice. You can decide to rebalance
your workload to new or existing Spot Instances that are not at an elevated risk of interruption. We've
made it easy for you to use this new signal by using the Capacity Rebalancing feature in Auto Scaling
groups and Spot Fleet. For more information, see Use proactive capacity rebalancing (p. 289).

A Spot Instance interruption notice is a warning that is issued two minutes before Amazon EC2 interrupts
a Spot Instance. If your workload is "time-flexible," you can configure your Spot Instances to be stopped
or hibernated, instead of being terminated, when they are interrupted. Amazon EC2 automatically stops
or hibernates your Spot Instances on interruption, and automatically resumes the instances when we
have available capacity.

We recommend that you create a rule in Amazon EventBridge that captures the rebalance
recommendations and interruption notifications, and then triggers a checkpoint for the progress of
your workload or gracefully handles the interruption. For more information, see Monitor rebalance
recommendation signals (p. 317). For a detailed example that walks you through how to create and use
event rules, see Taking Advantage of Amazon EC2 Spot Instance Interruption Notices.

For more information, see EC2 instance rebalance recommendations (p. 316) and Spot Instance
interruptions (p. 319).

Be flexible about instance types and Availability Zones

A Spot capacity pool is a set of unused EC2 instances with the same instance type (for example,
m5.large) and Availability Zone (for example, us-east-1a). You should be flexible about which instance
types you request and in which Availability Zones you can deploy your workload. This gives Spot a better
chance to find and allocate your required amount of compute capacity. For example, don't just ask for
c5.large if you'd be willing to use larges from the c4, m5, and m4 families.

Depending on your specific needs, you can evaluate which instance types you can be flexible across
to fulfill your compute requirements. If a workload can be vertically scaled, you should include larger
instance types (more vCPUs and memory) in your requests. If you can only scale horizontally, you should
include older generation instance types because they are less in demand from On-Demand customers.

A good rule of thumb is to be flexible across at least 10 instance types for each workload. In addition,
make sure that all Availability Zones are configured for use in your VPC and selected for your workload.

Use EC2 Auto Scaling groups or Spot Fleet to manage your aggregate capacity
Spot enables you to think in terms of aggregate capacity—in units that include vCPUs, memory, storage,
or network throughput—rather than thinking in terms of individual instances. Auto Scaling groups and
Spot Fleet enable you to launch and maintain a target capacity, and to automatically request resources
to replace any that are disrupted or manually terminated. When you configure an Auto Scaling group
or a Spot Fleet, you need only specify the instance types and target capacity based on your application
needs. For more information, see Auto Scaling groups in the Amazon EC2 Auto Scaling User Guide and
Create a Spot Fleet request (p. 734) in this user guide.

Use the capacity optimized allocation strategy

Allocation strategies in Auto Scaling groups help you to provision your target capacity without the need
to manually look for the Spot capacity pools with spare capacity. We recommend using the capacity

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optimized strategy because this strategy automatically provisions instances from the most-available
Spot capacity pools. You can also take advantage of the capacity optimized allocation strategy
in Spot Fleet. Because your Spot Instance capacity is sourced from pools with optimal capacity, this
decreases the possibility that your Spot Instances are reclaimed. For more information about allocation
strategies, see Spot Instances in the Amazon EC2 Auto Scaling User Guide and Configure Spot Fleet for
capacity optimization (p. 723) in this user guide.

Use proactive capacity rebalancing

Capacity Rebalancing helps you maintain workload availability by proactively augmenting your fleet with
a new Spot Instance before a running Spot Instance receives the two-minute Spot Instance interruption
notice. When Capacity Rebalancing is enabled, Auto Scaling or Spot Fleet attempts to proactively replace
Spot Instances that have received a rebalance recommendation, providing the opportunity to rebalance
your workload to new Spot Instances that are not at elevated risk of interruption.

Capacity Rebalancing complements the capacity optimized allocation strategy (which is designed to
help find the most optimal spare capacity) and the mixed instances policy (which is designed to enhance
availability by deploying instances across multiple instance types running in multiple Availability Zones).

For more information, see Capacity Rebalancing (p. 724).

Use integrated AWS services to manage your Spot Instances

Other AWS services integrate with Spot to reduce overall compute costs without the need to manage
the individual instances or fleets. We recommend that you consider the following solutions for your
applicable workloads: Amazon EMR, Amazon ECS, AWS Batch, Amazon EKS, SageMaker, AWS Elastic
Beanstalk, and Amazon GameLift. To learn more about Spot best practices with these services, see the
Amazon EC2 Spot Instances Workshops Website.

How Spot Instances work

To launch a Spot Instance, either you create a Spot Instance request, or Amazon EC2 creates a Spot
Instance request on your behalf. The Spot Instance launches when the Spot Instance request is fulfilled.

You can launch a Spot Instance using several different services. For more information, see Getting
Started with Amazon EC2 Spot Instances. In this user guide, we describe the following ways to launch a
Spot Instance using EC2:

• You can create a Spot Instance request. For more information, see Create a Spot Instance
request (p. 297).
• You can create an EC2 Fleet, in which you specify the desired number of Spot Instances. Amazon EC2
creates a Spot Instance request on your behalf for every Spot Instance that is specified in the EC2
Fleet. For more information, see Create an EC2 Fleet (p. 710).
• You can create a Spot Fleet request, in which you specify the desired number of Spot Instances.
Amazon EC2 creates a Spot Instance request on your behalf for every Spot Instance that is specified in
the Spot Fleet request. For more information, see Create a Spot Fleet request (p. 734).

The Spot Instance request must include the maximum price that you're willing to pay per hour per
instance. If you don't specify a price, the price defaults to the On-Demand price. The request can include
other constraints such as the instance type and Availability Zone.

Your Spot Instance launches if the maximum price that you're willing to pay exceeds the Spot price, and
if there is available capacity. If the maximum price you're willing to pay is lower than the Spot price, then
your instance does not launch. However, because Amazon EC2 gradually adjusts the Spot price based on
the long-term supply of and demand for Spot Instances, the maximum price you're willing to pay might
eventually exceed the Spot price, in which case your instance will launch.

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Your Spot Instance runs until you stop or terminate it, or until Amazon EC2 interrupts it (known as a Spot
Instance interruption).

When you use Spot Instances, you must be prepared for interruptions. Amazon EC2 can interrupt
your Spot Instance when the demand for Spot Instances rises, when the supply of Spot Instances
decreases, or when the Spot price exceeds your maximum price. When Amazon EC2 interrupts a Spot
Instance, it provides a Spot Instance interruption notice, which gives the instance a two-minute warning
before Amazon EC2 interrupts it. You can't enable termination protection for Spot Instances. For more
information, see Spot Instance interruptions (p. 319).

You can stop, start, reboot, or terminate an Amazon EBS-backed Spot Instance. The Spot service can
stop, terminate, or hibernate a Spot Instance when it interrupts it.

Contents
• Launch Spot Instances in a launch group (p. 290)
• Launch Spot Instances in an Availability Zone group (p. 290)
• Launch Spot Instances in a VPC (p. 291)

Launch Spot Instances in a launch group

Specify a launch group in your Spot Instance request to tell Amazon EC2 to launch a set of Spot
Instances only if it can launch them all. In addition, if the Spot service must terminate one of the
instances in a launch group (for example, if the Spot price exceeds your maximum price), it must
terminate them all. However, if you terminate one or more of the instances in a launch group, Amazon
EC2 does not terminate the remaining instances in the launch group.

Although this option can be useful, adding this constraint can decrease the chances that your Spot
Instance request is fulfilled and increase the chances that your Spot Instances are terminated. For
example, your launch group includes instances in multiple Availability Zones. If capacity in one of these
Availability Zones decreases and is no longer available, then Amazon EC2 terminates all instances for the
launch group.

If you create another successful Spot Instance request that specifies the same (existing) launch group
as an earlier successful request, then the new instances are added to the launch group. Subsequently, if
an instance in this launch group is terminated, all instances in the launch group are terminated, which
includes instances launched by the first and second requests.

Launch Spot Instances in an Availability Zone group

Specify an Availability Zone group in your Spot Instance request to tell the Spot service to launch a
set of Spot Instances in the same Availability Zone. Amazon EC2 need not interrupt all instances in
an Availability Zone group at the same time. If Amazon EC2 must interrupt one of the instances in an
Availability Zone group, the others remain running.

Although this option can be useful, adding this constraint can lower the chances that your Spot Instance
request is fulfilled.

If you specify an Availability Zone group but don't specify an Availability Zone in the Spot Instance
request, the result depends on the network you specified.

Default VPC

Amazon EC2 uses the Availability Zone for the specified subnet. If you don't specify a subnet, it selects
an Availability Zone and its default subnet, but not necessarily the lowest-priced zone. If you deleted the
default subnet for an Availability Zone, then you must specify a different subnet.

Nondefault VPC

Amazon EC2 uses the Availability Zone for the specified subnet.

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Launch Spot Instances in a VPC

You specify a subnet for your Spot Instances the same way that you specify a subnet for your On-
Demand Instances.

• You should use the default maximum price (the On-Demand price), or base your maximum price on the
Spot price history of Spot Instances in a VPC.
• [Default VPC] If you want your Spot Instance launched in a specific low-priced Availability Zone, you
must specify the corresponding subnet in your Spot Instance request. If you do not specify a subnet,
Amazon EC2 selects one for you, and the Availability Zone for this subnet might not have the lowest
Spot price.
• [Nondefault VPC] You must specify the subnet for your Spot Instance.

Spot Instance pricing history

Spot Instance prices are set by Amazon EC2 and adjust gradually based on long-term trends in supply
and demand for Spot Instance capacity.

When you request Spot Instances, we recommend that you use the default maximum price (the On-
Demand price). When your request is fulfilled, your Spot Instances launch at the current Spot price,
not exceeding the On-Demand price. If you want to specify a maximum price, we recommend that you
first review the Spot price history. You can view the Spot price history for the last 90 days, filtering by
instance type, operating system, and Availability Zone.

To view the current Spot prices

For the current Spot Instance prices, see Amazon EC2 Spot Instances Pricing.

To view the Spot price history (console)

1. Open the Amazon EC2 console at https://console.aws.amazon.com/ec2/.

2. In the navigation pane, choose Spot Requests.
3. Choose Pricing history.
4. For Graph, choose to compare the price history by Availability Zones or by Instance Types.

• If you choose Availability Zones, then choose the Instance type, operating system (Platform),
and Date range for which to view the price history.
• If you choose Instance Types, then choose up to five Instance type(s), the Availability Zone,
operating system (Platform), and Date range for which to view the price history.

The following screenshot shows a price comparison for different instance types.

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5. Move your pointer over the graph to display the prices at specific times in the selected date range.
The prices are displayed in the information blocks above the graph. The price displayed in the top
row shows the price on a specific date. The price displayed in the second row shows the average
price over the selected date range.
6. To display the price per vCPU, toggle on Display normalized prices. To display the price for the
instance type, toggle off Display normalized prices.

To view the Spot price history using the command line

You can use one of the following commands. For more information, see Access Amazon EC2 (p. 3).

• describe-spot-price-history (AWS CLI)

• Get-EC2SpotPriceHistory (AWS Tools for Windows PowerShell)

Savings from purchasing Spot Instances

You can view the usage and savings information for Spot Instances at the per-fleet level, or for all
running Spot Instances. At the per-fleet level, the usage and savings information includes all instances
launched and terminated by the fleet. You can view this information from the last hour or the last three
days.

The following screenshot from the Savings section shows the Spot usage and savings information for a
Spot Fleet.

You can view the following usage and savings information:

• Spot Instances – The number of Spot Instances launched and terminated by the Spot Fleet. When
viewing the savings summary, the number represents all your running Spot Instances.
• vCPU-hours – The number of vCPU hours used across all the Spot Instances for the selected time
frame.
• Mem(GiB)-hours – The number of GiB hours used across all the Spot Instances for the selected time
frame.
• On-Demand total – The total amount you would've paid for the selected time frame had you launched
these instances as On-Demand Instances.
• Spot total – The total amount to pay for the selected time frame.
• Savings – The percentage that you are saving by not paying the On-Demand price.
• Average cost per vCPU-hour – The average hourly cost of using the vCPUs across all the Spot
Instances for the selected time frame, calculated as follows: Average cost per vCPU-hour = Spot total
/ vCPU-hours.

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• Average cost per mem(GiB)-hour – The average hourly cost of using the GiBs across all the Spot
Instances for the selected time frame, calculated as follows: Average cost per mem(GiB)-hour = Spot
total / Mem(GiB)-hours.
• Details table – The different instance types (the number of instances per instance type is in
parentheses) that comprise the Spot Fleet. When viewing the savings summary, these comprise all
your running Spot Instances.

Savings information can only be viewed using the Amazon EC2 console.

To view the savings information for a Spot Fleet (console)

1. Open the Amazon EC2 console at https://console.aws.amazon.com/ec2/.

2. On the navigation pane, choose Spot Requests.
3. Select the ID of a Spot Fleet request and scroll to the Savings section.

Alternatively, select the check box next to the Spot Fleet request ID and choose the Savings tab.
4. By default, the page displays usage and savings information for the last three days. You can choose
last hour or the last three days. For Spot Fleets that were launched less than an hour ago, the page
shows the estimated savings for the hour.

To view the savings information for all running Spot Instances (console)

1. Open the Amazon EC2 console at https://console.aws.amazon.com/ec2/.

2. On the navigation pane, choose Spot Requests.
3. Choose Savings summary.

Spot Instance requests

To use Spot Instances, you create a Spot Instance request that includes the desired number of instances,
the instance type, the Availability Zone, and the maximum price that you are willing to pay per
instance hour. If your maximum price exceeds the current Spot price, Amazon EC2 fulfills your request
immediately if capacity is available. Otherwise, Amazon EC2 waits until your request can be fulfilled or
until you cancel the request.

The following illustration shows how Spot Instance requests work. Notice that the request type (one-
time or persistent) determines whether the request is opened again when Amazon EC2 interrupts a Spot
Instance or if you stop a Spot Instance. If the request is persistent, the request is opened again after your
Spot Instance is interrupted. If the request is persistent and you stop your Spot Instance, the request only
opens after you start your Spot Instance.

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Contents
• Spot Instance request states (p. 294)
• Define a duration for your Spot Instances (p. 295)
• Specify a tenancy for your Spot Instances (p. 295)
• Service-linked role for Spot Instance requests (p. 296)
• Create a Spot Instance request (p. 297)
• Find running Spot Instances (p. 300)
• Tag Spot Instance requests (p. 301)
• Cancel a Spot Instance request (p. 306)
• Stop a Spot Instance (p. 306)
• Start a Spot Instance (p. 307)
• Terminate a Spot Instance (p. 308)
• Spot Instance request example launch specifications (p. 309)

Spot Instance request states

A Spot Instance request can be in one of the following states:

• open – The request is waiting to be fulfilled.

• active – The request is fulfilled and has an associated Spot Instance.
• failed – The request has one or more bad parameters.
• closed – The Spot Instance was interrupted or terminated.
• disabled – You stopped the Spot Instance.
• cancelled – You canceled the request, or the request expired.

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The following illustration represents the transitions between the request states. Notice that the
transitions depend on the request type (one-time or persistent).

A one-time Spot Instance request remains active until Amazon EC2 launches the Spot Instance, the
request expires, or you cancel the request. If the Spot price exceeds your maximum price or capacity is
not available, your Spot Instance is terminated and the Spot Instance request is closed.

A persistent Spot Instance request remains active until it expires or you cancel it, even if the request is
fulfilled. If the Spot price exceeds your maximum price or capacity is not available, your Spot Instance
is interrupted. After your instance is interrupted, when your maximum price exceeds the Spot price or
capacity becomes available again, the Spot Instance is started if stopped or resumed if hibernated. You
can stop a Spot Instance and start it again if capacity is available and your maximum price exceeds the
current Spot price. If the Spot Instance is terminated (irrespective of whether the Spot Instance is in a
stopped or running state), the Spot Instance request is opened again and Amazon EC2 launches a new
Spot Instance. For more information, see Stop a Spot Instance (p. 306), Start a Spot Instance (p. 307),
and Terminate a Spot Instance (p. 308).

You can track the status of your Spot Instance requests, as well as the status of the Spot Instances
launched, through the status. For more information, see Spot request status (p. 311).

Define a duration for your Spot Instances

Spot Instances with a defined duration (also known as Spot blocks) are no longer available to new
customers from July 1, 2021. For customers who have previously used the feature, we will continue to
support Spot Instances with a defined duration until December 31, 2022.

Specify a tenancy for your Spot Instances

You can run a Spot Instance on single-tenant hardware. Dedicated Spot Instances are physically
isolated from instances that belong to other AWS accounts. For more information, see Dedicated
Instances (p. 363) and the Amazon EC2 Dedicated Instances product page.

To run a Dedicated Spot Instance, do one of the following:

• Specify a tenancy of dedicated when you create the Spot Instance request. For more information,
see Create a Spot Instance request (p. 297).

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• Request a Spot Instance in a VPC with an instance tenancy of dedicated. For more information, see
Create a VPC with an instance tenancy of dedicated (p. 366). You cannot request a Spot Instance with
a tenancy of default if you request it in a VPC with an instance tenancy of dedicated.

All instance families support Dedicated Spot Instances except T instances. For each supported instance
family, only the largest instance size or metal size supports Dedicated Spot Instances.

Service-linked role for Spot Instance requests

Amazon EC2 uses service-linked roles for the permissions that it requires to call other AWS services on
your behalf. A service-linked role is a unique type of IAM role that is linked directly to an AWS service.
Service-linked roles provide a secure way to delegate permissions to AWS services because only the
linked service can assume a service-linked role. For more information, see Using Service-Linked Roles in
the IAM User Guide.

Amazon EC2 uses the service-linked role named AWSServiceRoleForEC2Spot to launch and manage
Spot Instances on your behalf.

Permissions granted by AWSServiceRoleForEC2Spot

Amazon EC2 uses AWSServiceRoleForEC2Spot to complete the following actions:

• ec2:DescribeInstances – Describe Spot Instances

• ec2:StopInstances – Stop Spot Instances
• ec2:StartInstances – Start Spot Instances

Create the service-linked role

Under most circumstances, you don't need to manually create a service-linked role. Amazon EC2 creates
the AWSServiceRoleForEC2Spot service-linked role the first time you request a Spot Instance using the
console.

If you had an active Spot Instance request before October 2017, when Amazon EC2 began supporting
this service-linked role, Amazon EC2 created the AWSServiceRoleForEC2Spot role in your AWS account.
For more information, see A New Role Appeared in My Account in the IAM User Guide.

If you use the AWS CLI or an API to request a Spot Instance, you must first ensure that this role exists.

To create AWSServiceRoleForEC2Spot using the console

1. Open the IAM console at https://console.aws.amazon.com/iam/.

2. In the navigation pane, choose Roles.
3. Choose Create role.
4. On the Select type of trusted entity page, choose EC2, EC2 - Spot Instances, Next: Permissions.
5. On the next page, choose Next:Review.
6. On the Review page, choose Create role.

To create AWSServiceRoleForEC2Spot using the AWS CLI

Use the create-service-linked-role command as follows.

aws iam create-service-linked-role --aws-service-name spot.amazonaws.com

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If you no longer need to use Spot Instances, we recommend that you delete the
AWSServiceRoleForEC2Spot role. After this role is deleted from your account, Amazon EC2 will create
the role again if you request Spot Instances.

Grant access to customer managed keys for use with encrypted AMIs and EBS snapshots
If you specify an encrypted AMI (p. 130) or an encrypted Amazon EBS snapshot (p. 1340) for
your Spot Instances and you use a customer managed key for encryption, you must grant the
AWSServiceRoleForEC2Spot role permission to use the customer managed key so that Amazon EC2 can
launch Spot Instances on your behalf. To do this, you must add a grant to the customer managed key, as
shown in the following procedure.

When providing permissions, grants are an alternative to key policies. For more information, see Using
Grants and Using Key Policies in AWS KMS in the AWS Key Management Service Developer Guide.

To grant the AWSServiceRoleForEC2Spot role permissions to use the customer managed key

• Use the create-grant command to add a grant to the customer managed key and to specify the
principal (the AWSServiceRoleForEC2Spot service-linked role) that is given permission to perform
the operations that the grant permits. The customer managed key is specified by the key-id
parameter and the ARN of the customer managed key. The principal is specified by the grantee-
principal parameter and the ARN of the AWSServiceRoleForEC2Spot service-linked role.

aws kms create-grant \

--region us-east-1 \
--key-id arn:aws:kms:us-
east-1:444455556666:key/1234abcd-12ab-34cd-56ef-1234567890ab \
--grantee-principal arn:aws:iam::111122223333:role/AWSServiceRoleForEC2Spot \
--operations "Decrypt" "Encrypt" "GenerateDataKey"
"GenerateDataKeyWithoutPlaintext" "CreateGrant" "DescribeKey" "ReEncryptFrom"
"ReEncryptTo"

Create a Spot Instance request

The procedure for requesting a Spot Instance is similar to the procedure for launching an On-Demand
Instance. You can request a Spot Instance in the following ways:

• To request a Spot Instance using the console, use the launch instance wizard. For more information,
see To create a Spot Instance request (console) (p. 298).
• To request a Spot Instance using the CLI, use the request-spot-instances command or the run-instances
command. For more information, see To create a Spot Instance request using request-spot-instances
(CLI) and To create a Spot Instance request using run-instances (CLI).

After you've submitted your Spot Instance request, you can't change the parameters of the request. This
means that you can't make changes to the maximum price that you're willing to pay.

If you request multiple Spot Instances at one time, Amazon EC2 creates separate Spot Instance requests
so that you can track the status of each request separately. For more information about tracking Spot
Instance requests, see Spot request status (p. 311).

To launch a fleet that includes Spot Instances and On-Demand Instances, see Create a Spot Fleet
request (p. 734).
Note
You can't launch a Spot Instance and an On-Demand Instance in the same call using the launch
instance wizard or the run-instances command.

Prerequisites

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Before you begin, decide on your maximum price, how many Spot Instances you'd like, and what instance
type to use. To review Spot price trends, see Spot Instance pricing history (p. 291).

To create a Spot Instance request (console)

1. Open the Amazon EC2 console at https://console.aws.amazon.com/ec2/.

2. In the navigation bar at the top of the screen, select a Region.
3. From the Amazon EC2 console dashboard, choose Launch Instance.
4. On the Choose an Amazon Machine Image (AMI) page, choose an AMI. For more information, see
Step 1: Choose an Amazon Machine Image (AMI) (p. 396).
5. On the Choose an Instance Type page, select the hardware configuration and size of the instance
to launch, and then choose Next: Configure Instance Details. For more information, see Step 2:
Choose an Instance Type (p. 397).
6. On the Configure Instance Details page, configure the Spot Instance request as follows:

• Number of instances: Enter the number of instances to launch.

Note
Amazon EC2 creates a separate request for each Spot Instance.
• (Optional) To help ensure that you maintain the correct number of instances to handle demand
on your application, you can choose Launch into Auto Scaling Group to create a launch
configuration and an Auto Scaling group. Auto Scaling scales the number of instances in the group
according to your specifications. For more information, see the Amazon EC2 Auto Scaling User
Guide.
• Purchasing option: Choose Request Spot instances to launch a Spot Instance. When you choose
this option, the following fields appear.
• Current price: The current Spot price in each Availability Zone is displayed for the instance type
that you selected.
• (Optional) Maximum price: You can leave the field empty, or you can specify the maximum
amount you're willing to pay.
• If you leave the field empty, then the maximum price defaults to the current On-Demand price.
Your Spot Instance launches at the current Spot price, not exceeding the On-Demand price.
• If you specify a maximum price that is more than the current Spot Price, your Spot Instance
launches and is charged at the current Spot price.
• If you specify a maximum price that is lower than the Spot price, your Spot Instance is not
launched.
• Persistent request: Choose Persistent request to resubmit the Spot Instance request if your Spot
Instance is interrupted.
• Interruption behavior: By default, the Spot service terminates a Spot Instance when it is
interrupted. If you choose Persistent request, you can then specify that the Spot service stops
or hibernates your Spot Instance when it's interrupted. For more information, see Interruption
behaviors (p. 320).
• (Optional) Request valid to: Choose Edit to specify when the Spot Instance request expires.

For more information about configuring your Spot Instance, see Step 3: Configure Instance
Details (p. 398).
7. The AMI you selected includes one or more volumes of storage, including the root device volume. On
the Add Storage page, you can specify additional volumes to attach to the instance by choosing Add
New Volume. For more information, see Step 4: Add Storage (p. 400).
8. On the Add Tags page, specify tags (p. 1463) by providing key and value combinations. For more
information, see Step 5: Add Tags (p. 400).
9. On the Configure Security Group page, use a security group to define firewall rules for your
instance. These rules specify which incoming network traffic is delivered to your instance. All other

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traffic is ignored. (For more information about security groups, see Amazon EC2 security groups
for Windows instances (p. 1148).) Select or create a security group, and then choose Review and
Launch. For more information, see Step 6: Configure Security Group (p. 401).
10. On the Review Instance Launch page, check the details of your instance, and make any necessary
changes by choosing the appropriate Edit link. When you are ready, choose Launch. For more
information, see Step 7: Review Instance Launch and Select Key Pair (p. 401).
11. In the Select an existing key pair or create a new key pair dialog box, you can choose an existing
key pair, or create a new one. For example, choose Choose an existing key pair, then select the key
pair that you created when getting set up. For more information, see Amazon EC2 key pairs and
Windows instances (p. 1140).
Important
If you choose the Proceed without key pair option, you won't be able to connect to the
instance unless you choose an AMI that is configured to allow users another way to log in.
12. To launch your instance, select the acknowledgment check box, then choose Launch Instances.

If the instance fails to launch or the state immediately goes to terminated instead of running, see
Troubleshoot instance launch issues (p. 1478).

To create a Spot Instance request using request-spot-instances (AWS CLI)

Use the request-spot-instances command to create a one-time request.

aws ec2 request-spot-instances \

--instance-count 5 \
--type "one-time" \
--launch-specification file://specification.json

Use the request-spot-instances command to create a persistent request.

aws ec2 request-spot-instances \

--instance-count 5 \
--type "persistent" \
--launch-specification file://specification.json

For example launch specification files to use with these commands, see Spot Instance request example
launch specifications (p. 309). If you download a launch specification file from the console, you must
use the request-spot-fleet command instead (the console specifies a Spot Instance request using a Spot
Fleet).

To create a Spot Instance request using run-instances (AWS CLI)

Use the run-instances command and specify the Spot Instance options in the --instance-market-
options parameter.

aws ec2 run-instances \

--image-id ami-0abcdef1234567890 \
--instance-type t2.micro \
--count 5 \
--subnet-id subnet-08fc749671b2d077c \
--key-name MyKeyPair \
--security-group-ids sg-0b0384b66d7d692f9 \
--instance-market-options file://spot-options.json

The following is the data structure to specify in the JSON file for --instance-market-options. You
can also specify ValidUntil and InstanceInterruptionBehavior. If you do not specify a field in
the data structure, the default value is used. This example creates a one-time request and specifies
0.02 as the maximum price you're willing to pay for the Spot Instance.

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{
"MarketType": "spot",
"SpotOptions": {
"MaxPrice": "0.02",
"SpotInstanceType": "one-time"
}
}

Find running Spot Instances

Amazon EC2 launches a Spot Instance when the maximum price exceeds the Spot price and capacity is
available. A Spot Instance runs until it is interrupted or you terminate it yourself. If your maximum price
is exactly equal to the Spot price, there is a chance that your Spot Instance remains running, depending
on demand.

To find running Spot Instances (console)

1. Open the Amazon EC2 console at https://console.aws.amazon.com/ec2/.

2. In the navigation pane, choose Spot Requests. You can see both Spot Instance requests and Spot
Fleet requests. If a Spot Instance request has been fulfilled, Capacity is the ID of the Spot Instance.
For a Spot Fleet, Capacity indicates how much of the requested capacity has been fulfilled. To view
the IDs of the instances in a Spot Fleet, choose the expand arrow, or select the fleet and choose
Instances.
Note
For Spot Instance requests that are created by a Spot Fleet, the requests are not tagged
instantly with the system tag that indicates the Spot Fleet to which they belong, and for a
period of time may appear separate from Spot Fleet request.

Alternatively, in the navigation pane, choose Instances. In the top right corner, choose the settings

icon ( ), and then under Attribute columns, select Instance lifecycle. For each instance, Instance
lifecycle is either normal, spot, or scheduled.

To find running Spot Instances (AWS CLI)

To enumerate your Spot Instances, use the describe-spot-instance-requests command with the --query
option.

aws ec2 describe-spot-instance-requests \

--query "SpotInstanceRequests[*].{ID:InstanceId}"

The following is example output:

[
{
"ID": "i-1234567890abcdef0"
},
{
"ID": "i-0598c7d356eba48d7"
}
]

Alternatively, you can enumerate your Spot Instances using the describe-instances command with the --
filters option.

aws ec2 describe-instances \

--filters "Name=instance-lifecycle,Values=spot"

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To describe a single Spot Instance instance, use the describe-spot-instance-requests command with the
--spot-instance-request-ids option.

aws ec2 describe-spot-instance-requests \

--spot-instance-request-ids sir-08b93456

Tag Spot Instance requests

To help categorize and manage your Spot Instance requests, you can tag them with custom metadata.
You can assign a tag to a Spot Instance request when you create it, or afterward. You can assign tags
using the Amazon EC2 console or a command line tool.

When you tag a Spot Instance request, the instances and volumes that are launched by the Spot Instance
request are not automatically tagged. You need to explicitly tag the instances and volumes launched
by the Spot Instance request. You can assign a tag to a Spot Instance and volumes during launch, or
afterward.

For more information about how tags work, see Tag your Amazon EC2 resources (p. 1463).

Contents
• Prerequisites (p. 301)
• Tag a new Spot Instance request (p. 303)
• Tag an existing Spot Instance request (p. 303)
• View Spot Instance request tags (p. 304)

Prerequisites
Grant the IAM user the permission to tag resources. For more information about IAM policies and
example policies, see Example: Tag resources (p. 1111).

The IAM policy you create is determined by which method you use for creating a Spot Instance request.

• If you use the launch instance wizard or run-instances to request Spot Instances, see To grant an
IAM user the permission to tag resources when using the launch instance wizard or run-instances.
• If you use the request-spot-instances command to request Spot Instances, see To grant an IAM
user the permission to tag resources when using request-spot-instances.

To grant an IAM user the permission to tag resources when using the launch instance wizard or run-
instances

Create a IAM policy that includes the following:

• The ec2:RunInstances action. This grants the IAM user permission to launch an instance.
• For Resource, specify spot-instances-request. This allows users to create Spot Instance
requests, which request Spot Instances.
• The ec2:CreateTags action. This grants the IAM user permission to create tags.
• For Resource, specify *. This allows users to tag all resources that are created during instance launch.

{
"Version": "2012-10-17",
"Statement": [
{
"Sid": "AllowLaunchInstances",
"Effect": "Allow",
"Action": [

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"ec2:RunInstances"
],
"Resource": [
"arn:aws:ec2:us-east-1::image/*",
"arn:aws:ec2:us-east-1:*:subnet/*",
"arn:aws:ec2:us-east-1:*:network-interface/*",
"arn:aws:ec2:us-east-1:*:security-group/*",
"arn:aws:ec2:us-east-1:*:key-pair/*",
"arn:aws:ec2:us-east-1:*:volume/*",
"arn:aws:ec2:us-east-1:*:instance/*",
"arn:aws:ec2:us-east-1:*:spot-instances-request/*"
]
},
{
"Sid": "TagSpotInstanceRequests",
"Effect": "Allow",
"Action": "ec2:CreateTags",
"Resource": "*"
}
]
}

Note
When you use the RunInstances action to create Spot Instance requests and tag the Spot
Instance requests on create, you need to be aware of how Amazon EC2 evaluates the spot-
instances-request resource in the RunInstances statement.
The spot-instances-request resource is evaluated in the IAM policy as follows:

• If you don't tag a Spot Instance request on create, Amazon EC2 does not evaluate the spot-
instances-request resource in the RunInstances statement.
• If you tag a Spot Instance request on create, Amazon EC2 evaluates the spot-instances-
request resource in the RunInstances statement.

Therefore, for the spot-instances-request resource, the following rules apply to the IAM
policy:

• If you use RunInstances to create a Spot Instance request and you don't intend to tag the Spot
Instance request on create, you don’t need to explicitly allow the spot-instances-request
resource; the call will succeed.
• If you use RunInstances to create a Spot Instance request and intend to tag the Spot Instance
request on create, you must include the spot-instances-request resource in the
RunInstances allow statement, otherwise the call will fail.
• If you use RunInstances to create a Spot Instance request and intend to tag the Spot Instance
request on create, you must specify the spot-instances-request resource or include a *
wildcard in the CreateTags allow statement, otherwise the call will fail.

For example IAM policies, including policies that are not supported for Spot Instance requests,
see Work with Spot Instances (p. 1105).

To grant an IAM user the permission to tag resources when using request-spot-instances

Create a IAM policy that includes the following:

• The ec2:RequestSpotInstances action. This grants the IAM user permission to create a Spot
Instance request.
• The ec2:CreateTags action. This grants the IAM user permission to create tags.
• For Resource, specify spot-instances-request. This allows users to tag only the Spot Instance
request.

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{
"Version": "2012-10-17",
"Statement": [
{
"Sid": "TagSpotInstanceRequest",
"Effect": "Allow",
"Action": [
"ec2:RequestSpotInstances",
"ec2:CreateTags"
],
"Resource": "arn:aws:ec2:us-east-1:111122223333:spot-instances-request/*"
}

Tag a new Spot Instance request

To tag a new Spot Instance request using the console

1. Follow the Create a Spot Instance request (p. 297) procedure.

2. To add a tag, on the Add Tags page, choose Add Tag, and enter the key and value for the tag.
Choose Add another tag for each additional tag.

For each tag, you can tag the Spot Instance request, the Spot Instances, and the volumes with
the same tag. To tag all three, ensure that Instances, Volumes, and Spot Instance Requests are
selected. To tag only one or two, ensure that the resources you want to tag are selected, and the
other resources are cleared.
3. Complete the required fields to create a Spot Instance request, and then choose Launch. For more
information, see Create a Spot Instance request (p. 297).

To tag a new Spot Instance request using the AWS CLI

To tag a Spot Instance request when you create it, configure the Spot Instance request configuration as
follows:

• Specify the tags for the Spot Instance request using the --tag-specification parameter.
• For ResourceType, specify spot-instances-request. If you specify another value, the Spot
Instance request will fail.
• For Tags, specify the key-value pair. You can specify more than one key-value pair.

In the following example, the Spot Instance request is tagged with two tags: Key=Environment and
Value=Production, and Key=Cost-Center and Value=123.

aws ec2 request-spot-instances \

--instance-count 5 \
--type "one-time" \
--launch-specification file://specification.json \
--tag-specification 'ResourceType=spot-instances-
request,Tags=[{Key=Environment,Value=Production},{Key=Cost-Center,Value=123}]'

Tag an existing Spot Instance request

To tag an existing Spot Instance request using the console

After you have created a Spot Instance request, you can add tags to the Spot Instance request using the
console.

1. Open the Spot console at https://console.aws.amazon.com/ec2spot.

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2. Select your Spot Instance request.

3. Choose the Tags tab and choose Create Tag.

To tag an existing Spot Instance using the console

After your Spot Instance request has launched your Spot Instance, you can add tags to the instance using
the console. For more information, see Add and delete tags on an individual resource (p. 1470).

To tag an existing Spot Instance request or Spot Instance using the AWS CLI

Use the create-tags command to tag existing resources. In the following example, the existing Spot
Instance request and the Spot Instance are tagged with Key=purpose and Value=test.

aws ec2 create-tags \

--resources sir-08b93456 i-1234567890abcdef0 \
--tags Key=purpose,Value=test

View Spot Instance request tags

To view Spot Instance request tags using the console

1. Open the Spot console at https://console.aws.amazon.com/ec2spot.

2. Select your Spot Instance request and choose the Tags tab.

To describe Spot Instance request tags

Use the describe-tags command to view the tags for the specified resource. In the following example,
you describe the tags for the specified request.

aws ec2 describe-tags \

--filters "Name=resource-id,Values=sir-11112222-3333-4444-5555-66666EXAMPLE"

{
"Tags": [
{
"Key": "Environment",
"ResourceId": "sir-11112222-3333-4444-5555-66666EXAMPLE",
"ResourceType": "spot-instances-request",
"Value": "Production"
},
{
"Key": "Another key",
"ResourceId": "sir-11112222-3333-4444-5555-66666EXAMPLE",
"ResourceType": "spot-instances-request",
"Value": "Another value"
}
]
}

You can also view the tags of a Spot Instance request by describing the Spot Instance request.

Use the describe-spot-instance-requests command to view the configuration of the specified Spot
Instance request, which includes any tags that were specified for the request.

aws ec2 describe-spot-instance-requests \

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--spot-instance-request-ids sir-11112222-3333-4444-5555-66666EXAMPLE

{
"SpotInstanceRequests": [
{
"CreateTime": "2020-06-24T14:22:11+00:00",
"InstanceId": "i-1234567890EXAMPLE",
"LaunchSpecification": {
"SecurityGroups": [
{
"GroupName": "launch-wizard-6",
"GroupId": "sg-1234567890EXAMPLE"
}
],
"BlockDeviceMappings": [
{
"DeviceName": "/dev/xvda",
"Ebs": {
"DeleteOnTermination": true,
"VolumeSize": 8,
"VolumeType": "gp2"
}
}
],
"ImageId": "ami-1234567890EXAMPLE",
"InstanceType": "t2.micro",
"KeyName": "my-key-pair",
"NetworkInterfaces": [
{
"DeleteOnTermination": true,
"DeviceIndex": 0,
"SubnetId": "subnet-11122233"
}
],
"Placement": {
"AvailabilityZone": "eu-west-1c",
"Tenancy": "default"
},
"Monitoring": {
"Enabled": false
}
},
"LaunchedAvailabilityZone": "eu-west-1c",
"ProductDescription": "Linux/UNIX",
"SpotInstanceRequestId": "sir-1234567890EXAMPLE",
"SpotPrice": "0.012600",
"State": "active",
"Status": {
"Code": "fulfilled",
"Message": "Your spot request is fulfilled.",
"UpdateTime": "2020-06-25T18:30:21+00:00"
},
"Tags": [
{
"Key": "Environment",
"Value": "Production"
},
{
"Key": "Another key",
"Value": "Another value"
}
],
"Type": "one-time",
"InstanceInterruptionBehavior": "terminate"

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}
]
}

Cancel a Spot Instance request

If you no longer want your Spot Instance request, you can cancel it. You can only cancel Spot Instance
requests that are open, active, or disabled.

• Your Spot Instance request is open when your request has not yet been fulfilled and no instances have
been launched.
• Your Spot Instance request is active when your request has been fulfilled and Spot Instances have
launched as a result.
• Your Spot Instance request is disabled when you stop your Spot Instance.

If your Spot Instance request is active and has an associated running Spot Instance, canceling the
request does not terminate the instance. For more information about terminating a Spot Instance, see
Terminate a Spot Instance (p. 308).

To cancel a Spot Instance request (console)

1. Open the Amazon EC2 console at https://console.aws.amazon.com/ec2/.

2. In the navigation pane, choose Spot Requests and select the Spot Instance request.
3. Choose Actions, Cancel request.
4. (Optional) If you are finished with the associated Spot Instances, you can terminate them. In the
Cancel Spot request dialog box, select Terminate instances, and then choose Confirm.

To cancel a Spot Instance request (AWS CLI)

• Use the cancel-spot-instance-requests command to cancel the specified Spot Instance request.

aws ec2 cancel-spot-instance-requests --spot-instance-request-ids sir-08b93456

Stop a Spot Instance

If you don’t need your Spot Instances now, but you want to restart them later without losing the data
persisted in the Amazon EBS volume, you can stop them. The steps for stopping a Spot Instance are
similar to the steps for stopping an On-Demand Instance.
Note
While a Spot Instance is stopped, you can modify some of its instance attributes, but not the
instance type.
We don't charge usage for a stopped Spot Instance, or data transfer fees, but we do charge for
the storage for any Amazon EBS volumes.

Limitations

• You can only stop a Spot Instance if the Spot Instance was launched from a persistent Spot
Instance request.
• You can't stop a Spot Instance if the associated Spot Instance request is cancelled. When the Spot
Instance request is cancelled, you can only terminate the Spot Instance.
• You can't stop a Spot Instance if it is part of a fleet or launch group, or Availability Zone group.

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New console

To stop a Spot Instance (console)

1. Open the Amazon EC2 console at https://console.aws.amazon.com/ec2/.

2. In the navigation pane, choose Instances and select the Spot Instance.
3. Choose Instance state, Stop instance.
4. When prompted for confirmation, choose Stop.

Old console

To stop a Spot Instance (console)

1. Open the Amazon EC2 console at https://console.aws.amazon.com/ec2/.

2. In the navigation pane, choose Instances and select the Spot Instance.
3. Choose Actions, Instance State, Stop.

AWS CLI

To stop a Spot Instance (AWS CLI)

• Use the stop-instances command to manually stop one or more Spot Instances.

aws ec2 stop-instances --instance-ids i-1234567890abcdef0

Start a Spot Instance

You can start a Spot Instance that you previously stopped. The steps for starting a Spot Instance are
similar to the steps for starting an On-Demand Instance.

Prerequisites

You can only start a Spot Instance if:

• You manually stopped the Spot Instance.

• The Spot Instance is an EBS-backed instance.
• Spot Instance capacity is available.
• The Spot price is lower than your maximum price.

Limitations

• You can't start a Spot Instance if it is part of fleet or launch group, or Availability Zone group.

New console

To start a Spot Instance (console)

1. Open the Amazon EC2 console at https://console.aws.amazon.com/ec2/.

2. In the navigation pane, choose Instances and select the Spot Instance.
3. Choose Instance state, Start instance.

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Old console

To start a Spot Instance (console)

1. Open the Amazon EC2 console at https://console.aws.amazon.com/ec2/.

2. In the navigation pane, choose Instances and select the Spot Instance.
3. Choose Actions, Instance State, Start.

AWS CLI

To start a Spot Instance (AWS CLI)

• Use the start-instances command to manually start one or more Spot Instances.

aws ec2 start-instances --instance-ids i-1234567890abcdef0

Terminate a Spot Instance

If you terminate a running or stopped Spot Instance that was launched by a persistent Spot Instance
request, the Spot Instance request transitions to the open state so that a new Spot Instance can be
launched. To ensure that no new Spot Instance is launched, you must first cancel the Spot Instance
request.

If you cancel an active Spot Instance request that has a running Spot Instance, the running Spot
Instance is not automatically terminated; you must manually terminate the Spot Instance.

If you cancel a disabled Spot Instance request that has a stopped Spot Instance, the stopped Spot
Instance is automatically terminated by the Amazon EC2 Spot service. There might be a short lag
between when you cancel the Spot Instance request and when the Spot service terminates the Spot
Instance.

For information about canceling a Spot Instance request, see Cancel a Spot Instance request (p. 306).

New console

To manually terminate a Spot Instance using the console

1. Before you terminate an instance, verify that you won't lose any data by checking that your
Amazon EBS volumes won't be deleted on termination and that you've copied any data that you
need from your instance store volumes to persistent storage, such as Amazon EBS or Amazon
S3.
2. Open the Amazon EC2 console at https://console.aws.amazon.com/ec2/.
3. In the navigation pane, choose Instances.
4. To confirm that the instance is a Spot Instance, check that spot appears in the Instance lifecycle
column.
5. Select the instance, and choose Actions, Instance state, Terminate instance.
6. Choose Terminate when prompted for confirmation.

Old console

To manually terminate a Spot Instance using the console

1. Before you terminate an instance, verify that you won't lose any data by checking that your
Amazon EBS volumes won't be deleted on termination and that you've copied any data that you

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need from your instance store volumes to persistent storage, such as Amazon EBS or Amazon
S3.
2. Open the Amazon EC2 console at https://console.aws.amazon.com/ec2/.
3. In the navigation pane, choose Instances.
4. To confirm that the instance is a Spot Instance, check that spot appears in the Lifecycle column.
5. Select the instance, and choose Actions, Instance State, Terminate.
6. Choose Yes, Terminate when prompted for confirmation.

AWS CLI

To manually terminate a Spot Instance using the AWS CLI

• Use the terminate-instances command to manually terminate Spot Instances.

aws ec2 terminate-instances --instance-ids i-1234567890abcdef0 i-0598c7d356eba48d7

Spot Instance request example launch specifications

The following examples show launch configurations that you can use with the request-spot-instances
command to create a Spot Instance request. For more information, see Create a Spot Instance
request (p. 297).

1. Launch Spot Instances (p. 309)

2. Launch Spot Instances in the specified Availability Zone (p. 309)
3. Launch Spot Instances in the specified subnet (p. 310)
4. Launch a Dedicated Spot Instance (p. 310)

Example 1: Launch Spot Instances

The following example does not include an Availability Zone or subnet. Amazon EC2 selects an
Availability Zone for you. Amazon EC2 launches the instances in the default subnet of the selected
Availability Zone.

{
"ImageId": "ami-1a2b3c4d",
"KeyName": "my-key-pair",
"SecurityGroupIds": [ "sg-1a2b3c4d" ],
"InstanceType": "m3.medium",
"IamInstanceProfile": {
"Arn": "arn:aws:iam::123456789012:instance-profile/my-iam-role"
}
}

Example 2: Launch Spot Instances in the specified Availability Zone

The following example includes an Availability Zone. Amazon EC2 launches the instances in the default
subnet of the specified Availability Zone.

{
"ImageId": "ami-1a2b3c4d",
"KeyName": "my-key-pair",
"SecurityGroupIds": [ "sg-1a2b3c4d" ],

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"InstanceType": "m3.medium",
"Placement": {
"AvailabilityZone": "us-west-2a"
},
"IamInstanceProfile": {
"Arn": "arn:aws:iam::123456789012:instance-profile/my-iam-role"
}
}

Example 3: Launch Spot Instances in the specified subnet

The following example includes a subnet. Amazon EC2 launches the instances in the specified subnet. If
the VPC is a nondefault VPC, the instance does not receive a public IPv4 address by default.

{
"ImageId": "ami-1a2b3c4d",
"SecurityGroupIds": [ "sg-1a2b3c4d" ],
"InstanceType": "m3.medium",
"SubnetId": "subnet-1a2b3c4d",
"IamInstanceProfile": {
"Arn": "arn:aws:iam::123456789012:instance-profile/my-iam-role"
}
}

To assign a public IPv4 address to an instance in a nondefault VPC, specify the

AssociatePublicIpAddress field as shown in the following example. When you specify a network
interface, you must include the subnet ID and security group ID using the network interface, rather than
using the SubnetId and SecurityGroupIds fields shown in example 3.

{
"ImageId": "ami-1a2b3c4d",
"KeyName": "my-key-pair",
"InstanceType": "m3.medium",
"NetworkInterfaces": [
{
"DeviceIndex": 0,
"SubnetId": "subnet-1a2b3c4d",
"Groups": [ "sg-1a2b3c4d" ],
"AssociatePublicIpAddress": true
}
],
"IamInstanceProfile": {
"Arn": "arn:aws:iam::123456789012:instance-profile/my-iam-role"
}
}

Example 4: Launch a Dedicated Spot Instance

The following example requests Spot Instance with a tenancy of dedicated. A Dedicated Spot Instance
must be launched in a VPC.

{
"ImageId": "ami-1a2b3c4d",
"KeyName": "my-key-pair",
"SecurityGroupIds": [ "sg-1a2b3c4d" ],
"InstanceType": "c3.8xlarge",
"SubnetId": "subnet-1a2b3c4d",
"Placement": {
"Tenancy": "dedicated"
}

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Spot request status

To help you track your Spot Instance requests and plan your use of Spot Instances, use the request status
provided by Amazon EC2. For example, the request status can provide the reason why your Spot request
isn't fulfilled yet, or list the constraints that are preventing the fulfillment of your Spot request.

At each step of the process—also called the Spot request lifecycle—specific events determine successive
request states.

Contents
• Lifecycle of a Spot request (p. 311)
• Get request status information (p. 314)
• Spot request status codes (p. 315)

Lifecycle of a Spot request

The following diagram shows you the paths that your Spot request can follow throughout its lifecycle,
from submission to termination. Each step is depicted as a node, and the status code for each node
describes the status of the Spot request and Spot Instance.

Pending evaluation

As soon as you create a Spot Instance request, it goes into the pending-evaluation state unless one
or more request parameters are not valid (bad-parameters).

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Status code Request state Instance state

pending-evaluation open n/a

bad-parameters closed n/a

Holding

If one or more request constraints are valid but can't be met yet, or if there is not enough capacity, the
request goes into a holding state waiting for the constraints to be met. The request options affect the
likelihood of the request being fulfilled. For example, if you specify a maximum price below the current
Spot price, your request stays in a holding state until the Spot price goes below your maximum price.
If you specify an Availability Zone group, the request stays in a holding state until the Availability Zone
constraint is met.

In the event of an outage of one of the Availability Zones, there is a chance that the spare EC2 capacity
available for Spot Instance requests in other Availability Zones can be affected.

Status code Request state Instance state

capacity-not-available open n/a

price-too-low open n/a

not-scheduled-yet open n/a

launch-group-constraint open n/a

az-group-constraint open n/a

placement-group- open n/a

constraint

constraint-not- open n/a

fulfillable

Pending evaluation/fulfillment-terminal

Your Spot Instance request can go to a terminal state if you create a request that is valid only during
a specific time period and this time period expires before your request reaches the pending fulfillment
phase. It might also happen if you cancel the request, or if a system error occurs.

Status code Request state Instance state

schedule-expired cancelled n/a

canceled-before- cancelled n/a

fulfillment*

bad-parameters failed n/a

system-error closed n/a

* If you cancel the request.

Pending fulfillment

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When the constraints you specified (if any) are met and your maximum price is equal to or higher than
the current Spot price, your Spot request goes into the pending-fulfillment state.

At this point, Amazon EC2 is getting ready to provision the instances that you requested. If the process
stops at this point, it is likely to be because it was canceled by the user before a Spot Instance was
launched. It might also be because an unexpected system error occurred.

Status code Request state Instance state

pending-fulfillment open n/a

Fulfilled

When all the specifications for your Spot Instances are met, your Spot request is fulfilled. Amazon
EC2 launches the Spot Instances, which can take a few minutes. If a Spot Instance is hibernated or
stopped when interrupted, it remains in this state until the request can be fulfilled again or the request is
canceled.

Status code Request state Instance state

fulfilled active pending → running

fulfilled active stopped → running

If you stop a Spot Instance, your Spot request goes into the marked-for-stop or instance-
stopped-by-user state until the Spot Instance can be started again or the request is cancelled.

Status code Request state Instance state

marked-for-stop active stopping

instance-stopped-by-user* disabled or cancelled** stopped

* A Spot Instance goes into the instance-stopped-by-user state if you stop the instance or run the
shutdown command from the instance. After you've stopped the instance, you can start it again. On
restart, the Spot Instance request returns to the pending-evaluation state and then Amazon EC2
launches a new Spot Instance when the constraints are met.

** The Spot request state is disabled if you stop the Spot Instance but do not cancel the request. The
request state is cancelled if your Spot Instance is stopped and the request expires.

Fulfilled-terminal

Your Spot Instances continue to run as long as your maximum price is at or above the Spot price, there
is available capacity for your instance type, and you don't terminate the instance. If a change in the
Spot price or available capacity requires Amazon EC2 to terminate your Spot Instances, the Spot request
goes into a terminal state. A request also goes into the terminal state if you cancel the Spot request or
terminate the Spot Instances.

Status code Request state Instance state

request-canceled-and- cancelled running

instance-running

marked-for-stop active running

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Status code Request state Instance state

marked-for-termination active running

instance-stopped-by- disabled stopped

price

instance-stopped-by-user disabled stopped

instance-stopped-no- disabled stopped

capacity

instance-terminated-by- closed (one-time), terminated

price open(persistent)

instance-terminated-by- closed terminated

schedule

instance-terminated-by- cancelled terminated

service

instance-terminated-by- closed or cancelled * terminated

user

instance-terminated-no- closed (one-time), open terminated

capacity (persistent)

instance-terminated- closed (one-time), open terminated

launch-group-constraint (persistent)

* The request state is closed if you terminate the instance but do not cancel the request. The request
state is cancelled if you terminate the instance and cancel the request. Even if you terminate a Spot
Instance before you cancel its request, there might be a delay before Amazon EC2 detects that your Spot
Instance was terminated. In this case, the request state can either be closed or cancelled.

Persistent requests

When your Spot Instances are terminated (either by you or Amazon EC2), if the Spot request is a
persistent request, it returns to the pending-evaluation state and then Amazon EC2 can launch a
new Spot Instance when the constraints are met.

Get request status information

You can get request status information using the AWS Management Console or a command line tool.

To get request status information (console)

1. Open the Amazon EC2 console at https://console.aws.amazon.com/ec2/.

2. In the navigation pane, choose Spot Requests and select the Spot request.
3. To check the status, on the Description tab, check the Status field.

To get request status information using the command line

You can use one of the following commands. For more information about these command line interfaces,
see Access Amazon EC2 (p. 3).

• describe-spot-instance-requests (AWS CLI)

• Get-EC2SpotInstanceRequest (AWS Tools for Windows PowerShell)

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Spot request status codes

Spot request status information is composed of a status code, the update time, and a status message.
Together, these help you determine the disposition of your Spot request.

The following are the Spot request status codes:

az-group-constraint

Amazon EC2 cannot launch all the instances you requested in the same Availability Zone.
bad-parameters

One or more parameters for your Spot request are not valid (for example, the AMI you specified does
not exist). The status message indicates which parameter is not valid.
canceled-before-fulfillment

The user canceled the Spot request before it was fulfilled.

capacity-not-available

There is not enough capacity available for the instances that you requested.
constraint-not-fulfillable

The Spot request can't be fulfilled because one or more constraints are not valid (for example, the
Availability Zone does not exist). The status message indicates which constraint is not valid.
fulfilled

The Spot request is active, and Amazon EC2 is launching your Spot Instances.
instance-stopped-by-price

Your instance was stopped because the Spot price exceeded your maximum price.
instance-stopped-by-user

Your instance was stopped because a user stopped the instance or ran the shutdown command from
the instance.
instance-stopped-no-capacity

Your instance was stopped due to EC2 capacity management needs.

instance-terminated-by-price

Your instance was terminated because the Spot price exceeded your maximum price. If your request
is persistent, the process restarts, so your request is pending evaluation.
instance-terminated-by-schedule

Your Spot Instance was terminated at the end of its scheduled duration.
instance-terminated-by-service

Your instance was terminated from a stopped state.

instance-terminated-by-user or spot-instance-terminated-by-user

You terminated a Spot Instance that had been fulfilled, so the request state is closed (unless it's a
persistent request) and the instance state is terminated.
instance-terminated-launch-group-constraint

One or more of the instances in your launch group was terminated, so the launch group constraint is
no longer fulfilled.
instance-terminated-no-capacity

Your instance was terminated due to standard capacity management processes.

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launch-group-constraint

Amazon EC2 cannot launch all the instances that you requested at the same time. All instances in a
launch group are started and terminated together.
limit-exceeded

The limit on the number of EBS volumes or total volume storage was exceeded. For more
information about these limits and how to request an increase, see Amazon EBS Limits in the
Amazon Web Services General Reference.
marked-for-stop

The Spot Instance is marked for stopping.

marked-for-termination

The Spot Instance is marked for termination.

not-scheduled-yet

The Spot request is not evaluated until the scheduled date.

pending-evaluation

After you make a Spot Instance request, it goes into the pending-evaluation state while the
system evaluates the parameters of your request.
pending-fulfillment

Amazon EC2 is trying to provision your Spot Instances.

placement-group-constraint

The Spot request can't be fulfilled yet because a Spot Instance can't be added to the placement
group at this time.
price-too-low

The request can't be fulfilled yet because your maximum price is below the Spot price. In this case,
no instance is launched and your request remains open.
request-canceled-and-instance-running

You canceled the Spot request while the Spot Instances are still running. The request is cancelled,
but the instances remain running.
schedule-expired

The Spot request expired because it was not fulfilled before the specified date.
system-error

There was an unexpected system error. If this is a recurring issue, please contact AWS Support for
assistance.

EC2 instance rebalance recommendations

An EC2 Instance rebalance recommendation is a signal that notifies you when a Spot Instance is
at elevated risk of interruption. The signal can arrive sooner than the two-minute Spot Instance
interruption notice (p. 324), giving you the opportunity to proactively manage the Spot Instance. You
can decide to rebalance your workload to new or existing Spot Instances that are not at an elevated risk
of interruption.

It is not always possible for Amazon EC2 to send the rebalance recommendation signal before the two-
minute Spot Instance interruption notice. Therefore, the rebalance recommendation signal can arrive
along with the two-minute interruption notice.

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Note
Rebalance recommendations are only supported for Spot Instances that are launched after
November 5, 2020 00:00 UTC.

Topics
• Rebalance actions you can take (p. 317)
• Monitor rebalance recommendation signals (p. 317)
• Services that use the rebalance recommendation signal (p. 319)

Rebalance actions you can take

These are some of the possible rebalancing actions that you can take:

Graceful shutdown

When you receive the rebalance recommendation signal for a Spot Instance, you can start your
instance shutdown procedures, which might include ensuring that processes are completed before
stopping them. For example, you can upload system or application logs to Amazon Simple Storage
Service (Amazon S3), you can shut down Amazon SQS workers, or you can complete deregistration
from the Domain Name System (DNS). You can also save your work in external storage and resume it
at a later time.
Prevent new work from being scheduled

When you receive the rebalance recommendation signal for a Spot Instance, you can prevent new
work from being scheduled on the instance, while continuing to use the instance until the scheduled
work is completed.
Proactively launch new replacement instances

You can configure Auto Scaling groups, EC2 Fleet, or Spot Fleet to automatically launch replacement
Spot Instances when a rebalance recommendation signal is emitted. For more information, see
Amazon EC2 Auto Scaling Capacity Rebalancing in the Amazon EC2 Auto Scaling User Guide, and
Capacity Rebalancing (p. 697) for EC2 Fleet and Capacity Rebalancing (p. 724) for Spot Fleet in
this user guide.

Monitor rebalance recommendation signals

You can monitor the rebalance recommendation signal so that, when it is emitted, you can take the
actions that are specified in the preceding section. The rebalance recommendation signal is made
available as an event that is sent to Amazon EventBridge (formerly known as Amazon CloudWatch
Events) and as instance metadata on the Spot Instance.

Monitor rebalance recommendation signals:

• Use Amazon EventBridge (p. 317)
• Use instance metadata (p. 319)

Use Amazon EventBridge

When the rebalance recommendation signal is emitted for a Spot Instance, the event for the signal is
sent to Amazon EventBridge. If EventBridge detects an event pattern that matches a pattern defined in a
rule, EventBridge invokes a target (or targets) specified in the rule.

The following is an example event for the rebalance recommendation signal.

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"version": "0",
"id": "12345678-1234-1234-1234-123456789012",
"detail-type": "EC2 Instance Rebalance Recommendation",
"source": "aws.ec2",
"account": "123456789012",
"time": "yyyy-mm-ddThh:mm:ssZ",
"region": "us-east-2",
"resources": ["arn:aws:ec2:us-east-2:123456789012:instance/i-1234567890abcdef0"],
"detail": {
"instance-id": "i-1234567890abcdef0"
}
}

The following fields form the event pattern that is defined in the rule:

"detail-type": "EC2 Instance Rebalance Recommendation"

Identifies that the event is a rebalance recommendation event

source": "aws.ec2

Identifies that the event is from Amazon EC2

Create an EventBridge rule

You can write an EventBridge rule and automate what actions to take when the event pattern matches
the rule.

The following example creates an EventBridge rule to send an email, text message, or mobile push
notification every time Amazon EC2 emits a rebalance recommendation signal. The signal is emitted as
an EC2 Instance Rebalance Recommendation event, which triggers the action defined by the rule.

To create an EventBridge rule for a rebalance recommendation event

1. Open the Amazon EventBridge console at https://console.aws.amazon.com/events/.

2. Choose Create rule.
3. Enter a Name for the rule, and, optionally, a description.

A rule can't have the same name as another rule in the same Region and on the same event bus.
4. For Define pattern, choose Event pattern.
5. Under Event matching pattern, choose Custom pattern.
6. In the Event pattern box, add the following pattern to match the EC2 Instance Rebalance
Recommendation event, and then choose Save.

{
"source": [ "aws.ec2" ],
"detail-type": [ "EC2 Instance Rebalance Recommendation" ]
}

7. For Select event bus, choose AWS default event bus. When an AWS service in your account emits an
event, it always goes to your account's default event bus.
8. Confirm that Enable the rule on the selected event bus is toggled on.
9. For Target, choose SNS topic to send an email, text message, or mobile push notification when the
event occurs.
10. For Topic, choose an existing topic. You first need to create an Amazon SNS topic using the Amazon
SNS console. For more information, see Using Amazon SNS for application-to-person (A2P)
messaging in the Amazon Simple Notification Service Developer Guide.
11. For Configure input, choose the input for the email, text message, or mobile push notification.

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12. Choose Create.

For more information, see Creating a rule for an AWS service and Event Patterns in the Amazon
EventBridge User Guide

Use instance metadata

The instance metadata category events/recommendations/rebalance provides the approximate

time, in UTC, when the rebalance recommendation signal was emitted for a Spot Instance.

We recommend that you check for rebalance recommendation signals every 5 seconds so that you don't
miss an opportunity to act on the rebalance recommendation.

If a Spot Instance receives a rebalance recommendation, the time that the signal was emitted is present
in the instance metadata. You can retrieve the time that the signal was emitted as follows.

PS C:\> Invoke-RestMethod -uri http://169.254.169.254/latest/meta-data/events/

recommendations/rebalance

The following is example output, which indicates the time, in UTC, that the rebalance recommendation
signal was emitted for the Spot Instance.

{"noticeTime": "2020-10-27T08:22:00Z"}

If the signal has not been emitted for the instance, events/recommendations/rebalance is not
present and you receive an HTTP 404 error when you try to retrieve it.

Services that use the rebalance recommendation signal

Amazon EC2 Auto Scaling, EC2 Fleet, and Spot Fleet use the rebalance recommendation signal to make
it easy for you to maintain workload availability by proactively augmenting your fleet with a new Spot
Instance before a running instance receives the two-minute Spot Instance interruption notice. You can
have these services monitor and respond proactively to changes affecting the availability of your Spot
Instances. For more information, see the following:

• Amazon EC2 Auto Scaling Capacity Rebalancing in the Amazon EC2 Auto Scaling User Guide
• Capacity Rebalancing (p. 697) in the EC2 Fleet topic in this user guide
• Capacity Rebalancing (p. 724) in the Spot Fleet topic in this user guide

Spot Instance interruptions

You can launch Spot Instances on spare EC2 capacity for steep discounts in exchange for returning them
when Amazon EC2 needs the capacity back. When Amazon EC2 reclaims a Spot Instance, we call this
event a Spot Instance interruption.

Demand for Spot Instances can vary significantly from moment to moment, and the availability of Spot
Instances can also vary significantly depending on how many unused EC2 instances are available. It is
always possible that your Spot Instance might be interrupted. Therefore, you must ensure that your
application is prepared for a Spot Instance interruption.

An On-Demand Instance specified in an EC2 Fleet or Spot Fleet cannot be interrupted.

Contents
• Reasons for interruption (p. 320)
• Interruption behaviors (p. 320)

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• Specify the interruption behavior (p. 322)

• Prepare for interruptions (p. 323)
• Prepare for instance hibernation (p. 323)
• Spot Instance interruption notices (p. 324)
• Find interrupted Spot Instances (p. 325)
• Determine whether Amazon EC2 interrupted a Spot Instance (p. 326)
• Billing for interrupted Spot Instances (p. 326)

Reasons for interruption

The following are the possible reasons that Amazon EC2 might interrupt your Spot Instances:

• Price – The Spot price is greater than your maximum price.

• Capacity – Amazon EC2 can interrupt your Spot Instance when it needs it back. EC2 reclaims your
instance mainly to repurpose capacity, but it can also occur for other reasons such as host maintenance
or hardware decommission.
• Constraints – If your request includes a constraint such as a launch group or an Availability Zone group,
these Spot Instances are terminated as a group when the constraint can no longer be met.

You can see the historical interruption rates for your instance type in the Spot Instance Advisor.

Interruption behaviors
You can specify that Amazon EC2 must do one of the following when it interrupts a Spot Instance:

• Stop interrupted Spot Instances (p. 320)

• Hibernate interrupted Spot Instances (p. 321)
• Terminate interrupted Spot Instances (this is the default behavior)

To change the interruption behavior, see Specify the interruption behavior (p. 322).

Stop interrupted Spot Instances

Prerequisites

You can specify the interruption behavior so that Amazon EC2 stops Spot Instances when they are
interrupted if the following prerequisites are met.

• Spot Instance request type – must be persistent. You can't specify a launch group in the Spot
Instance request.
• EC2 Fleet or Spot Fleet request type – must be maintain
• Root volume type – must be an EBS volume, not an instance store volume

After a Spot Instance is stopped by the Spot service, only the Spot service can restart the Spot Instance,
and the same launch specification must be used.

For a Spot Instance launched by a persistent Spot Instance request, the Spot service restarts the
stopped instance when capacity is available in the same Availability Zone and for the same instance type
as the stopped instance.

If instances in an EC2 Fleet or Spot Fleet are stopped and the fleet is of type maintain, the Spot
service launches replacement instances to maintain the target capacity. The Spot service finds the

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best Spot capacity pools based on the specified allocation strategy (lowestPrice, diversified, or
InstancePoolsToUseCount); it does not prioritize the pool with the earlier stopped instances. Later, if
the allocation strategy leads to a pool containing the earlier stopped instances, the Spot service restarts
the stopped instances to meet the target capacity.

For example, consider a Spot Fleet with the lowestPrice allocation strategy. At initial launch, a
c3.large pool meets the lowestPrice criteria for the launch specification. Later, when the c3.large
instances are interrupted, the Spot service stops the instances and replenishes capacity from another
pool that fits the lowestPrice strategy. This time, the pool happens to be a c4.large pool and the
Spot service launches c4.large instances to meet the target capacity. Similarly, Spot Fleet could move
to a c5.large pool the next time. In each of these transitions, the Spot service does not prioritize pools
with earlier stopped instances, but rather prioritizes purely on the specified allocation strategy. The
lowestPrice strategy can lead back to pools with earlier stopped instances. For example, if instances
are interrupted in the c5.large pool and the lowestPrice strategy leads it back to the c3.large or
c4.large pools, the earlier stopped instances are restarted to fulfill target capacity.

While a Spot Instance is stopped, you can modify some of its instance attributes, but not the instance
type. If you detach or delete an EBS volume, it is not attached when the Spot Instance is started. If you
detach the root volume and the Spot service attempts to start the Spot Instance, instance start fails and
the Spot service terminates the stopped instance.

You can terminate a Spot Instance while it is stopped. If you cancel a Spot Instance request, an EC2 Fleet,
or a Spot Fleet, the Spot service terminates any associated Spot Instances that are stopped.

While a Spot Instance is stopped, you are charged only for the EBS volumes, which are preserved. With
EC2 Fleet and Spot Fleet, if you have many stopped instances, you can exceed the limit on the number of
EBS volumes for your account.

Hibernate interrupted Spot Instances

Hibernation prerequisites

You can specify the interruption behavior so that Amazon EC2 hibernates Spot Instances when they are
interrupted if the following prerequisites are met.

• Spot Instance request type – must be persistent. You can't specify a launch group in the Spot
Instance request.
• EC2 Fleet or Spot Fleet request type – must be maintain
• Supported instance families – C3, C4, C5, M4, M5, R3, R4
• Instance RAM size – must be less than 100 GB
• Supported operating systems (You must install the hibernation agent on a supported operating
system. Alternatively, use a supported AMI, which already includes the agent.):
• Amazon Linux 2
• Amazon Linux AMI
• Ubuntu with an AWS-tuned Ubuntu kernel (linux-aws) greater than 4.4.0-1041
• Windows Server 2008 R2 and later
• Supported AMIs (the following supported AMIs include the hibernation agent):
• Amazon Linux 2
• Amazon Linux AMI 2017.09.1 or later
• Ubuntu Xenial 16.04 20171121 or later
• Windows Server 2008 R2 AMI 2017.11.19 or later
• Windows Server 2012 or Windows Server 2012 R2 AMI 2017.11.19 or later
• Windows Server 2016 AMI 2017.11.19 or later
• Windows Server 2019

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• Root volume type – must be an EBS volume, not an instance store volume, and it must be large
enough to store the instance memory (RAM) during hibernation
• Start the hibernation agent – We recommend that you use user data to start the agent on instance
startup. Alternatively, you could start the agent manually.

Recommendation

• We strongly recommend that you use an encrypted Amazon EBS volume as the root volume, because
instance memory is stored on the root volume during hibernation. This ensures that the contents
of memory (RAM) are encrypted when the data is at rest on the volume and when data is moving
between the instance and volume. Use one of the following three options to ensure that the root
volume is an encrypted Amazon EBS volume:
• EBS “single-step” encryption: In a single run-instances API call, you can launch encrypted EBS-
backed EC2 instances from an unencrypted AMI. For more information, see Use encryption with EBS-
backed AMIs (p. 130).
• EBS encryption by default: You can enable EBS encryption by default to ensure all new EBS
volumes created in your AWS account are encrypted. For more information, see Encryption by
default (p. 1344).
• Encrypted AMI: You can enable EBS encryption by using an encrypted AMI to launch your instance.
If your AMI does not have an encrypted root snapshot, you can copy it to a new AMI and request
encryption. For more information, see Encrypt an unencrypted image during copy (p. 134) and Copy
an AMI (p. 118).

When a Spot Instance is hibernated by the Spot service, the EBS volumes are preserved and instance
memory (RAM) is preserved on the root volume. The private IP addresses of the instance are also
preserved. Instance storage volumes and public IP addresses, other than Elastic IP addresses, are not
preserved. While the instance is hibernating, you are charged only for the EBS volumes. With EC2 Fleet
and Spot Fleet, if you have many hibernated instances, you can exceed the limit on the number of EBS
volumes for your account.

The agent prompts the operating system to hibernate when the instance receives a signal from the Spot
service. If the agent is not installed, the underlying operating system doesn't support hibernation, or
there isn't enough volume space to save the instance memory, hibernation fails and the Spot service
stops the instance instead.

When the Spot service hibernates a Spot Instance, you receive an interruption notice, but you do not
have two minutes before the Spot Instance is interrupted. Hibernation begins immediately. While the
instance is in the process of hibernating, instance health checks might fail. When the hibernation process
completes, the state of the instance is stopped.

Resuming a hibernated Spot Instance

After a Spot Instance is hibernated by the Spot service, it can only be resumed by the Spot service. The
Spot service resumes the instance when capacity becomes available with a Spot price that is less than
your specified maximum price.

For more information, see Prepare for instance hibernation (p. 323).

For information about hibernating On-Demand Instances, see Hibernate your On-Demand or Reserved
Windows instance (p. 432).

Specify the interruption behavior

If you do not specify an interruption behavior, the default is to terminate Spot Instances when they are
interrupted. You can specify the interruption behavior when you create a Spot Instance request. The way
in which you specify the interruption behavior is different depending on how you request Spot Instances.

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If you request Spot Instances using the launch instance wizard (p. 396), you can specify the interruption
behavior as follows: Select the Persistent request check box and then, from Interruption behavior,
choose an interruption behavior.

If you request Spot Instances using the Spot console (p. 734), you can specify the interruption behavior
as follows: Select the Maintain target capacity check box and then, from Interruption behavior, choose
an interruption behavior.

If you configure Spot Instances in a launch template (p. 403), you can specify the interruption behavior
as follows: In the launch template, expand Advanced details and select the Request Spot Instances
check box. Choose Customize and then, from Interruption behavior, choose an interruption behavior.

If you configure Spot Instances in a launch configuration when using the request-spot-fleet CLI, you
can specify the interruption behavior as follows: For InstanceInterruptionBehavior, specify an
interruption behavior.

If you configure Spot Instances using the request-spot-instances CLI, you can specify the interruption
behavior as follows: For --instance-interruption-behavior, specify an interruption behavior.

Prepare for interruptions

Here are some best practices to follow when you use Spot Instances:

• Use the default maximum price, which is the On-Demand price.

• Ensure that your instance is ready to go as soon as the request is fulfilled by using an Amazon Machine
Image (AMI) that contains the required software configuration. You can also use user data to run
commands at start-up.
• Store important data regularly in a place that isn't affected when the Spot Instance terminates. For
example, you can use Amazon S3, Amazon EBS, or DynamoDB.
• Divide the work into small tasks (using a Grid, Hadoop, or queue-based architecture) or use
checkpoints so that you can save your work frequently.
• Amazon EC2 emits a rebalance recommendation signal to the Spot Instance when the instance is at an
elevated risk of interruption. You can rely on the rebalance recommendation to proactively manage
Spot Instance interruptions without having to wait for the two-minute Spot Instance interruption
notice. For more information, see EC2 instance rebalance recommendations (p. 316).
• Use the two-minute Spot Instance interruption notices to monitor the status of your Spot Instances.
For more information, see Spot Instance interruption notices (p. 324).
• While we make every effort to provide these warnings as soon as possible, it is possible that your Spot
Instance is interrupted before the warnings can be made available. Test your application to ensure that
it handles an unexpected instance interruption gracefully, even if you are monitoring for rebalance
recommendation signals and interruption notices. You can do so by running the application using an
On-Demand Instance and then terminating the On-Demand Instance yourself.

Prepare for instance hibernation

You must install a hibernation agent on your instance, unless you used an AMI that already includes the
agent. You must run the agent on instance startup, whether the agent was included in your AMI or you
installed it yourself.

The following procedure helps you prepare a Windows instance. For directions to prepare a Linux
instance, see Prepare for instance hibernation in the Amazon EC2 User Guide for Linux Instances.

To prepare a Windows instance

1. If your AMI doesn't include the agent, download the following files to the C:\Program Files
\Amazon\Hibernate folder on your Windows instance:

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• EC2HibernateAgent.exe
• EC2HibernateAgent.ps1
• LICENSE.txt
2. Add the following command to the user data.

<powershell>."C:\Program Files\Amazon\Hibernate\EC2HibernateAgent.exe"</powershell>

Spot Instance interruption notices

The best way for you to gracefully handle Spot Instance interruptions is to architect your application
to be fault-tolerant. To accomplish this, you can take advantage of Spot Instance interruption notices. A
Spot Instance interruption notice is a warning that is issued two minutes before Amazon EC2 stops or
terminates your Spot Instance. If you specify hibernation as the interruption behavior, you receive an
interruption notice, but you do not receive a two-minute warning because the hibernation process begins
immediately.

We recommend that you check for these interruption notices every 5 seconds.

The interruption notices are made available as a CloudWatch event and as items in the instance
metadata (p. 588) on the Spot Instance. Events are emitted on a best effort basis.

EC2 Spot Instance interruption notice

When Amazon EC2 is going to interrupt your Spot Instance, it emits an event two minutes prior to the
actual interruption (except for hibernation, which gets the interruption notice, but not two minutes in
advance, because hibernation begins immediately). This event can be detected by Amazon CloudWatch
Events. For more information about CloudWatch events, see the Amazon CloudWatch Events User Guide.
For a detailed example that walks you through how to create and use event rules, see Taking Advantage
of Amazon EC2 Spot Instance Interruption Notices.

The following is an example of the event for Spot Instance interruption. The possible values for
instance-action are hibernate, stop, and terminate.

{
"version": "0",
"id": "12345678-1234-1234-1234-123456789012",
"detail-type": "EC2 Spot Instance Interruption Warning",
"source": "aws.ec2",
"account": "123456789012",
"time": "yyyy-mm-ddThh:mm:ssZ",
"region": "us-east-2",
"resources": ["arn:aws:ec2:us-east-2:123456789012:instance/i-1234567890abcdef0"],
"detail": {
"instance-id": "i-1234567890abcdef0",
"instance-action": "action"
}
}

instance-action

If your Spot Instance is marked to be stopped or terminated by the Spot service, the instance-action
item is present in your instance metadata (p. 588). Otherwise, it is not present. You can retrieve
instance-action as follows.

PS C:\> Invoke-RestMethod -uri http://169.254.169.254/latest/meta-data/spot/instance-action

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The instance-action item specifies the action and the approximate time, in UTC, when the action will
occur.

The following example indicates the time at which this instance will be stopped.

{"action": "stop", "time": "2017-09-18T08:22:00Z"}

The following example indicates the time at which this instance will be terminated.

{"action": "terminate", "time": "2017-09-18T08:22:00Z"}

If Amazon EC2 is not preparing to stop or terminate the instance, or if you terminated the instance
yourself, instance-action is not present and you receive an HTTP 404 error when you try to retrieve
it.

termination-time
This item is maintained for backward compatibility; you should use instance-action instead.

If your Spot Instance is marked for termination by the Spot service, the termination-time item is
present in your instance metadata. Otherwise, it is not present. You can retrieve termination-time as
follows.

PS C:\> Invoke-RestMethod -uri http://169.254.169.254/latest/meta-data/spot/termination-

time

The termination-time item specifies the approximate time in UTC when the instance receives the
shutdown signal. For example:

2015-01-05T18:02:00Z

If Amazon EC2 is not preparing to terminate the instance, or if you terminated the Spot Instance yourself,
the termination-time item is either not present (so you receive an HTTP 404 error) or contains a
value that is not a time value.

If Amazon EC2 fails to terminate the instance, the request status is set to fulfilled. The
termination-time value remains in the instance metadata with the original approximate time, which
is now in the past.

Find interrupted Spot Instances

In the console, the Instances pane displays all instances, including Spot Instances. You can identify a
Spot Instance from the spot value in the Instance lifecycle column. The Instance state column indicates
whether the instance is pending, running, stopping, stopped, shutting-down, or terminated.
For a hibernated Spot Instance, the instance state is stopped.

To find an interrupted Spot Instance (console)

1. Open the Amazon EC2 console at https://console.aws.amazon.com/ec2/.

2.
In the navigation pane, choose Instances. In the top right corner, choose the settings icon ( ),
and under Attribute columns, select Instance lifecycle. For Spot Instances, Instance lifecycle is
spot.

Alternatively, in the navigation pane, choose Spot Requests. You can see both Spot Instance
requests and Spot Fleet requests. To view the IDs of the instances, select a Spot Instance request or a
Spot Fleet request and choose the Instances tab. Choose an instance ID to display the instance in the
Instances pane.

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3. For each Spot Instance, you can view its state in the Instance State column.

To find interrupted Spot Instances (AWS CLI)

You can list your interrupted Spot Instances using the describe-instances command with the --filters
parameter. To list only the instance IDs in the output, add the --query parameter.

aws ec2 describe-instances \

--filters Name=instance-lifecycle,Values=spot Name=instance-state-
name,Values=terminated,stopped \
--query "Reservations[*].Instances[*].InstanceId"

Determine whether Amazon EC2 interrupted a Spot Instance

If a Spot Instance is stopped, hibernated, or terminated, you can use CloudTrail to see whether Amazon
EC2 interrupted the Spot Instance. In AWS CloudTrail, the event name BidEvictedEvent indicates that
Amazon EC2 interrupted the Spot Instance.

To view BidEvictedEvent events in CloudTrail

1. Open the CloudTrail console at https://console.aws.amazon.com/cloudtrail/.

2. In the navigation pane, choose Event history.
3. In the filter drop-down, choose Event name, and then in the filter field to the right, enter
BidEvictedEvent.
4. Choose BidEvictedEvent in the resulting list to view its details. Under Event record, you can find the
instance ID.

For more information about using CloudTrail, see Log Amazon EC2 and Amazon EBS API calls with AWS
CloudTrail (p. 886).

Billing for interrupted Spot Instances

When a Spot Instance is interrupted, you’re charged as follows.

Who interrupts the Operating system Interrupted in the first Interrupted in any hour
Spot Instance hour after the first hour

If you stop or terminate Windows and Linux Charged for the seconds Charged for the seconds
the Spot Instance (excluding RHEL and used used
SUSE)

RHEL and SUSE Charged for the full Charged for the full
hour even if you used a hours used, and
partial hour charged a full hour for
the interrupted partial
hour

If the Amazon EC2 Spot Windows and Linux No charge Charged for the seconds
service interrupts the (excluding RHEL and used
Spot Instance SUSE)

RHEL and SUSE No charge Charged for the

full hours used, but
no charge for the
interrupted partial hour

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Spot Instance data feed

To help you understand the charges for your Spot Instances, Amazon EC2 provides a data feed that
describes your Spot Instance usage and pricing. This data feed is sent to an Amazon S3 bucket that you
specify when you subscribe to the data feed.

Data feed files arrive in your bucket typically once an hour, and each hour of usage is typically covered in
a single data file. These files are compressed (gzip) before they are delivered to your bucket. Amazon EC2
can write multiple files for a given hour of usage where files are large (for example, when file contents
for the hour exceed 50 MB before compression).
Note
If you don't have a Spot Instance running during a certain hour, you don't receive a data feed file
for that hour.

Spot Instance data feed is supported in all AWS Regions except China (Beijing), China (Ningxia), AWS
GovCloud (US), and the Regions that are disabled by default.

Contents
• Data feed file name and format (p. 327)
• Amazon S3 bucket requirements (p. 328)
• Subscribe to your Spot Instance data feed (p. 328)
• Describe your Spot Instance data feed (p. 329)
• Delete your Spot Instance data feed (p. 329)

Data feed file name and format

The Spot Instance data feed file name uses the following format (with the date and hour in UTC):

bucket-name.s3.amazonaws.com/optional-prefix/aws-account-id.YYYY-MM-DD-HH.n.unique-id.gz

For example, if your bucket name is my-bucket-name and your prefix is my-prefix, your file names are
similar to the following:

my-bucket-name.s3.amazonaws.com/my-prefix/111122223333.2019-03-17-20.001.pwBdGTJG.gz

For more information about bucket names, see Rules for bucket naming in the Amazon Simple Storage
Service Developer Guide.

The Spot Instance data feed files are tab-delimited. Each line in the data file corresponds to one instance
hour and contains the fields listed in the following table.

Field Description

Timestamp The timestamp used to determine the price charged for this instance usage.

UsageType The type of usage and instance type being charged for. For m1.small Spot
Instances, this field is set to SpotUsage. For all other instance types, this field is
set to SpotUsage:{instance-type}. For example, SpotUsage:c1.medium.

Operation The product being charged for. For Linux Spot Instances, this field is
set to RunInstances. For Windows Spot Instances, this field is set to
RunInstances:0002. Spot usage is grouped according to Availability Zone.

InstanceID The ID of the Spot Instance that generated this instance usage.

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Field Description

MyBidID The ID for the Spot Instance request that generated this instance usage.

MyMaxPrice The maximum price specified for this Spot Instance request.

MarketPrice The Spot price at the time specified in the Timestamp field.

Charge The price charged for this instance usage.

Version The version included in the data feed file name for this record.

Amazon S3 bucket requirements

When you subscribe to the data feed, you must specify an Amazon S3 bucket to store the data feed files.
Before you choose an Amazon S3 bucket for the data feed, consider the following:

• You must have FULL_CONTROL permission to the bucket, which includes permission for the
s3:GetBucketAcl and s3:PutBucketAcl actions.

If you're the bucket owner, you have this permission by default. Otherwise, the bucket owner must
grant your AWS account this permission.
• When you subscribe to a data feed, these permissions are used to update the bucket ACL to give the
AWS data feed account FULL_CONTROL permission. The AWS data feed account writes data feed files
to the bucket. If your account doesn't have the required permissions, the data feed files cannot be
written to the bucket.
Note
If you update the ACL and remove the permissions for the AWS data feed account, the data
feed files cannot be written to the bucket. You must resubscribe to the data feed to receive
the data feed files.
• Each data feed file has its own ACL (separate from the ACL for the bucket). The bucket owner
has FULL_CONTROL permission to the data files. The AWS data feed account has read and write
permissions.
• If you delete your data feed subscription, Amazon EC2 doesn't remove the read and write permissions
for the AWS data feed account on either the bucket or the data files. You must remove these
permissions yourself.

Subscribe to your Spot Instance data feed

To subscribe to your data feed, use the create-spot-datafeed-subscription command.

aws ec2 create-spot-datafeed-subscription \

--bucket my-bucket-name \
[--prefix my-prefix]

The following is example output:

{
"SpotDatafeedSubscription": {
"OwnerId": "111122223333",
"Bucket": "my-bucket-name",
"Prefix": "my-prefix",
"State": "Active"
}
}

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Describe your Spot Instance data feed

To describe your data feed subscription, use the describe-spot-datafeed-subscription command.

aws ec2 describe-spot-datafeed-subscription

The following is example output:

{
"SpotDatafeedSubscription": {
"OwnerId": "123456789012",
"Prefix": "spotdata",
"Bucket": "my-s3-bucket",
"State": "Active"
}
}

Delete your Spot Instance data feed

To delete your data feed, use the delete-spot-datafeed-subscription command.

aws ec2 delete-spot-datafeed-subscription

Spot Instance limits

There is a limit on the number of running and requested Spot Instances per AWS account per Region.
Spot Instance limits are managed in terms of the number of virtual central processing units (vCPUs) that
your running Spot Instances are either using or will use pending the fulfillment of open Spot Instance
requests. If you terminate your Spot Instances but do not cancel the Spot Instance requests, the requests
count against your Spot Instance vCPU limit until Amazon EC2 detects the Spot Instance terminations
and closes the requests.

There are six Spot Instance limits:

• All Standard (A, C, D, H, I, M, R, T, Z) Spot Instance Requests

• All F Spot Instance Requests
• All G Spot Instance Requests
• All Inf Spot Instance Requests
• All P Spot Instance Requests
• All X Spot Instance Requests

Each limit specifies the vCPU limit for one or more instance families. For information about the different
instance families, generations, and sizes, see Amazon EC2 Instance Types.

With vCPU limits, you can use your limit in terms of the number of vCPUs that are required to launch
any combination of instance types that meet your changing application needs. For example, say your All
Standard Spot Instance Requests limit is 256 vCPUs, you could request 32 m5.2xlarge Spot Instances
(32 x 8 vCPUs) or 16 c5.4xlarge Spot Instances (16 x 16 vCPUs), or a combination of any Standard
Spot Instance types and sizes that total 256 vCPUs.

Topics
• Monitor Spot Instance limits and usage (p. 330)
• Request a Spot Instance limit increase (p. 330)

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Monitor Spot Instance limits and usage

You can view and manage your Spot Instance limits using the following:

• The Limits page in the Amazon EC2 console

• The Amazon EC2 Services quotas page in the Service Quotas console
• The get-service-quota AWS CLI

For more information, see Amazon EC2 service quotas (p. 1475) in the Amazon EC2 User Guide for Linux
Instances and Viewing a Service Quota in the Service Quotas User Guide.

With Amazon CloudWatch metrics integration, you can monitor EC2 usage against limits. You can
also configure alarms to warn about approaching limits. For more information, see Using Amazon
CloudWatch Alarms in the Service Quotas User Guide.

Request a Spot Instance limit increase

Even though Amazon EC2 automatically increases your Spot Instance limits based on your usage, you can
request a limit increase if necessary. For example, if you intend to launch more Spot Instances than your
current limit allows, you can request a limit increase. You can also request a limit increase if you submit a
Spot Instance request and you receive the error Max spot instance count exceeded.

To request a Spot Instance limit increase

1. Open the Create case, Service limit increase form in the Support Center console at https://
console.aws.amazon.com/support/home#/case/create.
2. For Limit type, choose EC2 Spot Instances.
3. For Region, select the required Region.
4. For Primary instance type, select the Spot Instance limit for which you want to request a limit
increase.
5. For New limit value, enter the total number of vCPUs that you want to run concurrently. To
determine the total number of vCPUs that you need, see Amazon EC2 Instance Types to find the
number of vCPUs of each instance type.
6. (Conditional) You must create a separate limit request for each Spot Instance limit. To request an
increase for another Spot Instance limit, choose Add another request and repeat steps 4 and 5 in
this procedure.
7. For Use case description, enter your use case, and then choose Submit.

For more information about viewing limits and requesting a limit increase, see Amazon EC2 service
quotas (p. 1475).

Burstable performance instances

If you launch your Spot Instances using a burstable performance instance type (p. 161), and if you plan
to use your burstable performance Spot Instances immediately and for a short duration, with no idle
time for accruing CPU credits, we recommend that you launch them in Standard mode (p. 177) to avoid
paying higher costs. If you launch burstable performance Spot Instances in Unlimited mode (p. 170)
and burst CPU immediately, you'll spend surplus credits for bursting. If you use the instance for a short
duration, the instance doesn't have time to accrue CPU credits to pay down the surplus credits, and you
are charged for the surplus credits when you terminate the instance.

Unlimited mode is suitable for burstable performance Spot Instances only if the instance runs long
enough to accrue CPU credits for bursting. Otherwise, paying for surplus credits makes burstable
performance Spot Instances more expensive than using other instances. For more information, see When
to use unlimited mode versus fixed CPU (p. 171).

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Launch credits are meant to provide a productive initial launch experience for T2 instances by providing
sufficient compute resources to configure the instance. Repeated launches of T2 instances to access new
launch credits is not permitted. If you require sustained CPU, you can earn credits (by idling over some
period), use Unlimited mode (p. 170) for T2 Spot Instances, or use an instance type with dedicated CPU.

Dedicated Hosts
An Amazon EC2 Dedicated Host is a physical server with EC2 instance capacity fully dedicated to your
use. Dedicated Hosts allow you to use your existing per-socket, per-core, or per-VM software licenses,
including Windows Server, Microsoft SQL Server, SUSE, and Linux Enterprise Server.

For information about the configurations supported on Dedicated Hosts, see Dedicated Hosts
Configuration.

Contents
• Differences between Dedicated Hosts and Dedicated Instances (p. 331)
• Bring your own license (p. 332)
• Dedicated Host instance capacity (p. 332)
• Burstable T3 instances on Dedicated Hosts (p. 333)
• Dedicated Hosts restrictions (p. 334)
• Pricing and billing (p. 334)
• Work with Dedicated Hosts (p. 336)
• Work with shared Dedicated Hosts (p. 353)
• Host recovery (p. 358)
• Track configuration changes (p. 362)

Differences between Dedicated Hosts and Dedicated Instances

Dedicated Hosts and Dedicated Instances can both be used to launch Amazon EC2 instances onto
physical servers that are dedicated for your use.

There are no performance, security, or physical differences between Dedicated Instances and instances
on Dedicated Hosts. However, there are some differences between the two. The following table
highlights some of the key differences between Dedicated Hosts and Dedicated Instances:

  Dedicated Host Dedicated Instance

Billing Per-host billing Per-instance billing

Visibility of Provides visibility of the number of No visibility

sockets, cores, sockets and physical cores
and host ID

Host and Allows you to consistently deploy your Not supported

instance instances to the same physical server
affinity over time

Targeted Provides additional visibility and control Not supported

instance over how instances are placed on a
placement physical server

Automatic Supported. For more information, see Supported

instance Host recovery (p. 358).
recovery

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  Dedicated Host Dedicated Instance

Bring Your Supported Not supported

Own License
(BYOL)

Bring your own license

Dedicated Hosts allow you to use your existing per-socket, per-core, or per-VM software licenses. When
you bring your own license, you are responsible for managing your own licenses. However, Amazon EC2
has features that help you maintain license compliance, such as instance affinity and targeted placement.

These are the general steps to follow in order to bring your own volume licensed machine image into
Amazon EC2.

1. Verify that the license terms controlling the use of your machine images allow usage in a virtualized
cloud environment. For more information about Microsoft Licensing, see Amazon Web Services and
Microsoft Licensing.
2. After you have verified that your machine image can be used within Amazon EC2, import it using VM
Import/Export. For information about how to import your machine image, see the VM Import/Export
User Guide.
3. After you import your machine image, you can launch instances from it onto active Dedicated Hosts in
your account.
4. When you run these instances, depending on the operating system, you might be required to activate
these instances against your own KMS server (for example, Windows Server or Windows SQL Server).
You can't activate your imported Windows AMI against the Amazon Windows KMS server.

Note
To track how your images are used in AWS, enable host recording in AWS Config. You can use
AWS Config to record configuration changes to a Dedicated Host and use the output as a data
source for license reporting. For more information, see Track configuration changes (p. 362).

Dedicated Host instance capacity

Support for multiple instance sizes on the same Dedicated Host is available for the following instance
families: T3, A1, C5, M5, R5, C5n, R5n, and M5n. Other instance families support only a single instance
size on the same Dedicated Host.

For example, when you allocate an R5 Dedicated Host, it has 2 sockets and 48 physical cores on which
you can run different instance sizes, such as r5.2xlarge and r5.4xlarge, up to the core capacity
associated with the host. However, for each instance family, there is a limit on the number of instances
that can be run for each instance size. For example, an R5 Dedicated Host supports up to 2 r5.8xlarge
instances, which uses 32 of the physical cores. Additional R5 instances of another size can then be used
to fill the host to core capacity. For the supported number of instance sizes for each instance family, see
Dedicated Hosts Configuration.

The following table shows examples of different instance size combinations that you can run on a
Dedicated Host.

Instance family Example instance size combinations

R5 • Example 1: 4 x r5.4xlarge + 4 x r5.2xlarge

• Example 2: 1 x r5.12xlarge + 1 x r5.4xlarge + 1 x
r5.2xlarge + 5 x r5.xlarge + 2 x r5.large

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Instance family Example instance size combinations

C5 • Example 1: 1 x c5.9xlarge + 2 x c5.4xlarge + 1 x

c5.xlarge
• Example 2: 4 x c5.4xlarge + 1 x c5.xlarge + 2 x
c5.large

M5 • Example 1: 4 x m5.4xlarge + 4 x m5.2xlarge

• Example 2: 1 x m5.12xlarge + 1 x m5.4xlarge + 1 x
m5.2xlarge + 5 x m5.xlarge + 2 x m5.large

For more information about the instance families and instance size configurations supported on
Dedicated Hosts, see the Dedicated Hosts Configuration Table.

Burstable T3 instances on Dedicated Hosts

Dedicated Hosts support burstable performance T3 instances. T3 instances provide a cost-efficient way
of using your eligible BYOL license software on dedicated hardware. The smaller vCPU footprint of T3
instances enables you to consolidate your workloads on fewer hosts and maximize your per-core license
utilization.

T3 Dedicated Hosts are best suited for running BYOL software with low to moderate CPU utilization. This
includes eligible per-socket, per-core, or per-VM software licenses, such as Windows Server, Windows
Desktop, SQL Server, SUSE Enterprise Linux Server, Red Hat Enterprise Linux, and Oracle Database.
Examples of workloads suited for T3 Dedicated Hosts are small and medium databases, virtual desktops,
development and test environments, code repositories, and product prototypes. T3 Dedicated Hosts are
not recommended for workloads with sustained high CPU utilization or for workloads that experience
correlated CPU bursts simultaneously.

T3 instances on Dedicated Hosts use the same credit model as T3 instances on shared tenancy hardware.
However, they support the standard credit mode only; they do not support the unlimited credit
mode. In standard mode, T3 instances on Dedicated Hosts earn, spend, and accrue credits in the same
way as burstable instances on shared tenancy hardware. They provide a baseline CPU performance with
the ability to burst above the baseline level. To burst above the baseline, the instance spends credits
that it has accrued in its CPU credit balance. When the accrued credits are depleted, CPU utilization is
lowered to the baseline level. For more information about standard mode, see How standard burstable
performance instances work (p. 178).

T3 Dedicated Hosts support all of the features offered by Amazon EC2 Dedicated Hosts, including
multiple instance sizes on a single host, Host resource groups, and BYOL.

Supported T3 instance sizes and configurations

T3 Dedicated Hosts run general purpose burstable T3 instances that share CPU resources of the host
by providing a baseline CPU performance and the ability to burst to a higher level when needed. This
enables T3 Dedicated Hosts, which have 48 cores, to support up to a maximum of 192 instances per
host. In order to efficiently utilize the host’s resources and to provide the best instance performance, the
Amazon EC2 instance placement algorithm automatically calculates the supported number of instances
and instance size combinations that can be launched on the host.

T3 Dedicated Hosts support multiple instance types on the same host. All T3 instance sizes are
supported on Dedicated Hosts. You can run different combinations of T3 instances up to the CPU limit of
the host.

The following table lists the supported instance types, summarizes the performance of each instance
type, and indicates the maximum number of instances of each size that can be launched.

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Instance
vCPUs Memory Baseline CPU Network burst Amazon Max number of
type (GiB) utilization per bandwidth EBS burst instances per
vCPU (Gbps) bandwidth Dedicated Host
(Mbps)

t3.nano
2 0.5 5% 5 Up to 2,085 192

t3.micro
2 1 10% 5 Up to 2,085 192

t3.small
2 2 20% 5 Up to 2,085 192

t3.medium
2 4 20% 5 Up to 2,085 192

t3.large
2 8 30% 5 2,780 96

t3.xlarge
4 16 40% 5 2,780 48

t3.2xlarge
8 32 40% 5 2,780 24

Monitor CPU utilization for T3 Dedicated Hosts

You can use the DedicatedHostCPUUtilization Amazon CloudWatch metric to monitor the vCPU
utilization of a Dedicated Host. The metric is available in the EC2 namespace and Per-Host-Metrics
dimension. For more information, see Dedicated Host metrics (p. 858).

Dedicated Hosts restrictions

Before you allocate Dedicated Hosts, take note of the following limitations and restrictions:

• To run RHEL, SUSE Linux, and SQL Server on Dedicated Hosts, you must bring your own AMIs. RHEL,
SUSE Linux, and SQL Server AMIs that are offered by AWS or that are available on AWS Marketplace
can't be used with Dedicated Hosts. For more information on how to create your own AMI, see Bring
your own license (p. 332).

This restriction does not apply to hosts allocated for high memory instances (u-6tb1.metal,
u-9tb1.metal, u-12tb1.metal, u-18tb1.metal, and u-24tb1.metal). RHEL and SUSE Linux
AMIs that are offered by AWS or that are available on AWS Marketplace can be used with these hosts.
• Up to two On-Demand Dedicated Hosts per instance family, per Region can be allocated. It is possible
to request a limit increase: Request to Raise Allocation Limit on Amazon EC2 Dedicated Hosts.
• The instances that run on a Dedicated Host can only be launched in a VPC.
• Auto Scaling groups are supported when using a launch template that specifies a host resource group.
For more information, see Creating a Launch Template for an Auto Scaling Group in the Amazon EC2
Auto Scaling User Guide.
• Amazon RDS instances are not supported.
• The AWS Free Usage tier is not available for Dedicated Hosts.
• Instance placement control refers to managing instance launches onto Dedicated Hosts. You cannot
launch Dedicated Hosts into placement groups.

Pricing and billing

The price for a Dedicated Host varies by payment option.

Payment Options
• On-Demand Dedicated Hosts (p. 335)

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• Dedicated Host Reservations (p. 335)

• Savings Plans (p. 335)
• Pricing for Windows Server on Dedicated Hosts (p. 335)

On-Demand Dedicated Hosts

On-Demand billing is automatically activated when you allocate a Dedicated Host to your account.

The On-Demand price for a Dedicated Host varies by instance family and Region. You pay per second
(with a minimum of 60 seconds) for active Dedicated Host, regardless of the quantity or the size of
instances that you choose to launch on it. For more information about On-Demand pricing, see Amazon
EC2 Dedicated Hosts On-Demand Pricing.

You can release an On-Demand Dedicated Host at any time to stop accruing charges for it. For
information about releasing a Dedicated Host, see Release Dedicated Hosts (p. 350).

Dedicated Host Reservations

Dedicated Host Reservations provide a billing discount compared to running On-Demand Dedicated
Hosts. Reservations are available in three payment options:

• No Upfront—No Upfront Reservations provide you with a discount on your Dedicated Host usage over
a term and do not require an upfront payment. Available in one-year and three-year terms. Only some
instance families support the three-year term for No Upfront Reservations.
• Partial Upfront—A portion of the reservation must be paid upfront and the remaining hours in the
term are billed at a discounted rate. Available in one-year and three-year terms.
• All Upfront—Provides the lowest effective price. Available in one-year and three-year terms and
covers the entire cost of the term upfront, with no additional future charges.

You must have active Dedicated Hosts in your account before you can purchase reservations. Each
reservation can cover one or more hosts that support the same instance family in a single Availability
Zone. Reservations are applied to the instance family on the host, not the instance size. If you have
three Dedicated Hosts with different instances sizes (m4.xlarge, m4.medium, and m4.large) you can
associate a single m4 reservation with all those Dedicated Hosts. The instance family and Availability
Zone of the reservation must match that of the Dedicated Hosts you want to associate it with.

When a reservation is associated with a Dedicated Host, the Dedicated Host can't be released until the
reservation's term is over.

For more information about reservation pricing, see Amazon EC2 Dedicated Hosts Pricing.

Savings Plans
Savings Plans are a flexible pricing model that offers significant savings over On-Demand Instances. With
Savings Plans, you make a commitment to a consistent amount of usage, in USD per hour, for a term of
one or three years. This provides you with the flexibility to use the Dedicated Hosts that best meet your
needs and continue to save money, instead of making a commitment to a specific Dedicated Host. For
more information, see the AWS Savings Plans User Guide.

Pricing for Windows Server on Dedicated Hosts

Subject to Microsoft licensing terms, you can bring your existing Windows Server and SQL Server licenses
to Dedicated Hosts. There is no additional charge for software usage if you choose to bring your own
licenses.

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In addition, you can also use Windows Server AMIs provided by Amazon to run the latest versions of
Windows Server on Dedicated Hosts. This is common for scenarios where you have existing SQL Server
licenses eligible to run on Dedicated Hosts, but need Windows Server to run the SQL Server workload.
Windows Server AMIs provided by Amazon are supported on current generation instance types (p. 143)
only. For more information, see Amazon EC2 Dedicated Hosts Pricing.

Work with Dedicated Hosts

To use a Dedicated Host, you first allocate hosts for use in your account. You then launch instances onto
the hosts by specifying host tenancy for the instance. You must select a specific host for the instance to
launch on to, or you can allow it to launch on to any host that has auto-placement enabled and matches
its instance type. When an instance is stopped and restarted, the Host affinity setting determines
whether it's restarted on the same, or a different, host.

If you no longer need an On-Demand host, you can stop the instances running on the host, direct them
to launch on a different host, and then release the host.

Dedicated Hosts are also integrated with AWS License Manager. With License Manager, you can create a
host resource group, which is a collection of Dedicated Hosts that are managed as a single entity. When
creating a host resource group, you specify the host management preferences, such as auto-allocate and
auto-release, for the Dedicated Hosts. This allows you to launch instances onto Dedicated Hosts without
manually allocating and managing those hosts. For more information, see Host Resource Groups in the
AWS License Manager User Guide.

Contents
• Allocate Dedicated Hosts (p. 336)
• Launch instances onto a Dedicated Host (p. 339)
• Launch instances into a host resource group (p. 340)
• Understand auto-placement and affinity (p. 342)
• Modify Dedicated Host auto-placement (p. 342)
• Modify the supported instance types (p. 343)
• Modify instance tenancy and affinity (p. 345)
• View Dedicated Hosts (p. 346)
• Tag Dedicated Hosts (p. 347)
• Monitor Dedicated Hosts (p. 349)
• Release Dedicated Hosts (p. 350)
• Purchase Dedicated Host Reservations (p. 351)
• View Dedicated Host reservations (p. 352)
• Tag Dedicated Host Reservations (p. 353)

Allocate Dedicated Hosts

To begin using Dedicated Hosts, you must allocate Dedicated Hosts in your account using the Amazon
EC2 console or the command line tools. After you allocate the Dedicated Host, the Dedicated Host
capacity is made available in your account immediately and you can start launching instances onto the
Dedicated Host.

Support for multiple instance sizes of the same instance family on the same Dedicated Host is available
for the following instance families: c5, m5, r5, c5n, r5n, and m5n. Other instance families support only
one instance size on the same Dedicated Host.

Due to a hardware limitation with N-type Dedicated Hosts, such as C5n, M5n, and R5n, you cannot mix
smaller instance sizes (large, xlarge, and 2xlarge) with larger instance sizes (4xlarge, 9xlarge,

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18xlarge, and .metal). If you require smaller and larger instance sizes on N-type hosts at the same
time, you must allocate separate hosts for the smaller and larger instance sizes.

You can allocate a Dedicated Host using the following methods.

New console

To allocate a Dedicated Host

1. Open the Amazon EC2 console at https://console.aws.amazon.com/ec2/.

2. In the navigation pane, choose Dedicated Hosts and then choose Allocate Dedicated Host.
3. For Instance family, choose the instance family for the Dedicated Host.
4. Specify whether the Dedicated Host supports multiple instance sizes within the selected
instance family, or a specific instance type only. Do one of the following.

• To configure the Dedicated Host to support multiple instance types in the selected instance
family, for Support multiple instance types, choose Enable. Enabling this allows you to
launch different instance sizes from the same instance family onto the Dedicated Host.
For example, if you choose the m5 instance family and choose this option, you can launch
m5.xlarge and m5.4xlarge instances onto the Dedicated Host.
• To configure the Dedicated Host to support a single instance type within the selected instance
family, clear Support multiple instance types, and then for Instance type, choose the
instance type to support. This allows you to launch a single instance type on the Dedicated
Host. For example, if you choose this option and specify m5.4xlarge as the supported
instance type, you can launch only m5.4xlarge instances onto the Dedicated Host.
5. For Availability Zone, choose the Availability Zone in which to allocate the Dedicated Host.
6. To allow the Dedicated Host to accept untargeted instance launches that match its instance
type, for Instance auto-placement, choose Enable. For more information about auto-
placement, see Understand auto-placement and affinity (p. 342).
7. To enable host recovery for the Dedicated Host, for Host recovery, choose Enable. For more
information, see Host recovery (p. 358).
8. For Quantity, enter the number of Dedicated Hosts to allocate.
9. (Optional) Choose Add new tag and enter a tag key and a tag value.
10. Choose Allocate.

Old console

To allocate a Dedicated Host

1. Open the Amazon EC2 console at https://console.aws.amazon.com/ec2/.

2. In the navigation pane, choose Dedicated Hosts, Allocate Dedicated Host.
3. For Instance family, choose the instance family for the Dedicated Host.
4. Specify whether the Dedicated Host supports multiple instance sizes within the selected
instance family, or a specific instance type only. Do one of the following.

• To configure the Dedicated Host to support multiple instance types in the selected instance
family, select Support multiple instance types. Enabling this allows you to launch different
instance sizes from the same instance family onto the Dedicated Host. For example, if you
choose the m5 instance family and choose this option, you can launch m5.xlarge and
m5.4xlarge instances onto the Dedicated Host. The instance family must be powered by the
Nitro System.
• To configure the Dedicated Host to support a single instance type within the selected instance
family, clear Support multiple instance types, and then for Instance type, choose the

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instance type to support. This allows you to launch a single instance type on the Dedicated
Host. For example, if you choose this option and specify m5.4xlarge as the supported
instance type, you can launch only m5.4xlarge instances onto the Dedicated Host.
5. For Availability Zone, choose the Availability Zone in which to allocate the Dedicated Host.
6. To allow the Dedicated Host to accept untargeted instance launches that match its instance
type, for Instance auto-placement, choose Enable. For more information about auto-
placement, see Understand auto-placement and affinity (p. 342).
7. To enable host recovery for the Dedicated Host, for Host recovery choose Enable. For more
information, see Host recovery (p. 358).
8. For Quantity, enter the number of Dedicated Hosts to allocate.
9. (Optional) Choose Add Tag and enter a tag key and a tag value.
10. Choose Allocate host.

AWS CLI

To allocate a Dedicated Host

Use the allocate-hosts AWS CLI command. The following command allocates a Dedicated Host that
supports multiple instance types from the m5 instance family in us-east-1a Availability Zone. The
host also has host recovery enabled and it has auto-placement disabled.

aws ec2 allocate-hosts --instance-family "m5" --availability-zone "us-east-1a" --auto-

placement "off" --host-recovery "on" --quantity 1

The following command allocates a Dedicated Host that supports untargeted m4.large instance
launches in the eu-west-1a Availability Zone, enables host recovery, and applies a tag with a key of
purpose and a value of production.

aws ec2 allocate-hosts --instance-type "m4.large" --availability-zone "eu-west-1a"

--auto-placement "on" --host-recovery "on" --quantity 1 --tag-specifications
'ResourceType=dedicated-host,Tags=[{Key=purpose,Value=production}]'

PowerShell

To allocate a Dedicated Host

Use the New-EC2Host AWS Tools for Windows PowerShell command. The following command
allocates a Dedicated Host that supports multiple instance types from the m5 instance family in
us-east-1a Availability Zone. The host also has host recovery enabled and it has auto-placement
disabled.

PS C:\> New-EC2Host -InstanceFamily m5 -AvailabilityZone us-east-1a -AutoPlacement Off

-HostRecovery On -Quantity 1

The following commands allocate a Dedicated Host that supports untargeted m4.large instance
launches in the eu-west-1a Availability Zone, enable host recovery, and apply a tag with a key of
purpose and a value of production.

The TagSpecification parameter used to tag a Dedicated Host on creation requires an object
that specifies the type of resource to be tagged, the tag key, and the tag value. The following
commands create the required object.

PS C:\> $tag = @{ Key="purpose"; Value="production" }

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PS C:\> $tagspec = new-object Amazon.EC2.Model.TagSpecification

PS C:\> $tagspec.ResourceType = "dedicated-host"
PS C:\> $tagspec.Tags.Add($tag)

The following command allocates the Dedicated Host and applies the tag specified in the $tagspec
object.

PS C:\> New-EC2Host -InstanceType m4.large -AvailabilityZone eu-west-1a -

AutoPlacement On -HostRecovery On -Quantity 1 -TagSpecification $tagspec

Launch instances onto a Dedicated Host

After you have allocated a Dedicated Host, you can launch instances onto it. You can't launch instances
with host tenancy if you do not have active Dedicated Hosts with enough available capacity for the
instance type that you are launching.
Note
The instances launched onto Dedicated Hosts can only be launched in a VPC. For more
information, see Introduction to VPC.

Before you launch your instances, take note of the limitations. For more information, see Dedicated
Hosts restrictions (p. 334).

You can launch an instance onto a Dedicated Host using the following methods.

Console

To launch an instance onto a specific Dedicated Host from the Dedicated Hosts page

1. Open the Amazon EC2 console at https://console.aws.amazon.com/ec2/.

2. Choose Dedicated Hosts in the navigation pane.
3. On the Dedicated Hosts page, select a host and choose Actions, Launch Instance(s) onto Host.
4. Select an AMI from the list. SQL Server, SUSE, and RHEL AMIs provided by Amazon EC2 can't be
used with Dedicated Hosts.
5. On the Choose an Instance Type page, select the instance type to launch and then choose Next:
Configure Instance Details.

If the Dedicated Host supports a single instance type only, the supported instance type is
selected by default and can't be changed.

If the Dedicated Host supports multiple instance types, you must select an instance type within
the supported instance family based on the available instance capacity of the Dedicated Host.
We recommend that you launch the larger instance sizes first, and then fill the remaining
instance capacity with the smaller instance sizes as needed.
6. On the Configure Instance Details page, configure the instance settings to suit your needs, and
then for Affinity, choose one of the following options:

• Off—The instance launches onto the specified host, but it is not guaranteed to restart on the
same Dedicated Host if stopped.
• Host—If stopped, the instance always restarts on this specific host.

For more information about Affinity, see Understand auto-placement and affinity (p. 342).

The Tenancy and Host options are pre-configured based on the host that you selected.

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7. Choose Review and Launch.

8. On the Review Instance Launch page, choose Launch.
9. When prompted, select an existing key pair or create a new one, and then choose Launch
Instances.

To launch an instance onto a Dedicated Host using the Launch Instance wizard

1. Open the Amazon EC2 console at https://console.aws.amazon.com/ec2/.

2. In the navigation pane, choose Instances, Launch Instance.
3. Select an AMI from the list. SQL Server, SUSE, and RHEL AMIs provided by Amazon EC2 can't be
used with Dedicated Hosts.
4. Select the type of instance to launch and choose Next: Configure Instance Details.
5. On the Configure Instance Details page, configure the instance settings to suit your needs, and
then configure the following settings, which are specific to a Dedicated Host:

• Tenancy—Choose Dedicated Host - Launch this instance on a Dedicated Host.

• Host—Choose either Use auto-placement to launch the instance on any Dedicated Host that
has auto-placement enabled, or select a specific Dedicated Host in the list. The list displays
only Dedicated Hosts that support the selected instance type.
• Affinity—Choose one of the following options:
• Off—The instance launches onto the specified host, but it is not guaranteed to restart on it
if stopped.
• Host—If stopped, the instance always restarts on the specified host.

For more information, see Understand auto-placement and affinity (p. 342).

If you are unable to see these settings, check that you have selected a VPC in the Network
menu.
6. Choose Review and Launch.
7. On the Review Instance Launch page, choose Launch.
8. When prompted, select an existing key pair or create a new one, and then choose Launch
Instances.

AWS CLI

To launch an instance onto a Dedicated Host

Use the run-instances AWS CLI command and specify the instance affinity, tenancy, and host in the
Placement request parameter.
PowerShell

To launch an instance onto a Dedicated Host

Use the New-EC2Instance AWS Tools for Windows PowerShell command and specify the instance
affinity, tenancy, and host in the Placement request parameter.

Launch instances into a host resource group

When you launch an instance into a host resource group that has a Dedicated Host with available
instance capacity, Amazon EC2 launches the instance onto that host. If the host resource group does not
have a host with available instance capacity, Amazon EC2 automatically allocates a new host in the host

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resource group, and then launches the instance onto that host. For more information, see Host Resource
Groups in the AWS License Manager User Guide.

Requirements and limits

• You must associate a core- or socket-based license configuration with the AMI.
• You can't use SQL Server, SUSE, or RHEL AMIs provided by Amazon EC2 with Dedicated Hosts.
• You can't target a specific host by choosing a host ID, and you can't enable instance affinity when
launching an instance into a host resource group.

You can launch an instance into a host resource group using the following methods.

New console

To launch an instance into a host resource group

1. Open the Amazon EC2 console at https://console.aws.amazon.com/ec2/.

2. In the navigation pane, choose Instances, Launch Instances.
3. Select an AMI.
4. Select the type of instance to launch and choose Next: Configure Instance Details.
5. On the Configure Instance Details page, configure the instance settings to suit your needs, and
then do the following:

a. For Tenancy, choose Dedicated Host.

b. For Host resource group, choose Launch instance into a host resource group.
c. For Host resource group name, choose the host resource group in which to launch the
instance.
6. Choose Review and Launch.
7. On the Review Instance Launch page, choose Launch.
8. When prompted, select an existing key pair or create a new one, and then choose Launch
Instances.

Old console

To launch an instance into a host resource group

1. Open the Amazon EC2 console at https://console.aws.amazon.com/ec2/.

2. In the navigation pane, choose Instances, Launch Instance.
3. Select an AMI.
4. Select the type of instance to launch and choose Next: Configure Instance Details.
5. On the Configure Instance Details page, configure the instance settings to suit your needs, and
then do the following:

a. For Tenancy, choose Dedicated Host.

b. For Host resource group, choose Launch instance into a host resource group.
c. For Host resource group name, choose the host resource group in which to launch the
instance.
6. Choose Review and Launch.
7. On the Review Instance Launch page, choose Launch.
8. When prompted, select an existing key pair or create a new one, and then choose Launch
Instances.

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AWS CLI

To launch an instance into a host resource group

Use the run-instances AWS CLI command, and in the Placement request parameter, omit the
Tenancy option and specify the host resource group ARN.
PowerShell

To launch an instance into a host resource group

Use the New-EC2Instance AWS Tools for Windows PowerShell command, and in the Placement
request parameter, omit the Tenancy option and specify the host resource group ARN.

Understand auto-placement and affinity

Placement control for Dedicated Hosts happens on both the instance level and host level.

Auto-placement
Auto-placement is configured at the host level. It allows you to manage whether instances that you
launch are launched onto a specific host, or onto any available host that has matching configurations.

When the auto-placement of a Dedicated Host is disabled, it only accepts Host tenancy instance launches
that specify its unique host ID. This is the default setting for new Dedicated Hosts.

When the auto-placement of a Dedicated Host is enabled, it accepts any untargeted instance launches
that match its instance type configuration.

When launching an instance, you need to configure its tenancy. Launching an instance onto a Dedicated
Host without providing a specific HostId enables it to launch on any Dedicated Host that has auto-
placement enabled and that matches its instance type.

Host affinity
Host affinity is configured at the instance level. It establishes a launch relationship between an instance
and a Dedicated Host.

When affinity is set to Host, an instance launched onto a specific host always restarts on the same host
if stopped. This applies to both targeted and untargeted launches.

When affinity is set to Off, and you stop and restart the instance, it can be restarted on any available
host. However, it tries to launch back onto the last Dedicated Host on which it ran (on a best-effort
basis).

Modify Dedicated Host auto-placement

You can modify the auto-placement settings of a Dedicated Host after you have allocated it to your AWS
account, using one of the following methods.

New console

To modify the auto-placement of a Dedicated Host

1. Open the Amazon EC2 console at https://console.aws.amazon.com/ec2/.

2. In the navigation pane, choose Dedicated Hosts.
3. Select a host and choose Actions, Modify host.
4. For Instance auto-placement, choose Enable to enable auto-placement, or clear Enable
to disable auto-placement. For more information, see Understand auto-placement and
affinity (p. 342).

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5. Choose Save.

Old console

To modify the auto-placement of a Dedicated Host

1. Open the Amazon EC2 console at https://console.aws.amazon.com/ec2/.

2. Choose Dedicated Hosts in the navigation pane.
3. On the Dedicated Hosts page, select a host and choose Actions, Modify Auto-Placement.
4. On the Modify Auto-placement window, for Allow instance auto-placement, choose Yes to
enable auto-placement, or choose No to disable auto-placement. For more information, see
Understand auto-placement and affinity (p. 342).
5. Choose Save.

AWS CLI

To modify the auto-placement of a Dedicated Host

Use the modify-hosts AWS CLI command. The following example enables auto-placement for the
specified Dedicated Host.

aws ec2 modify-hosts --auto-placement on --host-ids h-012a3456b7890cdef

PowerShell

To modify the auto-placement of a Dedicated Host

Use the Edit-EC2Host AWS Tools for Windows PowerShell command. The following example enables
auto-placement for the specified Dedicated Host.

PS C:\> Edit-EC2Host --AutoPlacement 1 --HostId h-012a3456b7890cdef

Modify the supported instance types

Support for multiple instance types on the same Dedicated Host is available for the following instance
families: c5, m5, r5, c5n, r5n, and m5n. Other instance families support only a single instance type on
the same Dedicated Host.

You can allocate a Dedicated Host using the following methods.

You can modify a Dedicated Host to change the instance types that it supports. If it currently supports
a single instance type, you can modify it to support multiple instance types within that instance family.
Similarly, if it currently supports multiple instance types, you can modify it to support a specific instance
type only.

To modify a Dedicated Host to support multiple instance types, you must first stop all running instances
on the host. The modification takes approximately 10 minutes to complete. The Dedicated Host
transitions to the pending state while the modification is in progress. You can't start stopped instances
or launch new instances on the Dedicated Host while it is in the pending state.

To modify a Dedicated Host that supports multiple instance types to support only a single instance type,
the host must either have no running instances, or the running instances must be of the instance type
that you want the host to support. For example, to modify a host that supports multiple instance types
in the m5 instance family to support only m5.large instances, the Dedicated Host must either have no
running instances, or it must have only m5.large instances running on it.

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You can modify the supported instance types using one of the following methods.

New console

To modify the supported instance types for a Dedicated Host

1. Open the Amazon EC2 console at https://console.aws.amazon.com/ec2/.

2. In the Navigation pane, choose Dedicated Host.
3. Select the Dedicated Host to modify and choose Actions, Modify host.
4. Do one of the following, depending on the current configuration of the Dedicated Host:

• If the Dedicated Host currently supports a specific instance type, Support multiple instance
types is not enabled, and Instance type lists the supported instance type. To modify the host
to support multiple types in the current instance family, for Support multiple instance types,
choose Enable.

You must first stop all instances running on the host before modifying it to support multiple
instance types.
• If the Dedicated Host currently supports multiple instance types in an instance family,
Enabled is selected for Support multiple instance types. To modify the host to support
a specific instance type, for Support multiple instance types, clear Enable, and then for
Instance type, select the specific instance type to support.

You can't change the instance family supported by the Dedicated Host.
5. Choose Save.

Old console

To modify the supported instance types for a Dedicated Host

1. Open the Amazon EC2 console at https://console.aws.amazon.com/ec2/.

2. In the Navigation pane, choose Dedicated Host.
3. Select the Dedicated Host to modify and choose Actions, Modify Supported Instance Types.
4. Do one of the following, depending on the current configuration of the Dedicated Host:

• If the Dedicated Host currently supports a specific instance type, No is selected for Support
multiple instance types. To modify the host to support multiple types in the current instance
family, for Support multiple instance types, select Yes.

You must first stop all instances running on the host before modifying it to support multiple
instance types.
• If the Dedicated Host currently supports multiple instance types in an instance family, Yes is
selected for Support multiple instance types, and Instance family displays the supported
instance family. To modify the host to support a specific instance type, for Support multiple
instance types, select No, and then for Instance type, select the specific instance type to
support.

You can't change the instance family supported by the Dedicated Host.
5. Choose Save.

AWS CLI

To modify the supported instance types for a Dedicated Host

Use the modify-hosts AWS CLI command.

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The following command modifies a Dedicated Host to support multiple instance types within the m5
instance family.

aws ec2 modify-hosts --instance-family m5 --host-ids h-012a3456b7890cdef

The following command modifies a Dedicated Host to support m5.xlarge instances only.

aws ec2 modify-hosts --instance-type m5.xlarge --instance-family --host-

ids h-012a3456b7890cdef

PowerShell

To modify the supported instance types for a Dedicated Host

Use the Edit-EC2Host AWS Tools for Windows PowerShell command.

The following command modifies a Dedicated Host to support multiple instance types within the m5
instance family.

PS C:\> Edit-EC2Host --InstanceFamily m5 --HostId h-012a3456b7890cdef

The following command modifies a Dedicated Host to support m5.xlarge instances only.

PS C:\> Edit-EC2Host --InstanceType m5.xlarge --HostId h-012a3456b7890cdef

Modify instance tenancy and affinity

You can change the tenancy of an instance from dedicated to host, or from host to dedicated, after
you have launched it. You can also modify the affinity between the instance and the host. To modify
either instance tenancy or affinity, the instance must be in the stopped state.
Note
For T3 instances, you can't change the tenancy from dedicated to host, or from host to
dedicated. Attempting to make one of these unsupported tenancy changes results in the
InvalidTenancy error code.

You can modify an instance's tenancy and affinity using the following methods.

Console

To modify instance tenancy or affinity

1. Open the Amazon EC2 console at https://console.aws.amazon.com/ec2/.

2. Choose Instances, and select the instance to modify.
3. Choose Instance state, Stop.
4. Open the context (right-click) menu on the instance and choose Instance Settings, Modify
Instance Placement.
5. On the Modify Instance Placement page, configure the following:

• Tenancy—Choose one of the following:

• Run a dedicated hardware instance—Launches the instance as a Dedicated Instance. For
more information, see Dedicated Instances (p. 363).
• Launch the instance on a Dedicated Host—Launches the instance onto a Dedicated Host
with configurable affinity.

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• Affinity—Choose one of the following:

• This instance can run on any one of my hosts—The instance launches onto any available
Dedicated Host in your account that supports its instance type.
• This instance can only run on the selected host—The instance is only able to run on the
Dedicated Host selected for Target Host.
• Target Host—Select the Dedicated Host that the instance must run on. If no target host is
listed, you might not have available, compatible Dedicated Hosts in your account.

For more information, see Understand auto-placement and affinity (p. 342).
6. Choose Save.

AWS CLI

To modify instance tenancy or affinity

Use the modify-instance-placement AWS CLI command. The following example changes the
specified instance's affinity from default to host, and specifies the Dedicated Host that the
instance has affinity with.

aws ec2 modify-instance-placement --instance-id i-1234567890abcdef0 --affinity host --

host-id h-012a3456b7890cdef

PowerShell

To modify instance tenancy or affinity

Use the Edit-EC2InstancePlacement AWS Tools for Windows PowerShell command. The following
example changes the specified instance's affinity from default to host, and specifies the
Dedicated Host that the instance has affinity with.

PS C:\> Edit-EC2InstancePlacement -InstanceId i-1234567890abcdef0 -Affinity host -

HostId h-012a3456b7890cdef

View Dedicated Hosts

You can view details about a Dedicated Host and the individual instances on it using the following
methods.

New console

To view the details of a Dedicated Host

1. Open the Amazon EC2 console at https://console.aws.amazon.com/ec2/.

2. In the navigation pane, choose Dedicated Hosts.
3. On the Dedicated Hosts page, select a host.
4. For information about the host, choose Details.

Available vCPUs indicates the vCPUs that are available on the Dedicated Host for new instance
launches. For example, a Dedicated Host that supports multiple instance types within the c5
instance family, and that has no instances running on it, has 72 available vCPUs. This means that
you can launch different combinations of instance types onto the Dedicated Host to consume
the 72 available vCPUs.

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For information about instances running on the host, choose Running instances.

Old console

To view the details of a Dedicated Host

1. Open the Amazon EC2 console at https://console.aws.amazon.com/ec2/.

2. In the navigation pane, choose Dedicated Hosts.
3. On the Dedicated Hosts page, select a host.
4. For information about the host, choose Description. Available vCPUs indicates the vCPUs that
are available on the Dedicated Host for new instance launches. For example, a Dedicated Host
that supports multiple instance types within the c5 instance family, and that has no instances
running on it, has 72 available vCPUs. This means that you can launch different combinations of
instance types onto the Dedicated Host to consume the 72 available vCPUs.

For information about instances running on the host, choose Instances.

AWS CLI

To view the capacity of a Dedicated Host

Use the describe-hosts AWS CLI command.

The following example uses the describe-hosts (AWS CLI) command to view the available instance
capacity for a Dedicated Host that supports multiple instance types within the c5 instance family.
The Dedicated Host already has two c5.4xlarge instances and four c5.2xlarge instances running
on it.

C:\> aws ec2 describe-hosts --host-id h-012a3456b7890cdef

"AvailableInstanceCapacity": [
{ "AvailableCapacity": 2,
"InstanceType": "c5.xlarge",
"TotalCapacity": 18 },
{ "AvailableCapacity": 4,
"InstanceType": "c5.large",
"TotalCapacity": 36 }
],
"AvailableVCpus": 8

PowerShell

To view the instance capacity of a Dedicated Host

Use the Get-EC2Host AWS Tools for Windows PowerShell command.

PS C:\> Get-EC2Host -HostId h-012a3456b7890cdef

Tag Dedicated Hosts

You can assign custom tags to your existing Dedicated Hosts to categorize them in different ways, for
example, by purpose, owner, or environment. This helps you to quickly find a specific Dedicated Host
based on the custom tags that you assigned. Dedicated Host tags can also be used for cost allocation
tracking.

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You can also apply tags to Dedicated Hosts at the time of creation. For more information, see Allocate
Dedicated Hosts (p. 336).

You can tag a Dedicated Host using the following methods.

New console

To tag a Dedicated Host

1. Open the Amazon EC2 console at https://console.aws.amazon.com/ec2/.

2. In the navigation pane, choose Dedicated Hosts.
3. Select the Dedicated Host to tag, and then choose Actions, Manage tags.
4. In the Manage tags screen, choose Add tag, and then specify the key and value for the tag.
5. (Optional) Choose Add tag to add additional tags to the Dedicated Host.
6. Choose Save changes.

Old console

To tag a Dedicated Host

1. Open the Amazon EC2 console at https://console.aws.amazon.com/ec2/.

2. In the navigation pane, choose Dedicated Hosts.
3. Select the Dedicated Host to tag, and then choose Tags.
4. Choose Add/Edit Tags.
5. In the Add/Edit Tags dialog box, choose Create Tag, and then specify the key and value for the
tag.
6. (Optional) Choose Create Tag to add additional tags to the Dedicated Host.
7. Choose Save.

AWS CLI

To tag a Dedicated Host

Use the create-tags AWS CLI command.

The following command tags the specified Dedicated Host with Owner=TeamA.

aws ec2 create-tags --resources h-abc12345678909876 --tags Key=Owner,Value=TeamA

PowerShell

To tag a Dedicated Host

Use the New-EC2Tag AWS Tools for Windows PowerShell command.

The New-EC2Tag command needs a Tag object, which specifies the key and value pair to be used
for the Dedicated Host tag. The following commands create a Tag object named $tag, with a key
and value pair of Owner and TeamA respectively.

PS C:\> $tag = New-Object Amazon.EC2.Model.Tag

PS C:\> $tag.Key = "Owner"
PS C:\> $tag.Value = "TeamA"

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The following command tags the specified Dedicated Host with the $tag object.

PS C:\> New-EC2Tag -Resource h-abc12345678909876 -Tag $tag

Monitor Dedicated Hosts

Amazon EC2 constantly monitors the state of your Dedicated Hosts. Updates are communicated on the
Amazon EC2 console. You can view information about a Dedicated Host using the following methods.

Console

To view the state of a Dedicated Host

1. Open the Amazon EC2 console at https://console.aws.amazon.com/ec2/.

2. In the navigation pane, choose Dedicated Hosts.
3. Locate the Dedicated Host in the list and review the value in the State column.

AWS CLI

To view the state of a Dedicated Host

Use the describe-hosts AWS CLI command and then review the state property in the hostSet
response element.

aws ec2 describe-hosts --host-id h-012a3456b7890cdef

PowerShell

To view the state of a Dedicated Host

Use the Get-EC2Host AWS Tools for Windows PowerShell command and then review the state
property in the hostSet response element.

PS C:\> Get-EC2Host -HostId h-012a3456b7890cdef

The following table explains the possible Dedicated Host states.

State Description

available AWS hasn't detected an issue with the Dedicated Host. No maintenance or
repairs are scheduled. Instances can be launched onto this Dedicated Host.

released The Dedicated Host has been released. The host ID is no longer in use.
Released hosts can't be reused.

under-assessment AWS is exploring a possible issue with the Dedicated Host. If action must be
taken, you are notified via the AWS Management Console or email. Instances
can't be launched onto a Dedicated Host in this state.

pending The Dedicated Host cannot be used for new instance launches. It is either
being modified to support multiple instance types (p. 343), or a host
recovery (p. 358) is in progress.

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State Description

permanent-failure An unrecoverable failure has been detected. You receive an eviction notice
through your instances and by email. Your instances might continue to run.
If you stop or terminate all instances on a Dedicated Host with this state,
AWS retires the host. AWS does not restart instances in this state. Instances
can't be launched onto Dedicated Hosts in this state.

released- AWS permanently releases Dedicated Hosts that have failed and no longer
permanent-failure have running instances on them. The Dedicated Host ID is no longer
available for use.

Release Dedicated Hosts

Any running instances on the Dedicated Host must be stopped before you can release the host. These
instances can be migrated to other Dedicated Hosts in your account so that you can continue to use
them. These steps apply only to On-Demand Dedicated Hosts.

You can release a Dedicated Host using the following methods.

New console

To release a Dedicated Host

1. Open the Amazon EC2 console at https://console.aws.amazon.com/ec2/.

2. In the navigation pane, choose Dedicated Hosts.
3. On the Dedicated Hosts page, select the Dedicated Host to release.
4. Choose Actions, Release host.
5. To confirm, choose Release.

Old console

To release a Dedicated Host

1. Open the Amazon EC2 console at https://console.aws.amazon.com/ec2/.

2. Choose Dedicated Hosts in the navigation pane.
3. On the Dedicated Hosts page, select the Dedicated Host to release.
4. Choose Actions, Release Hosts.
5. Choose Release to confirm.

AWS CLI

To release a Dedicated Host

Use the release-hosts AWS CLI command.

aws ec2 release-hosts --host-ids h-012a3456b7890cdef

PowerShell

To release a Dedicated Host

Use the Remove-EC2Hosts AWS Tools for Windows PowerShell command.

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PS C:\> Remove-EC2Hosts -HostId h-012a3456b7890cdef

After you release a Dedicated Host, you can't reuse the same host or host ID again, and you are no longer
charged On-Demand billing rates for it. The state of the Dedicated Host is changed to released, and
you are not able to launch any instances onto that host.
Note
If you have recently released Dedicated Hosts, it can take some time for them to stop counting
towards your limit. During this time, you might experience LimitExceeded errors when trying
to allocate new Dedicated Hosts. If this is the case, try allocating new hosts again after a few
minutes.

The instances that were stopped are still available for use and are listed on the Instances page. They
retain their host tenancy setting.

Purchase Dedicated Host Reservations

You can purchase reservations using the following methods:

Console

To purchase reservations

1. Open the Amazon EC2 console at https://console.aws.amazon.com/ec2/.

2. Choose Dedicated Hosts, Dedicated Host Reservations, Purchase Dedicated Host Reservation.
3. On the Purchase Dedicated Host Reservation screen, you can search for available offerings
using the default settings, or you can specify custom values for the following:

• Host instance family—The options listed correspond with the Dedicated Hosts in your
account that are not already assigned to a reservation.
• Availability Zone—The Availability Zone of the Dedicated Hosts in your account that aren't
already assigned to a reservation.
• Payment option—The payment option for the offering.
• Term—The term of the reservation, which can be one or three years.
4. Choose Find offering and select an offering that matches your requirements.
5. Choose the Dedicated Hosts to associate with the reservation, and then choose Review.
6. Review your order and choose Order.

AWS CLI

To purchase reservations

1. Use the describe-host-reservation-offerings AWS CLI command to list the available offerings
that match your needs. The following example lists the offerings that support instances in the
m4 instance family and have a one-year term.
Note
The term is specified in seconds. A one-year term includes 31,536,000 seconds, and a
three-year term includes 94,608,000 seconds.

aws ec2 describe-host-reservation-offerings --filter Name=instance-family,Values=m4

--max-duration 31536000

The command returns a list of offerings that match your criteria. Note the offeringId of the
offering to purchase.

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2. Use the purchase-host-reservation AWS CLI command to purchase the offering and provide
the offeringId noted in the previous step. The following example purchases the specified
reservation and associates it with a specific Dedicated Host that is already allocated in the AWS
account, and it applies a tag with a key of purpose and a value of production.

aws ec2 purchase-host-reservation --offering-id hro-03f707bf363b6b324 --

host-id-set h-013abcd2a00cbd123 --tag-specifications 'ResourceType=host-
reservation,Tags={Key=purpose,Value=production}'

PowerShell

To purchase reservations

1. Use the Get-EC2HostReservationOffering AWS Tools for Windows PowerShell command to list
the available offerings that match your needs. The following examples list the offerings that
support instances in the m4 instance family and have a one-year term.
Note
The term is specified in seconds. A one-year term includes 31,536,000 seconds, and a
three-year term includes 94,608,000 seconds.

PS C:\> $filter = @{Name="instance-family"; Value="m4"}

PS C:\> Get-EC2HostReservationOffering -filter $filter -MaxDuration 31536000

The command returns a list of offerings that match your criteria. Note the offeringId of the
offering to purchase.
2. Use the New-EC2HostReservation AWS Tools for Windows PowerShell command to purchase
the offering and provide the offeringId noted in the previous step. The following example
purchases the specified reservation and associates it with a specific Dedicated Host that is
already allocated in the AWS account.

PS C:\> New-EC2HostReservation -OfferingId hro-03f707bf363b6b324 -

HostIdSet h-013abcd2a00cbd123

View Dedicated Host reservations

You can view information about the Dedicated Hosts that are associated with your reservation, including:

• The term of the reservation

• The payment option
• The start and end dates

You can view details of your Dedicated Host reservations using the following methods.

Console

To view the details of a Dedicated Host reservation

1. Open the Amazon EC2 console at https://console.aws.amazon.com/ec2/.

2. Choose Dedicated Hosts in the navigation pane.
3. On the Dedicated Hosts page, choose Dedicated Host Reservations, and then select the
reservation from the list provided.

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4. Choose Details for information about the reservation.

5. Choose Hosts for information about the Dedicated Hosts with which the reservation is
associated.

AWS CLI

To view the details of a Dedicated Host reservation

Use the describe-host-reservations AWS CLI command.

aws ec2 describe-host-reservations

PowerShell

To view the details of a Dedicated Host reservation

Use the Get-EC2HostReservation AWS Tools for Windows PowerShell command.

PS C:\> Get-EC2HostReservation

Tag Dedicated Host Reservations

You can assign custom tags to your Dedicated Host Reservations to categorize them in different ways,
for example, by purpose, owner, or environment. This helps you to quickly find a specific Dedicated Host
Reservation based on the custom tags that you assigned.

You can tag a Dedicated Host Reservation using the command line tools only.

AWS CLI

To tag a Dedicated Host Reservation

Use the create-tags AWS CLI command.

aws ec2 create-tags --resources hr-1234563a4ffc669ae --tags Key=Owner,Value=TeamA

PowerShell

To tag a Dedicated Host Reservation

Use the New-EC2Tag AWS Tools for Windows PowerShell command.

The New-EC2Tag command needs a Tag parameter, which specifies the key and value pair to be
used for the Dedicated Host Reservation tag. The following commands create the Tag parameter.

PS C:\> $tag = New-Object Amazon.EC2.Model.Tag

PS C:\> $tag.Key = "Owner"
PS C:\> $tag.Value = "TeamA"

PS C:\> New-EC2Tag -Resource hr-1234563a4ffc669ae -Tag $tag

Work with shared Dedicated Hosts

Dedicated Host sharing enables Dedicated Host owners to share their Dedicated Hosts with other
AWS accounts or within an AWS organization. This enables you to create and manage Dedicated Hosts
centrally, and share the Dedicated Host across multiple AWS accounts or within your AWS organization.

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In this model, the AWS account that owns the Dedicated Host (owner) shares it with other AWS accounts
(consumers). Consumers can launch instances onto Dedicated Hosts that are shared with them in
the same way that they would launch instances onto Dedicated Hosts that they allocate in their own
account. The owner is responsible for managing the Dedicated Host and the instances that they launch
onto it. Owners can't modify instances that consumers launch onto shared Dedicated Hosts. Consumers
are responsible for managing the instances that they launch onto Dedicated Hosts shared with them.
Consumers can't view or modify instances owned by other consumers or by the Dedicated Host owner,
and they can't modify Dedicated Hosts that are shared with them.

A Dedicated Host owner can share a Dedicated Host with:

• Specific AWS accounts inside or outside of its AWS organization

• An organizational unit inside its AWS organization
• Its entire AWS organization

Contents
• Prerequisites for sharing Dedicated Hosts (p. 354)
• Limitations for sharing Dedicated Hosts (p. 354)
• Related services (p. 354)
• Share across Availability Zones (p. 355)
• Share a Dedicated Host (p. 355)
• Unshare a shared Dedicated Host (p. 356)
• Identify a shared Dedicated Host (p. 356)
• View instances running on a shared Dedicated Host (p. 357)
• Shared Dedicated Host permissions (p. 357)
• Billing and metering (p. 358)
• Dedicated Host limits (p. 358)
• Host recovery and Dedicated Host sharing (p. 358)

Prerequisites for sharing Dedicated Hosts

• To share a Dedicated Host, you must own it in your AWS account. You can't share a Dedicated Host that
has been shared with you.
• To share a Dedicated Host with your AWS organization or an organizational unit in your AWS
organization, you must enable sharing with AWS Organizations. For more information, see Enable
Sharing with AWS Organizations in the AWS RAM User Guide.

Limitations for sharing Dedicated Hosts

You can't share Dedicated Hosts that have been allocated for the following instance types:
u-6tb1.metal, u-9tb1.metal, u-12tb1.metal, u-18tb1.metal, and u-24tb1.metal.

Related services
AWS Resource Access Manager

Dedicated Host sharing integrates with AWS Resource Access Manager (AWS RAM). AWS RAM is a service
that enables you to share your AWS resources with any AWS account or through AWS Organizations.
With AWS RAM, you share resources that you own by creating a resource share. A resource share specifies
the resources to share, and the consumers with whom to share them. Consumers can be individual AWS
accounts, or organizational units or an entire organization from AWS Organizations.

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For more information about AWS RAM, see the AWS RAM User Guide.

Share across Availability Zones

To ensure that resources are distributed across the Availability Zones for a Region, we independently
map Availability Zones to names for each account. This could lead to Availability Zone naming
differences across accounts. For example, the Availability Zone us-east-1a for your AWS account might
not have the same location as us-east-1a for another AWS account.

To identify the location of your Dedicated Hosts relative to your accounts, you must use the Availability
Zone ID (AZ ID). The Availability Zone ID is a unique and consistent identifier for an Availability Zone
across all AWS accounts. For example, use1-az1 is an Availability Zone ID for the us-east-1 Region
and it is the same location in every AWS account.

To view the Availability Zone IDs for the Availability Zones in your account

1. Open the AWS RAM console at https://console.aws.amazon.com/ram.

2. The Availability Zone IDs for the current Region are displayed in the Your AZ ID panel on the right-
hand side of the screen.

Share a Dedicated Host

When an owner shares a Dedicated Host, it enables consumers to launch instances on the host.
Consumers can launch as many instances onto the shared host as its available capacity allows.
Important
Note that you are responsible for ensuring that you have appropriate license rights to share any
BYOL licenses on your Dedicated Hosts.

If you share a Dedicated Host with auto-placement enabled, keep the following in mind as it could lead
to unintended Dedicated Host usage:

• If consumers launch instances with Dedicated Host tenancy and they do not have capacity on a
Dedicated Host that they own in their account, the instance is automatically launched onto the shared
Dedicated Host.

To share a Dedicated Host, you must add it to a resource share. A resource share is an AWS RAM resource
that lets you share your resources across AWS accounts. A resource share specifies the resources to share,
and the consumers with whom they are shared. You can add the Dedicated Host to an existing resource,
or you can add it to a new resource share.

If you are part of an organization in AWS Organizations and sharing within your organization is enabled,
consumers in your organization are automatically granted access to the shared Dedicated Host.
Otherwise, consumers receive an invitation to join the resource share and are granted access to the
shared Dedicated Host after accepting the invitation.
Note
After you share a Dedicated Host, it could take a few minutes for consumers to have access to it.

You can share a Dedicated Host that you own by using one of the following methods.

Amazon EC2 console

To share a Dedicated Host that you own using the Amazon EC2 console

1. Open the Amazon EC2 console at https://console.aws.amazon.com/ec2/.

2. In the navigation pane, choose Dedicated Hosts.
3. Choose the Dedicated Host to share and choose Actions, Share host.

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4. Select the resource share to which to add the Dedicated Host and choose Share host.

It could take a few minutes for consumers to get access to the shared host.

AWS RAM console

To share a Dedicated Host that you own using the AWS RAM console

See Creating a Resource Share in the AWS RAM User Guide.

AWS CLI

To share a Dedicated Host that you own using the AWS CLI

Use the create-resource-share command.

Unshare a shared Dedicated Host

The Dedicated Host owner can unshare a shared Dedicated Host at any time. When you unshare a shared
Dedicated Host, the following rules apply:

• Consumers with whom the Dedicated Host was shared can no longer launch new instances onto it.
• Instances owned by consumers that were running on the Dedicated Host at the time of unsharing
continue to run but are scheduled for retirement. Consumers receive retirement notifications for
the instances and they have two weeks to take action on the notifications. However, if the Dedicated
Host is reshared with the consumer within the retirement notice period, the instance retirements are
cancelled.

To unshare a shared Dedicated Host that you own, you must remove it from the resource share. You can
do this by using one of the following methods.

Amazon EC2 console

To unshare a shared Dedicated Host that you own using the Amazon EC2 console

1. Open the Amazon EC2 console at https://console.aws.amazon.com/ec2/.

2. In the navigation pane, choose Dedicated Hosts.
3. Choose the Dedicated Host to unshare and choose the Sharing tab.
4. The Sharing tab lists the resource shares to which the Dedicated Host has been added. Select
the resource share from which to remove the Dedicated Host and choose Remove host from
resource share.

AWS RAM console

To unshare a shared Dedicated Host that you own using the AWS RAM console

See Updating a Resource Share in the AWS RAM User Guide.

Command line

To unshare a shared Dedicated Host that you own using the AWS CLI

Use the disassociate-resource-share command.

Identify a shared Dedicated Host

Owners and consumers can identify shared Dedicated Hosts using one of the following methods.

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Amazon EC2 console

To identify a shared Dedicated Host using the Amazon EC2 console

1. Open the Amazon EC2 console at https://console.aws.amazon.com/ec2/.

2. In the navigation pane, choose Dedicated Hosts. The screen lists Dedicated Hosts that you own
and Dedicated Hosts that are shared with you. The Owner column shows the AWS account ID of
the Dedicated Host owner.

Command line

To identify a shared Dedicated Host using the AWS CLI

Use the describe-hosts command. The command returns the Dedicated Hosts that you own and
Dedicated Hosts that are shared with you.

View instances running on a shared Dedicated Host

Owners and consumers can view the instances running on a shared Dedicated Host at any time using one
of the following methods.

Amazon EC2 console

To view the instances running on a shared Dedicated Host using the Amazon EC2 console

1. Open the Amazon EC2 console at https://console.aws.amazon.com/ec2/.

2. In the navigation pane, choose Dedicated Hosts.
3. Select the Dedicated Host for which to view the instances and choose Instances. The tab lists
the instances that are running on the host. Owners see all of the instances running on the host,
including instances launched by consumers. Consumers only see running instances that they
launched onto the host. The Owner column shows the AWS account ID of the account that
launched the instance.

Command line

To view the instances running on a shared Dedicated Host using the AWS CLI

Use the describe-hosts command. The command returns the instances running on each Dedicated
Host. Owners see all of the instances running on the host. Consumers only see running instances
that they launched on the shared hosts. InstanceOwnerId shows the AWS account ID of the
instance owner.

Shared Dedicated Host permissions

Permissions for owners
Owners are responsible for managing their shared Dedicated Hosts and the instances that they launch
onto them. Owners can view all instances running on the shared Dedicated Host, including those
launched by consumers. However, owners can't take any action on running instances that were launched
by consumers.

Permissions for consumers

Consumers are responsible for managing the instances that they launch onto a shared Dedicated Host.
Consumers can't modify the shared Dedicated Host in any way, and they can't view or modify instances
that were launched by other consumers or the Dedicated Host owner.

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Billing and metering

There are no additional charges for sharing Dedicated Hosts.

Owners are billed for Dedicated Hosts that they share. Consumers are not billed for instances that they
launch onto shared Dedicated Hosts.

Dedicated Host Reservations continue to provide billing discounts for shared Dedicated Hosts. Only
Dedicated Host owners can purchase Dedicated Host Reservations for shared Dedicated Hosts that they
own.

Dedicated Host limits

Shared Dedicated Hosts count towards the owner's Dedicated Hosts limits only. Consumer's Dedicated
Hosts limits are not affected by Dedicated Hosts that have been shared with them. Similarly, instances
that consumers launch onto shared Dedicated Hosts do not count towards their instance limits.

Host recovery and Dedicated Host sharing

Host recovery recovers instances launched by the Dedicated Host owner and the consumers with whom it
has been shared. The replacement Dedicated Host is allocated to the owner's account. It is added to the
same resource shares as the original Dedicated Host, and it is shared with the same consumers.

For more information, see Host recovery (p. 358).

Host recovery
Host recovery automatically restarts your instances on to a new replacement host if failures are detected
on your Dedicated Host. Host recovery reduces the need for manual intervention and lowers the
operational burden if there is an unexpected Dedicated Host failure.

Additionally, built-in integration with AWS License Manager automates the tracking and management of
your licenses if a host recovery occurs.
Note
AWS License Manager integration is supported only in Regions in which AWS License Manager is
available.

Contents
• Host recovery basics (p. 358)
• Supported instance types (p. 359)
• Configure host recovery (p. 360)
• Host recovery states (p. 361)
• Manually recover unsupported instances (p. 361)
• Related services (p. 362)
• Pricing (p. 362)

Host recovery basics

Host recovery uses host-level health checks to assess Dedicated Host availability and to detect
underlying system failures. Examples of problems that can cause host-level health checks to fail include:

• Loss of network connectivity

• Loss of system power

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• Hardware or software issues on the physical host

When a system failure is detected on your Dedicated Host, host recovery is initiated and Amazon EC2
automatically allocates a replacement Dedicated Host. The replacement Dedicated Host receives a new
host ID, but retains the same attributes as the original Dedicated Host, including:

• Availability Zone
• Instance type
• Tags
• Auto placement settings

After the replacement Dedicated Host is allocated, the instances are recovered on to the replacement
Dedicated Host. The recovered instances retain the same attributes as the original instances, including:

• Instance ID
• Private IP addresses
• Elastic IP addresses
• EBS volume attachments
• All instance metadata

If instances have a host affinity relationship with the impaired Dedicated Host, the recovered instances
establish host affinity with the replacement Dedicated Host.

When all of the instances have been recovered on to the replacement Dedicated Host, the impaired
Dedicated Host is released, and the replacement Dedicated Host becomes available for use.

When host recovery is initiated, the AWS account owner is notified by email and by an AWS Personal
Health Dashboard event. A second notification is sent after the host recovery has been successfully
completed.

Stopped instances are not recovered on to the replacement Dedicated Host. If you attempt to start
a stopped instance that targets the impaired Dedicated Host, the instance start fails. We recommend
that you modify the stopped instance to either target a different Dedicated Host, or to launch on any
available Dedicated Host with matching configurations and auto-placement enabled.

Instances with instance storage are not recovered on to the replacement Dedicated Host. As a remedial
measure, the impaired Dedicated Host is marked for retirement and you receive a retirement notification
after the host recovery is complete. Follow the remedial steps described in the retirement notification
within the specified time period to manually recover the remaining instances on the impaired Dedicated
Host.

If you are using AWS License Manager to track your licenses, AWS License Manager allocates new licenses
for the replacement Dedicated Host based on the license configuration limits. If the license configuration
has hard limits that will be breached as a result of the host recovery, the recovery process is not allowed
and you are notified of the host recovery failure through an Amazon SNS notification. If the license
configuration has soft limits that will be breached as a result of the host recovery, the recovery is allowed
to continue and you are notified of the limit breach through an Amazon SNS notification. For more
information, see Using License Configurations in the AWS License Manager User Guide.

Supported instance types

Host recovery is supported for the following instance families: A1, C3, C4, C5, C5n, M3, M4, M5, M5n, P3,
R3, R4, R5, R5n, X1, X1e, u-6tb1, u-9tb1, u-12tb1, u-18tb1, and u-24tb1.

To recover instances that are not supported, see Manually recover unsupported instances (p. 361).

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Configure host recovery

You can configure host recovery at the time of Dedicated Host allocation, or after allocation using the
Amazon EC2 console or AWS Command Line Interface (CLI).

Contents
• Enable host recovery (p. 360)
• Disable host recovery (p. 360)
• View the host recovery configuration (p. 360)

Enable host recovery

You can enable host recovery at the time of Dedicated Host allocation or after allocation.

For more information about enabling host recovery at the time of Dedicated Host allocation, see Allocate
Dedicated Hosts (p. 336).

To enable host recovery after allocation using the console

1. Open the Amazon EC2 console at https://console.aws.amazon.com/ec2/.

2. In the navigation pane, choose Dedicated Hosts.
3. Select the Dedicated Host for which to enable host recovery, and then choose Actions, Modify Host
Recovery.
4. For Host recovery, choose Enable, and then choose Save.

To enable host recovery after allocation using the AWS CLI

Use the modify-hosts command and specify the host-recovery parameter.

$ aws ec2 modify-hosts --host-recovery on --host-ids h-012a3456b7890cdef

Disable host recovery

You can disable host recovery at any time after the Dedicated Host has been allocated.

To disable host recovery after allocation using the console

1. Open the Amazon EC2 console at https://console.aws.amazon.com/ec2/.

2. In the navigation pane, choose Dedicated Hosts.
3. Select the Dedicated Host for which to disable host recovery, and then choose Actions, Modify Host
Recovery.
4. For Host recovery, choose Disable, and then choose Save.

To disable host recovery after allocation using the AWS CLI

Use the modify-hosts command and specify the host-recovery parameter.

$ aws ec2 modify-hosts --host-recovery off --host-ids h-012a3456b7890cdef

View the host recovery configuration

You can view the host recovery configuration for a Dedicated Host at any time.

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To view the host recovery configuration for a Dedicated Host using the console

1. Open the Amazon EC2 console at https://console.aws.amazon.com/ec2/.

2. In the navigation pane, choose Dedicated Hosts.
3. Select the Dedicated Host, and in the Description tab, review the Host Recovery field.

To view the host recovery configuration for a Dedicated Host using the AWS CLI

Use the describe-hosts command.

$ aws ec2 describe-hosts --host-ids h-012a3456b7890cdef

The HostRecovery response element indicates whether host recovery is enabled or disabled.

Host recovery states

When a Dedicated Host failure is detected, the impaired Dedicated Host enters the under-assessment
state, and all of the instances enter the impaired state. You can't launch instances on to the impaired
Dedicated Host while it is in the under-assessment state.

After the replacement Dedicated Host is allocated, it enters the pending state. It remains in this state
until the host recovery process is complete. You can't launch instances on to the replacement Dedicated
Host while it is in the pending state. Recovered instances on the replacement Dedicated Host remain in
the impaired state during the recovery process.

After the host recovery is complete, the replacement Dedicated Host enters the available state,
and the recovered instances return to the running state. You can launch instances on to the
replacement Dedicated Host after it enters the available state. The original impaired Dedicated Host is
permanently released and it enters the released-permanent-failure state.

If the impaired Dedicated Host has instances that do not support host recovery, such as instances with
instance store-backed volumes, the Dedicated Host is not released. Instead, it is marked for retirement
and enters the permanent-failure state.

Manually recover unsupported instances

Host recovery does not support recovering instances that use instance store volumes. Follow the
instructions below to manually recover any of your instances that could not be automatically recovered.
Warning
Data on instance store volumes is lost when an instance is stopped, hibernated, or terminated.
This includes instance store volumes that are attached to an instance that has an EBS volume
as the root device. To protect data from instance store volumes, back it up to persistent storage
before the instance is stopped or terminated.

Manually recover EBS-backed instances

For EBS-backed instances that could not be automatically recovered, we recommend that you manually
stop and start the instances to recover them onto a new Dedicated Host. For more information about
stopping your instance, and about the changes that occur in your instance configuration when it's
stopped, see Stop and start your instance (p. 429).

Manually recover instance store-backed instances

For instance store-backed instances that could not be automatically recovered, we recommend that you
do the following:

1. Launch a replacement instance on a new Dedicated Host from your most recent AMI.
2. Migrate all of the necessary data to the replacement instance.

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3. Terminate the original instance on the impaired Dedicated Host.

Related services
Dedicated Host integrates with the following services:

• AWS License Manager—Tracks licenses across your Amazon EC2 Dedicated Hosts (supported only
in Regions in which AWS License Manager is available). For more information, see the AWS License
Manager User Guide.

Pricing
There are no additional charges for using host recovery, but the usual Dedicated Host charges apply. For
more information, see Amazon EC2 Dedicated Hosts Pricing.

As soon as host recovery is initiated, you are no longer billed for the impaired Dedicated Host. Billing for
the replacement Dedicated Host begins only after it enters the available state.

If the impaired Dedicated Host was billed using the On-Demand rate, the replacement Dedicated Host
is also billed using the On-Demand rate. If the impaired Dedicated Host had an active Dedicated Host
Reservation, it is transferred to the replacement Dedicated Host.

Track configuration changes

You can use AWS Config to record configuration changes for Dedicated Hosts, and for instances that are
launched, stopped, or terminated on them. You can then use the information captured by AWS Config as
a data source for license reporting.

AWS Config records configuration information for Dedicated Hosts and instances individually, and pairs
this information through relationships. There are three reporting conditions:

• AWS Config recording status—When On, AWS Config is recording one or more AWS resource types,
which can include Dedicated Hosts and Dedicated Instances. To capture the information required for
license reporting, verify that hosts and instances are being recorded with the following fields.
• Host recording status—When Enabled, the configuration information for Dedicated Hosts is recorded.
• Instance recording status—When Enabled, the configuration information for Dedicated Instances is
recorded.

If any of these three conditions are disabled, the icon in the Edit Config Recording button is red. To
derive the full benefit of this tool, ensure that all three recording methods are enabled. When all three
are enabled, the icon is green. To edit the settings, choose Edit Config Recording. You are directed to
the Set up AWS Config page in the AWS Config console, where you can set up AWS Config and start
recording for your hosts, instances, and other supported resource types. For more information, see
Setting up AWS Config using the Console in the AWS Config Developer Guide.
Note
AWS Config records your resources after it discovers them, which might take several minutes.

After AWS Config starts recording configuration changes to your hosts and instances, you can get the
configuration history of any host that you have allocated or released and any instance that you have
launched, stopped, or terminated. For example, at any point in the configuration history of a Dedicated
Host, you can look up how many instances are launched on that host, along with the number of sockets
and cores on the host. For any of those instances, you can also look up the ID of its Amazon Machine
Image (AMI). You can use this information to report on licensing for your own server-bound software
that is licensed per-socket or per-core.

You can view configuration histories in any of the following ways:

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• By using the AWS Config console. For each recorded resource, you can view a timeline page, which
provides a history of configuration details. To view this page, choose the gray icon in the Config
Timeline column of the Dedicated Hosts page. For more information, see Viewing Configuration
Details in the AWS Config Console in the AWS Config Developer Guide.
• By running AWS CLI commands. First, you can use the list-discovered-resources command to get a
list of all hosts and instances. Then, you can use the get-resource-config-history command to get the
configuration details of a host or instance for a specific time interval. For more information, see View
Configuration Details Using the CLI in the AWS Config Developer Guide.
• By using the AWS Config API in your applications. First, you can use the ListDiscoveredResources action
to get a list of all hosts and instances. Then, you can use the GetResourceConfigHistory action to get
the configuration details of a host or instance for a specific time interval.

For example, to get a list of all of your Dedicated Hosts from AWS Config, run a CLI command such as the
following.

aws configservice list-discovered-resources --resource-type AWS::EC2::Host

To obtain the configuration history of a Dedicated Host from AWS Config, run a CLI command such as
the following.

aws configservice get-resource-config-history --resource-type AWS::EC2::Instance --

resource-id i-1234567890abcdef0

To manage AWS Config settings using the console

1. Open the Amazon EC2 console at https://console.aws.amazon.com/ec2/.

2. On the Dedicated Hosts page, choose Edit Config Recording.
3. In the AWS Config console, follow the steps provided to turn on recording. For more information, see
Setting up AWS Config using the Console.

For more information, see Viewing Configuration Details in the AWS Config Console.

To activate AWS Config using the command line or API

• AWS CLI: Viewing Configuration Details (AWS CLI) in the AWS Config Developer Guide.
• Amazon EC2 API: GetResourceConfigHistory.

Dedicated Instances
Dedicated Instances are Amazon EC2 instances that run in a virtual private cloud (VPC) on hardware
that's dedicated to a single customer. Dedicated Instances that belong to different AWS accounts are
physically isolated at a hardware level, even if those accounts are linked to a single payer account.
However, Dedicated Instances might share hardware with other instances from the same AWS account
that are not Dedicated Instances.
Note
A Dedicated Host is also a physical server that's dedicated for your use. With a Dedicated
Host, you have visibility and control over how instances are placed on the server. For more
information, see Dedicated Hosts (p. 331).

Topics
• Dedicated Instance basics (p. 364)
• Supported features (p. 364)

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• Differences between Dedicated Instances and Dedicated Hosts (p. 365)

• Dedicated Instances limitations (p. 366)
• Pricing for Dedicated Instances (p. 366)
• Work with Dedicated Instances (p. 366)

Dedicated Instance basics

Dedicated Instances can be launched into an Amazon VPC only.

When you launch an instance, the instance's tenancy attribute determines the hardware that it runs on.
To launch a Dedicated Instance, you must specify an instance tenancy of dedicated.
Note
Instances with a tenancy value of default run on shared tenancy hardware. Instances with
a tenancy value of host run on a Dedicated Host. For more information about working with
Dedicated Hosts, see Dedicated Hosts (p. 331).

The tenancy of the VPC into which you launch the instance can also determine the instance's tenancy. A
VPC can have a tenancy of either default or dedicated. If you launch an instance into a VPC that has
a tenancy of default, the instance runs on shared tenancy hardware by default, unless you specify a
different tenancy for the instance. If you launch an instance into a VPC that has a tenancy of dedicated,
the instance runs as a Dedicated Instance by default, unless you specify a different tenancy for the
instance.

To launch Dedicated Instances, you can do the following:

• Create a VPC with a tenancy of dedicated and launch all instances as Dedicated Instances by default.
For more information, see Create a VPC with an instance tenancy of dedicated (p. 366).
• Create a VPC with a tenancy of default and manually specify a tenancy of dedicated for the
instances that you want to run as Dedicated Instances. For more information, see Launch Dedicated
Instances into a VPC (p. 367).

Supported features
Dedicated Instances support the following features and AWS service integrations:

Topics
• Reserved Instances (p. 364)
• Automatic scaling (p. 365)
• Automatic recovery (p. 365)
• Dedicated Spot Instances (p. 365)
• Burstable performance instances (p. 365)

Reserved Instances
To guarantee that sufficient capacity is available to launch Dedicated Instances, you can purchase
Dedicated Reserved Instances. For more information, see Reserved Instances (p. 247).

When you purchase a Dedicated Reserved Instance, you are purchasing the capacity to launch a
Dedicated Instance into a VPC at a much reduced usage fee; the price break in the usage charge applies
only if you launch an instance with dedicated tenancy. When you purchase a Reserved Instance with
default tenancy, it applies only to a running instance with default tenancy; it does not apply to a
running instance with dedicated tenancy.

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You can't use the modification process to change the tenancy of a Reserved Instance after you've
purchased it. However, you can exchange a Convertible Reserved Instance for a new Convertible
Reserved Instance with a different tenancy.

Automatic scaling
You can use Amazon EC2 Auto Scaling to launch Dedicated Instances. For more information, see
Launching Auto Scaling Instances in a VPC in the Amazon EC2 Auto Scaling User Guide.

Automatic recovery
You can configure automatic recovery for a Dedicated Instance if it becomes impaired due to an
underlying hardware failure or a problem that requires AWS involvement to repair. For more information,
see Recover your instance (p. 452).

Dedicated Spot Instances

You can run a Dedicated Spot Instance by specifying a tenancy of dedicated when you create a Spot
Instance request. For more information, see Specify a tenancy for your Spot Instances (p. 295).

Burstable performance instances

You can leverage the benefits of running on dedicated tenancy hardware with the section called
“Burstable performance instances” (p. 161). T3 Dedicated Instances launch in unlimited mode by default,
and they provide a baseline level of CPU performance with the ability to burst to a higher CPU level
when required by your workload. The T3 baseline performance and ability to burst are governed by
CPU credits. Because of the burstable nature of the T3 instance types, we recommend that you monitor
how your T3 instances use the CPU resources of the dedicated hardware for the best performance.
T3 Dedicated Instances are intended for customers with diverse workloads that display random CPU
behavior, but that ideally have average CPU usage at or below the baseline usages. For more information,
see the section called “Key concepts” (p. 164).

Amazon EC2 has systems in place to identify and correct variability in performance. However, it is still
possible to experience short-term variability if you launch multiple T3 Dedicated Instances that have
correlated CPU usage patterns. For these more demanding or correlated workloads, we recommend
using M5 or M5a Dedicated Instances rather than T3 Dedicated Instances.

Differences between Dedicated Instances and Dedicated Hosts

Dedicated Instances and Dedicated Hosts can both be used to launch Amazon EC2 instances onto
physical servers that are dedicated for your use.

There are no performance, security, or physical differences between Dedicated Instances and instances
on Dedicated Hosts. However, there are some differences between the two. The following table
highlights some of the key differences between Dedicated Instances and Dedicated Hosts:

  Dedicated Host Dedicated Instance

Billing Per-host billing Per-instance billing

Visibility of Provides visibility of the number of No visibility

sockets, cores, sockets and physical cores on the host
and host ID

Host and Allows you to consistently deploy your Not supported

instance instances onto the same host over time
affinity

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  Dedicated Host Dedicated Instance

Targeted Provides control over how instances are Not supported

instance placed on the host
placement

Automatic Supported Supported

instance
recovery

Bring Your Supported Not supported

Own License
(BYOL)

For more information about Dedicated Hosts, see Dedicated Hosts (p. 331).

Dedicated Instances limitations

Keep the following in mind when using Dedicated Instances:

• Some AWS services or their features are not supported with a VPC with the instance tenancy set to
dedicated. Refer to the respective service's documentation to confirm if there are any limitations.
• Some instance types can't be launched into a VPC with the instance tenancy set to dedicated. For
more information about supported instance types, see Amazon EC2 Dedicated Instances.
• When you launch a Dedicated Instance backed by Amazon EBS, the EBS volume doesn't run on single-
tenant hardware.

Pricing for Dedicated Instances

Pricing for Dedicated Instances is different from pricing for On-Demand Instances. For more information,
see the Amazon EC2 Dedicated Instances product page.

Work with Dedicated Instances

You can create a VPC with an instance tenancy of dedicated to ensure that all instances launched
into the VPC are Dedicated Instances. Alternatively, you can specify the tenancy of the instance during
launch.

Topics
• Create a VPC with an instance tenancy of dedicated (p. 366)
• Launch Dedicated Instances into a VPC (p. 367)
• Display tenancy information (p. 368)
• Change the tenancy of an instance (p. 369)
• Change the tenancy of a VPC (p. 369)

Create a VPC with an instance tenancy of dedicated

When you create a VPC, you have the option of specifying its instance tenancy. If you're using the
Amazon VPC console, you can create a VPC using the VPC wizard or the Your VPCs page.

If you launch an instance into a VPC that has an instance tenancy of dedicated, your instance is
automatically a Dedicated Instance, regardless of the tenancy of the instance.

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Console

To create a VPC with an instance tenancy of dedicated (VPC Wizard)

1. Open the Amazon VPC console at https://console.aws.amazon.com/vpc/.

2. From the dashboard, choose Launch VPC Wizard.
3. Select a VPC configuration, and then choose Select.
4. For Hardware tenancy, choose Dedicated.
5. Choose Create VPC.

To create a VPC with an instance tenancy of dedicated (Create VPC dialog box)

1. Open the Amazon VPC console at https://console.aws.amazon.com/vpc/.

2. In the navigation pane, choose Your VPCs, and then choose Create VPC.
3. For Tenancy, choose Dedicated. Specify the CIDR block, and choose Create VPC.

Command line

To set the tenancy option when you create a VPC using the command line

• create-vpc (AWS CLI)

• New-EC2Vpc (AWS Tools for Windows PowerShell)

Launch Dedicated Instances into a VPC

You can launch a Dedicated Instance using the Amazon EC2 launch instance wizard.

Console

To launch a Dedicated Instance into a default tenancy VPC using the console

1. Open the Amazon EC2 console at https://console.aws.amazon.com/ec2/.

2. Choose Launch Instance.
3. On the Choose an Amazon Machine Image (AMI) page, select an AMI and choose Select.
4. On the Choose an Instance Type page, select the instance type and choose Next: Configure
Instance Details.
Note
Ensure that you choose an instance type that's supported as a Dedicated Instance. For
more information, see Amazon EC2 Dedicated Instances.
5. On the Configure Instance Details page, select a VPC and subnet. For Tenancy, choose
Dedicated - Run a dedicated instance, and then choose Next: Add Storage.
6. Continue as prompted by the wizard. When you've finished reviewing your options on the
Review Instance Launch page, choose Launch to choose a key pair and launch the Dedicated
Instance.

Command line

To set the tenancy option for an instance during launch using the command line

• run-instances (AWS CLI)

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• New-EC2Instance (AWS Tools for Windows PowerShell)

For more information about launching an instance with a tenancy of host, see Launch instances onto a
Dedicated Host (p. 339).

Display tenancy information

Console

To display tenancy information for your VPC using the console

1. Open the Amazon VPC console at https://console.aws.amazon.com/vpc/.

2. In the navigation pane, choose Your VPCs.
3. Check the instance tenancy of your VPC in the Tenancy column.
4.
If the Tenancy column is not displayed, choose the settings icon ( ) in the top-right corner,
toggle to choose Tenancy, and choose Confirm.

To display tenancy information for your instance using the console

1. Open the Amazon EC2 console at https://console.aws.amazon.com/ec2/.

2. In the navigation pane, choose Instances.
3. Check the tenancy of your instance in the Tenancy column.
4. If the Tenancy column is not displayed, do one of the following:

•
Choose the settings icon ( ) in the top-right corner, toggle to choose Tenancy, and choose
Confirm.
• Select the instance. On the Details tab near the bottom of the page, under Host and
placement group, check the value for Tenancy.

Command line

To describe the tenancy of your VPC using the command line

• describe-vpcs (AWS CLI)

• Get-EC2Vpc (AWS Tools for Windows PowerShell)

To describe the tenancy of your instance using the command line

• describe-instances (AWS CLI)

• Get-EC2Instance (AWS Tools for Windows PowerShell)

To describe the tenancy value of a Reserved Instance using the command line

• describe-reserved-instances (AWS CLI)

• Get-EC2ReservedInstance (AWS Tools for Windows PowerShell)

To describe the tenancy value of a Reserved Instance offering using the command line

• describe-reserved-instances-offerings (AWS CLI)

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• Get-EC2ReservedInstancesOffering (AWS Tools for Windows PowerShell)

Change the tenancy of an instance

You can change the tenancy of a stopped instance only from dedicated to host, or from host to
dedicated after launch. The changes that you make take effect the next time the instance starts.
Note

• You can't change the tenancy of an instance from default to dedicated or host after
launch. And you can't change the tenancy of an instance from dedicated or host to
default after launch.
• For T3 instances, you can't change the tenancy from dedicated to host, or from host to
dedicated. Attempting to make one of these unsupported tenancy changes results in the
InvalidTenancy error code.

Console

To change the tenancy of an instance using the console

1. Open the Amazon EC2 console at https://console.aws.amazon.com/ec2/.

2. In the navigation pane, choose Instances and select your instance.
3. Choose Instance state, Stop instance, Stop.
4. Choose Actions, Instance settings, Modify instance placement.
5. For Tenancy, choose whether to run your instance on dedicated hardware or on a Dedicated
Host. Choose Save.

Command line

To modify the tenancy value of an instance using the command line

• modify-instance-placement (AWS CLI)

• Edit-EC2InstancePlacement (AWS Tools for Windows PowerShell)

Change the tenancy of a VPC

You can change the instance tenancy of a VPC from dedicated to default after you create it.
Modifying the instance tenancy of the VPC does not affect the tenancy of any existing instances in the
VPC. The next time you launch an instance in the VPC, it has a tenancy of default, unless you specify
otherwise during launch.
Note
You cannot change the instance tenancy of a VPC from default to dedicated after it is
created.

You can modify the instance tenancy of a VPC using the AWS CLI, an AWS SDK, or the Amazon EC2 API
only.

Command line

To modify the instance tenancy attribute of a VPC using the AWS CLI

Use the modify-vpc-tenancy command and specify the ID of the VPC and instance tenancy value.
The only supported value is default.

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aws ec2 modify-vpc-tenancy --vpc-id vpc-1a2b3c4d --instance-tenancy default

On-Demand Capacity Reservations

On-Demand Capacity Reservations enable you to reserve compute capacity for your Amazon EC2
instances in a specific Availability Zone for any duration. This gives you the ability to create and manage
Capacity Reservations independently from the billing discounts offered by Savings Plans or regional
Reserved Instances.

By creating Capacity Reservations, you ensure that you always have access to EC2 capacity when you
need it, for as long as you need it. You can create Capacity Reservations at any time, without entering
into a one-year or three-year term commitment, and the capacity is available immediately. Billing starts
as soon as the capacity is provisioned and the Capacity Reservation enters the active state. When you no
longer need it, cancel the Capacity Reservation to stop incurring charges.

When you create a Capacity Reservation, you specify:

• The Availability Zone in which to reserve the capacity

• The number of instances for which to reserve capacity
• The instance attributes, including the instance type, tenancy, and platform/OS

Capacity Reservations can only be used by instances that match their attributes. By default, they are
automatically used by running instances that match the attributes. If you don't have any running
instances that match the attributes of the Capacity Reservation, it remains unused until you launch an
instance with matching attributes.

In addition, you can use Savings Plans and regional Reserved Instances with your Capacity Reservations
to benefit from billing discounts. AWS automatically applies your discount when the attributes of a
Capacity Reservation match the attributes of a Savings Plan or regional Reserved Instance. For more
information, see Billing discounts (p. 373).

Contents
• Differences between Capacity Reservations, Reserved Instances, and Savings Plans (p. 370)
• Supported platforms (p. 371)
• Capacity Reservation limits (p. 371)
• Capacity Reservation limitations and restrictions (p. 372)
• Capacity Reservation pricing and billing (p. 372)
• Work with Capacity Reservations (p. 373)
• Capacity Reservations in Local Zones (p. 382)
• Capacity Reservations in Wavelength Zones (p. 383)
• Capacity Reservations on AWS Outposts (p. 383)
• Work with shared Capacity Reservations (p. 384)
• CloudWatch metrics for On-Demand Capacity Reservations (p. 388)

Differences between Capacity Reservations, Reserved Instances,

and Savings Plans
The following table highlights key differences between Capacity Reservations, Reserved Instances, and
Savings Plans:

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  Capacity Zonal Reserved Regional Reserved Savings Plans

Reservations Instances Instances

Term No commitment Requires a fixed one-year or three-year commitment

required. Can be
created and canceled
as needed.

Capacity Capacity reserved in a specific Availability No capacity reserved.

benefit Zone.

Billing No billing discount. † Provides a billing discount.

discount

Instance Your On-Demand Default is 20 per Default is 20 per No limit.

Limits Instance limits per Availability Zone. Region. You can
Region apply. You can request a request a limit
limit increase. increase.

† You can combine Capacity Reservations with Savings Plans or Regional Reserved Instances to receive a
discount.

For more information, see the following:

• Reserved Instances (p. 247)

• Savings Plans User Guide

Supported platforms
You must create the Capacity Reservation with the correct platform to ensure that it properly matches
with your instances. Capacity Reservations support the following platforms:

• Windows
• Windows with SQL Server
• Windows with SQL Server Web
• Windows with SQL Server Standard
• Windows with SQL Server Enterprise

When you purchase a Capacity Reservation, you must specify the platform that represents the operating
system for your instance.

• For Windows with SQL Standard, Windows with SQL Server Enterprise, and Windows with SQL Server
Web, you must choose the specific platform.
• For all other Windows versions, excluding BYOL which is not supported, choose the Windows platform.

For more information about the supported Linux platforms, see Supported platforms in the Amazon EC2
User Guide for Linux Instances.

Capacity Reservation limits

The number of instances for which you are allowed to reserve capacity is based on your account's On-
Demand Instance limit. You can reserve capacity for as many instances as that limit allows, minus the
number of instances that are already running.

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Capacity Reservation limitations and restrictions

Before you create Capacity Reservations, take note of the following limitations and restrictions.

• Active and unused Capacity Reservations count toward your On-Demand Instance limits.
• Capacity Reservations are not transferable from one AWS account to another. However, you can share
Capacity Reservations with other AWS accounts. For more information, see Work with shared Capacity
Reservations (p. 384).
• Zonal Reserved Instance billing discounts do not apply to Capacity Reservations.
• Capacity Reservations can't be created in placement groups.
• Capacity Reservations can't be used with Dedicated Hosts.
• Capacity Reservations can't be used with Bring Your Own License (BYOL).
• Capacity Reservations do not ensure that a hibernated instance can resume after you try to start it.

Capacity Reservation pricing and billing

The price for a Capacity Reservation varies by payment option.

Pricing
When the Capacity Reservation enters the active state, you are charged the equivalent On-Demand
rate whether you run instances in the reserved capacity or not. If you do not use the reservation, this
shows up as unused reservation on your EC2 bill. When you run an instance that matches the attributes
of a reservation, you just pay for the instance and nothing for the reservation. There are no upfront or
additional charges.

For example, if you create a Capacity Reservation for 20 m4.large Linux instances and run 15
m4.large Linux instances in the same Availability Zone, you will be charged for 15 active instances and
for 5 unused instances in the reservation.

Billing discounts for Savings Plans and regional Reserved Instances apply to Capacity Reservations. For
more information, see Billing discounts (p. 373).

For more information, see Amazon EC2 Pricing.

Billing
Billing starts as soon as the capacity is provisioned and the Capacity Reservation enters the active
state, and it continues while the Capacity Reservation remains in the active state.

Capacity Reservations are billed at per-second granularity. This means that you are charged for partial
hours. For example, if a reservation remains active in your account for 24 hours and 15 minutes, you will
be billed for 24.25 reservation hours.

The following example shows how a Capacity Reservation is billed. The Capacity Reservation is created
for one m4.large Linux instance, which has an On-Demand rate of $0.10 per usage hour. In this
example, the Capacity Reservation is active in the account for five hours. The Capacity Reservation is
unused for the first hour, so it is billed for one unused hour at the m4.large instance type's standard
On-Demand rate. In hours two through five, the Capacity Reservation is occupied by an m4.large
instance. During this time, the Capacity Reservation accrues no charges, and the account is instead billed
for the m4.large instance occupying it. In the sixth hour, the Capacity Reservation is canceled and the
m4.large instance runs normally outside of the reserved capacity. For that hour, it is charged at the On-
Demand rate of the m4.large instance type.

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Billing discounts
Billing discounts for Savings Plans and regional Reserved Instances apply to Capacity Reservations. AWS
automatically applies these discounts to Capacity Reservations that have matching attributes. When
a Capacity Reservation is used by an instance, the discount is applied to the instance. Discounts are
preferentially applied to instance usage before covering unused Capacity Reservations.

Billing discounts for zonal Reserved Instances do not apply to Capacity Reservations.

For more information, see the following:

• Reserved Instances (p. 247)

• Savings Plans User Guide

Viewing your bill

You can review the charges and fees to your account on the AWS Billing and Cost Management console.

• The Dashboard displays a spend summary for your account.

• On the Bills page, under Details, expand the Elastic Compute Cloud section and the Region to get
billing information about your Capacity Reservations.

You can view the charges online, or you can download a CSV file. For more information, see Capacity
Reservation Line Items in the AWS Billing and Cost Management User Guide.

Work with Capacity Reservations

To start using Capacity Reservations, you create the capacity reservation in the required Availability
Zone. Then, you can launch instances into the reserved capacity, view its capacity utilization in real time,
and increase or decrease its capacity as needed.

By default, Capacity Reservations automatically match new instances and running instances that have
matching attributes (instance type, platform, and Availability Zone). This means that any instance with
matching attributes automatically runs in the Capacity Reservation. However, you can also target a
Capacity Reservation for specific workloads. This enables you to explicitly control which instances are
allowed to run in that reserved capacity.

You can specify how the reservation ends. You can choose to cancel the Capacity Reservation or end it
automatically at a specified time. If you specify an end time, the Capacity Reservation is canceled within
an hour of the specified time. For example, if you specify 5/31/2019, 13:30:55, the Capacity Reservation
is guaranteed to end between 13:30:55 and 14:30:55 on 5/31/2019. After a reservation ends, you can no
longer target instances to the Capacity Reservation. Instances running in the reserved capacity continue
to run uninterrupted. If instances targeting a Capacity Reservation are stopped, you cannot restart them
until you remove their Capacity Reservation targeting preference or configure them to target a different
Capacity Reservation.

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Contents
• Create a Capacity Reservation (p. 374)
• Work with Capacity Reservation groups (p. 375)
• Launch instances into an existing Capacity Reservation (p. 378)
• Modify a Capacity Reservation (p. 379)
• Modify an instance's Capacity Reservation settings (p. 380)
• View a Capacity Reservation (p. 381)
• Cancel a Capacity Reservation (p. 381)

Create a Capacity Reservation

After you create the Capacity Reservation, the capacity is available immediately. The capacity remains
reserved for your use as long as the Capacity Reservation is active, and you can launch instances into it
at any time. If the Capacity Reservation is open, new instances and existing instances that have matching
attributes automatically run in the capacity of the Capacity Reservation. If the Capacity Reservation is
targeted, instances must specifically target it to run in the reserved capacity.

Your request to create a Capacity Reservation could fail if one of the following is true:

• Amazon EC2 does not have sufficient capacity to fulfill the request. Either try again at a later time,
try a different Availability Zone, or try a smaller capacity. If your application is flexible across instance
types and sizes, try different instance attributes.
• The requested quantity exceeds your On-Demand Instance limit for the selected instance family.
Increase your On-Demand Instance limit for the instance family and try again. For more information,
see On-Demand Instance limits (p. 244).

To create a Capacity Reservation using the console

1. Open the Amazon EC2 console at https://console.aws.amazon.com/ec2/.

2. Choose Capacity Reservations, and then choose Create Capacity Reservation.
3. On the Create a Capacity Reservation page, configure the following settings in the Instance details
section. The instance type, platform, and Availability Zone of the instances that you launch must
match the instance type, platform, and Availability Zone that you specify here or the Capacity
Reservation is not applied. For example, if an open Capacity Reservation doesn't match, an instance
launch that targets that Capacity Reservation explicitly will fail.

a. Instance Type—The type of instance to launch into the reserved capacity.

b. Launch EBS-optimized instances—Specify whether to reserve the capacity for EBS-optimized
instances. This option is selected by default for some instance types. For more information
about EBS-optimized instances, see Amazon Elastic Block Store (p. 1173).
c. Attach instance store at launch—Specify whether instances launched into the Capacity
Reservation use temporary block-level storage. The data on an instance store volume persists
only during the life of the associated instance.
d. Platform—The operating system for your instances. For more information, see Supported
platforms (p. 371). For more information about the supported Linux platforms, see Supported
platforms in the Amazon EC2 User Guide for Linux Instances.
e. Availability Zone—The Availability Zone in which to reserve the capacity.
f. Tenancy—Specify whether to run on shared hardware (default) or a dedicated instance.
g. Quantity—The number of instances for which to reserve capacity. If you specify a quantity that
exceeds your remaining On-Demand Instance limit for the selected instance type, the request is
denied.
4. Configure the following settings in the Reservation details section:

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a. Reservation Ends—Choose one of the following options:

• Manually—Reserve the capacity until you explicitly cancel it.

• Specific time—Cancel the capacity reservation automatically at the specified date and time.
b. Instance eligibility—Choose one of the following options:

• open—(Default) The Capacity Reservation matches any instance that has matching attributes
(instance type, platform, and Availability Zone). If you launch an instance with matching
attributes, it is placed into the reserved capacity automatically.
• targeted—The Capacity Reservation only accepts instances that have matching attributes
(instance type, platform, and Availability Zone), and that explicitly target the reservation.
5. Choose Request reservation.

To create a Capacity Reservation using the AWS CLI

Use the create-capacity-reservation command. For more information, see Supported

platforms (p. 371). For more information about the supported Linux platforms, see Supported
platforms in the Amazon EC2 User Guide for Linux Instances.

For example, the following command creates a Capacity Reservation that reserves capacity for three
m5.2xlarge instances running Windows with SQL Server AMIs in the us-east-1a Availability Zone.

aws ec2 create-capacity-reservation --instance-type m5.2xlarge --instance-platform Windows

with SQL Server --availability-zone us-east-1a --instance-count 3

Work with Capacity Reservation groups

You can use AWS Resource Groups to create logical collections of Capacity Reservations, called resource
groups. A resource group is a logical grouping of AWS resources that are all in the same AWS Region. You
can include multiple Capacity Reservations that have different attributes (instance type, platform, and
Availability Zone) in a single resource group.

When you create resource groups for your Capacity Reservations, you can target instances to a group
of Capacity Reservations instead of an individual Capacity Reservation. Instances that target a group of
Capacity Reservations match with any Capacity Reservation in the group that has matching attributes
(instance type, platform, and Availability Zone) and available capacity. If the group does not have a
Capacity Reservation with matching attributes and available capacity, the instances run using On-
Demand capacity. If a matching Capacity Reservation is added to the targeted group at a later stage, the
instance is automatically matched with and moved into its reserved capacity.

To prevent unintended use of Capacity Reservations in a group, configure the Capacity Reservations in
the group to accept only instances that explicitly target the capacity reservation. To do this, set Instance
eligibility to targeted (old console) or Only instances that specify this reservation (new console) when
creating the Capacity Reservation using the Amazon EC2 console. When using the AWS CLI, specify --
instance-match-criteria targeted when creating the Capacity Reservation. Doing this ensures
that only instances that explicitly target the group, or a Capacity Reservation in the group, can run in the
group.

If a Capacity Reservation in a group is canceled or expires while it has running instances, the instances
are automatically moved to another Capacity Reservation in the group that has matching attributes
and available capacity. If there are no remaining Capacity Reservations in the group that have matching
attributes and available capacity, the instances run in On-Demand capacity. If a matching Capacity
Reservation is added to the targeted group at a later stage, the instance is automatically moved into its
reserved capacity.

To create a group for your Capacity Reservations

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Use the create-group AWS CLI command. For name, provide a descriptive name for the group, and for
configuration, specify two Type request parameters:

• AWS::EC2::CapacityReservationPool to ensure that the resource group can be targeted for

instance launches
• AWS::ResourceGroups::Generic with allowed-resource-types set to
AWS::EC2::CapacityReservation to ensure that the resource group accepts Capacity Reservations
only

For example, the following command creates a group named MyCRGroup.

C:\> aws resource-groups create-group --name MyCRGroup --configuration

'{"Type":"AWS::EC2::CapacityReservationPool"}' '{"Type":"AWS::ResourceGroups::Generic",
"Parameters": [{"Name": "allowed-resource-types", "Values":
["AWS::EC2::CapacityReservation"]}]}'

The following shows example output.

{
"GroupConfiguration": {
"Status": "UPDATE_COMPLETE",
"Configuration": [
{
"Type": "AWS::EC2::CapacityReservationPool"
},
{
"Type": "AWS::ResourceGroups::Generic",
"Parameters": [
{
"Values": [
"AWS::EC2::CapacityReservation"
],
"Name": "allowed-resource-types"
}
]
}
]
},
"Group": {
"GroupArn": "arn:aws:resource-groups:sa-east-1:123456789012:group/MyCRGroup",
"Name": "MyCRGroup"
}
}

To add a Capacity Reservation to a group

Use the group-resources AWS CLI command. For group, specify the name of the group to which to add
the Capacity Reservations, and for resources, specify ARNs of the Capacity Reservations to add. To
add multiple Capacity Reservations, separate the ARNs with a space. To get the ARNs of the Capacity
Reservations to add, use the describe-capacity-reservations AWS CLI command and specify the IDs of
the Capacity Reservations.

For example, the following command adds two Capacity Reservations to a group named MyCRGroup.

C:\> aws resource-groups group-resources --group MyCRGroup --resource-arns arn:aws:ec2:sa-

east-1:123456789012:capacity-reservation/cr-1234567890abcdef1 arn:aws:ec2:sa-
east-1:123456789012:capacity-reservation/cr-54321abcdef567890

The following shows example output.

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{
"Failed": [],
"Succeeded": [
"arn:aws:ec2:sa-east-1:123456789012:capacity-reservation/cr-1234567890abcdef1",
"arn:aws:ec2:sa-east-1:123456789012:capacity-reservation/cr-54321abcdef567890"
]
}

To view the Capacity Reservations in a specific group

Use the list-group-resources AWS CLI command. For group, specify the name of the group.

For example, the following command lists the Capacity Reservations in a group named MyCRGroup.

C:\> aws resource-groups list-group-resources --group MyCRGroup

The following shows example output.

{
"QueryErrors": [],
"ResourceIdentifiers": [
{
"ResourceType": "AWS::EC2::CapacityReservation",
"ResourceArn": "arn:aws:ec2:sa-east-1:123456789012:capacity-reservation/
cr-1234567890abcdef1"
},
{
"ResourceType": "AWS::EC2::CapacityReservation",
"ResourceArn": "arn:aws:ec2:sa-east-1:123456789012:capacity-reservation/
cr-54321abcdef567890"
}
]
}

To view the groups to which a specific Capacity Reservation has been added (AWS CLI)

Use the get-groups-for-capacity-reservation AWS CLI command.

For example, the following command lists the groups to which Capacity Reservation
cr-1234567890abcdef1 has been added.

C:\> aws ec2 get-groups-for-capacity-reservation --capacity-reservation-

id cr-1234567890abcdef1

The following shows example output.

{
"CapacityReservationGroups": [
{
"OwnerId": "123456789012",
"GroupArn": "arn:aws:resource-groups:sa-east-1:123456789012:group/MyCRGroup"
}
]
}

To view the groups to which a specific Capacity Reservation has been added (console)

1. Open the Amazon EC2 console at https://console.aws.amazon.com/ec2/.

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2. In the navigation pane, choose Capacity Reservations, select the Capacity Reservation to view, and
then choose View.

The groups to which the Capacity Reservation has been added are listed in the Groups card.

To remove a Capacity Reservation from a group

Use the ungroup-resources AWS CLI command. For group, specify the ARN of the group from which to
remove the Capacity Reservation, and for resources specify the ARNs of the Capacity Reservations to
remove. To remove multiple Capacity Reservations, separate the ARNs with a space.

The following example removes two Capacity Reservations from a group named MyCRGroup.

C:\> aws resource-groups ungroup-resources --group MyCRGroup --

resource-arns arn:aws:ec2:sa-east-1:123456789012:capacity-reservation/
cr-0e154d26a16094dd arn:aws:ec2:sa-east-1:123456789012:capacity-reservation/
cr-54321abcdef567890

The following shows example output.

{
"Failed": [],
"Succeeded": [
"arn:aws:ec2:sa-east-1:123456789012:capacity-reservation/cr-0e154d26a16094dd",
"arn:aws:ec2:sa-east-1:123456789012:capacity-reservation/cr-54321abcdef567890"
]
}

To delete a group

Use the delete-group AWS CLI command. For group, provide the name of the group to delete.

For example, the following command deletes a group named MyCRGroup.

C:\> aws resource-groups delete-group --group MyCRGroup

The following shows example output.

{
"Group": {
"GroupArn": "arn:aws:resource-groups:sa-east-1:123456789012:group/MyCRGroup",
"Name": "MyCRGroup"
}
}

Launch instances into an existing Capacity Reservation

When you launch an instance, you can specify whether to launch the instance into any open Capacity
Reservation, into a specific Capacity Reservation, or into a group of Capacity Reservations. You can only
launch an instance into a Capacity Reservation that has matching attributes (instance type, platform, and
Availability Zone) and sufficient capacity. Alternatively, you can configure the instance to avoid running in
a Capacity Reservation, even if you have an open Capacity Reservation that has matching attributes and
available capacity.

Launching an instance into a Capacity Reservation reduces its available capacity by the number of
instances launched. For example, if you launch three instances, the available capacity of the Capacity
Reservation is reduced by three.

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To launch instances into an existing Capacity Reservation using the console

1. Open the Launch Instance wizard by choosing Launch Instances from Dashboard or Instances.
2. Select an Amazon Machine Image (AMI) and an instance type.
3. Complete the Configure Instance Details page. For Capacity Reservation, choose one of the
following options:

• None — Prevents the instances from launching into a Capacity Reservation. The instances run in
On-Demand capacity.
• Open — Launches the instances into any Capacity Reservation that has matching attributes and
sufficient capacity for the number of instances you selected. If there is no matching Capacity
Reservation with sufficient capacity, the instance uses On-Demand capacity.
• Target by ID — Launches the instances into the selected Capacity Reservation. If the selected
Capacity Reservation does not have sufficient capacity for the number of instances you selected,
the instance launch fails.
• Target by group — Launches the instances into any Capacity Reservation with matching
attributes and available capacity in the selected Capacity Reservation group. If the selected
group does not have a Capacity Reservation with matching attributes and available capacity, the
instances launch into On-Demand capacity.
4. Complete the remaining steps to launch the instances.

To launch an instance into an existing Capacity Reservation using the AWS CLI

Use the run-instances command and specify the --capacity-reservation-specification

parameter.

The following example launches a t2.micro instance into any open Capacity Reservation that has
matching attributes and available capacity:

aws ec2 run-instances --image-id ami-abc12345 --count 1 --instance-type t2.micro --key-

name MyKeyPair --subnet-id subnet-1234567890abcdef1 --capacity-reservation-specification
CapacityReservationPreference=open

The following example launches a t2.micro instance into a targeted Capacity Reservation:

aws ec2 run-instances --image-id ami-abc12345 --count 1 --instance-type t2.micro --key-

name MyKeyPair --subnet-id subnet-1234567890abcdef1 --capacity-reservation-specification
CapacityReservationTarget={CapacityReservationId=cr-a1234567}

The following example launches a t2.micro instance into a Capacity Reservation group:

aws ec2 run-instances --image-id ami-abc12345 --count 1 --instance-type t2.micro --key-

name MyKeyPair --subnet-id subnet-1234567890abcdef1 --capacity-reservation-specification
CapacityReservationTarget={CapacityReservationResourceGroupArn=arn:aws:resource-groups:us-
west-1:123456789012:group/my-cr-group}

Modify a Capacity Reservation

You can change the attributes of an active Capacity Reservation after you have created it. You cannot
modify a Capacity Reservation after it has expired or after you have explicitly canceled it.

When modifying a Capacity Reservation, you can only increase or decrease the quantity and change
the way in which it is released. You cannot change the instance type, EBS optimization, instance store
settings, platform, Availability Zone, or instance eligibility of a Capacity Reservation. If you need to
modify any of these attributes, we recommend that you cancel the reservation, and then create a new
one with the required attributes.

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If you specify a new quantity that exceeds your remaining On-Demand Instance limit for the selected
instance type, the update fails.

To modify a Capacity Reservation using the console

1. Open the Amazon EC2 console at https://console.aws.amazon.com/ec2/.

2. Choose Capacity Reservations, select the Capacity Reservation to modify, and then choose Edit.
3. Modify the Quantity or Reservation ends options as needed, and choose Save changes.

To modify a Capacity Reservation using the AWS CLI

Use the modify-capacity-reservations command:

For example, the following command modifies a Capacity Reservation to reserve capacity for eight
instances.

aws ec2 modify-capacity-reservation --capacity-reservation-id cr-1234567890abcdef0 --

instance-count 8

Modify an instance's Capacity Reservation settings

You can modify the following Capacity Reservation settings for a stopped instance at any time:

• Start in any Capacity Reservation that has matching attributes (instance type, platform, and
Availability Zone) and available capacity.
• Start the instance in a specific Capacity Reservation.
• Start the in any Capacity Reservation that has matching attributes and available capacity in a Capacity
Reservation group
• Prevent the instance from starting in a Capacity Reservation.

To modify an instance's Capacity Reservation settings using the console

1. Open the Amazon EC2 console at https://console.aws.amazon.com/ec2/.

2. Choose Instances and select the instance to modify. Stop the instance if it is not already stopped.
3. Choose Actions, Modify Capacity Reservation Settings.
4. For Capacity Reservation, choose one of the following options:

• Open — Launches the instances into any Capacity Reservation that has matching attributes and
sufficient capacity for the number of instances you selected. If there is no matching Capacity
Reservation with sufficient capacity, the instance uses On-Demand capacity.
• None — Prevents the instances from launching into a Capacity Reservation. The instances run in
On-Demand capacity.
• Specify Capacity Reservation — Launches the instances into the selected Capacity Reservation.
If the selected Capacity Reservation does not have sufficient capacity for the number of instances
you selected, the instance launch fails.
• Specify Capacity Reservation group — Launches the instances into any Capacity Reservation
with matching attributes and available capacity in the selected Capacity Reservation group. If
the selected group does not have a Capacity Reservation with matching attributes and available
capacity, the instances launch into On-Demand capacity.

To modify an instance's Capacity Reservation settings using the AWS CLI

Use the modify-instance-capacity-reservation-attributes command.

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For example, the following command changes an instance's Capacity Reservation setting to open or
none.

aws ec2 modify-instance-capacity-reservation-attributes --instance-id i-1234567890abcdef0

--capacity-reservation-specification CapacityReservationPreference=none|open

For example, the following command modifies an instance to target a specific Capacity Reservation.

aws ec2 modify-instance-capacity-reservation-attributes --instance-

id i-1234567890abcdef0 --capacity-reservation-specification
CapacityReservationTarget={CapacityReservationId=cr-1234567890abcdef0}

For example, the following command modifies an instance to target a specific Capacity Reservation
group.

aws ec2 modify-instance-capacity-reservation-attributes --instance-

id i-1234567890abcdef0 --capacity-reservation-specification
CapacityReservationTarget={CapacityReservationResourceGroupArn=arn:aws:resource-groups:us-
west-1:123456789012:group/my-cr-group}

View a Capacity Reservation

Capacity Reservations have the following possible states:

• active—The capacity is available for use.

• expired—The Capacity Reservation expired automatically at the date and time specified in your
reservation request. The reserved capacity is no longer available for your use.
• cancelled—The Capacity Reservation was canceled. The reserved capacity is no longer available for
your use.
• pending—The Capacity Reservation request was successful but the capacity provisioning is still
pending.
• failed—The Capacity Reservation request has failed. A request can fail due to invalid request
parameters, capacity constraints, or instance limit constraints. You can view a failed request for 60
minutes.

To view your Capacity Reservations using the console

1. Open the Amazon EC2 console at https://console.aws.amazon.com/ec2/.

2. Choose Capacity Reservations and select a Capacity Reservation to view.
3. Choose View launched instances for this reservation.

To view your Capacity Reservations using the AWS CLI

Use the describe-capacity-reservations command:

For example, the following command describes all Capacity Reservations.

aws ec2 describe-capacity-reservations

Cancel a Capacity Reservation

You can cancel a Capacity Reservation at any time if you no longer need the reserved capacity. When you
cancel a Capacity Reservation, the capacity is released immediately, and it is no longer reserved for your
use.

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You can cancel empty Capacity Reservations and Capacity Reservations that have running instances. If
you cancel a Capacity Reservation that has running instances, the instances continue to run normally
outside of the capacity reservation at standard On-Demand Instance rates or at a discounted rate if you
have a matching Savings Plan or regional Reserved Instance.

After you cancel a Capacity Reservation, instances that target it can no longer launch. Modify these
instances so that they either target a different Capacity Reservation, launch into any open Capacity
Reservation with matching attributes and sufficient capacity, or avoid launching into a Capacity
Reservation. For more information, see Modify an instance's Capacity Reservation settings (p. 380).

To cancel a Capacity Reservation using the console

1. Open the Amazon EC2 console at https://console.aws.amazon.com/ec2/.

2. Choose Capacity Reservations and select the Capacity Reservation to cancel.
3. Choose Cancel reservation, Cancel reservation.

To cancel a Capacity Reservation using the AWS CLI

Use the cancel-capacity-reservation command:

For example, the following command cancels a Capacity Reservation with an ID of

cr-1234567890abcdef0.

aws ec2 cancel-capacity-reservation --capacity-reservation-id cr-1234567890abcdef0

Capacity Reservations in Local Zones

A Local Zone is an extension of an AWS Region that is geographically close to your users. Resources
created in a Local Zone can serve local users with very low-latency communications. For more
information, see AWS Local Zones.

You can extend a VPC from its parent AWS Region into a Local Zone by creating a new subnet in that
Local Zone. When you create a subnet in a Local Zone, your VPC is extended to that Local Zone. The
subnet in the Local Zone operates the same as the other subnets in your VPC.

By using Local Zones, you can place Capacity Reservations in multiple locations that are closer to your
users. You create and use Capacity Reservations in Local Zones in the same way that you create and use
Capacity Reservations in regular Availability Zones. The same features and instance matching behavior
apply. For more information about the pricing models that are supported in Local Zones, see AWS Local
Zones FAQs.

Considerations

You can't use Capacity Reservation groups in a Local Zone.

To use a Capacity Reservation in a Local Zone

1. Enable the Local Zone for use in your AWS account. For more information, see Enable Local Zones in
the Amazon EC2 User Guide for Linux Instances.
2. Create a Capacity Reservation in the Local Zone. For Availability Zone, choose the Local Zone.
The Local Zone is represented by an AWS Region code followed by an identifier that indicates
the location, for example us-west-2-lax-1a. For more information, see Create a Capacity
Reservation (p. 374).
3. Create a subnet in the Local Zone. For Availability Zone, choose the Local Zone. For more
information, see Creating a subnet in your VPC in the Amazon VPC User Guide.

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4. Launch an instance. For Subnet, choose the subnet in the Local Zone (for example subnet-123abc
| us-west-2-lax-1a), and for Capacity Reservation, choose the specification (either open or
target it by ID) that's required for the Capacity Reservation that you created in the Local Zone. For
more information, see Launch instances into an existing Capacity Reservation (p. 378).

Capacity Reservations in Wavelength Zones

AWS Wavelength enables developers to build applications that deliver ultra-low latencies to mobile
devices and end users. Wavelength deploys standard AWS compute and storage services to the edge of
telecommunication carriers' 5G networks. You can extend a Amazon Virtual Private Cloud (VPC) to one or
more Wavelength Zones. You can then use AWS resources like Amazon EC2 instances to run applications
that require ultra-low latency and a connection to AWS services in the Region. For more information, see
AWS Wavelength Zones.

When you create On-Demand Capacity Reservations, you can choose the Wavelength Zone and you can
launch instances into a Capacity Reservation in a Wavelength Zone by specifying the subnet associated
with the Wavelength Zone. A Wavelength Zone is represented by an AWS Region code followed by an
identifier that indicates the location, for example us-east-1-wl1-bos-wlz-1.

Wavelength Zones are not available in every Region. For information about the Regions that support
Wavelength Zones, see Available Wavelength Zones in the AWS Wavelength Developer Guide.

Considerations

You can't use Capacity Reservation groups in a Wavelength Zone.

To use a Capacity Reservation in a Wavelength Zone

1. Enable the Wavelength Zone for use in your AWS account. For more information, see Enable
Wavelength Zones in the Amazon EC2 User Guide for Linux Instances.
2. Create a Capacity Reservation in the Wavelength Zone. For Availability Zone, choose the
Wavelength. The Wavelength is represented by an AWS Region code followed by an identifier that
indicates the location, for example us-east-1-wl1-bos-wlz-1. For more information, see Create
a Capacity Reservation (p. 374).
3. Create a subnet in the Wavelength Zone. For Availability Zone, choose the Wavelength Zone. For
more information, see Creating a subnet in your VPC in the Amazon VPC User Guide.
4. Launch an instance. For Subnet, choose the subnet in the Wavelength Zone (for example
subnet-123abc | us-east-1-wl1-bos-wlz-1), and for Capacity Reservation, choose the
specification (either open or target it by ID) that's required for the Capacity Reservation that you
created in the Wavelength. For more information, see Launch instances into an existing Capacity
Reservation (p. 378).

Capacity Reservations on AWS Outposts

AWS Outposts is a fully managed service that extends AWS infrastructure, services, APIs, and tools to
customer premises. By providing local access to AWS managed infrastructure, AWS Outposts enables
customers to build and run applications on premises using the same programming interfaces as in AWS
Regions, while using local compute and storage resources for lower latency and local data processing
needs.

An Outpost is a pool of AWS compute and storage capacity deployed at a customer site. AWS operates,
monitors, and manages this capacity as part of an AWS Region.

You can create Capacity Reservations on Outposts that you have created in your account. This allows you
to reserve compute capacity on an Outpost at your site. You create and use Capacity Reservations on

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Outposts in the same way that you create and use Capacity Reservations in regular Availability Zones.
The same features and instance matching behavior apply.

You can also share Capacity Reservations on Outposts with other AWS accounts within your organization
using AWS Resource Access Manager. For more information about sharing Capacity Reservations, see
Work with shared Capacity Reservations (p. 384).

Prerequisite

You must have an Outpost installed at your site. For more information, see Create an Outpost and order
Outpost capacity in the AWS Outposts User Guide.

Considerations

• You can't use Capacity Reservation groups on an Outpost.

To use a Capacity Reservation on an Outpost

1. Create a subnet on the Outpost. For more information, see Create a subnet in the AWS Outposts User
Guide.
2. Create a Capacity Reservation on the Outpost.

a. Open the AWS Outposts console at https://console.aws.amazon.com/outposts/.

b. In the navigation pane, choose Outposts, and then choose Actions, Create Capacity
Reservation.
c. Configure the Capacity Reservation as needed and then choose Create. For more information,
see Create a Capacity Reservation (p. 374).
Note
The Instance Type drop-down lists only instance types that are supported by the
selected Outpost, and the Availability Zone drop-down lists only the Availability Zone
with which the selected Outpost is associated.
3. Launch an instance into the Capacity Reservation. For Subnet choose the subnet that you created in
Step 1, and for Capacity Reservation, select the Capacity Reservation that you created in Step 2. For
more information, see Launch an instance on the Outpost in the AWS Outposts User Guide.

Work with shared Capacity Reservations

Capacity Reservation sharing enables Capacity Reservation owners to share their reserved capacity with
other AWS accounts or within an AWS organization. This enables you to create and manage Capacity
Reservations centrally, and share the reserved capacity across multiple AWS accounts or within your AWS
organization.

In this model, the AWS account that owns the Capacity Reservation (owner) shares it with other AWS
accounts (consumers). Consumers can launch instances into Capacity Reservations that are shared with
them in the same way that they launch instances into Capacity Reservations that they own in their own
account. The Capacity Reservation owner is responsible for managing the Capacity Reservation and the
instances that they launch into it. Owners cannot modify instances that consumers launch into Capacity
Reservations that they have shared. Consumers are responsible for managing the instances that they
launch into Capacity Reservations shared with them. Consumers cannot view or modify instances owned
by other consumers or by the Capacity Reservation owner.

A Capacity Reservation owner can share a Capacity Reservation with:

• Specific AWS accounts inside or outside of its AWS organization

• An organizational unit inside its AWS organization

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• Its entire AWS organization

Contents
• Prerequisites for sharing Capacity Reservations (p. 385)
• Related services (p. 385)
• Share across Availability Zones (p. 385)
• Share a Capacity Reservation (p. 386)
• Stop sharing a Capacity Reservation (p. 386)
• Identify a shared Capacity Reservation (p. 387)
• View shared Capacity Reservation usage (p. 387)
• Shared Capacity Reservation permissions (p. 388)
• Billing and metering (p. 388)
• Instance limits (p. 388)

Prerequisites for sharing Capacity Reservations

• To share a Capacity Reservation, you must own it in your AWS account. You cannot share a Capacity
Reservation that has been shared with you.
• You can only share Capacity Reservations for shared tenancy instances. You cannot share Capacity
Reservations for dedicated tenancy instances.
• Capacity Reservation sharing is not available to new AWS accounts or AWS accounts that have a
limited billing history.
• To share a Capacity Reservation with your AWS organization or an organizational unit in your AWS
organization, you must enable sharing with AWS Organizations. For more information, see Enable
Sharing with AWS Organizations in the AWS RAM User Guide.

Related services
Capacity Reservation sharing integrates with AWS Resource Access Manager (AWS RAM). AWS RAM
is a service that enables you to share your AWS resources with any AWS account or through AWS
Organizations. With AWS RAM, you share resources that you own by creating a resource share. A resource
share specifies the resources to share, and the consumers with whom to share them. Consumers can be
individual AWS accounts, or organizational units or an entire organization from AWS Organizations.

For more information about AWS RAM, see the AWS RAM User Guide.

Share across Availability Zones

To ensure that resources are distributed across the Availability Zones for a Region, we independently
map Availability Zones to names for each account. This could lead to Availability Zone naming
differences across accounts. For example, the Availability Zone us-east-1a for your AWS account might
not have the same location as us-east-1a for another AWS account.

To identify the location of your Capacity Reservations relative to your accounts, you must use the
Availability Zone ID (AZ ID). The AZ ID is a unique and consistent identifier for an Availability Zone across
all AWS accounts. For example, use1-az1 is an AZ ID for the us-east-1 Region and it is the same
location in every AWS account.

To view the AZ IDs for the Availability Zones in your account

1. Open the AWS RAM console at https://console.aws.amazon.com/ram.

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2. The AZ IDs for the current Region are displayed in the Your AZ ID panel on the right-hand side of the
screen.

Share a Capacity Reservation

When you share a Capacity Reservation that you own with other AWS accounts, you enable them to
launch instances into your reserved capacity. If you share an open Capacity Reservation, keep the
following in mind as it could lead to unintended Capacity Reservation usage:

• If consumers have running instances that match the attributes of the Capacity Reservation, have the
CapacityReservationPreference parameter set to open, and are not yet running in reserved
capacity, they automatically use the shared Capacity Reservation.
• If consumers launch instances that have matching attributes (instance type, platform, and Availability
Zone) and have the CapacityReservationPreference parameter set to open, they automatically
launch into the shared Capacity Reservation.

To share a Capacity Reservation, you must add it to a resource share. A resource share is an AWS RAM
resource that lets you share your resources across AWS accounts. A resource share specifies the resources
to share, and the consumers with whom they are shared. When you share a Capacity Reservation using
the Amazon EC2 console, you add it to an existing resource share. To add the Capacity Reservation to a
new resource share, you must create the resource share using the AWS RAM console.

If you are part of an organization in AWS Organizations and sharing within your organization is enabled,
consumers in your organization are automatically granted access to the shared Capacity Reservation.
Otherwise, consumers receive an invitation to join the resource share and are granted access to the
shared Capacity Reservation after accepting the invitation.

You can share a Capacity Reservation that you own using the Amazon EC2 console, AWS RAM console, or
the AWS CLI.

To share a Capacity Reservation that you own using the Amazon EC2 console

1. Open the Amazon EC2 console at https://console.aws.amazon.com/ec2/.

2. In the navigation pane, choose Capacity Reservations.
3. Choose the Capacity Reservation to share and choose Actions, Share reservation.
4. Select the resource share to which to add the Capacity Reservation and choose Share Capacity
Reservation.

It could take a few minutes for consumers to get access to the shared Capacity Reservation.

To share a Capacity Reservation that you own using the AWS RAM console

See Creating a Resource Share in the AWS RAM User Guide.

To share a Capacity Reservation that you own using the AWS CLI

Use the create-resource-share command.

Stop sharing a Capacity Reservation

The Capacity Reservation owner can stop sharing a Capacity Reservation at any time. The following rules
apply:

• Instances owned by consumers that were running in the shared capacity at the time sharing stops
continue to run normally outside of the reserved capacity, and the capacity is restored to the Capacity
Reservation subject to Amazon EC2 capacity availability.

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• Consumers with whom the Capacity Reservation was shared can no longer launch new instances into
the reserved capacity.

To stop sharing a Capacity Reservation that you own, you must remove it from the resource share. You
can do this using the Amazon EC2 console, AWS RAM console, or the AWS CLI.

To stop sharing a Capacity Reservation that you own using the Amazon EC2 console

1. Open the Amazon EC2 console at https://console.aws.amazon.com/ec2/.

2. In the navigation pane, choose Capacity Reservations.
3. Select the Capacity Reservation and choose the Sharing tab.
4. The Sharing tab lists the resource shares to which the Capacity Reservation has been added. Select
the resource share from which to remove the Capacity Reservation and choose Remove from
resource share.

To stop sharing a Capacity Reservation that you own using the AWS RAM console

See Updating a Resource Share in the AWS RAM User Guide.

To stop sharing a Capacity Reservation that you own using the AWS CLI

Use the disassociate-resource-share command.

Identify a shared Capacity Reservation

Owners and consumers can identify shared Capacity Reservations using the Amazon EC2 console and
AWS CLI

To identify a shared Capacity Reservation using the Amazon EC2 console

1. Open the Amazon EC2 console at https://console.aws.amazon.com/ec2/.

2. In the navigation pane, choose Capacity Reservations. The screen lists Capacity Reservations that
you own and Capacity Reservations that are shared with you. The Owner column shows the AWS
account ID of the Capacity Reservation owner. (me) next to the AWS account ID indicates that you
are the owner.

To identify a shared Capacity Reservation using the AWS CLI

Use the describe-capacity-reservations command. The command returns the Capacity Reservations that
you own and Capacity Reservations that are shared with you. OwnerId shows the AWS account ID of the
Capacity Reservation owner.

View shared Capacity Reservation usage

The owner of a shared Capacity Reservation can view its usage at any time using the Amazon EC2
console and the AWS CLI.

To view Capacity Reservation usage using the Amazon EC2 console

1. Open the Amazon EC2 console at https://console.aws.amazon.com/ec2/.

2. In the navigation pane, choose Capacity Reservations.
3. Select the Capacity Reservation for which to view the usage and choose the Usage tab.

The AWS account ID column shows the account IDs of the consumers currently using the Capacity
Reservation. The Launched instances column shows the number of instances each consumer
currently has running in the reserved capacity.

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To view Capacity Reservation usage using the AWS CLI

Use the get-capacity-reservation-usage command. AccountId shows the account ID of the account
using the Capacity Reservation. UsedInstanceCount shows the number of instances the consumer
currently has running in the reserved capacity.

Shared Capacity Reservation permissions

Permissions for owners

Owners are responsible for managing and canceling their shared Capacity Reservations. Owners cannot
modify instances running in the shared Capacity Reservation that are owned by other accounts. Owners
remain responsible for managing instances that they launch into the shared Capacity Reservation.

Permissions for consumers

Consumers are responsible for managing their instances that are running the shared Capacity
Reservation. Consumers cannot modify the shared Capacity Reservation in any way, and they cannot
view or modify instances that are owned by other consumers or the Capacity Reservation owner.

Billing and metering

There are no additional charges for sharing Capacity Reservations.

The Capacity Reservation owner is billed for instances that they run inside the Capacity Reservation
and for unused reserved capacity. Consumers are billed for the instances that they run inside the shared
Capacity Reservation.

Instance limits
All Capacity Reservation usage counts toward the Capacity Reservation owner's On-Demand Instance
limits. This includes:

• Unused reserved capacity

• Usage by instances owned by the Capacity Reservation owner
• Usage by instances owned by consumers

Instances launched into the shared capacity by consumers count towards the Capacity Reservation
owner's On-Demand Instance limit. Consumers' instance limits are a sum of their own On-Demand
Instance limits and the capacity available in the shared Capacity Reservations to which they have access.

CloudWatch metrics for On-Demand Capacity Reservations

With CloudWatch metrics, you can efficiently monitor your Capacity Reservations and identify unused
capacity by setting CloudWatch alarms to notify you when usage thresholds are met. This can help you
maintain a constant Capacity Reservation volume and achieve a higher level of utilization.

On-Demand Capacity Reservations send metric data to CloudWatch every five minutes. Metrics are not
supported for Capacity Reservations that are active for less than five minutes.

For more information about viewing metrics in the CloudWatch console, see Using Amazon CloudWatch
Metrics. For more information about creating alarms, see Creating Amazon CloudWatch Alarms.

Contents
• Capacity Reservation usage metrics (p. 389)

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• Capacity Reservation metric dimensions (p. 389)

• View CloudWatch metrics for Capacity Reservations (p. 389)

Capacity Reservation usage metrics

The AWS/EC2CapacityReservations namespace includes the following usage metrics you can use to
monitor and maintain on-demand capacity within thresholds you specify for your reservation.

Metric Description

UsedInstanceCount The number of instances that are currently in use.

Unit: Count

AvailableInstanceCount The number of instances that are available.

Unit: Count

TotalInstanceCount The total number of instances you have reserved.

Unit: Count

InstanceUtilization The percentage of reserved capacity instances that are

currently in use.

Unit: Percent

Capacity Reservation metric dimensions

You can use the following dimensions to refine the metrics listed in the previous table.

Dimension Description

CapacityReservationId This globally unique dimension filters the data you request for the
identified capacity reservation only.

View CloudWatch metrics for Capacity Reservations

Metrics are grouped first by the service namespace, and then by the supported dimensions. You can use
the following procedures to view the metrics for your Capacity Reservations.

To view Capacity Reservation metrics using the CloudWatch console

1. Open the CloudWatch console at https://console.aws.amazon.com/cloudwatch/.

2. If necessary, change the Region. From the navigation bar, select the Region where your Capacity
Reservation resides. For more information, see Regions and Endpoints.
3. In the navigation pane, choose Metrics.
4. For All metrics, choose EC2 Capacity Reservations.
5. Choose the metric dimension By Capacity Reservation. Metrics will be grouped by
CapacityReservationId.
6. To sort the metrics, use the column heading. To graph a metric, select the check box next to the
metric.

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Instance lifecycle

To view Capacity Reservation metrics (AWS CLI)

Use the following list-metrics command:

aws cloudwatch list-metrics --namespace "AWS/EC2CapacityReservations"

Instance lifecycle
An Amazon EC2 instance transitions through different states from the moment you launch it through to
its termination.

The following illustration represents the transitions between instance states.

The following table provides a brief description of each instance state and indicates whether it is billed
or not.
Note
The table indicates billing for instance usage only. Some AWS resources, such as Amazon EBS
volumes and Elastic IP addresses, incur charges regardless of the instance's state. For more
information, see Avoiding Unexpected Charges in the AWS Billing and Cost Management User
Guide.

Instance Description Instance usage billing

state

pending The instance is preparing to Not billed

enter the running state. An
instance enters the pending

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Instance Description Instance usage billing

state
state when it launches for
the first time, or when it is
started after being in the
stopped state.

running The instance is running and Billed

ready for use.

stoppingThe instance is preparing Not billed if preparing to stop

to be stopped or stop-
hibernated. Billed if preparing to hibernate

stopped The instance is shut down Not billed

and cannot be used. The
instance can be started at
any time.

The instance is preparing to

shutting- Not billed
down be terminated.

The instance has been

terminated Not billed
permanently deleted and
Note
cannot be started.
Reserved Instances that applied to terminated
instances are billed until the end of their term
according to their payment option. For more
information, see Reserved Instances (p. 247)

Note
Rebooting an instance doesn't start a new instance billing period because the instance stays in
the running state.

Instance launch
When you launch an instance, it enters the pending state. The instance type that you specified at launch
determines the hardware of the host computer for your instance. We use the Amazon Machine Image
(AMI) you specified at launch to boot the instance. After the instance is ready for you, it enters the
running state. You can connect to your running instance and use it the way that you'd use a computer
sitting in front of you.

As soon as your instance transitions to the running state, you're billed for each second, with a one-
minute minimum, that you keep the instance running, even if the instance remains idle and you don't
connect to it.

For more information, see Launch your instance (p. 394) and Connect to your Windows
instance (p. 417).

Instance stop and start (Amazon EBS-backed

instances only)
If your instance fails a status check or is not running your applications as expected, and if the root
volume of your instance is an Amazon EBS volume, you can stop and start your instance to try to fix the
problem.

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Instance hibernate (Amazon EBS-backed instances only)

When you stop your instance, it enters the stopping state, and then the stopped state. We don't
charge usage or data transfer fees for your instance after you stop it, but we do charge for the storage
for any Amazon EBS volumes. While your instance is in the stopped state, you can modify certain
attributes of the instance, including the instance type.

When you start your instance, it enters the pending state, and we move the instance to a new host
computer (though in some cases, it remains on the current host). When you stop and start your instance,
you lose any data on the instance store volumes on the previous host computer.

Your instance retains its private IPv4 address, which means that an Elastic IP address associated with the
private IPv4 address or network interface is still associated with your instance. If your instance has an
IPv6 address, it retains its IPv6 address.

Each time you transition an instance from stopped to running, we charge per second when the
instance is running, with a minimum of one minute every time you start your instance.

For more information, see Stop and start your instance (p. 429).

Instance hibernate (Amazon EBS-backed instances

only)
When you hibernate an instance, we signal the operating system to perform hibernation (suspend-to-
disk), which saves the contents from the instance memory (RAM) to your Amazon EBS root volume. We
persist the instance's Amazon EBS root volume and any attached Amazon EBS data volumes. When you
start your instance, the Amazon EBS root volume is restored to its previous state and the RAM contents
are reloaded. Previously attached data volumes are reattached and the instance retains its instance ID.

When you hibernate your instance, it enters the stopping state, and then the stopped state. We don't
charge usage for a hibernated instance when it is in the stopped state, but we do charge while it is in
the stopping state, unlike when you stop an instance (p. 391) without hibernating it. We don't charge
usage for data transfer fees, but we do charge for the storage for any Amazon EBS volumes, including
storage for the RAM data.

When you start your hibernated instance, it enters the pending state, and we move the instance to a
new host computer (though in some cases, it remains on the current host).

Your instance retains its private IPv4 address, which means that an Elastic IP address associated with the
private IPv4 address or network interface is still associated with your instance. If your instance has an
IPv6 address, it retains its IPv6 address.

For more information, see Hibernate your On-Demand or Reserved Windows instance (p. 432).

Instance reboot
You can reboot your instance using the Amazon EC2 console, a command line tool, and the Amazon EC2
API. We recommend that you use Amazon EC2 to reboot your instance instead of running the operating
system reboot command from your instance.

Rebooting an instance is equivalent to rebooting an operating system. The instance remains on the same
host computer and maintains its public DNS name, private IP address, and any data on its instance store
volumes. It typically takes a few minutes for the reboot to complete, but the time it takes to reboot
depends on the instance configuration.

Rebooting an instance doesn't start a new instance billing period; per second billing continues without a
further one-minute minimum charge.

For more information, see Reboot your instance (p. 443).

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Instance retirement

Instance retirement
An instance is scheduled to be retired when AWS detects the irreparable failure of the underlying
hardware hosting the instance. When an instance reaches its scheduled retirement date, it is stopped or
terminated by AWS. If your instance root device is an Amazon EBS volume, the instance is stopped, and
you can start it again at any time. If your instance root device is an instance store volume, the instance is
terminated, and cannot be used again.

For more information, see Instance retirement (p. 444).

Instance termination
When you've decided that you no longer need an instance, you can terminate it. As soon as the status of
an instance changes to shutting-down or terminated, you stop incurring charges for that instance.

If you enable termination protection, you can't terminate the instance using the console, CLI, or API.

After you terminate an instance, it remains visible in the console for a short while, and then the entry
is automatically deleted. You can also describe a terminated instance using the CLI and API. Resources
(such as tags) are gradually disassociated from the terminated instance, therefore may no longer be
visible on the terminated instance after a short while. You can't connect to or recover a terminated
instance.

Each Amazon EBS-backed instance supports the InstanceInitiatedShutdownBehavior attribute,

which controls whether the instance stops or terminates when you initiate shutdown from within the
instance itself. The default behavior is to stop the instance. You can modify the setting of this attribute
while the instance is running or stopped.

Each Amazon EBS volume supports the DeleteOnTermination attribute, which controls whether the
volume is deleted or preserved when you terminate the instance it is attached to. The default is to delete
the root device volume and preserve any other EBS volumes.

For more information, see Terminate your instance (p. 446).

Differences between reboot, stop, hibernate, and

terminate
The following table summarizes the key differences between rebooting, stopping, hibernating, and
terminating your instance.

Characteristic Reboot Stop/start (Amazon Hibernate (Amazon Terminate

EBS-backed EBS-backed instances
instances only) only)

Host The instance stays We move the instance We move the instance None
computer on the same host to a new host to a new host
computer computer (though computer (though in
in some cases, it some cases, it remains
remains on the on the current host).
current host).

Private and These addresses The instance keeps its The instance keeps its None
public IPv4 stay the same private IPv4 address. private IPv4 address.
addresses The instance gets The instance gets
a new public IPv4 a new public IPv4

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Characteristic Reboot Stop/start (Amazon Hibernate (Amazon Terminate

EBS-backed EBS-backed instances
instances only) only)
address, unless it has address, unless it has
an Elastic IP address, an Elastic IP address,
which doesn't change which doesn't change
during a stop/start. during a stop/start.

Elastic IP The Elastic IP The Elastic IP address The Elastic IP address The Elastic
addresses address remains remains associated remains associated IP address is
(IPv4) associated with with the instance with the instance disassociated from
the instance the instance

IPv6 The address stays The instance keeps its The instance keeps its None
address the same IPv6 address IPv6 address

Instance The data is The data is erased The data is erased The data is erased
store preserved
volumes

Root device The volume is The volume is The volume is The volume is
volume preserved preserved preserved deleted by default

RAM The RAM is erased The RAM is erased The RAM is saved The RAM is erased
(contents of to a file on the root
memory) volume

Billing The instance You stop incurring You incur charges You stop incurring
billing hour charges for an while the instance is in charges for
doesn't change. instance as soon as the stopping state, an instance
its state changes but stop incurring as soon as its
to stopping. charges when the state changes to
Each time an instance is in the shutting-down.
instance transitions stopped state. Each
from stopped to time an instance
running, we start a transitions from
new instance billing stopped to running,
period, billing a we start a new
minimum of one instance billing period,
minute every time billing a minimum
you start your of one minute every
instance. time you start your
instance.

Operating system shutdown commands always terminate an instance store-backed instance. You can
control whether operating system shutdown commands stop or terminate an Amazon EBS-backed
instance. For more information, see Change the instance initiated shutdown behavior (p. 450).

Launch your instance

An instance is a virtual server in the AWS Cloud. You launch an instance from an Amazon Machine Image
(AMI). The AMI provides the operating system, application server, and applications for your instance.

When you sign up for AWS, you can get started with Amazon EC2 for free using the AWS Free Tier. You
can use the free tier to launch and use a t2.micro instance for free for 12 months (in Regions where
t2.micro is unavailable, you can use a t3.micro instance under the free tier). If you launch an instance

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Launch

that is not within the free tier, you incur the standard Amazon EC2 usage fees for the instance. For more
information, see Amazon EC2 pricing.

You can launch an instance using the following methods.

Method Documentation

[Amazon EC2 console] Use the launch instance Launch an instance using the Launch Instance
wizard to specify the launch parameters. Wizard (p. 396)

[Amazon EC2 console] Create a launch template Launch an instance from a launch
and launch the instance from the launch template (p. 401)
template.

[Amazon EC2 console] Use an existing instance as Launch an instance using parameters from an
the base. existing instance (p. 415)

[Amazon EC2 console] Use an AMI that you Launch an AWS Marketplace instance (p. 416)
purchased from the AWS Marketplace.

[AWS CLI] Use an AMI that you select. Using Amazon EC2 through the AWS CLI

[AWS Tools for Windows PowerShell] Use an AMI Amazon EC2 from the AWS Tools for Windows
that you select. PowerShell

[AWS CLI] Use EC2 Fleet to provision capacity EC2 Fleet (p. 673)
across different EC2 instance types and
Availability Zones, and across On-Demand
Instance, Reserved Instance, and Spot Instance
purchase models.

[AWS CloudFormation] Use a AWS AWS::EC2::Instance in the AWS CloudFormation

CloudFormation template to specify an instance. User Guide

[AWS SDK] Use a language-specific AWS SDK to AWS SDK for .NET
launch an instance.
AWS SDK for C++

AWS SDK for Go

AWS SDK for Java

AWS SDK for JavaScript

AWS SDK for PHP V3

AWS SDK for Python

AWS SDK for Ruby V3

When you launch your instance, you can launch your instance in a subnet that is associated with one of
the following resources:

• An Availability Zone - This option is the default.

• A Local Zone - To launch an instance in a Local Zone, you must opt in to the Local Zone, and then
create a subnet in the zone. For more information, see Local Zones
• A Wavelength Zone - To launch an instance in a Wavelength Zone, you must opt in to the Wavelength
Zone, and then create a subnet in the zone. For information about how to launch an instance in a
Wavelength Zone, see Get started with AWS Wavelength in the AWS Wavelength Developer Guide.

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• An Outpost - To launch an instance in an Outpost, you must create an Outpost. For information about
how to create an Outpost, see Get Started with AWS Outposts in the AWS Outposts User Guide.

After you launch your instance, you can connect to it and use it. To begin, the instance state is pending.
When the instance state is running, the instance has started booting. There might be a short time
before you can connect to the instance. Note that bare metal instance types might take longer to launch.
For more information about bare metal instances, see Instances built on the Nitro System (p. 147).

The instance receives a public DNS name that you can use to contact the instance from the internet. The
instance also receives a private DNS name that other instances within the same VPC can use to contact
the instance. For more information about connecting to your instance, see Connect to your Windows
instance (p. 417).

When you are finished with an instance, be sure to terminate it. For more information, see Terminate
your instance (p. 446).

Launch an instance using the Launch Instance Wizard

You can launch an instance using the launch instance wizard. The launch instance wizard specifies all
the launch parameters required for launching an instance. Where the launch instance wizard provides a
default value, you can accept the default or specify your own value. At the very least, you need to select
an AMI and a key pair to launch an instance.

Before you launch your instance, be sure that you are set up. For more information, see Set up to use
Amazon EC2 (p. 5).
Important
When you launch an instance that's not within the AWS Free Tier, you are charged for the time
that the instance is running, even if it remains idle.

Steps to launch an instance:

• Initiate instance launch (p. 396)
• Step 1: Choose an Amazon Machine Image (AMI) (p. 396)
• Step 2: Choose an Instance Type (p. 397)
• Step 3: Configure Instance Details (p. 398)
• Step 4: Add Storage (p. 400)
• Step 5: Add Tags (p. 400)
• Step 6: Configure Security Group (p. 401)
• Step 7: Review Instance Launch and Select Key Pair (p. 401)

Initiate instance launch

1. Open the Amazon EC2 console at https://console.aws.amazon.com/ec2/.
2. In the navigation bar at the top of the screen, the current Region is displayed (for example, US
East (Ohio)). Select a Region for the instance that meets your needs. This choice is important
because some Amazon EC2 resources can be shared between Regions, while others can't. For more
information, see Resource locations (p. 1454).
3. From the Amazon EC2 console dashboard, choose Launch instance.

Step 1: Choose an Amazon Machine Image (AMI)

When you launch an instance, you must select a configuration, known as an Amazon Machine Image
(AMI). An AMI contains the information required to create a new instance. For example, an AMI might
contain the software required to act as a web server, such as Windows, Apache, and your website.

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When you launch an instance, you can either select an AMI from the list, or you can select a Systems
Manager parameter that points to an AMI ID. For more information, see Using a Systems Manager
parameter to find an AMI .

On the Choose an Amazon Machine Image (AMI) page, use one of two options to choose an AMI. Either
search the list of AMIs (p. 397), or search by Systems Manager parameter (p. 397).

By searching the list of AMIs

1. Select the type of AMI to use in the left pane:

Quick Start

A selection of popular AMIs to help you get started quickly. To select an AMI that is eligible for
the free tier, choose Free tier only in the left pane. These AMIs are marked Free tier eligible.
My AMIs

The private AMIs that you own, or private AMIs that have been shared with you. To view AMIs
that are shared with you, choose Shared with me in the left pane.
AWS Marketplace

An online store where you can buy software that runs on AWS, including AMIs. For more
information about launching an instance from the AWS Marketplace, see Launch an AWS
Marketplace instance (p. 416).
Community AMIs

The AMIs that AWS community members have made available for others to use. To filter the list
of AMIs by operating system, choose the appropriate check box under Operating system. You
can also filter by architecture and root device type.
2. Check the Virtualization type listed for each AMI. Notice which AMIs are the type that you need,
either hvm or paravirtual. For example, some instance types require HVM.
3. Check the Boot mode listed for each AMI. Notice which AMIs use the boot mode that you need,
either legacy-bios or uefi. For more information, see Boot modes (p. 21).
4. Choose an AMI that meets your needs, and then choose Select.

By Systems Manager parameter

1. Choose Search by Systems Manager parameter (at top right).

2. For Systems Manager parameter, select a parameter. The corresponding AMI ID appears next to
Currently resolves to.
3. Choose Search. The AMIs that match the AMI ID appear in the list.
4. Select the AMI from the list, and choose Select.

Step 2: Choose an Instance Type

On the Choose an Instance Type page, select the hardware configuration and size of the instance
to launch. Larger instance types have more CPU and memory. For more information, see Instance
types (p. 142).

To remain eligible for the free tier, choose the t2.micro instance type (or the t3.micro instance
type in Regions where t2.micro is unavailable). For more information, see Burstable performance
instances (p. 161).

By default, the wizard displays current generation instance types, and selects the first available instance
type based on the AMI that you selected. To view previous generation instance types, choose All
generations from the filter list.

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Note
To set up an instance quickly for testing purposes, choose Review and Launch to accept the
default configuration settings, and launch your instance. Otherwise, to configure your instance
further, choose Next: Configure Instance Details.

Step 3: Configure Instance Details

On the Configure Instance Details page, change the following settings as necessary (expand Advanced
Details to see all the settings), and then choose Next: Add Storage:

• Number of instances: Enter the number of instances to launch.

Tip
To ensure faster instance launches, break up large requests into smaller batches. For example,
create five separate launch requests for 100 instances each instead of one launch request for
500 instances.
• (Optional) To help ensure that you maintain the correct number of instances to handle demand on
your application, you can choose Launch into Auto Scaling Group to create a launch configuration
and an Auto Scaling group. Auto Scaling scales the number of instances in the group according to your
specifications. For more information, see the Amazon EC2 Auto Scaling User Guide.
Note
If Amazon EC2 Auto Scaling marks an instance that is in an Auto Scaling group as unhealthy,
the instance is automatically scheduled for replacement where it is terminated and another is
launched, and you lose your data on the original instance. An instance is marked as unhealthy
if you stop or reboot the instance, or if another event marks the instance as unhealthy. For
more information, see Health Checks for Auto Scaling Instances in the Amazon EC2 Auto
Scaling User Guide.
• Purchasing option: Choose Request Spot instances to launch a Spot Instance. This adds and removes
options from this page. Set your maximum price, and optionally update the request type, interruption
behavior, and request validity. For more information, see Create a Spot Instance request (p. 297).
• Network: Select the VPC, or to create a new VPC, choose Create new VPC to go the Amazon VPC
console. When you have finished, return to the wizard and choose Refresh to load your VPC in the list.
• Subnet: You can launch an instance in a subnet associated with an Availability Zone, Local Zone,
Wavelength Zone or Outpost.

To launch the instance in an Availability Zone, select the subnet into which to launch your instance.
You can select No preference to let AWS choose a default subnet in any Availability Zone. To create a
new subnet, choose Create new subnet to go to the Amazon VPC console. When you are done, return
to the wizard and choose Refresh to load your subnet in the list.

To launch the instance in a Local Zone, select a subnet that you created in the Local Zone.

To launch an instance in an Outpost, select a subnet in a VPC that you associated with an Outpost.
• Auto-assign Public IP: Specify whether your instance receives a public IPv4 address. By default,
instances in a default subnet receive a public IPv4 address and instances in a nondefault subnet do not.
You can select Enable or Disable to override the subnet's default setting. For more information, see
Public IPv4 addresses and external DNS hostnames (p. 905).
• Auto-assign IPv6 IP: Specify whether your instance receives an IPv6 address from the range of the
subnet. Select Enable or Disable to override the subnet's default setting. This option is only available
if you've associated an IPv6 CIDR block with your VPC and subnet. For more information, see Your VPC
and Subnets in the Amazon VPC User Guide.
• Domain join directory: Select the AWS Directory Service directory (domain) to which your Windows
instance is joined after launch. If you select a domain, you must select an IAM role with the required
permissions. For more information, see Seamlessly Join a Windows EC2 Instance.

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• Placement group: A placement group determines the placement strategy of your instances. Select
an existing placement group, or create a new one. This option is only available if you've selected an
instance type that supports placement groups. For more information, see Placement groups (p. 988).
• Capacity Reservation: Specify whether to launch the instance into shared capacity, any open Capacity
Reservation, a specific Capacity Reservation, or a Capacity Reservation group. For more information,
see Launch instances into an existing Capacity Reservation (p. 378)..
• IAM role: Select an AWS Identity and Access Management (IAM) role to associate with the instance. For
more information, see IAM roles for Amazon EC2 (p. 1128).
• CPU options: Choose Specify CPU options to specify a custom number of vCPUs during launch.
Set the number of CPU cores and threads per core. For more information, see Optimize CPU
options (p. 549).
• Shutdown behavior: Select whether the instance should stop or terminate when shut down. For more
information, see Change the instance initiated shutdown behavior (p. 450).
• Stop - Hibernate behavior: To enable hibernation, select this check box. This option is only available
if your instance meets the hibernation prerequisites. For more information, see Hibernate your On-
Demand or Reserved Windows instance (p. 432).
• Enable termination protection: To prevent accidental termination, select this check box. For more
information, see Enable termination protection (p. 449).
• Monitoring: Select this check box to enable detailed monitoring of your instance using Amazon
CloudWatch. Additional charges apply. For more information, see Monitor your instances using
CloudWatch (p. 851).
• EBS-optimized instance: An Amazon EBS-optimized instance uses an optimized configuration stack
and provides additional, dedicated capacity for Amazon EBS I/O. If the instance type supports this
feature, select this check box to enable it. Additional charges apply. For more information, see Amazon
EBS–optimized instances (p. 1357).
• Tenancy: If you are launching your instance into a VPC, you can choose to run your instance on
isolated, dedicated hardware (Dedicated) or on a Dedicated Host (Dedicated host). Additional charges
may apply. For more information, see Dedicated Instances (p. 363) and Dedicated Hosts (p. 331).
• T2/T3 Unlimited: Select this check box to enable applications to burst beyond the baseline for as
long as needed. Additional charges may apply. For more information, see Burstable performance
instances (p. 161).
• Network interfaces: If you selected a specific subnet, you can specify up to two network interfaces for
your instance:
• For Network Interface, select New network interface to let AWS create a new interface, or select an
existing, available network interface.
• For Primary IP, enter a private IPv4 address from the range of your subnet, or leave Auto-assign to
let AWS choose a private IPv4 address for you.
• For Secondary IP addresses, choose Add IP to assign more than one private IPv4 address to the
selected network interface.
• (IPv6-only) For IPv6 IPs, choose Add IP, and enter an IPv6 address from the range of the subnet, or
leave Auto-assign to let AWS choose one for you.
• Network Card Index: The index of the network card. The primary network interface must be
assigned to network card index 0. Some instance types support multiple network cards.
• Choose Add Device to add a secondary network interface. A secondary network interface can reside
in a different subnet of the VPC, provided it's in the same Availability Zone as your instance.

For more information, see Elastic network interfaces (p. 948). If you specify more than one network
interface, your instance cannot receive a public IPv4 address. Additionally, if you specify an existing
network interface for eth0, you cannot override the subnet's public IPv4 setting using Auto-assign
Public IP. For more information, see Assign a public IPv4 address during instance launch (p. 909).
• Kernel ID: (Only valid for paravirtual (PV) AMIs) Select Use default unless you want to use a specific
kernel.

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• RAM disk ID: (Only valid for paravirtual (PV) AMIs) Select Use default unless you want to use a specific
RAM disk. If you have selected a kernel, you may need to select a specific RAM disk with the drivers to
support it.
• Enclave: Select Enable to enable the instance for AWS Nitro Enclaves. For more information, see What
is AWS Nitro Enclaves? in the AWS Nitro Enclaves User Guide.
• Metadata accessible: You can enable or disable access to the instance metadata. For more
information, see Use IMDSv2 (p. 589).
• Metadata transport: You can enable or disable the access method to the instance metadata service
that's available for this EC2 instance based on the IP address type (IPv4, IPv6, or IPv4 and IPv6) of the
instance. For more information, see Retrieve instance metadata (p. 595).
• Metadata version: If you enable access to the instance metadata, you can choose to require the use of
Instance Metadata Service Version 2 when requesting instance metadata. For more information, see
Configure instance metadata options for new instances (p. 593).
• Metadata token response hop limit: If you enable instance metadata, you can set the allowable
number of network hops for the metadata token. For more information, see Use IMDSv2 (p. 589).
• User data: You can specify user data to configure an instance during launch, or to run a configuration
script. To attach a file, select the As file option and browse for the file to attach.

Step 4: Add Storage

The AMI you selected includes one or more volumes of storage, including the root device volume. On the
Add Storage page, you can specify additional volumes to attach to the instance by choosing Add New
Volume. Configure each volume as follows, and then choose Next: Add Tags.

• Type: Select instance store or Amazon EBS volumes to associate with your instance. The types of
volume available in the list depend on the instance type you've chosen. For more information, see
Amazon EC2 instance store (p. 1405) and Amazon EBS volumes (p. 1174).
• Device: Select from the list of available device names for the volume.
• Snapshot: Enter the name or ID of the snapshot from which to restore a volume. You can also search
for available shared and public snapshots by typing text into the Snapshot field. Snapshot descriptions
are case-sensitive.
• Size: For EBS volumes, you can specify a storage size. Even if you have selected an AMI and
instance that are eligible for the free tier, to stay within the free tier, you must stay under 30 GiB
of total storage. For more information, see Constraints on the size and configuration of an EBS
volume (p. 1193).
• Volume Type: For EBS volumes, select a volume type. For more information, see Amazon EBS volume
types (p. 1177).
• IOPS: If you have selected a Provisioned IOPS SSD volume type, then you can enter the number of I/O
operations per second (IOPS) that the volume can support.
• Delete on Termination: For Amazon EBS volumes, select this check box to delete the volume when
the instance is terminated. For more information, see Preserve Amazon EBS volumes on instance
termination (p. 450).
• Encrypted: If the instance type supports EBS encryption, you can specify the encryption state of the
volume. If you have enabled encryption by default in this Region, the default customer managed key
is selected for you. You can select a different key or disable encryption. For more information, see
Amazon EBS encryption (p. 1340).

Step 5: Add Tags

On the Add Tags page, specify tags (p. 1463) by providing key and value combinations. You can tag the
instance, the volumes, or both. For Spot Instances, you can tag the Spot Instance request only. Choose
Add another tag to add more than one tag to your resources. Choose Next: Configure Security Group
when you are done.

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Step 6: Configure Security Group

On the Configure Security Group page, use a security group to define firewall rules for your instance.
These rules specify which incoming network traffic is delivered to your instance. All other traffic is
ignored. (For more information about security groups, see Amazon EC2 security groups for Windows
instances (p. 1148).) Select or create a security group as follows, and then choose Review and Launch.

• To select an existing security group, choose Select an existing security group, and select your security
group. You can't edit the rules of an existing security group, but you can copy them to a new group by
choosing Copy to new. Then you can add rules as described in the next step.
• To create a new security group, choose Create a new security group. The wizard automatically defines
the launch-wizard-x security group and creates an inbound rule to allow you to connect to your
instance over RDP (port 3389).
• You can add rules to suit your needs. For example, if your instance is a web server, open ports 80
(HTTP) and 443 (HTTPS) to allow internet traffic.

To add a rule, choose Add Rule, select the protocol to open to network traffic, and then specify the
source. Choose My IP from the Source list to let the wizard add your computer's public IP address.
However, if you are connecting through an ISP or from behind your firewall without a static IP address,
you need to find out the range of IP addresses used by client computers.
Warning
Rules that enable all IP addresses (0.0.0.0/0) to access your instance over SSH or RDP are
acceptable for this short exercise, but are unsafe for production environments. You should
authorize only a specific IP address or range of addresses to access your instance.

Step 7: Review Instance Launch and Select Key Pair

On the Review Instance Launch page, check the details of your instance, and make any necessary
changes by choosing the appropriate Edit link.

When you are ready, choose Launch.

In the Select an existing key pair or create a new key pair dialog box, you can choose an existing
key pair, or create a new one. For example, choose Choose an existing key pair, then select the key
pair you created when getting set up. For more information, see Amazon EC2 key pairs and Windows
instances (p. 1140).
Important
If you choose the Proceed without key pair option, you won't be able to connect to the instance
unless you choose an AMI that is configured to allow users another way to log in.

To launch your instance, select the acknowledgment check box, then choose Launch Instances.

(Optional) You can create a status check alarm for the instance (additional fees may apply). (If you're not
sure, you can always add one later.) On the confirmation screen, choose Create status check alarms and
follow the directions. For more information, see Create and edit status check alarms (p. 825).

If the instance fails to launch or the state immediately goes to terminated instead of running, see
Troubleshoot instance launch issues (p. 1478).

Launch an instance from a launch template

You can create a launch template that contains the configuration information to launch an instance.
You can use launch templates to store launch parameters so that you do not have to specify them every
time you launch an instance. For example, a launch template can contain the AMI ID, instance type, and
network settings that you typically use to launch instances. When you launch an instance using the
Amazon EC2 console, an AWS SDK, or a command line tool, you can specify the launch template to use.

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For each launch template, you can create one or more numbered launch template versions. Each version
can have different launch parameters. When you launch an instance from a launch template, you can
use any version of the launch template. If you do not specify a version, the default version is used. You
can set any version of the launch template as the default version—by default, it's the first version of the
launch template.

The following diagram shows a launch template with three versions. The first version specifies the
instance type, AMI ID, subnet, and key pair to use to launch the instance. The second version is based
on the first version and also specifies a security group for the instance. The third version uses different
values for some of the parameters. Version 2 is set as the default version. If you launched an instance
from this launch template, the launch parameters from version 2 would be used if no other version were
specified.

Contents
• Launch template restrictions (p. 402)
• Use launch templates to control launch parameters (p. 403)
• Control the use of launch templates (p. 403)
• Create a launch template (p. 403)
• Modify a launch template (manage launch template versions) (p. 409)
• Launch an instance from a launch template (p. 412)
• Use launch templates with Amazon EC2 Auto Scaling (p. 413)
• Use launch templates with EC2 Fleet (p. 414)
• Use launch templates with Spot Fleet (p. 414)
• Delete a launch template (p. 414)

Launch template restrictions

The following rules apply to launch templates and launch template versions:

• You are limited to creating 5,000 launch templates per Region and 10,000 versions per launch
template.
• Launch template parameters are optional. However, you must ensure that your request to launch an
instance includes all required parameters. For example, if your launch template does not include an
AMI ID, you must specify both the launch template and an AMI ID when you launch an instance.
• Launch template parameters are not fully validated when you create the launch template. If you
specify incorrect values for parameters, or if you do not use supported parameter combinations, no
instances can launch using this launch template. Ensure that you specify the correct values for the
parameters and that you use supported parameter combinations. For example, to launch an instance in
a placement group, you must specify a supported instance type.
• You can tag a launch template, but you cannot tag a launch template version.

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• Launch templates are immutable. To modify a launch template, you must create a new version of the
launch template.
• Launch template versions are numbered in the order in which they are created. When you create a
launch template version, you cannot specify the version number yourself.

Use launch templates to control launch parameters

A launch template can contain all or some of the parameters to launch an instance. When you launch an
instance using a launch template, you can override parameters that are specified in the launch template.
Or, you can specify additional parameters that are not in the launch template.
Note
You cannot remove launch template parameters during launch (for example, you cannot specify
a null value for the parameter). To remove a parameter, create a new version of the launch
template without the parameter and use that version to launch the instance.

To launch instances, IAM users must have permissions to use the ec2:RunInstances action. IAM
users must also have permissions to create or use the resources that are created or associated with the
instance. You can use resource-level permissions for the ec2:RunInstances action to control the
launch parameters that users can specify. Alternatively, you can grant users permissions to launch an
instance using a launch template. This enables you to manage launch parameters in a launch template
rather than in an IAM policy, and to use a launch template as an authorization vehicle for launching
instances. For example, you can specify that users can only launch instances using a launch template, and
that they can only use a specific launch template. You can also control the launch parameters that users
can override in the launch template. For example policies, see Launch templates (p. 1103).

Control the use of launch templates

By default, IAM users do not have permissions to work with launch templates. You can create an IAM user
policy that grants users permissions to create, modify, describe, and delete launch templates and launch
template versions. You can also apply resource-level permissions to some launch template actions to
control a user's ability to use specific resources for those actions. For more information, see the following
example policies: Example: Work with launch templates (p. 1115).

Take care when granting users permissions to use the ec2:CreateLaunchTemplate and
ec2:CreateLaunchTemplateVersion actions. You cannot use resource-level permissions to control
which resources users can specify in the launch template. To restrict the resources that are used to
launch an instance, ensure that you grant permissions to create launch templates and launch template
versions only to appropriate administrators.

Create a launch template

Create a new launch template using parameters that you define, or use an existing launch template or an
instance as the basis for a new launch template.

Tasks
• Create a new launch template using parameters you define (p. 403)
• Create a launch template from an existing launch template (p. 407)
• Create a launch template from an instance (p. 408)

Create a new launch template using parameters you define

Console

To create a new launch template using defined parameters using the console

1. Open the Amazon EC2 console at https://console.aws.amazon.com/ec2/.

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2. In the navigation pane, choose Launch Templates, and then choose Create launch template.
3. For Launch template name, enter a descriptive name for the launch template.
4. For Template version description, provide a brief description of the launch template version.
5. To tag the launch template on creation, expand Template tags, choose Add tag, and then enter
a tag key and value pair.
6. For Launch template contents, provide the following information:

• AMI: An AMI from which to launch the instance. To search through all available AMIs, choose
Search for AMI. To select a commonly used AMI, choose Quick Start. Or, choose AWS
Marketplace or Community AMIs. You can use an AMI that you own or find a suitable AMI.
• Instance type: Ensure that the instance type is compatible with the AMI that you've specified.
For more information, see Instance types (p. 142).
• Key pair name: The key pair for the instance. For more information, see Amazon EC2 key pairs
and Windows instances (p. 1140).
• Network platform: If applicable, whether to launch the instance into a VPC or EC2-Classic. If
you choose VPC, specify the subnet in the Network interfaces section. If you choose Classic,
ensure that the specified instance type is supported in EC2-Classic and specify the Availability
Zone for the instance.
• Security groups: One or more security groups to associate with the instance. If you add a
network interface to the launch template, omit this setting and specify the security groups
as part of the network interface specification. You cannot launch an instance from a launch
template that specifies security groups and a network interface. For more information, see
Amazon EC2 security groups for Windows instances (p. 1148).
7. For Storage (volumes), specify volumes to attach to the instance besides the volumes specified
by the AMI (Volume 1 (AMI Root)). To add a new volume, choose Add new volume.

• Volume type: The instance store or Amazon EBS volumes with which to associate your
instance. The type of volume depends on the instance type that you've chosen. For more
information, see Amazon EC2 instance store (p. 1405) and Amazon EBS volumes (p. 1174).
• Device name: A device name for the volume.
• Snapshot: The ID of the snapshot from which to create the volume.
• Size: For Amazon EBS volumes, the storage size.
• Volume type: For Amazon EBS volumes, the volume type. For more information, see Amazon
EBS volume types (p. 1177).
• IOPS: For the Provisioned IOPS SSD volume type, the number of I/O operations per second
(IOPS) that the volume can support.
• Delete on termination: For Amazon EBS volumes, whether to delete the volume when the
instance is terminated. For more information, see Preserve Amazon EBS volumes on instance
termination (p. 450).
• Encrypted: If the instance type supports EBS encryption, you can enable encryption for the
volume. If you have enabled encryption by default in this Region, encryption is enabled for
you. For more information, see Amazon EBS encryption (p. 1340).
• Key: The customer managed key to use for EBS encryption. You can specify the ARN of any
customer managed key that you created using the customer managed key. If you specify a
customer managed key, you must also use Encrypted to enable encryption.
8. For Resource tags, specify tags (p. 1463) by providing key and value combinations. You can tag
the instance, the volumes, Spot Instance requests, or all three.
9. For Network interfaces, you can specify up to two network interfaces (p. 948) for the
instance.

• Device index: The device number for the network interface, for example, eth0 for the
primary network interface. If you leave the field blank, AWS creates the primary network
interface.

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• Network interface: The ID of the network interface, or leave blank to let AWS create a new
network interface.
• Description: (Optional) A description for the new network interface.
• Subnet: The subnet in which to create a new network interface. For the primary network
interface (eth0), this is the subnet in which the instance is launched. If you've entered an
existing network interface for eth0, the instance is launched in the subnet in which the
network interface is located.
• Auto-assign public IP: Whether to automatically assign a public IP address to the network
interface with the device index of eth0. This setting can only be enabled for a single, new
network interface.
• Primary IP: A private IPv4 address from the range of your subnet. Leave blank to let AWS
choose a private IPv4 address for you.
• Secondary IP: A secondary private IPv4 address from the range of your subnet. Leave blank to
let AWS choose one for you.
• (IPv6-only) IPv6 IPs: An IPv6 address from the range of the subnet.
• Security groups: One or more security groups in your VPC with which to associate the
network interface.
• Delete on termination: Whether the network interface is deleted when the instance is
deleted.
• Network card index: The index of the network card. The primary network interface must be
assigned to network card index 0. Some instance types support multiple network cards.
10. For Advanced details, expand the section to view the fields and specify any additional
parameters for the instance.

• Purchasing option: The purchasing model. Choose Request Spot Instances to request Spot
Instances at the Spot price, capped at the On-Demand price, and choose Customize to change
the default Spot Instance settings. If you do not request a Spot Instance, EC2 launches an On-
Demand Instance by default. For more information, see Spot Instances (p. 284).
• IAM instance profile: An AWS Identity and Access Management (IAM) instance profile to
associate with the instance. For more information, see IAM roles for Amazon EC2 (p. 1128).
• Shutdown behavior: Whether the instance should stop or terminate when shut down. For
more information, see Change the instance initiated shutdown behavior (p. 450).
• Stop - Hibernate behavior: Whether the instance is enabled for hibernation. This field is
only valid for instances that meet the hibernation prerequisites. For more information, see
Hibernate your On-Demand or Reserved Windows instance (p. 432).
• Termination protection: Whether to prevent accidental termination. For more information,
see Enable termination protection (p. 449).
• Detailed CloudWatch monitoring: Whether to enable detailed monitoring of the instance
using Amazon CloudWatch. Additional charges apply. For more information, see Monitor your
instances using CloudWatch (p. 851).
• Elastic GPU: An Elastic Graphics accelerator to attach to the instance. Not all instance types
support Elastic Graphics. For more information, see Amazon Elastic Graphics (p. 805).
• Elastic inference: An elastic inference accelerator to attach to your EC2 CPU instance. For
more information, see Working with Amazon Elastic Inference in the Amazon Elastic Inference
Developer Guide.
• T2/T3 Unlimited: Whether to enable applications to burst beyond the baseline for as long as
needed. This field is only valid for T2, T3, and T3a instances. Additional charges may apply.
For more information, see Burstable performance instances (p. 161).
• Placement group name: Specify a placement group in which to launch the instance. Not all
instance types can be launched in a placement group. For more information, see Placement
groups (p. 988).

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• EBS-optimized instance: Provides additional, dedicated capacity for Amazon EBS I/O. Not all
instance types support this feature, and additional charges apply. For more information, see
Amazon EBS–optimized instances (p. 1357).
• Capacity Reservation: Specify whether to launch the instance into any open Capacity
Reservation (Open), a specific Capacity Reservation (Target by ID), or a Capacity
Reservation group (Target by group). To specify that a Capacity Reservation should not
be used, choose None. For more information, see Launch instances into an existing Capacity
Reservation (p. 378).
• Tenancy: Choose whether to run your instance on shared hardware (Shared), isolated,
dedicated hardware (Dedicated), or on a Dedicated Host (Dedicated host). If you choose
to launch the instance onto a Dedicated Host, you can specify whether to launch the
instance into a host resource group or you can target a specific Dedicated Host. Additional
charges may apply. For more information, see Dedicated Instances (p. 363) and Dedicated
Hosts (p. 331).
• RAM disk ID: (Only valid for paravirtual (PV) AMIs) A RAM disk for the instance. If you have
specified a kernel, you may need to specify a specific RAM disk with the drivers to support it.
• Kernel ID: (Only valid for paravirtual (PV) AMIs) A kernel for the instance.
• License configurations: You can launch instances against the specified license configuration
to track your license usage. For more information, see Create a License Configuration in the
AWS License Manager User Guide.
• Metadata accessible: Whether to enable or disable access to the instance metadata. For more
information, see Use IMDSv2 (p. 589).
• Metadata version: If you enable access to the instance metadata, you can choose to require
the use of Instance Metadata Service Version 2 when requesting instance metadata. For more
information, see Configure instance metadata options for new instances (p. 593).
• Metadata response hop limit: If you enable instance metadata, you can set the allowable
number of network hops for the metadata token. For more information, see Use
IMDSv2 (p. 589).
• User data: You can specify user data to configure an instance during launch, or to run a
configuration script. For more information, see Run commands on your Windows instance at
launch (p. 581).
11. Choose Create launch template.

AWS CLI

To create a launch template using the AWS CLI

• Use the create-launch-template command. The following example creates a launch template
that specifies the following:

• A tag for the launch template (purpose=production)

• The instance type (r4.4xlarge) and AMI (ami-8c1be5f6) to launch
• The number of cores (4) and threads per core (2) for a total of 8 vCPUs (4 cores x 2 threads)
• The subnet in which to launch the instance (subnet-7b16de0c)

The template assigns a public IP address and an IPv6 address to the instance and creates a tag
for the instance(Name=webserver).

aws ec2 create-launch-template \

--launch-template-name TemplateForWebServer \
--version-description WebVersion1 \
--tag-specifications 'ResourceType=launch-
template,Tags=[{Key=purpose,Value=production}]' \

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--launch-template-data file://template-data.json

The following is an example template-data.json file.

{
"NetworkInterfaces": [{
"AssociatePublicIpAddress": true,
"DeviceIndex": 0,
"Ipv6AddressCount": 1,
"SubnetId": "subnet-7b16de0c"
}],
"ImageId": "ami-8c1be5f6",
"InstanceType": "r4.4xlarge",
"TagSpecifications": [{
"ResourceType": "instance",
"Tags": [{
"Key":"Name",
"Value":"webserver"
}]
}],
"CpuOptions": {
"CoreCount":4,
"ThreadsPerCore":2
}
}

The following is example output.

{
"LaunchTemplate": {
"LatestVersionNumber": 1,
"LaunchTemplateId": "lt-01238c059e3466abc",
"LaunchTemplateName": "TemplateForWebServer",
"DefaultVersionNumber": 1,
"CreatedBy": "arn:aws:iam::123456789012:root",
"CreateTime": "2017-11-27T09:13:24.000Z"
}
}

Create a launch template from an existing launch template

To create a launch template from an existing launch template using the console

1. Open the Amazon EC2 console at https://console.aws.amazon.com/ec2/.

2. In the navigation pane, choose Launch Templates, and then choose Create launch template.
3. For Launch template name, enter a descriptive name for the launch template.
4. For Template version description, provide a brief description of the launch template version.
5. To tag the launch template on creation, expand Template tags, choose Add tag, and then enter a
tag key and value pair.
6. Expand Source template, and for Launch template name choose a launch template on which to
base the new launch template.
7. For Source template version, choose the launch template version on which to base the new launch
template.
8. Adjust any launch parameters as required, and then choose Create launch template.

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Create a launch template from an instance

Console

To create a launch template from an instance using the console

1. Open the Amazon EC2 console at https://console.aws.amazon.com/ec2/.

2. In the navigation pane, choose Instances.
3. Select the instance, and choose Actions, Create template from instance.
4. Provide a name, description, and tags, and adjust the launch parameters as required.
Note
When you create a launch template from an instance, the instance's network interface
IDs and IP addresses are not included in the template.
5. Choose Create launch template.

AWS CLI

You can use the AWS CLI to create a launch template from an existing instance by first getting
the launch template data from an instance, and then creating a launch template using the launch
template data.

To get launch template data from an instance using the AWS CLI

• Use the get-launch-template-data command and specify the instance ID. You can use the output
as a base to create a new launch template or launch template version. By default, the output
includes a top-level LaunchTemplateData object, which cannot be specified in your launch
template data. Use the --query option to exclude this object.

aws ec2 get-launch-template-data \

--instance-id i-0123d646e8048babc \
--query "LaunchTemplateData"

The following is example output.

{
"Monitoring": {},
"ImageId": "ami-8c1be5f6",
"BlockDeviceMappings": [
{
"DeviceName": "/dev/xvda",
"Ebs": {
"DeleteOnTermination": true
}
}
],
"EbsOptimized": false,
"Placement": {
"Tenancy": "default",
"GroupName": "",
"AvailabilityZone": "us-east-1a"
},
"InstanceType": "t2.micro",
"NetworkInterfaces": [
{
"Description": "",
"NetworkInterfaceId": "eni-35306abc",
"PrivateIpAddresses": [
{

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"Primary": true,
"PrivateIpAddress": "10.0.0.72"
}
],
"SubnetId": "subnet-7b16de0c",
"Groups": [
"sg-7c227019"
],
"Ipv6Addresses": [
{
"Ipv6Address": "2001:db8:1234:1a00::123"
}
],
"PrivateIpAddress": "10.0.0.72"
}
]
}

You can write the output directly to a file, for example:

aws ec2 get-launch-template-data \

--instance-id i-0123d646e8048babc \
--query "LaunchTemplateData" >> instance-data.json

To create a launch template using launch template data

Use the create-launch-template command to create a launch template using the output from the
previous procedure. For more information about creating a launch template using the AWS CLI, see
Create a new launch template using parameters you define (p. 403).

Modify a launch template (manage launch template versions)

Launch templates are immutable; after you create a launch template, you can't modify it. Instead, you
can create a new version of the launch template that includes any changes you require.

You can create launch template versions for a specific launch template, set the default version, describe a
launch template version, and delete versions that you no longer require.

Tasks
• Create a launch template version (p. 409)
• Set the default launch template version (p. 410)
• Describe a launch template version (p. 410)
• Delete a launch template version (p. 411)

Create a launch template version

When you create a launch template version, you can specify new launch parameters or use an existing
version as the base for the new version. For more information about the launch parameters, see Create a
launch template (p. 403).

Console

To create a launch template version using the console

1. Open the Amazon EC2 console at https://console.aws.amazon.com/ec2/.

2. In the navigation pane, choose Launch Templates.

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3. Select a launch template, and then choose Actions, Modify template (Create new version).
4. For Template version description, enter a description for the launch template version.
5. (Optional) Expand Source template and select a version of the launch template to use as a
base for the new launch template version. The new launch template version inherits the launch
parameters from this launch template version.
6. Modify the launch parameters as required, and choose Create launch template.

AWS CLI

To create a launch template version using the AWS CLI

• Use the create-launch-template-version command. You can specify a source version on which to
base the new version. The new version inherits the launch parameters from this version, and you
can override parameters using --launch-template-data. The following example creates a
new version based on version 1 of the launch template and specifies a different AMI ID.

aws ec2 create-launch-template-version \

--launch-template-id lt-0abcd290751193123 \
--version-description WebVersion2 \
--source-version 1 \
--launch-template-data "ImageId=ami-c998b6b2"

Set the default launch template version

You can set the default version for the launch template. When you launch an instance from a launch
template and do not specify a version, the instance is launched using the parameters of the default
version.

Console

To set the default launch template version using the console

1. Open the Amazon EC2 console at https://console.aws.amazon.com/ec2/.

2. In the navigation pane, choose Launch Templates.
3. Select the launch template and choose Actions, Set default version.
4. For Template version, select the version number to set as the default version and choose Set as
default version.

AWS CLI

To set the default launch template version using the AWS CLI

• Use the modify-launch-template command and specify the version that you want to set as the
default.

aws ec2 modify-launch-template \

--launch-template-id lt-0abcd290751193123 \
--default-version 2

Describe a launch template version

Using the console, you can view all the versions of the selected launch template, or get a list of the
launch templates whose latest or default version matches a specific version number. Using the AWS CLI,

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you can describe all versions, individual versions, or a range of versions of a specified launch template.
You can also describe all the latest versions or all the default versions of all the launch templates in your
account.

Console

To describe a launch template version using the console

1. Open the Amazon EC2 console at https://console.aws.amazon.com/ec2/.

2. In the navigation pane, choose Launch Templates.
3. You can view a version of a specific launch template, or get a list of the launch templates whose
latest or default version matches a specific version number.
• To view a version of a launch template: Select the launch template. On the Versions tab,
from Version, select a version to view its details.
• To get a list of all the launch templates whose latest version matches a specific version
number: From the search bar, choose Latest version, and then choose a version number.
• To get a list of all the launch templates whose default version matches a specific version
number: From the search bar, choose Default version, and then choose a version number.

AWS CLI

To describe a launch template version using the AWS CLI

• Use the describe-launch-template-versions command and specify the version numbers. In the
following example, versions 1 and 3 are specified.

aws ec2 describe-launch-template-versions \

--launch-template-id lt-0abcd290751193123 \
--versions 1 3

To describe all the latest and default launch template versions in your account using the
AWS CLI

• Use the describe-launch-template-versions command and specify $Latest, $Default, or

both. You must omit the launch template ID and name in the call. You cannot specify version
numbers.

aws ec2 describe-launch-template-versions \

--versions "$Latest,$Default"

Delete a launch template version

If you no longer require a launch template version, you can delete it. You cannot replace the version
number after you delete it. You cannot delete the default version of the launch template; you must first
assign a different version as the default.

Console

To delete a launch template version using the console

1. Open the Amazon EC2 console at https://console.aws.amazon.com/ec2/.

2. In the navigation pane, choose Launch Templates.
3. Select the launch template and choose Actions, Delete template version.

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4. Select the version to delete and choose Delete.

AWS CLI

To delete a launch template version using the AWS CLI

• Use the delete-launch-template-versions command and specify the version numbers to delete.

aws ec2 delete-launch-template-versions \

--launch-template-id lt-0abcd290751193123 \
--versions 1

Launch an instance from a launch template

You can use the parameters contained in a launch template to launch an instance. You have the option to
override or add launch parameters before you launch the instance.

Instances that are launched using a launch template are automatically assigned two tags with the keys
aws:ec2launchtemplate:id and aws:ec2launchtemplate:version. You cannot remove or edit
these tags.

Console

To launch an instance from a launch template using the console

1. Open the Amazon EC2 console at https://console.aws.amazon.com/ec2/.

2. In the navigation pane, choose Launch Templates.
3. Select the launch template and choose Actions, Launch instance from template.
4. For Source template version, select the launch template version to use.
5. For Number of instances, specify the number of instances to launch.
6. (Optional) You can override or add launch template parameters by changing and adding
parameters in the Instance details section.
7. Choose Launch instance from template.

AWS CLI

To launch an instance from a launch template using the AWS CLI

• Use the run-instances command and specify the --launch-template parameter. Optionally
specify the launch template version to use. If you don't specify the version, the default version is
used.

aws ec2 run-instances \

--launch-template LaunchTemplateId=lt-0abcd290751193123,Version=1

• To override a launch template parameter, specify the parameter in the run-instances command.
The following example overrides the instance type that's specified in the launch template (if any).

aws ec2 run-instances \

--launch-template LaunchTemplateId=lt-0abcd290751193123 \
--instance-type t2.small

• If you specify a nested parameter that's part of a complex structure, the instance is launched using
the complex structure as specified in the launch template plus any additional nested parameters
that you specify.

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In the following example, the instance is launched with the tag Owner=TeamA as well as any other
tags that are specified in the launch template. If the launch template has an existing tag with a
key of Owner, the value is replaced with TeamA.

aws ec2 run-instances \

--launch-template LaunchTemplateId=lt-0abcd290751193123 \
--tag-specifications "ResourceType=instance,Tags=[{Key=Owner,Value=TeamA}]"

In the following example, the instance is launched with a volume with the device name /dev/
xvdb as well as any other block device mappings that are specified in the launch template. If the
launch template has an existing volume defined for /dev/xvdb, its values are replaced with the
specified values.

aws ec2 run-instances \

--launch-template LaunchTemplateId=lt-0abcd290751193123 \
--block-device-mappings "DeviceName=/dev/xvdb,Ebs={VolumeSize=20,VolumeType=gp2}"

If the instance fails to launch or the state immediately goes to terminated instead of running, see
Troubleshoot instance launch issues (p. 1478).

Use launch templates with Amazon EC2 Auto Scaling

You can create an Auto Scaling group and specify a launch template to use for the group. When Amazon
EC2 Auto Scaling launches instances in the Auto Scaling group, it uses the launch parameters defined
in the associated launch template. For more information, see Creating an Auto Scaling Group Using a
Launch Template in the Amazon EC2 Auto Scaling User Guide.

Before you can create an Auto Scaling group using a launch template, you must create a launch template
that includes the parameters required to launch an instance in an Auto Scaling group, such as the ID
of the AMI. The console provides guidance to help you create a template that you can use with Auto
Scaling.

To create a launch template to use with Auto Scaling using the console

1. Open the Amazon EC2 console at https://console.aws.amazon.com/ec2/.

2. In the navigation pane, choose Launch Templates, and then choose Create launch template.
3. For Launch template name, enter a descriptive name for the launch template.
4. For Template version description, provide a brief description of the launch template version.
5. Under Auto Scaling guidance, select the checkbox to have Amazon EC2 provide guidance to help
create a template to use with Auto Scaling.
6. Modify the launch parameters as required. Because you selected Auto Scaling guidance, some fields
are required and some fields are not available. For considerations to keep in mind when creating
a launch template, and for information about how to configure the launch parameters for Auto
Scaling, see Creating a Launch Template for an Auto Scaling Group in the Amazon EC2 Auto Scaling
User Guide.
7. Choose Create launch template.
8. (Optional) To create an Auto Scaling group using this launch template, in the Next steps page,
choose Create Auto Scaling group.

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To create or update an Amazon EC2 Auto Scaling group with a launch template using the
AWS CLI

• Use the create-auto-scaling-group or the update-auto-scaling-group command and specify the --

launch-template parameter.

Use launch templates with EC2 Fleet

You can create an EC2 Fleet request and specify a launch template in the instance configuration. When
Amazon EC2 fulfills the EC2 Fleet request, it uses the launch parameters defined in the associated launch
template. You can override some of the parameters that are specified in the launch template.

For more information, see Create an EC2 Fleet (p. 710).

To create an EC2 Fleet with a launch template using the AWS CLI

• Use the create-fleet command. Use the --launch-template-configs parameter to specify the
launch template and any overrides for the launch template.

Use launch templates with Spot Fleet

You can create a Spot Fleet request and specify a launch template in the instance configuration. When
Amazon EC2 fulfills the Spot Fleet request, it uses the launch parameters defined in the associated
launch template. You can override some of the parameters that are specified in the launch template.

For more information, see Spot Fleet request types (p. 720).

To create a Spot Fleet request with a launch template using the AWS CLI

• Use the request-spot-fleet command. Use the LaunchTemplateConfigs parameter to specify the
launch template and any overrides for the launch template.

Delete a launch template

If you no longer require a launch template, you can delete it. Deleting a launch template deletes all of its
versions.

Console

To delete a launch template (console)

1. Open the Amazon EC2 console at https://console.aws.amazon.com/ec2/.

2. In the navigation pane, choose Launch Templates.
3. Select the launch template and choose Actions, Delete template.
4. Enter Delete to confirm deletion, and then choose Delete.

AWS CLI

To delete a launch template (AWS CLI)

• Use the delete-launch-template (AWS CLI) command and specify the launch template.

aws ec2 delete-launch-template --launch-template-id lt-01238c059e3466abc

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Launch an instance using parameters from an existing instance

The Amazon EC2 console provides a Launch more like this wizard option that enables you to use
a current instance as a base for launching other instances. This option automatically populates the
Amazon EC2 launch wizard with certain configuration details from the selected instance.
Note
The Launch more like this wizard option does not clone your selected instance; it only
replicates some configuration details. To create a copy of your instance, first create an AMI from
it, then launch more instances from the AMI.
Alternatively, create a launch template (p. 401) to store the launch parameters for your
instances.

The following configuration details are copied from the selected instance into the launch wizard:

• AMI ID
• Instance type
• Availability Zone, or the VPC and subnet in which the selected instance is located
• Public IPv4 address. If the selected instance currently has a public IPv4 address, the new instance
receives a public IPv4 address - regardless of the selected instance's default public IPv4 address
setting. For more information about public IPv4 addresses, see Public IPv4 addresses and external DNS
hostnames (p. 905).
• Placement group, if applicable
• IAM role associated with the instance, if applicable
• Shutdown behavior setting (stop or terminate)
• Termination protection setting (true or false)
• CloudWatch monitoring (enabled or disabled)
• Amazon EBS-optimization setting (true or false)
• Tenancy setting, if launching into a VPC (shared or dedicated)
• Kernel ID and RAM disk ID, if applicable
• User data, if specified
• Tags associated with the instance, if applicable
• Security groups associated with the instance
• Association information. If the selected instance is associated with a configuration file, the same file
is automatically associated with the new instance. If the configuration file includes a joined domain
configuration, the new instance is joined to the same domain. For more information about joining
a domain, see Seamlessly Join a Windows EC2 Instance in the AWS Directory Service Administration
Guide.

The following configuration details are not copied from your selected instance. Instead, the wizard
applies their default settings or behavior:

• Number of network interfaces: The default is one network interface, which is the primary network
interface (eth0).
• Storage: The default storage configuration is determined by the AMI and the instance type.

New console

To use your current instance as a template

1. Open the Amazon EC2 console at https://console.aws.amazon.com/ec2/.

2. In the navigation pane, choose Instances.

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3. Select the instance you want to use, and then choose Actions, Images and templates, Launch
more like this.
4. The launch wizard opens on the Review Instance Launch page. You can make any necessary
changes by choosing the appropriate Edit link.

When you are ready, choose Launch to select a key pair and launch your instance.
5. If the instance fails to launch or the state immediately goes to terminated instead of
running, see Troubleshoot instance launch issues (p. 1478).

Old console

To use your current instance as a template

1. Open the Amazon EC2 console at https://console.aws.amazon.com/ec2/.

2. In the navigation pane, choose Instances.
3. Select the instance you want to use, and then choose Actions, Launch More Like This.
4. The launch wizard opens on the Review Instance Launch page. You can make any necessary
changes by choosing the appropriate Edit link.

When you are ready, choose Launch to select a key pair and launch your instance.
5. If the instance fails to launch or the state immediately goes to terminated instead of
running, see Troubleshoot instance launch issues (p. 1478).

Launch an AWS Marketplace instance

You can subscribe to an AWS Marketplace product and launch an instance from the product's AMI
using the Amazon EC2 launch wizard. For more information about paid AMIs, see Paid AMIs (p. 112). To
cancel your subscription after launch, you first have to terminate all instances running from it. For more
information, see Manage your AWS Marketplace subscriptions (p. 115).

To launch an instance from the AWS Marketplace using the launch wizard

1. Open the Amazon EC2 console at https://console.aws.amazon.com/ec2/.

2. From the Amazon EC2 dashboard, choose Launch instance.
3. On the Choose an Amazon Machine Image (AMI) page, choose the AWS Marketplace category on
the left. Find a suitable AMI by browsing the categories, or using the search functionality. Choose
Select to choose your product.
4. A dialog displays an overview of the product you've selected. You can view the pricing information,
as well as any other information that the vendor has provided. When you're ready, choose Continue.
Note
You are not charged for using the product until you have launched an instance with the
AMI. Take note of the pricing for each supported instance type, as you will be prompted to
select an instance type on the next page of the wizard. Additional taxes may also apply to
the product.
5. On the Choose an Instance Type page, select the hardware configuration and size of the instance to
launch. When you're done, choose Next: Configure Instance Details.
6. On the next pages of the wizard, you can configure your instance, add storage, and add tags. For
more information about the different options you can configure, see Launch an instance using the
Launch Instance Wizard (p. 396). Choose Next until you reach the Configure Security Group page.

The wizard creates a new security group according to the vendor's specifications for the product. The
security group may include rules that allow all IPv4 addresses (0.0.0.0/0) access on SSH (port 22)

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on Linux or RDP (port 3389) on Windows. We recommend that you adjust these rules to allow only a
specific address or range of addresses to access your instance over those ports.

When you are ready, choose Review and Launch.

7. On the Review Instance Launch page, check the details of the AMI from which you're about to
launch the instance, as well as the other configuration details you set up in the wizard. When you're
ready, choose Launch to select or create a key pair, and launch your instance.
8. Depending on the product you've subscribed to, the instance may take a few minutes or more to
launch. You are first subscribed to the product before your instance can launch. If there are any
problems with your credit card details, you will be asked to update your account details. When the
launch confirmation page displays, choose View Instances to go to the Instances page.
Note
You are charged the subscription price as long as your instance is running, even if it is idle. If
your instance is stopped, you may still be charged for storage.
9. When your instance is in the running state, you can connect to it. To do this, select your instance
in the list and choose Connect. Follow the instructions in the dialog. For more information about
connecting to your instance, see Connect to your Windows instance (p. 417).
Important
Check the vendor's usage instructions carefully, as you may need to use a specific user name
to log in to the instance. For more information about accessing your subscription details,
see Manage your AWS Marketplace subscriptions (p. 115).
10. If the instance fails to launch or the state immediately goes to terminated instead of running, see
Troubleshoot instance launch issues (p. 1478).

Launch an AWS Marketplace AMI instance using the API and CLI
To launch instances from AWS Marketplace products using the API or command line tools, first ensure
that you are subscribed to the product. You can then launch an instance with the product's AMI ID using
the following methods:

Method Documentation

AWS CLI Use the run-instances command, or see the following topic for more
information: Launching an Instance.

AWS Tools for Windows Use the New-EC2Instance command, or see the following topic for
PowerShell more information: Launch an Amazon EC2 Instance Using Windows
PowerShell

Query API Use the RunInstances request.

Connect to your Windows instance

You can connect to Amazon EC2 instances created from most Windows Amazon Machine Images (AMIs)
using Remote Desktop. Remote Desktop uses the Remote Desktop Protocol (RDP) to connect to and use
your instance in the same way you use a computer sitting in front of you (local computer). It is available
on most editions of Windows and is also available for Mac OS.

The license for the Windows Server operating system allows two simultaneous remote connections
for administrative purposes. The license for Windows Server is included in the price of your Windows
instance. If you require more than two simultaneous remote connections, you must purchase a Remote
Desktop Services (RDS) license. If you attempt a third connection, an error occurs.

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For information about connecting to a Linux instance, see Connect to your Linux instance in the Amazon
EC2 User Guide for Linux Instances.

Contents
• Prerequisites (p. 418)
• Connect to your Windows instance using RDP (p. 418)
• Connect to a Windows instance using its IPv6 address (p. 424)
• Connect to a Windows instance using Session Manager (p. 426)
• Configure your accounts (p. 426)
• Transfer files to Windows instances (p. 427)

Prerequisites
• Install an RDP client
• [Windows] Windows includes an RDP client by default. To verify, type mstsc at a Command Prompt
window. If your computer doesn't recognize this command, see the Windows home page and search
for the download for the Microsoft Remote Desktop app.
• [Mac OS X] Download the Microsoft Remote Desktop app from the Mac App Store.
• [Linux] Use Remmina.
• Locate the private key

Get the fully-qualified path to the location on your computer of the .pem file for the key pair that you
specified when you launched the instance. For more information, see Identify the key pair that was
specified at launch. If you can't find your private key file, see Connect to your Windows instance if you
lose your private key.
• Enable inbound RDP traffic from your IP address to your instance

Ensure that the security group associated with your instance allows incoming RDP traffic (port 3389)
from your IP address. The default security group does not allow incoming RDP traffic by default. For
more information, see Authorize inbound traffic for your Windows instances (p. 1137).

Connect to your Windows instance using RDP

To connect to a Windows instance, you must retrieve the initial administrator password and then enter
this password when you connect to your instance using Remote Desktop. It takes a few minutes after
instance launch before this password is available.

The name of the administrator account depends on the language of the operating system. For
example, for English, it's Administrator, for French it's Administrateur, and for Portuguese it's
Administrador. For more information, see Localized Names for Administrator Account in Windows in
the Microsoft TechNet Wiki.

If you've joined your instance to a domain, you can connect to your instance using domain credentials
you've defined in AWS Directory Service. On the Remote Desktop login screen, instead of using the local
computer name and the generated password, use the fully-qualified user name for the administrator (for
example, corp.example.com\Admin), and the password for this account.

If you receive an error while attempting to connect to your instance, see Remote Desktop can't connect
to the remote computer (p. 1482).

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New console

To connect to your Windows instance using an RDP client

1. Open the Amazon EC2 console at https://console.aws.amazon.com/ec2/.

2. In the navigation pane, select Instances. Select the instance and then choose Connect.
3. On the Connect to instance page, choose the RDP client tab, and then choose Get password.

4. Choose Browse and navigate to the private key (.pem) file you created when you launched the
instance. Select the file and choose Open to copy the entire contents of the file to this window.
5. Choose Decrypt Password. The console displays the default administrator password for the
instance under Password, replacing the Get password link shown previously. Save the password
in a safe place. This password is required to connect to the instance.

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6. Choose Download remote desktop file. Your browser prompts you to either open or save the
RDP shortcut file. When you have finished downloading the file, choose Cancel to return to the
Instances page.

• If you opened the RDP file, you'll see the Remote Desktop Connection dialog box.
• If you saved the RDP file, navigate to your downloads directory, and open the RDP file to
display the dialog box.
7. You may get a warning that the publisher of the remote connection is unknown. Choose
Connect to continue to connect to your instance.

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8. The administrator account is chosen by default. Copy and paste the password that you saved
previously.
Tip
If you receive a "Password Failed" error, try entering the password manually. Copying
and pasting content can corrupt it.
9. Due to the nature of self-signed certificates, you may get a warning that the security certificate
could not be authenticated. Use the following steps to verify the identity of the remote
computer, or simply choose Yes (Windows) or Continue (Mac OS X) if you trust the certificate.

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a. If you are using Remote Desktop Connection on a Windows computer, choose View
certificate. If you are using Microsoft Remote Desktop on a Mac, choose Show Certificate.
b. Choose the Details tab, and scroll down to Thumbprint (Windows) or SHA1 Fingerprints
(Mac OS X). This is the unique identifier for the remote computer's security certificate.
c. In the Amazon EC2 console, select the instance, choose Actions, Monitor and troubleshoot,
Get system log.
d. In the system log output, look for RDPCERTIFICATE-THUMBPRINT. If this value matches
the thumbprint or fingerprint of the certificate, you have verified the identity of the remote
computer.
e. If you are using Remote Desktop Connection on a Windows computer, return to the
Certificate dialog box and choose OK. If you are using Microsoft Remote Desktop on a
Mac, return to the Verify Certificate and choose Continue.
f. [Windows] Choose Yes in the Remote Desktop Connection window to connect to your
instance.

[Mac OS X] Log in as prompted, using the default administrator account and the default
administrator password that you recorded or copied previously. Note that you might need
to switch spaces to see the login screen. For more information, see Add spaces and switch
between them.

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Old console

To connect to your Windows instance using an RDP client

1. In the Amazon EC2 console, select the instance, and then choose Connect.
2. In the Connect To Your Instance dialog box, choose Get Password (it will take a few minutes
after the instance is launched before the password is available).
3. Choose Browse and navigate to the private key (.pem) file you created when you launched
the instance. Select the file and choose Open to copy the entire contents of the file into the
Contents field.
4. Choose Decrypt Password. The console displays the default administrator password for the
instance in the Connect To Your Instance dialog box, replacing the link to Get Password shown
previously with the actual password.
5. Record the default administrator password, or copy it to the clipboard. You need this password
to connect to the instance.
6. Choose Download Remote Desktop File. Your browser prompts you to either open or save
the .rdp file. Either option is fine. When you have finished, you can choose Close to dismiss the
Connect To Your Instance dialog box.

• If you opened the .rdp file, you'll see the Remote Desktop Connection dialog box.
• If you saved the .rdp file, navigate to your downloads directory, and open the .rdp file to
display the dialog box.
7. You may get a warning that the publisher of the remote connection is unknown. You can
continue to connect to your instance.
8. When prompted, log in to the instance, using the administrator account for the operating
system and the password that you recorded or copied previously. If your Remote Desktop
Connection already has an administrator account set up, you might have to choose the Use
another account option and type the user name and password manually.
Note
Sometimes copying and pasting content can corrupt data. If you encounter a "Password
Failed" error when you log in, try typing in the password manually.
9. Due to the nature of self-signed certificates, you may get a warning that the security certificate
could not be authenticated. Use the following steps to verify the identity of the remote
computer, or simply choose Yes or Continue to continue if you trust the certificate.

a. If you are using Remote Desktop Connection from a Windows PC, choose View certificate.
If you are using Microsoft Remote Desktop on a Mac, choose Show Certificate.
b. Choose the Details tab, and scroll down to the Thumbprint entry on a Windows PC, or the
SHA1 Fingerprints entry on a Mac. This is the unique identifier for the remote computer's
security certificate.
c. In the Amazon EC2 console, select the instance, choose Actions, and then choose Get
System Log.
d. In the system log output, look for an entry labeled RDPCERTIFICATE-THUMBPRINT. If this
value matches the thumbprint or fingerprint of the certificate, you have verified the identity
of the remote computer.
e. If you are using Remote Desktop Connection from a Windows PC, return to the Certificate
dialog box and choose OK. If you are using Microsoft Remote Desktop on a Mac, return to
the Verify Certificate and choose Continue.
f. [Windows] Choose Yes in the Remote Desktop Connection window to connect to your
instance.

[Mac OS] Log in as prompted, using the default administrator account and the default
administrator password that you recorded or copied previously. Note that you might

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need to switch spaces to see the login screen. For more information about spaces, see
support.apple.com/en-us/HT204100.
g. If you receive an error while attempting to connect to your instance, see Remote Desktop
can't connect to the remote computer (p. 1482).

Connect to a Windows instance using its IPv6 address

If you've enabled your VPC for IPv6 and assigned an IPv6 address to your Windows instance (p. 911),
you can use an RDP client to connect to your instance using its IPv6 address (for example,
2001:db8:1234:1a00:9691:9503:25ad:1761) instead of using its public IPv4 address or public DNS
hostname.

To connect to your Windows instance using its IPv6 address

1. Get the initial administrator password for your instance, as described in Connect to your Windows
instance using RDP (p. 418). This password is required to connect to your instance.
2. [Windows] Open the RDP client on your Windows computer, choose Show Options, and do the
following:

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• For Computer, enter the IPv6 address of your Windows instance.

• For User name, enter Administrator.
• Choose Connect.
• When prompted, enter the password that you saved previously.

[Mac OS X] Open the RDP client on your computer and do the following:

• Choose New.
• For PC Name, enter the IPv6 address of your Windows instance.
• For User name, enter Administrator.
• Close the dialog box. Under My Desktops, select the connection, and choose Start.
• When prompted, enter the password that you saved previously.
3. Due to the nature of self-signed certificates, you may get a warning that the security certificate
could not be authenticated. If you trust the certificate, you can choose Yes or Continue. Otherwise,

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you can verify the identity of the remote computer, as described in Connect to your Windows
instance using RDP (p. 418).

Connect to a Windows instance using Session Manager

Session Manager is a fully-managed AWS Systems Manager capability for managing your Amazon EC2
instances through an interactive, one-click, browser-based shell, or through the AWS CLI. You can use
Session Manager to start a session with an instance in your account. After the session is started, you can
run PowerShell commands as you would for any other connection type. For more information about
Session Manager, see AWS Systems Manager Session Manager in the AWS Systems Manager User Guide.

Before attempting to connect to an instance using Session Manager, ensure that the necessary setup
steps have been completed. For more information, see Getting Started with Session Manager.

To connect to a Windows instance using Session Manager on the Amazon EC2 console

1. Open the Amazon EC2 console at https://console.aws.amazon.com/ec2/.

2. In the navigation pane, choose Instances.
3. Select the instance and choose Connect.
4. For Connection method, choose Session Manager.
5. Choose Connect.

Tip
If you receive an error that you’re not authorized to perform one or more Systems Manager
actions (ssm:command-name), then you must update your policies to allow you to start
sessions from the Amazon EC2 console. For more information and instructions, see
Quickstart Default IAM Policies for Session Manager in the AWS Systems Manager User
Guide.

Configure your accounts

After you connect, we recommend that you perform the following:

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• Change the administrator password from the default value. You can change the password while you
are logged on to the instance itself, just as you would on any computer running Windows Server.
• Create another user account with administrator privileges on the instance. This is a safeguard in case
you forget the administrator password or have a problem with the administrator account. The new
user account must have permission to access the instance remotely. Open System Properties by
right-clicking on the This PC icon on your Windows desktop or File Explorer and selecting Properties.
Choose Remote settings, and choose Select Users to add the user to the Remote Desktop Users
group.

Transfer files to Windows instances

You can work with your Windows instance the same way that you would work with any Windows server.
For example, you can transfer files between a Windows instance and your local computer using the local
file sharing feature of the Microsoft Remote Desktop Connection software. If you enable this option, you
can access your local files from your Windows instances. You can access local files on hard disk drives,
DVD drives, portable media drives, and mapped network drives.

To make local devices and resources available to a remote session on Windows, map the remote session
drive to your local drive.

To map the remote session drive to your local drive

1. Open the Remote Desktop Connection client.

2. Choose Show Options.
3. Choose the Local Resources tab.

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4. Under Local Devices and resources, choose More...

5. Open Drives and select the local drive to map to your Windows instance.
6. Choose OK.

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7. Choose Connect to connect to your Windows instance.

For more information on making local devices available to a remote session on a Mac computer, see Get
Started with Remote Desktop on Mac.

Stop and start your instance

You can stop and start your instance if it has an Amazon EBS volume as its root device. The instance
retains its instance ID, but can change as described in the Overview (p. 430) section.

When you stop an instance, we shut it down. We don't charge usage for a stopped instance, or data
transfer fees, but we do charge for the storage for any Amazon EBS volumes. Each time you start a
stopped instance we charge a minimum of one minute for usage. After one minute, we charge only for
the seconds you use. For example, if you run an instance for 20 seconds and then stop it, we charge for
a full one minute. If you run an instance for 3 minutes and 40 seconds, we charge for exactly 3 minutes
and 40 seconds of usage.

While the instance is stopped, you can treat its root volume like any other volume, and modify it (for
example, repair file system problems or update software). You just detach the volume from the stopped
instance, attach it to a running instance, make your changes, detach it from the running instance, and
then reattach it to the stopped instance. Make sure that you reattach it using the storage device name
that's specified as the root device in the block device mapping for the instance.

If you decide that you no longer need an instance, you can terminate it. As soon as the state of an
instance changes to shutting-down or terminated, we stop charging for that instance. For more
information, see Terminate your instance (p. 446). If you'd rather hibernate the instance, see Hibernate
your On-Demand or Reserved Windows instance (p. 432). For more information, see Differences
between reboot, stop, hibernate, and terminate (p. 393).

Contents
• Overview (p. 430)

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• What happens when you stop an instance (p. 430)

• Stop and start your instances (p. 431)
• Modify a stopped instance (p. 432)
• Troubleshoot stopping your instance (p. 432)

Overview
When you stop a running instance, the following happens:

• The instance performs a normal shutdown and stops running; its status changes to stopping and
then stopped.
• Any Amazon EBS volumes remain attached to the instance, and their data persists.
• Any data stored in the RAM of the host computer or the instance store volumes of the host computer
is gone.
• In most cases, the instance is migrated to a new underlying host computer when it's started (though in
some cases, it remains on the current host).
• The instance retains its private IPv4 addresses and any IPv6 addresses when stopped and started. We
release the public IPv4 address and assign a new one when you start it.
• The instance retains its associated Elastic IP addresses. You're charged for any Elastic IP addresses
associated with a stopped instance. With EC2-Classic, an Elastic IP address is dissociated from your
instance when you stop it. For more information, see EC2-Classic (p. 1035).
• When you stop and start a Windows instance, the EC2Config service performs tasks on the instance,
such as changing the drive letters for any attached Amazon EBS volumes. For more information about
these defaults and how you can change them, see Configure a Windows instance using the EC2Config
service (p. 502) .
• If your instance is in an Auto Scaling group, the Amazon EC2 Auto Scaling service marks the stopped
instance as unhealthy, and may terminate it and launch a replacement instance. For more information,
see Health Checks for Auto Scaling Instances in the Amazon EC2 Auto Scaling User Guide.
• When you stop a ClassicLink instance, it's unlinked from the VPC to which it was linked. You must
link the instance to the VPC again after starting it. For more information about ClassicLink, see
ClassicLink (p. 1043).

For more information, see Differences between reboot, stop, hibernate, and terminate (p. 393).

You can modify the following attributes of an instance only when it is stopped:

• Instance type
• User data
• Kernel
• RAM disk

If you try to modify these attributes while the instance is running, Amazon EC2 returns the
IncorrectInstanceState error.

What happens when you stop an instance

When an EC2 instance is stopped using the stop-instances command, the following is registered at
the OS level:

• The API request sends a button press event to the guest.

• Various system services are stopped as a result of the button press event. Graceful shutdown is
triggered by the ACPI shutdown button press event from the hypervisor.

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• ACPI shutdown is initiated.

• The instance shuts down when the graceful shutdown process exits. There is no configurable OS
shutdown time.
• If the instance OS does not shut down cleanly within a few minutes, a hard shutdown is performed.

By default, when you initiate a shutdown from an Amazon EBS-backed instance, the instance stops. You
can change this behavior so that it terminates instead. For more information, see Change the instance
initiated shutdown behavior (p. 450).

Stop and start your instances

You can stop and start your Amazon EBS-backed instance using the console or the command line.

New console

To stop and start an Amazon EBS-backed instance using the console

1. When you stop an instance, the data on any instance store volumes is erased. Before you stop an
instance, verify that you've copied any data that you need from your instance store volumes to
persistent storage, such as Amazon EBS or Amazon S3.
2. In the navigation pane, choose Instances and select the instance.
3. Choose Instance state, Stop instance. If this option is disabled, either the instance is already
stopped or its root device is an instance store volume.
4. When prompted for confirmation, choose Stop. It can take a few minutes for the instance to
stop.
5. (Optional) While your instance is stopped, you can modify certain instance attributes. For more
information, see Modify a stopped instance (p. 432).
6. To start the stopped instance, select the instance, and choose Instance state, Start instance.
7. It can take a few minutes for the instance to enter the running state.

Old console

To stop and start an Amazon EBS-backed instance using the console

1. When you stop an instance, the data on any instance store volumes is erased. Before you stop an
instance, verify that you've copied any data that you need from your instance store volumes to
persistent storage, such as Amazon EBS or Amazon S3.
2. In the navigation pane, choose Instances and select the instance.
3. Choose Actions, Instance State, Stop. If this option is disabled, either the instance is already
stopped or its root device is an instance store volume.
4. When prompted for confirmation, choose Yes, Stop. It can take a few minutes for the instance
to stop.
5. (Optional) While your instance is stopped, you can modify certain instance attributes. For more
information, see Modify a stopped instance (p. 432).
6. To start the stopped instance, select the instance, and choose Actions, Instance State, Start.
7. In the confirmation dialog box, choose Yes, Start. It can take a few minutes for the instance to
enter the running state.

To stop and start an Amazon EBS-backed instance using the command line

You can use one of the following commands. For more information about these command line interfaces,
see Access Amazon EC2 (p. 3).

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• stop-instances and start-instances (AWS CLI)

• Stop-EC2Instance and Start-EC2Instance (AWS Tools for Windows PowerShell)

Modify a stopped instance

You can change the instance type, user data, and EBS-optimization attributes of a stopped instance
using the AWS Management Console or the command line interface. You can't use the AWS Management
Console to modify the DeleteOnTermination, kernel, or RAM disk attributes.

To modify an instance attribute

• To change the instance type, see Change the instance type (p. 233).
• To change the user data for your instance, see Work with instance user data (p. 603).
• To enable or disable EBS–optimization for your instance, see Modifying EBS–Optimization (p. 1373).
• To change the DeleteOnTermination attribute of the root volume for your instance, see Update
the block device mapping of a running instance (p. 1433). You are not required to stop the instance to
change this attribute.

To modify an instance attribute using the command line

You can use one of the following commands. For more information about these command line interfaces,
see Access Amazon EC2 (p. 3).

• modify-instance-attribute (AWS CLI)

• Edit-EC2InstanceAttribute (AWS Tools for Windows PowerShell)

Troubleshoot stopping your instance

If you have stopped your Amazon EBS-backed instance and it appears "stuck" in the stopping state, you
can forcibly stop it. For more information, see Troubleshoot stopping your instance (p. 1508).

Hibernate your On-Demand or Reserved Windows

instance
When you hibernate an instance, Amazon EC2 signals the operating system to perform hibernation
(suspend-to-disk). Hibernation saves the contents from the instance memory (RAM) to your Amazon
Elastic Block Store (Amazon EBS) root volume. Amazon EC2 persists the instance's EBS root volume and
any attached EBS data volumes. When you start your instance:

• The EBS root volume is restored to its previous state

• The RAM contents are reloaded
• The processes that were previously running on the instance are resumed
• Previously attached data volumes are reattached and the instance retains its instance ID

You can hibernate an instance only if it's enabled for hibernation (p. 437) and it meets the hibernation
prerequisites (p. 434).

If an instance or application takes a long time to bootstrap and build a memory footprint in order to
become fully productive, you can use hibernation to pre-warm the instance. To pre-warm the instance,
you:

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1. Launch it with hibernation enabled.

2. Bring it to a desired state.
3. Hibernate it so that it's ready to be resumed to the desired state whenever needed.

You're not charged for instance usage for a hibernated instance when it is in the stopped state.
However, you are charged for instance usage while the instance is in the stopping state, while the
contents of the RAM are transferred to the EBS root volume. (This is different from when you stop
an instance (p. 429) without hibernating it.) You're not charged for data transfer. However, you are
charged for storage of any EBS volumes, including storage for the RAM contents.

If you no longer need an instance, you can terminate it at any time, including when it is in a stopped
(hibernated) state. For more information, see Terminate your instance (p. 446).
Note
For information about using hibernation on Linux instances, see Hibernate your Linux instance in
the Amazon EC2 User Guide for Linux Instances.
For information about hibernating Spot Instances, see Hibernate interrupted Spot
Instances (p. 321).

Contents
• Overview of hibernation (p. 433)
• Hibernation prerequisites (p. 434)
• Limitations (p. 436)
• Enable hibernation for an instance (p. 437)
• Hibernate an instance (p. 439)
• Start a hibernated instance (p. 441)
• Troubleshoot hibernation (p. 442)

Overview of hibernation
The following diagram shows a basic overview of the hibernation process.

When you hibernate a running instance, the following happens:

• When you initiate hibernation, the instance moves to the stopping state. Amazon EC2 signals
the operating system to perform hibernation (suspend-to-disk). The hibernation freezes all of the
processes, saves the contents of the RAM to the EBS root volume, and then performs a regular
shutdown.
• After the shutdown is complete, the instance moves to the stopped state.
• Any EBS volumes remain attached to the instance, and their data persists, including the saved contents
of the RAM.

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• Any Amazon EC2 instance store volumes remain attached to the instance, but the data on the instance
store volumes is lost.
• In most cases, the instance is migrated to a new underlying host computer when it's started. This is
also what happens when you stop and start an instance.
• When you start the instance, the instance boots up and the operating system reads in the contents of
the RAM from the EBS root volume, before unfreezing processes to resume its state.
• The instance retains its private IPv4 addresses and any IPv6 addresses. When you start the instance,
the instance continues to retain its private IPv4 addresses and any IPv6 addresses.
• Amazon EC2 releases the public IPv4 address. When you start the instance, Amazon EC2 assigns a new
public IPv4 address to the instance.
• The instance retains its associated Elastic IP addresses. You're charged for any Elastic IP addresses that
are associated with a hibernated instance. With EC2-Classic, an Elastic IP address is disassociated from
your instance when you hibernate it. For more information, see EC2-Classic (p. 1035).
• When you hibernate a ClassicLink instance, it's unlinked from the VPC to which it was linked. You must
link the instance to the VPC again after starting it. For more information, see ClassicLink (p. 1043).

For information about how hibernation differs from reboot, stop, and terminate, see Differences between
reboot, stop, hibernate, and terminate (p. 393).

Hibernation prerequisites
To hibernate an On-Demand Instance or Reserved Instance, the following prerequisites must be in
place:
• Supported Windows AMIs (p. 434)
• Supported instance families (p. 434)
• Instance size (p. 435)
• Instance RAM size (p. 435)
• Root volume type (p. 435)
• EBS root volume size (p. 435)
• Supported EBS volume types (p. 435)
• EBS root volume encryption (p. 436)
• Enable hibernation at launch (p. 436)
• Purchasing options (p. 436)

Supported Windows AMIs

Must be an HVM AMI that supports hibernation:

• Windows Server 2012 AMI released 2019.09.11 or later

• Windows Server 2012 R2 AMI released 2019.09.11 or later
• Windows Server 2016 AMI released 2019.09.11 or later
• Windows Server 2019 AMI released 2019.09.11 or later

For information about the supported Linux AMIs, see Supported Linux AMIs in the Amazon EC2 User
Guide for Linux Instances.

Supported instance families

• Xen: C3, C4, I3, M3, M4, R3, R4, T2

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• Nitro: C5, C5d, M5, M5a, M5ad, M5d, R5, R5a, R5ad, R5d, T3*, T3a*

* For hibernation, we recommend that you use a T3 or T3a instance with at least 1 GB of RAM.

To see the available instance types that support hibernation in a specific Region

The available instance types vary by Region. To see the available instance types that support hibernation
in a Region, use the describe-instance-types command with the --region parameter. Include the --
filters parameter to see only the instance types that support hibernation.

C:\> aws ec2 describe-instance-types \

--region us-east-2 \
--filters Name=hibernation-supported,Values=true \
--query "InstanceTypes[*].[InstanceType]" \
--output table

Example output

-----------------------
|DescribeInstanceTypes|
+---------------------+
| r5a.xlarge |
| c4.4xlarge |
| m5ad.large |
| c5.4xlarge |
| m4.4xlarge |
| t3.2xlarge |
...

Instance size
Not supported for bare metal instances.

Instance RAM size

Can be up to 16 GB.

Root volume type

Must be an EBS volume, not an instance store volume.

EBS root volume size

Must be large enough to store the RAM contents and accommodate your expected usage, for example,
OS or applications. If you enable hibernation, space is allocated on the root volume at launch to store the
RAM.

Supported EBS volume types

• General Purpose SSD (gp2 and gp3)
• Provisioned IOPS SSD (io1 and io2)

If you choose a Provisioned IOPS SSD volume type, you must provision the EBS volume with the
appropriate IOPS to achieve optimum performance for hibernation. For more information, see Amazon
EBS volume types (p. 1177).

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EBS root volume encryption

To use hibernation, the root volume must be encrypted to ensure the protection of sensitive content that
is in memory at the time of hibernation. When RAM data is moved to the EBS root volume, it is always
encrypted. Encryption of the root volume is enforced at instance launch.

Use one of the following three options to ensure that the root volume is an encrypted EBS volume:

• EBS encryption by default – You can enable EBS encryption by default to ensure that all new
EBS volumes created in your AWS account are encrypted. This way, you can enable hibernation for
your instances without specifying encryption intent at instance launch. For more information, see
Encryption by default (p. 1344).
• EBS "single-step" encryption – You can launch encrypted EBS-backed EC2 instances from an
unencrypted AMI and also enable hibernation at the same time. For more information, see Use
encryption with EBS-backed AMIs (p. 130).
• Encrypted AMI – You can enable EBS encryption by using an encrypted AMI to launch your instance.
If your AMI does not have an encrypted root snapshot, you can copy it to a new AMI and request
encryption. For more information, see Encrypt an unencrypted image during copy (p. 134) and Copy an
AMI (p. 118).

Enable hibernation at launch

You cannot enable hibernation on an existing instance (running or stopped). For more information, see
Enable hibernation for an instance (p. 437).

Purchasing options
This feature is available for On-Demand Instances and Reserved Instances. It is not available for
Spot Instances. For information about hibernating a Spot Instance, see Hibernate interrupted Spot
Instances (p. 321).

Limitations
• When you hibernate an instance, the data on any instance store volumes is lost.
• You can't hibernate an instance that has more than 16 GB of RAM.
• If you create a snapshot or AMI from an instance that is hibernated or has hibernation enabled, you
might not be able to connect to the instance.
• You can't change the instance type or size of an instance when hibernation is enabled.
• You can't hibernate an instance that is in an Auto Scaling group or used by Amazon ECS. If your
instance is in an Auto Scaling group and you try to hibernate it, the Amazon EC2 Auto Scaling service
marks the stopped instance as unhealthy, and might terminate it and launch a replacement instance.
For more information, see Health Checks for Auto Scaling Instances in the Amazon EC2 Auto Scaling
User Guide.
• You can't hibernate an instance that is configured to boot in UEFI mode.
• If you hibernate an instance that was launched into a Capacity Reservation, the Capacity Reservation
does not ensure that the hibernated instance can resume after you try to start it.
• We do not support keeping an instance hibernated for more than 60 days. To keep the instance for
longer than 60 days, you must start the hibernated instance, stop the instance, and start it.
• We constantly update our platform with upgrades and security patches, which can conflict with
existing hibernated instances. We notify you about critical updates that require a start for hibernated
instances so that we can perform a shutdown or a reboot to apply the necessary upgrades and security
patches.

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Enable hibernation for an instance

To hibernate an instance, you must first enable it for hibernation while launching the instance.
Important
You can't enable or disable hibernation for an instance after you launch it.

Console

To enable hibernation using the console

1. Follow the Launch an instance using the Launch Instance Wizard (p. 396) procedure.
2. On the Choose an Amazon Machine Image (AMI) page, select an AMI that
supports hibernation. For more information about supported AMIs, see Hibernation
prerequisites (p. 434).
3. On the Choose an Instance Type page, select a supported instance type, and choose Next:
Configure Instance Details. For information about supported instance types, see Hibernation
prerequisites (p. 434).
4. On the Configure Instance Details page, for Stop - Hibernate Behavior, select the Enable
hibernation as an additional stop behavior check box.
5. On the Add Storage page, for the root volume, specify the following information:

• For Size (GiB), enter the EBS root volume size. The volume must be large enough to store the
RAM contents and accommodate your expected usage.
• For Volume Type, select a supported EBS volume type, General Purpose SSD (gp2 and gp3) or
Provisioned IOPS SSD (io1 and io2).
• For Encryption, select the encryption key for the volume. If you enabled encryption by
default in this AWS Region, the default encryption key is selected.

For more information about the prerequisites for the root volume, see Hibernation
prerequisites (p. 434).
6. Continue as prompted by the wizard. When you've finished reviewing your options on the
Review Instance Launch page, choose Launch. For more information, see Launch an instance
using the Launch Instance Wizard (p. 396).

AWS CLI

To enable hibernation using the AWS CLI

Use the run-instances command to launch an instance. Specify the EBS root volume parameters
using the --block-device-mappings file://mapping.json parameter, and enable
hibernation using the --hibernation-options Configured=true parameter.

aws ec2 run-instances \

--image-id ami-0abcdef1234567890 \
--instance-type m5.large \
--block-device-mappings file://mapping.json \
--hibernation-options Configured=true \
--count 1 \
--key-name MyKeyPair

Specify the following in mapping.json.

[
{

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"DeviceName": "/dev/xvda",
"Ebs": {
"VolumeSize": 30,
"VolumeType": "gp2",
"Encrypted": true
}
}
]

Note
The value for DeviceName must match the root device name that's associated with the
AMI. To find the root device name, use the describe-images command.

aws ec2 describe-images --image-id ami-0abcdef1234567890

If you enabled encryption by default in this AWS Region, you can omit "Encrypted":
true.
PowerShell

To enable hibernation using the AWS Tools for Windows PowerShell

Use the New-EC2Instance command to launch an instance. Specify the EBS root
volume by first defining the block device mapping, and then adding it to the command
using the -BlockDeviceMappings parameter. Enable hibernation using the -
HibernationOptions_Configured $true parameter.

PS C:\> $ebs_encrypt = New-Object Amazon.EC2.Model.BlockDeviceMapping

PS C:\> $ebs_encrypt.DeviceName = "/dev/xvda"
PS C:\> $ebs_encrypt.Ebs = New-Object Amazon.EC2.Model.EbsBlockDevice
PS C:\> $ebs_encrypt.Ebs.VolumeSize = 30
PS C:\> $ebs_encrypt.Ebs.VolumeType = "gp2"
PS C:\> $ebs_encrypt.Ebs.Encrypted = $true

PS C:\> New-EC2Instance `
-ImageId ami-0abcdef1234567890 `
-InstanceType m5.large `
-BlockDeviceMappings $ebs_encrypt `
-HibernationOptions_Configured $true `
-MinCount 1 `
-MaxCount 1 `
-KeyName MyKeyPair

Note
The value for DeviceName must match the root device name associated with the AMI. To
find the root device name, use the Get-EC2Image command.

Get-EC2Image -ImageId ami-0abcdef1234567890

If you enabled encryption by default in this AWS Region, you can omit Encrypted =
$true from the block device mapping.

New console

To view if an instance is enabled for hibernation using the console

1. Open the Amazon EC2 console at https://console.aws.amazon.com/ec2/.

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2. In the navigation pane, choose Instances.

3. Select the instance and, on the Details tab, in the Instance details section, inspect Stop-
hibernate behavior. Enabled indicates that the instance is enabled for hibernation.

Old console

To view if an instance is enabled for hibernation using the console

1. Open the Amazon EC2 console at https://console.aws.amazon.com/ec2/.

2. In the navigation pane, choose Instances.
3. Select the instance and, in the details pane, inspect Stop - Hibernation behavior. Enabled
indicates that the instance is enabled for hibernation.

AWS CLI

To view if an instance is enabled for hibernation using the AWS CLI

Use the describe-instances command and specify the --filters "Name=hibernation-

options.configured,Values=true" parameter to filter instances that are enabled for
hibernation.

aws ec2 describe-instances \

--filters "Name=hibernation-options.configured,Values=true"

The following field in the output indicates that the instance is enabled for hibernation.

"HibernationOptions": {
"Configured": true
}

PowerShell

To view if an instance is enabled for hibernation using the AWS Tools for Windows PowerShell

Use the Get-EC2Instance command and specify the -Filter @{ Name="hibernation-

options.configured"; Value="true"} parameter to filter instances that are enabled for
hibernation.

Get-EC2Instance `
-Filter @{ Name="hibernation-options.configured"; Value="true"}

The output lists the EC2 instances that are enabled for hibernation.

Hibernate an instance
You can hibernate an instance if the instance is enabled for hibernation (p. 437) and meets the
hibernation prerequisites (p. 434). If an instance cannot hibernate successfully, a normal shutdown
occurs.

New console

To hibernate an Amazon EBS-backed instance using the console

1. Open the Amazon EC2 console at https://console.aws.amazon.com/ec2/.

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2. In the navigation pane, choose Instances.

3. Select an instance, and choose Instance state, Hibernate instance. If Hibernate instance is
disabled, the instance is already hibernated or stopped, or it can't be hibernated. For more
information, see Hibernation prerequisites (p. 434).
4. When prompted for confirmation, choose Hibernate. It can take a few minutes for the instance
to hibernate. The instance state first changes to Stopping, and then changes to Stopped when
the instance has hibernated.

Old console

To hibernate an Amazon EBS-backed instance using the console

1. Open the Amazon EC2 console at https://console.aws.amazon.com/ec2/.

2. In the navigation pane, choose Instances.
3. Select an instance, and choose Actions, Instance State, Stop - Hibernate. If Stop - Hibernate
is disabled, the instance is already hibernated or stopped, or it can't be hibernated. For more
information, see Hibernation prerequisites (p. 434).
4. In the confirmation dialog box, choose Yes, Stop - Hibernate. It can take a few minutes for
the instance to hibernate. The Instance State first changes to Stopping, and then changes to
Stopped when the instance has hibernated.

AWS CLI

To hibernate an Amazon EBS-backed instance using the AWS CLI

Use the stop-instances command and specify the --hibernate parameter.

aws ec2 stop-instances \

--instance-ids i-1234567890abcdef0 \
--hibernate

PowerShell

To hibernate an Amazon EBS-backed instance using the AWS Tools for Windows PowerShell

Use the Stop-EC2Instance command and specify the -Hibernate $true parameter.

Stop-EC2Instance `
-InstanceId i-1234567890abcdef0 `
-Hibernate $true

New console

To view if hibernation was initiated on an instance using the console

1. Open the Amazon EC2 console at https://console.aws.amazon.com/ec2/.

2. In the navigation pane, choose Instances.
3. Select the instance and, on the Details tab, in the Instance details section, inspect State
transition message. The message Client.UserInitiatedHibernate: User initiated hibernate
indicates that hibernation was initiated on the instance.

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Old console

To view if hibernation was initiated on an instance using the console

1. Open the Amazon EC2 console at https://console.aws.amazon.com/ec2/.

2. In the navigation pane, choose Instances.
3. Select the instance and, in the details pane, inspect State transition reason message. The
message Client.UserInitiatedHibernate: User initiated hibernate indicates that hibernation
was initiated on the instance.

AWS CLI

To view if hibernation was initiated on an instance using the AWS CLI

Use the describe-instances command and specify the state-reason-code filter to see the
instances on which hibernation was initiated.

aws ec2 describe-instances \

--filters "Name=state-reason-code,Values=Client.UserInitiatedHibernate"

The following field in the output indicates that hibernation was initiated on the instance.

"StateReason": {
"Code": "Client.UserInitiatedHibernate"
}

PowerShell

To view if hibernation was initiated on an instance using the AWS Tools for Windows PowerShell

Use the Get-EC2Instance command and specify the state-reason-code filter to see the instances
on which hibernation was initiated.

Get-EC2Instance `
-Filter @{Name="state-reason-code";Value="Client.UserInitiatedHibernate"}

The output lists the EC2 instances on which hibernation was initiated.

Start a hibernated instance

Start a hibernated instance by starting it in the same way that you would start a stopped instance.

New console

To start a hibernated instance using the console

1. Open the Amazon EC2 console at https://console.aws.amazon.com/ec2/.

2. In the navigation pane, choose Instances.
3. Select a hibernated instance, and choose Instance state, Start instance. It can take a few
minutes for the instance to enter the running state. During this time, the instance status
checks (p. 822) show the instance in a failed state until the instance has started.

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Old console

To start a hibernated instance using the console

1. Open the Amazon EC2 console at https://console.aws.amazon.com/ec2/.

2. In the navigation pane, choose Instances.
3. Select a hibernated instance, and choose Actions, Instance State, Start. It can take a few
minutes for the instance to enter the running state. During this time, the instance status
checks (p. 822) show the instance in a failed state until the instance has started.

AWS CLI

To start a hibernated instance using the AWS CLI

Use the start-instances command.

aws ec2 start-instances \

--instance-ids i-1234567890abcdef0

PowerShell

To start a hibernated instance using the AWS Tools for Windows PowerShell

Use the Start-EC2Instance command.

Start-EC2Instance `
-InstanceId i-1234567890abcdef0

Troubleshoot hibernation
Use this information to help diagnose and fix issues that you might encounter when hibernating an
instance.

Can't hibernate immediately after launch

If you try to hibernate an instance too quickly after you've launched it, you get an error.

You must wait for about five minutes after launch before hibernating.

Takes too long to transition from stopping to stopped, and memory state not
restored after start
If it takes a long time for your hibernating instance to transition from the stopping state to stopped,
and if the memory state is not restored after you start, this could indicate that hibernation was not
properly configured.

Windows Server 2016 and later

Check the EC2 launch log and look for messages that are related to hibernation. To access the EC2
launch log, connect (p. 417) to the instance and open the C:\ProgramData\Amazon\EC2-Windows
\Launch\Log\Ec2Launch.log file in a text editor.
Note
By default, Windows hides files and folders under C:\ProgramData. To view EC2 Launch
directories and files, enter the path in Windows Explorer or change the folder properties to show
hidden files and folders.

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Find the log lines for hibernation. If the log lines indicate a failure or the log lines are missing, there was
most likely a failure configuring hibernation at launch.

For example, the following message indicates that hibernation failed to configure: Message: Failed
to enable hibernation.

If the log line contains HibernationEnabled: true, hibernation was successfully configured.

Windows Server 2012 R2 and earlier

Check the EC2 config log and look for messages that are related to hibernation. To access the EC2 config
log, connect (p. 417) to the instance and open the C:\Program Files\Amazon\Ec2ConfigService
\Logs\Ec2ConfigLog.txt file in a text editor. Find the log lines for SetHibernateOnSleep. If
the log lines indicate a failure or the log lines are missing, there was most likely a failure configuring
hibernation at launch.

For example, the following message indicates that the instance root volume is not large enough:
SetHibernateOnSleep: Failed to enable hibernation: Hibernation failed with the
following error: There is not enough space on the disk.

If the log line is SetHibernateOnSleep: HibernationEnabled: true, hibernation was successfully

configured.

If you do not see any logs from these processes, your AMI might not support hibernation. For
information about supported AMIs, see Hibernation prerequisites (p. 434).

Instance size

If you’re using a T3 or T3a instance with less than 1 GB of RAM, try increasing the size of the instance to
one that has at least 1 GB of RAM.

Instance "stuck" in the stopping state

If you hibernated your instance and it appears "stuck" in the stopping state, you can forcibly stop it. For
more information, see Troubleshoot stopping your instance (p. 1508).

Reboot your instance

An instance reboot is equivalent to an operating system reboot. In most cases, it takes only a few
minutes to reboot your instance. When you reboot an instance, it keeps its public DNS name (IPv4),
private and public IPv4 address, IPv6 address (if applicable), and any data on its instance store volumes.

Rebooting an instance doesn't start a new instance billing period (with a minimum one-minute charge),
unlike stopping and starting your instance.

We might schedule your instance for a reboot for necessary maintenance, such as to apply updates that
require a reboot. No action is required on your part; we recommend that you wait for the reboot to occur
within its scheduled window. For more information, see Scheduled events for your instances (p. 828).

We recommend that you use the Amazon EC2 console, a command line tool, or the Amazon EC2 API to
reboot your instance instead of running the operating system reboot command from your instance. If
you use the Amazon EC2 console, a command line tool, or the Amazon EC2 API to reboot your instance,
we perform a hard reboot if the instance does not cleanly shut down within a few minutes. If you use
AWS CloudTrail, then using Amazon EC2 to reboot your instance also creates an API record of when your
instance was rebooted.

If Windows is installing updates on your instance, we recommend that you do not reboot or shut down
your instance using the Amazon EC2 console or the command line until all the updates are installed.
When you use the Amazon EC2 console or the command line to reboot or shut down your instance, there
is a risk that your instance will be hard rebooted. A hard reboot while updates are being installed could
throw your instance into an unstable state.

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New console

To reboot an instance using the console

1. Open the Amazon EC2 console at https://console.aws.amazon.com/ec2/.

2. In the navigation pane, choose Instances.
3. Select the instance and choose Actions, Instance state, Reboot instance.
4. Choose Reboot when prompted for confirmation. The instance remains in the running state.

Old console

To reboot an instance using the console

1. Open the Amazon EC2 console at https://console.aws.amazon.com/ec2/.

2. In the navigation pane, choose Instances.
3. Select the instance and choose Actions, Instance State, Reboot.
4. Choose Yes, Reboot when prompted for confirmation. The instance remains in the running
state.

To reboot an instance using the command line

You can use one of the following commands. For more information about these command line interfaces,
see Access Amazon EC2 (p. 3).

• reboot-instances (AWS CLI)

• Restart-EC2Instance (AWS Tools for Windows PowerShell)

Instance retirement
An instance is scheduled to be retired when AWS detects irreparable failure of the underlying hardware
that hosts the instance. When an instance reaches its scheduled retirement date, it is stopped by AWS. If
your instance root device is an Amazon EBS volume, the instance is stopped, and you can start it again at
any time. Starting the stopped instance migrates it to new hardware.

For more information about the types of instance events, see Scheduled events for your
instances (p. 828).

Contents
• Identify instances scheduled for retirement (p. 444)
• Actions to take for instances scheduled for retirement (p. 445)

Identify instances scheduled for retirement

If your instance is scheduled for retirement, you receive an email prior to the event with the instance
ID and retirement date. You can also check for instances that are scheduled for retirement using the
Amazon EC2 console or the command line.
Important
If an instance is scheduled for retirement, we recommend that you take action as soon as
possible because the instance might be unreachable. (The email notification you receive states
the following: "Due to this degradation your instance could already be unreachable.") For more
information about the recommended action you should take, see Check if your instance is
reachable.

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Ways to identify instances scheduled for retirement

• Email notification (p. 445)
• Console identification (p. 445)

Email notification
If your instance is scheduled for retirement, you receive an email prior to the event with the instance ID
and retirement date.

The email is sent to the primary account holder and the operations contact. For more information, see
Adding, changing, or removing alternate contacts in the AWS Billing and Cost Management User Guide.

Console identification
If you use an email account that you do not check regularly for instance retirement notifications, you can
use the Amazon EC2 console or the command line to determine if any of your instances are scheduled for
retirement.

To identify instances scheduled for retirement using the console

1. Open the Amazon EC2 console.

2. In the navigation pane, choose EC2 Dashboard. Under Scheduled events, you can see the events
that are associated with your Amazon EC2 instances and volumes, organized by Region.

3. If you have an instance with a scheduled event listed, select its link below the Region name to go to
the Events page.
4. The Events page lists all resources that have events associated with them. To view instances that are
scheduled for retirement, select Instance resources from the first filter list, and then Instance stop
or retirement from the second filter list.
5. If the filter results show that an instance is scheduled for retirement, select it, and note the date and
time in the Start time field in the details pane. This is your instance retirement date.

To identify instances scheduled for retirement using the command line

You can use one of the following commands. For more information about these command line interfaces,
see Access Amazon EC2 (p. 3).

• describe-instance-status (AWS CLI)

• Get-EC2InstanceStatus (AWS Tools for Windows PowerShell)

Actions to take for instances scheduled for retirement

To preserve the data on your retiring instance, you can perform one of the following actions. It's
important that you take this action before the instance retirement date to prevent unforeseen downtime
and data loss.

Check if your instance is reachable

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When you are notified that your instance is scheduled for retirement, we recommend that you take the
following action as soon as possible:

• Check if your instance is reachable by either connecting (p. 417) to or pinging your instance.
• If your instance is reachable, you should plan to stop/start your instance at an appropriate time before
the scheduled retirement date, when the impact is minimal. For more information about stopping
and starting your instance, and what to expect when your instance is stopped, such as the effect on
public, private, and Elastic IP addresses that are associated with your instance, see Stop and start your
instance (p. 429). Note that data on instance store volumes is lost when you stop and start your
instance.
• If your instance is unreachable, you should take immediate action and perform a stop/start (p. 429)
to recover your instance.
• Alternatively, if you want to terminate (p. 446) your instance, plan to do so as soon as possible so
that you stop incurring charges for the instance.

Create a backup of your instance

Create an EBS-backed AMI from your instance so that you have a backup. To ensure data integrity,
stop the instance before you create the AMI. You can wait for the scheduled retirement date when the
instance is stopped, or stop the instance yourself before the retirement date. You can start the instance
again at any time. For more information, see Create a custom Windows AMI (p. 37).

Launch a replacement instance

After you create an AMI from your instance, you can use the AMI to launch a replacement instance. From
the Amazon EC2 console, select your new AMI and then choose Actions, Launch. Follow the wizard to
launch your instance. For more information about each step in the wizard, see Launch an instance using
the Launch Instance Wizard (p. 396).

Terminate your instance

You can delete your instance when you no longer need it. This is referred to as terminating your instance.
As soon as the state of an instance changes to shutting-down or terminated, you stop incurring
charges for that instance.

You can't connect to or start an instance after you've terminated it. However, you can launch additional
instances using the same AMI. If you'd rather stop and start your instance, or hibernate it, see Stop and
start your instance (p. 429) or Hibernate your On-Demand or Reserved Windows instance (p. 432). For
more information, see Differences between reboot, stop, hibernate, and terminate (p. 393).

Contents
• Instance termination (p. 446)
• Terminating multiple instances with termination protection across Availability Zones (p. 447)
• What happens when you terminate an instance (p. 448)
• Terminate an instance (p. 448)
• Enable termination protection (p. 449)
• Change the instance initiated shutdown behavior (p. 450)
• Preserve Amazon EBS volumes on instance termination (p. 450)

Instance termination
After you terminate an instance, it remains visible in the console for a short while, and then the entry
is automatically deleted. You cannot delete the terminated instance entry yourself. After an instance is

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terminated, resources such as tags and volumes are gradually disassociated from the instance and may
no longer be visible on the terminated instance after a short while.

When an instance terminates, the data on any instance store volumes associated with that instance is
deleted.

By default, Amazon EBS root device volumes are automatically deleted when the instance terminates.
However, by default, any additional EBS volumes that you attach at launch, or any EBS volumes that
you attach to an existing instance persist even after the instance terminates. This behavior is controlled
by the volume's DeleteOnTermination attribute, which you can modify. For more information, see
Preserve Amazon EBS volumes on instance termination (p. 450).

You can prevent an instance from being terminated accidentally by someone using the AWS
Management Console, the CLI, and the API. This feature is available for both Amazon EC2 instance store-
backed and Amazon EBS-backed instances. Each instance has a DisableApiTermination attribute
with the default value of false (the instance can be terminated through Amazon EC2). You can modify
this instance attribute while the instance is running or stopped (in the case of Amazon EBS-backed
instances). For more information, see Enable termination protection (p. 449).

You can control whether an instance should stop or terminate when shutdown is initiated from the
instance using an operating system command for system shutdown. For more information, see Change
the instance initiated shutdown behavior (p. 450).

If you run a script on instance termination, your instance might have an abnormal termination, because
we have no way to ensure that shutdown scripts run. Amazon EC2 attempts to shut an instance down
cleanly and run any system shutdown scripts; however, certain events (such as hardware failure) may
prevent these system shutdown scripts from running.

Terminating multiple instances with termination protection

across Availability Zones
If you terminate multiple instances across multiple Availability Zones, and one or more of the specified
instances are enabled for termination protection, the request fails with the following results:

• The specified instances that are in the same Availability Zone as the protected instance are not
terminated.
• The specified instances that are in different Availability Zones, where no other specified instances are
protected, are successfully terminated.

For example, say you have the following instances:

Instance Availability Zone Terminate protection

Instance A us-east-1a Disabled

Instance B Disabled

Instance C us-east-1b Enabled

Instance D Disabled

If you attempt to terminate all of these instances in the same request, the request reports failure with
the following results:

• Instance A and Instance B are successfully terminated because none of the specified instances in us-
east-1a are enabled for termination protection.

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• Instance C and Instance D fail to terminate because at least one of the specified instances in us-
east-1b (Instance C) is enabled for termination protection.

What happens when you terminate an instance

When an EC2 instance is terminated using the terminate-instances command, the following is
registered at the OS level:

• The API request will send a button press event to the guest.
• Various system services will be stopped as a result of the button press event. systemd handles a
graceful shutdown of the system. Graceful shutdown is triggered by the ACPI shutdown button press
event from the hypervisor.
• ACPI shutdown will be initiated.
• The instance will shut down when the graceful shutdown process exits. There is no configurable OS
shutdown time.

Terminate an instance
You can terminate an instance using the AWS Management Console or the command line.

By default, when you initiate a shutdown from an Amazon EBS-backed instance (using the shutdown or
poweroff commands), the instance stops. The halt command does not initiate a shutdown. If used, the
instance does not terminate; instead, it places the CPU into HLT and the instance remains running.

New console

To terminate an instance using the console

1. Before you terminate an instance, verify that you won't lose any data by checking that your
Amazon EBS volumes won't be deleted on termination and that you've copied any data that you
need from your instance store volumes to persistent storage, such as Amazon EBS or Amazon
S3.
2. Open the Amazon EC2 console at https://console.aws.amazon.com/ec2/.
3. In the navigation pane, choose Instances.
4. Select the instance, and choose Instance state, Terminate instance.
5. Choose Terminate when prompted for confirmation.

Old console

To terminate an instance using the console

1. Before you terminate an instance, verify that you won't lose any data by checking that your
Amazon EBS volumes won't be deleted on termination and that you've copied any data that you
need from your instance store volumes to persistent storage, such as Amazon EBS or Amazon
S3.
2. Open the Amazon EC2 console at https://console.aws.amazon.com/ec2/.
3. In the navigation pane, choose Instances.
4. Select the instance, and choose Actions, Instance State, Terminate.
5. Choose Yes, Terminate when prompted for confirmation.

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To terminate an instance using the command line

You can use one of the following commands. For more information about these command line interfaces,
see Access Amazon EC2 (p. 3).

• terminate-instances (AWS CLI)

• Stop-EC2Instance (AWS Tools for Windows PowerShell)

Enable termination protection

By default, you can terminate your instance using the Amazon EC2 console, command line interface, or
API. To prevent your instance from being accidentally terminated using Amazon EC2, you can enable
termination protection for the instance. The DisableApiTermination attribute controls whether the
instance can be terminated using the console, CLI, or API. By default, termination protection is disabled
for your instance. You can set the value of this attribute when you launch the instance, while the instance
is running, or while the instance is stopped (for Amazon EBS-backed instances).

The DisableApiTermination attribute does not prevent you from terminating an instance by
initiating shutdown from the instance (using an operating system command for system shutdown) when
the InstanceInitiatedShutdownBehavior attribute is set. For more information, see Change the
instance initiated shutdown behavior (p. 450).

Limitations

You can't enable termination protection for Spot Instances—a Spot Instance is terminated when the
Spot price exceeds the amount you're willing to pay for Spot Instances. However, you can prepare
your application to handle Spot Instance interruptions. For more information, see Spot Instance
interruptions (p. 319).

The DisableApiTermination attribute does not prevent Amazon EC2 Auto Scaling from terminating
an instance. For instances in an Auto Scaling group, use the following Amazon EC2 Auto Scaling features
instead of Amazon EC2 termination protection:

• To prevent instances that are part of an Auto Scaling group from terminating on scale in, use instance
protection. For more information, see Instance Protection in the Amazon EC2 Auto Scaling User Guide.
• To prevent Amazon EC2 Auto Scaling from terminating unhealthy instances, suspend the
ReplaceUnhealthy process. For more information, see Suspending and Resuming Scaling Processes
in the Amazon EC2 Auto Scaling User Guide.
• To specify which instances Amazon EC2 Auto Scaling should terminate first, choose a termination
policy. For more information, see Customizing the Termination Policy in the Amazon EC2 Auto Scaling
User Guide.

To enable termination protection for an instance at launch time

1. Open the Amazon EC2 console at https://console.aws.amazon.com/ec2/.

2. On the dashboard, choose Launch Instance and follow the directions in the wizard.
3. On the Configure Instance Details page, select the Enable termination protection check box.

To enable termination protection for a running or stopped instance

1. Select the instance, and choose Actions, Instance Settings, Change Termination Protection.
2. Choose Yes, Enable.

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To disable termination protection for a running or stopped instance

1. Select the instance, and choose Actions, Instance Settings, Change Termination Protection.
2. Choose Yes, Disable.

To enable or disable termination protection using the command line

You can use one of the following commands. For more information about these command line interfaces,
see Access Amazon EC2 (p. 3).

• modify-instance-attribute (AWS CLI)

• Edit-EC2InstanceAttribute (AWS Tools for Windows PowerShell)

Change the instance initiated shutdown behavior

By default, when you initiate a shutdown from an Amazon EBS-backed instance (using a command such
as shutdown or poweroff), the instance stops (Note that halt does not issue a poweroff command and, if
used, the instance will not terminate; instead, it will place the CPU into HLT and the instance will remain
running). You can change this behavior using the InstanceInitiatedShutdownBehavior attribute
for the instance so that it terminates instead. You can update this attribute while the instance is running
or stopped.

You can update the InstanceInitiatedShutdownBehavior attribute using the Amazon EC2 console
or the command line. The InstanceInitiatedShutdownBehavior attribute only applies when you
perform a shutdown from the operating system of the instance itself; it does not apply when you stop an
instance using the StopInstances API or the Amazon EC2 console.

To change the shutdown behavior of an instance using the console

1. Open the Amazon EC2 console at https://console.aws.amazon.com/ec2/.

2. In the navigation pane, choose Instances.
3. Select the instance.
4. Choose Actions, Instance settings, Change shutdown behavior. The current behavior is selected.
5. To change the behavior, select Stop or Terminate from Shutdown behavior and then choose Apply.

To change the shutdown behavior of an instance using the command line

You can use one of the following commands. For more information about these command line interfaces,
see Access Amazon EC2 (p. 3).

• modify-instance-attribute (AWS CLI)

• Edit-EC2InstanceAttribute (AWS Tools for Windows PowerShell)

Preserve Amazon EBS volumes on instance termination

When an instance terminates, Amazon EC2 uses the value of the DeleteOnTermination attribute for
each attached Amazon EBS volume to determine whether to preserve or delete the volume.

The default value for the DeleteOnTermination attribute differs depending on whether the volume is
the root volume of the instance or a non-root volume attached to the instance.

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Root volume

By default, the DeleteOnTermination attribute for the root volume of an instance is set to true.
Therefore, the default is to delete the root volume of the instance when the instance terminates. The
DeleteOnTermination attribute can be set by the creator of an AMI as well as by the person who
launches an instance. When the attribute is changed by the creator of an AMI or by the person who
launches an instance, the new setting overrides the original AMI default setting. We recommend that
you verify the default setting for the DeleteOnTermination attribute after you launch an instance
with an AMI.
Non-root volume

By default, when you attach a non-root EBS volume to an instance (p. 1199), its
DeleteOnTermination attribute is set to false. Therefore, the default is to preserve these
volumes. After the instance terminates, you can take a snapshot of the preserved volume or attach
it to another instance. You must delete a volume to avoid incurring further charges. For more
information, see Delete an Amazon EBS volume (p. 1219).

To verify the value of the DeleteOnTermination attribute for an EBS volume that is in use, look at the
instance's block device mapping. For more information, see View the EBS volumes in an instance block
device mapping (p. 1433).

You can change the value of the DeleteOnTermination attribute for a volume when you launch the
instance or while the instance is running.

Examples
• Change the root volume to persist at launch using the console (p. 451)
• Change the root volume to persist at launch using the command line (p. 452)
• Change the root volume of a running instance to persist using the command line (p. 452)

Change the root volume to persist at launch using the console

Using the console, you can change the DeleteOnTermination attribute when you launch an instance.
To change this attribute for a running instance, you must use the command line.

To change the root volume of an instance to persist at launch using the console

1. Open the Amazon EC2 console at https://console.aws.amazon.com/ec2/.

2. From the console dashboard, select Launch Instance.
3. On the Choose an Amazon Machine Image (AMI) page, choose an AMI and choose Select.
4. Follow the wizard to complete the Choose an Instance Type and Configure Instance Details pages.
5. On the Add Storage page, deselect the Delete On Termination check box for the root volume.
6. Complete the remaining wizard pages, and then choose Launch.

In the new console experience, you can verify the setting by viewing details for the root device volume
on the instance's details pane. On the Storage tab, under Block devices, scroll right to view the Delete
on termination setting for the volume. By default, Delete on termination is Yes. If you change the
default behavior, Delete on termination is No.

In the old console experience, you can verify the setting by viewing details for the root device volume
on the instance's details pane. Next to Block devices, choose the entry for the root device volume. By
default, Delete on termination is True. If you change the default behavior, Delete on termination is
False.

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Change the root volume to persist at launch using the command line
When you launch an EBS-backed instance, you can use one of the following commands to change the
root device volume to persist. For more information about these command line interfaces, see Access
Amazon EC2 (p. 3).

• run-instances (AWS CLI)

• New-EC2Instance (AWS Tools for Windows PowerShell)

For example, add the following option to your run-instances command:

--block-device-mappings file://mapping.json

Specify the following in mapping.json:

[
{
"DeviceName": "/dev/sda1",
"Ebs": {
"DeleteOnTermination": false,
"SnapshotId": "snap-1234567890abcdef0",
"VolumeType": "gp2"
}
}
]

Change the root volume of a running instance to persist using the command line
You can use one of the following commands to change the root device volume of a running EBS-backed
instance to persist. For more information about these command line interfaces, see Access Amazon
EC2 (p. 3).

• modify-instance-attribute (AWS CLI)

• Edit-EC2InstanceAttribute (AWS Tools for Windows PowerShell)

For example, use the following command:

aws ec2 modify-instance-attribute --instance-id i-1234567890abcdef0 --block-device-mappings

file://mapping.json

Specify the following in mapping.json:

[
{
"DeviceName": "/dev/sda1",
"Ebs": {
"DeleteOnTermination": false
}
}
]

Recover your instance

You can create an Amazon CloudWatch alarm that monitors an Amazon EC2 instance and automatically
recovers the instance if it becomes impaired due to an underlying hardware failure or a problem that
requires AWS involvement to repair. Terminated instances cannot be recovered.

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A recovered instance is identical to the original instance, including the instance ID, private IP addresses,
Elastic IP addresses, and all instance metadata. If the impaired instance has a public IPv4 address, the
instance retains the public IPv4 address after recovery. If the impaired instance is in a placement group,
the recovered instance runs in the placement group.

When the StatusCheckFailed_System alarm is triggered, and the recover action is initiated, you
will be notified by the Amazon SNS topic that you selected when you created the alarm and associated
the recover action. During instance recovery, the instance is migrated during an instance reboot, and
any data that is in-memory is lost. When the process is complete, information is published to the SNS
topic you've configured for the alarm. Anyone who is subscribed to this SNS topic will receive an email
notification that includes the status of the recovery attempt and any further instructions. You will notice
an instance reboot on the recovered instance.

Examples of problems that cause system status checks to fail include:

• Loss of network connectivity

• Loss of system power
• Software issues on the physical host
• Hardware issues on the physical host that impact network reachability

Topics
• Requirements (p. 453)
• Create an Amazon CloudWatch alarm to recover an instance (p. 453)
• Troubleshoot instance recovery failures (p. 453)

Requirements
The recover action is supported only on instances with the following characteristics:

• Uses one of the following instance types: C3, C4, C5, C5a, C5n, M3, M4, M5, M5a, M5n, M5zn, M6i, P3,
R3, R4, R5, R5a, R5b, R5n, T2, T3, T3a, high memory (virtualized only), X1, X1e
• Runs in a virtual private cloud (VPC)
• Uses default or dedicated instance tenancy
• Has only EBS volumes (do not configure instance store volumes)

Create an Amazon CloudWatch alarm to recover an instance

For information about creating an Amazon CloudWatch alarm to recover an instance, see Add recover
actions to Amazon CloudWatch alarms (p. 880).

Troubleshoot instance recovery failures

The following issues can cause automatic recovery of your instance to fail:

• Temporary, insufficient capacity of replacement hardware.

• The instance has an attached instance store storage, which is an unsupported configuration for
automatic instance recovery.
• There is an ongoing Service Health Dashboard event that prevented the recovery process from
successfully executing. Refer to http://status.aws.amazon.com/ for the latest service availability
information.

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• The instance has reached the maximum daily allowance of three recovery attempts.

The automatic recovery process attempts to recover your instance for up to three separate failures per
day. If the instance system status check failure persists, we recommend that you manually stop and start
the instance. For more information, see Stop and start your instance (p. 429).

Your instance may subsequently be retired if automatic recovery fails and a hardware degradation is
determined to be the root cause for the original system status check failure.

Configure your Windows instance

A Windows instance is a virtual server running Windows Server in the cloud.

After you have successfully launched and logged into your instance, you can make changes to it so that
it's configured to meet the needs of a specific application. The following are some common tasks to help
you get started.

Contents
• Configure a Windows instance using EC2Launch v2 (p. 454)
• Configure a Windows instance using EC2Launch (p. 494)
• Configure a Windows instance using the EC2Config service (p. 502)
• Paravirtual drivers for Windows instances (p. 528)
• AWS NVMe drivers for Windows instances (p. 547)
• Optimize CPU options (p. 549)
• Set the time for a Windows instance (p. 568)
• Set the password for a Windows instance (p. 572)
• Add Windows components using installation media (p. 573)
• Configure a secondary private IPv4 address for your Windows instance (p. 576)
• Run commands on your Windows instance at launch (p. 581)
• Instance metadata and user data (p. 588)
• Best practices and recommendations for SQL Server clustering on EC2 (p. 634)

Configure a Windows instance using EC2Launch v2

All supported instances of Amazon EC2 running Windows Server include the EC2Launch v2 launch
agent (EC2Launch.exe). EC2Launch v2 performs tasks during instance startup and runs if an instance
is stopped and later started, or restarted. EC2Launch v2 can also perform tasks on demand. Some of
these tasks are automatically enabled, while others must be enabled manually. The EC2Launch v2 service
supports all EC2Config and EC2Launch features.

This service uses a configuration file to control its operation. You can update the configuration file using
either a graphical tool or by directly editing it as a single .yml file (agent-config.yml). The service
binaries are located in the %ProgramFiles%\Amazon\EC2Launch directory.

EC2Launch v2 publishes Windows event logs to help you troubleshoot errors and set triggers. For more
information, see Windows event logs (p. 487).

Supported operating systems

• Windows Server 2022

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• Windows Server 2019 (Long-Term Servicing Channel and Semi-Annual Channel)

• Windows Server 2016
• Windows Server 2012 and 2012 R2
• Windows Server 2008 SP2 and 2008 R2

EC2Launch v2 section contents

• EC2Launch v2 overview (p. 455)
• Install the latest version of EC2Launch v2 (p. 459)
• Migrate to EC2Launch v2 (p. 460)
• Stop, restart, delete, or uninstall EC2Launch v2 (p. 461)
• Verify the EC2Launch v2 version (p. 462)
• Subscribe to EC2Launch v2 service notifications (p. 463)
• EC2Launch v2 settings (p. 463)
• Troubleshoot EC2Launch v2 (p. 485)
• EC2Launch v2 version histories (p. 492)

EC2Launch v2 overview
EC2Launch v2 is a service that performs tasks during instance startup and runs if an instance is stopped
and later started, or restarted.

Overview topics
• Compare Amazon EC2 launch services (p. 455)
• EC2Launch v2 concepts (p. 456)
• EC2Launch v2 tasks (p. 457)
• Telemetry (p. 458)

Compare Amazon EC2 launch services

The following table shows the major functional differences between EC2Config, EC2Launch v1, and
EC2Launch v2.

Feature EC2Config EC2Launch v1 EC2Launch v2

Executed as Windows Service PowerShell Scripts Windows Service

Supports Windows 2003 Windows 2016 Windows 2008

Windows 2008 Windows 2019 (LTSC Windows 2008 R2

and SAC)
Windows 2008 R2 Windows 2012

Windows 2012 Windows 2012 R2

Windows 2012 R2 Windows 2016

Windows 2019 (LTSC

and SAC)

Windows 2022

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Feature EC2Config EC2Launch v1 EC2Launch v2

Configuration file XML XML YAML

Set Administrator No No Yes

username

User data size 16 KB 16 KB 60 KB (compressed)

Local user data baked No No Yes, configurable

on AMI

Task configuration in No No Yes

user data

Configurable wallpaper No No Yes

Customize task No No Yes

execution order

Configurable tasks 15 9 20 at launch

Supports Windows Yes No Yes

Event Viewer

Number of Event 2 0 30
Viewer event types

EC2Launch v2 concepts
The following concepts are useful to understand when considering EC2Launch v2.

Task

A task can be invoked to perform an action on an instance. For a complete list of available tasks for
EC2Launch v2, see EC2Launch v2 tasks (p. 457). Each task includes a set of stages in which it can run,
a defined frequency, and inputs. Tasks can be configured in the agent-config file or through user-
data.

Stages

A stage is a logical grouping of tasks that are run by the service. Some tasks can run only in a specific
stage. Others can run in multiple stages. When using local data, you must specify the stage in which a
task will run. When using user data, the stage is implied.

The following list shows the stages in the order in which they run:

1. Boot
2. Network
3. PreReady
4. PostReady
5. UserData

Frequency

Task frequency is used to schedule when tasks should run, depending on the boot context.

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The following frequencies can be specified:

• Once — The task runs once, when the AMI has booted for the first time (finished Sysprep).
• Always — The task runs every time that the launch agent runs. The launch agent runs when:
• an instance starts or restarts
• the EC2Launch service runs
• EC2Launch.exe run is invoked

agent-config

agent-config is a file that is located in the configuration folder for EC2Launch v2. It includes
configuration for the boot, network, preready, and postready stages. This file is used to specify the
configuration for an instance for tasks that should run when the AMI is either booted for the first time or
for subsequent times.

By default, the EC2Launch v2 installation installs an agent-config file that includes recommended
configurations that are used in standard Amazon Windows AMIs. You can update the configuration file to
alter the default boot experience for your AMI that EC2Launch v2 specifies.

User data

User data is data that is configurable when you launch an instance. You can update user data to
dynamically change how custom AMIs or quickstart AMIs are configured. EC2Launch v2 supports 60 kB
user data input length. User data includes only the UserData stage, and therefore runs after the agent-
config file. You can enter user data when you launch an instance using the launch instance wizard, or
you can modify user data from the EC2 console. For more information about working with user data, see
Run commands on your Windows instance at launch (p. 581).

EC2Launch v2 tasks
EC2Launch v2 can perform the following tasks at each boot:

• Set up new and optionally customized wallpaper that renders information about the instance.
• Set the attributes for the administrator account that is created on the local machine.
• Add DNS suffixes to the list of search suffixes. Only suffixes that do not already exist are added to the
list.
• Set drive letters for any additional volumes and extend them to use available space.
• Write files to the disk, either from the internet or from the configuration. If the content is in the
configuration, it can be base64 decoded or encoded. If the content is from the internet, it can be
unzipped.
• Execute scripts either from the internet or from the configuration. If the script is from the
configuration, it can be base64 decoded. If the script is from the internet, it can be unzipped.
• Execute a program with given arguments.
• Set the computer name.
• Send instance information to the Amazon EC2 console.
• Send the RDP certificate thumbprint to the EC2 console.
• Dynamically extend the operating system partition to include any unpartitioned space.
• Execute user data. For more information about specifying user data, see EC2Launch v2 task
configuration (p. 475).
• Set persistent static routes to reach the metadata service and AWS KMS servers.
• Set non-boot partitions to MBR or GPT.

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• Start the Systems Manager (SSM) service following Sysprep.

• Optimize ENA settings.
• Enable OpenSSH for later Windows versions.
• Enable Jumbo Frames.
• Set Sysprep to run with EC2Launch v2.
• Publish Windows event logs.

Telemetry
Telemetry is additional information that helps AWS to better understand your requirements, diagnose
issues, and deliver features to improve your experience with AWS services.

EC2Launch v2 version 2.0.592 and later collect telemetry, such as usage metrics and errors. This data
is collected from the Amazon EC2 instance on which EC2Launch v2 runs. This includes all Windows AMIs
owned by AWS.

The following types of telemetry are collected by EC2Launch v2:

• Usage information — agent commands, install method, and scheduled run frequency.
• Errors and diagnostic information — agent installation and run error codes.

Examples of collected data:

2021/07/15 21:44:12Z: EC2LaunchTelemetry: IsAgentScheduledPerBoot=true

2021/07/15 21:44:12Z: EC2LaunchTelemetry: IsUserDataScheduledPerBoot=true
2021/07/15 21:44:12Z: EC2LaunchTelemetry: AgentCommandCode=1
2021/07/15 21:44:12Z: EC2LaunchTelemetry: AgentCommandErrorCode=5
2021/07/15 21:44:12Z: EC2LaunchTelemetry: AgentInstallCode=2
2021/07/15 21:44:12Z: EC2LaunchTelemetry: AgentInstallErrorCode=0

Telemetry is enabled by default. You can disable telemetry collection at any time. If telemetry is enabled,
EC2Launch v2 sends telemetry data without additional customer notifications.

Telemetry visibility

When telemetry is enabled, it appears in the Amazon EC2 console output as follows:

2021/07/15 21:44:12Z: Telemetry: <Data>

Disable telemetry on an instance

To disable telemetry for a single instance, you can either set a system environment variable, or use the
MSI to modify the installation.

To disable telemetry by setting a system environment variable, run the following command as an
administrator:

setx /M EC2LAUNCH_TELEMETRY 0

To disable telemetry using the MSI, run the following command after you download the MSI (p. 459):

msiexec /i ".\AmazonEC2Launch.msi" Remove="Telemetry" /q

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Install the latest version of EC2Launch v2

EC2Launch v2 is currently available by download, by installation from SSM Distributor, and on all
supported Windows AMIs.

Download

To install the latest version of EC2Launch v2, download the service from the following locations:
Note
AmazonEC2Launch.msi does not uninstall previous versions of the EC2 launch services, such
as EC2Launch (v1) or EC2Config. To upgrade to EC2Launch v2 from an earlier launch service
version, see Migrate to EC2Launch v2 (p. 460).

• 64Bit — https://s3.amazonaws.com/amazon-ec2launch-v2/windows/amd64/latest/
AmazonEC2Launch.msi
• 32Bit — https://s3.amazonaws.com/amazon-ec2launch-v2/windows/386/latest/
AmazonEC2Launch.msi

Install from AWS SSM Distributor

You can install the AWSEC2Launch-Agent package from AWS SSM Distributor. For instructions on how
to install a package from SSM Distributor, see Install or update packages in the AWS SSM User Guide.

To download and install the latest version of EC2Launch v2 using PowerShell

AmazonEC2Launch.msi does not uninstall previous versions of the EC2 launch services, such as
EC2Launch (v1) or EC2Config. To upgrade to EC2Launch v2 from an earlier launch service version, see
Migrate to EC2Launch v2 (p. 460).

To install the latest version of EC2Launch v2 using PowerShell, run the following commands from a
PowerShell window:

mkdir $env:USERPROFILE\Desktop\EC2Launchv2

64Bit

$Url = "https://s3.amazonaws.com/amazon-ec2launch-v2/windows/amd64/latest/
AmazonEC2Launch.msi"

32Bit

$Url = "https://s3.amazonaws.com/amazon-ec2launch-v2/windows/386/latest/
AmazonEC2Launch.msi"

$DownloadFile = "$env:USERPROFILE\Desktop\EC2Launchv2\" + $(Split-Path -Path $Url -Leaf)

Invoke-WebRequest -Uri $Url -OutFile $DownloadFile
C:\Administrator\Desktop\EC2Launch\install.ps1

The installation wizard will open. Verify the installation by checking C:\ProgramData\Amazon
\EC2Launch.

Use AMI with EC2Launch v2 preinstalled (non-production workloads)

EC2Launch v2 is preinstalled on the following AMIs. Do not use these AMIs for production workloads
as they are intended only for you to verify if the EC2Launch v2 service works well with your existing

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processes and workloads. You can find these AMIs from the Amazon EC2 console or you can find them
using the EC2 CLI and searching with the prefix EC2LaunchV2_Preview-Windows_Server-.

• EC2LaunchV2_Preview-Windows_Server-2004-English-Core-Base
• EC2LaunchV2_Preview-Windows_Server-2019-English-Full-Base
• EC2LaunchV2_Preview-Windows_Server-2019-English-Core-Base
• EC2LaunchV2_Preview-Windows_Server-2016-English-Full-Base
• EC2LaunchV2_Preview-Windows_Server-2016-English-Core-Base
• EC2LaunchV2_Preview-Windows_Server-2012_R2_RTM-English-Full-Base
• EC2LaunchV2_Preview-Windows_Server-2012_R2_RTM-English-Core
• EC2LaunchV2_Preview-Windows_Server-2012_RTM-English-Full-Base
• EC2LaunchV2_Preview-Windows-Server-2019-English-Full-SQL_2019_Express
• EC2LaunchV2_Preview-Windows-Server-2016-English-Full-SQL_2017_Express

Installation options
When you install or upgrade EC2Launch v2, your existing configuration, located at %ProgramData%/
Amazon/EC2Launch/config/agent-config.yml, is not replaced. Perform a clean installation to
overwrite an existing configuration to use the latest version.

You can perform a clean installation using the EC2Launch v2 interface or the command line.

Perform a clean installation using the EC2Launch v2 user interface

When you install EC2Launch v2, choose the Default Configuration option under Basic Install.

Perform a clean installation using the command line

To perform a clean installation of EC2Launch v2 using the command line, run the following Windows
command:

msiexec /i "C:\Users\Administrator\Desktop\AmazonEC2Launch.msi" ADDLOCAL="Basic,Clean" /q

Migrate to EC2Launch v2
The EC2Launch migration tool upgrades the installed launch agent (EC2Config and EC2Launch
v1) by uninstalling it and installing EC2Launch v2. Applicable configurations from previous launch
services are automatically migrated to the new service. The migration tool does not detect any
scheduled tasks linked to EC2Launch v1 scripts; therefore, it does not automatically set up those tasks

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in EC2Launch v2. To configure these tasks, edit the agent-config.yml (p. 475) file, or use the
EC2Launch v2 settings dialog box (p. 463). For example, if an instance has a scheduled task that runs
InitializeDisks.ps1, then after you run the migration tool, you must specify the volumes you want
to initialize in the EC2Launch v2 settings dialog box. See Step 6 of the procedure to Change settings
using the EC2Launch v2 settings dialog box (p. 463).

You can download the migration tool or install with an SSM RunCommand document.

You can download the tool from the following locations:

• 64Bit — https://s3.amazonaws.com/amazon-ec2launch-v2-utils/MigrationTool/windows/amd64/
latest/EC2LaunchMigrationTool.zip
• 32Bit — https://s3.amazonaws.com/amazon-ec2launch-v2-utils/MigrationTool/windows/386/latest/
EC2LaunchMigrationTool.zip

Note
You must run the EC2Launch v2 migration tool as an Administrator. EC2Launch v2 is installed as
a service after you run the migration tool. It does not run immediately. By default, it runs during
instance startup and runs if an instance is stopped and later started, or restarted.

Use the AWSEC2Launch-RunMigration SSM document to migrate to the latest EC2Launch version with
SSM Run Command. The document does not require any parameters. For more information about using
SSM Run Command, see AWS Systems Manager Run Command.

The migration tool applies the following configurations from EC2Config to EC2Launch v2.

• If Ec2DynamicBootVolumeSize is set to false, removes EC2Launch v2 boot stage

• If Ec2SetPassword is set to Enabled, sets EC2Launch v2 password type to random
• If Ec2SetPassword is set to Disabled, sets EC2Launch v2 password type to donothing
• If SetDnsSuffixList is set to false, removes EC2Launch v2 setDnsSuffix task
• If EC2SetComputerName is set to true, adds EC2Launch v2 setHostName task to yaml configuration

The migration tool applies the following configurations from EC2Launch v1 to EC2Launch v2.

• If ExtendBootVolumeSize is set to false, removes EC2Launch v2 boot stage

• If AdminPasswordType is set to Random, sets EC2Launch v2 password type to random
• If AdminPasswordType is set to Specify, sets EC2Launch v2password type to static and password
data to the password specified in AdminPassword
• If SetWallpaper is set to false, removes EC2Launch v2 setWallpaper task
• If AddDnsSuffixList is set to false, removes EC2Launch v2 setDnsSuffix task
• If SetComputerName is set to true, adds EC2Launch v2 setHostName task

Stop, restart, delete, or uninstall EC2Launch v2

You can manage the EC2Launch v2 service just as you would any other Windows service.

EC2Launch v2 runs once on boot and runs all of the configured tasks. After executing tasks, the service
enters a stopped state. When you restart the service, the service will run all of the configured tasks again
and return to a stopped state.

To apply updated settings to your instance, you can stop and restart the service. If you are manually
installing EC2Launch v2, you must first stop the service first.

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To stop the EC2Launch v2 service

1. Launch and connect to your Windows instance.

2. On the Start menu, choose Administrative Tools, and then open Services.
3. In the list of services, right-click Amazon EC2Launch, and select Stop.

To restart the EC2Launch v2 service

1. Launch and connect to your Windows instance.

2. On the Start menu, choose Administrative Tools, and then open Services.
3. In the list of services, right-click Amazon EC2Launch, and select Restart.

If you don’t need to update the configuration settings, create your own AMI, or use AWS Systems
Manager, you can delete and uninstall the service. Deleting a service removes its registry subkey.
Uninstalling a service removes the files, the registry subkeys, and any shortcuts to the service.

To delete the EC2Launch v2 service

1. Start a command prompt window.

2. Run the following command:

sc delete EC2Launch

To uninstall EC2Launch v2

1. Launch and connect to your Windows instance.

2. On the Start menu, select Control Panel.
3. Open Programs and Features.
4. In the list of programs, select Amazon EC2Launch v2, and select Uninstall.

Verify the EC2Launch v2 version

Use the following procedure to verify the version of EC2Launch v2 that is installed on your instances.

To verify the installed version of EC2Launch v2

1. Launch an instance from your AMI and connect to it.

2. In the Control Panel, select Programs and Features.
3. In the list of installed programs, look for Amazon EC2Launch. Its version number appears in the
Version column.

For information about the EC2Launch v2 versions included in the Windows AMIs, see AWS Windows
AMIs (p. 27).

For the latest version of EC2Launch v2, see EC2Launch v2 version history (p. 492).

For the latest version of the EC2Launch v2 migration tool, see EC2Launch v2 migration tool version
history (p. 493).

You can receive notifications when new versions of the EC2Launch v2 service are released. For more
information, see Subscribe to EC2Launch v2 service notifications (p. 463).

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Subscribe to EC2Launch v2 service notifications

Amazon SNS can notify you when new versions of the EC2Launch v2 service are released. Use the
following procedure to subscribe to these notifications.

Subscribe to EC2Launch v2 notifications

1. Sign in to the AWS Management Console and open the Amazon SNS console at https://
console.aws.amazon.com/sns/v3/home.
2. In the navigation bar, change the Region to US East (N. Virginia), if necessary. You must select this
Region because the SNS notifications that you are subscribing to were created in this Region.
3. In the navigation pane, choose Subscriptions.
4. Choose Create subscription.
5. In the Create subscription dialog box, do the following:

a. For Topic ARN, use the following Amazon Resource Name (ARN): arn:aws:sns:us-
east-1:309726204594:amazon-ec2launch-v2.
b. For Protocol, choose Email.
c. For Endpoint, enter an email address that you can use to receive the notifications.
d. Choose Create subscription.
6. You'll receive an email asking you to confirm your subscription. Open the email and follow the
directions to complete your subscription.

Whenever a new version of the EC2Launch v2 service is released, we send notifications to subscribers. If
you no longer want to receive these notifications, use the following procedure to unsubscribe.

1. Open the Amazon SNS console.

2. In the navigation pane, choose Subscriptions.
3. Select the subscription and then choose Actions, Delete subscriptions. When prompted for
confirmation, choose Delete.

EC2Launch v2 settings
This section contains information about how to configure settings for EC2Launch v2.

Topics include:
• Change settings using the EC2Launch v2 settings dialog box (p. 463)
• EC2Launch v2 directory structure (p. 469)
• Configure EC2Launch v2 using the CLI (p. 470)
• EC2Launch v2 task configuration (p. 475)
• EC2Launch v2 exit codes and reboots (p. 484)
• EC2Launch v2 and Sysprep (p. 484)

Change settings using the EC2Launch v2 settings dialog box

The following procedure describes how to use the EC2Launch v2 settings dialog box to enable or disable
settings.

1. Launch and connect to your Windows instance.

2. From the Start menu, choose All Programs, and then navigate to EC2Launch settings.

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3. On the General tab of the EC2Launch settings dialog box, you can enable or disable the following
settings.

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a. Set Computer Name

If this setting is enabled (it is disabled by default), the current host name is compared to the
desired host name at each boot. If the host names do not match, the host name is reset, and
the system then optionally reboots to pick up the new host name. If a custom host name is not
specified, it is generated using the hexadecimal-formatted private IPv4 address, for example,
ip-AC1F4E6. To prevent your existing host name from being modified, do not enable this
setting.
b. Extend Boot Volume

This setting dynamically extends Disk 0/Volume 0 to include any unpartitioned space. This
can be useful when the instance is booted from a root device volume that has a custom size.
c. Set Administrator Account

When enabled, you can set the username and password attributes for the administrator account
that is created on your local machine. If this feature is not enabled, an administrator account
is not created on the system following Sysprep. Provide a password in adminPassword only if
adminPasswordtype is Specify.

The password types are defined as follows:

i. Random

EC2Launch generates a password and encrypts it using the user's key. The system disables
this setting after the instance is launched so that this password persists if the instance is
rebooted or stopped and started.
ii. Specify

EC2Launch uses the password that you specify in adminPassword. If the password does
not meet the system requirements, EC2Launch generates a random password instead. The
password is stored in agent-config.yml as clear text and is deleted after Sysprep sets
the administrator password. EC2Launch encrypts the password using the user's key.
iii. DoNothing

EC2Launch uses the password that you specify in the unattend.xml file. If you don't specify
a password in unattend.xml, the administrator account is disabled.
d. Start SSM Service

When selected, the Systems Manager service is enabled to start following Sysprep. EC2Launch
v2 performs all of the tasks described earlier (p. 457), and the SSM Agent processes requests
for Systems Manager capabilities, such as Run Command and State Manager.

You can use Run Command to upgrade your existing instances to use the latest version of the
EC2Launch v2 service and SSM Agent. For more information, see Update SSM Agent by using
Run Command in the AWS Systems Manager User Guide.
e. Optimize ENA

When selected, ENA settings are configured to ensure that ENA Receive Side Scaling and Receive
Queue Depth settings are optimized for AWS. For more information, see Configure RSS CPU
affinity (p. 985).
f. Enable SSH

This setting enables OpenSSH for later Windows versions to allow for remote system
administration.
g. Enable Jumbo Frames

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Select to enable Jumbo Frames. Jumbo Frames can have unintended effects on your network
communications, so ensure you understand how Jumbo Frames will impact your system before
enabling. For more information about Jumbo Frames, see Jumbo frames (9001 MTU) (p. 1000).
h. Prepare for Imaging

Select whether you want your EC2 instance to shut down with or without Sysprep. When you
want to run Sysprep with EC2Launch v2, choose Shutdown with Sysprep.
4. On the DNS Suffix tab, you can select whether you want to add a DNS suffix list for DNS resolution
of servers running in EC2, without providing the fully qualified domain name. DNS suffixes can
contain the variables $REGION and $AZ. Only suffixes that do not already exist will be added to the
list.

5. On the Wallpaper tab, you can enable the display of selected instance details on the wallpaper. You
also have the option of choosing a custom image. The details are generated each time that you log
in. Clear the check box to remove instance details from the wallpaper.

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6. On the Volumes tab, select whether you want to initialize the volumes that are attached to the
instance. Enabling sets drive letters for any additional volumes and extends them to use available
space. If you select All, all of the storage volumes are initialized. If you select Devices, only devices
that are specified in the list are initialized. You must enter the device for each device to be initialized.
Use the devices listed on the EC2 console, for example, xvdb or /dev/nvme0n1. The dropdown list
displays the storage volumes that are attached to the instance. To enter a device that is not attached
to the instance, enter it in the text field.

Name, Letter, and Partition are optional fields. If no value is specified for Partition, storage
volumes larger than 2 TB are initialized with the GPT partition type, and those smaller than 2 TB
are initialized with the MBR partition type. If devices are configured, and a non-NTFS device either
contains a partition table, or the first 4 KB of the disk contain data, then the disk is skipped and the
action logged.

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The following is an example configuration YAML file created from the settings entered in the EC2Launch
dialog.

version: 1.0
config:
- stage: boot
tasks:
- task: extendRootPartition
- stage: preReady
tasks:
- task: activateWindows
inputs:
activation:
type: amazon
- task: setDnsSuffix
inputs:
suffixes:
- $REGION.ec2-utilities.amazonaws.com
- task: setAdminAccount
inputs:
password:
type: random
- task: setWallpaper
inputs:
path: C:\ProgramData\Amazon\EC2Launch\wallpaper\Ec2Wallpaper.jpg
attributes:
- hostName
- instanceId
- privateIpAddress
- publicIpAddress
- instanceSize
- availabilityZone
- architecture
- memory
- network
- stage: postReady
tasks:
- task: startSsm

EC2Launch v2 directory structure

EC2Launch v2 should be installed in the following directories:

• Service binaries: %ProgramFiles%\Amazon\EC2Launch

• Service data (settings, log files, and state files): %ProgramData%\Amazon\EC2Launch

Note
By default, Windows hides files and folders under C:\ProgramData. To view EC2Launch v2
directories and files, you must either enter the path in Windows Explorer or change the folder
properties to show hidden files and folders.

The %ProgramFiles%\Amazon\EC2Launch directory contains binaries and supporting libraries. It

includes the following subdirectories:

• settings
• EC2LaunchSettingsUI.exe — user interface for modifying the agent-config.yml file
• YamlDotNet.dll — DLL for supporting some operations in the user interface
• tools
• ebsnvme-id.exe — tool for examining the metadata of the EBS volumes on the instance

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• AWSAcpiSpcrReader.exe — tool for determining the correct COM port to use

• EC2LaunchEventMessage.dll — DLL for supporting the Windows event logging for EC2Launch.
• service
• EC2LaunchService.exe — Windows service executable that is launched when the launch agent
runs as a service.
• EC2Launch.exe — main EC2Launch executable
• EC2LaunchAgentAttribution.txt — attribution for code used within EC2 Launch

The %ProgramData%\Amazon\EC2Launch directory contains the following subdirectories. All of the

data produced by the service, including logs, configuration, and state, is stored in this directory.

• config — Configuration

The service configuration file is stored in this directory as agent-config.yml. This file can be
updated to modify, add, or remove default tasks run by the service. Permission to create files in this
directory is restricted to the administrator account to prevent privilege escalation.
• log — Instance logs

Logs for the service (agent.log), console (console.log), performance (bench.log), and errors
(error.log) are stored in this directory. Log files are appended to on subsequent executions of the
service.
• state — Service state data

The state that the service uses to determine which tasks should run is stored here. There is a .run-
once file that indicates whether the service has already run after Sysprep (so tasks with a frequency
of once will be skipped on the next run). This subdirectory includes a state.json and previous-
state.json to track the status of each task.
• sysprep — Sysprep

This directory contains files that are used to determine which operations to perform by Sysprep when
it creates a customized Windows AMI that can be reused.

Configure EC2Launch v2 using the CLI

You can use the Command Line Interface (CLI) to configure your EC2Launch settings and manage the
service. The following section contains descriptions and usage information for the CLI commands that
you can use to manage EC2Launch v2.

Commands
• collect-logs (p. 471)
• get-agent-config (p. 471)
• list-volumes (p. 472)
• reset (p. 472)
• run (p. 472)
• status (p. 473)
• sysprep (p. 473)
• validate (p. 474)
• version (p. 474)
• wallpaper (p. 475)

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collect-logs

Collects log files for EC2Launch, zips the files, and places them in a specified directory.

Example

ec2launch collect-logs -o C:\Mylogs.zip

Usage

ec2launch collect-logs [flags]

Flags

-h, --help

help for collect-logs

-o, --output string

path to zipped output log files

get-agent-config

Prints agent-config.yml in the format specified (JSON or YAML). If no format is specified, agent-
config.yml is printed in the format previously specified.

Example

ec2launch get-agent-config -f json

Example 2

The following PowerShell commands show how to edit and save the agent-config file in JSON format.

$config = ec2launch get-agent-config --format json | ConvertFrom-Json

$jumboFrame =@"
{
"task": "enableJumboFrames"
}
"@
$config.config | %{if($_.stage -eq 'postReady'){$_.tasks += (ConvertFrom-Json -InputObject
$jumboFrame)}}
$config | ConvertTo-Json -Depth 6 | Out-File -encoding UTF8 $env:ProgramData/Amazon/
EC2Launch/config/agent-config.yml

Usage

ec2launch get-agent-config [flags]

Flags

-h, --help

help for get-agent-config

-f, --format string

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output format of agent-config file: json, yaml

list-volumes

Lists all of the storage volumes attached to the instance, including ephemeral and EBS volumes.

Example

ec2launch list-volumes

Usage

ec2launch list-volumes

Flags

-h, --help

help for list-volumes

reset

Deletes the .runonce file so that tasks specified to run once will run on the next execution; optionally
deletes the service and sysprep logs.

Example

ec2launch reset -c

Usage

ec2launch reset [flags]

Flags

-b, --block

blocks the reset command until the service stops. If the reset command is run with the --block flag as
part of the executeScript task, the detach argument must be set to true. For more information, see
Example 4 under executeScript (p. 477).

-c, --clean

cleans instance logs before reset

-h, --help

help for reset

run

Runs EC2Launch v2.

Example

ec2launch run

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EC2Launch v2

Usage

ec2launch run [flags]

Flags

-h, --help

help for run

status

Gets the status of the EC2Launch service. Optionally blocks the process until the service is finished. The
process exit code determines the service state:

• 0 — the service ran and was successful.

• 1 — the service ran and failed.
• 2 — the service is still running.
• 3 — the service is in an unknown state. The service state is not running or stopped.
• 4 — an error occurred when attempting to retrieve the service state.
• 5 — the service is not running and the status of the last known run is unknown. This could mean one
of the following:
• both the state.json and previous-state.json are deleted.
• the previous-state.json is corrupted.

This is the service state after running the reset (p. 472) command.

Example:

ec2launch status -b

Usage

ec2launch status [flags]

Flags

-b,--block

blocks the process until the services finishes running

-h,--help

help for status

sysprep

Resets the service state, updates unattend.xml, disables RDP, and runs Sysprep.

Example:

ec2launch sysprep

Usage

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ec2launch sysprep [flags]

Flags

-b,--block

blocks the sysprep command until the service stops. If the reset command is run with the --block flag
as part of the executeScript task, the detach argument must be set to true. For more information,
see Example 4 under executeScript (p. 477).

-c,--clean

cleans instance logs before sysprep

-h,--help

help for Sysprep

-s,--shutdown

shuts down the instance after sysprep

validate

Validates the agent-config file C:\ProgramData\Amazon\EC2LaunchAgent\config\agent-

config.yml.

Example

ec2launch validate

Usage

ec2launch validate [flags]

Flags

-h , --help

help for validate

version

Gets the executable version.

Example

ec2launch version

Usage

ec2launch version [flags]

Flags

-h, --help

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help for version

wallpaper

Sets new wallpaper to the wallpaper path that is provided (.jpg file), and displays the selected instance
details.

Example

ec2launch wallpaper ^
--path="C:\ProgramData\Amazon\EC2Launch\wallpaper\Ec2Wallpaper.jpg" ^
--
attributes=hostName,instanceId,privateIpAddress,publicIpAddress,instanceSize,availabilityZone,architect

Usage

ec2launch wallpaper [flags]

Flags

--attributes strings

wallpaper attributes

-h, --help

help for wallpaper

-p, --path string

wallpaper file path

EC2Launch v2 task configuration

This section includes the configuration tasks, details, and examples for the agent-config.yml and
user-data.yml files.

Tasks and examples

• activateWindows (p. 476)
• enableJumboFrames (p. 476)
• enableOpenSsh (p. 476)
• executeProgram (p. 477)
• executeScript (p. 477)
• extendRootPartition (p. 479)
• initializeVolume (p. 479)
• optimizeEna (p. 480)
• setAdminAccount (p. 480)
• setDnsSuffix (p. 481)
• setHostName (p. 481)
• setWallpaper (p. 482)
• startSsm (p. 482)
• sysprep (p. 482)

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• writeFile (p. 483)

• Example: agent-config.yml (p. 483)
• Example: user data (p. 484)

activateWindows

Activates Windows against a set of AWS KMS servers.

Frequency — once

AllowedStages — [PreReady]

Inputs —

activation: (map)

type: (string) activation type to use, set to amazon

Example

task: activateWindows
inputs:
activation:
type: amazon

enableJumboFrames

Enables Jumbo Frames, which increase the maximum transmission unit (MTU) of the network adapter.
For more information, see Jumbo frames (9001 MTU) (p. 1000).

Frequency — always

AllowedStages — [PostReady, UserData]

Inputs — none

Example

task: enableJumboFrames

enableOpenSsh

Enables Windows OpenSSH and adds the public key for the instance to the authorized keys folder.

Frequency — once

AllowedStages — [PreReady, UserData]

Inputs — none

Example

The following example shows how to enable OpenSSH on an instance, and to add the public key for
the instance to the authorized keys folder. This configuration works only on instances running Windows
Server 2019 and later versions.

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task: enableOpenSsh

executeProgram

Executes a program with optional arguments and a specified frequency.

Frequency — see Inputs

AllowedStages — [PostReady, UserData]

Inputs —

frequency: (string) one of once or always

path: (string) path to the executable

arguments: (list of strings) list of string arguments to pass to the executable

runAs: (string) must be set to localSystem

Example

The following example shows how to run an executable file that is already on an instance.

task: executeProgram
inputs:
- frequency: always
path: C:\Users\Administrator\Desktop\setup.exe
arguments: [‘—quiet']

Example 2

The following example shows how to run an executable file that is already on an instance. This
configuration installs a VLC .exe file that is present on the C: drive of the instance. /L=1033 and /S are
VLC arguments passed as a string list with the VLC .exe file.

task: executeProgram
inputs:
- frequency: always
path: C:\vlc-3.0.11-win64.exe
arguments: ['/L=1033','/S']
runAs: localSystem

executeScript

Runs a script with optional arguments and a specified frequency.

Frequency — see Inputs

AllowedStages — [PostReady, UserData]

Inputs —

detach: (Boolean) denotes whether the script runs as a detached process. When enabled, EC2Launch v2
runs the script concurrently with other tasks, and will not handle exit codes, such as 3010, to restart the
instance.

frequency: (string) one of once or always

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type: (string) one of batch or powershell

arguments: (list of strings) list of string arguments to pass to the shell. This parameter is not supported
when type is set to batch.

content: (string) contents of the script

runAs: (string) one of admin or localSystem

detach: (boolean) defaults to false. Set to true if the script should be run in detached mode, where
EC2Launch runs it and continues with other tasks. Script exit codes have no effect in this mode.

Example

task: executeScript
inputs:
- frequency: always
type: powershell
content: |
Get-Process | Out-File -FilePath .\Process.txt
runAs: localSystem

Example 2

The following example shows how to run a PowerShell script on an EC2 instance. This configuration
creates a text file in the C: drive.

task: executeScript
inputs:
- frequency: always
type: powershell
runAs: admin
content: |-
New-Item -Path 'C:\PowerShellTest.txt' -ItemType File
Set-Content 'C:\PowerShellTest.txt' "hello world"

Example 3

The following example shows an idempotent script that reboots an instance multiple times.

task: executeScript
inputs:
- frequency: always
type: powershell
runAs: localSystem
content: |-
$name = $env:ComputerName
if ($name -ne $desiredName) {
Rename-Computer -NewName $desiredName
exit 3010
}
$domain = Get-ADDomain
if ($domain -ne $desiredDomain)
{
Add-Computer -DomainName $desiredDomain
exit 3010
}
$telnet = Get-WindowsFeature -Name Telnet-Client
if (-not $telnet.Installed)
{
Install-WindowsFeature -Name "Telnet-Client"

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exit 3010
}

Example 4

You can run EC2Launch v2 CLI commands as part of scripts. reset and sysprep commands must
include the --block flag because they depend on the agent finishing first. When the --block flag is
used, the detach argument for this task must be set to true. A deadlock results when you use the --
block flag in a non-detached script. The commands detect the potential deadlock and exit with an error.
The following example shows a script that resets the agent state after the agent finishes running.

task: executeScript
inputs:
- frequency: always
type: powershell
runAs: localSystem
detach: true
content: |-
& 'C:\Program Files\Amazon\EC2Launch\ec2launch.exe' reset -c -b

extendRootPartition

Extends the root volume to use all of the available space on the disk.

Frequency — once

AllowedStages — [Boot]

Inputs — none

Example

task: extendRootParitition

initializeVolume

Initializes volumes attached to the instance so that they are activated and partitioned. Any volumes that
are detected as not empty are not initialized. A volume is considered empty if the first 4 KiB of a volume
are empty, or if a volume does not have a Windows-recognizable drive layout. The volume letter field
is always applied when this task runs, regardless of whether the drive is already initialized.

Frequency — always

AllowedStages — [PostReady, UserData]

Inputs —

initialize: (string) type of initialization strategy to use; one of all or devices

devices: (list of maps)

device: device identifier used when creating the instance; some examples are xvdb, xvdf, or /dev/
nvme0n1

name: (string) drive name to assign

letter: (string) drive letter to assign

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partition: (string) partitioning type to use; one of mbr or gpt

Example 1

The following example shows inputs for the InitializeVolume task to set selected volumes to be
initialized.

task: initializeVolume
inputs:
initialize: devices
devices:
- device: xvdb
name: MyVolumeOne
letter: D
partition: mbr
- device: /dev/nvme0n1
name: MyVolumeTwo
letter: E
partition: gpt

Example 2

The following example shows how to initialize EBS volumes that are attached to an instance. This
configuration will initialize all empty EBS volumes that are attached to the instance. If a volume is not
empty, then it will not be initialized.

task: initializeVolume
inputs:
initialize: all

optimizeEna

Optimizes ENA settings based on the current instance type; might reboot the instance.

Frequency — always

AllowedStages — [PostReady, UserData]

Inputs — none

Example

task: optimizeEna

setAdminAccount

Sets attributes for the default administrator account that is created on the local machine.

Frequency — once

AllowedStages — [PreReady]

Inputs —

name: (string) name of the administrator account

password: (map)

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type: (string) strategy to set the password, either as static, random, or doNothing

data: (string) stores data if the type field is static

Example

task: setAdminAccount
inputs:
name: Administrator
password:
type: random

setDnsSuffix

Adds DNS suffixes to the list of search suffixes. Only suffixes that do not already exist are added to the
list.

Frequency — always

AllowedStages — [PreReady]

Inputs —

suffixes: (list of strings) list of one or more valid DNS suffixes; valid substitution variables are $REGION
and $AZ

Example

task: setDnsSuffix
inputs:
suffixes:
- $REGION.ec2-utilities.amazonaws.com

setHostName

Sets the hostname of the computer to a custom string or, if hostName is not specified, the private IPv4
address.

Frequency — always

AllowedStages — [PostReady, UserData]

Inputs —

hostName: (string) optional host name, which must be formatted as follows.

• Must be 15 characters or less

• Must contain only alphanumeric (a-z, A-Z, 0-9) and hyphen (-) characters.
• Must not consist entirely of numerical characters.

reboot: (boolean) denotes whether a reboot is permitted when the hostname is changed

Example

task: setHostName
inputs:

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reboot: true

setWallpaper

Sets up the instance with custom wallpaper that displays instance attributes.

Frequency — always

AllowedStages — [PreReady, UserData]

Inputs —

path: (string) path to a local .jpg file to use as the wallpaper image

attributes: (list of strings) list of attributes to add to the wallpaper; one of hostName, instanceId,
privateIpAddress, publicIpAddress, instanceSize, availabilityZone, architecture,
memory, or network

Example

task: setWallpaper
inputs:
path: C:\ProgramData\Amazon\EC2Launch\wallpaper\Ec2Wallpaper.jpg
attributes:
- hostName
- instanceId
- privateIpAddress
- publicIpAddress

startSsm

Starts the Systems Manager (SSM) service following Sysprep.

Frequency — always

AllowedStages — [PostReady, UserData]

Inputs — none

Example

task: startSsm

sysprep

Resets the service state, updates unattend.xml, disables RDP, and runs Sysprep. This task runs only
after all other tasks are completed.

Frequency — once

AllowedStages — [UserData]

Inputs —

clean: (boolean) cleans instance logs before running Sysprep

shutdown: (boolean) shuts down the instance after running Sysprep

Example

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task: sysprep
inputs:
clean: true
shutdown: true

writeFile

Writes a file to a destination.

Frequency — see Inputs

AllowedStages — [PostReady, UserData]

Inputs —

frequency: (string) one of once or always

destination: (string) path to which to write the content

content: (string) text to write to the destination

Example

task: writeFile
inputs:
- frequency: once
destination: C:\Users\Administrator\Desktop\booted.txt
content: Windows Has Booted

Example: agent-config.yml

The following example shows settings for the agent-config.yml configuration file.

version: 1.0
config:
- stage: boot
tasks:
- task: extendRootPartition
- stage: preReady
tasks:
- task: activateWindows
inputs:
activation:
type: amazon
- task: setDnsSuffix
inputs:
suffixes:
- $REGION.ec2-utilities.amazonaws.com
- task: setAdminAccount
inputs:
password:
type: random
- task: setWallpaper
inputs:
path: C:\ProgramData\Amazon\EC2Launch\wallpaper\Ec2Wallpaper.jpg
attributes:
- hostName
- instanceId
- privateIpAddress
- publicIpAddress

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- instanceSize
- availabilityZone
- architecture
- memory
- network
- stage: postReady
tasks:
- task: startSsm

Example: user data

For more information about user data, see Run commands on your Windows instance at
launch (p. 581).

The following example shows settings for user data.

version: 1.0
tasks:
- task: executeScript
inputs:
- frequency: always
type: powershell
runAs: localSystem
content: |-
New-Item -Path 'C:\PowerShellTest.txt' -ItemType File

The following format is compatible with the previous version of this service. It is run as an
executeScript task in the UserData stage. To mimic the behavior of the previous version, it will be
set to run as a detached process.

<powershell>
$file = $env:SystemRoot + "\Temp" + (Get-Date).ToString("MM-dd-yy-hh-mm")
New-Item $file -ItemType file
</powershell>
<persist>true</persist>

EC2Launch v2 exit codes and reboots

You can use EC2Launch v2 to define how exit codes are handled by your scripts. By default, the exit code
of the last command that is run in a script is reported as the exit code for the entire script. For example,
if a script includes three commands and the first command fails but the following ones succeed, the run
status is reported as success because the final command succeeded.

If you want a script to reboot an instance, then you must specify exit 3010 in your script, even when
the reboot is the last step in your script. exit 3010 instructs EC2Launch v2 to reboot the instance and
call the script again until it returns an exit code that is not 3010, or until the maximum reboot count
has been reached. EC2Launch v2 permits a maximum of 5 reboots per task. If you attempt to reboot an
instance from a script by using a different mechanism, such as Restart-Computer, then the script run
status will be inconsistent. For example, it may get stuck in a restart loop or not perform the restart.

If you are using a legacy user data format that is compatible with older agents, the user data may
run more times than you intend it to. For more information, see Service runs user data more than
once (p. 486) in the Troubleshooting section.

EC2Launch v2 and Sysprep

The EC2Launch v2 service runs Sysprep, a Microsoft tool that enables you to create a customized
Windows AMI that can be reused. When EC2Launch v2 calls Sysprep, it uses the files in %ProgramData

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%\Amazon\EC2Launch to determine which operations to perform. You can edit these files indirectly
using the EC2Launch settings dialog box, or directly using a YAML editor or a text editor. However, there
are some advanced settings that aren't available in the EC2Launch settings dialog box, so you must edit
those entries directly.

If you create an AMI from an instance after updating its settings, the new settings are applied to any
instance that's launched from the new AMI. For information about creating an AMI, see Create a custom
Windows AMI (p. 37).

Troubleshoot EC2Launch v2
This section shows common troubleshooting scenarios for EC2Launch v2, information about viewing
Windows event logs, and console log output and messages.

Troubleshooting topics
• Common troubleshooting scenarios (p. 485)
• Windows event logs (p. 487)
• EC2Launch v2 console log output (p. 490)

Common troubleshooting scenarios

This section shows common troubleshooting scenarios and steps for resolution.

Scenarios
• Service fails to set the wallpaper (p. 485)
• Service fails to run user data (p. 485)
• Service runs a task only one time (p. 486)
• Service fails to run a task (p. 486)
• Service runs user data more than once (p. 486)
• Scheduled tasks from EC2Launch v1 fail to run after migration to EC2Launch v2 (p. 486)
• Service fails to run a task (p. 486)
• Service initializes an EBS volume that is not empty (p. 487)

Service fails to set the wallpaper

Resolution

1. Check that %AppData%\Roaming\Microsoft\Windows\Start Menu\Programs\Startup

\setwallpaper.lnk exists.
2. Check %ProgramData%\Amazon\EC2Launch\log\agent.log to see if any errors occurred.

Service fails to run user data

Possible cause: Service may have failed before running user data.

Resolution

1. Check %ProgramData%\Amazon\EC2Launch\state\previous-state.json.
2. See if boot, network, preReady, and postReadyLocalData have all been marked as success.
3. If one of the stages failed, check %ProgramData%\Amazon\EC2Launch\log\agent.log for
specific errors.

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Service runs a task only one time

Resolution

1. Check the frequency of the task.

2. If the service already ran after Sysprep, and the task frequency is set to once, the task will not run
again.
3. Set the frequency of the task to always if you want it to run the task every time EC2Launch v2 runs.

Service fails to run a task

Resolution

1. Check the latest entries in %ProgramData%\Amazon\EC2Launch\log\agent.log.

2. If no errors occurred, try running the service manually from "%ProgramFiles%\Amazon
\EC2Launch\EC2Launch.exe" run to see if the tasks succeed.

Service runs user data more than once

Resolution

User data is handled differently between EC2Launch v1 and EC2Launch v2. EC2Launch v1 runs user data
as a scheduled task on the instance when persist is set to true. If persist is set to false, the task is
not scheduled even when it exits with a reboot or is interrupted while running.

EC2Launch v2 runs user data as an agent task and tracks its run state. If user data issues a computer
restart or if user data was interrupted while running, the run state persists as pending and the user data
will run again at the next instance boot. If you want to prevent the user data script from running more
than once, make the script idempotent.

The following example idempotent script sets the computer name and joins a domain.

<powershell>
$name = $env:computername
if ($name -ne $desiredName) {
Rename-Computer -NewName $desiredName
}
$domain = Get-ADDomain
if ($domain -ne $desiredDomain)
{
Add-Computer -DomainName $desiredDomain
}
$telnet = Get-WindowsFeature -Name Telnet-Client
if (-not $telnet.Installed)
{
Install-WindowsFeature -Name "Telnet-Client"
}
</powershell>
<persist>false</persist>

Scheduled tasks from EC2Launch v1 fail to run after migration to EC2Launch v2

Resolution

The migration tool does not detect any scheduled tasks linked to EC2Launch v1 scripts; therefore, it
does not automatically set up those tasks in EC2Launch v2. To configure these tasks, edit the agent-
config.yml (p. 475) file, or use the EC2Launch v2 settings dialog box (p. 463). For example, if an
instance has a scheduled task that runs InitializeDisks.ps1, then after you run the migration tool,

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you must specify the volumes you want to initialize in the EC2Launch v2 settings dialog box. See Step 6
of the procedure to Change settings using the EC2Launch v2 settings dialog box (p. 463).

Service fails to run a task

Resolution

1. Check the latest entries in %ProgramData%\Amazon\EC2Launch\log\agent.log.

2. If no errors occurred, try running the service manually from "%ProgramFiles%\Amazon
\EC2Launch\EC2Launch.exe" run to see if the tasks succeed.

Service initializes an EBS volume that is not empty

Resolution

Before it initializes a volume, EC2Launch v2 attempts to detect whether it is empty. If a volume is

not empty, it skips the initialization. Any volumes that are detected as not empty are not initialized.
A volume is considered empty if the first 4 KiB of a volume are empty, or if a volume does not have a
Windows-recognizable drive layout. A volume that was initialized and formatted on a Linux system does
not have a Windows-recognizable drive layout, for example MBR or GPT. Therefore, it will be considered
as empty and initialized. If you want to preserve this data, do not rely on EC2Launch v2 empty drive
detection. Instead, specify volumes that you would like to initialize in the EC2Launch v2 settings dialog
box (p. 463) (see step 6) or in the agent-config.yml (p. 479).

Windows event logs

EC2Launch v2 publishes Windows event logs for important events, such as service starting, Windows
is ready, and task success and failure. Event identifiers uniquely identify a particular event. Each event
contains stage, task, and level information, and a description. You can set triggers for specific events
using the event identifier.

Event IDs provide information about an event and uniquely identify some events. The least significant
digit of an event ID indicates the severity of an event.

Event Least significant digit

Success . . .0

Informational . . .1

Warning . . .2

Error . . .3

Service-related events that are generated when the service starts or stops include a single digit event
identifier.

Event Single digit identifier

Success 0

Informational 1

Warning 2

Error 3

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The event messages for EC2LaunchService.exe events begin with Service:. The event messages for
EC2Launch.exe events do not begin with Service:.

Four digit event IDs include information about the stage, task, and severity of an event.

Topics
• Event ID format (p. 488)
• Event ID examples (p. 488)
• Windows event log schema (p. 489)

Event ID format
The following table shows the format of an EC2Launch v2 event identifier.

3 21 0

S T L

The letters and numbers in the table represent the following event type and definitions.

Event type Definition

S (Stage) 0 - Service-level message

1 - Boot

2 - Network

3 - PreReady

5 - Windows is Ready

6 - PostReady

7 - User Data

T (Task) The tasks represented by the corresponding two

values are different for each stage. To view the
complete list of events, see Windows Event log
schema (p. 489).

L (Level of the event) 0 - Success

1 - Informational

2 - Warning

3 - Error

Event ID examples
The following are example event IDs.

• 5000 - Windows is ready to use

• 3010 - Activate windows task in PreReady stage was successful
• 6013 - Set wallpaper task in PostReady Local Data stage encountered an error

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Windows event log schema

MessageId/Event Id Event message

. . .0 Success

. . .1 Informational

. . .2 Warning

. . .3 Error

x EC2Launch service-level logs

0 EC2Launch service exited successfully

1 EC2Launch service informational logs

2 EC2Launch service warning logs

3 EC2Launch service error logs

10 Replace state.json with previous-

state.json

100 Serial Port

200 Sysprep

300 PrimaryNic

400 Metadata

x000 Stage (1 digit), Task (2 digits),

Status (1 digit)

1000 Boot

1010 Boot - extend_root_partition

2000 Network

2010 Network - add_routes

3000 PreReady

3010 PreReady - activate_windows

3020 PreReady - install_egpu_manager

3030 PreReady - set_monitor_on

3040 PreReady - set_hibernation

3050 PreReady - set_admin_account

3060 PreReady - set_dns_suffix

3070 PreReady - set_wallpaper

3080 PreReady - set_update_schedule

3090 PreReady - output_log

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MessageId/Event Id Event message

3100 PreReady - enable_open_ssh

5000 Windows is Ready to use

6000 PostReadyLocalData

7000 PostReadyUserData

6010/7010 PostReadyLocal/UserData -
set_wallpaper

6020/7020 PostReadyLocal/UserData -
set_update_schedule

6030/7030 PostReadyLocal/UserData - set_hostname

6040/7040 PostReadyLocal/UserData -
execute_program

6050/7050 PostReadyLocal/UserData -
execute_script

6060/7060 PostReadyLocal/UserData -
manage_package

6070/7070 PostReadyLocal/UserData -
initialize_volume

6080/7080 PostReadyLocal/UserData - write_file

6090/7090 PostReadyLocal/UserData - start_ssm

7100 PostReadyUserData - enable_open_ssh

6110/7110 PostReadyLocal/UserData -
enable_jumbo_frames

EC2Launch v2 console log output

This section contains sample console log output for EC2Launch v2 and lists all of the EC2Launch v2
console log error messages to help you to troubleshoot issues.

Outputs
• EC2Launch v2 console log output (p. 490)
• EC2Launch v2 console log messages (p. 491)

EC2Launch v2 console log output

The following is sample console log output for EC2Launch v2.

2020/08/13 17:25:12Z: Windows is being configured. SysprepState=IMAGE_STATE_UNDEPLOYABLE

2020/08/13 17:27:44Z: Windows is being configured. SysprepState=IMAGE_STATE_UNDEPLOYABLE
2020/08/13 17:28:02Z: Windows sysprep configuration complete.
2020/08/13 17:28:03Z: Message: Waiting for meta-data accessibility...
2020/08/13 17:28:03Z: Message: Meta-data is now available.
2020/08/13 17:28:03Z: AMI Origin Version: 2020.07.15

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2020/08/13 17:28:03Z: AMI Origin Name: EC2LaunchV2_Preview-Windows_Server-2012_R2_RTM-

English-Full-Base
2020/08/13 17:28:03Z: OS: Microsoft Windows NT 6.3.9600
2020/08/13 17:28:03Z: OsVersion: 6.3
2020/08/13 17:28:03Z: OsProductName: Windows Server 2012 R2 Standard
2020/08/13 17:28:03Z: OsBuildLabEx: 9600.19761.amd64fre.winblue_ltsb.200610-0600
2020/08/13 17:28:03Z: OsCurrentBuild: 9600
2020/08/13 17:28:03Z: Language: en-US
2020/08/13 17:28:03Z: TimeZone: GMT
2020/08/13 17:28:03Z: Offset: UTC +0000
2020/08/13 17:28:03Z: Launch: EC2 Launch v2.0.0
2020/08/13 17:28:03Z: AMI-ID: ami-1a2b3c4d
2020/08/13 17:28:03Z: Instance-ID: i-1234567890abcdef0
2020/08/13 17:28:03Z: Instance Type: t2.nano
2020/08/13 17:28:07Z: Driver: AWS PV Driver Package v8.3.3
2020/08/13 17:28:07Z: RDPCERTIFICATE-SUBJECTNAME: EC2AMAZ-A1B2C3D
2020/08/13 17:28:07Z: RDPCERTIFICATE-THUMBPRINT: A1B2C3D4E5
2020/08/13 17:28:12Z: SSM: Amazon SSM Agent v2.3.842.0
2020/08/13 17:28:13Z: Username: Administrator
2020/08/13 17:28:13Z: Password: <Password>
A1B2C3D4E5F6G7H8I9J10K11L12M13N14O15P16Q17
</Password>
2020/08/13 17:28:13Z: Message: Windows is Ready to use

EC2Launch v2 console log messages

The following is a list of all of the EC2Launch v2 console log messages.

Message: Error EC2Launch service is stopping. {error message}

Error setting up EC2Launch agent folders
See instance logs for detail
Error stopping service
Error initializing service
Message: Windows sysprep configuration complete
Message: Invalid administrator username: {invalid username}
Message: Invalid administrator password
Username: {username}
Password: <Password>{encrypted password}</Password>
AMI Origin Version: {amiVersion}
AMI Origin Name: {amiName}
Microsoft Windows NT {currentVersion}.{currentBuildNumber}
OsVersion: {currentVersion}
OsProductName: {productName}
OsBuildLabEx: {buildLabEx}
OsCurrentBuild: {currentBuild}
OsReleaseId: {releaseId}
Language: {language}
TimeZone: {timeZone}
Offset: UTC {offset}
Launch agent: EC2Launch {BuildVersion}
AMI-ID: {amiId}
Instance-ID: {instanceId}
Instance Type: {instanceType}
RDPCERTIFICATE-SUBJECTNAME: {certificate subject name}
RDPCERTIFICATE-THUMBPRINT: {thumbprint hash}
SqlServerBilling: {sql billing}
SqlServerInstall: {sql patch leve, edition type}
Driver: AWS NVMe Driver {version}
Driver: Inbox NVMe Driver {version}
Driver: AWS PV Driver Package {version}
Microsoft-Hyper-V is installed.
Unable to get service status for vmms
Microsoft-Hyper-V is {status}
SSM: Amazon SSM Agent {version}

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AWS VSS Version: {version}

Message: Windows sysprep configuration complete
Message: Windows is being configured. SysprepState is {state}
Windows is still being configured. SysprepState is {state}
Message: Windows is Ready to use
Message: Waiting for meta-data accessibility...
Message: Meta-data is now available.
Message: Still waiting for meta-data accessibility...
Message: Failed to find primary network interface...retrying...

EC2Launch v2 version histories

Version histories
• EC2Launch v2 version history (p. 492)
• EC2Launch v2 migration tool version history (p. 493)

EC2Launch v2 version history

The following table describes the released versions of EC2Launch v2.

Version Details Release date

2.0.592 • Fixes bug to correctly report stage status. August 31,

• Removes false alarm error messages when log files are closed. 2021
• Adds telemetry.

2.0.548 • Adds leading zeros for hex IP hostname. August 4, 2021

• Fixes file permissions for enableOpenSsh task.
• Fixes sysprep command crash.

2.0.470 • Fixes bug in network stage to wait for DHCP to assign an IP to the July 20, 2021
instance.
• Fixes bug with setDnsSuffix when SearchList registry key
does not exist.
• Fixes bug in DNS devolution logic in setDnsSuffix.
• Adds network routes after intermediate reboots.
• Allows initializeVolume to re-letter existing volumes.
• Removes extra information from version subcommand.

2.0.285 • Adds option to run user scripts in a detached process. March 8, 2021
• Legacy userdata now runs in a detached process, which is similar
behavior to the prior launch agent.
• Adds CLI flag to the sysprep and reset commands, which
allows them to block until the service stops.
• Restricts the config folder permissions.

2.0.207 • Adds optional hostName field to setHostName task. February 2,

• Fixes reboot bug. Reboot tasks executeScript and 2021
executeProgram will be marked as running.
• Adds more return codes to the status command.
• Adds bootstrap service to fix startup issue when running on
t2.nano instance type.

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Version Details Release date

• Fixes clean installation mode to remove files not tracked by
installer.

2.0.160 • Fixes validate command to detect invalid stage name. December 4,

• Adds w32tm resync command in addroutes task. 2020
• Fixes issue with changing DNS suffix search order.
• Adds check conditions to better report invalid user data.

2.0.153 Adds Sysprep functionality in UserData. November 3,

2020

2.0.146 • Fixes issue with RootExtend on non-English AMIs. October 6,

• Grants users group write permission to log files. 2020
• Creates MS Reserved partition for GPT volumes.
• Adds list-volumes command and volume dropdown in Amazon
EC2Launch settings.
• Adds get-agent-config command for printing agent-config.yml
file in yaml or json format.
• Erases static password if no public key detected.

2.0.124 • Adds option to display OS version on wallpaper. September 10,

• Initializes encrypted EBS volumes. 2020
• Adds routes for VPCs with no local DNS name.

2.0.104 • Creates DNS suffix search list if it does not exist. August 12,
• Skips Hibernation if not requested. 2020

2.0.0 Initial release. June 30, 2020

EC2Launch v2 migration tool version history

The following table describes the released versions of the EC2Launch v2 migration tool.

Version Details Release date

1.0.130 Increments the version number of the EC2Launch agent to 2.0.548. August 5, 2021

1.0.113 Uses IMDSv2 in place of IMDSv1. June 4, 2021

1.0.101 Increments the version number of the EC2Launch agent to 2.0.285. March 12,
2021

1.0.86 Increments the version number of the EC2Launch agent to 2.0.207. February 3,
2021

1.0.76 Increments the version number of the EC2Launch agent to 2.0.160. December 4,
2020

1.0.69 Increments the version number of the EC2Launch agent to 2.0.153. November 5,
2020

1.0.65 Increments the version number of the EC2Launch agent to 2.0.146. October 9,
2020

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Version Details Release date

1.0.60 Increments the version number of the EC2Launch agent to 2.0.124. September 10,
2020

1.0.54 • Installs EC2Launch v2 if no agents are installed. August 12,

• Increments the version number of the EC2Launch agent to 2020
2.0.104.
• Decouples the SSM agent.

1.0.50 Removes NuGet dependency. August 10,

2020

1.0.0 Initial release. June 30, 2020

Configure a Windows instance using EC2Launch

EC2Launch is a set of Windows PowerShell scripts that replaced the EC2Config service on Windows
Server 2016 and 2019 AMIs. Windows Server 2022 uses EC2Launch v2 (p. 454), the latest launch
service for all supported Windows versions, which replaces both EC2Config and EC2Launch.

Contents
• EC2Launch tasks (p. 494)
• Install the latest version of EC2Launch (p. 495)
• Verify the EC2Launch version (p. 495)
• EC2Launch directory structure (p. 496)
• Configure EC2Launch (p. 496)
• EC2Launch version history (p. 499)

EC2Launch tasks
EC2Launch performs the following tasks by default during the initial instance boot:

• Sets up new wallpaper that renders information about the instance.

• Sets the computer name.
• Sends instance information to the Amazon EC2 console.
• Sends the RDP certificate thumbprint to the EC2 console.
• Sets a random password for the administrator account.
• Adds DNS suffixes.
• Dynamically extends the operating system partition to include any unpartitioned space.
• Executes user data (if specified). For more information about specifying user data, see Work with
instance user data (p. 603).
• Sets persistent static routes to reach the metadata service and AWS KMS servers.
Important
If a custom AMI is created from this instance, these routes are captured as part of the OS
configuration and any new instances launched from the AMI will retain the same routes,
regardless of subnet placement. In order to update the routes, see Update metadata/KMS
routes for Server 2016 and later when launching a custom AMI (p. 48).

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The following tasks help to maintain backward compatibility with the EC2Config service. You can also
configure EC2Launch to perform these tasks during startup:

• Initialize secondary EBS volumes.

• Send Windows Event logs to the EC2 console logs.
• Send the Windows is ready to use message to the EC2 console.

For more information about Windows Server 2019, see Compare Features in Windows Server Versions on
Microsoft.com.

Install the latest version of EC2Launch

Use the following procedure to download and install the latest version of EC2Launch on your instances.

To download and install the latest version of EC2Launch

1. If you have already installed and configured EC2Launch on an instance, make a backup of the
EC2Launch configuration file. The installation process does not preserve changes in this file. By
default, the file is located in the C:\ProgramData\Amazon\EC2-Windows\Launch\Config
directory.
2. Download EC2-Windows-Launch.zip to a directory on the instance.
3. Download install.ps1 to the same directory where you downloaded EC2-Windows-Launch.zip.
4. Run install.ps1
5. If you made a backup of the EC2Launch configuration file, copy it to the C:\ProgramData\Amazon
\EC2-Windows\Launch\Config directory.

To download and install the latest version of EC2Launch using PowerShell

If you have already installed and configured EC2Launch on an instance, make a backup of the EC2Launch
configuration file. The installation process does not preserve changes in this file. By default, the file is
located in the C:\ProgramData\Amazon\EC2-Windows\Launch\Config directory.

To install the latest version of EC2Launch using PowerShell, run the following commands from a
PowerShell window

mkdir $env:USERPROFILE\Desktop\EC2Launch
$Url = "https://s3.amazonaws.com/ec2-downloads-windows/EC2Launch/latest/EC2-Windows-
Launch.zip"
$DownloadZipFile = "$env:USERPROFILE\Desktop\EC2Launch\" + $(Split-Path -Path $Url -Leaf)
Invoke-WebRequest -Uri $Url -OutFile $DownloadZipFile
$Url = "https://s3.amazonaws.com/ec2-downloads-windows/EC2Launch/latest/install.ps1"
$DownloadZipFile = "$env:USERPROFILE\Desktop\EC2Launch\" + $(Split-Path -Path $Url -Leaf)
Invoke-WebRequest -Uri $Url -OutFile $DownloadZipFile
C:\Users\Administrator\Desktop\EC2Launch\install.ps1

Verify the installation by checking C:\ProgramData\Amazon\EC2-Windows\Launch.

Verify the EC2Launch version

Use the following Windows PowerShell command to verify the installed version of EC2Launch.

PS C:\> Test-ModuleManifest -Path "C:\ProgramData\Amazon\EC2-Windows\Launch\Module

\Ec2Launch.psd1" | Select Version

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EC2Launch directory structure

EC2Launch is installed by default on Windows Server 2016 and later AMIs in the root directory C:
\ProgramData\Amazon\EC2-Windows\Launch.
Note
By default, Windows hides files and folders under C:\ProgramData. To view EC2Launch
directories and files, you must either type the path in Windows Explorer or change the folder
properties to show hidden files and folders.

The Launch directory contains the following subdirectories.

• Scripts — Contains the PowerShell scripts that make up EC2Launch.

• Module — Contains the module for building scripts related to Amazon EC2.
• Config — Contains script configuration files that you can customize.
• Sysprep — Contains Sysprep resources.
• Settings — Contains an application for the Sysprep graphical user interface.
• Logs — Contains log files generated by scripts.

All EC2Launch directories inherit their permissions from C:\ProgramData, with the exception of the
following:

• C:\ProgramData\Amazon\EC2-Windows\Launch\Module\Scripts — This folder inherits all

initial permissions from C:\ProgramData when it is created, but removes access for normal users to
CreateFiles in the directory.

Configure EC2Launch
After your instance has been initialized the first time, you can configure EC2Launch to run again and
perform different start-up tasks.

Tasks
• Configure initialization tasks (p. 496)
• Schedule EC2Launch to run on every boot (p. 497)
• Initialize drives and map drive letters (p. 498)
• Send Windows event logs to the EC2 console (p. 498)
• Send Windows is ready message after a successful boot (p. 499)

Configure initialization tasks

Specify settings in the LaunchConfig.json file to enable or disable the following initialization tasks:

• Set the computer name.

• Set the monitor to always stay on.
• Set up new wallpaper.
• Add DNS suffix list.
• Extend the boot volume size.
• Set the administrator password.

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To configure initialization settings

1. On the instance to configure, open the following file in a text editor: C:\ProgramData\Amazon
\EC2-Windows\Launch\Config\LaunchConfig.json.
2. Update the following settings as needed and save your changes. Provide a password in
adminPassword only if adminPasswordtype is Specify.

{
"setComputerName": false,
"setMonitorAlwaysOn": true,
"setWallpaper": true,
"addDnsSuffixList": true,
"extendBootVolumeSize": true,
"handleUserData": true,
"adminPasswordType": "Random | Specify | DoNothing",
"adminPassword": "password that adheres to your security policy (optional)"
}

The password types are defined as follows:

Random

EC2Launch generates a password and encrypts it using the user's key. The system disables this
setting after the instance is launched so that this password persists if the instance is rebooted or
stopped and started.
Specify

EC2Launch uses the password you specify in adminPassword. If the password does not meet
the system requirements, EC2Launch generates a random password instead. The password is
stored in LaunchConfig.json as clear text and is deleted after Sysprep sets the administrator
password. EC2Launch encrypts the password using the user's key.
DoNothing

EC2Launch uses the password you specify in the unattend.xml file. If you don't specify a
password in unattend.xml, the administrator account is disabled.
3. In Windows PowerShell, run the following command to schedule the script to run as a Windows
Scheduled Task. The script runs one time during the next boot and then disables these tasks from
running again.

PS C:\> C:\ProgramData\Amazon\EC2-Windows\Launch\Scripts\InitializeInstance.ps1 -
Schedule

Schedule EC2Launch to run on every boot

You can schedule EC2Launch to run on every boot instead of only the initial boot.

To enable EC2Launch to run on every boot:

1. Open Windows PowerShell and run the following command:

PS C:\> C:\ProgramData\Amazon\EC2-Windows\Launch\Scripts\InitializeInstance.ps1 -
SchedulePerBoot

2. Or, run the executable with the following command:

PS C:\> C:\ProgramData\Amazon\EC2-Windows\Launch\Settings\Ec2LaunchSettings.exe

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Then select Run EC2Launch on every boot. You can specify that your EC2 instance Shutdown
without Sysprep or Shutdown with Sysprep.

Note
When you enable EC2Launch to run on every boot, the following happens the next time
EC2Launch runs:

• If AdminPasswordType is still set to Random, EC2Launch will generate a new password at

the next boot. After that boot, AdminPasswordType is automatically set to DoNothing
to prevent EC2Launch from generating new passwords on subsequent boots. To
prevent EC2Launch from generating a new password on the first boot, manually set
AdminPasswordType to DoNothing before you reboot.
• HandleUserData will be set back to false unless the user data has persist set to true.
For more information about user data scripts, see User Data Scripts in the Amazon EC2 User
Guide.

Initialize drives and map drive letters

Specify settings in the DriveLetterMappingConfig.json file to map drive letters to volumes on your
EC2 instance. The script initializes drives that are not already initialized and partitioned.

To map drive letters to volumes

1. Open the C:\ProgramData\Amazon\EC2-Windows\Launch\Config

\DriveLetterMappingConfig.json file in a text editor.
2. Specify the following volume settings and save your changes:

{
"driveLetterMapping": [
{
"volumeName": "sample volume",
"driveLetter": "H"
}
]
}

3. Open Windows PowerShell and use the following command to run the EC2Launch script that
initializes the disks:

PS C:\> C:\ProgramData\Amazon\EC2-Windows\Launch\Scripts\InitializeDisks.ps1

To initialize the disks each time the instance boots, add the -Schedule flag as follows:

PS C:\> C:\ProgramData\Amazon\EC2-Windows\Launch\Scripts\InitializeDisks.ps1 -Schedule

Send Windows event logs to the EC2 console

Specify settings in the EventLogConfig.json file to send Windows Event logs to EC2 console logs.

To configure settings to send Windows Event logs

1. On the instance, open the C:\ProgramData\Amazon\EC2-Windows\Launch\Config

\EventLogConfig.json file in a text editor.
2. Configure the following log settings and save your changes:

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{
"events": [
{
"logName": "System",
"source": "An event source (optional)",
"level": "Error | Warning | Information",
"numEntries": 3
}
]
}

3. In Windows PowerShell, run the following command so that the system schedules the script to run
as a Windows Scheduled Task each time the instance boots.

PS C:\> C:\ProgramData\Amazon\EC2-Windows\Launch\Scripts\SendEventLogs.ps1 -Schedule

The logs can take three minutes or more to appear in the EC2 console logs.

Send Windows is ready message after a successful boot

The EC2Config service sent the "Windows is ready" message to the EC2 console after every boot.
EC2Launch sends this message only after the initial boot. For backwards compatibility with the
EC2Config service, you can schedule EC2Launch to send this message after every boot. On the instance,
open Windows PowerShell and run the following command. The system schedules the script to run as a
Windows Scheduled Task.

PS C:\> C:\ProgramData\Amazon\EC2-Windows\Launch\Scripts\SendWindowsIsReady.ps1 -Schedule

EC2Launch version history

Windows AMIs starting with Windows Server 2016 include a set of Windows Powershell scripts called
EC2Launch. EC2Launch performs tasks during the initial instance boot. For information about the
EC2Launch versions included in the Windows AMIs, see see AWS Windows AMIs (p. 27).

To download and install the latest version of EC2Launch, see Install the latest version of
EC2Launch (p. 495).

The following table describes the released versions of EC2Launch. Note that the version format changed
after version 1.3.610.

Version Details Release date

1.3.2003411 • Changed password generation logic to exclude passwords with 04 August

low complexity. 2021

1.3.2003364 • Updated Install-EgpuManager with IMDSv2 support. 07 June 2021

1.3.2003312 • Added log lines before and after setMonitorAlwaysOn setting. 04 May 2021
• Added AWS Nitro Enclaves package version to console log.

1.3.2003284 Improved permission model by updating location for storing user 23 March 2021
data to LocalAppData.

1.3.2003236 • Updated method for setting user password in Set- 11 February

AdminAccount and Randomize-LocalAdminPassword. 2021

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Version Details Release date

• FixedInitializeDisks to check whether disk is set to read only
before setting it to writable.

1.3.2003210 Localization fix for install.ps1. 7 January

2021

1.3.2003205 Security fix for install.ps1 to update permissions on 28 December

%ProgramData%AmazonEC2-WindowsLaunchModuleScripts 2020
directory.

1.3.2003189 Added w32tm resync after adding routes. 4 December

2020

1.3.2003155 Updated instance type information. 25 August

2020

1.3.2003150 Added OsCurrentBuild and OsReleaseId to console output . 22 April 2020

1.3.2003040 Fixed IMDS version 1 fallback logic. 7 April 2020

1.3.2002730 Added support for IMDS V2. 3 March 2020

1.3.2002240 Fixed minor issues. 31 October

2019

1.3.2001660 Fixed automatic login issue for users without password after first 2 July 2019
time executing Sysprep.

1.3.2001360 Fixed minor issues. 27 March 2019

1.3.2001220 All PowerShell scripts signed. 28 February

2019

1.3.2001200 Fixed issue with InitializeDisks.ps1 where running the script on a 27 February
node in a Microsoft Windows Server Failover Cluster would format 2019
drives on remote nodes whose drive letter matched the local drive
letter.

1.3.2001160 Fixed missing wallpaper in Windows 2019. 22 February

2019

1.3.2001040 • Added plugin for setting the monitor to never turn off to fix ACPI 21 January
issues. 2019
• SQL Server edition and version written to console.

1.3.2000930 Fix for adding routes to metadata on ipv6-enabled ENIs. 2 January

2019

1.3.2000760 • Added default configuration for RSS and Receive Queue settings 5 December
for ENA devices. 2018
• Disabled hibernation during Sysprep.

1.3.2000630 • Added route 169.254.169.253/32 for DNS server. 9 November

• Added filter of setting Admin user. 2018
• Improvements made to instance hibernation.
• Added option to schedule EC2Launch to run on every boot.

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Version Details Release date

1.3.2000430.0 • Added route 169.254.169.123/32 to AMZN time service. 19 September

• Added route 169.254.169.249/32 to GRID license service. 2018
• Added timeout of 25 seconds when attempting to start Systems
Manager.

1.3.200039.0 • Fixed improper drive lettering for EBS NVME volumes. 15 August
• Added additional logging for NVME driver versions. 2018

1.3.2000080 Fixed minor issues.  

1.3.610 Fixed issue with redirecting output and errors to files from user  
data.

1.3.590 • Added missing instances types in the wallpaper.  

• Fixed an issue with drive letter mapping and disk installation.

1.3.580 • Fixed Get-Metadata to use the default system proxy settings for  
web requests.
• Added a special case for NVMe in disk initialization.
• Fixed minor issues.

1.3.550 Added a -NoShutdown option to enable Sysprep with no  

shutdown.

1.3.540 Fixed minor issues.  

1.3.530 Fixed minor issues.  

1.3.521 Fixed minor issues.  

1.3.0 • Fixed a hexadecimal length issue for computer name change.  

• Fixed a possible reboot loop for computer name change.
• Fixed an issue in wallpaper setup.

1.2.0 • Update to display information about installed operating system  

(OS) in EC2 system log.
• Update to display EC2Launch and SSM Agent version in EC2
system log.
• Fixed minor issues.

1.1.2 • Update to display ENA driver information in EC2 system log.  

• Update to exclude Hyper-V from primary NIC filter logic.
• Added AWS KMS server and port into registry key for KMS
activation.
• Improved wallpaper setup for multiple users.
• Update to clear routes from persistent store.
• Update to remove the z from availability zone in DNS suffix list.
• Update to address an issue with the <runAsLocalSystem> tag in
user data.

1.1.1 Initial release.  

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Configure a Windows instance using the EC2Config

service
The latest launch service for Windows Server 2022 is EC2Launch v2 (p. 454), which replaces both
EC2Config and EC2Launch.

Windows AMIs for Windows Server 2012 R2 and earlier include an optional service, the EC2Config service
(EC2Config.exe). EC2Config starts when the instance boots and performs tasks during startup and
each time you stop or start the instance. EC2Config can also perform tasks on demand. Some of these
tasks are automatically enabled, while others must be enabled manually. Although optional, this service
provides access to advanced features that aren't otherwise available. This service runs in the LocalSystem
account.
Note
EC2Launch replaced EC2Config on Windows AMIs for Windows Server 2016 and 2019. For more
information, see Configure a Windows instance using EC2Launch (p. 494). The latest launch
service for all supported Windows Server versions is EC2Launch v2 (p. 454), which replaces
both EC2Config and EC2Launch.

EC2Config uses settings files to control its operation. You can update these settings files using either a
graphical tool or by directly editing XML files. The service binaries and additional files are contained in
the %ProgramFiles%\Amazon\EC2ConfigService directory.

Contents
• EC2Config tasks (p. 502)
• Install the latest version of EC2Config (p. 503)
• Stop, restart, delete, or uninstall EC2Config (p. 504)
• EC2Config and AWS Systems Manager (p. 505)
• EC2Config and Sysprep (p. 505)
• EC2 service properties (p. 506)
• EC2Config settings files (p. 509)
• Configure proxy settings for the EC2Config service (p. 513)
• EC2Config version history (p. 515)
• Troubleshoot issues with the EC2Config service (p. 526)

EC2Config tasks
EC2Config runs initial startup tasks when the instance is first started and then disables them. To run
these tasks again, you must explicitly enable them prior to shutting down the instance, or by running
Sysprep manually. These tasks are as follows:

• Set a random, encrypted password for the administrator account.

• Generate and install the host certificate used for Remote Desktop Connection.
• Dynamically extend the operating system partition to include any unpartitioned space.
• Execute the specified user data (and Cloud-Init, if it's installed). For more information about specifying
user data, see Work with instance user data (p. 603).

EC2Config performs the following tasks every time the instance starts:

• Change the host name to match the private IP address in Hex notation (this task is disabled by default
and must be enabled in order to run at instance start).

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• Configure the key management server (AWS KMS), check for Windows activation status, and activate
Windows as necessary.
• Mount all Amazon EBS volumes and instance store volumes, and map volume names to drive letters.
• Write event log entries to the console to help with troubleshooting (this task is disabled by default and
must be enabled in order to run at instance start).
• Write to the console that Windows is ready.
• Add a custom route to the primary network adapter to enable the following IP addresses when a single
NIC or multiple NICs are attached: 169.254.169.250, 169.254.169.251, and 169.254.169.254. These
addresses are used by Windows Activation and when you access instance metadata.

EC2Config performs the following task every time a user logs in:

• Display wallpaper information to the desktop background.

While the instance is running, you can request that EC2Config perform the following task on demand:

• Run Sysprep and shut down the instance so that you can create an AMI from it. For more information,
see Create a standardized Amazon Machine Image (AMI) using Sysprep (p. 40).

Install the latest version of EC2Config

By default, the EC2Config service is included in AMIs prior to Windows Server 2016. When the EC2Config
service is updated, new Windows AMIs from AWS include the latest version of the service. However, you
need to update your own Windows AMIs and instances with the latest version of EC2Config.
Note
EC2Launch replaces EC2Config on Windows Server 2016 and 2019. For more information, see
Configure a Windows instance using EC2Launch (p. 494). The latest launch service for all
supported Windows Server versions is EC2Launch v2 (p. 454), which replaces both EC2Config
and EC2Launch.

For information about how to receive notifications for EC2Config updates, see Subscribe to EC2Config
service notifications (p. 526). For information about the changes in each version, see the EC2Config
version history (p. 515).

Before you begin

• Verify that you have .NET framework 3.5 SP1 or greater.
• By default, Setup replaces your settings files with default settings files during installation and restarts
the EC2Config service when the installation is completed. If you changed EC2Config service settings,
copy the config.xml file from the %Program Files%\Amazon\Ec2ConfigService\Settings
directory. After you update the EC2Config service, you can restore this file to retain your configuration
changes.
• If your version of EC2Config is earlier than version 2.1.19 and you are installing version 2.2.12 or
earlier, you must first install version 2.1.19. To install version 2.1.19, download EC2Install_2.1.19.zip,
unzip the file, and then run EC2Install.exe.
Note
If your version of EC2Config is earlier than version 2.1.19 and you are installing version
2.3.313 or later, you can install it directly without installing version 2.1.19 first.

Verify the EC2Config version

Use the following procedure to verify the version of EC2Config that is installed on your instances.

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User Guide for Windows Instances
EC2Config service

To verify the installed version of EC2Config

1. Launch an instance from your AMI and connect to it.

2. In Control Panel, select Programs and Features.
3. In the list of installed programs, look for Ec2ConfigService. Its version number appears in the
Version column.

Update EC2Config
Use the following procedure to download and install the latest version of EC2Config on your instances.

To download and install the latest version of EC2Config

1. Download and unzip the EC2Config installer.

2. Run EC2Install.exe. For a complete list of options, run EC2Install with the /? option. By
default, setup displays prompts. To run the command with no prompts, use the /quiet option.
Important
To keep the custom settings from the config.xml file that you saved, run EC2Install
with the /norestart option, restore your settings, and then restart the EC2Config service
manually.
3. If you are running EC2Config version 4.0 or later, you must restart SSM Agent on the instance from
the Microsoft Services snap-in.
Note
The updated EC2Config version information will not appear in the instance System Log or
Trusted Advisor check until you reboot or stop and start your instance.

To download and install the latest version of EC2Config using PowerShell

To download, unzip, and install the latest version of EC2Config using PowerShell, run the following
commands from a PowerShell window:

$Url = "https://s3.amazonaws.com/ec2-downloads-windows/EC2Config/EC2Install.zip"
$DownloadZipFile = "$env:USERPROFILE\Desktop\" + $(Split-Path -Path $Url -Leaf)
$ExtractPath = "$env:USERPROFILE\Desktop\"
Invoke-WebRequest -Uri $Url -OutFile $DownloadZipFile
$ExtractShell = New-Object -ComObject Shell.Application
$ExtractFiles = $ExtractShell.Namespace($DownloadZipFile).Items()
$ExtractShell.NameSpace($ExtractPath).CopyHere($ExtractFiles)
Start-Process $ExtractPath
Start-Process `
-FilePath $env:USERPROFILE\Desktop\EC2Install.exe `
-ArgumentList "/S"

Verify the installation by checking C:\Program Files\Amazon\ for the Ec2ConfigService

directory.

Stop, restart, delete, or uninstall EC2Config

You can manage the EC2Config service just as you would any other service.

To apply updated settings to your instance, you can stop and restart the service. If you're manually
installing EC2Config, you must stop the service first.

To stop the EC2Config service

1. Launch and connect to your Windows instance.

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2. On the Start menu, point to Administrative Tools, and then click Services.
3. In the list of services, right-click EC2Config, and select Stop.

To restart the EC2Config service

1. Launch and connect to your Windows instance.

2. On the Start menu, point to Administrative Tools, and then click Services.
3. In the list of services, right-click EC2Config, and select Restart.

If you don't need to update the configuration settings, create your own AMI, or use AWS Systems
Manager, you can delete and uninstall the service. Deleting a service removes its registry subkey.
Uninstalling a service removes the files, the registry subkey, and any shortcuts to the service.

To delete the EC2Config service

1. Start a command prompt window.

2. Run the following command:

sc delete ec2config

To uninstall EC2Config

1. Launch and connect to your Windows instance.

2. On the Start menu, click Control Panel.
3. Double-click Programs and Features.
4. On the list of programs, select EC2ConfigService, and click Uninstall .

EC2Config and AWS Systems Manager

The EC2Config service processes Systems Manager requests on instances created from AMIs for versions
of Windows Server prior to Windows Server 2016 that were published before November 2016.

Instances created from AMIs for versions of Windows Server prior to Windows Server 2016 that were
published after November 2016 include the EC2Config service and SSM Agent. EC2Config performs all of
the tasks described earlier, and SSM Agent processes requests for Systems Manager capabilities like Run
Command and State Manager.

You can use Run Command to upgrade your existing instances to use to the latest version of the
EC2Config service and SSM Agent. For more information, see Update SSM Agent by using Run Command
in the AWS Systems Manager User Guide.

EC2Config and Sysprep

The EC2Config service runs Sysprep, a Microsoft tool that enables you to create a customized Windows
AMI that can be reused. When EC2Config calls Sysprep, it uses the files in %ProgramFiles%\Amazon
\EC2ConfigService\Settings to determine which operations to perform. You can edit these files
indirectly using the Ec2 Service Properties dialog box, or directly using an XML editor or a text editor.
However, there are some advanced settings that aren't available in the Ec2 Service Properties dialog
box, so you must edit those entries directly.

If you create an AMI from an instance after updating its settings, the new settings are applied to any
instance that's launched from the new AMI. For information about creating an AMI, see Create a custom
Windows AMI (p. 37).

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EC2 service properties

The following procedure describes how to use the Ec2 Service Properties dialog box to enable or disable
settings.

To change settings using the Ec2 Service Properties dialog box

1. Launch and connect to your Windows instance.

2. From the Start menu, click All Programs, and then click EC2ConfigService Settings.

3. On the General tab of the Ec2 Service Properties dialog box, you can enable or disable the
following settings.

Set Computer Name

If this setting is enabled (it is disabled by default), the host name is compared to the current
internal IP address at each boot; if the host name and internal IP address do not match, the
host name is reset to contain the internal IP address and then the system reboots to pick up the
new host name. To set your own host name, or to prevent your existing host name from being
modified, do not enable this setting.
User Data

User data execution enables you to specify scripts in the instance metadata. By default, these
scripts are run during the initial launch. You can also configure them to run the next time you
reboot or start the instance, or every time you reboot or start the instance.

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If you have a large script, we recommend that you use user data to download the script, and
then run it.

For more information, see User data execution (p. 583).

Event Log

Use this setting to display event log entries on the console during boot for easy monitoring and
debugging.

Click Settings to specify filters for the log entries sent to the console. The default filter sends
the three most recent error entries from the system event log to the console.
Wallpaper Information

Use this setting to display system information on the desktop background. The following is an
example of the information displayed on the desktop background.

The information displayed on the desktop background is controlled by the settings file
EC2ConfigService\Settings\WallpaperSettings.xml.
Enable Hibernation

Use this setting to allow EC2 to signal the operating system to perform hibernation.
4. Click the Storage tab. You can enable or disable the following settings.

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Root Volume

This setting dynamically extends Disk 0/Volume 0 to include any unpartitioned space. This can
be useful when the instance is booted from a root device volume that has a custom size.
Initialize Drives

This setting formats and mounts all volumes attached to the instance during start.
Drive Letter Mapping

The system maps the volumes attached to an instance to drive letters. For Amazon EBS
volumes, the default is to assign drive letters going from D: to Z:. For instance store volumes,
the default depends on the driver. AWS PV drivers and Citrix PV drivers assign instance store
volumes drive letters going from Z: to A:. Red Hat drivers assign instance store volumes drive
letters going from D: to Z:.

To choose the drive letters for your volumes, click Mappings. In the DriveLetterSetting dialog
box, specify the Volume Name and Drive Letter values for each volume, click Apply, and then
click OK. We recommend that you select drive letters that avoid conflicts with drive letters that
are likely to be in use, such as drive letters in the middle of the alphabet.

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After you specify a drive letter mapping and attach a volume with same label as one of the
volume names that you specified, EC2Config automatically assigns your specified drive letter
to that volume. However, the drive letter mapping fails if the drive letter is already in use. Note
that EC2Config doesn't change the drive letters of volumes that were already mounted when
you specified the drive letter mapping.
5. To save your settings and continue working on them later, click OK to close the Ec2 Service
Properties dialog box. If you have finished customizing your instance and want to create an AMI
from that instance, see Create a standardized Amazon Machine Image (AMI) using Sysprep (p. 40).

EC2Config settings files

The settings files control the operation of the EC2Config service. These files are located in the C:
\Program Files\Amazon\Ec2ConfigService\Settings directory:

• ActivationSettings.xml—Controls product activation using a key management server (AWS

KMS).
• AWS.EC2.Windows.CloudWatch.json—Controls which performance counters to send to
CloudWatch and which logs to send to CloudWatch Logs.
• BundleConfig.xml—Controls how EC2Config prepares an instance store-backed instance for AMI
creation.
• Config.xml—Controls the primary settings.
• DriveLetterConfig.xml—Controls drive letter mappings.
• EventLogConfig.xml—Controls the event log information that's displayed on the console while the
instance is booting.
• WallpaperSettings.xml—Controls the information that's displayed on the desktop background.

ActivationSettings.xml

This file contains settings that control product activation. When Windows boots, the EC2Config service
checks whether Windows is already activated. If Windows is not already activated, it attempts to activate
Windows by searching for the specified AWS KMS server.

• SetAutodiscover—Indicates whether to detect a AWS KMS automatically.

• TargetKMSServer—Stores the private IP address of a AWS KMS. The AWS KMS must be in the same
Region as your instance.
• DiscoverFromZone—Discovers the AWS KMS server from the specified DNS zone.
• ReadFromUserData—Gets the AWS KMS server from UserData.
• LegacySearchZones—Discovers the AWS KMS server from the specified DNS zone.

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• DoActivate—Attempts activation using the specified settings in the section. This value can be true
or false.
• LogResultToConsole—Displays the result to the console.

BundleConfig.xml

This file contains settings that control how EC2Config prepares an instance for AMI creation.

• AutoSysprep—Indicates whether to use Sysprep automatically. Change the value to Yes to use
Sysprep.
• SetRDPCertificate—Sets a self-signed certificate to the Remote Desktop server. This enables
you to securely RDP into the instances. Change the value to Yes if the new instances should have the
certificate.

This setting is not used with Windows Server 2008 or Windows Server 2012 instances because they
can generate their own certificates.
• SetPasswordAfterSysprep—Sets a random password on a newly launched instance, encrypts it
with the user launch key, and outputs the encrypted password to the console. Change the value of this
setting to No if the new instances should not be set to a random encrypted password.

Config.xml

Plug-ins

• Ec2SetPassword—Generates a random encrypted password each time you launch an instance. This
feature is disabled by default after the first launch so that reboots of this instance don't change a
password set by the user. Change this setting to Enabled to continue to generate passwords each
time you launch an instance.

This setting is important if you are planning to create an AMI from your instance.
• Ec2SetComputerName—Sets the host name of the instance to a unique name based on the IP
address of the instance and reboots the instance. To set your own host name, or prevent your existing
host name from being modified, you must disable this setting.
• Ec2InitializeDrives—Initializes and formats all volumes during startup. This feature is enabled
by default.
• Ec2EventLog—Displays event log entries in the console. By default, the three most recent error
entries from the system event log are displayed. To specify the event log entries to display, edit the
EventLogConfig.xml file located in the EC2ConfigService\Settings directory. For information
about the settings in this file, see Eventlog Key in the MSDN Library.
• Ec2ConfigureRDP—Sets up a self-signed certificate on the instance, so users can securely access the
instance using Remote Desktop. This feature is disabled on Windows Server 2008 and Windows Server
2012 instances because they can generate their own certificates.
• Ec2OutputRDPCert—Displays the Remote Desktop certificate information to the console so that the
user can verify it against the thumbprint.
• Ec2SetDriveLetter—Sets the drive letters of the mounted volumes based on user-defined settings.
By default, when an Amazon EBS volume is attached to an instance, it can be mounted using the drive
letter on the instance. To specify your drive letter mappings, edit the DriveLetterConfig.xml file
located in the EC2ConfigService\Settings directory.
• Ec2WindowsActivate—The plug-in handles Windows activation. It checks to see if Windows is
activated. If not, it updates the AWS KMS client settings, and then activates Windows.

To modify the AWS KMS settings, edit the ActivationSettings.xml file located in the
EC2ConfigService\Settings directory.

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• Ec2DynamicBootVolumeSize—Extends Disk 0/Volume 0 to include any unpartitioned space.

• Ec2HandleUserData—Creates and runs scripts created by the user on the first launch of an instance
after Sysprep is run. Commands wrapped in script tags are saved to a batch file, and commands
wrapped in PowerShell tags are saved to a .ps1 file (corresponds to the User Data check box on the Ec2
Service Properties dialog box).
• Ec2ElasticGpuSetup—Installs the Elastic GPU software package if the instance is associated with
an elastic GPU.
• Ec2FeatureLogging—Sends Windows feature installation and corresponding service status to the
console. Supported only for the Microsoft Hyper-V feature and corresponding vmms service.

Global Settings

• ManageShutdown—Ensures that instances launched from instance store-backed AMIs do not

terminate while running Sysprep.
• SetDnsSuffixList—Sets the DNS suffix of the network adapter for Amazon EC2. This allows DNS
resolution of servers running in Amazon EC2 without providing the fully qualified domain name.
• WaitForMetaDataAvailable—Ensures that the EC2Config service will wait for metadata to
be accessible and the network available before continuing with the boot. This check ensures that
EC2Config can obtain information from metadata for activation and other plug-ins.
• ShouldAddRoutes—Adds a custom route to the primary network adapter to enable the following IP
addresses when multiple NICs are attached: 169.254.169.250, 169.254.169.251, and 169.254.169.254.
These addresses are used by Windows Activation and when you access instance metadata.
• RemoveCredentialsfromSyspreponStartup—Removes the administrator password from
Sysprep.xml the next time the service starts. To ensure that this password persists, edit this setting.

DriveLetterConfig.xml

This file contains settings that control drive letter mappings. By default, a volume can be mapped to any
available drive letter. You can mount a volume to a particular drive letter as follows.

<?xml version="1.0" standalone="yes"?>

<DriveLetterMapping>
<Mapping>
<VolumeName></VolumeName>
<DriveLetter></DriveLetter>
</Mapping>
. . .
<Mapping>
<VolumeName></VolumeName>
<DriveLetter></DriveLetter>
</Mapping>
</DriveLetterMapping>

• VolumeName—The volume label. For example, My Volume. To specify a mapping for an instance
storage volume, use the label Temporary Storage X, where X is a number from 0 to 25.
• DriveLetter—The drive letter. For example, M:. The mapping fails if the drive letter is already in use.

EventLogConfig.xml

This file contains settings that control the event log information that's displayed on the console while
the instance is booting. By default, we display the three most recent error entries from the System event
log.

• Category—The event log key to monitor.

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• ErrorType—The event type (for example, Error, Warning, Information.)

• NumEntries—The number of events stored for this category.
• LastMessageTime—To prevent the same message from being pushed repeatedly, the service updates
this value every time it pushes a message.
• AppName—The event source or application that logged the event.

WallpaperSettings.xml

This file contains settings that control the information that's displayed on the desktop background. The
following information is displayed by default.

• Hostname—Displays the computer name.

• Instance ID—Displays the ID of the instance.
• Public IP Address—Displays the public IP address of the instance.
• Private IP Address—Displays the private IP address of the instance.
• Availability Zone—Displays the Availability Zone in which the instance is running.
• Instance Size—Displays the type of instance.
• Architecture—Displays the setting of the PROCESSOR_ARCHITECTURE environment variable.

You can remove any of the information that's displayed by default by deleting its entry. You can add
additional instance metadata to display as follows.

<WallpaperInformation>
<name>display_name</name>
<source>metadata</source>
<identifier>meta-data/path</identifier>
</WallpaperInformation>

You can add additional System environment variables to display as follows.

<WallpaperInformation>
<name>display_name</name>
<source>EnvironmentVariable</source>
<identifier>variable-name</identifier>
</WallpaperInformation>

InitializeDrivesSettings.xml

This file contains settings that control how EC2Config initializes drives.

By default, EC2Config initialize drives that were not brought online with the operating system. You can
customize the plugin as follows.

<InitializeDrivesSettings>
<SettingsGroup>setting</SettingsGroup>
</InitializeDrivesSettings>

Use a settings group to specify how you want to initialize drives:

FormatWithTRIM

Enables the TRIM command when formatting drives. After a drive has been formatted and
initialized, the system restores TRIM configuration.

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Starting with EC2Config version 3.18, the TRIM command is disabled during the disk format
operation by default. This improves formatting times. Use this setting to enable TRIM during the
disk format operation for EC2Config version 3.18 and later.
FormatWithoutTRIM

Disables the TRIM command when formatting drives and improves formatting times in Windows.
After a drive has been formatted and initialized, the system restores TRIM configuration.
DisableInitializeDrives

Disables formatting for new drives. Use this setting to initialize drives manually.

Configure proxy settings for the EC2Config service

You can configure the EC2Config service to communicate through a proxy using one of the following
methods: the AWS SDK for .NET, the system.net element, or Microsoft Group Policy and Internet
Explorer. Using the AWS SDK for .NET is the preferred method because you can specify a user name and
password.

Methods
• Configure proxy settings using the AWS SDK for .NET (Preferred) (p. 513)
• Configure proxy settings using the system.net element (p. 514)
• Configure proxy settings using Microsoft Group Policy and Microsoft Internet Explorer (p. 514)

Configure proxy settings using the AWS SDK for .NET (Preferred)
You can configure proxy settings for the EC2Config service by specifying the proxy element in the
Ec2Config.exe.config file. For more information, see Configuration Files Reference for AWS SDK
for .NET.

To specify the proxy element in Ec2Config.exe.config

1. Edit the Ec2Config.exe.config file on an instance where you want the EC2Config service
to communicate through a proxy. By default, the file is located in the following directory:
%ProgramFiles%\Amazon\Ec2ConfigService.
2. Add the following aws element to the configSections. Do not add this to any existing
sectionGroups.

For EC2Config versions 3.17 or earlier

<configSections>
<section name="aws" type="Amazon.AWSSection, AWSSDK"/>
</configSections>

For EC2Config versions 3.18 or later

<configSections>
<section name="aws" type="Amazon.AWSSection, AWSSDK.Core"/>
</configSections>

3. Add the following aws element to the Ec2Config.exe.config file.

<aws>
<proxy
host="string value"

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port="string value"
username="string value"
password="string value" />
</aws>

4. Save your changes.

Configure proxy settings using the system.net element

You can specify proxy settings in a system.net element in the Ec2Config.exe.config file. For more
information, see defaultProxy Element (Network Settings) on MSDN.

To specify the system.net element in Ec2Config.exe.config

1. Edit the Ec2Config.exe.config file on an instance where you want the EC2Config service
to communicate through a proxy. By default, the file is located in the following directory:
%ProgramFiles%\Amazon\Ec2ConfigService.
2. Add a defaultProxy entry to system.net. For more information, see defaultProxy Element
(Network Settings) on MSDN.

For example, the following configuration routes all traffic to use the proxy that is currently
configured for Internet Explorer, with the exception of the metadata and licensing traffic, which will
bypass the proxy.

<defaultProxy>
<proxy usesystemdefault="true" />
<bypasslist>
<add address="169.254.169.250" />
<add address="169.254.169.251" />
<add address="169.254.169.254" />
</bypasslist>
</defaultProxy>

3. Save your changes.

Configure proxy settings using Microsoft Group Policy and Microsoft Internet
Explorer
The EC2Config service runs under the Local System user account. You can specify instance-wide proxy
settings for this account in Internet Explorer after you change Group Policy settings on the instance.

To configure proxy settings using Group Policy and Internet Explorer

1. On an instance where you want the EC2Config service to communicate through a proxy, open a
Command prompt as an Administrator, type gpedit.msc, and press Enter.
2. In the Local Group Policy Editor, under Local Computer Policy, choose Computer Configuration,
Administrative Templates, Windows Components, Internet Explorer.
3. In the right-pane, choose Make proxy settings per-machine (rather than per-user) and then choose
Edit policy setting.
4. Choose Enabled, and then choose Apply.
5. Open Internet Explorer, and then choose the Tools button.
6. Choose Internet Option, and then choose the Connections tab.
7. Choose LAN settings.
8. Under Proxy server, choose the Use a proxy server for your LAN option.
9. Specify address and port information and then choose OK.

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EC2Config version history

Windows AMIs prior to Windows Server 2016 include an optional service called the EC2Config service
(EC2Config.exe). EC2Config starts when the instance boots and performs tasks during startup and
each time you stop or start the instance. For information about the EC2Config versions included in the
Windows AMIs, see AWS Windows AMIs (p. 27).

You can receive notifications when new versions of the EC2Config service are released. For more
information, see Subscribe to EC2Config service notifications (p. 526).

The following table describes the released versions of EC2Config. For information about the updates for
SSM Agent, see Systems Manager SSM Agent Release Notes.

Version Details Release date

4.9.4500 • Updated Install-EgpuManagerConfig with IMDS v2 support. 7 September

• Updated web links to use https. 2021
• New version of SSM Agent 3.1.282.0

4.9.4419 • Fixed IMDS version 1 fallback logic 2 June 2021

• Updated all usage of Windows temp directory to EC2Config temp
directory
• New version of SSM Agent 3.0.1124.0

4.9.4381 • Added support for SSM document schema version 2.2 in 4 May 2021
EC2ConfigUpdater
• Added AWS Nitro Enclaves package version to console log
• New version of SSM Agent 3.0.529.0

4.9.4326 • Removed all links in the settings UI 3 March 2021

• This is the last EC2Config version that supports Windows Server
2008.

4.9.4279 • Fixed security issue related to Ec2ConfigMonitor scheduled 11 December

task 2020
• Fixed drive letter mapping issue and incorrect ephemeral disk
count
• Added OsCurrentBuild and OsReleaseId to console output
• New version of SSM Agent 2.3.871.0

4.9.4222 • Fixed IMDS version 1 fallback logic 7 April 2020

• New version of SSM Agent 2.3.842.0

4.9.4122 • Added support for IMDS v2 4 March 2020

• New version of SSM Agent 2.3.814.0

4.9.3865 • Fixed issue detecting COM port for Windows Server 2008 R2 on 31 October
metal instances 2019
• New version of SSM Agent 2.3.722.0

4.9.3519 • New version of SSM Agent 2.3.634.0 18 June 2019

4.9.3429 • New version of SSM Agent 2.3.542.0 25 April 2019

4.9.3289 • New version of SSM Agent 2.3.444.0 11 February

2019

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Version Details Release date

4.9.3270 • Added plugin for setting the monitor to never turn off to fix ACPI 22 January
issues 2019
• SQL Server edition and version written to console
• New version of SSM Agent 2.3.415.0

4.9.3230 • Drive Letter Mapping description updated to better align to 10 January

functionality 2019
• New version of SSM Agent 2.3.372.0

4.9.3160 • Increased wait time for primary NIC 15 December

• Added default configuration for RSS and Receive Queue settings 2018
for ENA devices
• Disabled hibernation during Sysprep
• New version of SSM Agent 2.3.344.0
• Upgraded AWS SDK to 3.3.29.13

4.9.3067 • Improvements made to instance hibernation 8 November

• New version of SSM Agent 2.3.235.0 2018

4.9.3034 • Added route 169.254.169.253/32 for DNS server 24 October

• New version of SSM Agent 2.3.193.0 2018

4.9.2986 • Added signing for all EC2Config related binaries 11 October

• New version of SSM Agent 2.3.136.0 2018

4.9.2953 New version of SSM Agent (2.3.117.0) 2 October

2018

4.9.2926 New version of SSM Agent (2.3.68.0) 18 September

2018

4.9.2905 • New version of SSM Agent (2.3.50.0) 17 September

• Added route 169.254.169.123/32 to AMZN time service 2018
• Added route 169.254.169.249/32 to GRID license service
• Fixed an issue causing EBS NVMe volumes to be marked as
ephemeral

4.9.2854 New version of SSM Agent (2.3.13.0) 17 August

2018

4.9.2831 New version of SSM Agent (2.2.916.0) 7 August 2018

4.9.2818 New version of SSM Agent (2.2.902.0) 31 July 2018

4.9.2756 New version of SSM Agent (2.2.800.0) 27 June 2018

4.9.2688 New version of SSM Agent (2.2.607.0) 25 May 2018

4.9.2660 New version of SSM Agent (2.2.546.0) 11 May 2018

4.9.2644 New version of SSM Agent (2.2.493.0) 26 April 2018

4.9.2586 New version of SSM Agent (2.2.392.0) 28 March 2018

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Version Details Release date

4.9.2565 • New version of SSM Agent (2.2.355.0) 13 March 2018

• Fixed an issue on M5 and C5 instances (unable to find PV drivers)
• Add console logging for instance type, newest PV drivers, and
NVMe drivers

4.9.2549 New version of SSM Agent (2.2.325.0) 8 March 2018

4.9.2461 New version of SSM Agent (2.2.257.0) 15 February

2018

4.9.2439 New version of SSM Agent (2.2.191.0) 6 February

2018

4.9.2400 New version of SSM Agent (2.2.160.0) 16 January

2018

4.9.2327 • New version of SSM Agent (2.2.120.0) 2 January

• Added COM port discovery on Amazon EC2 bare metal instances 2018
• Added Hyper-V status logging on Amazon EC2 bare metal
instances

4.9.2294 New version of SSM Agent (2.2.103.0) 4 December

2017

4.9.2262 New version of SSM Agent (2.2.93.0) 15 November

2017

4.9.2246 New version of SSM Agent (2.2.82.0) 11 November

2017

4.9.2218 New version of SSM Agent (2.2.64.0) 29 October

2017

4.9.2212 New version of SSM Agent (2.2.58.0) 23 October

2017

4.9.2203 New version of SSM Agent (2.2.45.0) 19 October

2017

4.9.2188 New version of SSM Agent (2.2.30.0) 10 October

2017

4.9.2180 • New version of SSM Agent (2.2.24.0) 5 October

• Added the Elastic GPU plugin for GPU instances 2017

4.9.2143 New version of SSM Agent (2.2.16.0) 1 October

2017

4.9.2140 New version of SSM Agent (2.1.10.0)  

4.9.2130 New version of SSM Agent (2.1.4.0)  

4.9.2106 New version of SSM Agent (2.0.952.0)  

4.9.2061 New version of SSM Agent (2.0.922.0)  

4.9.2047 New version of SSM Agent (2.0.913.0)  

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Version Details Release date

4.9.2031 New version of SSM Agent (2.0.902.0)  

4.9.2016 • New version of SSM Agent (2.0.879.0)  

• Fixed the CloudWatch Logs directory path for Windows Server
2003

4.9.1981 • New version of SSM Agent (2.0.847.0)  

• Fixed the issue with important.txt being generated in EBS
volumes.

4.9.1964 New version of SSM Agent (2.0.842.0)  

4.9.1951 • New version of SSM Agent (2.0.834.0)  

• Fixed the issue with drive letter not being mapped from Z: for
ephemeral drives.

4.9.1925 • New version of SSM Agent (2.0.822.0)  

• [Bug] This version is not a valid update target from SSM Agent
v4.9.1775.

4.9.1900 New version of SSM Agent (2.0.805.0)  

4.9.1876 • New version of SSM Agent (2.0.796.0)  

• Fixed an issue with output/error redirection for admin userdata
execution.

4.9.1863 • New version of SSM Agent (2.0.790.0)  

• Fixed problems with attaching multiple EBS volumes to an
Amazon EC2 instance.
• Improved CloudWatch to take a configuration path, keeping the
backwards compatibility.

4.9.1791 New version of SSM Agent (2.0.767.0)  

4.9.1775 New version of SSM Agent (2.0.761.0)  

4.9.1752 New version of SSM Agent (2.0.755.0)  

4.9.1711 New version of SSM Agent (2.0.730.0)  

4.8.1676 New version of SSM Agent (2.0.716.0)  

4.7.1631 New version of SSM Agent (2.0.682.0)  

4.6.1579 • New version of SSM Agent (2.0.672.0)  

• Fixed agent update issue with v4.3, v4.4, and v4.5

4.5.1534 New version of SSM Agent (2.0.645.1)  

4.4.1503 New version of SSM Agent (2.0.633.0)  

4.3.1472 New version of SSM Agent (2.0.617.1)  

4.2.1442 New version of SSM Agent (2.0.599.0)  

4.1.1378 New version of SSM Agent (2.0.558.0)  

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Version Details Release date

4.0.1343 • Run Command, State Manager, the CloudWatch agent, and  

domain join support have been moved into another agent called
SSM Agent. SSM Agent will be installed as part of the EC2Config
upgrade. For more information, see EC2Config and AWS Systems
Manager (p. 505).
• If you have a proxy set up in EC2Config, you will need to update
your proxy settings for SSM Agent before upgrading. If you
do not update the proxy settings, you will not be able to use
Run Command to manage your instances. To avoid this, see the
following information before updating to the newer version:
Installing and Configuring SSM Agent on Windows Instances in
the AWS Systems Manager User Guide.
• If you previously enabled CloudWatch integration
on your instances by using a local configuration file
(AWS.EC2.Windows.CloudWatch.json), you will need to
configure the file to work with SSM Agent.

3.19.1153 • Re-enabled activation plugin for instances with old AWS KMS  
configuration.
• Change default TRIM behavior to be disabled during disk
format operation and added FormatWithTRIM for overriding
InitializeDisks plugin with userdata.

3.18.1118 • Fix to reliably add routes to the primary network adapter.  

• Updates to improve support for AWS services.

3.17.1032 • Fixes duplicate system logs appearing when filters set to same  
category.
• Fixes to prevent from hanging during disk initialization.

3.16.930 Added support to log "Window is Ready to use" event to Windows  

Event Log on start.

3.15.880 Fix to allow uploading Systems Manager Run Command output to  

S3 bucket names with '.' character.

3.14.786 Added support to override InitializeDisks plugin settings. For  

example: To speed up SSD disk initialize, you can temporarily
disable TRIM by specifying this in userdata:

<InitializeDrivesSettings><SettingsGroup>FormatWithoutTRIM</
SettingsGroup></InitializeDrivesSettings

3.13.727 Systems Manager Run Command - Fixes to process commands  

reliably after windows reboot.

3.12.649 • Fix to gracefully handle reboot when running commands/scripts.  

• Fix to reliably cancel running commands.
• Add support for (optionally) uploading MSI logs to S3 when
installing applications via Systems Manager Run Command.

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Version Details Release date

3.11.521 • Fixes to enable RDP thumbprint generation for Windows Server  

2003.
• Fixes to include timezone and UTC offset in the EC2Config log
lines.
• Systems Manager support to run Run Command commands in
parallel.
• Roll back previous change to bring partitioned disks online.

3.10.442 • Fix Systems Manager configuration failures when installing MSI  

applications.
• Fix to reliably bring storage disks online.
• Updates to improve support for AWS services.

3.9.359 • Fix in post Sysprep script to leave the configuration of windows  

update in a default state.
• Fix the password generation plugin to improve the reliability in
getting GPO password policy settings.
• Restrict EC2Config/SSM log folder permissions to the local
Administrators group.
• Updates to improve support for AWS services.

3.8.294 • Fixed an issue with CloudWatch that prevented logs from getting  
uploaded when not on primary drive.
• Improved the disk initialization process by adding retry logic.
• Added improved error handling when the SetPassword plugin
occasionally failed during AMI creation.
• Updates to improve support for AWS services.

3.7.308 • Improvements to the ec2config-cli utility for config testing and  

troubleshooting within instance.
• Avoid adding static routes for AWS KMS and meta-data service on
an OpenVPN adapter.
• Fixed an issue where user-data execution was not honoring the
"persist" tag.
• Improved error handling when logging to the EC2 console is not
available.
• Updates to improve support for AWS services.

3.6.269 • Windows activation reliability fix to first use link local address  

169.254.0.250/251 for activating windows via AWS KMS
• Improved proxy handling for Systems Manager, Windows
Activation and Domain Join scenarios
• Fixed an issue where duplicate lines of user accounts were added
to the Sysprep answer file

3.5.228 • Addressed a scenario where the CloudWatch plugin may consume  

excessive CPU and memory reading Windows Event Logs
• Added a link to the CloudWatch configuration documentation in
the EC2Config Settings UI

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EC2Config service

Version Details Release date

3.4.212 • Fixes to EC2Config when used in combination with VM-Import.  

• Fixed service naming issue in the WiX installer.

3.3.174 • Improved exception handling for Systems Manager and domain  

join failures.
• Change to support Systems Manager SSM schema versioning.
• Fixed formatting ephemeral disks on Win2K3.
• Change to support configuring disk size greater than 2TB.
• Reduced virtual memory usage by setting GC mode to default.
• Support for downloading artifacts from UNC path in
aws:psModule and aws:application plugin.
• Improved logging for Windows activation plugin.

3.2.97 • Performance improvements by delay loading Systems Manager  

SSM assemblies.
• Improved exception handling for malformed sysprep2008.xml.
• Command line support for Systems Manager "Apply"
configuration.
• Change to support domain join when there is a pending
computer rename.
• Support for optional parameters in the aws:applications
plugin.
• Support for command array in aws:psModule plugin.

3.0.54 • Enable support for Systems Manager.  

• Automatically domain join EC2 Windows instances to an AWS
directory via Systems Manager.
• Configure and upload CloudWatch logs/metrics via Systems
Manager.
• Install PowerShell modules via Systems Manager.
• Install MSI applications via Systems Manager.

2.4.233 • Added scheduled task to recover EC2Config from service startup  

failures.
• Improvements to the Console log error messages.
• Updates to improve support for AWS services.

2.3.313 • Fixed an issue with large memory consumption in some cases  

when the CloudWatch Logs feature is enabled.
• Fixed an upgrade bug so that ec2config versions lower than
2.1.19 can now upgrade to latest.
• Updated COM port opening exception to be more friendly and
useful in logs.
• Ec2configServiceSettings UI disabled resizing and fixed the
attribution and version display placement in UI.

2.2.12 • Handled NullPointerException while querying a registry key  

for determining Windows Sysprep state which returned null
occasionally.
• Freed up unmanaged resources in finally block.

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EC2Config service

Version Details Release date

2.2.11 Fixed a issue in CloudWatch plugin for handling empty log lines.  

2.2.10 • Removed configuring CloudWatch Logs settings through UI.  

• Enable users to define CloudWatch Logs settings in
%ProgramFiles%\Amazon\Ec2ConfigService\Settings
\AWS.EC2.Windows.CloudWatch.json file to allow future
enhancements.

2.2.9 Fixed unhandled exception and added logging.  

2.2.8 • Fixes Windows OS version check in EC2Config Installer to support  

Windows Server 2003 SP1 and later.
• Fixes null value handling when reading registry keys related to
updating Sysprep config files.

2.2.7 • Added support for EC2Config to run during Sysprep execution for  
Windows 2008 and greater.
• Improved exception handling and logging for better diagnostics

2.2.6 • Reduced the load on the instance and on CloudWatch Logs when  
uploading log events.
• Addressed an upgrade issue where the CloudWatch Logs plug-in
did not always stay enabled

2.2.5 • Added support to upload logs to CloudWatch Log Service.  

• Fixed a race condition issue in Ec2OutputRDPCert plug-in
• Changed EC2Config Service recovery option to Restart from
TakeNoAction
• Added more exception information when EC2Config Crashes

2.2.4 • Fixed a typo in PostSysprep.cmd  

• Fixed the bug which EC2Config does not pin itself onto start
menu for OS2012+

2.2.3 • Added option to install EC2Config without service starting  

immediately upon install. To use, run 'Ec2Install.exe start=false'
from the command prompt
• Added parameter in wallpaper plugin to control adding/
removing wallpaper. To use, run 'Ec2WallpaperInfo.exe set' or
'Ec2WallpaperInfo.exe revert' from the command prompt
• Added checking for RealTimeIsUniversal key, output incorrect
settings of the RealTimeIsUniveral registry key to the Console
• Removed EC2Config dependency on Windows temp folder
• Removed UserData execution dependency on .Net 3.5

2.2.2 • Added check to service stop behavior to check that resources are  
being released
• Fixed issue with long execution times when joined to domain

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Version Details Release date

2.2.1 • Updated Installer to allow upgrades from older versions  

• Fixed Ec2WallpaperInfo bug in .Net4.5 only environment
• Fixed intermittent driver detection bug
• Added silent install option. Execute Ec2Install.exe with the '-q'
option. eg: 'Ec2Install.exe -q'

2.2.0 • Added support for .Net4 and .Net4.5 only environments  

• Updated Installer

2.1.19 • Added ephemeral disk labeling support when using Intel network  
driver (eg. C3 instance Type). For more information, see Enhanced
networking on Windows (p. 973).
• Added AMI Origin Version and AMI Origin Name support to the
console output
• Made changes to the Console Output for consistent formatting/
parsing
• Updated Help File

2.1.18 • Added EC2Config WMI Object for Completion notification (-  

Namespace root\Amazon -Class EC2_ConfigService)
• Improved Performance of Startup WMI query with large Event
Logs; could cause prolonged high CPU during initial execution

2.1.17 • Fixed UserData execution issue with Standard Output and  

Standard Error buffer filling
• Fixed incorrect RDP thumbprint sometimes appearing in Console
Output for >= w2k8 OS
• Console Output now contains 'RDPCERTIFICATE-SubjectName:'
for Windows 2008+, which contains the machine name value
• Added D:\ to Drive Letter Mapping dropdown
• Moved Help button to top right and changed look/feel
• Added Feedback survey link to top right

2.1.16 • General Tab includes link to EC2Config download page for new  
Versions
• Desktop Wallpaper overlay now stored in Users Local Appdata
folder instead of My Documents to support MyDoc redirection
• MSSQLServer name sync'd with system in Post-Sysprep script
(2008+)
• Reordered Application Folder (moved files to Plugin directory and
removed duplicate files)
• Changed System Log Output (Console):
• *Moved to a date, name, value format for easier parsing (Please
start migrating dependencies to new format)
• *Added 'Ec2SetPassword' plugin status
• *Added Sysprep Start and End times
• Fixed issue of Ephemeral Disks not being labeled as 'Temporary
Storage' for non-english Operating Systems
• Fixed EC2Config Uninstall failure after running Sysprep

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Version Details Release date

2.1.15 • Optimized requests to the Metadata service  

• Metadata now bypass Proxy Settings
• Ephemeral Disks labeled as 'Temporary Storage' and
Important.txt placed on volume when found (Citrix PV drivers
only). For more information, see Upgrade PV drivers on Windows
instances (p. 533).
• Ephemeral Disks assigned drive letters from Z to A (Citrix PV
drivers only) - assignment can be overwritten using Drive Letter
Mapping plugin with Volume labels 'Temporary Storage X' where
x is a number 0-25)
• UserData now runs immediately following 'Windows is Ready'

2.1.14 Desktop wallpaper fixes  

2.1.13 • Desktop wallpaper will display hostname by default  

• Removed dependency on Windows Time service
• Route added in cases where multiple IPs are assigned to a single
interface

2.1.11 • Changes made to Ec2Activation Plugin  

• -Verifies Activation status every 30 days
• -If Grace Period has 90 days remaining (out of 180), reattempts
activation

2.1.10 • Desktop wallpaper overlay no longer persists with Sysprep or  

Shutdown without Sysprep
• Userdata option to run on every service start with
<persist>true</persist>
• Changed location and name of /DisableWinUpdate.cmd to /
Scripts/PostSysprep.cmd
• Administrator password set to not expire by default in /Scripts/
PostSysprep.cmd
• Uninstall will remove EC2Config PostSysprep script from c:
\windows\setup\script\CommandComplete.cmd
• Add Route supports custom interface metrics

2.1.9 UserData Execution no longer limited to 3851 Characters  

2.1.7 • OS Version and language identifier written to console  

• EC2Config version written to console
• PV driver version written to console
• Detection of Bug Check and output to the console on next boot
when found
• Option added to config.xml to persist Sysprep credentials
• Add Route Retry logic in cases of ENI being unavailable at start
• User Data execution PID written to console
• Minimum generated password length retrieved from GPO
• Set service start to retry 3 attempts
• Added S3_DownloadFile.ps1 and S3_Upload file.ps1 examples
to /Scripts folder

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EC2Config service

Version Details Release date

2.1.6 • Version information added to General tab  

• Renamed the Bundle tab to Image
• Simplified the process of specifying passwords and moved the
password-related UI from the General tab to the Image tab
• Renamed the Disk Settings tab to Storage
• Added a Support tab with common tools for troubleshooting
• Windows Server 2003 sysprep.ini set to extend OS partition
by default
• Added the private IP address to the wallpaper
• Private IP address displayed on wallpaper
• Added retry logic for Console output
• Fixed Com port exception for metadata accessibility -- caused
EC2Config to terminate before console output is displayed
• Checks for activation status on every boot -- activates as
necessary
• Fixed issue of relative paths -- caused when manually
executing wallpaper shortcut from startup folder; pointing to
Administrator/logs
• Fixed default background color for Windows Server 2003 user
(other than Administrator)

2.1.2 • Console timestamps in UTC (Zulu)  

• Removed appearance of hyperlink on Sysprep tab
• Addition of feature to dynamically expand Root Volume on first
boot for Windows 2008+
• When Set-Password is enabled, now automatically enables
EC2Config to set the password
• EC2Config checks activation status prior to running Sysprep
(presents warning if not activated)
• Windows Server 2003 Sysprep.xml now defaults to UTC
timezone instead of Pacific
• Randomized Activation Servers
• Renamed Drive Mapping tab to Disk Settings
• Moved Initialize Drives UI items from General to the Disk Settings
tab
• Help button now points to HTML help file
• Updated HTML help file with changes
• Updated 'Note' text for Drive Letter Mappings
• Added InstallUpdates.ps1 to /Scripts folder for automating
Patches and cleanup prior to Sysprep

2.1.0 • Desktop wallpaper displays instance information by default upon  

first logon (not disconnect/reconnect)
• PowerShell can be run from the userdata by surrounding the code
with <powershell></powershell>

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EC2Config service

Subscribe to EC2Config service notifications

Amazon SNS can notify you when new versions of the EC2Config service are released. Use the following
procedure to subscribe to these notifications.

To subscribe to EC2Config notifications

1. Open the Amazon SNS console at https://console.aws.amazon.com/sns/v3/home.

2. In the navigation bar, change the Region to US East (N. Virginia), if necessary. You must select this
Region because the SNS notifications that you are subscribing to were created in this Region.
3. In the navigation pane, choose Subscriptions.
4. Choose Create subscription.
5. In the Create subscription dialog box, do the following:

a. For Topic ARN, use the following Amazon Resource Name (ARN):

arn:aws:sns:us-east-1:801119661308:ec2-windows-ec2config

b. For Protocol, choose Email.

c. For Endpoint, type an email address that you can use to receive the notifications.
d. Choose Create subscription.
6. You'll receive a email asking you to confirm your subscription. Open the email and follow the
directions to complete your subscription.

Whenever a new version of the EC2Config service is released, we send notifications to subscribers. If you
no longer want to receive these notifications, use the following procedure to unsubscribe.

To unsubscribe from EC2Config notifications

1. Open the Amazon SNS console.

2. In the navigation pane, choose Subscriptions.
3. Select the subscription and then choose Actions, Delete subscriptions When prompted for
confirmation, choose Delete.

Troubleshoot issues with the EC2Config service

The following information can help you troubleshoot issues with the EC2Config service.

Update EC2Config on an unreachable instance

Use the following procedure to update the EC2Config service on a Windows Server instance that is
inaccessible using Remote Desktop.

To update EC2Config on an Amazon EBS-backed Windows instance that you can't connect to

1. Open the Amazon EC2 console at https://console.aws.amazon.com/ec2/.

2. In the navigation pane, choose Instances.
3. Locate the affected instance. Select the instance and choose Instance state, and then choose Stop
instance.
Warning
When you stop an instance, the data on any instance store volumes is erased. To keep data
from instance store volumes, be sure to back it up to persistent storage.

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4. Choose Launch instances and create a temporary t2.micro instance in the same Availability Zone
as the affected instance. Use a different AMI than the one that you used to launch the affected
instance.
Important
If you do not create the instance in the same Availability Zone as the affected instance you
will not be able to attach the root volume of the affected instance to the new instance.
5. In the EC2 console, choose Volumes.
6. Locate the root volume of the affected instance. Detach the volume (p. 1217) and then attach the
volume (p. 1199) to the temporary instance that you created earlier. Attach it with the default
device name (xvdf).
7. Use Remote Desktop to connect to the temporary instance, and then use the Disk Management
utility to make the volume available for use (p. 1200).
8. Download the latest version of the EC2Config service. Extract the files from the .zip file to the
Temp directory on the drive you attached.
9. On the temporary instance, open the Run dialog box, type regedit, and press Enter.
10. Choose HKEY_LOCAL_MACHINE. From the File menu, choose Load Hive. Choose the drive and then
navigate to and open the following file: Windows\System32\config\SOFTWARE. When prompted,
specify a key name.
11. Select the key you just loaded and navigate to Microsoft\Windows\CurrentVersion. Choose
the RunOnce key. If this key doesn't exist, choose CurrentVersion from the context (right-click)
menu, choose New and then choose Key. Name the key RunOnce.
12. From the context (right-click) menu choose the RunOnce key, choose New and then choose String
Value. Enter Ec2Install as the name and C:\Temp\Ec2Install.exe /quiet as the data.
13. Choose the HKEY_LOCAL_MACHINE\specified key name\Microsoft\Windows NT
\CurrentVersion\Winlogon key. From the context (right-click) menu choose New, and then
choose String Value. Enter AutoAdminLogon as the name and 1 as the value data.
14. Choose the HKEY_LOCAL_MACHINE\specified key name\Microsoft\Windows NT
\CurrentVersion\Winlogon> key. From the context (right-click) menu choose New, and then
choose String Value. Enter DefaultUserName as the name and Administrator as the value data.
15. Choose the HKEY_LOCAL_MACHINE\specified key name\Microsoft\Windows NT
\CurrentVersion\Winlogon key. From the context (right-click) menu choose New, and then
choose String Value. Type DefaultPassword as the name and enter a password in the value data.
16. In the Registry Editor navigation pane, choose the temporary key that you created when you first
opened Registry Editor.
17. From the File menu, choose Unload Hive.
18. In Disk Management Utility, choose the drive you attached earlier, open the context (right-click)
menu, and choose Offline.
19. In the Amazon EC2 console, detach the affected volume from the temporary instance and reattach it
to your instance with the device name /dev/sda1. You must specify this device name to designate
the volume as a root volume.
20. Stop and start your instance (p. 429) the instance.
21. After the instance starts, check the system log and verify that you see the message Windows is ready
to use.
22. Open Registry Editor and choose HKEY_LOCAL_MACHINE\SOFTWARE\Microsoft\Windows NT
\CurrentVersion\Winlogon. Delete the String Value keys you created earlier: AutoAdminLogon,
DefaultUserName, and DefaultPassword.
23. Delete or stop the temporary instance you created in this procedure.

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PV drivers

Paravirtual drivers for Windows instances

Windows AMIs contain a set of drivers to permit access to virtualized hardware. These drivers are used by
Amazon EC2 to map instance store and Amazon EBS volumes to their devices. The following table shows
key differences between the different drivers.

  RedHat PV Citrix PV AWS PV

Instance type Not supported for all instance Supported for Xen instance Supported for
types. If you specify an types. Xen instance
unsupported instance type, the types.
instance is impaired.

Attached Supports up to 16 attached Supports more than 16 attached Supports

volumes volumes. volumes. more than
16 attached
volumes.

Network The driver has known issues The driver

where the network connection automatically
resets under high loads; for configures
example, fast FTP file transfers. jumbo
frames on
the network
adapter
when on a
compatible
instance type.
When the
instance is
in a cluster
placement
group (p. 988),
this offers
better
network
performance
between
instances in
the cluster
placement
group.

The following table shows which PV drivers you should run on each version of Windows Server on
Amazon EC2.

Windows Server version PV driver version

Windows Server 2019 AWS PV latest version

Windows Server 2016 AWS PV latest version

Windows Server 2012 R2 AWS PV latest version

Windows Server 2012 AWS PV latest version

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PV drivers

Windows Server version PV driver version

Windows Server 2008 R2 AWS PV version 8.3.4 and earlier

Windows Server 2008 Citrix PV 5.9

Windows Server 2003 Citrix PV 5.9

Contents
• AWS PV drivers (p. 529)
• Citrix PV drivers (p. 532)
• RedHat PV drivers (p. 532)
• Subscribe to notifications (p. 532)
• Upgrade PV drivers on Windows instances (p. 533)
• Troubleshoot PV drivers (p. 539)

AWS PV drivers
The AWS PV drivers are stored in the %ProgramFiles%\Amazon\Xentools directory. This directory
also contains public symbols and a command line tool, xenstore_client.exe, that enables you to
access entries in XenStore. For example, the following PowerShell command returns the current time
from the Hypervisor:

PS C:\> [DateTime]::FromFileTimeUTC((gwmi -n root\wmi -cl

AWSXenStoreBase).XenTime).ToString("hh:mm:ss")
11:17:00

The AWS PV driver components are listed in the Windows registry under HKEY_LOCAL_MACHINE
\SYSTEM\CurrentControlSet\Services. These driver components are as follows: xenbus, xeniface,
xennet, xenvbd, and xenvif.

AWS PV drivers also have a Windows service named LiteAgent, which runs in user-mode. It handles tasks
such as shutdown and restart events from AWS APIs on Xen generation instances. You can access and
manage services by running Services.msc from the command line. When running on Nitro generation
instances, the AWS PV drivers are not used and the LiteAgent service will self-stop starting with driver
version 8.2.4. Updating to the latest AWS PV driver also updates the LiteAgent and improves reliability
on all instance generations.

Install the latest AWS PV drivers

Amazon Windows AMIs contain a set of drivers to permit access to virtualized hardware. These
drivers are used by Amazon EC2 to map instance store and Amazon EBS volumes to their devices. We
recommend that you install the latest drivers to improve stability and performance of your EC2 Windows
instances.

Installation options

• You can use AWS Systems Manager to automatically update the PV drivers. For more information,
see Walkthrough: Automatically Update PV Drivers on EC2 Windows Instances (Console) in the AWS
Systems Manager User Guide.
• You can download the driver package and run the install program manually. Be sure to check the
readme.txt file for system requirements. For information about downloading and installing the

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PV drivers

AWS PV drivers, or upgrading a domain controller, see Upgrade Windows Server instances (AWS PV
upgrade) (p. 534).

AWS PV driver package history

The following table shows the changes to AWS PV drivers for each driver release.

Package Details Release date

version

8.4.0 • Stability fixes to address rare cases of stuck disk IO. 2 March 2021
• Stability fixes to address rare cases of crashes during EBS volume
detachment.
• Added feature to distribute load across multiple cores for
workloads that leverage more than 20,000 IOPS and experience
degradation due to bottlenecks. To enable this feature, see
Workloads that leverage more than 20,000 disk IOPS experience
degradation due to CPU bottlenecks (p. 544).
• AWS PV 8.4 installation on Windows Server 2008 R2 will fail.
AWS PV version 8.3.4 and earlier are supported on Windows
Server 2008 R2.

8.3.4 Improved reliability of network device attachment. 4 August 2020

8.3.3 • Update to XenStore-facing component to prevent bug check 4 February

during error-handling paths. 2020
• Update to storage component to avoid crashes when an invalid
SRB is submitted.

To update this driver on Windows Server 2008 R2 instances,

you must first verify that the appropriate patches are installed
to address the following Microsoft Security Advisory: Microsoft
Security Advisory 3033929.

8.3.2 Enhanced reliability of networking components. 30 July 2019

8.3.1 Improved performance and robustness of storage component. 12 June 2019

8.2.7 Improved efficiency to support migrating to latest generation 20 May 2019

instance types.

8.2.6 Improved efficiency of crash dump path. 15 January

2019

8.2.5 Additional security enhancements. 12 December

2018
PowerShell installer now available in package.

8.2.4 Reliability improvements. 2 October

2018

8.2.3 Bug fixes and performance improvements. 29 May 2018

Report EBS volume ID as disk serial number for EBS volumes. This
enables cluster scenarios such as S2D.

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PV drivers

Package Details Release date

version

8.2.1 Network and storage performance improvements plus multiple 8 March 2018
robustness fixes.

To verify that this version has been installed, refer to the following
Windows registry value: HKLM\Software\Amazon\PVDriver
\Version 8.2.1.

7.4.6 Stability fixes to make AWS PV drivers more resilient. 26 April 2017

7.4.3 Added support for Windows Server 2016. 18 Nov 2016

Stability fixes for all supported Windows OS versions.

*AWS PV driver version 7.4.3's signature expires on March 29, 2019.

We recommend updating to the latest AWS PV driver.

7.4.2 Stability fixes for support of X1 instance type. 2 Aug 2016

7.4.1 • Performance improvement in AWS PV Storage driver. 12 July 2016

• Stability fixes in AWS PV Storage driver: Fixed an issue where
the instances were hitting a system crash with bug check code
0x0000DEAD.
• Stability fixes in AWS PV Network driver.
• Added support for Windows Server 2008R2.

7.3.2 • Improved logging and diagnostics. 24 June 2015

• Stability fix in AWS PV Storage driver. In some cases disks may
not surface in Windows after reattaching the disk to the instance.
• Added support for Windows Server 2012.

7.3.1 TRIM update: Fix related to TRIM requests. This fix stabilizes  

instances and improves instance performance when managing large
numbers of TRIM requests.

7.3.0 TRIM support: The AWS PV driver now sends TRIM requests to the  
hypervisor. Ephemeral disks will properly process TRIM requests
given the underlying storage supports TRIM (SSD). Note that EBS-
based storage does not support TRIM as of March 2015.

7.2.5 • Stability fix in AWS PV Storage drivers: In some cases the AWS  

PV driver could dereference invalid memory and cause a system
failure.
• Stability fix while generating a crash dump: In some cases the
AWS PV driver could get stuck in a race condition when writing a
crash dump. Before this release, the issue could only be resolved
by forcing the driver to stop and restart which lost the memory
dump.

7.2.4 Device ID persistence: This driver fix masks the platform PCI  

device ID and forces the system to always surface the same device
ID, even if the instance is moved. More generally, the fix affects
how the hypervisor surfaces virtual devices. The fix also includes
modifications to the co-installer for the AWS PV drivers so the
system persists mapped virtual devices.

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Package Details Release date

version

7.2.2 • Load the AWS PV drivers in Directory Services Restore Mode  

(DSRM) mode: Directory Services Restore Mode is a safe mode
boot option for Windows Server domain controllers.
• Persist device ID when virtual network adapter device is
reattached: This fix forces the system to check the MAC address
mapping and persist the device ID. This fix ensures that adapters
retain their static settings if the adapters are reattached.

7.2.1 • Run in safe mode: Fixed an issue where the driver would not  
load in safe mode. Previously the AWS PV Drivers would only
instantiate in normal running systems.
• Add disks to Microsoft Windows Storage Pools: Previously we
synthesized page 83 queries. The fix disabled page 83 support.
Note this does not affect storage pools that are used in a cluster
environment because PV disks are not valid cluster disks.

7.2.0 Base: The AWS PV base version.  

Citrix PV drivers
The Citrix PV drivers are stored in the %ProgramFiles%\Citrix\XenTools (32-bit instances) or
%ProgramFiles(x86)%\Citrix\XenTools (64-bit instances) directory.

The Citrix PV driver components are listed in the Windows registry under HKEY_LOCAL_MACHINE
\SYSTEM\CurrentControlSet\services. These driver components are as follows: xenevtchn,
xeniface, xennet, Xennet6, xensvc, xenvbd, and xenvif.

Citrix also has a driver component named XenGuestAgent, which runs as a Windows service. It handles
tasks such as shutdown and restart events from the API. You can access and manage services by running
Services.msc from the command line.

If you are encountering networking errors while performing certain workloads, you may need to disable
the TCP offloading feature for the Citrix PV driver. For more information, see TCP offloading (p. 543).

RedHat PV drivers
RedHat drivers are supported for legacy instances, but are not recommended on newer instances with
more than 12GB of RAM due to driver limitations. Instances with more than 12GB of RAM running
RedHat drivers can fail to boot and become inaccessible. We recommend upgrading RedHat drivers to
Citrix PV drivers, and then upgrade Citrix PV drivers to AWS PV drivers.

The source files for the RedHat drivers are in the %ProgramFiles%\RedHat (32-bit instances) or
%ProgramFiles(x86)%\RedHat (64-bit instances) directory. The two drivers are rhelnet, the RedHat
Paravirtualized network driver, and rhelscsi, the RedHat SCSI miniport driver.

Subscribe to notifications
Amazon SNS can notify you when new versions of EC2 Windows Drivers are released. Use the following
procedure to subscribe to these notifications.

To subscribe to EC2 notifications from the console

1. Open the Amazon SNS console at https://console.aws.amazon.com/sns/v3/home.

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2. In the navigation bar, change the Region to US East (N. Virginia), if necessary. You must select this
Region because the SNS notifications that you are subscribing to are in this Region.
3. In the navigation pane, choose Subscriptions.
4. Choose Create subscription.
5. In the Create subscription dialog box, do the following:

a. For TopicARN, copy the following Amazon Resource Name (ARN):

arn:aws:sns:us-east-1:801119661308:ec2-windows-drivers
b. For Protocol, choose Email.
c. For Endpoint, type an email address that you can use to receive the notifications.
d. Choose Create subscription.
6. You'll receive a confirmation email. Open the email and follow the directions to complete your
subscription.

Whenever new EC2 Windows drivers are released, we send notifications to subscribers. If you no longer
want to receive these notifications, use the following procedure to unsubscribe.

To unsubscribe from Amazon EC2 Windows driver notification

1. Open the Amazon SNS console at https://console.aws.amazon.com/sns/v3/home.

2. In the navigation pane, choose Subscriptions.
3. Select the check box for the subscription and then choose Actions, Delete subscriptions. When
prompted for confirmation, choose Delete.

To subscribe to EC2 notifications using the AWS CLI

To subscribe to EC2 notifications with the AWS CLI, use the following command.

aws sns subscribe --topic-arn arn:aws:sns:us-east-1:801119661308:ec2-windows-drivers --

protocol email --notification-endpoint [email protected]

To subscribe to EC2 notifications using the AWS Tools for PowerShell

To subscribe to EC2 notifications with Tools for Windows PowerShell, use the following command.

Connect-SNSNotification -TopicArn 'arn:aws:sns:us-east-1:801119661308:ec2-windows-drivers'

-Protocol email -Region us-east-1 -Endpoint '[email protected]'

Upgrade PV drivers on Windows instances

We recommend that you install the latest PV drivers to improve the stability and performance of your
EC2 Windows instances. The directions on this page help you download the driver package and run the
install program.

To verify which driver your Windows instance uses

Open Network Connections in Control Panel and view Local Area Connection. Check whether the driver
is one of the following:

• AWS PV Network Device

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• Citrix PV Ethernet Adapter

• RedHat PV NIC Driver

Alternatively, you can check the output from the pnputil -e command.

System requirements

Be sure to check the readme.txt file in the download for system requirements.

Contents
• Upgrade Windows Server instances (AWS PV upgrade) (p. 534)
• Upgrade a domain controller (AWS PV upgrade) (p. 535)
• Upgrade Windows Server 2008 and 2008 R2 instances (Redhat to Citrix PV upgrade) (p. 536)
• Upgrade your Citrix Xen guest agent service (p. 538)

Upgrade Windows Server instances (AWS PV upgrade)

Use the following procedure to perform an in-place upgrade of AWS PV drivers, or to upgrade from Citrix
PV drivers to AWS PV drivers on Windows Server 2008 R2, Windows Server 2012, Windows Server 2012
R2,Windows Server 2016, or Windows Server 2019. This upgrade is not available for RedHat drivers, or
for other versions of Windows Server.
Important
If your instance is a domain controller, see Upgrade a domain controller (AWS PV
upgrade) (p. 535). The upgrade process for domain controller instances is different than
standard editions of Windows.

To upgrade AWS PV drivers

1. We recommend that you create an AMI as a backup as follows, in case you need to roll back your
changes.

a. When you stop an instance, the data on any instance store volumes is erased. Before you stop
an instance, verify that you've copied any data that you need from your instance store volumes
to persistent storage, such as Amazon EBS or Amazon S3.
b. In the navigation pane, choose Instances.
c. Select the instance that requires the driver upgrade, and choose Instance state, Stop instance.
d. After the instance is stopped, select the instance, choose Actions, then Image and templates,
and then choose Create image.
e. Choose Instance state, Start instance.
2. Connect to the instance using Remote Desktop.
3. We recommend that you take all non-system disks offline and note any drive letter mappings to the
secondary disks in Disk Management before you perform this upgrade. This step is not required if
you are performing an in-place update of AWS PV drivers. We also recommend setting non-essential
services to Manual start-up in the Services console.
4. Download the latest driver package to the instance.

Or, run the following PowerShell command:

PS C:\>invoke-webrequest https://s3.amazonaws.com/ec2-windows-drivers-downloads/AWSPV/
Latest/AWSPVDriver.zip -outfile $env:USERPROFILE\pv_driver.zip
expand-archive $env:userprofile\pv_driver.zip -DestinationPath
$env:userprofile\pv_drivers

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5. Extract the contents of the folder and then run AWSPVDriverSetup.msi.

After running the MSI, the instance automatically reboots and then upgrades the driver. The instance will
not be available for up to 15 minutes. After the upgrade is complete and the instance passes both health
checks in the Amazon EC2 console, you can verify that the new driver was installed by connecting to the
instance using Remote Desktop and then running the following PowerShell command:

Get-ItemProperty HKLM:\SOFTWARE\Amazon\PVDriver

Verify that the driver version is the same as the latest version listed in the Driver Version History table.
For more information, see AWS PV driver package history (p. 530) Open Disk Management to review
any offline secondary volumes and bring them online corresponding to the drive letters noted in Step 6.

If you previously disabled TCP offloading (p. 543) using Netsh for Citrix PV drivers we recommend that
you re-enable this feature after upgrading to AWS PV drivers. TCP Offloading issues with Citrix drivers
are not present in the AWS PV drivers. As a result, TCP Offloading provides better performance with AWS
PV drivers.

If you previously applied a static IP address or DNS configuration to the network interface, you must
reapply the static IP address or DNS configuration after upgrading AWS PV drivers.

Upgrade a domain controller (AWS PV upgrade)

Use the following procedure on a domain controller to perform either an in-place upgrade of AWS PV
drivers, or to upgrade from Citrix PV drivers to AWS PV drivers.

To upgrade a domain controller

1. We recommend that you create a backup of your domain controller in case you need to roll back
your changes. Using an AMI as a backup is not supported. For more information, see Backup and
Restore Considerations for Virtualized Domain Controllers in the Microsoft documentation.
2. Run the following command to configure Windows to boot into Directory Services Restore Mode
(DSRM).
Warning
Before running this command, confirm that you know the DSRM password. You'll need this
information so that you can log in to your instance after the upgrade is complete and the
instance automatically reboots.

bcdedit /set {default} safeboot dsrepair

PowerShell:

PS C:\> bcdedit /set "{default}" safeboot dsrepair

The system must boot into DSRM because the upgrade utility removes Citrix PV storage drivers so it
can install AWS PV drivers. Therefore we recommend noting any drive letter and folder mappings to
the secondary disks in Disk Management. When Citrix PV storage drivers are not present, secondary
drives are not detected. Domain controllers that use an NTDS folder on secondary drives will not
boot because the secondary disk is not detected.
Warning
After you run this command do not manually reboot the system. The system will be
unreachable because Citrix PV drivers do not support DSRM.
3. Run the following command to add DisableDCCheck to the registry:

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reg add HKLM\SOFTWARE\Wow6432Node\Amazon\AWSPVDriverSetup /v DisableDCCheck /t REG_SZ /

d true

4. Download the latest driver package to the instance.

5. Extract the contents of the folder and then run AWSPVDriverSetup.msi.

After running the MSI, the instance automatically reboots and then upgrades the driver. The instance
will not be available for up to 15 minutes.
6. After the upgrade is complete and the instance passes both health checks in the Amazon EC2
console, connect to the instance using Remote Desktop. Open Disk Management to review any
offline secondary volumes and bring them online corresponding to the drive letters and folder
mappings noted earlier.

You must connect to the instance by specifying the user name in the following format
hostname\administrator. For example, Win2k12TestBox\administrator.
7. Run the following command to remove the DSRM boot configuration:

bcdedit /deletevalue safeboot

8. Reboot the instance.

9. To complete the upgrade process, verify that the new driver was installed. In Device Manager, under
Storage Controllers, locate AWS PV Storage Host Adapter. Verify that the driver version is the
same as the latest version listed in the Driver Version History table. For more information, see AWS
PV driver package history (p. 530).
10. Run the following command to delete DisableDCCheck from the registry:

reg delete HKLM\SOFTWARE\Wow6432Node\Amazon\AWSPVDriverSetup /v DisableDCCheck

Note
If you previously disabled TCP offloading (p. 543) using Netsh for Citrix PV drivers we
recommend that you re-enable this feature after upgrading to AWS PV Drivers. TCP Offloading
issues with Citrix drivers are not present in the AWS PV drivers. As a result, TCP Offloading
provides better performance with AWS PV drivers.

Upgrade Windows Server 2008 and 2008 R2 instances (Redhat to Citrix PV

upgrade)
Before you start upgrading your RedHat drivers to Citrix PV drivers, make sure you do the following:

• Install the latest version of the EC2Config service. For more information, see Install the latest version
of EC2Config (p. 503).
• Verify that you have Windows PowerShell 3.0 installed. To verify the version that you have installed,
run the following command in a PowerShell window:

PS C:\> $PSVersionTable.PSVersion

Windows PowerShell 3.0 is bundled in the Windows Management Framework (WMF) version 3.0 install
package. If you need to install Windows PowerShell 3.0, see Windows Management Framework 3.0 in
the Microsoft Download Center.
• Back up your important information on the instance, or create an AMI from the instance. For more
information about creating an AMI, see Create a custom Windows AMI (p. 37). If you create an AMI,
make sure that you do the following:

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• Write down your password.

• Do not run the Sysprep tool manually or using the EC2Config service.
• Set your Ethernet adapter to obtain an IP address automatically using DHCP. For more information,
see Configure TCP/IP Settings in the Microsoft TechNet Library.

To upgrade RedHat drivers

1. Connect to your instance and log in as the local administrator. For more information about
connecting to your instance, see Connect to your Windows instance (p. 417).
2. In your instance, download the Citrix PV upgrade package.
3. Extract the contents of the upgrade package to a location of your choice.
4. Double-click the Upgrade.bat file. If you get a security warning, choose Run.
5. In the Upgrade Drivers dialog box, review the information and choose Yes if you are ready to start
the upgrade.
6. In the Red Hat Paravirtualized Xen Drivers for Windows uninstaller dialog box, choose Yes to
remove the RedHat software. Your instance will be rebooted.
Note
If you do not see the uninstaller dialog box, choose Red Hat Paravirtualize in the Windows
taskbar.

7. Check that the instance has rebooted and is ready to be used.

a. Open the Amazon EC2 console at https://console.aws.amazon.com/ec2/.

b. On the Instances page, select Actions, then Monitor and troubleshoot, and then choose Get
system log.
c. The upgrade operations should have restarted the server 3 or 4 times. You can see this in the
log file by the number of times Windows is Ready to use is displayed.

8. Connect to your instance and log in as the local administrator.

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9. Close the Red Hat Paravirtualized Xen Drivers for Windows uninstaller dialog box.
10. Confirm that the installation is complete. Navigate to the Citrix-WIN_PV folder that you extracted
earlier, open the PVUpgrade.log file, and then check for the text INSTALLATION IS COMPLETE.

Upgrade your Citrix Xen guest agent service

If you are using Citrix PV drivers on Windows Server, you can upgrade the Citrix Xen guest agent service.
This Windows service handles tasks such as shutdown and restart events from the API. You can run this
upgrade package on any version of Windows Server, as long as the instance is running Citrix PV drivers.
Important
For Windows Server 2008 R2 and later, we recommend you upgrade to AWS PV drivers that
include the Guest Agent update.

Before you start upgrading your drivers, make sure you back up your important information on the
instance, or create an AMI from the instance. For more information about creating an AMI, see Create a
custom Windows AMI (p. 37). If you create an AMI, make sure you do the following:

• Do not enable the Sysprep tool in the EC2Config service.

• Write down your password.
• Set your Ethernet adapter to DHCP.

To upgrade your Citrix Xen guest agent service

1. Connect to your instance and log in as the local administrator. For more information about
connecting to your instance, see Connect to your Windows instance (p. 417).
2. On your instance, download the Citrix upgrade package.

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3. Extract the contents of the upgrade package to a location of your choice.

4. Double-click the Upgrade.bat file. If you get a security warning, choose Run.
5. In the Upgrade Drivers dialog box, review the information and choose Yes if you are ready to start
the upgrade.
6. When the upgrade is complete, the PVUpgrade.log file will open and contain the text UPGRADE
IS COMPLETE.
7. Reboot your instance.

Troubleshoot PV drivers
The following are solutions to issues that you might encounter with older Amazon EC2 images and PV
drivers.

Contents
• Windows Server 2012 R2 loses network and storage connectivity after an instance reboot (p. 539)
• TCP offloading (p. 543)
• Time synchronization (p. 544)
• Workloads that leverage more than 20,000 disk IOPS experience degradation due to CPU
bottlenecks (p. 544)

Windows Server 2012 R2 loses network and storage connectivity after an

instance reboot
Important
This issue occurs only with AMIs made available before September 2014.

Windows Server 2012 R2 Amazon Machine Images (AMIs) made available before September 10, 2014
can lose network and storage connectivity after an instance reboot. The error in the AWS Management
Console system log states: “Difficulty detecting PV driver details for Console Output.” The connectivity
loss is caused by the Plug and Play Cleanup feature. This features scans for and disables inactive system
devices every 30 days. The feature incorrectly identifies the EC2 network device as inactive and removes
it from the system. When this happens, the instance loses network connectivity after a reboot.

For systems that you suspect could be affected by this issue, you can download and run an in-place driver
upgrade. If you are unable to perform the in-place driver upgrade, you can run a helper script. The script
determines if your instance is affected. If it is affected, and the Amazon EC2 network device has not been
removed, the script disables the Plug and Play Cleanup scan. If the network device was removed, the
script repairs the device, disables the Plug and Play Cleanup scan, and enables your instance to reboot
with network connectivity enabled.

Contents
• Choose how to fix problems (p. 539)
• Method 1 - Enhanced networking (p. 540)
• Method 2 - Registry configuration (p. 541)
• Run the remediation script (p. 543)

Choose how to fix problems

There are two methods for restoring network and storage connectivity to an instance affected by this
issue. Choose one of the following methods:

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Method Prerequisites Procedure Overview

Method 1 - Enhanced Enhanced networking is only You change the server instance
networking available in a virtual private type to a C3 instance. Enhanced
cloud (VPC) which requires a C3 networking then enables you
instance type. If the server does to connect to the affected
not currently use the C3 instance instance and fix the problem.
type, then you must temporarily After you fix the problem, you
change it. change the instance back to
the original instance type. This
method is typically faster than
Method 2 and less likely to
result in user error. You will incur
additional charges as long as the
C3 instance is running.

Method 2 - Registry Ability to create or access a You detach the root volume
configuration second server. Ability to change from the affected instance,
Registry settings. attach it to a different instance,
connect, and make changes
in the Registry. You will incur
additional charges as long as the
additional server is running. This
method is slower than Method
1, but this method has worked in
situations where Method 1 failed
to resolve the problem.

Method 1 - Enhanced networking

1. Open the Amazon EC2 console at https://console.aws.amazon.com/ec2/.

2. In the navigation pane, choose Instances.
3. Locate the affected instance. Select the instance and choose Instance state, and then choose Stop
instance.
Warning
When you stop an instance, the data on any instance store volumes is erased. To keep data
from instance store volumes, be sure to back it up to persistent storage.
4. After the instance is stopped, create a backup. Select the instance and choose Actions, then Image
and templates, and then choose Create image.
5. Change the instance type to any C3 instance type.
6. Start the instance.
7. Connect to the instance using Remote Desktop and then download the AWS PV Drivers Upgrade
package to the instance.
8. Extract the contents of the folder and run AWSPVDriverSetup.msi.

After running the MSI, the instance automatically reboots and then upgrades the drivers. The
instance will not be available for up to 15 minutes.
9. After the upgrade is complete and the instance passes both health checks in the Amazon EC2
console, connect to the instance using Remote Desktop and verify that the new drivers were
installed. In Device Manager, under Storage Controllers, locate AWS PV Storage Host Adapter.
Verify that the driver version is the same as the latest version listed in the Driver Version History
table. For more information, see AWS PV driver package history (p. 530).
10. Stop the instance and change the instance back to its original instance type.

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11. Start the instance and resume normal use.

Method 2 - Registry configuration

1. Open the Amazon EC2 console at https://console.aws.amazon.com/ec2/.

2. In the navigation pane, choose Instances.
3. Locate the affected instance. Select the instance, choose Instance state, and then choose Stop
instance.
Warning
When you stop an instance, the data on any instance store volumes is erased. To keep data
from instance store volumes, be sure to back it up to persistent storage.
4. Choose Launch instances and create a temporary Windows Server 2008 or Windows Server 2012
instance in the same Availability Zone as the affected instance. Do not create a Windows Server
2012 R2 instance.
Important
If you do not create the instance in the same Availability Zone as the affected instance you
will not be able to attach the root volume of the affected instance to the new instance.
5. In the navigation pane, choose Volumes.
6. Locate the root volume of the affected instance. Detach the volume (p. 1217) and then attach the
volume (p. 1199) to the temporary instance you created earlier. Attach it with the default device
name (xvdf).
7. Use Remote Desktop to connect to the temporary instance, and then use the Disk Management
utility to make the volume available for use (p. 1200).
8. On the temporary instance, open the Run dialog box, type regedit, and press Enter.
9. In the Registry Editor navigation pane, choose HKEY_Local_Machine, and then from the File menu
choose Load Hive.
10. In the Load Hive dialog box, navigate to Affected Volume\Windows\System32\config\System and
type a temporary name in the Key Name dialog box. For example, enter OldSys.
11. In the navigation pane of the Registry Editor, locate the following keys:

HKEY_LOCAL_MACHINE\your_temporary_key_name\ControlSet001\Control\Class\4d36e97d-
e325-11ce-bfc1-08002be10318

HKEY_LOCAL_MACHINE\your_temporary_key_name\ControlSet001\Control\Class\4d36e96a-
e325-11ce-bfc1-08002be10318
12. For each key, double-click UpperFilters, enter a value of XENFILT, and then choose OK.

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13. Locate the following key:

HKEY_LOCAL_MACHINE\your_temporary_key_name\ControlSet001\Services\XENBUS
\Parameters
14. Create a new string (REG_SZ) with the name ActiveDevice and the following value:

PCI\VEN_5853&DEV_0001&SUBSYS_00015853&REV_01
15. Locate the following key:

HKEY_LOCAL_MACHINE\your_temporary_key_name\ControlSet001\Services\XENBUS
16. Change the Count from 0 to 1.
17. Locate and delete the following keys:

HKEY_LOCAL_MACHINE\your_temporary_key_name\ControlSet001\Services\xenvbd
\StartOverride

HKEY_LOCAL_MACHINE \your_temporary_key_name\ControlSet001\Services\xenfilt
\StartOverride
18. In the Registry Editor navigation pane, choose the temporary key that you created when you first
opened the Registry Editor.
19. From the File menu, choose Unload Hive.
20. In the Disk Management Utility, choose the drive you attached earlier, open the context (right-click)
menu, and choose Offline.
21. In the Amazon EC2 console, detach the affected volume from the temporary instance and reattach
it to your Windows Server 2012 R2 instance with the device name /dev/sda1. You must specify this
device name to designate the volume as a root volume.
22. Start the instance.
23. Connect to the instance using Remote Desktop and then download the AWS PV Drivers Upgrade
package to the instance.
24. Extract the contents of the folder and run AWSPVDriverSetup.msi.

After running the MSI, the instance automatically reboots and then upgrades the drivers. The
instance will not be available for up to 15 minutes.

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25. After the upgrade is complete and the instance passes both health checks in the Amazon EC2
console, connect to the instance using Remote Desktop and verify that the new drivers were
installed. In Device Manager, under Storage Controllers, locate AWS PV Storage Host Adapter.
Verify that the driver version is the same as the latest version listed in the Driver Version History
table. For more information, see AWS PV driver package history (p. 530).
26. Delete or stop the temporary instance you created in this procedure.

Run the remediation script

If you are unable to perform an in-place driver upgrade or migrate to a newer instance you can run the
remediation script to fix the problems caused by the Plug and Play Cleanup task.

To run the remediation script

1. Open the Amazon EC2 console at https://console.aws.amazon.com/ec2/.

2. In the navigation pane, choose Instances.
3. Select the instance for which you want to run the remediation script. Choose Instance state, and
then choose Stop instance.
Warning
When you stop an instance, the data on any instance store volumes is erased. To keep data
from instance store volumes, be sure to back it up to persistent storage.
4. After the instance is stopped, create a backup. Select the instance, choose Actions, then Image and
templates, and then choose Create image.
5. Choose Instance state, and then choose Start instance.
6. Connect to the instance by using Remote Desktop and then download the RemediateDriverIssue.zip
folder to the instance.
7. Extract the contents of the folder.
8. Run the remediation script according to the instructions in the Readme.txt file. The file is located in
the folder where you extracted RemediateDriverIssue.zip.

TCP offloading
Important
This issue does not apply to instances running AWS PV or Intel network drivers.

By default, TCP offloading is enabled for the Citrix PV drivers in Windows AMIs. If you encounter
transport-level errors or packet transmission errors (as visible on the Windows Performance Monitor)—
for example, when you're running certain SQL workloads—you may need to disable this feature.
Warning
Disabling TCP offloading may reduce the network performance of your instance.

To disable TCP offloading for Windows Server 2012 and 2008

1. Connect to your instance and log in as the local administrator.

2. If you're using Windows Server 2012, press Ctrl+Esc to access the Start screen, and then choose
Control Panel. If you're using Windows Server 2008, choose Start and select Control Panel.
3. Choose Network and Internet, then Network and Sharing Center.
4. Choose Change adapter settings.
5. Right-click Citrix PV Ethernet Adapter #0 and select Properties.

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6. In the Local Area Connection Properties dialog box, choose Configure to open the Citrix PV
Ethernet Adapter #0 Properties dialog box.
7. On the Advanced tab, disable each of the properties, except for Correct TCP/UDP Checksum Value.
To disable a property, select it from Property and choose Disabled from Value.
8. Choose OK.
9. Run the following commands from a Command Prompt window.

netsh int ip set global taskoffload=disabled

netsh int tcp set global chimney=disabled
netsh int tcp set global rss=disabled
netsh int tcp set global netdma=disabled

10. Reboot the instance.

Time synchronization
Prior to the release of the 2013.02.13 Windows AMI, the Citrix Xen guest agent could set the system time
incorrectly. This can cause your DHCP lease to expire. If you have issues connecting to your instance, you
might need to update the agent.

To determine whether you have the updated Citrix Xen guest agent, check whether the C:\Program
Files\Citrix\XenGuestAgent.exe file is from March 2013. If the date on this file is earlier than
that, update the Citrix Xen guest agent service. For more information, see Upgrade your Citrix Xen guest
agent service (p. 538).

Workloads that leverage more than 20,000 disk IOPS experience degradation
due to CPU bottlenecks
You can be affected by this issue if you are using Windows instances running AWS PV
drivers that leverage more than 20,000 IOPS, and you experience bug check code 0x9E:
USER_MODE_HEALTH_MONITOR.

Disk reads and writes (IOs) in the AWS PV drivers occur in two phases: IO preparation and IO
completion. By default, the preparation phase runs on a single arbitrary core. The completion phase
runs on core 0. The amount of computation required to process an IO varies based on it size and other
properties. Some IOs use more computation in the preparation phase, and others in the completion
phase. When an instance drives more than 20,000 IOPS, the preparation or completion phase may result
in a bottleneck, where the CPU upon which it runs is at 100% capacity. Whether or not the preparation
or completion phase becomes a bottleneck depends on the properties of the IOs used by the application.

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Starting with AWS PV drivers 8.4.0, the load of the preparation phase and the completion phase can be
distributed across multiple cores, eliminating bottlenecks. Each application uses different IO properties.
Therefore, applying one of the following configurations may raise, lower, or not impact the performance
of your application. After you apply any of these configurations, monitor the application to verify that it
is meeting your desired performance.

1. Prerequisites

Before you begin this troubleshooting procedure, verify the following prerequisites:

• Your instance uses AWS PV drivers version 8.4.0 or later. To upgrade, see Upgrade PV drivers on
Windows instances (p. 533).
• You have RDP access to the instance. For steps to connect to your Windows instance using RDP,
see Connect to your Windows instance using RDP (p. 418).
• You have administrator access on the instance.
2. Observe CPU load on your instance

You can use Windows Task Manager to view the load on each CPU to determine potential
bottlenecks to disk IO.

1. Verify that your application is running and handling traffic similar to your production workload.
2. Connect to your instance using RDP.
3. Choose the Start menu on your instance.
4. Enter Task Manager in the Start menu to open Task Manager.
5. If Task Manager displays the Summary View, choose More details to expand the detailed view.
6. Choose the Performance tab.
7. Select CPU in the left pane.
8. Right-click on the graph in the main pane and select Change graph to>Logical processors to
display each individual core.
9. Depending on how many cores are on your instance, you may see lines displaying CPU load over
time, or you may just see a number.
• If you see graphs displaying load over time, look for CPUs where the box is almost entirely
shaded.
• If you see a number on each core, look for cores that consistently show 95% or greater.
10.Note whether core 0 or a different core is experiencing a heavy load.
3. Choose which configuration to apply

Configuration name When to apply this Notes

configuration

Default configuration Workload is driving less For this configuration,

than 20,000 IOPS, or other IO occurs on a few cores,
configurations did not improve which may benefit smaller
performance or stability. workloads by increasing cache
locality and reducing context
switching.

Allow driver to choose whether Workload is driving more than This configuration is
to distribute completion 20,000 IOPS and moderate or recommended for all Xen
high load is observed on core instances using PV 8.4.0 or
0. later and leveraging more than
20,000 IOPS, whether or not
problems are encountered.
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Configuration name When to apply this Notes

configuration

Distribute both preparation Workload is driving more This configuration enables

and completion than 20,000 IOPS, and either distribution of both IO
allowing the driver to choose preparation and IO completion.
the distribution did not
improve performance, or a core
other than 0 is experiencing a
high load.

Note
We recommend that you do not distribute IO preparation without also distributing
IO completion (setting DpcRedirection without setting NotifierDistributed)
because the completion phase is sensitive to overload by the preparation phase when the
preparation phase is running in parallel.

Registry key values

• NotifierDistributed

Value 0 or not present — The completion phase will run on core 0.

Value 1 — The driver chooses to run the completion phase or core 0 or one additional core per
attached disk.

Value 2 — The driver runs the completion phase on one additional core per attached disk.
• DpcRedirection

Value 0 or not present — The preparation phase will run on a single, arbitrary core.

Value 1 — The preparation phase is distributed across multiple cores.

Default configuration

Apply the default configuration with AWS PV driver versions prior to 8.4.0, or if performance or
stability degradation is observed after applying one of the other configurations in this section.

1. Connect to your instance using RDP.

2. Open a new PowerShell command prompt as an administrator.
3. Run the following commands to remove the NotifierDistributed and DpcRedirection
registry keys.

Remove-ItemProperty -Path HKLM:\System\CurrentControlSet\Services\xenvbd\Parameters -

Name NotifierDistributed

Remove-ItemProperty -Path HKLM:\System\CurrentControlSet\Services\xenvbd\Parameters -

Name DpcRedirection

4. Reboot your instance.

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Allow driver to choose whether to distribute completion

Set NotiferDistributed registry key to allow the PV storage driver to choose whether or not to
distribute IO completion.

1. Connect to your instance using RDP.

2. Open a new PowerShell command prompt as an administrator.
3. Run the following command to set the NotiferDistributed registry key.

Set-ItemProperty -Type DWORD -Path HKLM:\System\CurrentControlSet\Services\xenvbd

\Parameters -Value 0x00000001 -Name NotifierDistributed

4. Reboot your instance.

Distribute both preparation and completion

Set NotifierDistributed and DpcRedirection registry keys to always distribute both the
preparation and completion phases.

1. Connect to your instance using RDP.

2. Open a new PowerShell command prompt as an administrator.
3. Run the following commands to set the NotifierDistributed and DpcRedirection registry
keys.

Set-ItemProperty -Type DWORD -Path HKLM:\System\CurrentControlSet\Services\xenvbd

\Parameters -Value 0x00000002 -Name NotifierDistributed

Set-ItemProperty -Type DWORD -Path HKLM:\System\CurrentControlSet\Services\xenvbd

\Parameters -Value 0x00000001 -Name DpcRedirection

4. Reboot your instance.

AWS NVMe drivers for Windows instances

EBS volumes and instance store volumes are exposed as NVMe block devices on Nitro-based
instances (p. 147). You must have the AWS NVMe driver installed in order to use an NVMe block device.
The latest AWS Windows AMIs for Windows Server 2008 R2 and later contain the required AWS NVMe
driver.

For more information about EBS and NVMe, see Amazon EBS and NVMe on Windows instances (p. 1355).
For more information about SSD instance store and NVMe, see SSD instance store volumes (p. 1416).

Install or upgrade AWS NVMe drivers

If you are not using the latest AWS Windows AMIs provided by Amazon, use the following procedure to
install the current AWS NVMe driver. You should perform this update at a time when it is convenient to
reboot your instance. Either the install script will reboot your instance or you must reboot it as the final
step.

Prerequisites

PowerShell 3.0 or later

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To download and install the latest AWS NVMe driver

1. We recommend that you create an AMI as a backup as follows, in case you need to roll back your
changes.

a. When you stop an instance, the data on any instance store volumes is erased. Before you stop
an instance, verify that you've copied any data that you need from your instance store volumes
to persistent storage, such as Amazon EBS or Amazon S3.
b. In the navigation pane, choose Instances.
c. Select the instance that requires the driver upgrade, and choose Instance state, Stop instance.
d. After the instance is stopped, select the instance, choose Actions, then Image and templates,
and then choose Create image.
e. Choose Instance state, Start instance.
2. Connect to your instance and log in as the local administrator.
3. Download and extract the drivers to your instance using one of the following options:
• Using a browser:

a. Download the latest driver package to the instance.

b. Extract the zip archive.
• Using PowerShell:

invoke-webrequest https://s3.amazonaws.com/ec2-windows-drivers-downloads/NVMe/
Latest/AWSNVMe.zip -outfile $env:USERPROFILE\nvme_driver.zip
expand-archive $env:userprofile\nvme_driver.zip -DestinationPath $env:userprofile
\nvme_driver

4. Install the driver to your instance by running the install.ps1 PowerShell script from the
nvme_driver directory (.\install.ps1). If you get an error, make sure you are using PowerShell
3.0 or later.
5. If the installer does not reboot your instance, reboot the instance.

AWS NVMe driver version history

The following table describes the released versions of the AWS NVMe driver.

Driver version Details Release date

1.3.2 Fixed issue with modifying EBS volumes actively processing IO, 10 September
which may result in data corruption. Customers who do not modify 2019
online EBS volumes (for example, resizing or changing type) are not
impacted.

1.3.1 Reliability Improvements 21 May 2019

1.3.0 Device optimization improvements 31 August

2018

1.2.0 Performance and reliability improvements for AWS NVMe devices 13 June 2018
on all supported instances, including bare metal instances

1.0.0 AWS NVMe driver for supported instance types running Windows 12 February
Server 2018

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Subscribe to notifications
Amazon SNS can notify you when new versions of EC2 Windows Drivers are released. Use the following
procedure to subscribe to these notifications.

To subscribe to EC2 notifications from the console

1. Open the Amazon SNS console at https://console.aws.amazon.com/sns/v3/home.

2. In the navigation bar, change the Region to US East (N. Virginia), if necessary. You must select this
Region because the SNS notifications that you are subscribing to are in this Region.
3. In the navigation pane, choose Subscriptions.
4. Choose Create subscription.
5. In the Create subscription dialog box, do the following:

a. For TopicARN, copy the following Amazon Resource Name (ARN):

arn:aws:sns:us-east-1:801119661308:ec2-windows-drivers
b. For Protocol, choose Email.
c. For Endpoint, type an email address that you can use to receive the notifications.
d. Choose Create subscription.
6. You'll receive a confirmation email. Open the email and follow the directions to complete your
subscription.

Whenever new EC2 Windows drivers are released, we send notifications to subscribers. If you no longer
want to receive these notifications, use the following procedure to unsubscribe.

To unsubscribe from Amazon EC2 Windows driver notification

1. Open the Amazon SNS console at https://console.aws.amazon.com/sns/v3/home.

2. In the navigation pane, choose Subscriptions.
3. Select the checkbox for the subscription and then choose Actions, Delete subscriptions. When
prompted for confirmation, choose Delete.

To subscribe to EC2 notifications using the AWS CLI

To subscribe to EC2 notifications with the AWS CLI, use the following command.

aws sns subscribe --topic-arn arn:aws:sns:us-east-1:801119661308:ec2-windows-drivers --

protocol email --notification-endpoint [email protected]

To subscribe to EC2 notifications using AWS Tools for Windows PowerShell

To subscribe to EC2 notifications with AWS Tools for Windows PowerShell, use the following command.

Connect-SNSNotification -TopicArn 'arn:aws:sns:us-east-1:801119661308:ec2-windows-drivers'

-Protocol email -Region us-east-1 -Endpoint '[email protected]'

Optimize CPU options

Amazon EC2 instances support multithreading, which enables multiple threads to run concurrently on
a single CPU core. Each thread is represented as a virtual CPU (vCPU) on the instance. An instance has
a default number of CPU cores, which varies according to instance type. For example, an m5.xlarge
instance type has two CPU cores and two threads per core by default—four vCPUs in total.

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Note
Each vCPU is a thread of a CPU core, except for T2 instances and instances powered by AWS
Graviton2 processors.

In most cases, there is an Amazon EC2 instance type that has a combination of memory and number
of vCPUs to suit your workloads. However, you can specify the following CPU options to optimize your
instance for specific workloads or business needs:

• Number of CPU cores: You can customize the number of CPU cores for the instance. You might do
this to potentially optimize the licensing costs of your software with an instance that has sufficient
amounts of RAM for memory-intensive workloads but fewer CPU cores.
• Threads per core: You can disable multithreading by specifying a single thread per CPU core. You
might do this for certain workloads, such as high performance computing (HPC) workloads.

You can specify these CPU options during instance launch. There is no additional or reduced charge
for specifying CPU options. You're charged the same as instances that are launched with default CPU
options.

Contents
• Rules for specifying CPU options (p. 550)
• CPU cores and threads per CPU core per instance type (p. 550)
• Specify CPU options for your instance (p. 565)
• View the CPU options for your instance (p. 567)

Rules for specifying CPU options

To specify the CPU options for your instance, be aware of the following rules:

• CPU options can only be specified during instance launch and cannot be modified after launch.
• When you launch an instance, you must specify both the number of CPU cores and threads per core in
the request. For example requests, see Specify CPU options for your instance (p. 565).
• The number of vCPUs for the instance is the number of CPU cores multiplied by the threads per core.
To specify a custom number of vCPUs, you must specify a valid number of CPU cores and threads per
core for the instance type. You cannot exceed the default number of vCPUs for the instance. For more
information, see CPU cores and threads per CPU core per instance type (p. 550).
• To disable multithreading, specify one thread per core.
• When you change the instance type (p. 233) of an existing instance, the CPU options automatically
change to the default CPU options for the new instance type.
• The specified CPU options persist after you stop, start, or reboot an instance.

CPU cores and threads per CPU core per instance type
The following tables list the instance types that support specifying CPU options.

Contents
• Accelerated computing instances (p. 551)
• Compute optimized instances (p. 552)
• General purpose instances (p. 554)
• Memory optimized instances (p. 559)
• Storage optimized instances (p. 564)

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Accelerated computing instances

Instance type Default vCPUs Default CPU Default Valid CPU Valid threads
cores threads per cores per core
core

f1.2xlarge 8 4 2 1 to 4 1, 2

f1.4xlarge 16 8 2 1 to 8 1, 2

f1.16xlarge 64 32 2 2, 4, 6, 8, 10, 1, 2
12, 14, 16, 18,
20, 22, 24, 26,
28, 30, 32

g3.4xlarge 16 8 2 1 to 8 1, 2

g3.8xlarge 32 16 2 1 to 16 1, 2

g3.16xlarge 64 32 2 2, 4, 6, 8, 10, 1, 2
12, 14, 16, 18,
20, 22, 24, 26,
28, 30, 32

g3s.xlarge 4 2 2 1, 2 1, 2

g4ad.xlarge 4 2 2 2 1, 2

g4ad.2xlarge 8 4 2 2, 4 1, 2

g4ad.4xlarge 16 8 2 2, 4, 8 1, 2

g4ad.8xlarge 32 16 2 2, 4, 8, 16 1, 2

g4ad.16xlarge 64 32 2 2, 4, 8, 16, 32 1, 2

g4dn.xlarge 4 2 2 1, 2 1, 2

g4dn.2xlarge 8 4 2 1 to 4 1, 2

g4dn.4xlarge 16 8 2 1 to 8 1, 2

g4dn.8xlarge 32 16 2 1 to 16 1, 2

g4dn.12xlarge 48 24 2 4, 6, 8, 10, 12, 1, 2

14, 16, 18, 20,
22, 24

g4dn.16xlarge 64 32 2 2, 4, 6, 8, 10, 1, 2
12, 14, 16, 18,
20, 22, 24, 26,
28, 30, 32

p2.xlarge 4 2 2 1, 2 1, 2

p2.8xlarge 32 16 2 1 to 16 1, 2

p2.16xlarge 64 32 2 2, 4, 6, 8, 10, 1, 2
12, 14, 16, 18,
20, 22, 24, 26,
28, 30, 32

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Instance type Default vCPUs Default CPU Default Valid CPU Valid threads
cores threads per cores per core
core

p3.2xlarge 8 4 2 1 to 4 1, 2

p3.8xlarge 32 16 2 1 to 16 1, 2

p3.16xlarge 64 32 2 2, 4, 6, 8, 10, 1, 2
12, 14, 16, 18,
20, 22, 24, 26,
28, 30, 32

p3dn.24xlarge 96 48 2 4, 6, 8, 10, 12, 1, 2

14, 16, 18, 20,
22, 24, 26, 28,
30, 32, 34, 36,
38, 40, 42, 44,
46, 48

Compute optimized instances

Instance type Default vCPUs Default CPU Default Valid CPU Valid threads
cores threads per cores per core
core

c4.large 2 1 2 1 1, 2

c4.xlarge 4 2 2 1, 2 1, 2

c4.2xlarge 8 4 2 1 to 4 1, 2

c4.4xlarge 16 8 2 1 to 8 1, 2

c4.8xlarge 36 18 2 2, 4, 6, 8, 10, 1, 2
12, 14, 16, 18

c5.large 2 1 2 1 1, 2

c5.xlarge 4 2 2 2 1, 2

c5.2xlarge 8 4 2 2, 4 1, 2

c5.4xlarge 16 8 2 2, 4, 6, 8 1, 2

c5.9xlarge 36 18 2 4, 6, 8, 10, 12, 1, 2

14, 16, 18

c5.12xlarge 48 24 2 4, 6, 8, 10, 12, 1, 2

14, 16, 18, 20,
22, 24

c5.18xlarge 72 36 2 4, 6, 8, 10, 12, 1, 2

14, 16, 18, 20,
22, 24, 26, 28,
30, 32, 34, 36

c5.24xlarge 96 48 2 4, 6, 8, 10, 12, 1, 2

14, 16, 18, 20,

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Instance type Default vCPUs Default CPU Default Valid CPU Valid threads
cores threads per cores per core
core
22, 24, 26, 28,
30, 32, 34, 36,
38, 40, 42, 44,
46, 48

c5a.large 2 1 2 1 1, 2

c5a.xlarge 4 2 2 1, 2 1, 2

c5a.2xlarge 8 4 2 1 to 4 1, 2

c5a.4xlarge 16 8 2 1, 2, 3, 4, 8 1, 2

c5a.8xlarge 32 16 2 1, 2, 3, 4, 8, 12, 1, 2
16

c5a.12xlarge 48 24 2 1, 2, 3, 4, 8, 12, 1, 2
16, 20, 24

c5a.16xlarge 64 32 2 1, 2, 3, 4, 8, 12, 1, 2
16, 20, 24, 28,
32

c5a.24xlarge 96 48 2 1, 2, 3, 4, 8, 12, 1, 2
16, 20, 24, 28,
32, 36, 40, 44,
48

c5ad.large 2 1 2 1 1, 2

c5ad.xlarge 4 2 2 1, 2 1, 2

c5ad.2xlarge 8 4 2 1 to 4 1, 2

c5ad.4xlarge 16 8 2 1, 2, 3, 4, 8 1, 2

c5ad.8xlarge 32 16 2 1, 2, 3, 4, 8, 12, 1, 2
16

c5ad.12xlarge 48 24 2 1, 2, 3, 4, 8, 12, 1, 2
16, 20, 24

c5ad.16xlarge 64 32 2 1, 2, 3, 4, 8, 12, 1, 2
16, 20, 24, 28,
32

c5ad.24xlarge 96 48 2 1, 2, 3, 4, 8, 12, 1, 2
16, 20, 24, 28,
32, 36, 40, 44,
48

c5d.large 2 1 2 1 1, 2

c5d.xlarge 4 2 2 2 1, 2

c5d.2xlarge 8 4 2 2, 4 1, 2

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Instance type Default vCPUs Default CPU Default Valid CPU Valid threads
cores threads per cores per core
core

c5d.4xlarge 16 8 2 2, 4, 6, 8 1, 2

c5d.9xlarge 36 18 2 2, 4, 6, 8, 10, 1, 2
12, 14, 16, 18

c5d.12xlarge 48 24 2 4, 6, 8, 10, 12, 1, 2

14, 16, 18, 20,
22, 24

c5d.18xlarge 72 36 2 4, 6, 8, 10, 12, 1, 2

14, 16, 18, 20,
22, 24, 26, 28,
30, 32, 34, 36

c5d.24xlarge 96 48 2 4, 6, 8, 10, 12, 1, 2

14, 16, 18, 20,
22, 24, 26, 28,
30, 32, 34, 36,
38, 40, 42, 44,
46, 48

c5n.large 2 1 2 1 1, 2

c5n.xlarge 4 2 2 2 1, 2

c5n.2xlarge 8 4 2 2, 4 1, 2

c5n.4xlarge 16 8 2 2, 4, 6, 8 1, 2

c5n.9xlarge 36 18 2 2, 4, 6, 8, 10, 1, 2
12, 14, 16, 18

c5n.18xlarge 72 36 2 4, 6, 8, 10, 12, 1, 2

14, 16, 18, 20,
22, 24, 26, 28,
30, 32, 34, 36

General purpose instances

Instance type Default vCPUs Default CPU Default Valid CPU Valid threads
cores threads per cores per core
core

m4.large 2 1 2 1 1, 2

m4.xlarge 4 2 2 1, 2 1, 2

m4.2xlarge 8 4 2 1 to 4 1, 2

m4.4xlarge 16 8 2 1 to 8 1, 2

m4.10xlarge 40 20 2 2, 4, 6, 8, 10, 1, 2
12, 14, 16, 18,
20

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Instance type Default vCPUs Default CPU Default Valid CPU Valid threads
cores threads per cores per core
core

m4.16xlarge 64 32 2 2, 4, 6, 8, 10, 1, 2
12, 14, 16, 18,
20, 22, 24, 26,
28, 30, 32

m5.large 2 1 2 1 1, 2

m5.xlarge 4 2 2 2 1, 2

m5.2xlarge 8 4 2 2, 4 1, 2

m5.4xlarge 16 8 2 2, 4, 6, 8 1, 2

m5.8xlarge 32 16 2 2, 4, 6, 8, 10, 1, 2
12, 14, 16

m5.12xlarge 48 24 2 2, 4, 6, 8, 10, 1, 2
12, 14, 16, 18,
20, 22, 24

m5.16xlarge 64 32 2 4, 6, 8, 10, 12, 1, 2

14, 16, 18, 20,
22, 24, 26, 28,
30, 32

m5.24xlarge 96 48 2 4, 6, 8, 10, 12, 1, 2

14, 16, 18, 20,
22, 24, 26, 28,
30, 32, 34, 36,
38, 40, 42, 44,
46, 48

m5a.large 2 1 2 1 1, 2

m5a.xlarge 4 2 2 2 1, 2

m5a.2xlarge 8 4 2 2, 4 1, 2

m5a.4xlarge 16 8 2 2, 4, 6, 8 1, 2

m5a.8xlarge 32 16 2 4, 6, 8, 10, 12, 1, 2

14, 16

m5a.12xlarge 48 24 2 6, 12, 18, 24 1, 2

m5a.16xlarge 64 32 2 8, 10, 12, 14, 1, 2

16, 18, 20, 22,
24, 26, 28, 30,
32

m5a.24xlarge 96 48 2 12, 18, 24, 36, 1, 2

48

m5ad.large 2 1 2 1 1, 2

m5ad.xlarge 4 2 2 2 1, 2

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Instance type Default vCPUs Default CPU Default Valid CPU Valid threads
cores threads per cores per core
core

m5ad.2xlarge 8 4 2 2, 4 1, 2

m5ad.4xlarge 16 8 2 2, 4, 6, 8 1, 2

m5ad.8xlarge 32 16 2 2, 4, 6, 8, 10, 1, 2
12, 14, 16

m5ad.12xlarge 48 24 2 6, 12, 18, 24 1, 2

m5ad.16xlarge 64 32 2 4, 6, 8, 10, 12, 1, 2

14, 16, 18, 20,
22, 24, 26, 28,
30, 32

m5ad.24xlarge 96 48 2 12, 18, 24, 36, 1, 2

48

m5d.large 2 1 2 1 1, 2

m5d.xlarge 4 2 2 2 1, 2

m5d.2xlarge 8 4 2 2, 4 1, 2

m5d.4xlarge 16 8 2 2, 4, 6, 8 1, 2

m5d.8xlarge 32 16 2 2, 4, 6, 8, 10, 1, 2
12, 14, 16

m5d.12xlarge 48 24 2 2, 4, 6, 8, 10, 1, 2
12, 14, 16, 18,
20, 22, 24

m5d.16xlarge 64 32 2 4, 6, 8, 10, 12, 1, 2

14, 16, 18, 20,
22, 24, 26, 28,
30, 32

m5d.24xlarge 96 48 2 4, 6, 8, 10, 12, 1, 2

14, 16, 18, 20,
22, 24, 26, 28,
30, 32, 34, 36,
38, 40, 42, 44,
46, 48

m5dn.large 2 1 2 1 1, 2

m5dn.xlarge 4 2 2 2 1, 2

m5dn.2xlarge 8 4 2 2, 4 1, 2

m5dn.4xlarge 16 8 2 2, 4, 6, 8 1, 2

m5dn.8xlarge 32 16 2 2, 4, 6, 8, 10, 1, 2
12, 14, 16

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Instance type Default vCPUs Default CPU Default Valid CPU Valid threads
cores threads per cores per core
core

m5dn.12xlarge 48 24 2 2, 4, 6, 8, 10, 1, 2
12, 14, 16, 18,
20, 22, 24

m5dn.16xlarge 64 32 2 4, 6, 8, 10, 12, 1, 2

14, 16, 18, 20,
22, 24, 26, 28,
30, 32

m5dn.24xlarge 96 48 2 4, 6, 8, 10, 12, 1, 2

14, 16, 18, 20,
22, 24, 26, 28,
30, 32, 34, 36,
38, 40, 42, 44,
46, 48

m5n.large 2 1 2 1 1, 2

m5n.xlarge 4 2 2 2 1, 2

m5n.2xlarge 8 4 2 2, 4 1, 2

m5n.4xlarge 16 8 2 2, 4, 6, 8 1, 2

m5n.8xlarge 32 16 2 2, 4, 6, 8, 10, 1, 2
12, 14, 16

m5n.12xlarge 48 24 2 2, 4, 6, 8, 10, 1, 2
12, 14, 16, 18,
20, 22, 24

m5n.16xlarge 64 32 2 4, 6, 8, 10, 12, 1, 2

14, 16, 18, 20,
22, 24, 26, 28,
30, 32

m5n.24xlarge 96 48 2 4, 6, 8, 10, 12, 1, 2

14, 16, 18, 20,
22, 24, 26, 28,
30, 32, 34, 36,
38, 40, 42, 44,
46, 48

m5zn.large 2 1 2 1 1, 2

m5zn.xlarge 4 2 2 1, 2 1, 2

m5zn.2xlarge 8 4 2 2, 4 1, 2

m5zn.3xlarge 12 6 2 2, 4, 6 1, 2

m5zn.6xlarge 24 12 2 2, 4, 6, 8, 10, 1, 2
12

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Instance type Default vCPUs Default CPU Default Valid CPU Valid threads
cores threads per cores per core
core

m5zn.12xlarge 48 24 2 2, 4, 6, 8, 10, 1, 2
12, 14, 16, 18,
20, 22, 24

m6i.large 2 1 2 1 1, 2

m6i.xlarge 4 2 2 1, 2 1, 2

m6i.2xlarge 8 4 2 2, 4 1, 2

m6i.4xlarge 16 8 2 2, 4, 6, 8 1, 2

m6i.8xlarge 32 16 2 2, 4, 6, 8, 10, 1, 2
12, 14, 16

m6i.12xlarge 48 24 2 2, 4, 6, 8, 10, 1, 2
12, 14, 16, 18,
20, 22, 24

m6i.16xlarge 64 32 2 2, 4, 6, 8, 10, 1, 2
12, 14, 16, 18,
20, 22, 24, 26,
28, 30, 32

m6i.24xlarge 96 48 2 2, 4, 6, 8, 10, 1, 2
12, 14, 16, 18,
20, 22, 24, 26,
28, 30, 32, 34,
36, 38, 40, 42,
44, 46, 48

m6i.32xlarge 128 64 2 2, 4, 6, 8, 10, 1, 2

12, 14, 16, 18,
20, 22, 24, 26,
28, 30, 32, 34,
36, 38, 40, 42,
44, 46, 48, 50,
52, 54, 56, 58,
60, 62, 64

t2.nano 1 1 1 1 1

t2.micro 1 1 1 1 1

t2.small 1 1 1 1 1

t2.medium 2 2 1 1, 2 1

t2.large 2 2 1 1, 2 1

t2.xlarge 4 4 1 1 to 4 1

t2.2xlarge 8 8 1 1 to 8 1

t3.nano 2 1 2 1 1, 2

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Instance type Default vCPUs Default CPU Default Valid CPU Valid threads
cores threads per cores per core
core

t3.micro 2 1 2 1 1, 2

t3.small 2 1 2 1 1, 2

t3.medium 2 1 2 1 1, 2

t3.large 2 1 2 1 1, 2

t3.xlarge 4 2 2 2 1, 2

t3.2xlarge 8 4 2 2, 4 1, 2

t3a.nano 2 1 2 1 1, 2

t3a.micro 2 1 2 1 1, 2

t3a.small 2 1 2 1 1, 2

t3a.medium 2 1 2 1 1, 2

t3a.large 2 1 2 1 1, 2

t3a.xlarge 4 2 2 2 1, 2

t3a.2xlarge 8 4 2 2, 4 1, 2

Memory optimized instances

Instance type Default vCPUs Default CPU Default Valid CPU Valid threads
cores threads per cores per core
core

r4.large 2 1 2 1 1, 2

r4.xlarge 4 2 2 1, 2 1, 2

r4.2xlarge 8 4 2 1 to 4 1, 2

r4.4xlarge 16 8 2 1 to 8 1, 2

r4.8xlarge 32 16 2 1 to 16 1, 2

r4.16xlarge 64 32 2 2, 4, 6, 8, 10, 1, 2
12, 14, 16, 18,
20, 22, 24, 26,
28, 30, 32

r5.large 2 1 2 1 1, 2

r5.xlarge 4 2 2 2 1, 2

r5.2xlarge 8 4 2 2, 4 1, 2

r5.4xlarge 16 8 2 2, 4, 6, 8 1, 2

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Instance type Default vCPUs Default CPU Default Valid CPU Valid threads
cores threads per cores per core
core

r5.8xlarge 32 16 2 2, 4, 6, 8, 10, 1, 2
12, 14, 16

r5.12xlarge 48 24 2 2, 4, 6, 8, 10, 1, 2
12, 14, 16, 18,
20, 22, 24

r5.16xlarge 64 32 2 4, 6, 8, 10, 12, 1, 2

14, 16, 18, 20,
22, 24, 26, 28,
30, 32

r5.24xlarge 96 48 2 4, 6, 8, 10, 12, 1, 2

14, 16, 18, 20,
22, 24, 26, 28,
30, 32, 34, 36,
38, 40, 42, 44,
46, 48

r5a.large 2 1 2 1 1, 2

r5a.xlarge 4 2 2 2 1, 2

r5a.2xlarge 8 4 2 2, 4 1, 2

r5a.4xlarge 16 8 2 2, 4, 6, 8 1, 2

r5a.8xlarge 32 16 2 4, 6, 8, 10, 12, 1, 2

14, 16

r5a.12xlarge 48 24 2 6, 12, 18, 24 1, 2

r5a.16xlarge 64 32 2 4, 6, 8, 10, 12, 1, 2

14, 16, 18, 20,
22, 24, 26, 28,
30, 32

r5a.24xlarge 96 48 2 12, 18, 24, 36, 1, 2

48

r5ad.large 2 1 2 1 1, 2

r5ad.xlarge 4 2 2 2 1, 2

r5ad.2xlarge 8 4 2 2, 4 1, 2

r5ad.4xlarge 16 8 2 2, 4, 6, 8 1, 2

r5ad.8xlarge 32 16 2 2, 4, 6, 8, 10, 1, 2
12, 14, 16

r5ad.12xlarge 48 24 2 6, 12, 18, 24 1, 2

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Instance type Default vCPUs Default CPU Default Valid CPU Valid threads
cores threads per cores per core
core

r5ad.16xlarge 64 32 2 4, 6, 8, 10, 12, 1, 2

14, 16, 18, 20,
22, 24, 26, 28,
30, 32

r5ad.24xlarge 96 48 2 12, 18, 24, 36, 1, 2

48

r5b.large 2 1 2 1 1, 2

r5b.xlarge 4 2 2 2 1, 2

r5b.2xlarge 8 4 2 2, 4 1, 2

r5b.4xlarge 16 8 2 2, 4, 6, 8 1, 2

r5b.8xlarge 32 16 2 2, 4, 6, 8, 10, 1, 2
12, 14, 16

r5b.12xlarge 48 24 2 2, 4, 6, 8, 10, 1, 2
12, 14, 16, 18,
20, 22, 24

r5b.16xlarge 64 32 2 4, 6, 8, 10, 12, 1, 2

14, 16, 18, 20,
22, 24, 26, 28,
30, 32

r5b.24xlarge 96 48 2 4, 6, 8, 10, 12, 1, 2

14, 16, 18, 20,
22, 24, 26, 28,
30, 32, 34, 36,
38, 40, 42, 44,
46, 48

r5d.large 2 1 2 1 1, 2

r5d.xlarge 4 2 2 2 1, 2

r5d.2xlarge 8 4 2 2, 4 1, 2

r5d.4xlarge 16 8 2 2, 4, 6, 8 1, 2

r5d.8xlarge 32 16 2 2, 4, 6, 8, 10, 1, 2
12, 14, 16

r5d.12xlarge 48 24 2 2, 4, 6, 8, 10, 1, 2
12, 14, 16, 18,
20, 22, 24

r5d.16xlarge 64 32 2 4, 6, 8, 10, 12, 1, 2

14, 16, 18, 20,
22, 24, 26, 28,
30, 32

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Instance type Default vCPUs Default CPU Default Valid CPU Valid threads
cores threads per cores per core
core

r5d.24xlarge 96 48 2 4, 6, 8, 10, 12, 1, 2

14, 16, 18, 20,
22, 24, 26, 28,
30, 32, 34, 36,
38, 40, 42, 44,
46, 48

r5dn.large 2 1 2 1 1, 2

r5dn.xlarge 4 2 2 2 1, 2

r5dn.2xlarge 8 4 2 2, 4 1, 2

r5dn.4xlarge 16 8 2 2, 4, 6, 8 1, 2

r5dn.8xlarge 32 16 2 2, 4, 6, 8, 10, 1, 2
12, 14, 16

r5dn.12xlarge 48 24 2 2, 4, 6, 8, 10, 1, 2
12, 14, 16, 18,
20, 22, 24

r5dn.16xlarge 64 32 2 4, 6, 8, 10, 12, 1, 2

14, 16, 18, 20,
22, 24, 26, 28,
30, 32

r5dn.24xlarge 96 48 2 4, 6, 8, 10, 12, 1, 2

14, 16, 18, 20,
22, 24, 26, 28,
30, 32, 34, 36,
38, 40, 42, 44,
46, 48

r5n.large 2 1 2 1 1, 2

r5n.xlarge 4 2 2 2 1, 2

r5n.2xlarge 8 4 2 2, 4 1, 2

r5n.4xlarge 16 8 2 2, 4, 6, 8 1, 2

r5n.8xlarge 32 16 2 2, 4, 6, 8, 10, 1, 2
12, 14, 16

r5n.12xlarge 48 24 2 2, 4, 6, 8, 10, 1, 2
12, 14, 16, 18,
20, 22, 24

r5n.16xlarge 64 32 2 4, 6, 8, 10, 12, 1, 2

14, 16, 18, 20,
22, 24, 26, 28,
30, 32

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Instance type Default vCPUs Default CPU Default Valid CPU Valid threads
cores threads per cores per core
core

r5n.24xlarge 96 48 2 4, 6, 8, 10, 12, 1, 2

14, 16, 18, 20,
22, 24, 26, 28,
30, 32, 34, 36,
38, 40, 42, 44,
46, 48

224
u-6tb1.56xlarge 224 1 1 to 224 1

448
u-6tb1.112xlarge 224 2 1 to 224 1, 2

448
u-9tb1.112xlarge 224 2 1 to 224 1, 2

448
u-12tb1.112xlarge 224 2 1 to 224 1, 2

x1.16xlarge 64 32 2 2, 4, 6, 8, 10, 1, 2
12, 14, 16, 18,
20, 22, 24, 26,
28, 30, 32

x1.32xlarge 128 64 2 4, 8, 12, 16, 20, 1, 2

24, 28, 32, 36,
40, 44, 48, 52,
56, 60, 64

x1e.xlarge 4 2 2 1, 2 1, 2

x1e.2xlarge 8 4 2 1 to 4 1, 2

x1e.4xlarge 16 8 2 1 to 8 1, 2

x1e.8xlarge 32 16 2 1 to 16 1, 2

x1e.16xlarge 64 32 2 2, 4, 6, 8, 10, 1, 2
12, 14, 16, 18,
20, 22, 24, 26,
28, 30, 32

x1e.32xlarge 128 64 2 4, 8, 12, 16, 20, 1, 2

24, 28, 32, 36,
40, 44, 48, 52,
56, 60, 64

z1d.large 2 1 2 1 1, 2

z1d.xlarge 4 2 2 2 1, 2

z1d.2xlarge 8 4 2 2, 4 1, 2

z1d.3xlarge 12 6 2 2, 4, 6 1, 2

z1d.6xlarge 24 12 2 2, 4, 6, 8, 10, 1, 2
12

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Instance type Default vCPUs Default CPU Default Valid CPU Valid threads
cores threads per cores per core
core

z1d.12xlarge 48 24 2 4, 6, 8, 10, 12, 1, 2

14, 16, 18, 20,
22, 24

Storage optimized instances

Instance type Default vCPUs Default CPU Default Valid CPU Valid threads
cores threads per cores per core
core

d2.xlarge 4 2 2 1, 2 1, 2

d2.2xlarge 8 4 2 1 to 4 1, 2

d2.4xlarge 16 8 2 1 to 8 1, 2

d2.8xlarge 36 18 2 2, 4, 6, 8, 10, 1, 2
12, 14, 16, 18

d3.xlarge 4 2 2 1, 2 1, 2

d3.2xlarge 8 4 2 2, 4 1, 2

d3.4xlarge 16 8 2 2, 4, 6, 8 1, 2

d3.8xlarge 32 16 2 2, 4, 6, 8, 10, 1, 2
12, 14, 16

d3en.large 2 1 2 1 1, 2

d3en.xlarge 4 2 2 1, 2 1, 2

d3en.2xlarge 8 4 2 2, 4 1, 2

d3en.4xlarge 16 8 2 2, 4, 6, 8 1, 2

d3en.6xlarge 24 12 2 2, 4, 6, 8, 10, 1, 2
12

d3en.8xlarge 32 16 2 2, 4, 6, 8, 10, 1, 2
12, 14, 16

d3en.12xlarge 48 24 2 2, 4, 6, 8, 10, 1, 2
12, 14, 16, 18,
20, 22, 24

h1.2xlarge 8 4 2 1 to 4 1, 2

h1.4xlarge 16 8 2 1 to 8 1, 2

h1.8xlarge 32 16 2 1 to 16 1, 2

h1.16xlarge 64 32 2 2, 4, 6, 8, 10, 1, 2
12, 14, 16, 18,

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Instance type Default vCPUs Default CPU Default Valid CPU Valid threads
cores threads per cores per core
core
20, 22, 24, 26,
28, 30, 32

i3.large 2 1 2 1 1, 2

i3.xlarge 4 2 2 1, 2 1, 2

i3.2xlarge 8 4 2 1 to 4 1, 2

i3.4xlarge 16 8 2 1 to 8 1, 2

i3.8xlarge 32 16 2 1 to 16 1, 2

i3.16xlarge 64 32 2 2, 4, 6, 8, 10, 1, 2
12, 14, 16, 18,
20, 22, 24, 26,
28, 30, 32

i3en.large 2 1 2 1 1, 2

i3en.xlarge 4 2 2 2 1, 2

i3en.2xlarge 8 4 2 2, 4 1, 2

i3en.3xlarge 12 6 2 2, 4, 6 1, 2

i3en.6xlarge 24 12 2 2, 4, 6, 8, 10, 1, 2
12

i3en.12xlarge 48 24 2 2, 4, 6, 8, 10, 1, 2
12, 14, 16, 18,
20, 22, 24

i3en.24xlarge 96 48 2 4, 6, 8, 10, 12, 1, 2

14, 16, 18, 20,
22, 24, 26, 28,
30, 32, 34, 36,
38, 40, 42, 44,
46, 48

Specify CPU options for your instance

You can specify CPU options during instance launch. The following examples are for an r4.4xlarge
instance type, which has the following default values (p. 559):

• Default CPU cores: 8

• Default threads per core: 2
• Default vCPUs: 16 (8 * 2)
• Valid number of CPU cores: 1, 2, 3, 4, 5, 6, 7, 8
• Valid number of threads per core: 1, 2

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Disable multithreading
To disable multithreading, specify one thread per core.

To disable multithreading during instance launch (console)

1. Follow the Launch an instance using the Launch Instance Wizard (p. 396) procedure.
2. On the Configure Instance Details page, for CPU options, choose Specify CPU options.
3. For Core count, choose the number of required CPU cores. In this example, to specify the default
CPU core count for an r4.4xlarge instance, choose 8.
4. To disable multithreading, for Threads per core, choose 1.
5. Continue as prompted by the wizard. When you've finished reviewing your options on the Review
Instance Launch page, choose Launch. For more information, see Launch an instance using the
Launch Instance Wizard (p. 396).

To disable multithreading during instance launch (AWS CLI)

Use the run-instances AWS CLI command and specify a value of 1 for ThreadsPerCore for the --cpu-
options parameter. For CoreCount, specify the number of CPU cores. In this example, to specify the
default CPU core count for an r4.4xlarge instance, specify a value of 8.

aws ec2 run-instances --image-id ami-1a2b3c4d --instance-type r4.4xlarge --cpu-options

"CoreCount=8,ThreadsPerCore=1" --key-name MyKeyPair

Specify a custom number of vCPUs

You can customize the number of CPU cores and threads per core for the instance.

To specify a custom number of vCPUs during instance launch (console)

The following example launches an r4.4xlarge instance with six vCPUs.

1. Follow the Launch an instance using the Launch Instance Wizard (p. 396) procedure.
2. On the Configure Instance Details page, for CPU options, choose Specify CPU options.
3. To get six vCPUs, specify three CPU cores and two threads per core, as follows:

• For Core count, choose 3.

• For Threads per core, choose 2.
4. Continue as prompted by the wizard. When you've finished reviewing your options on the Review
Instance Launch page, choose Launch. For more information, see Launch an instance using the
Launch Instance Wizard (p. 396).

To specify a custom number of vCPUs during instance launch (AWS CLI)

The following example launches an r4.4xlarge instance with six vCPUs.

Use the run-instances AWS CLI command and specify the number of CPU cores and number of threads
in the --cpu-options parameter. You can specify three CPU cores and two threads per core to get six
vCPUs.

aws ec2 run-instances --image-id ami-1a2b3c4d --instance-type r4.4xlarge --cpu-options

"CoreCount=3,ThreadsPerCore=2" --key-name MyKeyPair

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Alternatively, specify six CPU cores and one thread per core (disable multithreading) to get six vCPUs:

aws ec2 run-instances --image-id ami-1a2b3c4d --instance-type r4.4xlarge --cpu-options

"CoreCount=6,ThreadsPerCore=1" --key-name MyKeyPair

View the CPU options for your instance

You can view the CPU options for an existing instance in the Amazon EC2 console or by describing the
instance using the AWS CLI.

New console

To view the CPU options for an instance using the console

1. Open the Amazon EC2 console at https://console.aws.amazon.com/ec2/.

2. In the left navigation pane, choose Instances and select the instance.
3. On the Details tab, under Host and placement group, find Number of vCPUs.
4. To view core count and threads per core, choose the value for Number of vCPUs.

Old console

To view the CPU options for an instance using the console

1. Open the Amazon EC2 console at https://console.aws.amazon.com/ec2/.

2. In the left navigation pane, choose Instances and select the instance.
3. Choose Description and find Number of vCPUs.
4. To view core count and threads per core, choose the value for Number of vCPUs.

To view the CPU options for an instance (AWS CLI)

Use the describe-instances command.

aws ec2 describe-instances --instance-ids i-123456789abcde123

...
"Instances": [
{
"Monitoring": {
"State": "disabled"
},
"PublicDnsName": "ec2-198-51-100-5.eu-central-1.compute.amazonaws.com",
"State": {
"Code": 16,
"Name": "running"
},
"EbsOptimized": false,
"LaunchTime": "2018-05-08T13:40:33.000Z",
"PublicIpAddress": "198.51.100.5",
"PrivateIpAddress": "172.31.2.206",
"ProductCodes": [],
"VpcId": "vpc-1a2b3c4d",
"CpuOptions": {
"CoreCount": 34,
"ThreadsPerCore": 1

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},
"StateTransitionReason": "",
...
}
]
...

In the output that's returned, the CoreCount field indicates the number of cores for the instance. The
ThreadsPerCore field indicates the number of threads per core.

Alternatively, connect to your instance and use Task Manager to view the CPU information for your
instance.

You can use AWS Config to record, assess, audit, and evaluate configuration changes for instances,
including terminated instances. For more information, see Getting Started with AWS Config in the AWS
Config Developer Guide.

Set the time for a Windows instance

A consistent and accurate time reference is crucial for many server tasks and processes. Most system
logs include a time stamp that you can use to determine when problems occur and in what order the
events take place. If you use the AWS CLI or an AWS SDK to make requests from your instance, these
tools sign requests on your behalf. If the date and time of your instance are not set correctly, the date in
the signature may not match the date of the request, and AWS rejects the request.

Amazon provides the Amazon Time Sync Service, which is accessible from all EC2 instances, and is also
used by other AWS services. This service uses a fleet of satellite-connected and atomic reference clocks
in each Region to deliver accurate current time readings of the Coordinated Universal Time (UTC) global
standard through Network Time Protocol (NTP). The Amazon Time Sync Service automatically smooths
any leap seconds that are added to UTC.

The Amazon Time Sync Service is available through NTP at the 169.254.169.123 IPv4 address or the
fd00:ec2::123 IPv6 address for any instance running in a VPC. Your instance does not require access to
the internet, and you do not have to configure your security group rules or your network ACL rules to
allow access. The latest versions of AWS Windows AMIs synchronize with the Amazon Time Sync Service
by default.
Note
The examples in this section use the IPv4 address of the Amazon Time Sync Service:
169.254.169.123. If you are retrieving time for EC2 instances over the IPv6 address, ensure that
you use the IPv6 address instead: fd00:ec2::123. The IPv6 address is only accessible on Instances
built on the Nitro System (p. 147).

Should I use UTC for my instances?

We recommend that you use Coordinated Universal Time (UTC) for your instances to avoid human error
and to facilitate synchronization across your CloudWatch Logs, Metrics, local logs, and other services. You
can, however, choose to use a different time zone to better suit your requirements.

When you use local timezones rather than UTC, make sure that you account for aspects such as daylight
savings time (when applicable) for automation, code, scheduled jobs, troubleshooting activities
(correlating logs), and more.

Use the following procedures to configure the Amazon Time Sync Service on your instance from the
command prompt. Alternatively, you can use external NTP sources. For more information about NTP
and public time sources, see http://www.ntp.org/. An instance must have access to the internet for the
external NTP time sources to work.

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For Linux instances, see Set the time for your Linux instance.

Contents
• Change the time zone (p. 569)
• Configure network time protocol (NTP) (p. 569)
• Default network time protocol (NTP) settings for Amazon Windows AMIs (p. 570)
• Configure time settings for Windows Server 2008 and later (p. 571)
• Related resources (p. 572)

Change the time zone

Windows instances are set to the UTC time zone by default. You can change the time to correspond to
your local time zone or a time zone for another part of your network.

To change the time zone on an instance

1. From your instance, open a Command Prompt window.

2. Identify the time zone to use on the instance. To get a list of time zones, use the following
command: tzutil /l. This command returns a list of all available time zones, using the following
format:

display name
time zone ID

3. Locate the time zone ID to assign to the instance.

4. Assign the time zone to the instance by using the following command:

tzutil /s "Pacific Standard Time"

The new time zone should take effect immediately.

Configure network time protocol (NTP)

Amazon provides the Amazon Time Sync Service, which is accessible from all EC2 instances, and is
also used by other AWS services. We recommend that you configure your instance to use the Amazon
Time Sync Service. This service uses a fleet of satellite-connected and atomic reference clocks in each
AWS Region to deliver accurate current time readings of the Coordinated Universal Time (UTC) global
standard. The Amazon Time Sync Service automatically smooths any leap seconds that are added to UTC.
This service is available at the 169.254.169.123 IPv4 address or the fd00:ec2::123 IPv6 address for any
instance running in a VPC, and your instance does not require internet access to use it. Starting with the
August 2018 release, Windows AMIs use the Amazon Time Sync Service by default.

To verify the NTP configuration

1. From your instance, open a Command Prompt window.

2. Get the current NTP configuration by typing the following command:

w32tm /query /configuration

This command returns the current configuration settings for the Windows instance.
3. (Optional) Get the status of the current configuration by typing the following command:

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w32tm /query /status

This command returns information such as the last time the instance synced with the NTP server and
the poll interval.

To change the NTP server to use the Amazon Time Sync Service

1. From the Command Prompt window, run the following command:

w32tm /config /manualpeerlist:169.254.169.123 /syncfromflags:manual /update

2. Verify your new settings by using the following command:

w32tm /query /configuration

In the output that's returned, verify that NtpServer displays the 169.254.169.123 IP address.

You can change the instance to use a different set of NTP servers if required. For example, if you have
Windows instances that do not have internet access, you can configure them to use an NTP server
located within your private network. If your instance is within a domain, you should change the settings
to use the domain controllers as the time source to avoid time skew. The security group of your instance
must be configured to allow outbound UDP traffic on port 123 (NTP).

To change the NTP servers

1. From the Command Prompt window, run the following command:

w32tm /config /manualpeerlist:"NTP servers" /syncfromflags:manual /update

Where NTP servers is a space-delimited list of NTP servers for the instance to use.
2. Verify your new settings by using the following command:

w32tm /query /configuration

Default network time protocol (NTP) settings for Amazon

Windows AMIs
Amazon Machine Images (AMIs) generally adhere to the out-of-the-box defaults except in cases where
changes are required to function on EC2 infrastructure. The following settings have been determined to
work well in a virtual environment, as well as to keep any clock drift to within one second of accuracy:

• Update Interval – governs how frequently the time service will adjust system time towards accuracy.
AWS configures the update interval to occur once every two minutes.
• NTP Server – starting with the August 2018 release, AMIs will now use the Amazon Time Sync
Service by default. This time service is accessible from any EC2 Region at the 169.254.169.123
endpoint. Additionally, the 0x9 flag indicates that the time service is acting as a client, and to use
SpecialPollInterval to determine how frequently to check in with the configured time server.
• Type – "NTP" means that the service acts as a standalone NTP client instead of acting as part of a
domain.
• Enabled and InputProvider – the time service is enabled and provides time to the operating system.

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• Special Poll Interval – checks against the configured NTP Server every 900 seconds, or 15 minutes.

Registry Path Key Name Data

HKLM:\System UpdateInterval 120

\CurrentControlSet\services
\w32time\Config

HKLM:\System NtpServer 169.254.169.123,0x9

\CurrentControlSet\services
\w32time\Parameters

HKLM:\System Type NTP

\CurrentControlSet\services
\w32time\Parameters

HKLM:\System Enabled 1
\CurrentControlSet\services
\w32time\TimeProviders
\NtpClient

HKLM:\System InputProvider 1
\CurrentControlSet\services
\w32time\TimeProviders
\NtpClient

HKLM:\System SpecialPollInterval 900

\CurrentControlSet\services
\w32time\TimeProviders
\NtpClient

Configure time settings for Windows Server 2008 and later

When you change the time on a Windows instance, you must ensure that the time persists through
system restarts. Otherwise, when the instance restarts, it reverts back to using UTC time. For Windows
Server 2008 and later, you can persist your time setting by adding a RealTimeIsUniversal registry key.
This key is set by default on all current generation instances. To verify whether the RealTimeIsUniversal
registry key is set, see Step 4 in the following procedure. If the key is not set, follow the these steps from
the beginning.

To set the RealTimeIsUniversal registry key

1. From the instance, open a Command Prompt window.

2. Use the following command to add the registry key:

reg add "HKEY_LOCAL_MACHINE\System\CurrentControlSet\Control\TimeZoneInformation" /v

RealTimeIsUniversal /d 1 /t REG_DWORD /f

3. If you are using a Windows Server 2008 AMI (not Windows Server 2008 R2) that was created before
February 22, 2013, we recommend updating to the latest AWS Windows AMI. If you are using an AMI
running Windows Server 2008 R2 (not Windows Server 2008), you must verify that the Microsoft
hotfix KB2922223 is installed. If this hotfix is not installed, we recommend updating to the latest
AWS Windows AMI.
4. (Optional) Verify that the instance saved the key successfully using the following command:

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reg query "HKEY_LOCAL_MACHINE\System\CurrentControlSet\Control\TimeZoneInformation" /s

This command returns the subkeys for the TimeZoneInformation registry key. You should see the
RealTimeIsUniversal key at the bottom of the list, similar to the following:

HKEY_LOCAL_MACHINE\System\CurrentControlSet\Control\TimeZoneInformation
Bias REG_DWORD 0x1e0
DaylightBias REG_DWORD 0xffffffc4
DaylightName REG_SZ @tzres.dll,-211
DaylightStart REG_BINARY 00000300020002000000000000000000
StandardBias REG_DWORD 0x0
StandardName REG_SZ @tzres.dll,-212
StandardStart REG_BINARY 00000B00010002000000000000000000
TimeZoneKeyName REG_SZ Pacific Standard Time
DynamicDaylightTimeDisabled REG_DWORD 0x0
ActiveTimeBias REG_DWORD 0x1a4
RealTimeIsUniversal REG_DWORD 0x1

Related resources
For more information about how the Windows operating system coordinates and manages time,
including the addition of a leap second, see the following documentation:

• How the Windows Time Service Works (Microsoft)

• W32tm (Microsoft)
• How the Windows Time service treats a leap second (Microsoft)
• The story around Leap Seconds and Windows: It's likely not Y2K (Microsoft)

Set the password for a Windows instance

When you connect to a Windows instance, you must specify a user account and password that has
permission to access the instance. The first time that you connect to an instance, you are prompted to
specify the Administrator account and the default password.

With AWS Windows AMIs for Windows Server 2012 R2 and earlier, the EC2Config service (p. 502)
generates the default password. With AWS Windows AMIs for Windows Server 2016 and later,
EC2Launch (p. 494) generates the default password.
Note
With Windows Server 2016 and later, Password never expires is disabled for the local
administrator. With Windows Server 2012 R2 and earlier, Password never expires is
enabled for the local administrator.

Change the Administrator password after connecting

When you connect to an instance the first time, we recommend that you change the Administrator
password from its default value. Use the following procedure to change the Administrator password for a
Windows instance.
Important
Store the new password in a safe place. You won't be able to retrieve the new password using
the Amazon EC2 console. The console can only retrieve the default password. If you attempt
to connect to the instance using the default password after changing it, you'll get a "Your
credentials did not work" error.

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To change the local Administrator password

1. Connect to the instance and open a command prompt.

2. Run the following command. If your new password includes special characters, enclose the password
in double quotes.

net user Administrator "new_password"

3. Store the new password in a safe place.

Change a lost or expired password

If you lose your password or it expires, you can generate a new password. For password reset procedures,
see Reset a lost or expired Windows administrator password (p. 1497).

Add Windows components using installation media

Windows Server operating systems include many optional components. Including all optional
components in each Amazon EC2 Windows Server AMI is not practical. Instead, we provide you with
installation media EBS snapshots that have the necessary files to configure or install components on
your Windows instance.

To access and install the optional components, you must find the correct EBS snapshot for your version
of Windows Server, create a volume from the snapshot, and attach the volume to your instance.

Before you begin

Use the AWS Management Console or a command line tool to get the instance ID and Availability Zone
of your instance. You must create your EBS volume in the same Availability Zone as your instance.

Add Windows components using the console

Use the following procedure to use the AWS Management Console to add Windows components to your
instance.

To add Windows components to your instance using the console

1. Open the Amazon EC2 console at https://console.aws.amazon.com/ec2/.

2. In the navigation pane, choose Snapshots.
3. From the Filter bar, choose Public Snapshots.
4. Add the Owner filter and choose Amazon images.
5. Add the Description filter and type Windows.
6. Press Enter
7. Select the snapshot that matches your system architecture and language preference. For example,
select Windows 2019 English Installation Media if your instance is running Windows Server 2019.
8. Choose Actions, Create Volume.
9. For Availability Zone, select the Availability Zone that matches your Windows instance. Choose
Add Tag and specify Name for the tag key and a descriptive name for the tag value. Choose Create
Volume.
10. In the Volume Successfully Created message, choose the volume that you just created.
11. Choose Actions, Attach Volume.
12. Type the instance ID and the name of the device for the attachment, and choose Attach. If you need
help with the device name, see Device Naming.

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13. Connect to your instance and make the volume available. For more information, see Make an
Amazon EBS volume available for use on Windows (p. 1200).
Important
Do not initialize the volume.
14. Open Control Panel, Programs and Features. Choose Turn Windows features on or off. If you are
prompted for installation media, specify the EBS volume with the installation media.
15. (Optional) When you are finished with the installation media, you can detach the volume. After you
detach the volume, you can delete it. For more information, see Detach an Amazon EBS volume from
a Windows instance (p. 1217) and Delete an Amazon EBS volume (p. 1219).

Add Windows components using the Tools for Windows

PowerShell
Use the following procedure to use the Tools for Windows PowerShell to add Windows components to
your instance.

To add Windows components to your instance using the Tools for Windows PowerShell

1. Use the Get-EC2Snapshot cmdlet with the Owner and description filters to get a list of the
available installation media snapshots.

PS C:\> Get-EC2Snapshot -Owner amazon -Filter @{ Name="description";

Values="Windows*" }

2. In the output, note the ID of the snapshot that matches your system architecture and language
preference. For example:

...
DataEncryptionKeyId :
Description : Windows 2019 English Installation Media
Encrypted : False
KmsKeyId :
OwnerAlias : amazon
OwnerId : 123456789012
Progress : 100%
SnapshotId : snap-22da283e
StartTime : 10/25/2019 8:00:47 PM
State : completed
StateMessage :
Tags : {}
VolumeId : vol-be5eafcb
VolumeSize : 6
...

3. Use the New-EC2Volume cmdlet to create a volume from the snapshot. Specify the same Availability
Zone as your instance.

PS C:\> New-EC2Volume -AvailabilityZone us-east-1a -VolumeType gp2 -

SnapshotId snap-22da283e

4. In the output, note the volume ID.

Attachments : {}
AvailabilityZone : us-east-1a
CreateTime : 4/18/2017 10:50:25 AM
Encrypted : False
Iops : 100

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KmsKeyId :
Size : 6
SnapshotId : snap-22da283e
State : creating
Tags : {}
VolumeId : vol-06aa9e1fbf8b82ed1
VolumeType : gp2

5. Use the Add-EC2Volume cmdlet to attach the volume to your instance.

PS C:\> Add-EC2Volume -InstanceId i-087711ddaf98f9489 -VolumeId vol-06aa9e1fbf8b82ed1 -

Device xvdh

6. Connect to your instance and make the volume available. For more information, see Make an
Amazon EBS volume available for use on Windows (p. 1200).
Important
Do not initialize the volume.
7. Open Control Panel, Programs and Features. Choose Turn Windows features on or off. If you are
prompted for installation media, specify the EBS volume with the installation media.
8. (Optional) When you are finished with the installation media, use the Dismount-EC2Volume cmdlet
to detach the volume from your instance. After you detach the volume, you can use the Remove-
EC2Volume cmdlet to delete the volume.

Add Windows components using the AWS CLI

Use the following procedure to use the AWS CLI to add Windows components to your instance.

To add Windows components to your instance using the AWS CLI

1. Use the describe-snapshots command with the owner-ids parameter and description filter to
get a list of the available installation media snapshots.

aws ec2 describe-snapshots --owner-ids amazon --filters

Name=description,Values=Windows*

2. In the output, note the ID of the snapshot that matches your system architecture and language
preference. For example:

{
"Snapshots": [
...
{
"OwnerAlias": "amazon",
"Description": "Windows 2019 English Installation Media",
"Encrypted": false,
"VolumeId": "vol-be5eafcb",
"State": "completed",
"VolumeSize": 6,
"Progress": "100%",
"StartTime": "2019-10-25T20:00:47.000Z",
"SnapshotId": "snap-22da283e",
"OwnerId": "123456789012"
},
...
]
}

3. Use the create-volume command to create a volume from the snapshot. Specify the same
Availability Zone as your instance.

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aws ec2 create-volume --snapshot-id snap-22da283e --volume-type gp2 --availability-

zone us-east-1a

4. In the output, note the volume ID.

{
"AvailabilityZone": "us-east-1a",
"Encrypted": false,
"VolumeType": "gp2",
"VolumeId": "vol-0c98b37f30bcbc290",
"State": "creating",
"Iops": 100,
"SnapshotId": "snap-22da283e",
"CreateTime": "2017-04-18T10:33:10.940Z",
"Size": 6
}

5. Use the attach-volume command to attach the volume to your instance.

aws ec2 attach-volume --volume-id vol-0c98b37f30bcbc290 --instance-

id i-01474ef662b89480 --device xvdg

6. Connect to your instance and make the volume available. For more information, see Make an
Amazon EBS volume available for use on Windows (p. 1200).
Important
Do not initialize the volume.
7. Open Control Panel, Programs and Features. Choose Turn Windows features on or off. If you are
prompted for installation media, specify the EBS volume with the installation media.
8. (Optional) When you are finished with the installation media, use the detach-volume command to
detach the volume from your instance. After you detach the volume, you can use the delete-volume
command to delete the volume.

Configure a secondary private IPv4 address for your

Windows instance
You can specify multiple private IPv4 addresses for your instances. After you assign a secondary private
IPv4 address to an instance, you must configure the operating system on the instance to recognize the
secondary private IPv4 address.

Configuring the operating system on a Windows instance to recognize a secondary private IPv4 address
requires the following:

Topics
• Prerequisite steps (p. 577)
• Step 1: Configure static IP addressing on your instance (p. 577)
• Step 2: Configure a secondary private IP address for your instance (p. 579)
• Step 3: Configure applications to Use the secondary private IP address (p. 580)

Note
These instructions are based on Windows Server 2008 R2. The implementation of these steps
may vary based on the operating system of the Windows instance.

Before you begin

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As a best practice, launch your Windows instances using the latest AMIs. If you are using an older
Windows AMI, ensure that it has the Microsoft hot fix referenced in http://support.microsoft.com/kb/
2582281.

Prerequisite steps
1. Assign the secondary private IPv4 address to the network interface for the instance. You can assign
the secondary private IPv4 address when you launch the instance, or after the instance is running. For
more information, see Assign a secondary private IPv4 address (p. 913).
2. Allocate an Elastic IP address and associate it with the secondary private IPv4 address. For more
information, see Allocate an Elastic IP address (p. 941) and Associate an Elastic IP address with the
secondary private IPv4 address (p. 915).

Step 1: Configure static IP addressing on your instance

To enable your Windows instance to use multiple IP addresses, you must configure your instance to use
static IP addressing rather than a DHCP server.
Important
When you configure static IP addressing on your instance, the IP address must match exactly
what is shown in the console, CLI, or API. If you enter these IP addresses incorrectly, the instance
could become unreachable.

To configure static IP addressing on a Windows instance

1. Connect to your instance.

2. Find the IP address, subnet mask, and default gateway addresses for the instance by performing the
following steps:

• At a Command Prompt window, run the following command:

ipconfig /all

Review the following section in your output, and note the IPv4 Address, Subnet Mask, Default
Gateway, and DNS Servers values for the network interface.

Ethernet adapter Local Area Connection:

Connection-specific DNS Suffix . :

Description . . . . . . . . . . . :
Physical Address . . . . . . . . :
DHCP Enabled. . . . . . . . . . . :
Autoconfiguration Enabled . . . . :
IPv4 Address. . . . . . . . . . . : 10.0.0.131
Subnet Mask . . . . . . . . . . . : 255.255.255.0
Default Gateway . . . . . . . . . : 10.0.0.1
DNS Servers . . . . . . . . . . . : 10.1.1.10
10.1.1.20

3. Open the Network and Sharing Center by running the following command:

%SystemRoot%\system32\control.exe ncpa.cpl

4. Open the context (right-click) menu for the network interface (Local Area Connection) and choose
Properties.
5. Choose Internet Protocol Version 4 (TCP/IPv4), Properties.

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6. In the Internet Protocol Version 4 (TCP/IPv4) Properties dialog box, choose Use the following IP
address, enter the following values, and then choose OK.

Field Value

IP address The IPv4 address obtained in step 2 above.

Subnet mask The subnet mask obtained in step 2 above.

Default gateway The default gateway address obtained in step 2

above.

Preferred DNS server The DNS server obtained in step 2 above.

Alternate DNS server The alternate DNS server obtained in step 2

above. If an alternate DNS server was not listed,
leave this field blank.

Important
If you set the IP address to any value other than the current IP address, you will lose
connectivity to the instance.

You will lose RDP connectivity to the Windows instance for a few seconds while the instance converts
from using DHCP to static addressing. The instance retains the same IP address information as before,
but now this information is static and not managed by DHCP.

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Step 2: Configure a secondary private IP address for your

instance
After you have set up static IP addressing on your Windows instance, you are ready to prepare a second
private IP address.

To configure a secondary IP address

1. Open the Amazon EC2 console at https://console.aws.amazon.com/ec2/.

2. In the navigation pane, choose Instances and select your instance.
3. On the Networking, note the secondary IP address.
4. Connect to your instance.
5. On your Windows instance, choose Start, Control Panel.
6. Choose Network and Internet, Network and Sharing Center.
7. Select the network interface (Local Area Connection) and choose Properties.
8. On the Local Area Connection Properties page, choose Internet Protocol Version 4 (TCP/IPv4),
Properties, Advanced.
9. Choose Add.
10. In the TCP/IP Address dialog box, type the secondary private IP address for IP address. For Subnet
mask, type the same subnet mask that you entered for the primary private IP address in Step 1:
Configure static IP addressing on your instance (p. 577), and then choose Add.

11. Verify the IP address settings and choose OK.

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12. Choose OK, Close.

13. To confirm that the secondary IP address has been added to the operating system, at a command
prompt, run the command ipconfig /all.

Step 3: Configure applications to Use the secondary private IP

address
You can configure any applications to use the secondary private IP address. For example, if your instance
is running a website on IIS, you can configure IIS to use the secondary private IP address.

To configure IIS to use the secondary private IP address

1. Connect to your instance.

2. Open Internet Information Services (IIS) Manager.
3. In the Connections pane, expand Sites.
4. Open the context (right-click) menu for your website and choose Edit Bindings.
5. In the Site Bindings dialog box, for Type, choose http, Edit.
6. In the Edit Site Binding dialog box, for IP address, select the secondary private IP address. (By
default, each website accepts HTTP requests from all IP addresses.)

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7. Choose OK, Close.

Run commands on your Windows instance at launch

When you launch a Windows instance in Amazon EC2, you can pass user data to the instance that can
be used to perform automated configuration tasks or to run scripts after the instance starts. Instance
user data is treated as opaque data; it is up to the instance to interpret it. User data is processed by
EC2Launch v2 (supported preview AMIs and by download (p. 459)), EC2Launch (p. 494) on Windows
Server 2016 and later, and EC2Config (p. 502) on Windows Server 2012 R2 and earlier.

For examples of the assembly of a UserData property in a AWS CloudFormation template, see Base64
Encoded UserData Property and Base64 Encoded UserData Property with AccessKey and SecretKey.

For information about running commands on your Linux instance at launch, see Running commands on
your Linux instance at launch in the Amazon EC2 User Guide for Linux Instances.

Contents
• User data scripts (p. 581)
• User data execution (p. 583)
• User data and the console (p. 585)
• User data and the Tools for Windows PowerShell (p. 586)

User data scripts

For EC2Config or EC2Launch to run scripts, you must enclose the script within a special tag when you
add it to user data. The tag that you use depends on whether the commands run in a Command Prompt
window (batch commands) or use Windows PowerShell.

If you specify both a batch script and a Windows PowerShell script, the batch script runs first and the
Windows PowerShell script runs next, regardless of the order in which they appear in the instance user
data.

If you use an AWS API, including the AWS CLI, in a user data script, you must use an instance profile when
launching the instance. An instance profile provides the appropriate AWS credentials required by the user
data script to make the API call. For more information, see Instance profiles (p. 1128). The permissions
you assign to the IAM role depend on which services you are calling with the API. For more information,
see IAM roles for Amazon EC2.

Script type
• Syntax for batch scripts (p. 582)
• Syntax for Windows PowerShell scripts (p. 582)
• Syntax for YAML configuration scripts (p. 582)

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• Base64 encoding (p. 583)

Syntax for batch scripts

Specify a batch script using the script tag. Separate the commands using line breaks. For example:

<script>
echo Current date and time >> %SystemRoot%\Temp\test.log
echo %DATE% %TIME% >> %SystemRoot%\Temp\test.log
</script>

By default, the user data scripts are run one time when you launch the instance. To run the user data
scripts every time you reboot or start the instance, add <persist>true</persist> to the user data.

<script>
echo Current date and time >> %SystemRoot%\Temp\test.log
echo %DATE% %TIME% >> %SystemRoot%\Temp\test.log
</script>
<persist>true</persist>

Syntax for Windows PowerShell scripts

The AWS Windows AMIs include the AWS Tools for Windows PowerShell, so you can specify these
cmdlets in user data. If you associate an IAM role with your instance, you don't need to specify
credentials to the cmdlets, as applications that run on the instance use the role's credentials to access
AWS resources (for example, Amazon S3 buckets).

Specify a Windows PowerShell script using the powershell tag. Separate the commands using line
breaks. For example:

<powershell>
$file = $env:SystemRoot + "\Temp\" + (Get-Date).ToString("MM-dd-yy-hh-mm")
New-Item $file -ItemType file
</powershell>

By default, the user data scripts are run one time when you launch the instance. To run the user data
scripts every time you reboot or start the instance, add <persist>true</persist> to the user data.

<powershell>
$file = $env:SystemRoot + "\Temp\" + (Get-Date).ToString("MM-dd-yy-hh-mm")
New-Item $file -ItemType file
</powershell>
<persist>true</persist>

Syntax for YAML configuration scripts

If you are using EC2Launch v2 to run scripts, you can use the YAML format. To view configuration tasks,
details, and examples for EC2Launch v2, see EC2Launch v2 task configuration (p. 475).

Specify a YAML script with the executeScript task.

Example YAML syntax to run a PowerShell script

version: 1.0
tasks:
- task: executeScript
inputs:
- frequency: always
type: powershell

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runAs: localSystem
content: |-
$file = $env:SystemRoot + "\Temp\" + (Get-Date).ToString("MM-dd-yy-hh-mm")
New-Item $file -ItemType file

Example YAML syntax to run a batch script

version: 1.0
tasks:
- task: executeScript
inputs:
- frequency: always
type: batch
runAs: localSystem
content: |-
echo Current date and time >> %SystemRoot%\Temp\test.log
echo %DATE% %TIME% >> %SystemRoot%\Temp\test.log

Base64 encoding
If you're using the Amazon EC2 API or a tool that does not perform base64 encoding of the user data,
you must encode the user data yourself. If not, an error is logged about being unable to find script or
powershell tags to run. The following is an example that encodes using Windows PowerShell.

$UserData =
[System.Convert]::ToBase64String([System.Text.Encoding]::ASCII.GetBytes($Script))

The following is an example that decodes using PowerShell.

$Script =
[System.Text.Encoding]::UTF8.GetString([System.Convert]::FromBase64String($UserData))

For more information about base64 encoding, see https://www.ietf.org/rfc/rfc4648.txt.

User data execution

By default, all AWS Windows AMIs have user data execution enabled for the initial launch. You can
specify that user data scripts are run the next time the instance reboots or restarts. Alternatively, you can
specify that user data scripts are run every time the instance reboots or restarts.

User data scripts are run from the local administrator account when a random password is generated.
Otherwise, user data scripts are run from the System account.

Instance launch
Scripts in the instance user data are run during the initial launch of the instance. If the persist tag is
found, user data execution is enabled for subsequent reboots or starts. The log files for EC2Launch v2,
EC2Launch, and EC2Config contain the output from the standard output and standard error streams.

EC2Launch v2

The log file for EC2Launch v2 is C:\ProgramData\Amazon\EC2Launch\log\agent.log.

Note
The C:\ProgramData folder might be hidden. To view the folder, you must show hidden files
and folders.

The following information is logged when the user data is run:

• Info: Converting user-data to yaml format – If the user data was provided in XML format

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• Info: Initializing user-data state – The start of user data execution

• Info: Frequency is: always – If the user data task is running on every boot
• Info: Frequency is: once – If the user data task is running just once
• Stage: postReadyUserData execution completed – The end of user data execution

EC2Launch

The log file for EC2Launch is C:\ProgramData\Amazon\EC2-Windows\Launch\Log

\UserdataExecution.log.

The C:\ProgramData folder might be hidden. To view the folder, you must show hidden files and
folders.

The following information is logged when the user data is run:

• Userdata execution begins – The start of user data execution

• <persist> tag was provided: true – If the persist tag is found
• Running userdata on every boot – If the persist tag is found
• <powershell> tag was provided.. running powershell content – If the powershell tag is
found
• <script> tag was provided.. running script content – If the script tag is found
• Message: The output from user scripts – If user data scripts are run, their output is logged

EC2Config

The log file for EC2Config is C:\Program Files\Amazon\Ec2ConfigService\Logs

\Ec2Config.log. The following information is logged when the user data is run:

• Ec2HandleUserData: Message: Start running user scripts – The start of user data
execution
• Ec2HandleUserData: Message: Re-enabled userdata execution – If the persist tag is found
• Ec2HandleUserData: Message: Could not find <persist> and </persist> – If the
persist tag is not found
• Ec2HandleUserData: Message: The output from user scripts – If user data scripts are run,
their output is logged

Subsequent reboots or starts

When you update instance user data, user data scripts are not run automatically when you reboot or
start the instance. However, you can enable user data execution so that user data scripts are run one time
when you reboot or start the instance, or every time you reboot or start the instance.

If you choose the Shutdown with Sysprep option, user data scripts are run the next time the instance
starts or reboots, even if you did not enable user data execution for subsequent reboots or starts. The
user data scripts will not be executed on subsequent reboots or starts.

To enable user data execution with EC2Launch v2 (Preview AMIs)

• To run a task in user data on first boot, set frequency to once.

• To run a task in user data on every boot, set frequency to always.

To enable user data execution with EC2Launch (Windows Server 2016 or later)

1. Connect to your Windows instance.

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2. Open a PowerShell command window and run the following command:

C:\ProgramData\Amazon\EC2-Windows\Launch\Scripts\InitializeInstance.ps1 –Schedule

3. Disconnect from your Windows instance. To run updated scripts the next time the instance is started,
stop the instance and update the user data. For more information, see View and update the instance
user data (p. 585).

To enable user data execution with EC2Config (Windows Server 2012 R2 and earlier)

1. Connect to your Windows instance.

2. Open C:\Program Files\Amazon\Ec2ConfigService\Ec2ConfigServiceSetting.exe.
3. For User Data, select Enable UserData execution for next service start.
4. Disconnect from your Windows instance. To run updated scripts the next time the instance is started,
stop the instance and update the user data. For more information, see View and update the instance
user data (p. 585).

User data and the console

You can specify instance user data when you launch the instance. If the root volume of the instance is an
EBS volume, you can also stop the instance and update its user data.

Specify instance user data at launch

When you launch an instance, you specify the script in Advanced Details, User data on the Step 3:
Configure Instance Details page of the Launch Instance Wizard. The example in the following image
creates a file in the Windows temporary folder, using the current date and time in the file name. When
you include <persist>true</persist>, the script is run every time you reboot or start the instance.
When you select As text, the Amazon EC2 console performs the base64 encoding for you.

View and update the instance user data

You can view the instance user data for any instance, and you can update the instance user data for a
stopped instance.

To update the user data for an instance using the console

1. Open the Amazon EC2 console at https://console.aws.amazon.com/ec2/.

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2. In the navigation pane, choose Instances.

3. Select the instance and choose Actions, Instance state, Stop instance.
Warning
When you stop an instance, the data on any instance store volumes is erased. To keep data
from instance store volumes, be sure to back it up to persistent storage.
4. When prompted for confirmation, choose Stop. It can take a few minutes for the instance to stop.
5. With the instance still selected, choose Actions, Instance settings, Edit user data. You can't change
the user data if the instance is running, but you can view it.
6. In the Edit user data dialog box, update the user data, and then choose Save. To run user data
scripts every time you reboot or start the instance, add <persist>true</persist>, as shown in
the following example:

7. Start the instance. If you enabled user data execution for subsequent reboots or starts, the updated
user data scripts are run as part of the instance start process.

User data and the Tools for Windows PowerShell

You can use the Tools for Windows PowerShell to specify, modify, and view the user data for your
instance. For information about viewing user data from your instance using instance metadata, see
Retrieve instance user data (p. 604). For information about user data and the AWS CLI, see User data
and the AWS CLI in the Amazon EC2 User Guide for Linux Instances.

Example: Specify instance user data at launch

Create a text file with the instance user data. To run user data scripts every time you reboot or start the
instance, add <persist>true</persist>, as shown in the following example.

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<powershell>
$file = $env:SystemRoot + "\Temp\" + (Get-Date).ToString("MM-dd-yy-hh-mm")
New-Item $file -ItemType file
</powershell>
<persist>true</persist>

To specify instance user data when you launch your instance, use the New-EC2Instance command. This
command does not perform base64 encoding of the user data for you. Use the following commands to
encode the user data in a text file named script.txt.

PS C:\> $Script = Get-Content -Raw script.txt

PS C:\> $UserData =
[System.Convert]::ToBase64String([System.Text.Encoding]::ASCII.GetBytes($Script))

Use the -UserData parameter to pass the user data to the New-EC2Instance command.

PS C:\> New-EC2Instance -ImageId ami-abcd1234 -MinCount 1 -MaxCount 1 -

InstanceType m3.medium \
-KeyName my-key-pair -SubnetId subnet-12345678 -SecurityGroupIds sg-1a2b3c4d \
-UserData $UserData

Example: Update instance user data for a stopped instance

You can modify the user data of a stopped instance using the Edit-EC2InstanceAttribute command.

Create a text file with the new script. Use the following commands to encode the user data in the text
file named new-script.txt.

PS C:\> $NewScript = Get-Content -Raw new-script.txt

PS C:\> $NewUserData =
[System.Convert]::ToBase64String([System.Text.Encoding]::ASCII.GetBytes($NewScript))

Use the -UserData and -Value parameters to specify the user data.

PS C:\> Edit-EC2InstanceAttribute -InstanceId i-1234567890abcdef0 -Attribute userData -

Value $NewUserData

Example: View instance user data

To retrieve the user data for an instance, use the Get-EC2InstanceAttribute command.

PS C:\> (Get-EC2InstanceAttribute -InstanceId i-1234567890abcdef0 -Attribute

userData).UserData

The following is example output. Note that the user data is encoded.

PHBvd2Vyc2hlbGw
+DQpSZW5hbWUtQ29tcHV0ZXIgLU5ld05hbWUgdXNlci1kYXRhLXRlc3QNCjwvcG93ZXJzaGVsbD4=

Use the following commands to store the encoded user data in a variable and then decode it.

PS C:\> $UserData_encoded = (Get-EC2InstanceAttribute -InstanceId i-1234567890abcdef0 -

Attribute userData).UserData
PS C:
\> [System.Text.Encoding]::UTF8.GetString([System.Convert]::FromBase64String($UserData_encoded))

The following is example output.

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<powershell>
$file = $env:SystemRoot + "\Temp\" + (Get-Date).ToString("MM-dd-yy-hh-mm")
New-Item $file -ItemType file
</powershell>
<persist>true</persist>

Example: Rename the instance to match the tag value

To read the tag value, rename the instance on first boot to match the tag value, and reboot, use the Get-
EC2Tag command. To run this command successfully, you must have a role with ec2:DescribeTags
permissions because tag information is unavailable in the metadata and must be retrieved by API call.
For more information on how to attach a role to an instance, see Attaching an IAM Role to an Instance.
Note
This script fails on Windows Server versions prior to 2008.

<powershell>
$instanceId = (invoke-webrequest http://169.254.169.254/latest/meta-data/instance-id -
UseBasicParsing).content
$nameValue = (get-ec2tag -filter @{Name="resource-id";Value=
$instanceid},@{Name="key";Value="Name"}).Value
$pattern = "^(?![0-9]{1,15}$)[a-zA-Z0-9-]{1,15}$"
##Verify Name Value satisfies best practices for Windows hostnames
If ($nameValue -match $pattern)
{Try
{Rename-Computer -NewName $nameValue -Restart -ErrorAction Stop}
Catch
{$ErrorMessage = $_.Exception.Message
Write-Output "Rename failed: $ErrorMessage"}}
Else
{Throw "Provided name not a valid hostname. Please ensure Name value is between 1 and
15 characters in length and contains only alphanumeric or hyphen characters"}
</powershell>

Instance metadata and user data

Instance metadata is data about your instance that you can use to configure or manage the running
instance. Instance metadata is divided into categories (p. 605), for example, host name, events, and
security groups.

You can also use instance metadata to access user data that you specified when launching your instance.
For example, you can specify parameters for configuring your instance, or include a simple script. You
can build generic AMIs and use user data to modify the configuration files supplied at launch time. For
example, if you run web servers for various small businesses, they can all use the same generic AMI and
retrieve their content from the Amazon S3 bucket that you specify in the user data at launch. To add a
new customer at any time, create a bucket for the customer, add their content, and launch your AMI with
the unique bucket name provided to your code in the user data. If you launch more than one instance
at the same time, the user data is available to all instances in that reservation. Each instance that is part
of the same reservation has a unique ami-launch-index number, allowing you to write code that
controls what to do. For example, the first host might elect itself as the original node in a cluster.

EC2 instances can also include dynamic data, such as an instance identity document that is generated
when the instance is launched. For more information, see Dynamic data categories (p. 612).
Important
Although you can only access instance metadata and user data from within the instance itself,
the data is not protected by authentication or cryptographic methods. Anyone who has direct
access to the instance, and potentially any software running on the instance, can view its
metadata. Therefore, you should not store sensitive data, such as passwords or long-lived
encryption keys, as user data.

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Note
The examples in this section use the IPv4 address of the instance metadata service:
169.254.169.254. If you are retrieving instance metadata for EC2 instances over the IPv6
address, ensure that you enable and use the IPv6 address instead: fd00:ec2::254. The IPv6
address of the instance metadata service is compatible with IMDSv2 commands. The IPv6
address is only accessible on Instances built on the Nitro System (p. 147).

Contents
• Use IMDSv2 (p. 589)
• Configure the instance metadata options (p. 592)
• Retrieve instance metadata (p. 595)
• Work with instance user data (p. 603)
• Retrieve dynamic data (p. 605)
• Instance metadata categories (p. 605)
• Instance identity documents (p. 613)

Use IMDSv2
You can access instance metadata from a running instance using one of the following methods:

• Instance Metadata Service Version 1 (IMDSv1) – a request/response method

• Instance Metadata Service Version 2 (IMDSv2) – a session-oriented method

By default, you can use either IMDSv1 or IMDSv2, or both. The instance metadata service distinguishes
between IMDSv1 and IMDSv2 requests based on whether, for any given request, either the PUT or GET
headers, which are unique to IMDSv2, are present in that request. For more information, see Add defense
in depth against open firewalls, reverse proxies, and SSRF vulnerabilities with enhancements to the EC2
Instance Metadata Service.

You can configure the instance metadata service on each instance such that local code or users must use
IMDSv2. When you specify that IMDSv2 must be used, IMDSv1 no longer works. For more information,
see Configure the instance metadata options (p. 592).

To retrieve instance metadata, see Retrieve instance metadata (p. 595).

Note
The examples in this section use the IPv4 address of the instance metadata service:
169.254.169.254. If you are retrieving instance metadata for EC2 instances over the IPv6
address, ensure that you enable and use the IPv6 address instead: fd00:ec2::254. The IPv6
address of the instance metadata service is compatible with IMDSv2 commands. The IPv6
address is only accessible on Instances built on the Nitro System (p. 147).

How Instance Metadata Service Version 2 works

IMDSv2 uses session-oriented requests. With session-oriented requests, you create a session token
that defines the session duration, which can be a minimum of one second and a maximum of six hours.
During the specified duration, you can use the same session token for subsequent requests. After the
specified duration expires, you must create a new session token to use for future requests.

The following example uses a PowerShell shell script and IMDSv2 to retrieve the top-level instance
metadata items. The example:

• Creates a session token lasting six hours (21,600 seconds) using the PUT request
• Stores the session token header in a variable named token
• Requests the top-level metadata items using the token

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PS C:\> $token = Invoke-RestMethod -Headers @{"X-aws-ec2-metadata-token-ttl-seconds" =

"21600"} -Method PUT –Uri http://169.254.169.254/latest/api/token

PS C:\> Invoke-RestMethod -Headers @{"X-aws-ec2-metadata-token" = $token} -Method GET -Uri

http://169.254.169.254/latest/meta-data/

After you've created a token, you can reuse it until it expires. In the following example command, which
gets the ID of the AMI used to launch the instance, the token that is stored in $token in the previous
example is reused.

PS C:\> Invoke-RestMethod -Headers @{"X-aws-ec2-metadata-token" = $token} `

-Method GET -uri http://169.254.169.254/latest/meta-data/ami-id

When you use IMDSv2 to request instance metadata, the request must include the following:

1. Use a PUT request to initiate a session to the instance metadata service. The PUT request returns a
token that must be included in subsequent GET requests to the instance metadata service. The token
is required to access metadata using IMDSv2.
2. Include the token in all GET requests to the instance metadata service. When token usage is set to
required, requests without a valid token or with an expired token receive a 401 - Unauthorized
HTTP error code. For information about changing the token usage requirement, see modify-instance-
metadata-options in the AWS CLI Command Reference.
• The token is an instance-specific key. The token is not valid on other EC2 instances and will be
rejected if you attempt to use it outside of the instance on which it was generated.
• The PUT request must include a header that specifies the time to live (TTL) for the token, in seconds,
up to a maximum of six hours (21,600 seconds). The token represents a logical session. The TTL
specifies the length of time that the token is valid and, therefore, the duration of the session.
• After a token expires, to continue accessing instance metadata, you must create a new session using
another PUT.
• You can choose to reuse a token or create a new token with every request. For a small number of
requests, it might be easier to generate and immediately use a token each time you need to access
the instance metadata service. But for efficiency, you can specify a longer duration for the token
and reuse it rather than having to write a PUT request every time you need to request instance
metadata. There is no practical limit on the number of concurrent tokens, each representing its own
session. IMDSv2 is, however, still constrained by normal instance metadata service connection and
throttling limits. For more information, see Query throttling (p. 602).

HTTP GET and HEAD methods are allowed in IMDSv2 instance metadata requests. PUT requests are
rejected if they contain an X-Forwarded-For header.

By default, the response to PUT requests has a response hop limit (time to live) of 1 at the IP protocol
level. You can adjust the hop limit using the modify-instance-metadata-options command if you
need to make it larger. For example, you might need a larger hop limit for backward compatibility with
container services running on the instance. For more information, see modify-instance-metadata-options
in the AWS CLI Command Reference.

Transition to using Instance Metadata Service Version 2

Use of Instance Metadata Service Version 2 (IMDSv2) is optional. Instance Metadata Service Version
1 (IMDSv1) will continue to be supported indefinitely. If you choose to migrate to using IMDSv2, we
recommend that you use the following tools and transition path.

Tools for helping with the transition to IMDSv2

If your software uses IMDSv1, use the following tools to help reconfigure your software to use IMDSv2.

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• AWS software: The latest versions of the AWS SDKs and CLIs support IMDSv2. To use IMDSv2, make
sure that your EC2 instances have the latest versions of the AWS SDKs and CLIs. For information about
updating the CLI, see Installing, updating, and uninstalling the AWS CLI in the AWS Command Line
Interface User Guide.
• CloudWatch: IMDSv2 uses token-backed sessions, while IMDSv1 does not. The MetadataNoToken
CloudWatch metric tracks the number of calls to the instance metadata service that are using IMDSv1.
By tracking this metric to zero, you can determine if and when all of your software has been upgraded
to use IMDSv2. For more information, see Instance metrics (p. 854).
• Updates to EC2 APIs and CLIs: For existing instances, you can use the modify-instance-metadata-
options CLI command (or the ModifyInstanceMetadataOptions API) to require the use of IMDSv2.
For new instances, you can use the run-instances CLI command (or the RunInstances API) and the
metadata-options parameter to launch new instances that require the use of IMDSv2.

To require the use of IMDSv2 on all new instances launched by Auto Scaling groups, your Auto Scaling
groups can use either a launch template or a launch configuration. When you create a launch template
or create a launch configuration, you must configure the MetadataOptions parameters to require
the use of IMDSv2. After you configure the launch template or launch configuration, the Auto Scaling
group launches new instances using the new launch template or launch configuration, but existing
instances are not affected.

Use the modify-instance-metadata-options CLI command (or the ModifyInstanceMetadataOptions

API) to require the use of IMDSv2 on the existing instances, or terminate the instances and the Auto
Scaling group will launch new replacement instances with the instance metadata options settings that
are defined in the launch template or launch configuration.
• IAM policies and SCPs: You can use an IAM condition to enforce that IAM users can't launch an
instance unless it uses IMDSv2. You can also use IAM conditions to enforce that IAM users can't modify
running instances to re-enable IMDSv1, and to enforce that the instance metadata service is available
on the instance.

The ec2:MetadataHttpTokens, ec2:MetadataHttpPutResponseHopLimit, and

ec2:MetadataHttpEndpoint IAM condition keys can be used to control the use of the RunInstances
and the ModifyInstanceMetadataOptions API and corresponding CLI. If a policy is created, and a
parameter in the API call does not match the state specified in the policy using the condition key, the
API or CLI call fails with an UnauthorizedOperation response. These condition keys can be used
either in IAM policies or AWS Organizations service control policies (SCPs).

Furthermore, you can choose an additional layer of protection to enforce the change from IMDSv1
to IMDSv2. At the access management layer with respect to the APIs called via EC2 Role credentials,
you can use a new condition key in either IAM policies or AWS Organizations service control
policies (SCPs). Specifically, by using the policy condition key ec2:RoleDelivery with a value
of 2.0 in your IAM policies, API calls made with EC2 Role credentials obtained from IMDSv1 will
receive an UnauthorizedOperation response. The same thing can be achieved more broadly
with that condition required by an SCP. This ensures that credentials delivered via IMDSv1 cannot
actually be used to call APIs because any API calls not matching the specified condition will
receive an UnauthorizedOperation error. For example IAM policies, see Work with instance
metadata (p. 1115). For more information, see Service Control Policies in the AWS Organizations User
Guide.

Recommended path to requiring IMDSv2 access

Using the above tools, we recommend that you follow this path for transitioning to IMDSv2:

Step 1: At the start

Update the SDKs, CLIs, and your software that use Role credentials on their EC2 instances to IMDSv2-
compatible versions. For information about updating the CLI, see Upgrading to the latest version of the
AWS CLI in the AWS Command Line Interface User Guide.

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Then, change your software that directly accesses instance metadata (in other words, that does not use
an SDK) using the IMDSv2 requests.

Step 2: During the transition

Track your transition progress by using the CloudWatch metric MetadataNoToken. This metric shows
the number of calls to the instance metadata service that are using IMDSv1 on your instances. For more
information, see Instance metrics (p. 854).

Step 3: When everything is ready on all instances

Everything is ready on all instances when the CloudWatch metric MetadataNoToken records zero
IMDSv1 usage. At this stage, you can do the following:

• For existing instances: You can require IMDSv2 use through the modify-instance-metadata-options
command. You can make these changes on running instances; you do not need to restart your
instances.
• For new instances: When launching a new instance, you can do one of the following:
• In the Amazon EC2 console launch instance wizard, set Metadata accessible to Enabled and
Metadata version to V2. For more information, see Step 3: Configure Instance Details (p. 398).
• Use the run-instances command to specify that only IMDSv2 is to be used.

Updating instance metadata options for existing instances is available only through the API or AWS CLI.
It is currently not available in the Amazon EC2 console. For more information, see Configure the instance
metadata options (p. 592).

Step 4: When all of your instances are transitioned to IMDSv2

The ec2:MetadataHttpTokens, ec2:MetadataHttpPutResponseHopLimit, and
ec2:MetadataHttpEndpoint IAM condition keys can be used to control the use of the RunInstances
and the ModifyInstanceMetadataOptions API and corresponding CLI. If a policy is created, and a
parameter in the API call does not match the state specified in the policy using the condition key, the API
or CLI call fails with an UnauthorizedOperation response. For example IAM policies, see Work with
instance metadata (p. 1115).

Configure the instance metadata options

Instance metadata options allow you to configure new or existing instances to do the following:

• Require the use of IMDSv2 when requesting instance metadata

• Specify the PUT response hop limit
• Turn off access to instance metadata

You can also use IAM condition keys in an IAM policy or SCP to do the following:

• Allow an instance to launch only if it's configured to require the use of IMDSv2
• Restrict the number of allowed hops
• Turn off access to instance metadata

Note
If your PowerShell version is earlier than 4.0, you must update to Windows Management
Framework 4.0 to require the use of IMDSv2.
Note
You should proceed cautiously and conduct careful testing before making any changes. Take
note of the following:

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• If you enforce the use of IMDSv2, applications or agents that use IMDSv1 for instance
metadata access will break.
• If you turn off all access to instance metadata, applications or agents that rely on instance
metadata access to function will break.
• For IMDSv2, you must use /latest/api/ token when retrieving the token.

Topics
• Configure instance metadata options for new instances (p. 593)
• Modify instance metadata options for existing instances (p. 594)

Configure instance metadata options for new instances

You can require the use of IMDSv2 on an instance when you launch it. You can also create an IAM policy
that prevents users from launching new instances unless they require IMDSv2 on the new instance.

Console

To require the use of IMDSv2 on a new instance

• When launching a new instance in the Amazon EC2 console, select the following options on the
Configure Instance Details page:

• Under Advanced Details, for Metadata accessible, select Enabled.

• For Metadata version, select V2 (token required).

For more information, see Step 3: Configure Instance Details (p. 398).
AWS CLI

To require the use of IMDSv2 on a new instance

The following run-instances example launches a c3.large instance with --metadata-options

set to HttpTokens=required. When you specify a value for HttpTokens, you must also set
HttpEndpoint to enabled. Because the secure token header is set to required for metadata
retrieval requests, this opts in the instance to require using IMDSv2 when requesting instance
metadata.

aws ec2 run-instances

--image-id ami-0abcdef1234567890
--instance-type c3.large
...
--metadata-options "HttpEndpoint=enabled,HttpTokens=required"

To enforce the use of IMDSv2 on all new instances

To ensure that IAM users can only launch instances that require the use of IMDSv2 when requesting
instance metadata, you can specify that the condition to require IMDSv2 must be met before an instance
can be launched. For the example IAM policy, see Work with instance metadata (p. 1115).

Console

To turn off access to instance metadata

• To ensure that access to your instance metadata is turned off, regardless of which version of the
instance metadata service you are using, launch the instance in the Amazon EC2 console with
the following option selected on the Configure Instance Details page:

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• Under Advanced Details, for Metadata accessible, select Disabled.

For more information, see Step 3: Configure Instance Details (p. 398).
AWS CLI

To turn off access to instance metadata

To ensure that access to your instance metadata is turned off, regardless of which version of the
instance metadata service you are using, launch the instance with --metadata-options set to
HttpEndpoint=disabled. You can turn access on later by using the modify-instance-metadata-
options command.

aws ec2 run-instances

--image-id ami-0abcdef1234567890
--instance-type c3.large
...
--metadata-options "HttpEndpoint=disabled"

Modify instance metadata options for existing instances

You can require the use IMDSv2 on an existing instance. You can also change the PUT response hop limit
and turn off access to instance metadata on an existing instance. You can also create an IAM policy that
prevents users from modifying the instance metadata options on an existing instance.

Currently only the AWS SDK or AWS CLI support modifying the instance metadata options on existing
instances. You can't use the Amazon EC2 console for modifying instance metadata options.

To require the use of IMDSv2

You can opt in to require that IMDSv2 is used when requesting instance metadata. Use the modify-
instance-metadata-options CLI command and set the http-tokens parameter to required. When you
specify a value for http-tokens, you must also set http-endpoint to enabled.

aws ec2 modify-instance-metadata-options \

--instance-id i-1234567898abcdef0 \
--http-tokens required \
--http-endpoint enabled

To change the PUT response hop limit

For existing instances, you can change the settings of the PUT response hop limit. Use the modify-
instance-metadata-options CLI command and set the http-put-response-hop-limit parameter
to the required number of hops. In the following example, the hop limit is set to 3. Note that when
specifying a value for http-put-response-hop-limit, you must also set http-endpoint to
enabled.

aws ec2 modify-instance-metadata-options \

--instance-id i-1234567898abcdef0 \
--http-put-response-hop-limit 3 \
--http-endpoint enabled

To restore the use of IMDSv1 on an instance using IMDSv2

You can use the modify-instance-metadata-options CLI command with http-tokens set to optional
to restore the use of IMDSv1 when requesting instance metadata.

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aws ec2 modify-instance-metadata-options \

--instance-id i-1234567898abcdef0 \
--http-tokens optional \
--http-endpoint enabled

To turn off access to instance metadata

You can turn off access to your instance metadata by disabling the HTTP endpoint of the instance
metadata service, regardless of which version of the instance metadata service you are using. You can
reverse this change at any time by enabling the HTTP endpoint. Use the modify-instance-metadata-
options CLI command and set the http-endpoint parameter to disabled.

aws ec2 modify-instance-metadata-options \

--instance-id i-1234567898abcdef0 \
--http-endpoint disabled

To control the use of modify-instance-metadata-options

To control which IAM users can modify the instance metadata options, specify a policy that prevents
all users other than users with a specified role to use the ModifyInstanceMetadataOptions API. For the
example IAM policy, see Work with instance metadata (p. 1115).

Retrieve instance metadata

Because your instance metadata is available from your running instance, you do not need to use the
Amazon EC2 console or the AWS CLI. This can be helpful when you're writing scripts to run from your
instance. For example, you can access the local IP address of your instance from instance metadata to
manage a connection to an external application.

Instance metadata is divided into categories. For a description of each instance metadata category, see
Instance metadata categories (p. 605).

To view all categories of instance metadata from within a running instance, use the following IPv4 or
IPv6 URIs:

http://169.254.169.254/latest/meta-data/

http://[fd00:ec2::254]/latest/meta-data/

The IP addresses are link-local address and are valid only from the instance. For more information, see
Link-local address on Wikipedia.
Note
The examples in this section use the IPv4 address of the instance metadata service:
169.254.169.254. If you are retrieving instance metadata for EC2 instances over the IPv6
address, ensure that you enable and use the IPv6 address instead: fd00:ec2::254. The IPv6
address of the instance metadata service is compatible with IMDSv2 commands. The IPv6
address is only accessible on Instances built on the Nitro System (p. 147).

The command format is different, depending on whether you use IMDSv1 or IMDSv2. By default, you can
use both instance metadata services. To require the use of IMDSv2, see Use IMDSv2 (p. 589).

You can use PowerShell cmdlets to retrieve the URI. For example, if you are running version 3.0 or later
of PowerShell, use the following cmdlet.

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IMDSv2

PS C:\> $token = Invoke-RestMethod -Headers @{"X-aws-ec2-metadata-token-ttl-seconds" =

"21600"} -Method PUT –Uri http://169.254.169.254/latest/api/token

PS C:\> Invoke-RestMethod -Headers @{"X-aws-ec2-metadata-token" = $token} -Method GET -

Uri http://169.254.169.254/latest/meta-data/

IMDSv1

PS C:\> Invoke-RestMethod -uri http://169.254.169.254/latest/meta-data/

If you don't want to use PowerShell, you can install a third-party tool such as GNU Wget or cURL.
Important
If you install a third-party tool on a Windows instance, ensure that you read the accompanying
documentation carefully, as the method of calling the HTTP and the output format might be
different from what is documented here.

Note that you are not billed for HTTP requests used to retrieve instance metadata and user data.

Considerations
To avoid problems with instance metadata retrieval, consider the following:

• The AWS SDKs use IMDSv2 calls by default. If the IMDSv2 call receives no response, the SDK retries
the call and, if still unsuccessful, uses IMDSv1. This can result in a delay. In a container environment, if
the hop limit is 1, the IMDSv2 response does not return because going to the container is considered
an additional network hop. To avoid the process of falling back to IMDSv1 and the resultant delay, in
a container environment we recommend that you set the hop limit to 2. For more information, see
Configure the instance metadata options (p. 592).
• If you launch a Windows instance using a custom Windows AMI, to ensure that the instance metadata
service works on the instance, the AMI must be a standardized image created using Sysprep (p. 40).
Otherwise, the instance metadata service won't work.
• For IMDSv2, you must use /latest/api/token when retrieving the token. Issuing PUT requests to
any version-specific path, for example /2021-03-23/api/token, will result in the metadata service
returning 403 Forbidden errors. This behavior is intended.

Responses and error messages

All instance metadata is returned as text (HTTP content type text/plain).

A request for a specific metadata resource returns the appropriate value, or a 404 - Not Found HTTP
error code if the resource is not available.

A request for a general metadata resource (the URI ends with a /) returns a list of available resources, or
a 404 - Not Found HTTP error code if there is no such resource. The list items are on separate lines,
terminated by line feeds (ASCII 10).

For requests made using Instance Metadata Service Version 2, the following HTTP error codes can be
returned:

• 400 - Missing or Invalid Parameters – The PUT request is not valid.

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• 401 - Unauthorized – The GET request uses an invalid token. The recommended action is to
generate a new token.
• 403 - Forbidden – The request is not allowed or the instance metadata service is turned off.

Examples of retrieving instance metadata

Examples
• Get the available versions of the instance metadata (p. 597)
• Get the top-level metadata items (p. 598)
• Get the list of available public keys (p. 600)
• Show the formats in which public key 0 is available (p. 600)
• Get public key 0 (in the OpenSSH key format) (p. 600)
• Get the subnet ID for an instance (p. 601)

Get the available versions of the instance metadata

This example gets the available versions of the instance metadata. These versions do not necessarily
correlate with an Amazon EC2 API version. The earlier versions are available to you in case you have
scripts that rely on the structure and information present in a previous version.

IMDSv2

PS C:\> $token = Invoke-RestMethod -Headers @{"X-aws-ec2-metadata-token-ttl-seconds" =

"21600"} -Method PUT –Uri http://169.254.169.254/latest/api/token

PS C:\> Invoke-RestMethod -Headers @{"X-aws-ec2-metadata-token" = $token} -Method GET -

Uri http://169.254.169.254/
1.0
2007-01-19
2007-03-01
2007-08-29
2007-10-10
2007-12-15
2008-02-01
2008-09-01
2009-04-04
2011-01-01
2011-05-01
2012-01-12
2014-02-25
2014-11-05
2015-10-20
2016-04-19
2016-06-30
2016-09-02
latest

IMDSv1

PS C:\> Invoke-RestMethod -uri http://169.254.169.254/

1.0
2007-01-19
2007-03-01
2007-08-29
2007-10-10
2007-12-15

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2008-02-01
2008-09-01
2009-04-04
2011-01-01
2011-05-01
2012-01-12
2014-02-25
2014-11-05
2015-10-20
2016-04-19
2016-06-30
2016-09-02
latest

Get the top-level metadata items

This example gets the top-level metadata items. For more information, see Instance metadata
categories (p. 605).

IMDSv2

PS C:\> $token = Invoke-RestMethod -Headers @{"X-aws-ec2-metadata-token-ttl-seconds" =

"21600"} -Method PUT –Uri http://169.254.169.254/latest/api/token

PS C:\> Invoke-RestMethod -Headers @{"X-aws-ec2-metadata-token" = $token} -Method GET -

Uri http://169.254.169.254/latest/meta-data/
ami-id
ami-launch-index
ami-manifest-path
block-device-mapping/
hostname
iam/
instance-action
instance-id
instance-life-cycle
instance-type
local-hostname
local-ipv4
mac
metrics/
network/
placement/
profile
public-hostname
public-ipv4
public-keys/
reservation-id
security-groups
services/

IMDSv1

PS C:\> Invoke-RestMethod -uri http://169.254.169.254/latest/meta-data/

ami-id
ami-launch-index
ami-manifest-path
block-device-mapping/
hostname
iam/
instance-action
instance-id

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instance-type
local-hostname
local-ipv4
mac
metrics/
network/
placement/
profile
public-hostname
public-ipv4
public-keys/
reservation-id
security-groups
services/

The following examples get the values of some of the top-level metadata items that were obtained in
the preceding example. The IMDSv2 requests use the stored token that was created in the preceding
example command, assuming it has not expired.

IMDSv2

PS C:\> Invoke-RestMethod -Headers @{"X-aws-ec2-metadata-token" = $token} -Method GET -

Uri http://169.254.169.254/latest/meta-data/ami-id
ami-0abcdef1234567890

IMDSv1

PS C:\> Invoke-RestMethod -uri http://169.254.169.254/latest/meta-data/ami-id

ami-0abcdef1234567890

IMDSv2

PS C:\> Invoke-RestMethod -Headers @{"X-aws-ec2-metadata-token" = $token} -Method GET -

Uri http://169.254.169.254/latest/meta-data/reservation-id
r-0efghijk987654321

IMDSv1

PS C:\> Invoke-RestMethod -uri http://169.254.169.254/latest/meta-data/reservation-id

r-0efghijk987654321

IMDSv2

PS C:\> Invoke-RestMethod -Headers @{"X-aws-ec2-metadata-token" = $token} -Method GET -

Uri http://169.254.169.254/latest/meta-data/local-hostname
ip-10-251-50-12.ec2.internal

IMDSv1

PS C:\> Invoke-RestMethod -uri http://169.254.169.254/latest/meta-data/local-hostname

ip-10-251-50-12.ec2.internal

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IMDSv2

PS C:\> Invoke-RestMethod -Headers @{"X-aws-ec2-metadata-token" = $token} -Method GET -

Uri http://169.254.169.254/latest/meta-data/public-hostname
ec2-203-0-113-25.compute-1.amazonaws.com

IMDSv1

PS C:\> Invoke-RestMethod -uri http://169.254.169.254/latest/meta-data/public-hostname

ec2-203-0-113-25.compute-1.amazonaws.com

Get the list of available public keys

This example gets the list of available public keys.

IMDSv2

PS C:\> $token = Invoke-RestMethod -Headers @{"X-aws-ec2-metadata-token-ttl-seconds" =

"21600"} -Method PUT –Uri http://169.254.169.254/latest/api/token

PS C:\> Invoke-RestMethod -Headers @{"X-aws-ec2-metadata-token" = $token} -Method GET -

Uri http://169.254.169.254/latest/meta-data/public-keys/
0=my-public-key

IMDSv1

PS C:\> Invoke-RestMethod -uri http://169.254.169.254/latest/meta-data/public-

keys/ 0=my-public-key

Show the formats in which public key 0 is available

This example shows the formats in which public key 0 is available.

IMDSv2

PS C:\> $token = Invoke-RestMethod -Headers @{"X-aws-ec2-metadata-token-ttl-seconds" =

"21600"} -Method PUT –Uri http://169.254.169.254/latest/api/token

PS C:\> Invoke-RestMethod -Headers @{"X-aws-ec2-metadata-token" = $token} -Method GET -

Uri http://169.254.169.254/latest/meta-data/public-keys/0/openssh-key
openssh-key

IMDSv1

PS C:\> Invoke-RestMethod -uri http://169.254.169.254/latest/meta-data/public-keys/0/

openssh-key
openssh-key

Get public key 0 (in the OpenSSH key format)

This example gets public key 0 (in the OpenSSH key format).

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IMDSv2

PS C:\> $token = Invoke-RestMethod -Headers @{"X-aws-ec2-metadata-token-ttl-seconds" =

"21600"} -Method PUT –Uri http://169.254.169.254/latest/api/token

PS C:\> Invoke-RestMethod -Headers @{"X-aws-ec2-metadata-token" = $token} -Method GET -

Uri http://169.254.169.254/latest/meta-data/public-keys/0/openssh-key
ssh-rsa MIICiTCCAfICCQD6m7oRw0uXOjANBgkqhkiG9w0BAQUFADCBiDELMAkGA1UEBhMC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 my-public-key

IMDSv1

PS C:\> Invoke-RestMethod -uri http://169.254.169.254/latest/meta-data/public-keys/0/

openssh-key
ssh-rsa MIICiTCCAfICCQD6m7oRw0uXOjANBgkqhkiG9w0BAQUFADCBiDELMAkGA1UEBhMC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 my-public-key

Get the subnet ID for an instance

This example gets the subnet ID for an instance.

IMDSv2

PS C:\> $token = Invoke-RestMethod -Headers @{"X-aws-ec2-metadata-token-ttl-seconds" =

"21600"} -Method PUT –Uri http://169.254.169.254/latest/api/token

PS C:\> Invoke-RestMethod -Headers @{"X-aws-ec2-metadata-token" = $token} -Method GET -

Uri http://169.254.169.254/latest/meta-data/network/interfaces/macs/02:29:96:8f:6a:2d/
subnet-id
subnet-be9b61d7

IMDSv1

PS C:\> Invoke-RestMethod -uri http://169.254.169.254/latest/meta-data/network/

interfaces/macs/02:29:96:8f:6a:2d/subnet-id

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subnet-be9b61d7

Query throttling
We throttle queries to the instance metadata service on a per-instance basis, and we place limits on the
number of simultaneous connections from an instance to the instance metadata service.

If you're using the instance metadata service to retrieve AWS security credentials, avoid querying for
credentials during every transaction or concurrently from a high number of threads or processes, as
this might lead to throttling. Instead, we recommend that you cache the credentials until they start
approaching their expiry time.

If you are throttled while accessing the instance metadata service, retry your query with an exponential
backoff strategy.

Limit instance metadata service access

You can consider using local firewall rules to disable access from some or all processes to the instance
metadata service.
Note
For Instances built on the Nitro System (p. 147), IMDS can be reached from your own network
when a network appliance within your VPC, such as a virtual router, forwards packets to
the IMDS address, and the default source/destination check on the instance is disabled. To
prevent a source from outside your VPC reaching IMDS, we recommend that you modify the
configuration of the network appliance to drop packets with the destination IPv4 address
of IMDS 169.254.169.254 and, if you enabled the IPv6 endpoint, the IPv6 address of IMDS
fd00:ec2::254.

Using Windows firewall to limit access

The following PowerShell example uses the built-in Windows firewall to prevent the Internet Information
Server webserver (based on its default installation user ID of NT AUTHORITY\IUSR) from accessing
169.254.169.254. It uses a deny rule to reject all instance metadata requests (whether IMDSv1 or
IMDSv2) from any process running as that user.

PS C:\> $blockPrincipal = New-Object -TypeName System.Security.Principal.NTAccount ("NT

AUTHORITY\IUSR")
PS C:\> $BlockPrincipalSID =
$blockPrincipal.Translate([System.Security.Principal.SecurityIdentifier]).Value
PS C:\> $BlockPrincipalSDDL = "D:(A;;CC;;;$BlockPrincipalSID)"
PS C:\> New-NetFirewallRule -DisplayName "Block metadata service from IIS" -Action block -
Direction out `
-Protocol TCP -RemoteAddress 169.254.169.254 -LocalUser $BlockPrincipalSDDL

Or, you can consider only allowing access to particular users or groups, by using allow rules. Allow rules
might be easier to manage from a security perspective, because they require you to make a decision
about what software needs access to instance metadata. If you use allow rules, it's less likely you will
accidentally allow software to access the metadata service (that you did not intend to have access) if
you later change the software or configuration on an instance. You can also combine group usage with
allow rules, so that you can add and remove users from a permitted group without needing to change
the firewall rule.

The following example prevents access to instance metadata by all processes running as an OS group
specified in the variable blockPrincipal (in this example, the Windows group Everyone), except for
processes specified in exceptionPrincipal (in this example, a group called trustworthy-users).
You must specify both deny and allow principals because Windows Firewall, unlike the ! --uid-owner
trustworthy-user rule in Linux iptables, does not provide a shortcut mechanism to allow only a
particular principal (user or group) by denying all the others.

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PS C:\> $blockPrincipal = New-Object -TypeName System.Security.Principal.NTAccount

("Everyone")
PS C:\> $BlockPrincipalSID =
$blockPrincipal.Translate([System.Security.Principal.SecurityIdentifier]).Value
PS C:\> $exceptionPrincipal = New-Object -TypeName System.Security.Principal.NTAccount
("trustworthy-users")
PS C:\> $ExceptionPrincipalSID =
$exceptionPrincipal.Translate([System.Security.Principal.SecurityIdentifier]).Value
PS C:\> $PrincipalSDDL = "O:LSD:(D;;CC;;;$ExceptionPrincipalSID)(A;;CC;;;
$BlockPrincipalSID)"
PS C:\> New-NetFirewallRule -DisplayName "Block metadata service for
$($blockPrincipal.Value), exception: $($exceptionPrincipal.Value)" -Action block -
Direction out `
-Protocol TCP -RemoteAddress 169.254.169.254 -LocalUser $PrincipalSDDL

Note
To use local firewall rules, you need to adapt the preceding example commands to suit your
needs.

Using netsh rules to limit access

You can consider blocking all software using netsh rules, but those are much less flexible.

C:\> netsh advfirewall firewall add rule name="Block metadata service altogether" dir=out
protocol=TCP remoteip=169.254.169.254 action=block

Note

• To use local firewall rules, you need to adapt the preceding example commands to suit your
needs.
• netsh rules must be set from an elevated command prompt, and can’t be set to deny or allow
particular principals.

Work with instance user data

When working with instance user data, keep the following in mind:

• User data must be base64-encoded. The Amazon EC2 console can perform the base64-encoding for
you or accept base64-encoded input.
• User data is limited to 16 KB, in raw form, before it is base64-encoded. The size of a string of length n
after base64-encoding is ceil(n/3)*4.
• User data must be base64-decoded when you retrieve it. If you retrieve the data using instance
metadata or the console, it's decoded for you automatically.
• User data is treated as opaque data: what you give is what you get back. It is up to the instance to be
able to interpret it.
• If you stop an instance, modify its user data, and start the instance, the updated user data is not
run automatically when you start the instance. However, you can configure settings so that updated
user data scripts are run one time when you start the instance or every time you reboot or start the
instance.

Specify instance user data at launch

You can specify user data when you launch an instance. You can specify that the user data is run one
time at launch, or every time you reboot or start the instance. For more information, see Run commands
on your Windows instance at launch (p. 581).

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Modify instance user data

You can modify user data for an instance in the stopped state if the root volume is an EBS volume. For
more information, see View and update the instance user data (p. 585).

Retrieve instance user data

Note
The examples in this section use the IPv4 address of the instance metadata service:
169.254.169.254. If you are retrieving instance metadata for EC2 instances over the IPv6
address, ensure that you enable and use the IPv6 address instead: fd00:ec2::254. The IPv6
address of the instance metadata service is compatible with IMDSv2 commands. The IPv6
address is only accessible on Instances built on the Nitro System (p. 147).

To retrieve user data from within a running instance, use the following URI.

http://169.254.169.254/latest/user-data

A request for user data returns the data as it is (content type application/octet-stream).

This example returns user data that was provided as comma-separated text.

IMDSv2

PS C:\> $token = Invoke-RestMethod -Headers @{"X-aws-ec2-metadata-token-ttl-seconds" =

"21600"} -Method PUT –Uri http://169.254.169.254/latest/api/token

PS C:\> Invoke-RestMethod -Headers @{"X-aws-ec2-metadata-token" = $token} -Method GET -

Uri http://169.254.169.254/latest/user-data
1234,john,reboot,true | 4512,richard, | 173,,,

IMDSv1

PS C:\> Invoke-RestMethod -Headers @{"X-aws-ec2-metadata-token" = Invoke-RestMethod -

Headers @{"X-aws-ec2-metadata-token-ttl-seconds" = "21600"} `
-Method PUT -Uri http://169.254.169.254/latest/api/token} -Method GET -uri
http://169.254.169.254/latest/user-data
1234,john,reboot,true | 4512,richard, | 173,,,

This example returns user data that was provided as a script.

IMDSv2

PS C:\> $token = Invoke-RestMethod -Headers @{"X-aws-ec2-metadata-token-ttl-seconds" =

"21600"} -Method PUT –Uri http://169.254.169.254/latest/api/token

PS C:\> Invoke-RestMethod -Headers @{"X-aws-ec2-metadata-token" = $token} -Method GET -

Uri http://169.254.169.254/latest/user-data
<powershell>
$file = $env:SystemRoot + "\Temp\" + (Get-Date).ToString("MM-dd-yy-hh-mm")
New-Item $file -ItemType file
</powershell>
<persist>true</persist>

IMDSv1

PS C:\> Invoke-RestMethod -uri http://169.254.169.254/latest/user-data

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<powershell>
$file = $env:SystemRoot + "\Temp\" + (Get-Date).ToString("MM-dd-yy-hh-mm")
New-Item $file -ItemType file
</powershell>
<persist>true</persist>

To retrieve user data for an instance from your own computer, see User data and the Tools for Windows
PowerShell (p. 586).

Retrieve dynamic data

To retrieve dynamic data from within a running instance, use the following URI.

http://169.254.169.254/latest/dynamic/

Note
The examples in this section use the IPv4 address of the instance metadata service:
169.254.169.254. If you are retrieving instance metadata for EC2 instances over the IPv6
address, ensure that you enable and use the IPv6 address instead: fd00:ec2::254. The IPv6
address of the instance metadata service is compatible with IMDSv2 commands. The IPv6
address is only accessible on Instances built on the Nitro System (p. 147).

This example shows how to retrieve the high-level instance identity categories.

IMDSv2

PS C:\> $token = Invoke-RestMethod -Headers @{"X-aws-ec2-metadata-token-ttl-seconds" =

"21600"} -Method PUT –Uri http://169.254.169.254/latest/api/token

PS C:\> Invoke-RestMethod -Headers @{"X-aws-ec2-metadata-token" = $token} -Method GET -

Uri http://169.254.169.254/latest/dynamic/instance-identity/
document
rsa2048
pkcs7
signature

IMDSv1

PS C:\> Invoke-RestMethod -uri http://169.254.169.254/latest/dynamic/instance-identity/

document
rsa2048
pkcs7
signature

For more information about dynamic data and examples of how to retrieve it, see Instance identity
documents (p. 613).

Instance metadata categories

Instance metadata is divided into categories. When you retrieve instance metadata, these are the top-
level items.

When Amazon EC2 releases a new instance metadata category, the instance metadata for the new
category might not be available for existing instances. With instances built on the Nitro system (p. 147),

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you can retrieve instance metadata only for the categories that were available at launch. For instances
with the Xen hypervisor, you can stop and then start (p. 429) the instance to update the categories that
are available for the instance.

The following table lists the categories of instance metadata. Some of the category names include
placeholders for data that is unique to your instance. For example, mac represents the MAC address
for the network interface. You must replace the placeholders with actual values when you retrieve the
instance metadata.

Data Description Version

ami-id The AMI ID used to launch the 1.0

instance.

ami-launch-index If you started more than one 1.0

instance at the same time, this value
indicates the order in which the
instance was launched. The value of
the first instance launched is 0.

ami-manifest-path The path to the AMI manifest file in 1.0

Amazon S3. If you used an Amazon
EBS-backed AMI to launch the
instance, the returned result is
unknown.

ancestor-ami-ids The AMI IDs of any instances that 2007-10-10

were rebundled to create this AMI.
This value will only exist if the
AMI manifest file contained an
ancestor-amis key.

block-device-mapping/ami The virtual device that contains the 2007-12-15

root/boot file system.

block-device-mapping/ebs The virtual devices associated with 2007-12-15

N any Amazon EBS volumes. Amazon
EBS volumes are only available in
metadata if they were present at
launch time or when the instance
was last started. The N indicates the
index of the Amazon EBS volume
(such as ebs1 or ebs2).

block-device-mapping/eph The virtual devices for any non- 2007-12-15

emeral NVMe instance store volumes.
N The N indicates the index of each
volume. The number of instance
store volumes in the block device
mapping might not match the actual
number of instance store volumes
for the instance. The instance
type determines the number of
instance store volumes that are
available to an instance. If the
number of instance store volumes in
a block device mapping exceeds the
number available to an instance, the

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Data Description Version

additional instance store volumes are
ignored.

block-device-mapping/root The virtual devices or partitions 2007-12-15

associated with the root devices
or partitions on the virtual device,
where the root (/ or C:) file system is
associated with the given instance.

block-device-mapping/swap The virtual devices associated with 2007-12-15

swap. Not always present.

elastic-gpus/ If there is an Elastic GPU attached to 2016-11-30

associations/elastic-gpu-id the instance, contains a JSON string
with information about the Elastic
GPU, including its ID and connection
information.

elastic-inference/ If there is an Elastic Inference 2018-11-29

associations/eia-id accelerator attached to the instance,
contains a JSON string with
information about the Elastic
Inference accelerator, including its ID
and type.

events/maintenance/history If there are completed or canceled 2018-08-17

maintenance events for the instance,
contains a JSON string with
information about the events. For
more information, see To view event
history about completed or canceled
events (p. 831).

events/maintenance/sched If there are active maintenance 2018-08-17

uled events for the instance, contains a
JSON string with information about
the events. For more information, see
View scheduled events (p. 828).

events/recommendations/r The approximate time, in 2020-11-04

ebalance UTC, when the EC2 instance
rebalance recommendation
notification is emitted for the
instance. The following is an
example of the metadata for
this category: {"noticeTime":
"2020-11-05T08:22:00Z"}.
This category is available
only after the notification is
emitted. For more information,
see EC2 instance rebalance
recommendations (p. 316).

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Data Description Version

hostname The private IPv4 DNS hostname of Version 1.0

the instance. In cases where multiple
network interfaces are present, this
refers to the eth0 device (the device
for which the device number is 0).

iam/info If there is an IAM role associated with 2012-01-12

the instance, contains information
about the last time the instance
profile was updated, including
the instance's LastUpdated
date, InstanceProfileArn, and
InstanceProfileId. Otherwise, not
present.

iam/security-credentials/ If there is an IAM role associated 2012-01-12

role-name with the instance, role-name is the
name of the role, and role-name
contains the temporary security
credentials associated with the role
(for more information, see Retrieve
security credentials from instance
metadata (p. 1129)). Otherwise, not
present.

identity-credentials/ec2/ [Internal use only] Information 2018-05-23

info about the credentials in identity-
credentials/ec2/security-
credentials/ec2-instance.
These credentials are used by AWS
features such as EC2 Instance
Connect, and do not have any
additional AWS API permissions or
privileges beyond identifying the
instance.

identity-credentials/ec2/ [Internal use only] Credentials 2018-05-23

security-credentials/ec2- that allow on-instance software to
instance identify itself to AWS to support
features such as EC2 Instance
Connect. These credentials do
not have any additional AWS API
permissions or privileges.

instance-action Notifies the instance that it should 2008-09-01

reboot in preparation for bundling.
Valid values: none | shutdown |
bundle-pending.

instance-id The ID of this instance. Version 1.0

instance-life-cycle The purchasing option of this 2019-10-01

instance. For more information, see
Instance purchasing options (p. 241).

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Data Description Version

instance-type The type of instance. For more 2007-08-29

information, see Instance
types (p. 142).

kernel-id The ID of the kernel launched with 2008-02-01

this instance, if applicable.

local-hostname The private IPv4 DNS hostname of 2007-01-19

the instance. In cases where multiple
network interfaces are present, this
refers to the eth0 device (the device
for which the device number is 0).

local-ipv4 The private IPv4 address of the Version 1.0

instance. In cases where multiple
network interfaces are present, this
refers to the eth0 device (the device
for which the device number is 0).

mac The instance's media access control 2011-01-01

(MAC) address. In cases where
multiple network interfaces are
present, this refers to the eth0 device
(the device for which the device
number is 0).

metrics/vhostmd No longer available. 2011-05-01

network/interfaces/macs/ The unique device number associated 2011-01-01

mac/device-number with that interface. The device
number corresponds to the device
name; for example, a device-
number of 2 is for the eth2 device.
This category corresponds to the
DeviceIndex and device-index
fields that are used by the Amazon
EC2 API and the EC2 commands for
the AWS CLI.

network/interfaces/macs/ The ID of the network interface. 2011-01-01

mac/interface-id

network/interfaces/macs/ The private IPv4 addresses that 2011-01-01

mac/ipv4-associations/pu are associated with each public
blic-ip IP address and assigned to that
interface.

network/interfaces/macs/ The IPv6 addresses associated with 2016-06-30

mac/ipv6s the interface. Returned only for
instances launched into a VPC.

network/interfaces/macs/ The interface's local hostname. 2011-01-01

mac/local-hostname

network/interfaces/macs/ The private IPv4 addresses 2011-01-01

mac/local-ipv4s associated with the interface.

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Data Description Version

network/interfaces/macs/ The instance's MAC address. 2011-01-01

mac/mac

network/interfaces/ The index of the network card. Some 2020-11-01

macs/mac/network-card-index instance types support multiple
network cards.

network/interfaces/macs/ The ID of the owner of the network 2011-01-01

mac/owner-id interface. In multiple-interface
environments, an interface can be
attached by a third party, such as
Elastic Load Balancing. Traffic on
an interface is always billed to the
interface owner.

network/interfaces/macs/ The interface's public DNS (IPv4). 2011-01-01

mac/public-hostname This category is only returned if the
enableDnsHostnames attribute is
set to true. For more information,
see Using DNS with Your VPC.

network/interfaces/macs/ The public IP address or Elastic 2011-01-01

mac/public-ipv4s IP addresses associated with the
interface. There may be multiple IPv4
addresses on an instance.

network/interfaces/macs/ Security groups to which the network 2011-01-01

mac/security-groups interface belongs.

network/interfaces/macs/ The IDs of the security groups to 2011-01-01

mac/security-group-ids which the network interface belongs.

network/interfaces/macs/ The ID of the subnet in which the 2011-01-01

mac/subnet-id interface resides.

network/interfaces/macs/ The IPv4 CIDR block of the subnet in 2011-01-01

mac/subnet-ipv4-cidr-block which the interface resides.

network/interfaces/macs/ The IPv6 CIDR block of the subnet in 2016-06-30

mac/subnet-ipv6-cidr-blocks which the interface resides.

network/interfaces/macs/ The ID of the VPC in which the 2011-01-01

mac/vpc-id interface resides.

network/interfaces/macs/ The primary IPv4 CIDR block of the 2011-01-01

mac/vpc-ipv4-cidr-block VPC.

network/interfaces/macs/ The IPv4 CIDR blocks for the VPC. 2016-06-30

mac/vpc-ipv4-cidr-blocks

network/interfaces/macs/ The IPv6 CIDR block of the VPC in 2016-06-30

mac/vpc-ipv6-cidr-blocks which the interface resides.

placement/availability-zone The Availability Zone in which the 2008-02-01

instance launched.

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Data Description Version

placement/availability-z The static Availability Zone ID in 2020-08-24

one-id which the instance is launched. The
Availability Zone ID is consistent
across accounts. However, it might be
different from the Availability Zone,
which can vary by account.

placement/group-name The name of the placement group in 2020-08-24

which the instance is launched.

placement/host-id The ID of the host on which the 2020-08-24

instance is launched. Applicable only
to Dedicated Hosts.

placement/partition-number The number of the partition in which 2020-08-24

the instance is launched.

placement/region The AWS Region in which the 2020-08-24

instance is launched.

product-codes AWS Marketplace product codes 2007-03-01

associated with the instance, if any.

public-hostname The instance's public DNS. This 2007-01-19

category is only returned if the
enableDnsHostnames attribute is
set to true. For more information,
see Using DNS with Your VPC in the
Amazon VPC User Guide.

public-ipv4 The public IPv4 address. If an Elastic 2007-01-19

IP address is associated with the
instance, the value returned is the
Elastic IP address.

public-keys/0/openssh-key Public key. Only available if supplied Version 1.0

at instance launch time.

ramdisk-id The ID of the RAM disk specified at 2007-10-10

launch time, if applicable.

reservation-id The ID of the reservation. Version 1.0

security-groups The names of the security groups Version 1.0

applied to the instance.

After launch, you can change the

security groups of the instances.
Such changes are reflected here and
in network/interfaces/macs/mac/
security-groups.

services/domain The domain for AWS resources for 2014-02-25

the Region.

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Data Description Version

services/partition The partition that the resource is 2015-10-20

in. For standard AWS Regions, the
partition is aws. If you have resources
in other partitions, the partition is
aws-partitionname. For example,
the partition for resources in the
China (Beijing) Region is aws-cn.

spot/instance-action The action (hibernate, stop, or 2016-11-15

terminate) and the approximate
time, in UTC, when the action will
occur. This item is present only if
the Spot Instance has been marked
for hibernate, stop, or terminate.
For more information, see instance-
action (p. 324).

spot/termination-time The approximate time, in UTC, that 2014-11-05

the operating system for your Spot
Instance will receive the shutdown
signal. This item is present and
contains a time value (for example,
2015-01-05T18:02:00Z) only if the
Spot Instance has been marked
for termination by Amazon EC2.
The termination-time item is not
set to a time if you terminated
the Spot Instance yourself. For
more information, see termination-
time (p. 325).

Dynamic data categories

The following table lists the categories of dynamic data.

Data Description Version

fws/instance- Value showing whether the customer has enabled detailed 2009-04-04
monitoring one-minute monitoring in CloudWatch. Valid values:
enabled | disabled

instance-identity/ JSON containing instance attributes, such as instance- 2009-04-04

document id, private IP address, etc. See Instance identity
documents (p. 613).

instance-identity/ Used to verify the document's authenticity and 2009-04-04

pkcs7 content against the signature. See Instance identity
documents (p. 613).

instance-identity/ Data that can be used by other parties to verify 2009-04-04

signature its origin and authenticity. See Instance identity
documents (p. 613).

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Instance identity documents

Each instance that you launch has an instance identity document that provides information about the
instance itself. You can use the instance identity document to validate the attributes of the instance.

The instance identity document is generated when the instance is stopped and started, restarted, or
launched. The instance identity document is exposed (in plaintext JSON format) through the Instance
Metadata Service. The IPv4 address 169.254.169.254 is a link-local address and is valid only from the
instance. For more information, see Link-local address on Wikipedia. The IPv6 address fd00:ec2::254
is a unique local address and is valid only from the instance. For more information, see Unique local
address on Wikipedia.
Note
The examples in this section use the IPv4 address of the instance metadata service:
169.254.169.254. If you are retrieving instance metadata for EC2 instances over the IPv6
address, ensure that you enable and use the IPv6 address instead: fd00:ec2::254. The IPv6
address of the instance metadata service is compatible with IMDSv2 commands. The IPv6
address is only accessible on Instances built on the Nitro System (p. 147).

You can retrieve the instance identity document from a running instance at any time. The instance
identity document includes the following information:

Data Description

devpayProductCodes Deprecated.

The AWS Marketplace product code of the AMI used to launch the instance.
marketplaceProductCodes

availabilityZone The Availability Zone in which the instance is running.

privateIp The private IPv4 address of the instance.

version The version of the instance identity document format.

instanceId The ID of the instance.

billingProducts The billing products of the instance.

instanceType The instance type of the instance.

accountId The ID of the AWS account that launched the instance.

imageId The ID of the AMI used to launch the instance.

pendingTime The date and time that the instance was launched.

architecture The architecture of the AMI used to launch the instance (i386 | x86_64 |
arm64).

kernelId The ID of the kernel associated with the instance, if applicable.

ramdiskId The ID of the RAM disk associated with the instance, if applicable.

region The Region in which the instance is running.

Retrieve the plaintext instance identity document

To retrieve the plaintext instance identity document

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Connect to the instance and run one of the following commands depending on the Instance Metadata
Service (IMDS) version used by the instance.

IMDSv2

PS C:\> $Token = (Invoke-WebRequest -Method Put -Headers @{'X-aws-ec2-metadata-token-

ttl-seconds' = '21600'} http://169.254.169.254/latest/api/token).Content

PS C:\> (Invoke-WebRequest -Headers @{'X-aws-ec2-metadata-token' = $Token}

http://169.254.169.254/latest/dynamic/instance-identity/document).Content

IMDSv1

PS C:\> (Invoke-WebRequest http://169.254.169.254/latest/dynamic/instance-identity/

document).Content

The following is example output.

{
"devpayProductCodes" : null,
"marketplaceProductCodes" : [ "1abc2defghijklm3nopqrs4tu" ],
"availabilityZone" : "us-west-2b",
"privateIp" : "10.158.112.84",
"version" : "2017-09-30",
"instanceId" : "i-1234567890abcdef0",
"billingProducts" : null,
"instanceType" : "t2.micro",
"accountId" : "123456789012",
"imageId" : "ami-5fb8c835",
"pendingTime" : "2016-11-19T16:32:11Z",
"architecture" : "x86_64",
"kernelId" : null,
"ramdiskId" : null,
"region" : "us-west-2"
}

Verify the instance identity document

If you intend to use the contents of the instance identity document for an important purpose, you should
verify its contents and authenticity before using it.

The plaintext instance identity document is accompanied by three hashed and encrypted signatures. You
can use these signatures to verify the origin and authenticity of the instance identity document and the
information that it includes. The following signatures are provided:

• Base64-encoded signature—This is a base64-encoded SHA256 hash of the instance identity document

that is encrypted using an RSA key pair.
• PKCS7 signature—This is a SHA1 hash of the instance identity document that is encrypted using a DSA
key pair.
• RSA-2048 signature—This is a SHA256 hash of the instance identity document that is encrypted using
an RSA-2048 key pair.

Each signature is available at a different endpoint in the instance metadata. You can use any one of these
signatures depending on your hashing and encryption requirements. To verify the signatures, you must
use the corresponding AWS public certificate.

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Important
To validate the instance identity document using the base64-encoded signature or RSA2048
signature, you must request the corresponding AWS public certificate from AWS Support.

The following topics provide detailed steps for validating the instance identity document using each
signature.

• Use the PKCS7 signature to verify the instance identity document (p. 615)
• Use the base64-encoded signature to verify the instance identity document (p. 619)
• Use the RSA-2048 signature to verify the instance identity document (p. 622)

Use the PKCS7 signature to verify the instance identity document

This topic explains how to verify the instance identity document using the PKCS7 signature and the AWS
DSA public certificate.

Prerequisites

This procedure requires the System.Security Microsoft .NET Core class. To add the class to your
PowerShell session, run the following command.

PS C:\> Add-Type -AssemblyName System.Security

Note
The command adds the class to the current PowerShell session only. If you start a new session,
you must run the command again.

To verify the instance identity document using the PKCS7 signature and the AWS DSA public
certificate

1. Connect to the instance.

2. Retrieve the PKCS7 signature from the instance metadata, convert it to a byte array, and add it to a
variable named $Signature. Use one of the following commands depending on the IMDS version
used by the instance.

IMDSv2

PS C:\> $Token = (Invoke-WebRequest -Method Put -Headers @{'X-aws-ec2-metadata-

token-ttl-seconds' = '21600'} http://169.254.169.254/latest/api/token).Content

PS C:\> $Signature = [Convert]::FromBase64String((Invoke-WebRequest -Headers @{'X-

aws-ec2-metadata-token' = $Token} http://169.254.169.254/latest/dynamic/instance-
identity/pkcs7).Content)

IMDSv1

PS C:\> $Signature = [Convert]::FromBase64String((Invoke-WebRequest

http://169.254.169.254/latest/dynamic/instance-identity/pkcs7).Content)

3. Retrieve the plaintext instance identity document from the instance metadata, convert it to a byte
array, and add it to a variable named $Document. Use one of the following commands depending
on the IMDS version used by the instance.

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IMDSv2

PS C:\> $Document = [Text.Encoding]::UTF8.GetBytes((Invoke-WebRequest -Headers

@{'X-aws-ec2-metadata-token' = $Token} http://169.254.169.254/latest/dynamic/
instance-identity/document).Content)

IMDSv1

PS C:\> $Document = [Text.Encoding]::UTF8.GetBytes((Invoke-WebRequest

http://169.254.169.254/latest/dynamic/instance-identity/document).Content)

4. Create a new file named certificate.pem and add one of the following AWS DSA public
certificates, depending on your Region.

Other AWS Regions

The following AWS public certificate is for all AWS Regions, except Hong Kong, Bahrain, China,
and GovCloud.

-----BEGIN CERTIFICATE-----
MIIC7TCCAq0CCQCWukjZ5V4aZzAJBgcqhkjOOAQDMFwxCzAJBgNVBAYTAlVTMRkw
FwYDVQQIExBXYXNoaW5ndG9uIFN0YXRlMRAwDgYDVQQHEwdTZWF0dGxlMSAwHgYD
VQQKExdBbWF6b24gV2ViIFNlcnZpY2VzIExMQzAeFw0xMjAxMDUxMjU2MTJaFw0z
ODAxMDUxMjU2MTJaMFwxCzAJBgNVBAYTAlVTMRkwFwYDVQQIExBXYXNoaW5ndG9u
IFN0YXRlMRAwDgYDVQQHEwdTZWF0dGxlMSAwHgYDVQQKExdBbWF6b24gV2ViIFNl
cnZpY2VzIExMQzCCAbcwggEsBgcqhkjOOAQBMIIBHwKBgQCjkvcS2bb1VQ4yt/5e
ih5OO6kK/n1Lzllr7D8ZwtQP8fOEpp5E2ng+D6Ud1Z1gYipr58Kj3nssSNpI6bX3
VyIQzK7wLclnd/YozqNNmgIyZecN7EglK9ITHJLP+x8FtUpt3QbyYXJdmVMegN6P
hviYt5JH/nYl4hh3Pa1HJdskgQIVALVJ3ER11+Ko4tP6nwvHwh6+ERYRAoGBAI1j
k+tkqMVHuAFcvAGKocTgsjJem6/5qomzJuKDmbJNu9Qxw3rAotXau8Qe+MBcJl/U
hhy1KHVpCGl9fueQ2s6IL0CaO/buycU1CiYQk40KNHCcHfNiZbdlx1E9rpUp7bnF
lRa2v1ntMX3caRVDdbtPEWmdxSCYsYFDk4mZrOLBA4GEAAKBgEbmeve5f8LIE/Gf
MNmP9CM5eovQOGx5ho8WqD+aTebs+k2tn92BBPqeZqpWRa5P/+jrdKml1qx4llHW
MXrs3IgIb6+hUIB+S8dz8/mmO0bpr76RoZVCXYab2CZedFut7qc3WUH9+EUAH5mw
vSeDCOUMYQR7R9LINYwouHIziqQYMAkGByqGSM44BAMDLwAwLAIUWXBlk40xTwSw
7HX32MxXYruse9ACFBNGmdX2ZBrVNGrN9N2f6ROk0k9K
-----END CERTIFICATE-----

Hong Kong Region

The AWS public certificate for the Hong Kong Region is as follows.

-----BEGIN CERTIFICATE-----
MIIC7zCCAq4CCQCO7MJe5Y3VLjAJBgcqhkjOOAQDMFwxCzAJBgNVBAYTAlVTMRkw
FwYDVQQIExBXYXNoaW5ndG9uIFN0YXRlMRAwDgYDVQQHEwdTZWF0dGxlMSAwHgYD
VQQKExdBbWF6b24gV2ViIFNlcnZpY2VzIExMQzAeFw0xOTAyMDMwMjIxMjFaFw00
NTAyMDMwMjIxMjFaMFwxCzAJBgNVBAYTAlVTMRkwFwYDVQQIExBXYXNoaW5ndG9u
IFN0YXRlMRAwDgYDVQQHEwdTZWF0dGxlMSAwHgYDVQQKExdBbWF6b24gV2ViIFNl
cnZpY2VzIExMQzCCAbgwggEsBgcqhkjOOAQBMIIBHwKBgQDvQ9RzVvf4MAwGbqfX
blCvCoVb9957OkLGn/04CowHXJ+vTBR7eyIa6AoXltsQXBOmrJswToFKKxT4gbuw
jK7s9QQX4CmTRWcEgO2RXtZSVjOhsUQMh+yf7Ht4OVL97LWnNfGsX2cwjcRWHYgI
7lvnuBNBzLQHdSEwMNq0Bk76PwIVAMan6XIEEPnwr4e6u/RNnWBGKd9FAoGBAOCG
eSNmxpW4QFu4pIlAykm6EnTZKKHT87gdXkAkfoC5fAfOxxhnE2HezZHp9Ap2tMV5
8bWNvoPHvoKCQqwfm+OUBlAxC/3vqoVkKL2mG1KgUH9+hrtpMTkwO3RREnKe7I5O
x9qDimJpOihrL4I0dYvy9xUOoz+DzFAW8+ylWVYpA4GFAAKBgQDbnBAKSxWr9QHY
6Dt+EFdGz6lAZLedeBKpaP53Z1DTO34J0C55YbJTwBTFGqPtOLxnUVDlGiD6GbmC
80f3jvogPR1mSmGsydbNbZnbUEVWrRhe+y5zJ3g9qs/DWmDW0deEFvkhWVnLJkFJ
9pdOu/ibRPH1lE2nz6pK7GbOQtLyHTAJBgcqhkjOOAQDAzAAMC0CFQCoJlwGtJQC
cLoM4p/jtVFOj26xbgIUUS4pDKyHaG/eaygLTtFpFJqzWHc=
-----END CERTIFICATE-----

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Bahrain Region

The AWS public certificate for the Bahrain Region is as follows.

-----BEGIN CERTIFICATE-----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-----END CERTIFICATE-----

Cape Town Region

The AWS public certificate for the Cape Town Region is as follows.

-----BEGIN CERTIFICATE-----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-----END CERTIFICATE-----

Milan Region

The AWS public certificate for the Milan Region is as follows.

-----BEGIN CERTIFICATE-----
MIIC7TCCAqwCCQCMElHPdwG37jAJBgcqhkjOOAQDMFwxCzAJBgNVBAYTAlVTMRkw
FwYDVQQIExBXYXNoaW5ndG9uIFN0YXRlMRAwDgYDVQQHEwdTZWF0dGxlMSAwHgYD
VQQKExdBbWF6b24gV2ViIFNlcnZpY2VzIExMQzAeFw0xOTA0MjkyMDM1MjJaFw00
NTA0MjkyMDM1MjJaMFwxCzAJBgNVBAYTAlVTMRkwFwYDVQQIExBXYXNoaW5ndG9u
IFN0YXRlMRAwDgYDVQQHEwdTZWF0dGxlMSAwHgYDVQQKExdBbWF6b24gV2ViIFNl
cnZpY2VzIExMQzCCAbYwggErBgcqhkjOOAQBMIIBHgKBgQDAkoL4YfdMI/MrQ0oL
NPfeEk94eiCQA5xNOnU7+2eVQtEqjFbDADFENh1p3sh9Q9OoheLFH8qpSfNDWn/0
ktCS909ApTY6Esx1ExjGSeQq/U+SC2JSuuTT4WFMKJ63a/czMtFkEPPnVIjJJJmT
HJSKSsVUgpdDIRvJXuyB0zdB+wIVALQ3OLaVGdlPMNfS1nD/Yyn+32wnAoGAPBQ3
7XHg5NLOS4326eFRUT+4ornQFjJjP6dp3pOBEzpImNmZTtkCNNUKE4Go9hv5T4lh

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R0pODvWv0CBupMAZVBP9ObplXPCyEIZtuDqVa7ukPOUpQNgQhLLAqkigTyXVOSmt
ECBj9tu5WNP/x3iTZTHJ+g0rhIqpgh012UwJpKADgYQAAoGAV1OEQPYQUg5/M3xf
6vE7jKTxxyFWEyjKfJK7PZCzOIGrE/swgACy4PYQW+AwcUweSlK/Hx2OaZVUKzWo
wDUbeu65DcRdw2rSwCbBTU342sitFo/iGCV/Gjf+BaiAJtxniZze7J1ob8vOBeLv
uaMQmgOYeZ5e0fl04GtqPl+lhcQwCQYHKoZIzjgEAwMwADAtAhQdoeWLrkm0K49+
AeBK+j6m2h9SKQIVAIBNhS2a8cQVABDCQXVXrc0tOmO8
-----END CERTIFICATE-----

China Regions

The AWS public certificate for the China (Beijing) and China (Ningxia) Regions is as follows.

-----BEGIN CERTIFICATE-----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-----END CERTIFICATE-----

GovCloud Regions

The AWS public certificate for the AWS GovCloud Regions is as follows.

-----BEGIN CERTIFICATE-----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-----END CERTIFICATE-----

5. Extract the certificate from the certificate file and store it in a variable named $Store.

PS C:\> $Store =
[Security.Cryptography.X509Certificates.X509Certificate2Collection]::new([Security.Cryptography.X5
Path certificate.pem)))

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6. Verify the signature.

PS C:\> $SignatureDocument = [Security.Cryptography.Pkcs.SignedCms]::new()

PS C:\> $SignatureDocument.Decode($Signature)

PS C:\> $SignatureDocument.CheckSignature($Store, $true)

If the signature is valid, the command returns no output. If the signature cannot be verified, the
command returns Exception calling "CheckSignature" with "2" argument(s):
"Cannot find the original signer. If your signature cannot be verified, contact AWS
Support.
7. Validate the content of the instance identity document.

PS C:
\> [Linq.Enumerable]::SequenceEqual($SignatureDocument.ContentInfo.Content, $Document)

If the content of the instance identity document is valid, the command returns True. If instance
identity document cannot be validated, contact AWS Support.

Use the base64-encoded signature to verify the instance identity document

This topic explains how to verify the instance identity document using the base64-encoded signature
and the AWS RSA public certificate.

To validate the instance identity document using the base64-encoded signature and the AWS
RSA public certificate

1. Connect to the instance.

2. Retrieve the base64-encoded signature from the instance metadata, convert it to a byte array, and
add it to variable named $Signature. Use one of the following commands depending on the IMDS
version used by the instance.

IMDSv2

PS C:\> $Token = (Invoke-WebRequest -Method Put -Headers @{'X-aws-ec2-metadata-

token-ttl-seconds' = '21600'} http://169.254.169.254/latest/api/token).Content

PS C:\> $Signature = [Convert]::FromBase64String((Invoke-WebRequest -Headers @{'X-

aws-ec2-metadata-token' = $Token} http://169.254.169.254/latest/dynamic/instance-
identity/signature).Content)

IMDSv1

PS C:\> $Signature = [Convert]::FromBase64String((Invoke-WebRequest

http://169.254.169.254/latest/dynamic/instance-identity/signature).Content)

3. Retrieve the plaintext instance identity document from the instance metadata, convert it to a byte
array, and add it to a variable named $Document. Use one of the following commands depending
on the IMDS version used by the instance.

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IMDSv2

PS C:\> $Document = [Text.Encoding]::UTF8.GetBytes((Invoke-WebRequest -Headers

@{'X-aws-ec2-metadata-token' = $Token} http://169.254.169.254/latest/dynamic/
instance-identity/document).Content)

IMDSv1

PS C:\> $Document = [Text.Encoding]::UTF8.GetBytes((Invoke-WebRequest

http://169.254.169.254/latest/dynamic/instance-identity/document).Content)

4. Add one of the following AWS RSA public certificates to a new file named certificate.pem,
depending on the Region of your instance.

Other AWS Regions

The following AWS public certificate is for all AWS Regions, except Hong Kong, Bahrain, China,
and GovCloud.

-----BEGIN CERTIFICATE-----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-----END CERTIFICATE-----

Hong Kong Region

The AWS public certificate for the Hong Kong Region is as follows.

-----BEGIN CERTIFICATE-----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-----END CERTIFICATE-----

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Bahrain Region

The AWS public certificate for the Bahrain Region is as follows.

-----BEGIN CERTIFICATE-----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-----END CERTIFICATE-----

Cape Town Region

The AWS public certificate for the Cape Town Region is as follows.

-----BEGIN CERTIFICATE-----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-----END CERTIFICATE-----

Milan Region

The AWS public certificate for the Milan Region is as follows.

-----BEGIN CERTIFICATE-----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-----END CERTIFICATE-----

China Regions

The AWS public certificate for the China (Beijing) and China (Ningxia) Regions is as follows.

-----BEGIN CERTIFICATE-----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-----END CERTIFICATE-----

GovCloud Regions

The AWS public certificate for the AWS GovCloud Regions is as follows.

-----BEGIN CERTIFICATE-----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Af8ECDAGAQH/AgEAMA0GCSqGSIb3DQEBCwUAA4GBACrKjWj460GUPZCGm3/z0dIz
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xZhNNRmDuhOhW1K9wCcnHGRBwY5t4lYL6hNV6hcrqYwGMjTjcAjBG2yMgznSNFle
Rwi/S3BFXISixNx9cILu
-----END CERTIFICATE-----

5. Verify the instance identity document.

PS C:\> [Security.Cryptography.X509Certificates.X509Certificate2]::new((Resolve-
Path certificate.pem)).PublicKey.Key.VerifyData($Document, 'SHA256', $Signature)

If the signature is valid, the command returns True. If the signature cannot be verified, contact AWS
Support.

Use the RSA-2048 signature to verify the instance identity document

This topic explains how to verify the instance identity document using the RSA-2048 signature and the
AWS RSA-2048 public certificate.

Prerequisites

622
 Amazon Elastic Compute Cloud
User Guide for Windows Instances
Instance metadata and user data

This procedure requires the System.Security Microsoft .NET Core class. To add the class to your
PowerShell session, run the following command.

PS C:\> Add-Type -AssemblyName System.Security

Note
The command adds the class to the current PowerShell session only. If you start a new session,
you must run the command again.

To verify the instance identity document using the RSA-2048 signature and the AWS
RSA-2048 public certificate

1. Connect to the instance.

2. Retrieve the RSA-2048 signature from the instance metadata, convert it to a byte array, and add it to
a variable named $Signature. Use one of the following commands depending on the IMDS version
used by the instance.

IMDSv2

PS C:\> $Token = (Invoke-WebRequest -Method Put -Headers @{'X-aws-ec2-metadata-

token-ttl-seconds' = '21600'} http://169.254.169.254/latest/api/token).Content

PS C:\> $Signature = [Convert]::FromBase64String((Invoke-WebRequest -Headers @{'X-

aws-ec2-metadata-token' = $Token} http://169.254.169.254/latest/dynamic/instance-
identity/rsa2048).Content)

IMDSv1

PS C:\> $Signature = [Convert]::FromBase64String((Invoke-WebRequest

http://169.254.169.254/latest/dynamic/instance-identity/rsa2048).Content)

3. Retrieve the plaintext instance identity document from the instance metadata, convert it to a byte
array, and add it to a variable named $Document. Use one of the following commands depending
on the IMDS version used by the instance.

IMDSv2

PS C:\> $Document = [Text.Encoding]::UTF8.GetBytes((Invoke-WebRequest -Headers

@{'X-aws-ec2-metadata-token' = $Token} http://169.254.169.254/latest/dynamic/
instance-identity/document).Content)

IMDSv1

PS C:\> $Document = [Text.Encoding]::UTF8.GetBytes((Invoke-WebRequest

http://169.254.169.254/latest/dynamic/instance-identity/document).Content)

4. Create a new file named certificate.pem and add one of the following AWS RSA-2048 public
certificates, depending on your Region.

North America Regions

• Northern Virginia

-----BEGIN CERTIFICATE-----
MIIEEjCCAvqgAwIBAgIJALFpzEAVWaQZMA0GCSqGSIb3DQEBCwUAMFwxCzAJBgNV
BAYTAlVTMRkwFwYDVQQIExBXYXNoaW5ndG9uIFN0YXRlMRAwDgYDVQQHEwdTZWF0
dGxlMSAwHgYDVQQKExdBbWF6b24gV2ViIFNlcnZpY2VzIExMQzAgFw0xNTA4MTQw

623
 Amazon Elastic Compute Cloud
User Guide for Windows Instances
Instance metadata and user data

ODU5MTJaGA8yMTk1MDExNzA4NTkxMlowXDELMAkGA1UEBhMCVVMxGTAXBgNVBAgT
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NWIsDEcp3GUB4proOR+C7PNkY+VGODitBOw09qBGosCBstwyEqY=
-----END CERTIFICATE-----

• Ohio

-----BEGIN CERTIFICATE-----
MIIEEjCCAvqgAwIBAgIJAM07oeX4xevdMA0GCSqGSIb3DQEBCwUAMFwxCzAJBgNV
BAYTAlVTMRkwFwYDVQQIExBXYXNoaW5ndG9uIFN0YXRlMRAwDgYDVQQHEwdTZWF0
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-----END CERTIFICATE-----

• Oregon

-----BEGIN CERTIFICATE-----
MIIEEjCCAvqgAwIBAgIJALZL3lrQCSTMMA0GCSqGSIb3DQEBCwUAMFwxCzAJBgNV
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624
 Amazon Elastic Compute Cloud
User Guide for Windows Instances
Instance metadata and user data

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-----END CERTIFICATE-----

• Northern California

-----BEGIN CERTIFICATE-----
MIIEEjCCAvqgAwIBAgIJANNPkIpcyEtIMA0GCSqGSIb3DQEBCwUAMFwxCzAJBgNV
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-----END CERTIFICATE-----

• Canada (Central)

-----BEGIN CERTIFICATE-----
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-----END CERTIFICATE-----

625
 Amazon Elastic Compute Cloud
User Guide for Windows Instances
Instance metadata and user data

South America Regions

• São Paulo

-----BEGIN CERTIFICATE-----
MIIEEjCCAvqgAwIBAgIJAMcyoxx4U0xxMA0GCSqGSIb3DQEBCwUAMFwxCzAJBgNV
BAYTAlVTMRkwFwYDVQQIExBXYXNoaW5ndG9uIFN0YXRlMRAwDgYDVQQHEwdTZWF0
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-----END CERTIFICATE-----

Europe, Middle East, and Africa Regions

• Frankfurt

-----BEGIN CERTIFICATE-----
MIIEEjCCAvqgAwIBAgIJAKD+v6LeR/WrMA0GCSqGSIb3DQEBCwUAMFwxCzAJBgNV
BAYTAlVTMRkwFwYDVQQIExBXYXNoaW5ndG9uIFN0YXRlMRAwDgYDVQQHEwdTZWF0
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CgKCAQEAka8FLhxs1cSJGK+Q+q/vTf8zVnDAPZ3U6oqppOW/cupCtpwMAQcky8DY
Yb62GF7+C6usniaq/9W6xPn/3o//wti0cNt6MLsiUeHqNl5H/4U/Q/fR+GA8pJ+L
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-----END CERTIFICATE-----

• London

626
 Amazon Elastic Compute Cloud
User Guide for Windows Instances
Instance metadata and user data

-----BEGIN CERTIFICATE-----
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-----END CERTIFICATE-----

• Paris

-----BEGIN CERTIFICATE-----
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-----END CERTIFICATE-----

• Ireland

-----BEGIN CERTIFICATE-----
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627
 Amazon Elastic Compute Cloud
User Guide for Windows Instances
Instance metadata and user data

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-----END CERTIFICATE-----

• Milan

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-----END CERTIFICATE-----

• Stockholm

-----BEGIN CERTIFICATE-----
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-----END CERTIFICATE-----

• Bahrain

-----BEGIN CERTIFICATE-----
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628
 Amazon Elastic Compute Cloud
User Guide for Windows Instances
Instance metadata and user data

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-----END CERTIFICATE-----

• Cape Town

-----BEGIN CERTIFICATE-----
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-----END CERTIFICATE-----

Asia Pacific Regions

• Sydney

-----BEGIN CERTIFICATE-----
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629
 Amazon Elastic Compute Cloud
User Guide for Windows Instances
Instance metadata and user data

-----END CERTIFICATE-----

• Tokyo

-----BEGIN CERTIFICATE-----
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-----END CERTIFICATE-----

• Seoul

-----BEGIN CERTIFICATE-----
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-----END CERTIFICATE-----

• Osaka

-----BEGIN CERTIFICATE-----
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630
 Amazon Elastic Compute Cloud
User Guide for Windows Instances
Instance metadata and user data

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-----END CERTIFICATE-----

• Mumbai

-----BEGIN CERTIFICATE-----
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-----END CERTIFICATE-----

• Hong Kong

-----BEGIN CERTIFICATE-----
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-----END CERTIFICATE-----

• Singapore

-----BEGIN CERTIFICATE-----
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631
 Amazon Elastic Compute Cloud
User Guide for Windows Instances
Instance metadata and user data

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-----END CERTIFICATE-----

• Ningxia

-----BEGIN CERTIFICATE-----
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-----END CERTIFICATE-----

• Beijing

-----BEGIN CERTIFICATE-----
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632
 Amazon Elastic Compute Cloud
User Guide for Windows Instances
Instance metadata and user data

-----END CERTIFICATE-----

AWS GovCloud Regions

• AWS GovCloud (US-West) Region

-----BEGIN CERTIFICATE-----
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-----END CERTIFICATE-----

• AWS GovCloud (US-East) Region

-----BEGIN CERTIFICATE-----
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EFdhc2hpbmd0b24gU3RhdGUxEDAOBgNVBAcTB1NlYXR0bGUxIDAeBgNVBAoTF0Ft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-----END CERTIFICATE-----

5. Extract the certificate from the certificate file and store it in a variable named $Store.

PS C:\> $Store =
[Security.Cryptography.X509Certificates.X509Certificate2Collection]::new([Security.Cryptography.X5
Path certificate.pem)))

6. Verify the signature.

PS C:\> $SignatureDocument = [Security.Cryptography.Pkcs.SignedCms]::new()

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PS C:\> $SignatureDocument.Decode($Signature)

PS C:\> $SignatureDocument.CheckSignature($Store, $true)

If the signature is valid, the command returns no output. If the signature cannot be verified, the
command returns Exception calling "CheckSignature" with "2" argument(s):
"Cannot find the original signer. If your signature cannot be verified, contact AWS
Support.
7. Validate the content of the instance identity document.

PS C:
\> [Linq.Enumerable]::SequenceEqual($SignatureDocument.ContentInfo.Content, $Document)

If the content of the instance identity document is valid, the command returns True. If instance
identity document cannot be validated, contact AWS Support.

Best practices and recommendations for SQL Server

clustering on EC2
SQL Always On clustering offers high availability without the requirement for shared storage. The
list of practices in this topic, in addition to the prerequisites listed at Prerequisites, Restrictions, and
Recommendations for Always On availability groups, can help you get the best results when operating
a SQL Server Always On cluster on AWS. The practices listed in this topic also offer a method to gather
logs.
Note
When nodes are deployed in different Availability Zones, or in different subnets within the same
zone, they should be treated as a multi-subnet cluster. Keep this in mind as you apply best
practices and when you address possible failure scenarios.

Contents
• Assign IP addresses (p. 635)
• Cluster properties (p. 635)
• Cluster quorum votes and 50/50 splits in a multi-site cluster (p. 635)
• DNS registration (p. 635)
• Elastic Network Adapters (ENAs) (p. 636)
• Multi-site clusters and EC2 instance placement (p. 636)
• Instance type selection (p. 637)
• Assign elastic network interfaces and IPs to the instance (p. 637)
• Heartbeat network (p. 637)
• Configure the network adapter in the OS (p. 637)
• IPv6 (p. 637)
• Host record TTL for SQL Availability Group Listeners (p. 637)
• Logging (p. 638)
• NetBIOS over TCP (p. 638)
• NetFT Virtual Adapter (p. 638)
• Set possible owners (p. 638)

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• Tune the failover thresholds (p. 639)

• Witness importance and Dynamic Quorum Architecture (p. 640)
• Troubleshoot (p. 640)

Assign IP addresses
Each cluster node should have one elastic network interface assigned that includes three private IP
addresses on the subnet: a primary IP address, a cluster IP address, and an Availability Group IP address.
The operating system (OS) should have the NIC configured for DHCP. It should not be set for a static IP
address because the IP addresses for the cluster IP and Availability Group will be handled virtually in
the Failover Cluster Manager. The NIC can be configured for a static IP as long as it is configured to only
use the primary IP of eth0. If the other IPs are assigned to the NIC, it can cause network drops for the
instance during failover events.

When the network drops because the IPs are incorrectly assigned, or when there is a failover event or
network failure, it is not uncommon to see the following event log entries at the time of failure.

Isatap interface isatap.{9468661C-0AEB-41BD-BB8C-1F85981D5482} is no longer active.

Isatap interface isatap.{9468661C-0AEB-41BD-BB8C-1F85981D5482} with address

fe80::5efe:169.254.1.105 has been brought up.

Because these messages seem to describe network issues, it is easy to mistake the cause of the outage
or failure as a network error. However, these errors describe a symptom, rather than cause, of the failure.
ISATAP is a tunneling technology that uses IPv6 over IPv4. When the IPv4 connection fails, the ISATAP
adapter also fails. When the network issues are resolved, these entries should no longer appear in the
event logs. Alternately, you can eliminate network errors by safely disabling ISATAP with the following
command.

netsh int ipv6 isatap set state disabled

When you run this command, the adapter is removed from Device Manager. This command should be run
on all nodes. It does not impact the ability of the cluster to function. Instead, when the command has
been run, ISATAP is no longer used. However, because this command might cause unknown impacts on
other applications that leverage ISATAP, you should test it.

Cluster properties
To see the complete cluster configuration, run the following PowerShell command.

Get-Cluster | Format-List -Property *

Cluster quorum votes and 50/50 splits in a multi-site cluster

To learn how the cluster quorum works and what to expect if a failure occurs, see Understanding Cluster
and Pool Quorum.

DNS registration
In Windows Server 2012, Failover Clustering, by default, attempts to register each DNS node under
the cluster name. This is acceptable for applications that are aware the SQL target is configured for

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multi-site. However, when the client is not configured this way, it can result in timeouts, delays, and
application errors due to attempts to connect to each individual node and failing on the inactive ones.
To prevent these problems, the Cluster Resource parameter RegisterAllProvidersIp must be
changed to 0. For more information, see RegisterAllProvidersIP Setting and Multi-subnet Clustered SQL +
RegisterAllProvidersIP + SharePoint 2013.

The RegisterAllProvidersIp can be modified with the following PowerShell script.

Import-Module FailoverClusters
$cluster = (Get-ClusterResource | where {($_.ResourceType -eq "Network Name") -and
($_.OwnerGroup -ne "Cluster Group")}).Name
Get-ClusterResource $cluster | Set-ClusterParameter RegisterAllProvidersIP 0
Get-ClusterResource $cluster |Set-ClusterParameter HostRecordTTL 300
Stop-ClusterResource $cluster
Start-ClusterResource $cluster

In addition to setting the Cluster Resource parameter to 0, you must ensure that the cluster has
permissions to modify the DNS entry for your cluster name.

1. Log into the Domain Controller (DC) for the domain, or a server that hosts the forward lookup zone
for the domain.
2. Launch the DNS Management Console and locate the A record for the cluster.
3. Right-click the A record and choose Properties.
4. Choose Security.
5. Choose Add.
6. Choose Object Types..., select the box for Computers, and choose OK.
7. Enter the name of the cluster resource object and choose Check name and OK if resolve.
8. Select the check box for Full Control.
9. Choose OK.

Elastic Network Adapters (ENAs)

AWS has identified known issues with some clustering workloads running on ENA driver version 1.2.3.
We recommend upgrading to version 1.5.0 or later and adjusting settings on the NIC in the OS. For the
latest versions, see Amazon ENA Driver Versions. The first setting, which applies to all systems, increases
Receive Buffers, which can be done with the following example PowerShell command.

Set-NetAdapterAdvancedProperty -Name (Get-NetAdapter | Where-Object

{$_.InterfaceDescription -like '*Elastic*'}).Name -DisplayName "Receive Buffers" -
DisplayValue 8192

For instances with more than 16 vCPUs, we recommend preventing RSS from running on CPU 0.

Run the following command.

Set-NetAdapterRss -name (Get-NetAdapter | Where-Object {$_.InterfaceDescription -like

'*Elastic*'}).Name -Baseprocessorgroup 0 -BaseProcessorNumber 1

Multi-site clusters and EC2 instance placement

Each cluster is considered a multi-site cluster. The EC2 service does not share IP addresses virtually.
Each node must be in a unique subnet. Though not required, we recommend that each node also be in a
unique Availability Zone.

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Instance type selection

The type of instance recommended for Windows Server Failover Clustering depends on the workload. For
production workloads, we recommend instances that support EBS optimization (p. 1357) and Enhanced
networking (p. 973).

Assign elastic network interfaces and IPs to the instance

Each node in an EC2 cluster should have only one attached elastic network interface. The network
interface should have a minimum of two assigned private IP addresses. However, for workloads that
use Availability Groups, such as SQL Always On, you must include an additional IP address for each
Availability Group. The primary IP address is used for accessing and managing the server, the secondary
IP address is used as the cluster IP address, and each additional IP address is assigned to Availability
Groups, as needed.

Heartbeat network
Some Microsoft documentation recommends using a dedicated heartbeat network. However, this
recommendation is not applicable to EC2. With EC2, while you can assign and use a second elastic
network interface for the heartbeat network, it uses the same infrastructure and shares bandwidth with
the primary network interface. Therefore, traffic within the infrastructure cannot be prioritized, and
cannot benefit from a dedicated network interface.

Configure the network adapter in the OS

The NIC in the OS can keep using DHCP as long as the DNS servers that are being retrieved from the
DHCP Options Set allow for the nodes to resolve each other. You can set the NIC to be configured
statically. When completed, you then manually configure only the primary IP address for the elastic
network interface. Failover Clustering manages and assigns additional IP addresses, as needed.

For all instance types, you can increase the maximum transmission unit (MTU) on the network adapter to
9001 to support Jumbo Frames. This configuration reduces fragmentation of packets wherever Jumbo
Frames are supported. The following example shows how to use PowerShell to configure Jumbo Frames
for an Elastic Network Adapter.

Get-NetAdapter | Set-NetAdapterAdvancedProperty -DisplayName "MTU" -DisplayValue 9001

IPv6
Microsoft does not recommend disabling IPv6 in a Windows Cluster. While Failover Clustering works in
an IPv4-only environment, Microsoft tests clusters with IPv6 enabled. See Failover Clustering and IPv6 in
Windows Server 2012 R2 for details.

Host record TTL for SQL Availability Group Listeners

Set the host record TTL to 300 seconds instead of the default 20 minutes (1200 seconds). For legacy
client comparability, set RegisterAllProvidersIP to 0 for SQL Availability Group Listeners. This is
not required in all environments. These settings are important because some legacy client applications
cannot use MultiSubnetFailover in their connection strings. See HostRecordTTL Setting for more
information. When you change these settings, the Cluster Resource must be restarted. The Cluster Group
for the listener stops when the Cluster Resource is restarted, so it must be started. If you do not start the
Cluster Group, the Availability Group remains offline in a RESOLVING state. The following are example
PowerShell scripts for changing the TTL and RegisterAllProvidersIP settings.

Get-ClusterResource yourListenerName | Set-ClusterParameter RegisterAllProvidersIP 0

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Get-ClusterResource yourListenerName|Set-ClusterParameter HostRecordTTL 300

Stop-ClusterResource yourListenerName

Start-ClusterResource yourListenerName

Start-ClusterGroup yourListenerGroupName

Logging
The default logging level for the cluster log is 3. To increase the detail of log information, set the logging
level to 5. See Set-ClusterLog for more information about the PowerShell cmdlet.

Set-ClusterLog –Level 5

NetBIOS over TCP

On Windows Server 2012 R2, you can increase the speed of the failover process by disabling NetBIOS
over TCP. This feature was removed from Windows Server 2016. You should test this procedure if you
are using older operating systems in your environment. For more information, see Speeding Up Failover
Tips-n-Tricks. The following is an example PowerShell command to disable NetBIOS over TCP.

Get-ClusterResource “Cluster IP Address” | Set-ClusterParameter EnableNetBIOS 0

NetFT Virtual Adapter

For Windows Server versions earlier than 2016 and non-Hyper-V workloads, Microsoft recommends you
enable the NetFT Virtual Adapter Performance Filter on the adapter in the OS. When you enable the
NetFT Virtual Adapter, internal cluster traffic is routed directly to the NetFT Virtual Adapter. For more
information, see NetFT Virtual Adapter Performance Filter. You can enable NetFT Virtual Adapter by
selecting the check box in the NIC properties, or by using the following PowerShell command.

Get-NetAdapter | Set-NetAdapterBinding –ComponentID ms_netftflt –Enable $true

Set possible owners

The Failover Cluster Manager can be configured so that each IP address specified on the Cluster Core
Resources and Availability Group resources can be brought online only on the node to which the IP
belongs. When the Failover Cluster Manager is not configured for this and a failure occurs, there will be
some delay in failover as the cluster attempts to bring up the IPs on nodes that do not recognize the
address. For more information, see SQL Server Manages Preferred and Possible Owner Properties for
AlwaysOn Availability Group/Role.

Each resource in a cluster has a setting for Possible Owners. This setting tells the cluster which nodes are
permitted to “online” a resource. Each node is running on a unique subnet in a VPC. Because EC2 cannot
share IPs between instances, the IP resources in the cluster can be brought online only by specific nodes.
By default, each IP address that is added to the cluster as a resource has every node listed as a Possible
Owner. This does not result in failures. However, during expected and unexpected failures, you can see
errors in the logs about conflicting IPs and failures to bring IPs online. These errors can be ignored. If
you set the Possible Owner property, you can eliminate these errors entirely, and also prevent down time
while the services are moved to another node.

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Tune the failover thresholds

In Server 2012 R2, the network thresholds for the failover heartbeat network default to high values.
See Tuning Failover Cluster Network Thresholds for details. This potentially unreliable configuration (for
clusters with some distance between them) was addressed in Server 2016 with an increase in the number
of heartbeats. It was discovered that clusters would fail over due to very brief transient network issues.
The heartbeat network is maintained with UDP 3343, which is traditionally far less reliable than TCP
and more prone to incomplete conversations. Although there are low-latency connections between AWS
Availability Zones, there are still geographic separations with a number of "hops" separating resources.
Within an Availability Zone, there may be some distance between clusters unless the customer is using
Placement Groups or Dedicated Hosts. As a result, there is a higher possibility for heartbeat failure with
UDP than with TCP-based heartbeats.

The only time a cluster should fail over is when there is a legitimate outage, such as a service or node
that experiences a hard failover, as opposed to a few UDP packets lost in transit. To ensure legitimate
outages, we recommend that you adjust the thresholds to match, or even exceed, the settings for
Server 2016 listed in Tuning Failover Cluster Network Thresholds. You can change the settings with the
following PowerShell commands.

(get-cluster).SameSubnetThreshold = 10

(get-cluster).CrossSubnetThreshold = 20

When you set these values, unexpected failovers should be dramatically reduced. You can fine-tune
these settings by increasing the delays between heartbeats. However, we recommend that you send the

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heartbeats more frequently with greater thresholds. Setting these thresholds even higher ensures that
failovers occur only for hard failover scenarios, with longer delays before failing over. You must decide
how much down time is acceptable for your applications.

After increasing the SameSubnetThreshold or CrossSubnetThreshold, we recommend that you

increase the RouteHistoryLength to double the higher of the two values. This ensures that there
is sufficient logging for troubleshooting. You can set the RouteHistoryLength with the following
PowerShell command.

(Get-Cluster).RouteHistoryLength = 20

Witness importance and Dynamic Quorum Architecture

There is a difference between Disk Witness and File Share Witness. Disk Witness keeps a backup of the
cluster database while File Share Witness does not. Both add a vote to the cluster (p. 635). You can use
Disk Witness if you use iSCSI-based storage. For more about witness options, see File Share witness vs
Disk witness for local clusters.

Troubleshoot
If you experience unexpected failovers, first make sure that you are not experiencing networking, service,
or infrastructure issues.

1. Check that your nodes are not experiencing network-related issues.

2. Check driver updates. If you are using outdated drivers on your instance, you should update them.
Updating your drivers might address bugs and stability issues that might be present in your currently
installed version.
3. Check for any possible resource bottlenecks that could cause an instance to become unresponsive,
such as CPU and disk I/O. If the node cannot service requests, it might appear to be down by the
cluster service.

Upgrade an Amazon EC2 Windows instance to a

newer version of Windows Server
There are two methods to upgrade an earlier version of Windows Server running on an instance: in-place
upgrade and migration (also called side-by-side upgrade). An in-place upgrade upgrades the operating
system files while your personal settings and files are intact. A migration involves capturing settings,
configurations, and data and porting these to a newer operating system on a fresh Amazon EC2 instance.

Microsoft has traditionally recommended migrating to a newer version of Windows Server instead
of upgrading. Migrating can result in fewer upgrade errors or issues, but can take longer than an in-
place upgrade because of the need to provision a new instance, plan for and port applications, and
adjust configurations settings on the new instance. An in-place upgrade can be faster, but software
incompatibilities can produce errors.

Contents
• Perform an in-place upgrade (p. 641)
• Perform an automated upgrade (p. 645)
• Migrate to latest generation instance types (p. 651)
• Windows to Linux replatforming assistant for Microsoft SQL Server Databases (p. 657)
• Troubleshoot an upgrade (p. 664)

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Perform an in-place upgrade

Before you perform an in-place upgrade, you must determine which network drivers the instance
is running. PV network drivers enable you to access your instance using Remote Desktop. Starting
with Windows Server 2008 R2, instances use either AWS PV, Intel Network Adapter, or the Enhanced
Networking drivers. Instances with Windows Server 2003 and Windows Server 2008 use Citrix PV drivers.
For more information, see Paravirtual drivers for Windows instances (p. 528).

Automated upgrades

For steps on how to use AWS Systems Manager to automate the upgrade of your Windows Server 2008
R2 to Server 2012 R2 or from SQL Server 2008 R2 on Windows Server 2012 R2 to SQL Server 2016, see
Upgrade Your End of Support Microsoft 2008 Workloads in AWS with Ease.

Before you begin an in-place upgrade

Complete the following tasks and note the following important details before you begin your in-place
upgrade.

• Read the Microsoft documentation to understand the upgrade requirements, known issues, and
restrictions. Also review the official instructions for upgrading.
• Upgrading to Windows Server 2008 R2
• Upgrade Options for Windows Server 2012
• Upgrade Options for Windows Server 2012 R2
• Upgrade and conversion options for Windows Server 2016
• Upgrade and conversion options for Windows Server 2019
• Windows Server Upgrade Center
• We recommend performing an operating system upgrade on instances with at least 2 vCPUs and 4GB
of RAM. If needed, you can change the instance to a larger size of the same type (t2.small to t2.large,
for example), perform the upgrade, and then resize it back to the original size. If you are required to
retain the instance size, you can monitor the progress using the instance console screenshot (p. 1488).
For more information, see Change the instance type (p. 233).
• Verify that the root volume on your Windows instance has enough free disk space. The Windows Setup
process might not warn you of insufficient disk space. For information about how much disk space
is required to upgrade a specific operating system, see the Microsoft documentation. If the volume
does not have enough space, it can be expanded. For more information, see Amazon EBS Elastic
Volumes (p. 1328).
• Determine your upgrade path. You must upgrade the operating system to the same architecture. For
example, you must upgrade a 32-bit system to a 32-bit system. Windows Server 2008 R2 and later are
64-bit only.
• Disable antivirus and anti-spyware software and firewalls. These types of software can conflict with
the upgrade process. Re-enable antivirus and anti-spyware software and firewalls after the upgrade
completes.
• Update to the latest drivers as described in Migrate to latest generation instance types (p. 651).
• The Upgrade Helper Service only supports instances running Citrix PV drivers. If the instance is running
Red Hat drivers, you must manually upgrade those drivers (p. 533) first.

Upgrade an instance in-place with AWS PV, Intel Network

Adapter, or the Enhanced Networking drivers
Use the following procedure to upgrade a Windows Server instance using the AWS PV, Intel Network
Adapter, or the Enhanced Networking network drivers.

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To perform the in-place upgrade

1. Create an AMI of the system you plan to upgrade for either backup or testing purposes. You can
then perform the upgrade on the copy to simulate a test environment. If the upgrade completes,
you can switch traffic to this instance with little downtime. If the upgrade fails, you can revert to the
backup. For more information, see Create a custom Windows AMI (p. 37).
2. Ensure that your Windows Server instance is using the latest network drivers. See Upgrade PV
drivers on Windows instances (p. 533) for information on upgrading your AWS PV driver.
3. Open the Amazon EC2 console at https://console.aws.amazon.com/ec2/.
4. In the navigation pane, choose Instances. Locate the instance. Make a note of the instance ID and
Availability Zone for the instance. You need this information later in this procedure.
5. If you are upgrading from Windows Server 2012 or 2012 R2 to Windows Server 2016 or 2019, do
the following on your instance before proceeding:

a. Uninstall the EC2Config service. For more information, see Stop, restart, delete, or uninstall
EC2Config (p. 504).
b. Install the EC2Launch service. For more information, see Install the latest version of
EC2Launch (p. 495).
c. Install the AWS Systems Manager SSM Agent. For more information, see Working with SSM
Agent in the AWS Systems Manager User Guide.
6. Create a new volume from a Windows Server installation media snapshot.

a. In the left navigation pane, under Elastic Block Store, choose Snapshots. In the search bar
filter, choose Public Snapshots.
b. Add the Owner filter to the search bar and choose Amazon images.
c. Add the Description filter and enter Windows. Select Enter.
d. Select the snapshot that matches the system architecture and language preference you are
upgrading to. For example, select Windows 2019 English Installation Media to upgrade to
Windows Server 2019.
e. Choose Actions, Create Volume.
f. In the Create Volume dialog box, choose the Availability Zone that matches your Windows
instance, and choose Create Volume.
7. In the Create Volume Request Succeeded message, choose the volume that you just created.
8. Choose Actions, Attach Volume.
9. In the Attach Volume dialog box, enter the instance ID of your Windows instance and choose
Attach.
10. Make the new volume available for use by following the steps at Make an Amazon EBS volume
available for use on Windows.
Important
Do not initialize the disk because doing so will delete the existing data.
11. In Windows PowerShell, switch to the new volume drive. Begin the upgrade by opening the
installation media volume you attached to the instance.

a. If you are upgrading to Windows Server 2016 or later, run the following:

./setup.exe /auto upgrade

If you are upgrading to an earlier version of Windows Server, run the following:

Sources/setup.exe

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b. For Select the operating system you want to install, select the full installation SKU for your
Windows Server instance, and choose Next.
c. For Which type of installation do you want?, choose Upgrade.
d. Complete the wizard.

Windows Server Setup copies and processes files. After several minutes, your Remote Desktop session
closes. The time it takes to upgrade depends on the number of applications and server roles running on
your Windows Server instance. The upgrade process could take as little as 40 minutes or several hours.
The instance fails status check 1 of 2 during the upgrade process. When the upgrade completes, both
status checks pass. You can check the system log for console output or use Amazon CloudWatch metrics
for disk and CPU activity to determine whether the upgrade is progressing.
Note
If upgrading to Windows Server 2019, after the upgrade is complete you can change the
desktop background manually to remove the previous operating system name if desired.

If the instance has not passed both status checks after several hours, see Troubleshoot an
upgrade (p. 664).

Upgrade an instance in-place with Citrix PV drivers

Citrix PV drivers are used in Windows Server 2003 and 2008. There is a known issue during the upgrade
process where Windows Setup removes portions of the Citrix PV drivers that enable you to connect to
the instance by using Remote Desktop. To avoid this problem, the following procedure describes how to
use the Upgrade Helper Service during your in-place upgrade.

Using the upgrade helper service

You must run the Upgrade Helper Service before you start the upgrade. After you run it, the utility
creates a Windows service that runs during the post-upgrade steps to correct the driver state. The
executable is written in C# and can run on .NET Framework versions 2.0 through 4.0.

When you run Upgrade Helper Service on the system before the upgrade, it performs the following tasks:

• Creates a new Windows service named UpgradeHelperService.

• Verifies that the Citrix PV drivers are installed.
• Checks for unsigned boot critical drivers and presents a warning if any are found. Unsigned boot
critical drivers could cause system failure after the upgrade if the drivers are not compatible with the
newer Windows Server version.

When you run Upgrade Helper Service on the system after the upgrade, it performs the following tasks:

• Enables the RealTimeIsUniversal registry key for the correct time synchronization.
• Restores the missing PV driver by executing the following command:

pnputil -i -a "C:\Program Files (x86)\Citrix\XenTools\*.inf"

• Installs the missing device by executing the following command:

C:\Temp\EC2DriverUtils.exe install "C:\Program Files (x86)\Citrix\XenTools\xevtchn.inf"

ROOT\XENEVTCHN

• Automatically removes UpgradeHelperService when complete.

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Perform the upgrade on instances running Citrix PV drivers

To complete the upgrade, you must attach the installation media volume to your EC2 instance and use
UpgradeHelperService.exe.

To upgrade a Windows Server instance running Citrix PV drivers

1. Open the Amazon EC2 console at https://console.aws.amazon.com/ec2/.

2. In the navigation pane, choose Instances and locate the instance. Make a note of the instance ID and
Availability Zone for the instance. You need this information later in this procedure.
3. Create a new volume from a Windows Server installation media snapshot.

a. In the navigation pane, choose Snapshots, and next to the filter field, select Public Snapshots.
b. Add the Owner filter and choose Amazon images.
c. Add the Description filter and enter Windows. Press Enter.
d. Select the snapshot that matches the system architecture of your instance. For example,
Windows 2012 Installation Media.
e. Choose Actions, Create Volume.
f. In the Create Volume dialog box, select the Availability Zone that matches your Windows
instance, and choose Create.
4. In the Volume Successfully Created dialog box, choose the volume that you just created.
5. Choose Actions, Attach Volume.
6. In the Attach Volume dialog box, enter the instance ID and choose Attach.
7. On your Windows instance, on the C:\ drive, create a folder named temp.
Important
This folder must be available in the same location after the upgrade. Creating the folder
in a Windows system folder or a user profile folder, such as the desktop, can cause the
upgrade to fail.
8. Download OSUpgrade.zip and extract the files into the C:\temp folder.
9. Run C:\temp\UpgradeHelperService.exe and review the C:\temp\Log.txt file for any
warnings.
10. Use Knowledge Base article 950376 from Microsoft to uninstall PowerShell from a Windows 2003
instance.
11. Begin the upgrade by using Windows Explorer to open the installation media volume that you
attached to the instance.
12. Run the Sources\Setup.exe file.
13. For Select the operating system you want to install, select the full installation SKU for your
Windows Server instance, and then choose Next.
14. For Which type of installation do you want?, choose Upgrade.
15. Complete the wizard.

Windows Server Setup copies and processes files. After several minutes, your Remote Desktop session
closes. The time it takes to upgrade depends on the number of applications and server roles running on
your Windows Server instance. The upgrade process could take as little as 40 minutes or several hours.
The instance fails status check 1 of 2 during the upgrade process. When the upgrade completes, both
status checks pass. You can check the system log for console output or use Amazon CloudWatch metrics
for disk and CPU activity to determine whether the upgrade is progressing.

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Post upgrade tasks

1. Log in to the instance to initiate an upgrade for the .NET Framework and reboot the system when
prompted.
2. Install the latest version of the EC2Config service (Windows 2012 R2 and earlier) or
EC2Launch (Windows 2016 and later). For more information, see Install the latest version of
EC2Config (p. 503) or Install the latest version of EC2Launch (p. 495).
3. Install Microsoft hotfix KB2800213.
4. Install Microsoft hotfix KB2922223.
5. If you upgraded to Windows Server 2012 R2, we recommend that you upgrade the PV drivers to
AWS PV drivers. If you upgraded on a Nitro-based instance , we recommend that you install or
upgrade the NVME and ENA drivers. For more information, see Windows Server 2012 R2, Install or
upgrade AWS NVMe drivers (p. 547), or Enabling Enhanced Networking on Windows.
6. Re-enable antivirus and anti-spyware software and firewalls.

Perform an automated upgrade

You can perform an automated upgrade on your Windows Server 2008 R2, Windows Server 2012 R2,
Windows Server 2016, and SQL Server 2008 R2 with Service Pack 3 instances on AWS with AWS Systems
Manager Automation documents.

The Systems Manager Automation documents provide two upgrade paths:

• Windows Server 2008 R2, 2012 R2, or 2016 to Windows Server 2012 R2, 2016, or 2019 using the
Systems Manager document for Automation named AWSEC2-CloneInstanceAndUpgradeWindows
• SQL Server 2008 R2 on Windows Server 2012 R2 to SQL Server 2016 using the Systems Manager
document for Automation named AWSEC2-CloneInstanceAndUpgradeSQLServer

Contents
• Related services (p. 645)
• Prerequisites (p. 646)
• Upgrade paths (p. 647)
• Steps for performing an automated upgrade (p. 648)

Related services
The following AWS services are used in the automated upgrade process:

• AWS Systems Manager. AWS Systems Manager is a powerful, unified interface for centrally managing
your AWS resources. For more information, see the AWS Systems Manager User Guide.
• AWS Systems Manager Agent (SSM Agent) is Amazon software that can be installed and configured
on an Amazon EC2 instance, an on-premises server, or a virtual machine (VM). SSM Agent makes it
possible for Systems Manager to update, manage, and configure these resources. The agent processes
requests from the Systems Manager service in the AWS Cloud, and then runs them as specified in the
request. For more information, see Working with SSM Agent in the AWS Systems Manager User Guide.
• AWS Systems Manager SSM documents. An SSM document defines the actions that Systems Manager
performs on your managed instances. SSM documents use JavaScript Object Notation (JSON) or YAML,
and they include steps and parameters that you specify. This topic uses two Systems Manager SSM
documents for Automation. For more information, see AWS Systems Manager Documents in the AWS
Systems Manager User Guide.

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Prerequisites
In order to automate your upgrade with AWS Systems Manager Automation documents, you must
perform the following tasks:

• Create an IAM role with the specified IAM policies (p. 646) to allow Systems Manager to perform
automation tasks on your Amazon EC2 instances and verify that you meet the prerequisites to use
Systems Manager.
• Select the option for how you want the automation to be run (p. 646). The options for execution are
Simple execution, Rate control, Multi-account and Region, and Manual execution.

Create IAM role with specified permissions

For steps on how to create an IAM role in order to allow AWS Systems Manager to access resources
on your behalf, see Creating a Role to Delegate Permissions to an AWS Service in the IAM User Guide.
This topic also contains information on how to verify that your account meets the prerequisites to use
Systems Manager.

Select execution option

When you select Automation on the Systems Manager console, select Execute. After you select an
Automation document, you are then prompted to choose an automation execution option. You choose
from the following options. In the steps for the paths provided later in this topic, we use the Simple
execution option.

Simple execution

Choose this option if you want to update a single instance but do not want to go through each
automation step to audit the results. This option is explained in further detail in the upgrade steps that
follow.

Rate control

Choose this option if you want to apply the upgrade to more than one instance. You define the following
settings.

• Parameter

This setting, which is also set in Multi-Account and Region settings, defines how your automation
branches out.
• Targets

Select the target to which you want to apply the automation. This setting is also set in Multi-Account
and Region settings.
• Parameter Values

Use the values defined in the automation document parameters.

• Resource Group

In AWS, a resource is an entity you can work with. Examples include Amazon EC2 instances, AWS
CloudFormation stacks, or Amazon S3 buckets. If you work with multiple resources, it might be useful
to manage them as a group as opposed to moving from one AWS service to another for every task.
In some cases, you may want to manage large numbers of related resources, such as EC2 instances
that make up an application layer. In this case, you will likely need to perform bulk actions on these
resources at one time.
• Tags

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Tags help you categorize your AWS resources in different ways, for example, by purpose, owner, or
environment. This categorization is useful when you have many resources of the same type. You can
quickly identify a specific resource using the assigned tags.
• Rate Control

Rate Control is also set in Multi-Account and Region settings. When you set the rate control
parameters, you define how many of your fleet to apply the automation to, either by target count or
by percentage of the fleet.

Multi-Account and Region

In addition to the parameters specified under Rate Control that are also used in the Multi-Account and
Region settings, there are two additional settings:

• Accounts and organizational units (OUs)

Specify multiple accounts on which you want to run the automation.

• AWS Regions

Specify multiple AWS Regions where you want to run the automation.

Manual execution

This option is similar to Simple execution, but allows you to step through each automation step and
audit the results.

Upgrade paths
There are two upgrade paths, which use two different AWS Systems Manager Automation documents.

• AWSEC2-CloneInstanceAndUpgradeWindows. This script creates an Amazon Machine Image (AMI)

from a Windows Server 2008 R2, 2012 R2, or 2016 instance in your account and upgrades this AMI to
a supported version of your choice (Windows Server 2012 R2, 2016, or 2019). This multi-step process
can take up to two hours to complete.

To upgrade your Windows Server 2008 R2 instance to Windows Server 2016 or 2019, an in-place
upgrade is performed twice, first from Windows Server 2008 R2 to Windows Server 2012 R2, and then
from Windows Server 2012 R2 to Windows Server 2016 or 2019. Directly upgrading Windows Server
2008 R2 to Windows Server 2016 or 2019 is not supported.

In this workflow, the automation creates an AMI from the instance and then launches the new AMI in
the subnet you provide. The automation workflow performs an in-place upgrade from Windows Server
2008 R2, 2012 R2 or 2016 to the selected version (Windows Server 2012 R2, 2016, or 2019). It also
updates or installs the AWS drivers required by the upgraded instance. After the upgrade is complete,
the workflow creates a new AMI and terminates the upgraded instance. If you upgrade from Windows
Server 2008 R2 to Windows Server 2016 or 2019, the automation creates two AMIs because the in-
place upgrade is performed twice.
• AWSEC2-CloneInstanceAndUpgradeSQLServer. This script creates an AMI from an Amazon EC2
instance running SQL Server 2008 R2 SP3 in your account, and then upgrades the AMI to SQL Server
2016 SP2. This multi-step process can take up to two hours to complete.

In this workflow, the automation creates an AMI from the instance and then launches the new AMI
in the subnet you provide. The automation then performs an in-place upgrade of SQL Server 2008
R2 to SQL Server 2016 SP2. After the upgrade is complete, the automation creates a new AMI before
terminating the upgraded instance.

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There are two AMIs included in the automated upgrade process:

• Current running instance. The first AMI is the current running instance, which is not upgraded. This
AMI is used to launch another instance to run the in-place upgrade. When the process is complete,
this AMI is deleted from your account, unless you specifically request to keep the original instance.
This setting is handled by the parameter KeepPreUpgradeImageBackUp (default value is false,
which means the AMI is deleted by default).
• Upgraded AMI. This AMI is the outcome of the automation process. The second AMI includes SQL
Server 2016 SP2 instead of SQL Server 2008 R2.

The final result is one AMI, which is the upgraded instance of the AMI.

When the upgrade is complete, you can test your application functionality by launching the new AMI
in your VPC. After testing, and before you perform another upgrade, schedule application downtime
before completely switching to the upgraded instance.

Steps for performing an automated upgrade

Upgrade paths
• Upgrade Windows Server 2008 R2, 2012 R2, or 2016 to Windows Server 2012 R2, 2016, or 2019
(p. 648)
• Upgrade SQL Server 2008 R2 to SQL Server 2016 (p. 649)

Upgrade Windows Server 2008 R2, 2012 R2, or 2016 to Windows Server 2012
R2, 2016, or 2019
This upgrade path requires additional prerequisites to work successfully. These prerequisites can be
found in the automation document details for AWSEC2-CloneInstanceAndUpgradeWindows in the AWS
Systems Manager User Guide.

After you have verified the additional prerequisite tasks, follow these steps to upgrade your Windows
2008 R2 instance to Windows 2012 R2 by using the automation document on AWS Systems Manager.

1. Open Systems Manager from the AWS Management Console.

2. From the left navigation pane, choose Automation.
3. Choose Execute automation.
4. Search for the automation document called AWSEC2-CloneInstanceAndUpgradeWindows.
5. When the document name appears, select it. When you select it, the document details appear.
6. Select Next to input the parameters for this document. Leave Simple execution selected at the top
of the page.
7. Enter the requested parameters based on the following guidance.

• InstanceID

Type: String

(Required) The instance running Windows Server 2008 R2, 2012 R2, or 2016 with the SSM agent
installed.
• InstanceProfile.

Type: String

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(Required) The IAM instance profile. This is the IAM role used to perform the Systems Manager
automation against the Amazon EC2 instance and AWS AMIs. For more information, see Create an
IAM Instance Profile for Systems Manager in the AWS Systems Manager User Guide.
• TargetWindowsVersion

Type: String

(Required) Select the target Windows version.

• SubnetId

Type: String

(Required) This is the subnet for the upgrade process and where your source EC2 instance resides.
Verify that the subnet has outbound connectivity to AWS services, including Amazon S3, and also
to Microsoft (in order to download patches).
• KeepPreUpgradedBackUp

Type: String

(Optional) If this parameter is set to true, the automation retains the image created from the
instance. The default setting is false.
• RebootInstanceBeforeTakingImage

Type: String

(Optional) The default is false (no reboot). If this parameter is set to true, Systems Manager
reboots the instance before creating an AMI for the upgrade.
8. After you have entered the parameters, select Execute. When the automation begins, you can
monitor the execution progress.
9. When the automation completes, you will see the AMI ID. You can launch the AMI to verify that the
Windows OS is upgraded.
Note
It is not necessary for the automation to run all of the steps. The steps are conditional
based on the behavior of the automation and instance. Systems Manager might skip some
steps that are not required.
Additionally, some steps may time out. Systems Manager attempts to upgrade and install
all of the latest patches. Sometimes, however, patches time out based on a definable
timeout setting for the given step. When this happens, the Systems Manager automation
continues to the next step to ensure that the internal OS is upgraded to the target Windows
Server version.
10. After the automation completes, you can launch an Amazon EC2 instance using the AMI ID to review
your upgrade. For more information about how to create an Amazon EC2 instance from an AWS AMI,
see How do I launch an EC2 instance from a custom Amazon Machine Image (AMI)?

Upgrade SQL Server 2008 R2 to SQL Server 2016

This upgrade path requires additional prerequisites to work successfully. These prerequisites can be
found in the automation document details for AWSEC2-CloneInstanceAndUpgradeSQLServer in the AWS
Systems Manager User Guide.

After you have verified the additional prerequisite tasks, follow these steps to upgrade your SQL
Server 2008 R2 database engine to SQL Server 2016 using the automation document on AWS Systems
Manager.

1. If you haven't already, download the SQL Server 2016 .iso file and mount it to the source server.

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2. After the .iso file is mounted, copy all of the component files and place them on any volume of your
choice.
3. Take an EBS snapshot of the volume and copy the snapshot ID onto a clipboard for later use. For
more information about creating an EBS snapshot, see Creating an EBS Snapshot in the Amazon
Elastic Compute Cloud User Guide.
4. Attach the instance profile to the EC2 source instance. This allows Systems Manager to
communicate with the EC2 instance and run commands on it after it is added to the AWS Systems
Manager service. For this example, we named the role SSM-EC2-Profile-Role with the
AmazonSSMManagedInstanceCore policy attached to the role. See Create an IAM Instance Profile
for Systems Manager in the AWS Systems Manager User Guide.
5. In the AWS Systems Manager console, in the left navigation pane, choose Managed Instances. Verify
that your EC2 instance is in the list of managed instance. If you don't see your instance after a few
minutes, see Where Are My Instances? in the AWS Systems Manager User Guide.
6. In the left navigation pane, choose Automation.
7. Choose Execute automation.
8. Choose the button beside the AWSEC2-CloneInstanceAndUpgradeSQLServer SSM document,
and then choose Next.
9. Ensure that the Simple execution option is selected.
10. Enter the requested parameters based on the following guidance.

• InstanceId

Type: String

(Required) The instance running SQL Server 2008 R2 (or later).

• IamInstanceProfile

Type: String

(Required) The IAM instance profile.

• SnapshotId

Type: String

(Required) The Snapshot ID for SQL Server 2016 installation media.

• SubnetId

Type: String

(Required) This is the subnet for the upgrade process and where your source EC2 instance resides.
Verify that the subnet has outbound connectivity to AWS services, including Amazon S3, and also
to Microsoft (in order to download patches).
• KeepPreUpgradedBackUp

Type: String

(Optional) If this parameter is set to true, the automation retains the image created from the
instance. The default setting is false.
• RebootInstanceBeforeTakingImage

Type: String

(Optional) The default is false (no reboot). If this parameter is set to true, Systems Manager
reboots the instance before creating an AMI for the upgrade.
11. After you have entered the parameters, choose Execute. When the automation begins, you can
monitor the execution progress.

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12. When Execution status shows Success, expand Outputs to view the AMI information. You can use
the AMI ID to launch your SQL Server 2016 instance for the VPC of your choice.
13. Open the EC2 console. In the left navigation pane, choose AMIs. You should see the new AMI.
14. To verify that SQL Server 2016 has been successfully installed, choose the new AMI and choose
Launch.
15. Choose the type of instance that you want for the AMI, the VPC and subnet that you want to deploy
to, and the storage that you want to use. Because you're launching the new instance from an AMI,
the volumes are presented to you as an option to include within the new EC2 instance you are
launching. You can remove any of these volumes, or you can add volumes.
16. Add a tag to help you identify your instance.
17. Add the security group or groups to the instance.
18. Choose Launch Instance.
19. Choose the tag name for the instance and select Connect under the Actions dropdown.
20. Verify that SQL Server 2016 is the new database engine on the new instance.

Migrate to latest generation instance types

The AWS Windows AMIs are configured with the default settings used by the Microsoft installation
media, with some customizations. The customizations include drivers and configurations that support
the latest generation instance types, which are instances built on the Nitro System (p. 147), such as an
M5 or C5.

When migrating to Nitro-based (p. 147) instances, including bare metal instances, we recommend that
you follow the steps in this topic in the following cases:

• If you are launching instances from custom Windows AMIs

• If you are launching instances from Windows AMIs provided by Amazon that were created before
August 2018

For more information, see Amazon EC2 Update — Additional Instance Types, Nitro System, and CPU
Options.
Note
The following migration procedures can be performed on Windows Server version 2008 R2 and
later.

Contents
• Part 1: Install and upgrade AWS PV drivers (p. 652)
• Part 2: Install and upgrade ENA (p. 653)
• Part 3: Upgrade AWS NVMe drivers (p. 653)
• Part 4: Update EC2Config and EC2Launch (p. 653)
• Part 5: Install the serial port driver for bare metal instances (p. 654)
• Part 6: Update power management settings (p. 654)
• Part 7: Update Intel chipset drivers for new instance types (p. 654)
• (Alternative) Upgrade the AWS PV, ENA, and NVMe drivers using AWS Systems Manager (p. 655)
• Migrate to Xen instance types from Nitro instance types (p. 656)

Note
Alternatively, you can use the AWSSupport-UpgradeWindowsAWSDrivers automation
document to automate the procedures described in Part 1, Part 2, and Part 3. If you choose to

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use the automated procedure, see (Alternative) Upgrade the AWS PV, ENA, and NVMe drivers
using AWS Systems Manager (p. 655), and then continue with Part 4 and Part 5.

Before you begin

This procedure assumes that you are currently running on a previous generation Xen-based instance
type, such as an M4 or C4, and you are migrating to an instance based on the Nitro System (p. 147), such
as an M5 or C5.

You must use PowerShell version 3.0 or later to successfully perform the upgrade.
Note
When migrating to the latest generation instances, the static IP or custom DNS network settings
on the existing ENI may be lost as the instance will default to a new Enhanced Networking
Adapter device.

Before following the steps in this procedure, we recommend that you create a backup of the instance.
From the EC2 console, choose the instance that requires the migration, open the context (right-click)
menu, and choose Instance State, Stop.
Warning
When you stop an instance, the data on any instance store volumes is erased. To preserve data
on instance store volumes, ensure that you back up the data to persistent storage.

Open the context (right-click) menu for the instance in the EC2 console, choose Image, and then choose
Create Image.
Note
Parts 4 and 5 of these instructions can be completed after you migrate or change the instance
type to the latest generation, such as M5 or C5. However, we recommend that you complete
them before you migrate if you are migrating specifically to an EC2 Bare Metal instance type.

Part 1: Install and upgrade AWS PV drivers

Though AWS PV drivers are not used in the Nitro system, you should still upgrade them if you are on
previous versions of either Citrix PV or AWS PV. The latest AWS PV drivers resolve bugs in previous
versions of the drivers that may appear while you are on a Nitro system, or if you need to migrate back
to a Xen-based instance. As a best practice, we recommend always updating to the latest drivers for
Windows instances on AWS.

Use the following procedure to perform an in-place upgrade of AWS PV drivers, or to upgrade from Citrix
PV drivers to AWS PV drivers on Windows Server 2008 R2, Windows Server 2012, Windows Server 2012
R2, Windows Server 2016, or Windows Server 2019. For more information, see Upgrade PV drivers on
Windows instances (p. 533).

To upgrade a Domain Controller, see Upgrade a domain controller (AWS PV upgrade) (p. 535).

To perform an upgrade of or to AWS PV drivers

1. Connect to the instance using Remote Desktop and prepare the instance for upgrade. Take all non-
system disks offline before you perform the upgrade. If you are performing an in-place update
of AWS PV drivers, this step is not required. Set non-essential services to Manual start-up in the
Services console.
2. Download the latest driver package to the instance.
3. Extract the contents of the folder and run AWSPVDriverSetup.msi.

After running the MSI, the instance automatically reboots and upgrades the driver. The instance may not
be available for up to 15 minutes.

After the upgrade is complete and the instance passes both health checks in the Amazon EC2 console,
connect to the instance using Remote Desktop and verify that the new driver was installed. In Device

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Manager, under Storage Controllers, locate AWS PV Storage Host Adapter. Verify that the driver
version is the same as the latest version listed in the Driver Version History table. For more information,
see AWS PV driver package history (p. 530).

Part 2: Install and upgrade ENA

Upgrade to the latest Elastic Network Adapter driver to ensure that all network features are supported.
If you launched your instance and it does not have enhanced networking already enabled, you must
download and install the required network adapter driver on your instance. Then, set the enaSupport
instance attribute to activate enhanced networking. You can only enable this attribute on supported
instance types and only if the ENA driver is installed. For more information, see Enable enhanced
networking with the Elastic Network Adapter (ENA) on Windows instances (p. 974).

1. Download the latest driver to the instance.

2. Extract the zip archive.
3. Install the driver by running the install.ps1 PowerShell script from the extracted folder.
Note
To avoid installation errors, run the install.ps1 script as an administrator.
4. Check if your AMI has enaSupport activated. If not, continue by following the documentation
at Enable enhanced networking with the Elastic Network Adapter (ENA) on Windows
instances (p. 974).

Part 3: Upgrade AWS NVMe drivers

AWS NVMe drivers are used to interact with Amazon EBS and SSD instance store volumes that are
exposed as NVMe block devices in the Nitro system for better performance.
Important
The following instructions are modified specifically for when you install or upgrade AWS NVMe
on a previous generation instance with the intention to migrate the instance to the latest
generation instance type.

1. Download the latest driver package to the instance.

2. Extract the zip archive.
3. Install the driver by running dpinst.exe.
4. Open a PowerShell session and run the following command:

start rundll32.exe sppnp.dll,Sysprep_Generalize_Pnp -wait

Note
To apply the command, you must run the PowerShell session as an administrator.
PowerShell (x86) versions will result in an error.
This command only runs sysprep on the device drivers. It does not run the full sysprep
preparation.
5. For Windows Server 2008 R2 and Windows Server 2012, shut down the instance, change the
instance type to a latest generation instance and start it, then proceed to Part 4. If you start the
instance again on a previous generation instance type before migrating to a latest generation
instance type, it will not boot. For other supported Windows AMIs, you can change the instance type
anytime after the device sysprep.

Part 4: Update EC2Config and EC2Launch

For Windows instances, the latest EC2Config and EC2Launch utilities provide additional functionality and
information when running on the Nitro system, including on EC2 Bare Metal. By default, the EC2Config

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service is included in AMIs prior to Windows Server 2016. EC2Launch replaces EC2Config on Windows
Server 2016 and later AMIs.

When the EC2Config and EC2Launch services are updated, new Windows AMIs from AWS include the
latest version of the service. However, you must update your own Windows AMIs and instances with the
latest version of EC2Config and EC2Launch.

To install or update EC2Config

1. Download and unzip the EC2Config Installer.

2. Run EC2Install.exe. For a complete list of options, run EC2Install with the /? option. By
default, setup displays prompts. To run the command with no prompts, use the /quiet option.

For more information, see Install the latest version of EC2Config (p. 503).

To install or update EC2Launch

1. If you have already installed and configured EC2Launch on an instance, make a backup of the
EC2Launch configuration file. The installation process does not preserve changes in this file. By
default, the file is located in the C:\ProgramData\Amazon\EC2-Windows\Launch\Config
directory.
2. Download EC2-Windows-Launch.zip to a directory on the instance.
3. Download install.ps1 to the same directory where you downloaded EC2-Windows-Launch.zip.
4. Run install.ps1.
Note
To avoid installation errors, run the install.ps1 script as an administrator.
5. If you made a backup of the EC2Launch configuration file, copy it to the C:\ProgramData\Amazon
\EC2-Windows\Launch\Config directory.

For more information, see Configure a Windows instance using EC2Launch (p. 494).

Part 5: Install the serial port driver for bare metal instances
The i3.metal instance type uses a PCI-based serial device rather than an I/O port-based serial device.
The latest Windows AMIs automatically use the PCI-based serial device and have the serial port driver
installed. If you are not using an instance launched from an Amazon-provided Windows AMI dated
2018.04.11 or later, you must install the Serial Port Driver to enable the serial device for EC2 features
such as Password Generation and Console Output. The latest EC2Config and EC2Launch utilities also
support i3.metal and provide additional functionality. Follow the steps in Part 4, if you have not yet done
so.

To install the serial port driver

1. Download the serial driver package to the instance.

2. Extract the contents of the folder, open the context (right-click) menu for aws_ser.INF, and
choose install.
3. Choose Okay.

Part 6: Update power management settings

The following update to power management settings sets displays to never turn off, which allows for
graceful OS shutdowns on the Nitro system. All Windows AMIs provided by Amazon as of 2018.11.28
already have this default configuration.

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1. Open a command prompt or PowerShell session.

2. Run the following commands:

powercfg /setacvalueindex 381b4222-f694-41f0-9685-ff5bb260df2e 7516b95f-

f776-4464-8c53-06167f40cc99 3c0bc021-c8a8-4e07-a973-6b14cbcb2b7e 0
powercfg /setacvalueindex 8c5e7fda-e8bf-4a96-9a85-a6e23a8c635c 7516b95f-
f776-4464-8c53-06167f40cc99 3c0bc021-c8a8-4e07-a973-6b14cbcb2b7e 0
powercfg /setacvalueindex a1841308-3541-4fab-bc81-f71556f20b4a 7516b95f-
f776-4464-8c53-06167f40cc99 3c0bc021-c8a8-4e07-a973-6b14cbcb2b7e 0

Part 7: Update Intel chipset drivers for new instance types

The u-6tb1.metal, u-9tb1.metal, and u-12tb1.metal instance types use hardware that requires
chipset drivers that were not previously installed on Windows AMIs. If you are not using an instance
launched from an Amazon-provided Windows AMI dated 2018.11.19 or later, you must install the drivers
using the Intel Chipset INF Utility.

To install the chipset drivers

1. Download the chipset utility to the instance.

2. Extract the files.
3. Run SetupChipset.exe.
4. Accept the Intel software license agreement and install the chipset drivers.
5. Reboot the instance.

(Alternative) Upgrade the AWS PV, ENA, and NVMe drivers using
AWS Systems Manager
The AWSSupport-UpgradeWindowsAWSDrivers automation document automates the steps described
in Part 1, Part 2, and Part 3. This method can also repair an instance where the driver upgrades have
failed.

The AWSSupport-UpgradeWindowsAWSDrivers automation document upgrades or repairs storage

and network AWS drivers on the specified EC2 instance. The document attempts to install the latest
versions of AWS drivers online by calling the AWS Systems Manager Agent (SSM Agent). If SSM Agent
is not contactable, the document can perform an offline installation of the AWS drivers if explicitly
requested.
Note
This procedure will fail on a domain controller. To update drivers on a domain controller, see
Upgrade a domain controller (AWS PV upgrade) (p. 535).

To automatically upgrade the AWS PV, ENA, and NVMe drivers using AWS Systems Manager

1. Open the Systems Manager console at https://console.aws.amazon.com/systems-manager.

2. Choose Automation, Execute Automation.
3. Choose the AWSSupport-UpgradeWindowsAWSDrivers automation document and then configure
the following options in the Input Parameters section:

Instance ID

Enter the unique ID of the instance to upgrade.

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AllowOffline

(Optional) Choose one of the following options:

• True — Choose this option to perform an offline installation. The instance is stopped and
restarted during the upgrade process.
Warning
When you stop an instance, the data on any instance store volumes is erased. To
preserve data on instance store volumes, ensure that you back up the data to
persistent storage.
• False — (Default) To perform an online installation, leave this option selected. The instance
is restarted during the upgrade process.
Important
Online and offline upgrades create an AMI before attempting the upgrade operations.
The AMI persists after the automation completes. Secure your access to the AMI, or
delete it if it is no longer needed.
SubnetId

(Optional) Enter one of the following values:

• SelectedInstanceSubnet — (Default) The upgrade process launches the helper instance
into the same subnet as the instance that is to be upgraded. The subnet must allow
communication to the Systems Manager endpoints (ssm.*).
• CreateNewVPC — The upgrade process launches the helper instance into a new VPC. Use this
option if you're not sure whether the target instance's subnet allows communication to the
ssm.* endpoints. Your IAM user must have permission to create a VPC.
• A specific subnet ID — Specify the ID of a specific subnet into which to launch the helper
instance. The subnet must be in the same Availability Zone as the instance that is to be
upgraded, and it must allow communication with the ssm.* endpoints.
4. Choose Execute automation.
5. Allow the upgrade to complete. It could take up to 10 minutes to complete an online upgrade, and
up to 25 minutes to complete an offline upgrade.

Migrate to Xen instance types from Nitro instance types

The following procedure assumes that you are currently running on a Nitro-based instance type, such
as M5 or C5, and that you are migrating to an instance based on the Xen System, such as M4 or C4. For
instance type specifications, see Amazon EC2 Instance Types. Perform the following steps before the
migration to avoid errors during the booting process.

1. AWS PV drivers must be installed and upgraded on a Nitro instance before you migrate to a Xen
instance. For steps to install and upgrade AWS PV drivers, see Part 1: Install and upgrade AWS PV
drivers (p. 652).
2. Update to the latest EC2Launch v2 version. See Migrate to EC2Launch v2 (p. 460) for steps.
3. Open a PowerShell session and run the following command as an administrator to sysprep the
device drivers. Running sysprep ensures that early boot storage drivers required for booting on Xen
instances are properly registered with Windows.
Note
Running the command using PowerShell (x86) versions will result in an error. This command
adds only the boot-critical device drivers to the critical device database. It does not run the
full sysprep preparation.

Start-Process rundll32.exe sppnp.dll,Sysprep_Generalize_Pnp -wait

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4. Perform the migration to a Xen instance type when the sysprep process completes.

Windows to Linux replatforming assistant for

Microsoft SQL Server Databases
The Windows to Linux replatforming assistant for Microsoft SQL Server Databases service is a scripting
tool. It helps you move existing Microsoft SQL Server workloads from a Windows to a Linux operating
system. You can use the replatforming assistant with any Windows Server virtual machines (VMs) hosted
in the cloud, or with on-premises environments running Microsoft SQL Server 2008 and later. The tool
checks for common incompatibilities, exports databases from the Windows VM, and imports into an EC2
instance running Microsoft SQL Server 2017 on Ubuntu 16.04. The automated process results in a ready-
to-use Linux VM configured with your selected SQL Server databases that can be used for experimenting
and testing.

Contents
• Concepts (p. 657)
• Related services (p. 657)
• How Windows to Linux replatforming assistant for Microsoft SQL Server works (p. 658)
• Components (p. 658)
• Setting up (p. 658)
• Get started (p. 660)

Concepts
The following terminology and concepts are central to your understanding and use of the Windows to
Linux replatforming assistant for Microsoft SQL Server Databases.

Backup

A Microsoft SQL Server backup copies data or log records from a Microsoft SQL Server database or its
transaction log to a backup device, such as a disk. For more information, see Backup Overview (Microsoft
SQL Server).

Restore

A logical and meaningful sequence for restoring a set of Microsoft SQL Server backups. For more
information, see Restore and Recovery Overview (Microsoft SQL Server).

Replatform

A Microsoft SQL Server database can be replatformed from an EC2 Windows instance to an EC2 Linux
instance running Microsoft SQL Server. It can also be replatformed to the VMware Cloud running
Microsoft SQL Server Linux on AWS.

Related services
AWS Systems Manager (Systems Manager) gives you visibility and control of your infrastructure on AWS.
The Windows to Linux replatforming assistant for Microsoft SQL Server Databases uses Systems Manager
to move your Microsoft SQL databases to Microsoft SQL Server on EC2 Linux. For more information
about Systems Manager, see the AWS Systems Manager User Guide.

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How Windows to Linux replatforming assistant for Microsoft

SQL Server works
Windows to Linux replatforming assistant for Microsoft SQL Server Databases allows you to migrate your
Microsoft SQL Server databases from an on-premises environment or from an EC2 Windows instance
to Microsoft SQL Server 2017 on EC2 Linux using backup and restore. For the destination EC2 Linux
instance, you provide either the EC2 instance ID or the EC2 instance type with the subnet ID and EC2 Key
Pair.

When you run the PowerShell script for the Windows to Linux replatforming assistant for Microsoft
SQL Server Databases on the source Microsoft SQL Server databases, the Windows instance backs up
the databases to an encrypted Amazon Simple Storage Service (S3) storage bucket. It then restores the
backups to an existing Microsoft SQL Server on EC2 Linux instance, or it launches a new Microsoft SQL
Server on EC2 Linux instance and restores the backups to the newly created instance. This process can be
used to replatform your 2-tier databases running enterprise applications. It also enables you to replicate
your database to Microsoft SQL Server on Linux to test the application while the source Microsoft SQL
Server remains online. After testing, you can schedule application downtime and rerun the PowerShell
backup script during your final cutover.

The entire replatforming process can also be automated and run unattended. You can run the Systems
Manager SSM document AWSEC2-SQLServerDBRestore to import your existing database backup files
into Microsoft SQL Server on EC2 Linux without using the PowerShell backup script.

Components
The Windows to Linux replatforming assistant for Microsoft SQL Server Databases script consists of two
main components:

1. A PowerShell backup script, which backs up on-premises Microsoft SQL Server databases
to an Amazon S3 storage bucket. It then invokes the SSM Automation document AWSEC2-
SQLServerDBRestore to restore the backups to a Microsoft SQL Server on EC2 Linux instance.
2. An SSM Automation document named AWSEC2-SQLServerDBRestore, which restores database
backups to Microsoft SQL Server on EC2 Linux. This automation restores Microsoft SQL Server
database backups stored in Amazon S3 to Microsoft SQL Server 2017 running on an EC2 Linux
instance. You can provide your own EC2 instance running Microsoft SQL Server 2017 Linux, or
the automation launches and configures a new EC2 instance with Microsoft SQL Server 2017 on
Ubuntu 16.04. The automation supports the restoration of full, differential, and transactional log
backups, and accepts multiple database backup files. The automation automatically restores the
most recent valid backup of each database in the files provided. For more information, see AWSEC2-
SQLServerDBRestore.

Setting up
This section covers the steps necessary to run the Windows to Linux replatforming script.

Contents
• Prerequisites (p. 658)
• Prerequisites for replatforming to an existing EC2 instance (p. 660)

Prerequisites
In order to run the Windows to Linux replatforming assistant for Microsoft SQL Server Databases script,
you must do the following:

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1. Install the AWS PowerShell module

To install the AWS PowerShell module, follow the steps listed in Setting up the AWS Tools for
PowerShell on a Windows-Based Computer. We recommend that you use PowerShell 3.0 or later for
the backup script to work properly.
2. Install the Windows to Linux replatforming assistant PowerShell backup script

To run the Windows to Linux replatforming assistant, download the PowerShell backup script:
MigrateSQLServerToEC2Linux.ps1.
3. Add an AWS user profile to the AWS SDK store

To add and configure the AWS user profile, see the steps listed in Managing Profiles in the AWS Tools
for PowerShell User Guide. Set the following IAM policy for your user profile. You can also add these
permissions as an inline policy under your AWS user account using the IAM console.

{
"Version": "2012-10-17",
"Statement": [
{
"Sid": "VisualEditor0",
"Effect": "Allow",
"Action": "iam:PassRole",
"Resource": "arn:aws:iam::123456789012:role/DevTeam*"
},
{
"Sid": "VisualEditor1",
"Effect": "Allow",
"Action": [
"ec2:RebootInstances",
"ssm:SendCommand",
"ssm:GetAutomationExecution",
"ec2:DescribeInstances",
"ssm:ListCommands",
"ec2:CreateTags",
"s3:CreateBucket",
"ec2:RunInstances",
"s3:ListBucket",
"ssm:GetCommandInvocation",
"s3:PutEncryptionConfiguration",
"ec2:DescribeImages",
"s3:PutObject",
"s3:GetObject",
"ssm:StartAutomationExecution",
"ssm:DescribeInstanceInformation",
"s3:DeleteObject",
"ssm:ListCommandInvocations",
"s3:DeleteBucket",
"ec2:DescribeInstanceStatus"
],
"Resource": "*"
}
]
}

4. Create an IAM instance profile role

To create an IAM instance profile role in order to run Systems Manager on EC2 Linux, see the steps
listed under Create an Instance Profile for Systems Manager in the AWS Systems Manager User Guide.

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Prerequisites for replatforming to an existing EC2 instance

To replatform to an existing instance running Microsoft SQL Server 2017 on Linux, you must:

1. Configure the EC2 instance with an AWS Identity and Access Management (IAM) instance profile and
attach the AmazonSSMManagedInstanceCore managed policy.

For information about creating an IAM instance profile for Systems Manager and attaching it to an
instance, see the following topics in the AWS Systems Manager User Guide:

• Create an Instance Profile for Systems Manager

• Attach an IAM Instance Profile to an Amazon EC2 Instance
2. Verify that SSM Agent is installed on your EC2 instance. For more information, see Installing and
Configuring SSM Agent on Windows Instances in the AWS Systems Manager User Guide.
3. Verify that the EC2 instance has enough free disk space to download and restore the Microsoft SQL
Server backups.

Get started
This section contains the PowerShell parameter definitions and scripts for replatforming your databases.
For more information about how to use PowerShell scripts, see PowerShell.

Topics
• Run the Windows to Linux replatforming assistant for Microsoft SQL Server script (p. 660)
• Parameters (p. 661)

Run the Windows to Linux replatforming assistant for Microsoft SQL Server
script
The following common scenarios and example PowerShell scripts demonstrate how to replatform your
Microsoft SQL Server databases using Windows to Linux replatforming assistant for Microsoft SQL
Server Databases.
Important
The Windows to Linux Replatforming Assistant for Microsoft SQL Server Databases resets the
SQL Server server administrator (SA) user password on the target instance every time that it is
run. After the replatform process is complete, you must set your own SA user password before
you can connect to the target SQL Server instance.

Syntax

The Windows to Linux replatforming assistant for Microsoft SQL Server Databases script adheres to the
syntax shown in the following example.

PS C:\> C:\MigrateSQLServerToEC2Linux.ps1 [[-SqlServerInstanceName] <String>] [[-

DBNames]<Object[]>] [-
MigrateAllDBs] [PathForBackup] <String> [-SetSourceDBModeReadOnly] [-
IamInstanceProfileName] <String>[-
AWSRegion] <String> [[-EC2InstanceId] <String>] [[-EC2InstanceType] <String>] [[-
EC2KeyPair] <String>] [[-
SubnetId] <String>] [[-AWSProfileName] <String>] [[-AWSProfileLocation] <String>] [-
GeneratePresignedUrls]
[<CommonParameters>]

Example 1: Move a database to an EC2 instance

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The following example shows how to move a database named AdventureDB to an EC2 Microsoft SQL
Server on Linux instance, with an instance ID of i-024689abcdef, from the Microsoft SQL Server
Instance named MSSQLSERVER. The backup directory to be used is D:\\Backup and the AWS Region is
us-east-2.

PS C:\> ./MigrateSQLServerToEC2Linux.ps1 - SQLServerInstanceName MSSQLSERVER -

EC2InstanceId i-
024689abcdef -DBNames AdventureDB -PathForBackup D:\\Backup -AWSRegion us-east-2 -
IamInstanceProfileName AmazonSSMManagedInstanceCore

Example 2: Move a database to an EC2 instance using the AWS credentials profile

The following example shows how to move the database in Example 1 using the AWS credentials profile:
DBMigration.

PS C:\> ./MigrateSQLServerToEC2Linux.ps1 - SQLServerInstanceName MSSQLSERVER -

EC2InstanceId i-
024689abcdef -DBNames AdventureDB -PathForBackup D:\\Backup -AWSRegion us-east-2 -
AWSProfileName
DBMigration -IamInstanceProfileName AmazonSSMManagedInstanceCore

Example 3: Move a database to a new m5.large type instance

The following example shows how to create an m5.large type EC2 Linux instance in subnet-abc127
using the Key Pair customer-ec2-keypair and then moving AdventureDB and TestDB to the new
instance from the database used in Examples 1 and 2.

PS C:\> ./MigrateSQLServerToEC2Linux.ps1 -EC2InstanceType m5.large -SubnetId subnet-abc127

-EC2KeyPair
customer-ec2-keypair -DBNames AdventureDB,TestDB -PathForBackup D:\\Backup -AWSRegion us-
east-2 -
AWSProfileName DBMigration -IamInstanceProfileName AmazonSSMManagedInstanceCore

Example 4: Move all databases to a new m5.large type instance

The following example shows how to create an m5.large type EC2 Linux instance in subnet-abc127
using the Key Pair customer-ec2-keypair and then migrating all databases to the instance from
databases used in Examples 1 and 2.

PS C:\> ./MigrateSQLServerToEC2Linux.ps1 -EC2InstanceType m5.large -SubnetId subnet-abc127

-EC2KeyPair
customer-ec2-keypair -MigrateAllDBs -PathForBackup D:\\Backup -AWSRegion us-east-2 -
AWSProfileName
DBMigration -IamInstanceProfileName AmazonSSMManagedInstanceCore

Parameters
The following parameters are used by the PowerShell script to replatform your Microsoft SQL Server
databases.

-SqlServerInstanceName

The name of the Microsoft SQL Server instance to be backed up. If a value for
SqlServerInstanceName is not provided, $env:ComputerName is used by default.

Type: String

Required: No

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-DBNames

The names of the databases to be backed up and restored. Specify the names of the databases
in a comma-separated list (for example, adventureDB,universityDB). Either the DBNames or
MigrateAllDBs parameter is required.

Type: Object

Required: No

-MigrateAllDBs

This switch is disabled by default. If this switch is enabled, the automation migrates all databases except
for the system databases (master, msdb, tempdb). Either the DBNames or MigrateAllDBs parameter is
required.

Type: SwitchParameter

Required: No

-PathForBackup

The path where the full backup is stored.

Type: String

Required: Yes

-SetSourceDBModeReadOnly

This switch is disabled by default. If this switch is enabled, it makes the database read-only during
migration.

Type: SwitchParameter

Required: No

-IamInstanceProfileName

Enter the AWS IAM instance role with permissions to run Systems Manager Automation on your behalf.
See Getting Started with Automation in the AWS Systems Manager User Guide.

Type: String

Required: Yes

-AWSRegion

Enter the AWS Region where your Amazon S3 buckets are created to store database backups.

Type: String

Required: Yes

-EC2InstanceId

To restore Microsoft SQL Server databases to an existing EC2 instance running Microsoft SQL Server
Linux, enter the instance ID of the instance. Make sure that the EC2 instance already has the AWS
Systems Manager SSM Agent installed and running.

Type: String

Required: No

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-EC2InstanceType

To restore Microsoft SQL Server databases to a new EC2 Linux instance, enter the instance type of the
instance to be launched.

Type: String

Required: No

-EC2KeyPair

To restore Microsoft SQL Server databases to a new EC2 Linux instance, enter the name of the EC2 Key
Pair to be used to access the instance. This parameter is recommended if you are creating a new EC2
Linux instance.

Type: String

Required: No

-SubnetId

This parameter is required when creating a new EC2 Linux instance. When creating a new EC2 Linux
instance, if SubnetId is not provided, the AWS user default subnet is used to launch the EC2 Linux
instance.

Type: String

Required: No

-AWSProfileName

The name of the AWS profile that the automation uses when connecting to AWS services. For more
information on the required IAM user permissions, see Getting Started with Automation in the AWS
Systems Manager User Guide. If a profile is not entered, the automation uses your default AWS profile.

Type: String

Required: No

-AWSProfileLocation

The location of the AWS Profile if the AWS Profile is not stored in the default location.

Type: String

Required: No

-GeneratePresignedUrls

This parameter is only used when replatforming to non-EC2 instances, such as to VMware Cloud on AWS
or on-premises VMs.

Type: SwitchParameter

Required: No

<CommonParameters>

This cmdlet supports the common parameters: Verbose, Debug, ErrorAction, ErrorVariable,
WarningAction, WarningVariable, OutBuffer, PipelineVariable, and OutVariable. For more
information, see About Common Parameters in the Microsoft PowerShell documentation.

Required: No

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Troubleshoot an upgrade

Troubleshoot an upgrade
AWS provides upgrade support for issues or problems with the Upgrade Helper Service, an AWS utility
that helps you perform in-place upgrades involving Citrix PV drivers.

After the upgrade, the instance might temporarily experience higher than average CPU utilization while
the .NET Runtime Optimization service optimizes the .NET framework. This is expected behavior.

If the instance has not passed both status checks after several hours, check the following.

• If you upgraded to Windows Server 2008 and both status checks fail after several hours, the upgrade
may have failed and be presenting a prompt to Click OK to confirm rolling back. Because the console
is not accessible at this state, there is no way to click the button. To get around this, perform a reboot
via the Amazon EC2 console or API. The reboot takes ten minutes or more to initiate. The instance
might become available after 25 minutes.
• Remove applications or server roles from the server and try again.

If the instance does not pass both status checks after removing applications or server roles from the
server, do the following.

• Stop the instance and attach the root volume to another instance. For more information, see the
description of how to stop and attach the root volume to another instance in "Waiting for the
metadata service" (p. 1544).
• Analyze Windows Setup log files and event logs for failures.

For other issues or problems with an operating system upgrade or migration, we recommend reviewing
the articles listed in Before you begin an in-place upgrade (p. 641).

Identify EC2 Windows instances

Your application might need to determine whether it is running on an EC2 instance.

For information about identifying Linux instances, see Identify EC2 Linux instances in the Amazon EC2
User Guide for Linux Instances.

Inspect the instance identity document

For a definitive and cryptographically verified method of identifying an EC2 instance, check the instance
identity document, including its signature. These documents are available on every EC2 instance at the
local, non-routable address http://169.254.169.254/latest/dynamic/instance-identity/.
For more information, see Instance identity documents (p. 613).

Inspect the system UUID

You can get the system UUID and look for the presence of the characters "EC2" in the beginning octet
of the UUID. This method to determine whether a system is an EC2 instance is quick but potentially
inaccurate because there is a small chance that a system that is not an EC2 instance could have a UUID
that starts with these characters. Furthermore, EC2 instances using SMBIOS 2.4 might represent the
UUID in little-endian format, therefore the "EC2" characters do not appear at the beginning of the UUID.

Example : Get the UUID using WMI or Windows PowerShell

Use the Windows Management Instrumentation command line (WMIC) as follows:

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wmic path win32_computersystemproduct get uuid

Alternatively, if you're using Windows PowerShell, use the Get-WmiObject cmdlet as follows:

PS C:\> Get-WmiObject -query "select uuid from Win32_ComputerSystemProduct" | Select UUID

In the following example output, the UUID starts with "EC2", which indicates that the system is probably
an EC2 instance.

EC2AE145-D1DC-13B2-94ED-012345ABCDEF

For instances using SMBIOS 2.4, the UUID might be represented in little-endian format; for example:

45E12AEC-DCD1-B213-94ED-012345ABCDEF

Tutorial: Set up a Windows HPC cluster on Amazon

EC2
You can launch a scalable Windows High Performance Computing (HPC) cluster using Amazon EC2
instances. A Windows HPC cluster requires an Active Directory domain controller, a DNS server, a head
node, and one or more compute nodes.

To set up a Windows HPC cluster on Amazon EC2, complete the following tasks:

• Step 1: Create your security groups (p. 665)

• Step 2: Set up your Active Directory domain controller (p. 668)
• Step 3: Configure your head node (p. 669)
• Step 4: Set up the compute node (p. 670)
• Step 5: Scale your HPC compute nodes (optional) (p. 671)

For more information about high performance computing, see High Performance Computing (HPC) on
AWS.

Prerequisites
You must launch your instances in a VPC. You can use the default VPC or create a nondefault VPC. For
more information, see Getting Started in the Amazon VPC User Guide.

Step 1: Create your security groups

Use the Tools for Windows PowerShell to create security groups for the domain controller, domain
members, and the HPC cluster.

To create the security groups

1. Use the New-EC2SecurityGroup cmdlet to create the security group for the domain controller. Note
the ID of the security group in the output.

PS C:\> New-EC2SecurityGroup -VpcId vpc-id -GroupName "SG - Domain Controller" -

Description "Active Directory Domain Controller"

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2. Use the New-EC2SecurityGroup cmdlet to create the security group for the domain members. Note
the ID of the security group in the output.

PS C:\> New-EC2SecurityGroup -VpcId vpc-id -GroupName "SG - Domain Member" -Description

"Active Directory Domain Member"

3. Use the New-EC2SecurityGroup cmdlet to create the security group for the HPC cluster. Note the ID
of the security group in the output.

PS C:\> New-EC2SecurityGroup -VpcId vpc-id -GroupName "SG - Windows HPC Cluster" -

Description "Windows HPC Cluster Nodes"

To add rules to the security groups

1. Create the following rules to add to the domain controller security group. Replace the placeholder
security group ID with the ID of the domain member security group and the placeholder CIDR block
with the CIDR block of your network.

PS C:\> $sg_dm = New-Object Amazon.EC2.Model.UserIdGroupPair

PS C:\> $sg_dm.GroupId = "sg-12345678
PS C:\> $r1 = @{ IpProtocol="UDP"; FromPort="123"; ToPort="123"; UserIdGroupPairs=
$sg_dm }
PS C:\> $r2 = @{ IpProtocol="TCP"; FromPort="135"; ToPort="135"; UserIdGroupPairs=
$sg_dm }
PS C:\> $r3 = @{ IpProtocol="UDP"; FromPort="138"; ToPort="138"; UserIdGroupPairs=
$sg_dm }
PS C:\> $r4 = @{ IpProtocol="TCP"; FromPort="49152"; ToPort="65535"; UserIdGroupPairs=
$sg_dm }
PS C:\> $r5 = @{ IpProtocol="TCP"; FromPort="389"; ToPort="389"; UserIdGroupPairs=
$sg_dm }
PS C:\> $r6 = @{ IpProtocol="UDP"; FromPort="389"; ToPort="389"; UserIdGroupPairs=
$sg_dm }
PS C:\> $r7 = @{ IpProtocol="TCP"; FromPort="636"; ToPort="636"; UserIdGroupPairs=
$sg_dm }
PS C:\> $r8 = @{ IpProtocol="TCP"; FromPort="3268"; ToPort="3269"; UserIdGroupPairs=
$sg_dm }
PS C:\> $r9 = @{ IpProtocol="TCP"; FromPort="53"; ToPort="53"; UserIdGroupPairs=
$sg_dm }
PS C:\> $r10 = @{ IpProtocol="UDP"; FromPort="53"; ToPort="53"; UserIdGroupPairs=
$sg_dm }
PS C:\> $r11 = @{ IpProtocol="TCP"; FromPort="88"; ToPort="88"; UserIdGroupPairs=
$sg_dm }
PS C:\> $r12 = @{ IpProtocol="UDP"; FromPort="88"; ToPort="88"; UserIdGroupPairs=
$sg_dm }
PS C:\> $r13 = @{ IpProtocol="TCP"; FromPort="445"; ToPort="445"; UserIdGroupPairs=
$sg_dm }
PS C:\> $r14 = @{ IpProtocol="UDP"; FromPort="445"; ToPort="445"; UserIdGroupPairs=
$sg_dm }
PS C:\> $r15 = @{ IpProtocol="ICMP"; FromPort="-1"; ToPort="-1"; UserIdGroupPairs=
$sg_dm }
PS C:\> $r16 = @{ IpProtocol="UDP"; FromPort="53"; ToPort="53";
IpRanges="203.0.113.25/32" }
PS C:\> $r17 = @{ IpProtocol="TCP"; FromPort="3389"; ToPort="3389";
IpRanges="203.0.113.25/32" }

2. Use the Grant-EC2SecurityGroupIngress cmdlet to add the rules to the domain controller security
group.

PS C:\> Grant-EC2SecurityGroupIngress -GroupId sg-1a2b3c4d -IpPermission @( $r1, $r2,

$r3, $r4, $r5, $r6, $r7, $r8, $r9, $r10, $r11, $r12, $r13, $r14, $r15, $r16, $r17 )

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Step 1: Create your security groups

For more information about these security group rules, see the following Microsoft article: How to
configure a firewall for domains and trusts.
3. Create the following rules to add to the domain member security group. Replace the placeholder
security group ID with the ID of the domain controller security group.

PS C:\> $sg_dc = New-Object Amazon.EC2.Model.UserIdGroupPair

PS C:\> $sg_dc.GroupId = "sg-1a2b3c4d
PS C:\> $r1 = @{ IpProtocol="TCP"; FromPort="49152"; ToPort="65535"; UserIdGroupPairs=
$sg_dc }
PS C:\> $r2 = @{ IpProtocol="UDP"; FromPort="49152"; ToPort="65535"; UserIdGroupPairs=
$sg_dc }
PS C:\> $r3 = @{ IpProtocol="TCP"; FromPort="53"; ToPort="53"; UserIdGroupPairs=
$sg_dc }
PS C:\> $r4 = @{ IpProtocol="UDP"; FromPort="53"; ToPort="53"; UserIdGroupPairs=
$sg_dc }

4. Use the Grant-EC2SecurityGroupIngress cmdlet to add the rules to the domain member security
group.

PS C:\> Grant-EC2SecurityGroupIngress -GroupId sg-12345678 -IpPermission @( $r1, $r2,

$r3, $r4 )

5. Create the following rules to add to the HPC cluster security group. Replace the placeholder security
group ID with the ID of the HPC cluster security group and the placeholder CIDR block with the CIDR
block of your network.

$sg_hpc = New-Object Amazon.EC2.Model.UserIdGroupPair

PS C:\> $sg_hpc.GroupId = "sg-87654321
PS C:\> $r1 = @{ IpProtocol="TCP"; FromPort="80"; ToPort="80"; UserIdGroupPairs=
$sg_hpc }
PS C:\> $r2 = @{ IpProtocol="TCP"; FromPort="443"; ToPort="443"; UserIdGroupPairs=
$sg_hpc }
PS C:\> $r3 = @{ IpProtocol="TCP"; FromPort="1856"; ToPort="1856"; UserIdGroupPairs=
$sg_hpc }
PS C:\> $r4 = @{ IpProtocol="TCP"; FromPort="5800"; ToPort="5800"; UserIdGroupPairs=
$sg_hpc }
PS C:\> $r5 = @{ IpProtocol="TCP"; FromPort="5801"; ToPort="5801"; UserIdGroupPairs=
$sg_hpc }
PS C:\> $r6 = @{ IpProtocol="TCP"; FromPort="5969"; ToPort="5969"; UserIdGroupPairs=
$sg_hpc }
PS C:\> $r7 = @{ IpProtocol="TCP"; FromPort="5970"; ToPort="5970"; UserIdGroupPairs=
$sg_hpc }
PS C:\> $r8 = @{ IpProtocol="TCP"; FromPort="5974"; ToPort="5974"; UserIdGroupPairs=
$sg_hpc }
PS C:\> $r9 = @{ IpProtocol="TCP"; FromPort="5999"; ToPort="5999"; UserIdGroupPairs=
$sg_hpc }
PS C:\> $r10 = @{ IpProtocol="TCP"; FromPort="6729"; ToPort="6730"; UserIdGroupPairs=
$sg_hpc }
PS C:\> $r11 = @{ IpProtocol="TCP"; FromPort="7997"; ToPort="7997"; UserIdGroupPairs=
$sg_hpc }
PS C:\> $r12 = @{ IpProtocol="TCP"; FromPort="8677"; ToPort="8677"; UserIdGroupPairs=
$sg_hpc }
PS C:\> $r13 = @{ IpProtocol="TCP"; FromPort="9087"; ToPort="9087"; UserIdGroupPairs=
$sg_hpc }
PS C:\> $r14 = @{ IpProtocol="TCP"; FromPort="9090"; ToPort="9092"; UserIdGroupPairs=
$sg_hpc }
PS C:\> $r15 = @{ IpProtocol="TCP"; FromPort="9100"; ToPort="9163"; UserIdGroupPairs=
$sg_hpc }
PS C:\> $r16 = @{ IpProtocol="TCP"; FromPort="9200"; ToPort="9263"; UserIdGroupPairs=
$sg_hpc }

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Step 2: Set up your Active Directory domain controller

PS C:\> $r17 = @{ IpProtocol="TCP"; FromPort="9794"; ToPort="9794"; UserIdGroupPairs=

$sg_hpc }
PS C:\> $r18 = @{ IpProtocol="TCP"; FromPort="9892"; ToPort="9893"; UserIdGroupPairs=
$sg_hpc }
PS C:\> $r19 = @{ IpProtocol="UDP"; FromPort="9893"; ToPort="9893"; UserIdGroupPairs=
$sg_hpc }
PS C:\> $r20 = @{ IpProtocol="TCP"; FromPort="6498"; ToPort="6498"; UserIdGroupPairs=
$sg_hpc }
PS C:\> $r21 = @{ IpProtocol="TCP"; FromPort="7998"; ToPort="7998"; UserIdGroupPairs=
$sg_hpc }
PS C:\> $r22 = @{ IpProtocol="TCP"; FromPort="8050"; ToPort="8050"; UserIdGroupPairs=
$sg_hpc }
PS C:\> $r23 = @{ IpProtocol="TCP"; FromPort="5051"; ToPort="5051"; UserIdGroupPairs=
$sg_hpc }
PS C:\> $r24 = @{ IpProtocol="TCP"; FromPort="3389"; ToPort="3389";
IpRanges="203.0.113.25/32" }

6. Use the Grant-EC2SecurityGroupIngress cmdlet to add the rules to the HPC cluster security group.

PS C:\> Grant-EC2SecurityGroupIngress -GroupId sg-87654321 -IpPermission @( $r1, $r2,

$r3, $r4, $r5, $r6, $r7, $r8, $r9, $r10, $r11, $r12, $r13, $r14, $r15, $r16, $r17,
$r18, $r19, $r20, $r21, $r22, $r23, $r24 )

For more information about these security group rules, see the following Microsoft article: HPC
Cluster Networking: Windows Firewall configuration.
7. Open the Amazon EC2 console at https://console.aws.amazon.com/ec2/.
8. In the navigation pane, choose Security Groups. Verify that the all three security groups appear in
the list and have the required rules.

Step 2: Set up your Active Directory domain

controller
The Active Directory domain controller provides authentication and centralized resource management
of the HPC environment and is required for the installation. To set up your Active Directory, launch an
instance to serve as the domain controller for your HPC cluster and configure it.

To launch a domain controller for your HPC cluster

1. Open the Amazon EC2 console at https://console.aws.amazon.com/ec2/.

2. On the console dashboard, choose Launch Instance.
3. On the Choose an AMI page, select an AMI for Windows Server, and choose Select.
4. On the next page of the wizard, select an instance type, then choose Next: Configure Instance
Details.
5. On the Configure Instance Details page, select your VPC from Network and a subnet from Subnet.
On the next page of the wizard, you can specify additional storage for your instance.
6. On the Add Tags page, enter Domain Controller as the value for the Name tag for the instance,
and then choose Next: Configure Security Group.
7. On the Configure Security Group page, choose Select an existing security group, choose the SG -
Domain Controller security group, and then choose Review and Launch.
8. Choose Launch.
9. In the navigation pane, choose Elastic IPs.
10. Choose Allocate new address. Choose Allocate. Choose Close.
11. Select the Elastic IP address you created, and choose Actions, Associate address. For Instance,
choose the domain controller instance. Choose Associate.

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Step 3: Configure your head node

Connect to the instance you created, and configure the server as a domain controller for the HPC cluster.

To configure your instance as a domain controller

1. Connect to your Domain Controller instance. For more information, see Connect to your
Windows instance.
2. Open Server Manager, and add the Active Directory Domain Services role.
3. Promote the server to a domain controller using Server Manager or by running DCPromo.exe.
4. Create a new domain in a new forest.
5. Type hpc.local as the fully qualified domain name (FQDN).
6. Select Forest Functional Level as Windows Server 2008 R2.
7. Ensure that the DNS Server option is selected, and then choose Next.
8. Select Yes, the computer will use an IP address automatically assigned by a DHCP server (not
recommended).
9. When prompted, choose Yes to continue.
10. Complete the wizard and then select Reboot on Completion.
11. Connect to the instance as hpc.local\administrator.
12. Create a domain user hpc.local\hpcuser.

Step 3: Configure your head node

An HPC client connects to the head node. The head node facilitates the scheduled jobs. You configure
your head node by launching an instance, installing the HPC Pack, and configuring the cluster.

Launch an instance and then configure it as a member of the hpc.local domain and with the necessary
user accounts.

To configure an instance as your head node

1. Launch an instance and name it HPC-Head. When you launch the instance, select both of these
security groups: SG - Windows HPC Cluster and SG - Domain Member.
2. Connect to the instance and get the existing DNS server address using the following command:

IPConfig /all

3. Update the TCP/IPv4 properties of the HPC-Head NIC to include the Elastic IP address for the
Domain Controller instance as the primary DNS, and then add the additional DNS IP address
from the previous step.
4. Join the machine to the hpc.local domain using the credentials for hpc.local\administrator
(the domain administrator account).
5. Add hpc.local\hpcuser as the local administrator. When prompted for credentials, use
hpc.local\administrator, and then restart the instance.
6. Connect to HPC-Head as hpc.local\hpcuser.

To install the HPC Pack

1. Connect to your HPC-Head instance using the hpc.local\hpcuser account.

2. Using Server Manager, turn off Internet Explorer Enhanced Security Configuration (IE ESC) for
Administrators.

a. In Server Manager, under Security Information, choose Configure IE ESC.

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b. Turn off IE ESC for administrators.

3. Install the HPC Pack on HPC-Head.

a. Download the HPC Pack to HPC-Head from the Microsoft Download Center. Choose the HPC
Pack for the version of Windows Server on HPC-Head.
b. Extract the files to a folder, open the folder, and double-click setup.exe.
c. On the Installation page, select Create a new HPC cluster by creating a head node, and then
choose Next.
d. Accept the default settings to install all the databases on the Head Node, and then choose Next.
e. Complete the wizard.

To configure your HPC cluster on the head node

1. Start HPC Cluster Manager.

2. In the Deployment To-Do List, select Configure your network.

a. In the wizard, select the default option (5), and then choose Next.
b. Complete the wizard accepting default values on all screens, and choose how you want to
update the server and participate in customer feedback.
c. Choose Configure.
3. Select Provide Network Credentials, then provide the hpc.local\hpcuser credentials.
4. Select Configure the naming of new nodes, and then choose OK.
5. Select Create a node template.

a. Select the Compute node template, and then choose Next.

b. Select Without operating system, and then continue with the defaults.
c. Choose Create.

Step 4: Set up the compute node

You set up the compute node by launching an instance, installing the HPC Pack, and adding the node to
your cluster.

First, launch an instance, and then configure it as a member of the hpc.local domain with the
necessary user accounts.

To configure an instance for your compute node

1. Launch an instance and name it HPC-Compute. When you launch the instance, select the following
security groups: SG - Windows HPC Cluster and SG - Domain Member.
2. Log in to the instance and get the existing DNS server address from HPC-Compute using the
following command:

IPConfig /all

3. Update the TCP/IPv4 properties of the HPC-Compute NIC to include the Elastic IP address of the
Domain Controller instance as the primary DNS. Then add the additional DNS IP address from
the previous step.
4. Join the machine to the hpc.local domain using the credentials for hpc.local\administrator
(the domain administrator account).
5. Add hpc.local\hpcuser as the local administrator. When prompted for credentials, use
hpc.local\administrator, and then restart.

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Step 5: Scale your HPC compute nodes (optional)

6. Connect to HPC-Compute as hpc.local\hpcuser.

To install the HPC Pack on the compute node

1. Connect to your HPC-Compute instance using the hpc.local\hpcuser account.

2. Using Server Manager, turn off Internet Explorer Enhanced Security Configuration (IE ESC) for
Administrators.

a. In Server Manager, under Security Information, choose Configure IE ESC.

b. Turn off IE ESC for administrators.
3. Install the HPC Pack on HPC-Compute.

a. Download the HPC Pack to HPC-Compute from the Microsoft Download Center. Choose the
HPC Pack for the version of Windows Server on HPC-Compute.
b. Extract the files to a folder, open the folder, and double-click setup.exe.
c. On the Installation page, select Join an existing HPC cluster by creating a new compute node,
and then choose Next.
d. Specify the fully-qualified name of the HPC-Head instance, and then choose the defaults.
e. Complete the wizard.

To complete your cluster configuration, from the head node, add the compute node to your cluster.

To add the compute node to your cluster

1. Connect to the HPC-Head instance as hpc.local\hpcuser.

2. Open HPC Cluster Manager.
3. Select Node Management.
4. If the compute node displays in the Unapproved bucket, right-click the node that is listed and select
Add Node.

a. Select Add compute nodes or broker nodes that have already been configured.
b. Select the check box next to the node and choose Add.
5. Right-click the node and choose Bring Online.

Step 5: Scale your HPC compute nodes (optional)

To scale your compute nodes

1. Connect to the HPC-Compute instance as hpc.local\hpcuser.

2. Delete any files you downloaded locally from the HP Pack installation package. (You have already
run setup and created these files on your image so they do not need to be cloned for an AMI.)
3. From C:\Program Files\Amazon\Ec2ConfigService open the file sysprep2008.xml.
4. At the bottom of <settings pass="specialize">, add the following section. Make sure to
replace hpc.local, password, and hpcuser to match your environment.

<component name="Microsoft-Windows-UnattendedJoin" processorArchitecture="amd64"

publicKeyToken="31bf3856ad364e35"
language="neutral" versionScope="nonSxS" xmlns:wcm="http://schemas.microsoft.com/
WMIConfig/2002/State"
xmlns:xsi="http://www.w3.org/2001/XMLSchema-instance">
<Identification>
<UnsecureJoin>false</UnsecureJoin>

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<Credentials>
<Domain>hpc.local</Domain>
<Password>password</Password>
<Username>hpcuser</Username>
</Credentials>
<JoinDomain>hpc.local</JoinDomain>
</Identification>
</component>

5. Save sysprep2008.xml.
6. Choose Start, All Programs, EC2ConfigService Settings.

a. Choose the General tab, and clear the Set Computer Name check box.
b. Choose the Bundle tab, and then choose Run Sysprep and Shutdown Now.
7. Open the Amazon EC2 console.
8. In the navigation pane, choose Instances.
9. Wait for the instance status to show Stopped.
10. Select the instance, choose Actions, Image and templates, Create image.
11. Specify an image name and image description, and then choose Create image to create an AMI from
the instance.
12. Start the original HPC-Compute instance that was shut down.
13. Connect to the head node using the hpc.local\hpcuser account.
14. From HPC Cluster Manager, delete the old node that now appears in an error state.
15. In the Amazon EC2 console, in the navigation pane, choose AMIs.
16. Use the AMI you created to add additional nodes to the cluster.

You can launch additional compute nodes from the AMI that you created. These nodes are automatically
joined to the domain, but you must add them to the cluster as already configured nodes in HPC Cluster
Manager using the head node and then bring them online.

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EC2 Fleet

EC2 Fleet and Spot Fleet

You can use an EC2 Fleet or a Spot Fleet to launch a fleet of instances. In a single API call, a fleet can
launch multiple instance types across multiple Availability Zones, using the On-Demand Instance,
Reserved Instance, and Spot Instance purchasing options together.

Topics
• EC2 Fleet (p. 673)
• Spot Fleet (p. 720)
• Monitor fleet events using Amazon EventBridge (p. 755)
• Tutorials for EC2 Fleet and Spot Fleet (p. 769)
• Example configurations for EC2 Fleet and Spot Fleet (p. 780)
• Fleet quotas (p. 803)

EC2 Fleet
An EC2 Fleet contains the configuration information to launch a fleet—or group—of instances. In a single
API call, a fleet can launch multiple instance types across multiple Availability Zones, using the On-
Demand Instance, Reserved Instance, and Spot Instance purchasing options together. Using EC2 Fleet,
you can:

• Define separate On-Demand and Spot capacity targets and the maximum amount you’re willing to pay
per hour
• Specify the instance types that work best for your applications
• Specify how Amazon EC2 should distribute your fleet capacity within each purchasing option

You can also set a maximum amount per hour that you’re willing to pay for your fleet, and EC2 Fleet
launches instances until it reaches the maximum amount. When the maximum amount you're willing to
pay is reached, the fleet stops launching instances even if it hasn’t met the target capacity.

The EC2 Fleet attempts to launch the number of instances that are required to meet the target capacity
specified in your request. If you specified a total maximum price per hour, it fulfills the capacity until it
reaches the maximum amount that you’re willing to pay. The fleet can also attempt to maintain its target
Spot capacity if your Spot Instances are interrupted. For more information, see How Spot Instances
work (p. 289).

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EC2 Fleet limitations

You can specify an unlimited number of instance types per EC2 Fleet. Those instance types can be
provisioned using both On-Demand and Spot purchasing options. You can also specify multiple
Availability Zones, specify different maximum Spot prices for each instance, and choose additional
Spot options for each fleet. Amazon EC2 uses the specified options to provision capacity when the fleet
launches.

While the fleet is running, if Amazon EC2 reclaims a Spot Instance because of a price increase or instance
failure, EC2 Fleet can try to replace the instances with any of the instance types that you specify. This
makes it easier to regain capacity during a spike in Spot pricing. You can develop a flexible and elastic
resourcing strategy for each fleet. For example, within specific fleets, your primary capacity can be On-
Demand supplemented with less-expensive Spot capacity if available.

If you have Reserved Instances and you specify On-Demand Instances in your fleet, EC2 Fleet uses your
Reserved Instances. For example, if your fleet specifies an On-Demand Instance as c4.large, and you
have Reserved Instances for c4.large, you receive the Reserved Instance pricing.

There is no additional charge for using EC2 Fleet. You pay only for the EC2 instances that the fleet
launches for you.

Contents
• EC2 Fleet limitations (p. 674)
• Burstable performance instances (p. 674)
• EC2 Fleet request types (p. 675)
• EC2 Fleet configuration strategies (p. 693)
• Work with EC2 Fleets (p. 701)

EC2 Fleet limitations

The following limitations apply to EC2 Fleet:

• EC2 Fleet is available only through the API or AWS CLI.

• An EC2 Fleet request can't span AWS Regions. You need to create a separate EC2 Fleet for each Region.
• An EC2 Fleet request can't span different subnets from the same Availability Zone.

Burstable performance instances

If you launch your Spot Instances using a burstable performance instance type (p. 161), and if you plan
to use your burstable performance Spot Instances immediately and for a short duration, with no idle
time for accruing CPU credits, we recommend that you launch them in Standard mode (p. 177) to avoid
paying higher costs. If you launch burstable performance Spot Instances in Unlimited mode (p. 170)
and burst CPU immediately, you'll spend surplus credits for bursting. If you use the instance for a short
duration, the instance doesn't have time to accrue CPU credits to pay down the surplus credits, and you
are charged for the surplus credits when you terminate the instance.

Unlimited mode is suitable for burstable performance Spot Instances only if the instance runs long
enough to accrue CPU credits for bursting. Otherwise, paying for surplus credits makes burstable
performance Spot Instances more expensive than using other instances. For more information, see When
to use unlimited mode versus fixed CPU (p. 171).

Launch credits are meant to provide a productive initial launch experience for T2 instances by providing
sufficient compute resources to configure the instance. Repeated launches of T2 instances to access new
launch credits is not permitted. If you require sustained CPU, you can earn credits (by idling over some
period), use Unlimited mode (p. 170) for T2 Spot Instances, or use an instance type with dedicated CPU.

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EC2 Fleet request types

EC2 Fleet request types

There are three types of EC2 Fleet requests:

instant

If you configure the request type as instant, EC2 Fleet places a synchronous one-time request for
your desired capacity. In the API response, it returns the instances that launched, along with errors
for those instances that could not be launched. For more information, see Use an EC2 Fleet of type
'instant' (p. 675).
request

If you configure the request type as request, EC2 Fleet places an asynchronous one-time request
for your desired capacity. Thereafter, if capacity is diminished because of Spot interruptions, the
fleet does not attempt to replenish Spot Instances, nor does it submit requests in alternative Spot
capacity pools if capacity is unavailable.
maintain

(Default) If you configure the request type as maintain, EC2 Fleet places an asynchronous request
for your desired capacity, and maintains capacity by automatically replenishing any interrupted Spot
Instances.

All three types of requests benefit from an allocation strategy. For more information, see Allocation
strategies for Spot Instances (p. 694).

Use an EC2 Fleet of type 'instant'

The EC2 Fleet of type instant is a synchronous one-time request that makes only one attempt to launch
your desired capacity. The API response lists the instances that launched, along with errors for those
instances that could not be launched. There are several benefits to using an EC2 Fleet of type instant,
which are described in this article. Example configurations are provided at the end of the article.

For workloads that need a launch-only API to launch EC2 instances, you can use the RunInstances API.
However, with RunInstances, you can only launch On-Demand Instances or Spot Instances, but not
both in the same request. Furthermore, when you use RunInstances to launch Spot Instances, your Spot
Instance request is limited to one instance type and one Availability Zone. This targets a single Spot
capacity pool (a set of unused instances with the same instance type and Availability Zone). If the Spot
capacity pool does not have sufficient Spot Instance capacity for your request, the RunInstances call fails.

Instead of using RunInstances to launch Spot Instances, we recommend that you rather use the
CreateFleet API with the type parameter set to instant for the following benefits:

• Launch On-Demand Instances and Spot Instances in one request. An EC2 Fleet can launch On-
Demand Instances, Spot Instances, or both. The request for Spot Instances is fulfilled if there is
available capacity and the maximum price per hour for your request exceeds the Spot price.
• Increase the availability of Spot Instances. By using an EC2 Fleet of type instant, you can launch
Spot Instances following Spot best practices with the resulting benefits:
• Spot best practice: Be flexible about instance types and Availability Zones.

Benefit: By specifying several instance types and Availability Zones, you increase the number of Spot
capacity pools. This gives the Spot service a better chance of finding and allocating your desired
Spot compute capacity. A good rule of thumb is to be flexible across at least 10 instance types for
each workload and make sure that all Availability Zones are configured for use in your VPC.
• Spot best practice: Use the capacity-optimized allocation strategy.

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Benefit: The capacity-optimized allocation strategy automatically provisions instances from the
most-available Spot capacity pools. Because your Spot Instance capacity is sourced from pools with
optimal capacity, this decreases the possibility that your Spot Instances will be interrupted when
Amazon EC2 needs the capacity back.
• Get access to a wider set of capabilities. For workloads that need a launch-only API, and where you
prefer to manage the lifecycle of your instance rather than let EC2 Fleet manage it for you, use the EC2
Fleet of type instant instead of the RunInstances API. EC2 Fleet provides a wider set of capabilities
than RunInstances, as demonstrated in the following examples. For all other workloads, you should
use Amazon EC2 Auto Scaling because it supplies a more comprehensive feature set for a wide variety
of workloads, like ELB-backed applications, containerized workloads, and queue processing jobs.

AWS services like Amazon EC2 Auto Scaling and Amazon EMR use EC2 Fleet of type instant to launch EC2
instances.

Prerequisites for EC2 Fleet of type instant

For the prerequisites for creating an EC2 Fleet, see EC2 Fleet prerequisites (p. 702).

How instant EC2 Fleet works

When working with an EC2 Fleet of type instant, the sequence of events is as follows:

1. Configure the CreateFleet request type as instant. For more information, see Create an EC2
Fleet (p. 710). Note that after you make the API call, you can't modify it.
2. When you make the API call, EC2 Fleet places a synchronous one-time request for your desired
capacity.
3. The API response lists the instances that launched, along with errors for those instances that could not
be launched.
4. You can describe your EC2 Fleet, list the instances associated with your EC2 Fleet, and view the history
of your EC2 Fleet.
5. After your instances have launched, you can delete the fleet request. When deleting the fleet request,
you can also choose to terminate the associated instances, or leave them running.
6. You can terminate the instances at any time.

Examples
The following examples show how to use EC2 Fleet of type instant for different use cases. For more
information about using the EC2 CreateFleet API parameters, see CreateFleet in the Amazon EC2 API
Reference.

Examples
• Example 1: Launch Spot Instances with the capacity-optimized allocation strategy (p. 677)
• Example 2: Launch a single Spot Instance with the capacity-optimized allocation strategy (p. 678)
• Example 3: Launch Spot Instances using instance weighting (p. 679)
• Example 4: Launch Spot Instances within single Availability zone (p. 681)
• Example 5: Launch Spot Instances of single instance type within single Availability zone (p. 682)
• Example 6: Launch Spot Instances only if minimum target capacity can be launched (p. 683)
• Example 7: Launch Spot Instances only if minimum target capacity can be launched of same Instance
Type in a single Availability Zone (p. 685)
• Example 8: Launch instances with multiple Launch Templates (p. 686)
• Example 9: Launch Spot Instance with a base of On-Demand Instances (p. 688)

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• Example 10: Launch Spot Instances using capacity-optimized allocation strategy with a base of On-
Demand Instances using Capacity Reservations and the prioritized allocation strategy (p. 689)
• Example 11: Launch Spot Instances using capacity-optimized-prioritized allocation strategy (p. 691)

Example 1: Launch Spot Instances with the capacity-optimized allocation strategy

The following example specifies the parameters required in an EC2 Fleet of type instant: a launch
template, target capacity, default purchasing option, and launch template overrides.

• The launch template is identified by its launch template name and version number.
• The 12 launch template overrides specify 4 different instance types and 3 different subnets, each in a
separate Availability Zone. Each instance type and subnet combination defines a Spot capacity pool,
resulting in 12 Spot capacity pools.
• The target capacity for the fleet is 20 instances.
• The default purchasing option is spot, which results in the fleet attempting to launch 20 Spot
Instances into the Spot capacity pool with optimal capacity for the number of instances that are
launching.

{
"SpotOptions": {
"AllocationStrategy": "capacity-optimized"
},
"LaunchTemplateConfigs": [
{
"LaunchTemplateSpecification":{
"LaunchTemplateName":"ec2-fleet-lt1",
"Version":"$Latest"
},
"Overrides":[
{
"InstanceType":"c5.large",
"SubnetId":"subnet-fae8c380"
},
{
"InstanceType":"c5.large",
"SubnetId":"subnet-e7188bab"
},
{
"InstanceType":"c5.large",
"SubnetId":"subnet-49e41922"
},
{
"InstanceType":"c5d.large",
"SubnetId":"subnet-fae8c380"
},
{
"InstanceType":"c5d.large",
"SubnetId":"subnet-e7188bab"
},
{
"InstanceType":"c5d.large",
"SubnetId":"subnet-49e41922"
},
{
"InstanceType":"m5.large",
"SubnetId":"subnet-fae8c380"
},
{
"InstanceType":"m5.large",
"SubnetId":"subnet-e7188bab"

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},
{
"InstanceType":"m5.large",
"SubnetId":"subnet-49e41922"
},
{
"InstanceType":"m5d.large",
"SubnetId":"subnet-fae8c380"
},
{
"InstanceType":"m5d.large",
"SubnetId":"subnet-e7188bab"
},
{
"InstanceType":"m5d.large",
"SubnetId":"subnet-49e41922"
}
]
}
],
"TargetCapacitySpecification": {
"TotalTargetCapacity": 20,
"DefaultTargetCapacityType": "spot"
},
"Type": "instant"
}

Example 2: Launch a single Spot Instance with the capacity-optimized allocation strategy

You can optimally launch one Spot Instance at a time by making multiple EC2 Fleet API calls of type
instant, by setting the TotalTargetCapacity to 1.

The following example specifies the parameters required in an EC2 Fleet of type instant: a launch
template, target capacity, default purchasing option, and launch template overrides. The launch
template is identified by its launch template name and version number. The 12 launch template
overrides have 4 different instance types and 3 different subnets, each in a separate Availability Zone.
The target capacity for the fleet is 1 instance, and the default purchasing option is spot, which results
in the fleet attempting to launch a Spot Instance from one of the 12 Spot capacity pools based on the
capacity-optimized allocation strategy, to launch a Spot Instance from the most-available capacity pool.

{
"SpotOptions": {
"AllocationStrategy": "capacity-optimized"
},
"LaunchTemplateConfigs": [
{
"LaunchTemplateSpecification":{
"LaunchTemplateName":"ec2-fleet-lt1",
"Version":"$Latest"
},
"Overrides":[
{
"InstanceType":"c5.large",
"SubnetId":"subnet-fae8c380"
},
{
"InstanceType":"c5.large",
"SubnetId":"subnet-e7188bab"
},
{
"InstanceType":"c5.large",
"SubnetId":"subnet-49e41922"
},

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{
"InstanceType":"c5d.large",
"SubnetId":"subnet-fae8c380"
},
{
"InstanceType":"c5d.large",
"SubnetId":"subnet-e7188bab"
},
{
"InstanceType":"c5d.large",
"SubnetId":"subnet-49e41922"
},
{
"InstanceType":"m5.large",
"SubnetId":"subnet-fae8c380"
},
{
"InstanceType":"m5.large",
"SubnetId":"subnet-e7188bab"
},
{
"InstanceType":"m5.large",
"SubnetId":"subnet-49e41922"
},
{
"InstanceType":"m5d.large",
"SubnetId":"subnet-fae8c380"
},
{
"InstanceType":"m5d.large",
"SubnetId":"subnet-e7188bab"
},
{
"InstanceType":"m5d.large",
"SubnetId":"subnet-49e41922"
}
]
}
],
"TargetCapacitySpecification": {
"TotalTargetCapacity": 1,
"DefaultTargetCapacityType": "spot"
},
"Type": "instant"
}

Example 3: Launch Spot Instances using instance weighting

The following examples use instance weighting, which means that the price is per unit hour instead of
per instance hour. Each launch configuration lists a different instance type and a different weight based
on how many units of the workload can run on the instance assuming a unit of the workload requires
a 15 GB of memory and 4 vCPUs. For example an m5.xlarge (4 vCPUs and 16 GB of memory) can run
one unit and is weighted 1, m5.2xlarge (8 vCPUs and 32 GB of memory) can run 2 units and is weighted
2, and so on. The total target capacity is set to 40 units. The default purchasing option is spot, and the
allocation strategy is capacity-optimized, which results in either 40 m5.xlarge (40 divided by 1), 20
m5.2xlarge (40 divided by 2), 10 m5.4xlarge (40 divided by 4), 5 m5.8xlarge (40 divided by 8), or a mix
of the instance types with weights adding up to the desired capacity based on the capacity-optimized
allocation strategy.

For more information, see EC2 Fleet instance weighting (p. 700).

{
"SpotOptions":{

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"AllocationStrategy":"capacity-optimized"
},
"LaunchTemplateConfigs":[
{
"LaunchTemplateSpecification":{
"LaunchTemplateName":"ec2-fleet-lt1",
"Version":"$Latest"
},
"Overrides":[
{
"InstanceType":"m5.xlarge",
"SubnetId":"subnet-fae8c380",
"WeightedCapacity":1
},
{
"InstanceType":"m5.xlarge",
"SubnetId":"subnet-e7188bab",
"WeightedCapacity":1
},
{
"InstanceType":"m5.xlarge",
"SubnetId":"subnet-49e41922",
"WeightedCapacity":1
},
{
"InstanceType":"m5.2xlarge",
"SubnetId":"subnet-fae8c380",
"WeightedCapacity":2
},
{
"InstanceType":"m5.2xlarge",
"SubnetId":"subnet-e7188bab",
"WeightedCapacity":2
},
{
"InstanceType":"m5.2xlarge",
"SubnetId":"subnet-49e41922",
"WeightedCapacity":2
},
{
"InstanceType":"m5.4xlarge",
"SubnetId":"subnet-fae8c380",
"WeightedCapacity":4
},
{
"InstanceType":"m5.4xlarge",
"SubnetId":"subnet-e7188bab",
"WeightedCapacity":4
},
{
"InstanceType":"m5.4xlarge",
"SubnetId":"subnet-49e41922",
"WeightedCapacity":4
},
{
"InstanceType":"m5.8xlarge",
"SubnetId":"subnet-fae8c380",
"WeightedCapacity":8
},
{
"InstanceType":"m5.8xlarge",
"SubnetId":"subnet-e7188bab",
"WeightedCapacity":8
},
{
"InstanceType":"m5.8xlarge",

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"SubnetId":"subnet-49e41922",
"WeightedCapacity":8
}
]
}
],
"TargetCapacitySpecification":{
"TotalTargetCapacity":40,
"DefaultTargetCapacityType":"spot"
},
"Type":"instant"
}

Example 4: Launch Spot Instances within single Availability zone

You can configure a fleet to launch all instances in a single Availability Zone by setting the Spot options
SingleAvailabilityZone to true.

The 12 launch template overrides have different instance types and subnets (each in a separate
Availability Zone) but the same weighted capacity. The total target capacity is 20 instances, the default
purchasing option is spot, and the Spot allocation strategy is capacity-optimized. The EC2 Fleet launches
20 Spot Instances all in a single AZ, from the Spot capacity pool(s) with optimal capacity using the
launch specifications.

{
"SpotOptions": {
"AllocationStrategy": "capacity-optimized",
"SingleAvailabilityZone": true
},
"LaunchTemplateConfigs": [
{
"LaunchTemplateSpecification":{
"LaunchTemplateName":"ec2-fleet-lt1",
"Version":"$Latest"
},
"Overrides":[
{
"InstanceType":"c5.4xlarge",
"SubnetId":"subnet-fae8c380"
},
{
"InstanceType":"c5.4xlarge",
"SubnetId":"subnet-e7188bab"
},
{
"InstanceType":"c5.4xlarge",
"SubnetId":"subnet-49e41922"
},
{
"InstanceType":"c5d.4xlarge",
"SubnetId":"subnet-fae8c380"
},
{
"InstanceType":"c5d.4xlarge",
"SubnetId":"subnet-e7188bab"
},
{
"InstanceType":"c5d.4xlarge",
"SubnetId":"subnet-49e41922"
},
{
"InstanceType":"m5.4xlarge",
"SubnetId":"subnet-fae8c380"
},

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{
"InstanceType":"m5.4xlarge",
"SubnetId":"subnet-e7188bab"
},
{
"InstanceType":"m5.4xlarge",
"SubnetId":"subnet-49e41922"
},
{
"InstanceType":"m5d.4xlarge",
"SubnetId":"subnet-fae8c380"
},
{
"InstanceType":"m5d.4xlarge",
"SubnetId":"subnet-e7188bab"
},
{
"InstanceType":"m5d.4xlarge",
"SubnetId":"subnet-49e41922"
}
]
}
],
"TargetCapacitySpecification": {
"TotalTargetCapacity": 20,
"DefaultTargetCapacityType": "spot"
},
"Type": "instant"
}

Example 5: Launch Spot Instances of single instance type within single Availability zone
You can configure a fleet to launch all instances of the same instance type and in a single Availability
Zone by setting the SpotOptions SingleInstanceType to true and SingleAvailabilityZone to true.

The 12 launch template overrides have different instance types and subnets (each in a separate
Availability Zone) but the same weighted capacity. The total target capacity is 20 instances, the default
purchasing option is spot, the Spot allocation strategy is capacity-optimized. The EC2 Fleet launches
20 Spot Instances of the same instance type all in a single AZ from the Spot Instance pool with optimal
capacity using the launch specifications.

{
"SpotOptions": {
"AllocationStrategy": "capacity-optimized",
"SingleInstanceType": true,
"SingleAvailabilityZone": true
},
"LaunchTemplateConfigs": [
{
"LaunchTemplateSpecification":{
"LaunchTemplateName":"ec2-fleet-lt1",
"Version":"$Latest"
},
"Overrides":[
{
"InstanceType":"c5.4xlarge",
"SubnetId":"subnet-fae8c380"
},
{
"InstanceType":"c5.4xlarge",
"SubnetId":"subnet-e7188bab"
},
{
"InstanceType":"c5.4xlarge",

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"SubnetId":"subnet-49e41922"
},
{
"InstanceType":"c5d.4xlarge",
"SubnetId":"subnet-fae8c380"
},
{
"InstanceType":"c5d.4xlarge",
"SubnetId":"subnet-e7188bab"
},
{
"InstanceType":"c5d.4xlarge",
"SubnetId":"subnet-49e41922"
},
{
"InstanceType":"m5.4xlarge",
"SubnetId":"subnet-fae8c380"
},
{
"InstanceType":"m5.4xlarge",
"SubnetId":"subnet-e7188bab"
},
{
"InstanceType":"m5.4xlarge",
"SubnetId":"subnet-49e41922"
},
{
"InstanceType":"m5d.4xlarge",
"SubnetId":"subnet-fae8c380"
},
{
"InstanceType":"m5d.4xlarge",
"SubnetId":"subnet-e7188bab"
},
{
"InstanceType":"m5d.4xlarge",
"SubnetId":"subnet-49e41922"
}
]
}
],
"TargetCapacitySpecification": {
"TotalTargetCapacity": 20,
"DefaultTargetCapacityType": "spot"
},
"Type": "instant"
}

Example 6: Launch Spot Instances only if minimum target capacity can be launched

You can configure a fleet to launch instances only if the minimum target capacity can be launched
by setting the Spot options MinTargetCapacity to the minimum target capacity you want to launch
together.

The 12 launch template overrides have different instance types and subnets (each in a separate
Availability Zone) but the same weighted capacity. The total target capacity and the minimum target
capacity are both set to 20 instances, the default purchasing option is spot, the Spot allocation strategy
is capacity-optimized. The EC2 Fleet launches 20 Spot Instances from the Spot capacity pool with
optimal capacity using the launch template overrides, only if it can launch all 20 instances at the same
time.

{
"SpotOptions": {

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"AllocationStrategy": "capacity-optimized",
"MinTargetCapacity": 20
},
"LaunchTemplateConfigs": [
{
"LaunchTemplateSpecification":{
"LaunchTemplateName":"ec2-fleet-lt1",
"Version":"$Latest"
},
"Overrides":[
{
"InstanceType":"c5.4xlarge",
"SubnetId":"subnet-fae8c380"
},
{
"InstanceType":"c5.4xlarge",
"SubnetId":"subnet-e7188bab"
},
{
"InstanceType":"c5.4xlarge",
"SubnetId":"subnet-49e41922"
},
{
"InstanceType":"c5d.4xlarge",
"SubnetId":"subnet-fae8c380"
},
{
"InstanceType":"c5d.4xlarge",
"SubnetId":"subnet-e7188bab"
},
{
"InstanceType":"c5d.4xlarge",
"SubnetId":"subnet-49e41922"
},
{
"InstanceType":"m5.4xlarge",
"SubnetId":"subnet-fae8c380"
},
{
"InstanceType":"m5.4xlarge",
"SubnetId":"subnet-e7188bab"
},
{
"InstanceType":"m5.4xlarge",
"SubnetId":"subnet-49e41922"
},
{
"InstanceType":"m5d.4xlarge",
"SubnetId":"subnet-fae8c380"
},
{
"InstanceType":"m5d.4xlarge",
"SubnetId":"subnet-e7188bab"
},
{
"InstanceType":"m5d.4xlarge",
"SubnetId":"subnet-49e41922"
}
]
}
],
"TargetCapacitySpecification": {
"TotalTargetCapacity": 20,
"DefaultTargetCapacityType": "spot"
},
"Type": "instant"

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Example 7: Launch Spot Instances only if minimum target capacity can be launched of same
Instance Type in a single Availability Zone
You can configure a fleet to launch instances only if the minimum target capacity can be launched
with a single instance type in a single Availability Zone by setting the Spot options MinTargetCapacity
to the minimum target capacity you want to launch together along with SingleInstanceType and
SingleAvailabilityZone options.

The 12 launch specifications which override the launch template, have different instance types and
subnets (each in a separate Availability Zone) but the same weighted capacity. The total target capacity
and the minimum target capacity are both set to 20 instances, the default purchasing option is spot, the
Spot allocation strategy is capacity-optimized, the SingleInstanceType is true and SingleAvailabilityZone
is true. The EC2 Fleet launches 20 Spot Instances of the same Instance type all in a single AZ from the
Spot capacity pool with optimal capacity using the launch specifications, only if it can launch all 20
instances at the same time.

{
"SpotOptions": {
"AllocationStrategy": "capacity-optimized",
"SingleInstanceType": true,
"SingleAvailabilityZone": true,
"MinTargetCapacity": 20
},
"LaunchTemplateConfigs": [
{
"LaunchTemplateSpecification":{
"LaunchTemplateName":"ec2-fleet-lt1",
"Version":"$Latest"
},
"Overrides":[
{
"InstanceType":"c5.4xlarge",
"SubnetId":"subnet-fae8c380"
},
{
"InstanceType":"c5.4xlarge",
"SubnetId":"subnet-e7188bab"
},
{
"InstanceType":"c5.4xlarge",
"SubnetId":"subnet-49e41922"
},
{
"InstanceType":"c5d.4xlarge",
"SubnetId":"subnet-fae8c380"
},
{
"InstanceType":"c5d.4xlarge",
"SubnetId":"subnet-e7188bab"
},
{
"InstanceType":"c5d.4xlarge",
"SubnetId":"subnet-49e41922"
},
{
"InstanceType":"m5.4xlarge",
"SubnetId":"subnet-fae8c380"
},
{
"InstanceType":"m5.4xlarge",
"SubnetId":"subnet-e7188bab"

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},
{
"InstanceType":"m5.4xlarge",
"SubnetId":"subnet-49e41922"
},
{
"InstanceType":"m5d.4xlarge",
"SubnetId":"subnet-fae8c380"
},
{
"InstanceType":"m5d.4xlarge",
"SubnetId":"subnet-e7188bab"
},
{
"InstanceType":"m5d.4xlarge",
"SubnetId":"subnet-49e41922"
}
]
}
],
"TargetCapacitySpecification": {
"TotalTargetCapacity": 20,
"DefaultTargetCapacityType": "spot"
},
"Type": "instant"
}

Example 8: Launch instances with multiple Launch Templates

You can configure a fleet to launch instances with different launch specifications for different instance
types or a group of instance types, by specifying multiple launch templates. In this example we want
have different EBS volume sizes for different instance types and we have that configured in the launch
templates ec2-fleet-lt-4xl, ec2-fleet-lt-9xl and ec2-fleet-lt-18xl.

In this example, we are using 3 different launch templates for the 3 instance types based on their size.
The launch specification overrides on all the launch templates use instance weights based on the vCPUs
on the instance type. The total target capacity is 144 units, the default purchasing option is spot, and
the Spot allocation strategy is capacity-optimized. The EC2 Fleet can either launch 9 c5n.4xlarge (144
divided by 16) using the launch template ec2-fleet-4xl or 4 c5n.9xlarge (144 divided by 36) using the
launch template ec2-fleet-9xl, or 2 c5n.18xlarge (144 divided by 72) using the launch template ec2-
fleet-18xl, or a mix of the instance types with weights adding up to the desired capacity based on the
capacity-optimized allocation strategy.

{
"SpotOptions": {
"AllocationStrategy": "capacity-optimized"
},
"LaunchTemplateConfigs": [
{
"LaunchTemplateSpecification":{
"LaunchTemplateName":"ec2-fleet-lt-18xl",
"Version":"$Latest"
},
"Overrides":[
{
"InstanceType":"c5n.18xlarge",
"SubnetId":"subnet-fae8c380",
"WeightedCapacity":72
},
{
"InstanceType":"c5n.18xlarge",
"SubnetId":"subnet-e7188bab",
"WeightedCapacity":72

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},
{
"InstanceType":"c5n.18xlarge",
"SubnetId":"subnet-49e41922",
"WeightedCapacity":72
}
]
},
{
"LaunchTemplateSpecification":{
"LaunchTemplateName":"ec2-fleet-lt-9xl",
"Version":"$Latest"
},
"Overrides":[
{
"InstanceType":"c5n.9xlarge",
"SubnetId":"subnet-fae8c380",
"WeightedCapacity":36
},
{
"InstanceType":"c5n.9xlarge",
"SubnetId":"subnet-e7188bab",
"WeightedCapacity":36
},
{
"InstanceType":"c5n.9xlarge",
"SubnetId":"subnet-49e41922",
"WeightedCapacity":36
}
]
},
{
"LaunchTemplateSpecification":{
"LaunchTemplateName":"ec2-fleet-lt-4xl",
"Version":"$Latest"
},
"Overrides":[
{
"InstanceType":"c5n.4xlarge",
"SubnetId":"subnet-fae8c380",
"WeightedCapacity":16
},
{
"InstanceType":"c5n.4xlarge",
"SubnetId":"subnet-e7188bab",
"WeightedCapacity":16
},
{
"InstanceType":"c5n.4xlarge",
"SubnetId":"subnet-49e41922",
"WeightedCapacity":16
}
]
}
],
"TargetCapacitySpecification": {
"TotalTargetCapacity": 144,
"DefaultTargetCapacityType": "spot"
},
"Type": "instant"
}

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Example 9: Launch Spot Instance with a base of On-Demand Instances

The following example specifies the total target capacity of 20 instances for the fleet, and a target
capacity of 5 On-Demand Instances. The default purchasing option is spot. The fleet launches
5 On-Demand Instance as specified, but needs to launch 15 more instances to fulfill the total
target capacity. The purchasing option for the difference is calculated as TotalTargetCapacity –
OnDemandTargetCapacity = DefaultTargetCapacityType, which results in the fleet launching 15 Spot
Instances form one of the 12 Spot capacity pools based on the capacity-optimized allocation strategy.

{
"SpotOptions": {
"AllocationStrategy": "capacity-optimized"
},
"LaunchTemplateConfigs": [
{
"LaunchTemplateSpecification":{
"LaunchTemplateName":"ec2-fleet-lt1",
"Version":"$Latest"
},
"Overrides":[
{
"InstanceType":"c5.large",
"SubnetId":"subnet-fae8c380"
},
{
"InstanceType":"c5.large",
"SubnetId":"subnet-e7188bab"
},
{
"InstanceType":"c5.large",
"SubnetId":"subnet-49e41922"
},
{
"InstanceType":"c5d.large",
"SubnetId":"subnet-fae8c380"
},
{
"InstanceType":"c5d.large",
"SubnetId":"subnet-e7188bab"
},
{
"InstanceType":"c5d.large",
"SubnetId":"subnet-49e41922"
},
{
"InstanceType":"m5.large",
"SubnetId":"subnet-fae8c380"
},
{
"InstanceType":"m5.large",
"SubnetId":"subnet-e7188bab"
},
{
"InstanceType":"m5.large",
"SubnetId":"subnet-49e41922"
},
{
"InstanceType":"m5d.large",
"SubnetId":"subnet-fae8c380"
},
{
"InstanceType":"m5d.large",
"SubnetId":"subnet-e7188bab"
},

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{
"InstanceType":"m5d.large",
"SubnetId":"subnet-49e41922"
}
]
}
],
"TargetCapacitySpecification": {
"TotalTargetCapacity": 20,
"OnDemandTargetCapacity": 5,
"DefaultTargetCapacityType": "spot"
},
"Type": "instant"
}

Example 10: Launch Spot Instances using capacity-optimized allocation strategy with a base of
On-Demand Instances using Capacity Reservations and the prioritized allocation strategy

You can configure a fleet to use On-Demand Capacity Reservations first when launching a base of
On-Demand Instances with the default target capacity type as spot by setting the usage strategy for
Capacity Reservations to use-capacity-reservations-first. And if multiple instance pools have unused
Capacity Reservations, the chosen On-Demand allocation strategy is applied. In this example, the On-
Demand allocation strategy is prioritized.

In this example, there are 6 available unused Capacity Reservations. This is less than the fleet's target
On-Demand capacity of 10 On-Demand Instances.

The account has the following 6 unused Capacity Reservations in 2 pools. The number of Capacity
Reservations in each pool is indicated by AvailableInstanceCount.

{
"CapacityReservationId": "cr-111",
"InstanceType": "m5.large",
"InstancePlatform": "Linux/UNIX",
"AvailabilityZone": "us-east-1a",
"AvailableInstanceCount": 3,
"InstanceMatchCriteria": "open",
"State": "active"
}

{
"CapacityReservationId": "cr-222",
"InstanceType": "c5.large",
"InstancePlatform": "Linux/UNIX",
"AvailabilityZone": "us-east-1a",
"AvailableInstanceCount": 3,
"InstanceMatchCriteria": "open",
"State": "active"
}

The following fleet configuration shows only the pertinent configurations for this example. The On-
Demand allocation strategy is prioritized, and the usage strategy for Capacity Reservations is use-
capacity-reservations-first. The Spot allocation strategy is capacity-optimized. The total target capacity
is 20, the On-Demand target capacity is 10, and the default target capacity type is spot.

{
"SpotOptions": {
"AllocationStrategy": "capacity-optimized"
},
"OnDemandOptions":{
"CapacityReservationOptions": {

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"UsageStrategy": "use-capacity-reservations-first"
},
"AllocationStrategy":"prioritized"
},
"LaunchTemplateConfigs": [
{
"LaunchTemplateSpecification":{
"LaunchTemplateName":"ec2-fleet-lt1",
"Version":"$Latest"
},
"Overrides":[
{
"InstanceType":"c5.large",
"SubnetId":"subnet-fae8c380",
"Priority": 1.0
},
{
"InstanceType":"c5.large",
"SubnetId":"subnet-e7188bab",
"Priority": 2.0
},
{
"InstanceType":"c5.large",
"SubnetId":"subnet-49e41922",
"Priority": 3.0
},
{
"InstanceType":"c5d.large",
"SubnetId":"subnet-fae8c380",
"Priority": 4.0
},
{
"InstanceType":"c5d.large",
"SubnetId":"subnet-e7188bab",
"Priority": 5.0
},
{
"InstanceType":"c5d.large",
"SubnetId":"subnet-49e41922",
"Priority": 6.0
},
{
"InstanceType":"m5.large",
"SubnetId":"subnet-fae8c380",
"Priority": 7.0
},
{
"InstanceType":"m5.large",
"SubnetId":"subnet-e7188bab",
"Priority": 8.0
},
{
"InstanceType":"m5.large",
"SubnetId":"subnet-49e41922",
"Priority": 9.0
},
{
"InstanceType":"m5d.large",
"SubnetId":"subnet-fae8c380",
"Priority": 10.0
},
{
"InstanceType":"m5d.large",
"SubnetId":"subnet-e7188bab",
"Priority": 11.0
},

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{
"InstanceType":"m5d.large",
"SubnetId":"subnet-49e41922",
"Priority": 12.0
}
]
}
],
"TargetCapacitySpecification": {
"TotalTargetCapacity": 20,
"OnDemandTargetCapacity": 10,
"DefaultTargetCapacityType": "spot"
},
"Type": "instant"
}

After you create the instant fleet using the preceding configuration, the following 20 instances are
launched to meet the target capacity:

• 7 c5.large On-Demand Instances in us-east-1a – c5.large in us-east-1a is prioritized first, and there are
3 available unused c5.large Capacity Reservations. The Capacity Reservations are used first to launch
3 On-Demand Instances plus 4 additional On-Demand Instances are launched according to the On-
Demand allocation strategy, which is prioritized in this example.
• 3 m5.large On-Demand Instances in us-east-1a – m5.large in us-east-1a is prioritized second, and there
are 3 available unused c3.large Capacity Reservations.
• 10 Spot Instances from one of the 12 Spot capacity pools that has the optimal capacity according to
the capacity-optimized allocation strategy.

After the fleet is launched, you can run describe-capacity-reservations to see how many unused Capacity
Reservations are remaining. In this example, you should see the following response, which shows that all
of the c5.large and m5.large Capacity Reservations were used.

{
"CapacityReservationId": "cr-111",
"InstanceType": "m5.large",
"AvailableInstanceCount": 0
}

{
"CapacityReservationId": "cr-222",
"InstanceType": "c5.large",
"AvailableInstanceCount": 0
}

Example 11: Launch Spot Instances using capacity-optimized-prioritized allocation strategy

The following example specifies the parameters required in an EC2 Fleet of type instant: a launch
template, target capacity, default purchasing option, and launch template overrides. The launch
template is identified by its launch template name and version number. The 12 launch specifications
which override the launch template have 4 different instance types with a priority assigned, and 3
different subnets, each in a separate Availability Zone. The target capacity for the fleet is 20 instances,
and the default purchasing option is spot, which results in the fleet attempting to launch 20 Spot
Instances from one of the 12 Spot capacity pools based on the capacity-optimized-prioritized allocation
strategy, which implements priorities on a best-effort basis, but optimizes for capacity first.

{
"SpotOptions": {
"AllocationStrategy": "capacity-optimized-prioritized"
},

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"LaunchTemplateConfigs": [
{
"LaunchTemplateSpecification":{
"LaunchTemplateName":"ec2-fleet-lt1",
"Version":"$Latest"
},
"Overrides":[
{
"InstanceType":"c5.large",
"SubnetId":"subnet-fae8c380",
"Priority": 1.0
},
{
"InstanceType":"c5.large",
"SubnetId":"subnet-e7188bab",
"Priority": 1.0
},
{
"InstanceType":"c5.large",
"SubnetId":"subnet-49e41922",
"Priority": 1.0
},
{
"InstanceType":"c5d.large",
"SubnetId":"subnet-fae8c380",
"Priority": 2.0
},
{
"InstanceType":"c5d.large",
"SubnetId":"subnet-e7188bab",
"Priority": 2.0
},
{
"InstanceType":"c5d.large",
"SubnetId":"subnet-49e41922",
"Priority": 2.0
},
{
"InstanceType":"m5.large",
"SubnetId":"subnet-fae8c380",
"Priority": 3.0
},
{
"InstanceType":"m5.large",
"SubnetId":"subnet-e7188bab",
"Priority": 3.0
},
{
"InstanceType":"m5.large",
"SubnetId":"subnet-49e41922",
"Priority": 3.0
},
{
"InstanceType":"m5d.large",
"SubnetId":"subnet-fae8c380",
"Priority": 4.0
},
{
"InstanceType":"m5d.large",
"SubnetId":"subnet-e7188bab",
"Priority": 4.0
},
{
"InstanceType":"m5d.large",
"SubnetId":"subnet-49e41922",
"Priority": 4.0

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}
]
}
],
"TargetCapacitySpecification": {
"TotalTargetCapacity": 20,
"DefaultTargetCapacityType": "spot"
},
"Type": "instant"
}

EC2 Fleet configuration strategies

An EC2 Fleet is a group of On-Demand Instances and Spot Instances.

The EC2 Fleet attempts to launch the number of instances that are required to meet the target capacity
that you specify in the fleet request. The fleet can comprise only On-Demand Instances, only Spot
Instances, or a combination of both On-Demand Instances and Spot Instances. The request for Spot
Instances is fulfilled if there is available capacity and the maximum price per hour for your request
exceeds the Spot price. The fleet also attempts to maintain its target capacity if your Spot Instances are
interrupted.

You can also set a maximum amount per hour that you’re willing to pay for your fleet, and EC2 Fleet
launches instances until it reaches the maximum amount. When the maximum amount you're willing to
pay is reached, the fleet stops launching instances even if it hasn’t met the target capacity.

A Spot capacity pool is a set of unused EC2 instances with the same instance type and Availability Zone.
When you create an EC2 Fleet, you can include multiple launch specifications, which vary by instance
type, Availability Zone, subnet, and maximum price. The fleet selects the Spot capacity pools that
are used to fulfill the request, based on the launch specifications included in your request, and the
configuration of the request. The Spot Instances come from the selected pools.

An EC2 Fleet enables you to provision large amounts of EC2 capacity that makes sense for your
application based on number of cores or instances, or amount of memory. For example, you can specify
an EC2 Fleet to launch a target capacity of 200 instances, of which 130 are On-Demand Instances and
the rest are Spot Instances.

Use the appropriate configuration strategies to create an EC2 Fleet that meets your needs.

Contents
• Plan an EC2 Fleet (p. 693)
• Allocation strategies for Spot Instances (p. 694)
• Configure EC2 Fleet for On-Demand backup (p. 696)
• Capacity Rebalancing (p. 697)
• Maximum price overrides (p. 699)
• Control spending (p. 699)
• EC2 Fleet instance weighting (p. 700)

Plan an EC2 Fleet

When planning your EC2 Fleet, we recommend that you do the following:

• Determine whether you want to create an EC2 Fleet that submits a synchronous or asynchronous one-
time request for the desired target capacity, or one that maintains a target capacity over time. For
more information, see EC2 Fleet request types (p. 675).

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• Determine the instance types that meet your application requirements.

• If you plan to include Spot Instances in your EC2 Fleet, review Spot Best Practices before you create
the fleet. Use these best practices when you plan your fleet so that you can provision the instances at
the lowest possible price.
• Determine the target capacity for your EC2 Fleet. You can set target capacity in instances or in custom
units. For more information, see EC2 Fleet instance weighting (p. 700).
• Determine what portion of the EC2 Fleet target capacity must be On-Demand capacity and Spot
capacity. You can specify 0 for On-Demand capacity or Spot capacity, or both.
• Determine your price per unit, if you are using instance weighting. To calculate the price per unit,
divide the price per instance hour by the number of units (or weight) that this instance represents. If
you are not using instance weighting, the default price per unit is the price per instance hour.
• Determine the maximum amount per hour that you’re willing to pay for your fleet. For more
information, see Control spending (p. 699).
• Review the possible options for your EC2 Fleet. For more information, see the EC2 Fleet JSON
configuration file reference (p. 707). For EC2 Fleet configuration examples, see EC2 Fleet example
configurations (p. 780).

Allocation strategies for Spot Instances

The allocation strategy for your EC2 Fleet determines how it fulfills your request for Spot Instances from
the possible Spot capacity pools represented by its launch specifications. The following are the allocation
strategies that you can specify in your fleet:

lowest-price

The Spot Instances come from the Spot capacity pool with the lowest price. This is the default
strategy.
diversified

The Spot Instances are distributed across all Spot capacity pools.
capacity-optimized

The Spot Instances come from the Spot capacity pool with optimal capacity for the number of
instances that are launching. You can optionally set a priority for each instance type in your fleet
using capacity-optimized-prioritized. EC2 Fleet optimizes for capacity first, but honors
instance type priorities on a best-effort basis.

With Spot Instances, pricing changes slowly over time based on long-term trends in supply and
demand, but capacity fluctuates in real time. The capacity-optimized strategy automatically
launches Spot Instances into the most available pools by looking at real-time capacity data and
predicting which are the most available. This works well for workloads such as big data and
analytics, image and media rendering, machine learning, and high performance computing that may
have a higher cost of interruption associated with restarting work and checkpointing. By offering the
possibility of fewer interruptions, the capacity-optimized strategy can lower the overall cost of
your workload.

Alternatively, you can use the capacity-optimized-prioritized allocation strategy with a

priority parameter to order instance types from highest to lowest priority. You can set the same
priority for different instance types. EC2 Fleet will optimize for capacity first, but will honor instance
type priorities on a best-effort basis (for example, if honoring the priorities will not significantly
affect EC2 Fleet's ability to provision optimal capacity). This is a good option for workloads where
the possibility of disruption must be minimized and the preference for certain instance types
matters. Using priorities is supported only if your fleet uses a launch template. Note that when you
set the priority for capacity-optimized-prioritized, the same priority is also applied to your
On-Demand Instances if the On-Demand AllocationStrategy is set to prioritized.

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InstancePoolsToUseCount

The Spot Instances are distributed across the number of Spot capacity pools that you specify. This
parameter is valid only when used in combination with lowest-price.

Maintaining target capacity

After Spot Instances are terminated due to a change in the Spot price or available capacity of a
Spot capacity pool, an EC2 Fleet of type maintain launches replacement Spot Instances. If the
allocation strategy is lowest-price, the fleet launches replacement instances in the pool where the
Spot price is currently the lowest. If the allocation strategy is lowest-price in combination with
InstancePoolsToUseCount, the fleet selects the Spot capacity pools with the lowest price and
launches Spot Instances across the number of Spot capacity pools that you specify. If the allocation
strategy is capacity-optimized, the fleet launches replacement instances in the pool that has the
most available Spot Instance capacity. If the allocation strategy is diversified, the fleet distributes the
replacement Spot Instances across the remaining pools.

Choose the appropriate allocation strategy

You can optimize your fleet based on your use case.

If your fleet runs workloads that may have a higher cost of interruption associated with restarting work
and checkpointing, then use the capacity-optimized strategy. This strategy offers the possibility of
fewer interruptions, which can lower the overall cost of your workload. Use the capacity-optimized-
prioritized strategy for workloads where the possibility of disruption must be minimized and the
preference for certain instance types matters.

If your fleet is small or runs for a short time, the probability that your Spot Instances will be interrupted
is low, even with all of the instances in a single Spot capacity pool. Therefore, the lowest-price
strategy is likely to meet your needs while providing the lowest cost.

If your fleet is large or runs for a long time, you can improve the availability of your fleet by distributing
the Spot Instances across multiple pools using the diversified strategy. For example, if your EC2 Fleet
specifies 10 pools and a target capacity of 100 instances, the fleet launches 10 Spot Instances in each
pool. If the Spot price for one pool exceeds your maximum price for this pool, only 10% of your fleet is
affected. Using this strategy also makes your fleet less sensitive to increases in the Spot price in any one
pool over time. With the diversified strategy, the EC2 Fleet does not launch Spot Instances into any
pools with a Spot price that is equal to or higher than the On-Demand price.

To create a cheap and diversified fleet, use the lowest-price strategy in combination with
InstancePoolsToUseCount. You can use a low or high number of Spot capacity pools across which
to allocate your Spot Instances. For example, if you run batch processing, we recommend specifying a
low number of Spot capacity pools (for example, InstancePoolsToUseCount=2) to ensure that your
queue always has compute capacity while maximizing savings. If you run a web service, we recommend
specifying a high number of Spot capacity pools (for example, InstancePoolsToUseCount=10) to
minimize the impact if a Spot capacity pool becomes temporarily unavailable.

Configure EC2 Fleet for cost optimization

To optimize the costs for your use of Spot Instances, specify the lowest-price allocation strategy so
that EC2 Fleet automatically deploys the least expensive combination of instance types and Availability
Zones based on the current Spot price.

For On-Demand Instance target capacity, EC2 Fleet always selects the cheapest instance type based on
the public On-Demand price, while continuing to follow the allocation strategy (either lowest-price,
capacity-optimized, or diversified) for Spot Instances.

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Configure EC2 Fleet for cost optimization and diversification

To create a fleet of Spot Instances that is both cheap and diversified, use the lowest-price allocation
strategy in combination with InstancePoolsToUseCount. EC2 Fleet automatically deploys the least
expensive combination of instance types and Availability Zones based on the current Spot price across
the number of Spot capacity pools that you specify. This combination can be used to avoid the most
expensive Spot Instances.

For example, if your target capacity is 10 Spot Instances, and you specify 2 Spot capacity pools (for
InstancePoolsToUseCount), EC2 Fleet will draw on the two cheapest pools to fulfill your Spot
capacity.

Note that EC2 Fleet attempts to draw Spot Instances from the number of pools that you specify on
a best effort basis. If a pool runs out of Spot capacity before fulfilling your target capacity, EC2 Fleet
will continue to fulfill your request by drawing from the next cheapest pool. To ensure that your
target capacity is met, you might receive Spot Instances from more than the number of pools that you
specified. Similarly, if most of the pools have no Spot capacity, you might receive your full target capacity
from fewer than the number of pools that you specified.

Configure EC2 Fleet for capacity optimization

To launch Spot Instances into the most-available Spot capacity pools, use the capacity-optimized
allocation strategy. For an example configuration, see Example 9: Launch Spot Instances in a capacity-
optimized fleet (p. 791).

You can also express your pool priorities by using the capacity-optimized-prioritized
allocation strategy and then setting the order of instance types to use from highest to lowest priority.
Using priorities is supported only if your fleet uses a launch template. Note that when you set
priorities for capacity-optimized-prioritized, the same priorities are also applied to your
On-Demand Instances if the On-Demand AllocationStrategy is set to prioritized. For an
example configuration, see Example 10: Launch Spot Instances in a capacity-optimized fleet with
priorities (p. 791).

Configure EC2 Fleet for On-Demand backup

If you have urgent, unpredictable scaling needs, such as a news website that must scale during a major
news event or game launch, we recommend that you specify alternative instance types for your On-
Demand Instances, in the event that your preferred option does not have sufficient available capacity.
For example, you might prefer c5.2xlarge On-Demand Instances, but if there is insufficient available
capacity, you'd be willing to use some c4.2xlarge instances during peak load. In this case, EC2 Fleet
attempts to fulfill all of your target capacity using c5.2xlarge instances, but if there is insufficient
capacity, it automatically launches c4.2xlarge instances to fulfill the target capacity.

Prioritize instance types for On-Demand capacity

When EC2 Fleet attempts to fulfill your On-Demand capacity, it defaults to launching the lowest-
priced instance type first. If AllocationStrategy is set to prioritized, EC2 Fleet uses priority to
determine which instance type to use first in fulfilling On-Demand capacity. The priority is assigned to
the launch template override, and the highest priority is launched first.

For example, you have configured three launch template overrides, each with a different instance type:
c3.large, c4.large, and c5.large. The On-Demand price for c5.large is less than the price for
c4.large. c3.large is the cheapest. If you do not use priority to determine the order, the fleet fulfills
On-Demand capacity by starting with c3.large, and then c5.large. Because you often have unused
Reserved Instances for c4.large, you can set the launch template override priority so that the order is
c4.large, c3.large, and then c5.large.

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Use Capacity Reservations for On-Demand Instances

With On-Demand Capacity Reservations, you can reserve compute capacity for your On-Demand
Instances in a specified Availability Zone for any duration. You can configure an EC2 Fleet to use the
Capacity Reservations first when launching On-Demand Instances.

Capacity Reservations are configured as either open or targeted. EC2 Fleet can launch On-Demand
Instances into either open or targeted Capacity Reservations, as follows:

• If a Capacity Reservation is open, On-Demand Instances that have matching attributes automatically
run in the reserved capacity.
• If a Capacity Reservation is targeted, On-Demand Instances must specifically target it to run in the
reserved capacity. This is useful for using up specific Capacity Reservations or for controlling when to
use specific Capacity Reservations.

If you use targeted Capacity Reservations in your EC2 Fleet, there must be enough Capacity
Reservations to fulfil the target On-Demand capacity, otherwise the launch fails. To avoid a launch
fail, rather add the targeted Capacity Reservations to a resource group, and then target the resource
group. The resource group doesn't need to have enough Capacity Reservations; if it runs out of Capacity
Reservations before the target On-Demand capacity is fulfilled, the fleet can launch the remaining target
capacity into regular On-Demand capacity.

To use Capacity Reservations with EC2 Fleet

1. Configure the fleet as type instant. You can't use Capacity Reservations for fleets of other types.
2. Configure the usage strategy for Capacity Reservations as use-capacity-reservations-first.
3. In the launch template, for Capacity reservation, choose either Open or Target by group. If you
choose Target by group, specify the Capacity Reservations resource group ID.

When the fleet attempts to fulfil the On-Demand capacity, if it finds that multiple instance pools have
unused matching Capacity Reservations, it determines the pools in which to launch the On-Demand
Instances based on the On-Demand allocation strategy (lowest-price or prioritized).

For examples of how to configure a fleet to use Capacity Reservations to fulfil On-Demand capacity, see
EC2 Fleet example configurations (p. 780), specifically Examples 5 through 7.

For information about configuring Capacity Reservations, see On-Demand Capacity Reservations (p. 370)
and the On-Demand Capacity Reservation FAQs.

Capacity Rebalancing
You can configure EC2 Fleet to launch a replacement Spot Instance when Amazon EC2 emits a rebalance
recommendation to notify you that a Spot Instance is at an elevated risk of interruption. Capacity
Rebalancing helps you maintain workload availability by proactively augmenting your fleet with a new
Spot Instance before a running instance is interrupted by Amazon EC2. For more information, see EC2
instance rebalance recommendations (p. 316).

To configure EC2 Fleet to launch a replacement Spot Instance, use the create-fleet (AWS CLI) command
and the relevant parameters in the MaintenanceStrategies structure. For more information, see the
example launch configuration (p. 790).

Limitations

• Only available for fleets of type maintain.

• When the fleet is running, you can't modify the Capacity Rebalancing setting. To change the Capacity
Rebalancing setting, you must delete the fleet and create a new fleet.

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Considerations

If you configure an EC2 Fleet for Capacity Rebalancing, consider the following:

EC2 Fleet can launch new replacement Spot Instances until fulfilled capacity is double target
capacity

When an EC2 Fleet is configured for Capacity Rebalancing, the fleet attempts to launch a new
replacement Spot Instance for every Spot Instance that receives a rebalance recommendation.
After a Spot Instance receives a rebalance recommendation, it is no longer counted as part of the
fulfilled capacity, and EC2 Fleet does not automatically terminate the instance. This gives you the
opportunity to perform rebalancing actions (p. 317) on the instance. Thereafter, you can terminate
the instance, or you can leave it running.

If your fleet reaches double its target capacity, it stops launching new replacement instances even if
the replacement instances themselves receive a rebalance recommendation.

For example, you create an EC2 Fleet with a target capacity of 100 Spot Instances. All the Spot
Instances receive a rebalance recommendation, which causes EC2 Fleet to launch 100 replacement
Spot Instances. This raises the number of fulfilled Spot Instances to 200, which is double the target
capacity. Some of the replacement instances receive a rebalance recommendation, but no more
replacement instances are launched because the fleet cannot exceed double its target capacity.

Note that you are charged for all of the instances while they are running.
We recommend that you manually terminate Spot Instances that receive a rebalance
recommendation

If you configure your EC2 Fleet for Capacity Rebalancing, we recommend that you monitor the
rebalance recommendation signal that is received by the Spot Instances in the fleet. By monitoring
the signal, you can quickly perform rebalancing actions (p. 317) on the affected instances
before Amazon EC2 interrupts them, and then you can manually terminate them. If you do not
terminate the instances, you continue paying for them while they are running. EC2 Fleet does not
automatically terminate the instances that receive a rebalance recommendation.

You can set up notifications using Amazon EventBridge or instance metadata. For more information,
see Monitor rebalance recommendation signals (p. 317).
EC2 Fleet does not count instances that receive a rebalance recommendation when calculating
fulfilled capacity during scale in or out

If your EC2 Fleet is configured for Capacity Rebalancing, and you change the target capacity to either
scale in or scale out, the fleet does not count the instances that are marked for rebalance as part of
the fulfilled capacity, as follows:
• Scale in – If you decrease your desired target capacity, the fleet terminates instances that are
not marked for rebalance until the desired capacity is reached. The instances that are marked for
rebalance are not counted towards the fulfilled capacity.

For example, you create an EC2 Fleet with a target capacity of 100 Spot Instances. 10 instances
receive a rebalance recommendation, so the fleet launches 10 new replacement instances,
resulting in a fulfilled capacity of 110 instances. You then reduce the target capacity to 50 (scale
in), but the fulfilled capacity is actually 60 instances because the 10 instances that are marked for
rebalance are not terminated by the fleet. You need to manually terminate these instances, or you
can leave them running.
• Scale out – If you increase your desired target capacity, the fleet launches new instances until the
desired capacity is reached. The instances that are marked for rebalance are not counted towards
the fulfilled capacity.

For example, you create an EC2 Fleet with a target capacity of 100 Spot Instances. 10 instances
receive a rebalance recommendation, so the fleet launches 10 new replacement instances,

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resulting in a fulfilled capacity of 110 instances. You then increase the target capacity to 200
(scale out), but the fulfilled capacity is actually 210 instances because the 10 instances that are
marked for rebalance are not counted by the fleet as part of the target capacity. You need to
manually terminate these instances, or you can leave them running.
Provide as many Spot capacity pools in the request as possible

Configure your EC2 Fleet to use multiple instance types and Availability Zones. This provides the
flexibility to launch Spot Instances in various Spot capacity pools. For more information, see Be
flexible about instance types and Availability Zones (p. 288).
Configure your EC2 Fleet to use the most optimal Spot capacity pools

Use the capacity-optimized allocation strategy to ensure that replacement Spot Instances
are launched in the most optimal Spot capacity pools. For more information, see Use the capacity
optimized allocation strategy (p. 288).

Maximum price overrides

Each EC2 Fleet can either include a global maximum price, or use the default (the On-Demand price). The
fleet uses this as the default maximum price for each of its launch specifications.

You can optionally specify a maximum price in one or more launch specifications. This price is specific
to the launch specification. If a launch specification includes a specific price, the EC2 Fleet uses this
maximum price, overriding the global maximum price. Any other launch specifications that do not
include a specific maximum price still use the global maximum price.

Control spending
EC2 Fleet stops launching instances when it has met one of the following parameters: the
TotalTargetCapacity or the MaxTotalPrice (the maximum amount you’re willing to pay). To
control the amount you pay per hour for your fleet, you can specify the MaxTotalPrice. When the
maximum total price is reached, EC2 Fleet stops launching instances even if it hasn’t met the target
capacity.

The following examples show two different scenarios. In the first, EC2 Fleet stops launching instances
when it has met the target capacity. In the second, EC2 Fleet stops launching instances when it has
reached the maximum amount you’re willing to pay (MaxTotalPrice).

Example: Stop launching instances when target capacity is reached

Given a request for m4.large On-Demand Instances, where:

• On-Demand Price: $0.10 per hour

• OnDemandTargetCapacity: 10
• MaxTotalPrice: $1.50

EC2 Fleet launches 10 On-Demand Instances because the total of $1.00 (10 instances x $0.10) does not
exceed the MaxTotalPrice of $1.50 for On-Demand Instances.

Example: Stop launching instances when maximum total price is reached

Given a request for m4.large On-Demand Instances, where:

• On-Demand Price: $0.10 per hour

• OnDemandTargetCapacity: 10
• MaxTotalPrice: $0.80

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If EC2 Fleet launches the On-Demand target capacity (10 On-Demand Instances), the total cost per
hour would be $1.00. This is more than the amount ($0.80) specified for MaxTotalPrice for On-
Demand Instances. To prevent spending more than you're willing to pay, EC2 Fleet launches only 8 On-
Demand Instances (below the On-Demand target capacity) because launching more would exceed the
MaxTotalPrice for On-Demand Instances.

EC2 Fleet instance weighting

When you create an EC2 Fleet, you can define the capacity units that each instance type would
contribute to your application's performance. You can then adjust your maximum price for each launch
specification by using instance weighting.

By default, the price that you specify is per instance hour. When you use the instance weighting feature,
the price that you specify is per unit hour. You can calculate your price per unit hour by dividing your
price for an instance type by the number of units that it represents. EC2 Fleet calculates the number of
instances to launch by dividing the target capacity by the instance weight. If the result isn't an integer,
the fleet rounds it up to the next integer, so that the size of your fleet is not below its target capacity.
The fleet can select any pool that you specify in your launch specification, even if the capacity of the
instances launched exceeds the requested target capacity.

The following table includes examples of calculations to determine the price per unit for an EC2 Fleet
with a target capacity of 10.

Instance Instance Target Number of Price per Price per unit hour
type weight capacity instances instance
launched hour

r3.xlarge 2 10 5 $0.05 $0.025

(10 divided (.05 divided by 2)

by 2)

r3.8xlarge 8 10 2 $0.10 $0.0125

(10 divided (.10 divided by 8)

by 8, result
rounded up)

Use EC2 Fleet instance weighting as follows to provision the target capacity that you want in the pools
with the lowest price per unit at the time of fulfillment:

1. Set the target capacity for your EC2 Fleet either in instances (the default) or in the units of your
choice, such as virtual CPUs, memory, storage, or throughput.
2. Set the price per unit.
3. For each launch specification, specify the weight, which is the number of units that the instance type
represents toward the target capacity.

Instance weighting example

Consider an EC2 Fleet request with the following configuration:

• A target capacity of 24
• A launch specification with an instance type r3.2xlarge and a weight of 6
• A launch specification with an instance type c3.xlarge and a weight of 5

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The weights represent the number of units that instance type represents toward the target capacity. If
the first launch specification provides the lowest price per unit (price for r3.2xlarge per instance hour
divided by 6), the EC2 Fleet would launch four of these instances (24 divided by 6).

If the second launch specification provides the lowest price per unit (price for c3.xlarge per instance
hour divided by 5), the EC2 Fleet would launch five of these instances (24 divided by 5, result rounded
up).

Instance weighting and allocation strategy

Consider an EC2 Fleet request with the following configuration:

• A target capacity of 30 Spot Instances

• A launch specification with an instance type c3.2xlarge and a weight of 8
• A launch specification with an instance type m3.xlarge and a weight of 8
• A launch specification with an instance type r3.xlarge and a weight of 8

The EC2 Fleet would launch four instances (30 divided by 8, result rounded up). With the lowest-
price strategy, all four instances come from the pool that provides the lowest price per unit. With
the diversified strategy, the fleet launches one instance in each of the three pools, and the fourth
instance in whichever of the three pools provides the lowest price per unit.

Work with EC2 Fleets

To start using an EC2 Fleet, you create a request that includes the total target capacity, On-Demand
capacity, Spot capacity, one or more launch specifications for the instances, and the maximum price that
you are willing to pay. The fleet request must include a launch template that defines the information
that the fleet needs to launch an instance, such as an AMI, instance type, subnet or Availability Zone, and
one or more security groups. You can specify launch specification overrides for the instance type, subnet,
Availability Zone, and maximum price you're willing to pay, and you can assign weighted capacity to each
launch specification override.

If your fleet includes Spot Instances, Amazon EC2 can attempt to maintain your fleet target capacity as
Spot prices change.

An EC2 Fleet request of type maintain or request remains active until it expires or you delete it. When
you delete a fleet of type maintain or request, you can specify whether deletion terminates the
instances in that fleet.

Contents
• EC2 Fleet request states (p. 701)
• EC2 Fleet prerequisites (p. 702)
• EC2 Fleet health checks (p. 705)
• Generate an EC2 Fleet JSON configuration file (p. 705)
• Create an EC2 Fleet (p. 710)
• Tag an EC2 Fleet (p. 713)
• Monitor your EC2 Fleet (p. 714)
• Modify an EC2 Fleet (p. 716)
• Delete an EC2 Fleet (p. 716)

EC2 Fleet request states

An EC2 Fleet request can be in one of the following states:

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submitted

The EC2 Fleet request is being evaluated and Amazon EC2 is preparing to launch the target number
of instances. The request can include On-Demand Instances, Spot Instances, or both.
active

The EC2 Fleet request has been validated and Amazon EC2 is attempting to maintain the target
number of running instances. The request remains in this state until it is modified or deleted.
modifying

The EC2 Fleet request is being modified. The request remains in this state until the modification is
fully processed or the request is deleted. Only a maintain fleet type can be modified. This state
does not apply to other request types.
deleted_running

The EC2 Fleet request is deleted and does not launch additional instances. Its existing instances
continue to run until they are interrupted or terminated manually. The request remains in this state
until all instances are interrupted or terminated. Only an EC2 Fleet of type maintain or request
can have running instances after the EC2 Fleet request is deleted. A deleted instant fleet with
running instances is not supported. This state does not apply to instant fleets.
deleted_terminating

The EC2 Fleet request is deleted and its instances are terminating. The request remains in this state
until all instances are terminated.
deleted

The EC2 Fleet is deleted and has no running instances. The request is deleted two days after its
instances are terminated.

The following illustration represents the transitions between the EC2 Fleet request states. If you exceed
your fleet limits, the request is deleted immediately.

EC2 Fleet prerequisites

To create an EC2 Fleet, the following prerequisites must be in place:
• Launch template (p. 703)

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• Service-linked role for EC2 Fleet (p. 703)

• Grant access to customer managed keys for use with encrypted AMIs and EBS snapshots (p. 703)
• Permissions for EC2 Fleet IAM users (p. 704)

Launch template
A launch template includes information about the instances to launch, such as the instance type,
Availability Zone, and the maximum price that you are willing to pay. For more information, see Launch
an instance from a launch template (p. 401).

Service-linked role for EC2 Fleet

The AWSServiceRoleForEC2Fleet role grants the EC2 Fleet permission to request, launch, terminate,
and tag instances on your behalf. Amazon EC2 uses this service-linked role to complete the following
actions:

• ec2:RunInstances – Launch instances.

• ec2:RequestSpotInstances – Request Spot Instances.
• ec2:TerminateInstances – Terminate instances.
• ec2:DescribeImages – Describe Amazon Machine Images (AMIs) for the Spot Instances.
• ec2:DescribeInstanceStatus – Describe the status of the Spot Instances.
• ec2:DescribeSubnets – Describe the subnets for Spot Instances.
• ec2:CreateTags – Add tags to the EC2 Fleet, instances, and volumes.

Ensure that this role exists before you use the AWS CLI or an API to create an EC2 Fleet.
Note
An instant EC2 Fleet does not require this role.

To create the role, use the IAM console as follows.

To create the AWSServiceRoleForEC2Fleet role for EC2 Fleet

1. Open the IAM console at https://console.aws.amazon.com/iam/.

2. In the navigation pane, choose Roles, and then choose Create role.
3. For Select type of trusted entity, choose AWS service.
4. For Choose the service that will use this role, choose EC2 - Fleet, and then choose Next:
Permissions, Next: Tags, and Next: Review.
5. On the Review page, choose Create role.

If you no longer need to use EC2 Fleet, we recommend that you delete the AWSServiceRoleForEC2Fleet
role. After this role is deleted from your account, you can create the role again if you create another fleet.

For more information, see Using service-linked roles in the IAM User Guide.

Grant access to customer managed keys for use with encrypted AMIs and EBS
snapshots
If you specify an encrypted AMI (p. 130) or an encrypted Amazon EBS snapshot (p. 1340) in your EC2
Fleet and you use an AWS KMS key for encryption, you must grant the AWSServiceRoleForEC2Fleet role
permission to use the customer managed key so that Amazon EC2 can launch instances on your behalf.
To do this, you must add a grant to the customer managed key, as shown in the following procedure.

When providing permissions, grants are an alternative to key policies. For more information, see Using
grants and Using key policies in AWS KMS in the AWS Key Management Service Developer Guide.

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To grant the AWSServiceRoleForEC2Fleet role permissions to use the customer managed key

• Use the create-grant command to add a grant to the customer managed key and to specify the
principal (the AWSServiceRoleForEC2Fleet service-linked role) that is given permission to perform
the operations that the grant permits. The customer managed key is specified by the key-id
parameter and the ARN of the customer managed key. The principal is specified by the grantee-
principal parameter and the ARN of the AWSServiceRoleForEC2Fleet service-linked role.

aws kms create-grant \

--region us-east-1 \
--key-id arn:aws:kms:us-
east-1:444455556666:key/1234abcd-12ab-34cd-56ef-1234567890ab \
--grantee-principal arn:aws:iam::111122223333:role/AWSServiceRoleForEC2Fleet \
--operations "Decrypt" "Encrypt" "GenerateDataKey"
"GenerateDataKeyWithoutPlaintext" "CreateGrant" "DescribeKey" "ReEncryptFrom"
"ReEncryptTo"

Permissions for EC2 Fleet IAM users

If your IAM users will create or manage an EC2 Fleet, be sure to grant them the required permissions as
follows.

To grant an IAM user permissions for EC2 Fleet

1. Open the IAM console at https://console.aws.amazon.com/iam/.

2. In the navigation pane, choose Policies.
3. Choose Create policy.
4. On the Create policy page, choose the JSON tab, replace the text with the following, and choose
Review policy.

{
"Version": "2012-10-17",
"Statement": [
{
"Effect": "Allow",
"Action": [
"ec2:*"
],
"Resource": "*"
},
{
"Effect": "Allow",
"Action": [
"iam:ListRoles",
"iam:PassRole",
"iam:ListInstanceProfiles"
],
"Resource":"arn:aws:iam::123456789012:role/DevTeam*"
}
]
}

The ec2:* grants an IAM user permission to call all Amazon EC2 API actions. To limit the user to
specific Amazon EC2 API actions, specify those actions instead.

An IAM user must have permission to call the iam:ListRoles action to enumerate
existing IAM roles, the iam:PassRole action to specify the EC2 Fleet role, and the
iam:ListInstanceProfiles action to enumerate existing instance profiles.

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(Optional) To enable an IAM user to create roles or instance profiles using the IAM console, you must
also add the following actions to the policy:

• iam:AddRoleToInstanceProfile
• iam:AttachRolePolicy
• iam:CreateInstanceProfile
• iam:CreateRole
• iam:GetRole
• iam:ListPolicies
5. On the Review policy page, enter a policy name and description, and choose Create policy.
6. In the navigation pane, choose Users and select the user.
7. On the Permissions tab, choose Add permissions.
8. Choose Attach existing policies directly. Select the policy that you created earlier and choose Next:
Review.
9. Choose Add permissions.

EC2 Fleet health checks

EC2 Fleet checks the health status of the instances in the fleet every two minutes. The health status of
an instance is either healthy or unhealthy.

EC2 Fleet determines the health status of an instance by using the status checks provided by Amazon
EC2. An instance is determined as unhealthy when the status of either the instance status check or the
system status check is impaired for three consecutive health status checks. For more information, see
Status checks for your instances (p. 821).

You can configure your fleet to replace unhealthy Spot Instances. After setting
ReplaceUnhealthyInstances to true, a Spot Instance is replaced when it is reported as unhealthy.
The fleet can go below its target capacity for up to a few minutes while an unhealthy Spot Instance is
being replaced.

Requirements

• Health check replacement is supported only for EC2 Fleets that maintain a target capacity (fleets of
type maintain), and not for fleets of type request or instant.
• Health check replacement is supported only for Spot Instances. This feature is not supported for On-
Demand Instances.
• You can configure your EC2 Fleet to replace unhealthy instances only when you create it.
• IAM users can use health check replacement only if they have permission to call the
ec2:DescribeInstanceStatus action.

To configure an EC2 Fleet to replace unhealthy Spot Instances

1. Follow the steps for creating an EC2 Fleet. For more information, see Create an EC2 Fleet (p. 710).
2. To configure the fleet to replace unhealthy Spot Instances, in the JSON file, for
ReplaceUnhealthyInstances, enter true.

Generate an EC2 Fleet JSON configuration file

To create an EC2 Fleet, you need only specify the launch template, total target capacity, and whether
the default purchasing option is On-Demand or Spot. If you do not specify a parameter, the fleet uses

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the default value. To view the full list of fleet configuration parameters, you can generate a JSON file as
follows.

To generate a JSON file with all possible EC2 Fleet parameters using the command line

• Use the create-fleet (AWS CLI) command and the --generate-cli-skeleton parameter to
generate an EC2 Fleet JSON file:

aws ec2 create-fleet \

--generate-cli-skeleton

The following EC2 Fleet parameters are available:

{
"DryRun": true,
"ClientToken": "",
"SpotOptions": {
"AllocationStrategy": "lowest-price",
"InstanceInterruptionBehavior": "hibernate",
"InstancePoolsToUseCount": 0,
"SingleInstanceType": true,
"SingleAvailabilityZone": true,
"MaxTotalPrice": 0,
"MinTargetCapacity": 0
},
"OnDemandOptions": {
"AllocationStrategy": "prioritized",
"SingleInstanceType": true,
"SingleAvailabilityZone": true,
"MaxTotalPrice": 0,
"MinTargetCapacity": 0
},
"ExcessCapacityTerminationPolicy": "termination",
"LaunchTemplateConfigs": [
{
"LaunchTemplateSpecification": {
"LaunchTemplateId": "",
"LaunchTemplateName": "",
"Version": ""
},
"Overrides": [
{
"InstanceType": "t2.micro",
"MaxPrice": "",
"SubnetId": "",
"AvailabilityZone": "",
"WeightedCapacity": null,
"Priority": null,
"Placement": {
"AvailabilityZone": "",
"Affinity": "",
"GroupName": "",
"PartitionNumber": 0,
"HostId": "",
"Tenancy": "dedicated",
"SpreadDomain": ""
}
]
}
],
"TargetCapacitySpecification": {
"TotalTargetCapacity": 0,
"OnDemandTargetCapacity": 0,

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"SpotTargetCapacity": 0,
"DefaultTargetCapacityType": "spot"
},
"TerminateInstancesWithExpiration": true,
"Type": "maintain",
"ValidFrom": "1970-01-01T00:00:00",
"ValidUntil": "1970-01-01T00:00:00",
"ReplaceUnhealthyInstances": true,
"TagSpecifications": [
{
"ResourceType": "fleet",
"Tags": [
{
"Key": "",
"Value": ""
}
]
}
]
}

EC2 Fleet JSON configuration file reference

Note
Use lowercase for all parameter values; otherwise, you get an error when Amazon EC2 uses the
JSON file to launch the EC2 Fleet.

AllocationStrategy (for SpotOptions)

(Optional) Indicates how to allocate the Spot Instance target capacity across the Spot capacity
pools specified by the EC2 Fleet. Valid values are lowest-price, diversified, capacity-
optimized, capacity-optimized-prioritized. The default is lowest-price. Specify the
allocation strategy that meets your needs. For more information, see Allocation strategies for Spot
Instances (p. 694).
InstanceInterruptionBehavior

(Optional) The behavior when a Spot Instance is interrupted. Valid values are hibernate, stop, and
terminate. By default, the Spot service terminates Spot Instances when they are interrupted. If
the fleet type is maintain, you can specify that the Spot service hibernates or stops Spot Instances
when they are interrupted.
InstancePoolsToUseCount

The number of Spot capacity pools across which to allocate your target Spot capacity. Valid only
when Spot AllocationStrategy is set to lowest-price. EC2 Fleet selects the cheapest Spot
capacity pools and evenly allocates your target Spot capacity across the number of Spot capacity
pools that you specify.
SingleInstanceType

Indicates that the fleet uses a single instance type to launch all Spot Instances in the fleet.
SingleAvailabilityZone

Indicates that the fleet launches all Spot Instances into a single Availability Zone.
MaxTotalPrice

The maximum amount per hour for Spot Instances that you're willing to pay.
MinTargetCapacity

The minimum target capacity for Spot Instances in the fleet. If the minimum target capacity is not
reached, the fleet launches no instances.

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AllocationStrategy (for OnDemandOptions)

The order of the launch template overrides to use in fulfilling On-Demand capacity. If you specify
lowest-price, EC2 Fleet uses price to determine the order, launching the lowest price first. If you
specify prioritized, EC2 Fleet uses the priority that you assigned to each launch template override,
launching the highest priority first. If you do not specify a value, EC2 Fleet defaults to lowest-
price.
SingleInstanceType

Indicates that the fleet uses a single instance type to launch all On-Demand Instances in the fleet.
SingleAvailabilityZone

Indicates that the fleet launches all On-Demand Instances into a single Availability Zone.
MaxTotalPrice

The maximum amount per hour for On-Demand Instances that you're willing to pay.
MinTargetCapacity

The minimum target capacity for On-Demand Instances in the fleet. If the minimum target capacity
is not reached, the fleet launches no instances.
ExcessCapacityTerminationPolicy

(Optional) Indicates whether running instances should be terminated if the total target capacity
of the EC2 Fleet is decreased below the current size of the EC2 Fleet. Valid values are no-
termination and termination.
LaunchTemplateId

The ID of the launch template to use. You must specify either the launch template ID or launch
template name. The launch template must specify an Amazon Machine Image (AMI). For information
about creating launch templates, see Launch an instance from a launch template (p. 401).
LaunchTemplateName

The name of the launch template to use. You must specify either the launch template ID or launch
template name. The launch template must specify an Amazon Machine Image (AMI). For more
information, see Launch an instance from a launch template (p. 401).
Version

The launch template version number, $Latest, or $Default. You must specify a value, otherwise
the request fails. If the value is $Latest, Amazon EC2 uses the latest version of the launch
template. If the value is $Default, Amazon EC2 uses the default version of the launch template. For
more information, see Modify a launch template (manage launch template versions) (p. 409).
InstanceType

(Optional) The instance type. If entered, this value overrides the launch template. The instance types
must have the minimum hardware specifications that you need (vCPUs, memory, or storage).
MaxPrice

(Optional) The maximum price per unit hour that you are willing to pay for a Spot Instance. If
entered, this value overrides the launch template. You can use the default maximum price (the On-
Demand price) or specify the maximum price that you are willing to pay. Your Spot Instances are
not launched if your maximum price is lower than the Spot price for the instance types that you
specified.
SubnetId

(Optional) The ID of the subnet in which to launch the instances. If entered, this value overrides the
launch template.

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To create a new VPC, go the Amazon VPC console. When you are done, return to the JSON file and
enter the new subnet ID.
AvailabilityZone

(Optional) The Availability Zone in which to launch the instances. The default is to let AWS choose
the zones for your instances. If you prefer, you can specify specific zones. If entered, this value
overrides the launch template.

Specify one or more Availability Zones. If you have more than one subnet in a zone, specify the
appropriate subnet. To add subnets, go to the Amazon VPC console. When you are done, return to
the JSON file and enter the new subnet ID.
WeightedCapacity

(Optional) The number of units provided by the specified instance type. If entered, this value
overrides the launch template.
Priority

The priority for the launch template override. The highest priority is launched first.

If the On-Demand AllocationStrategy is set to prioritized, EC2 Fleet uses priority to determine
which launch template override to use first in fulfilling On-Demand capacity.

If the Spot AllocationStrategy is set to capacity-optimized-prioritized, EC2 Fleet uses

priority on a best-effort basis to determine which launch template override to use first in fulfilling
Spot capacity, but optimizes for capacity first.

Valid values are whole numbers starting at 0. The lower the number, the higher the priority. If no
number is set, the launch template override has the lowest priority. You can set the same priority for
different launch template overrides.
TotalTargetCapacity

The number of instances to launch. You can choose instances or performance characteristics that are
important to your application workload, such as vCPUs, memory, or storage. If the request type is
maintain, you can specify a target capacity of 0 and add capacity later.
OnDemandTargetCapacity

(Optional) The number of On-Demand Instances to launch. This number must be less than the
TotalTargetCapacity.
SpotTargetCapacity

(Optional) The number of Spot Instances to launch. This number must be less than the
TotalTargetCapacity.
DefaultTargetCapacityType

If the value for TotalTargetCapacity is higher than the combined values for
OnDemandTargetCapacity and SpotTargetCapacity, the difference is launched as the instance
purchasing option specified here. Valid values are on-demand or spot.
TerminateInstancesWithExpiration

(Optional) By default, Amazon EC2 terminates your instances when the EC2 Fleet request expires.
The default value is true. To keep them running after your request expires, do not enter a value for
this parameter.
Type

(Optional) The type of request. Valid values are instant, request, and maintain. The default
value is maintain.

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• instant – The EC2 Fleet submits a synchronous one-time request for your desired capacity, and
returns errors for any instances that could not be launched.
• request – The EC2 Fleet submits an asynchronous one-time request for your desired capacity, but
does submit Spot requests in alternative Spot capacity pools if Spot capacity is unavailable, and
does not maintain Spot capacity if Spot Instances are interrupted.
• maintain – The EC2 Fleet submits an asynchronous request for your desired capacity, and
continues to maintain your desired Spot capacity by replenishing interrupted Spot Instances.

For more information, see EC2 Fleet request types (p. 675).
ValidFrom

(Optional) To create a request that is valid only during a specific time period, enter a start date.
ValidUntil

(Optional) To create a request that is valid only during a specific time period, enter an end date.
ReplaceUnhealthyInstances

(Optional) To replace unhealthy instances in an EC2 Fleet that is configured to maintain the fleet,
enter true. Otherwise, leave this parameter empty.
TagSpecifications

(Optional) The key-value pair for tagging the EC2 Fleet request on creation. The value for
ResourceType must be fleet, otherwise the fleet request fails. To tag instances at launch, specify
the tags in the launch template (p. 403). For information about tagging after launch, see Tag your
resources (p. 1464).

Create an EC2 Fleet

When you create an EC2 Fleet, you must specify a launch template that includes information about the
instances to launch, such as the instance type, Availability Zone, and the maximum price you are willing
to pay.

You can create an EC2 Fleet that includes multiple launch specifications that override the launch
template. The launch specifications can vary by instance type, Availability Zone, subnet, and maximum
price, and can include a different weighted capacity.

When you create an EC2 Fleet, use a JSON file to specify information about the instances to launch. For
more information, see EC2 Fleet JSON configuration file reference (p. 707).

EC2 Fleets can only be created using the AWS CLI.

To create an EC2 Fleet (AWS CLI)

• Use the create-fleet (AWS CLI) command to create an EC2 Fleet.

aws ec2 create-fleet \

--cli-input-json file://file_name.json

For example configuration files, see EC2 Fleet example configurations (p. 780).

The following is example output for a fleet of type request or maintain.

{
"FleetId": "fleet-12a34b55-67cd-8ef9-ba9b-9208dEXAMPLE"

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The following is example output for a fleet of type instant that launched the target capacity.

{
"FleetId": "fleet-12a34b55-67cd-8ef9-ba9b-9208dEXAMPLE",
"Errors": [],
"Instances": [
{
"LaunchTemplateAndOverrides": {
"LaunchTemplateSpecification": {
"LaunchTemplateId": "lt-01234a567b8910abcEXAMPLE",
"Version": "1"
},
"Overrides": {
"InstanceType": "c5.large",
"AvailabilityZone": "us-east-1a"
}
},
"Lifecycle": "on-demand",
"InstanceIds": [
"i-1234567890abcdef0",
"i-9876543210abcdef9"
],
"InstanceType": "c5.large",
"Platform": null
},
{
"LaunchTemplateAndOverrides": {
"LaunchTemplateSpecification": {
"LaunchTemplateId": "lt-01234a567b8910abcEXAMPLE",
"Version": "1"
},
"Overrides": {
"InstanceType": "c4.large",
"AvailabilityZone": "us-east-1a"
}
},
"Lifecycle": "on-demand",
"InstanceIds": [
"i-5678901234abcdef0",
"i-5432109876abcdef9"
],
"InstanceType": "c4.large",
"Platform": null
},
]
}

The following is example output for a fleet of type instant that launched part of the target capacity
with errors for instances that were not launched.

{
"FleetId": "fleet-12a34b55-67cd-8ef9-ba9b-9208dEXAMPLE",
"Errors": [
{
"LaunchTemplateAndOverrides": {
"LaunchTemplateSpecification": {
"LaunchTemplateId": "lt-01234a567b8910abcEXAMPLE",
"Version": "1"
},
"Overrides": {
"InstanceType": "c4.xlarge",

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"AvailabilityZone": "us-east-1a",
}
},
"Lifecycle": "on-demand",
"ErrorCode": "InsufficientInstanceCapacity",
"ErrorMessage": "",
"InstanceType": "c4.xlarge",
"Platform": null
},
],
"Instances": [
{
"LaunchTemplateAndOverrides": {
"LaunchTemplateSpecification": {
"LaunchTemplateId": "lt-01234a567b8910abcEXAMPLE",
"Version": "1"
},
"Overrides": {
"InstanceType": "c5.large",
"AvailabilityZone": "us-east-1a"
}
},
"Lifecycle": "on-demand",
"InstanceIds": [
"i-1234567890abcdef0",
"i-9876543210abcdef9"
],
"InstanceType": "c5.large",
"Platform": null
},
]
}

The following is example output for a fleet of type instant that launched no instances.

{
"FleetId": "fleet-12a34b55-67cd-8ef9-ba9b-9208dEXAMPLE",
"Errors": [
{
"LaunchTemplateAndOverrides": {
"LaunchTemplateSpecification": {
"LaunchTemplateId": "lt-01234a567b8910abcEXAMPLE",
"Version": "1"
},
"Overrides": {
"InstanceType": "c4.xlarge",
"AvailabilityZone": "us-east-1a",
}
},
"Lifecycle": "on-demand",
"ErrorCode": "InsufficientCapacity",
"ErrorMessage": "",
"InstanceType": "c4.xlarge",
"Platform": null
},
{
"LaunchTemplateAndOverrides": {
"LaunchTemplateSpecification": {
"LaunchTemplateId": "lt-01234a567b8910abcEXAMPLE",
"Version": "1"
},
"Overrides": {
"InstanceType": "c5.large",
"AvailabilityZone": "us-east-1a",
}

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},
"Lifecycle": "on-demand",
"ErrorCode": "InsufficientCapacity",
"ErrorMessage": "",
"InstanceType": "c5.large",
"Platform": null
},
],
"Instances": []
}

Tag an EC2 Fleet

To help categorize and manage your EC2 Fleet requests, you can tag them with custom metadata. You
can assign a tag to an EC2 Fleet request when you create it, or afterward.

When you tag a fleet request, the instances and volumes that are launched by the fleet are not
automatically tagged. You need to explicitly tag the instances and volumes launched by the fleet. You
can choose to assign tags to only the fleet request, or to only the instances launched by the fleet, or to
only the volumes attached to the instances launched by the fleet, or to all three.
Note
For instant fleet types, you can tag volumes that are attached to On-Demand Instances
and Spot Instances. For request or maintain fleet types, you can only tag volumes that are
attached to On-Demand Instances.

For more information about how tags work, see Tag your Amazon EC2 resources (p. 1463).

Prerequisite

Grant the IAM user the permission to tag resources. For more information, see Example: Tag
resources (p. 1111).

To grant an IAM user the permission to tag resources

Create a IAM policy that includes the following:

• The ec2:CreateTags action. This grants the IAM user permission to create tags.
• The ec2:CreateFleet action. This grants the IAM user permission to create an EC2 Fleet request.
• For Resource, we recommend that you specify "*". This allows users to tag all resource types.

{
"Version": "2012-10-17",
"Statement": [
{
"Sid": "TagEC2FleetRequest",
"Effect": "Allow",
"Action": [
"ec2:CreateTags",
"ec2:CreateFleet"
],
"Resource": "*"
}

Important
We currently do not support resource-level permissions for the create-fleet resource. If you
specify create-fleet as a resource, you will get an unauthorized exception when you try to
tag the fleet. The following example illustrates how not to set the policy.

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{
"Effect": "Allow",
"Action": [
"ec2:CreateTags",
"ec2:CreateFleet"
],
"Resource": "arn:aws:ec2:us-east-1:111122223333:create-fleet/*"
}

To tag a new EC2 Fleet request

To tag an EC2 Fleet request when you create it, specify the key-value pair in the JSON file (p. 705) used
to create the fleet. The value for ResourceType must be fleet. If you specify another value, the fleet
request fails.

To tag instances and volumes launched by an EC2 Fleet

To tag instances and volumes when they are launched by the fleet, specify the tags in the launch
template (p. 403) that is referenced in the EC2 Fleet request.
Note
You can't tag volumes attached to Spot Instances that are launched by a request or maintain
fleet type.

To tag an existing EC2 Fleet request, instance, and volume (AWS CLI)

Use the create-tags command to tag existing resources.

aws ec2 create-tags \

--resources fleet-12a34b55-67cd-8ef9-
ba9b-9208dEXAMPLE i-1234567890abcdef0 vol-1234567890EXAMPLE \
--tags Key=purpose,Value=test

Monitor your EC2 Fleet

The EC2 Fleet launches On-Demand Instances when there is available capacity, and launches Spot
Instances when your maximum price exceeds the Spot price and capacity is available. The On-Demand
Instances run until you terminate them, and the Spot Instances run until they are interrupted or you
terminate them.

The returned list of running instances is refreshed periodically and might be out of date.

To monitor your EC2 Fleet (AWS CLI)

Use the describe-fleets command to describe your EC2 Fleets.

aws ec2 describe-fleets

The following is example output.

{
"Fleets": [
{
"Type": "maintain",
"FulfilledCapacity": 2.0,
"LaunchTemplateConfigs": [
{
"LaunchTemplateSpecification": {
"Version": "2",

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"LaunchTemplateId": "lt-07b3bc7625cdab851"
}
}
],
"TerminateInstancesWithExpiration": false,
"TargetCapacitySpecification": {
"OnDemandTargetCapacity": 0,
"SpotTargetCapacity": 2,
"TotalTargetCapacity": 2,
"DefaultTargetCapacityType": "spot"
},
"FulfilledOnDemandCapacity": 0.0,
"ActivityStatus": "fulfilled",
"FleetId": "fleet-76e13e99-01ef-4bd6-ba9b-9208de883e7f",
"ReplaceUnhealthyInstances": false,
"SpotOptions": {
"InstanceInterruptionBehavior": "terminate",
"InstancePoolsToUseCount": 1,
"AllocationStrategy": "lowest-price"
},
"FleetState": "active",
"ExcessCapacityTerminationPolicy": "termination",
"CreateTime": "2018-04-10T16:46:03.000Z"
}
]
}

Use the describe-fleet-instances command to describe the instances for the specified EC2 Fleet.

aws ec2 describe-fleet-instances \

--fleet-id fleet-73fbd2ce-aa30-494c-8788-1cee4EXAMPLE

{
"ActiveInstances": [
{
"InstanceId": "i-09cd595998cb3765e",
"InstanceHealth": "healthy",
"InstanceType": "m4.large",
"SpotInstanceRequestId": "sir-86k84j6p"
},
{
"InstanceId": "i-09cf95167ca219f17",
"InstanceHealth": "healthy",
"InstanceType": "m4.large",
"SpotInstanceRequestId": "sir-dvxi7fsm"
}
],
"FleetId": "fleet-73fbd2ce-aa30-494c-8788-1cee4EXAMPLE"
}

Use the describe-fleet-history command to describe the history for the specified EC2 Fleet for the
specified time.

aws ec2 describe-fleet-history --fleet-request-id fleet-73fbd2ce-

aa30-494c-8788-1cee4EXAMPLE --start-time 2018-04-10T00:00:00Z

{
"HistoryRecords": [],
"FleetId": "fleet-73fbd2ce-aa30-494c-8788-1cee4EXAMPLE",
"LastEvaluatedTime": "1970-01-01T00:00:00.000Z",
"StartTime": "2018-04-09T23:53:20.000Z"

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Modify an EC2 Fleet

You can modify an EC2 Fleet that is in the submitted or active state. When you modify a fleet, it
enters the modifying state.

You can only modify an EC2 Fleet that is of type maintain. You cannot modify an EC2 Fleet of type
request or instant.

You can modify the following parameters of an EC2 Fleet:

• target-capacity-specification – Increase or decrease the target capacity for

TotalTargetCapacity, OnDemandTargetCapacity, and SpotTargetCapacity.
• excess-capacity-termination-policy – Whether running instances should be terminated if the
total target capacity of the EC2 Fleet is decreased below the current size of the fleet. Valid values are
no-termination and termination.

When you increase the target capacity, the EC2 Fleet launches the additional instances according to the
instance purchasing option specified for DefaultTargetCapacityType, which are either On-Demand
Instances or Spot Instances.

If the DefaultTargetCapacityType is spot, the EC2 Fleet launches the additional Spot Instances
according to its allocation strategy. If the allocation strategy is lowest-price, the fleet launches
the instances from the lowest-priced Spot capacity pool in the request. If the allocation strategy is
diversified, the fleet distributes the instances across the pools in the request.

When you decrease the target capacity, the EC2 Fleet deletes any open requests that exceed the new
target capacity. You can request that the fleet terminate instances until the size of the fleet reaches
the new target capacity. If the allocation strategy is lowest-price, the fleet terminates the instances
with the highest price per unit. If the allocation strategy is diversified, the fleet terminates instances
across the pools. Alternatively, you can request that EC2 Fleet keep the fleet at its current size, but not
replace any Spot Instances that are interrupted or any instances that you terminate manually.

When an EC2 Fleet terminates a Spot Instance because the target capacity was decreased, the instance
receives a Spot Instance interruption notice.

To modify an EC2 Fleet (AWS CLI)

Use the modify-fleet command to update the target capacity of the specified EC2 Fleet.

aws ec2 modify-fleet \

--fleet-id fleet-73fbd2ce-aa30-494c-8788-1cee4EXAMPLE \
--target-capacity-specification TotalTargetCapacity=20

If you are decreasing the target capacity but want to keep the fleet at its current size, you can modify the
previous command as follows.

aws ec2 modify-fleet \

--fleet-id fleet-73fbd2ce-aa30-494c-8788-1cee4EXAMPLE \
--target-capacity-specification TotalTargetCapacity=10 \
--excess-capacity-termination-policy no-termination

Delete an EC2 Fleet

If you no longer require an EC2 Fleet, you can delete it. After you delete a fleet, it launches no new
instances.

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When you delete an EC2 Fleet, you must specify if you want to also terminate its instances. If you specify
that the instances must be terminated when the fleet is deleted, it enters the deleted_terminating
state. Otherwise, it enters the deleted_running state, and the instances continue to run until they are
interrupted or you terminate them manually.

Restrictions

• You can delete up to 25 instant fleets in a single request. If you exceed this number, no instant
fleets are deleted and an error is returned. There is no restriction on the number of fleets of type
maintain or request that can be deleted in a single request.
• Up to 1000 instances can be terminated in a single request to delete instant fleets.

To delete an EC2 Fleet and terminate its instances (AWS CLI)

Use the delete-fleets command and the --terminate-instances parameter to delete the specified
EC2 Fleet and terminate the instances.

aws ec2 delete-fleets \

--fleet-ids fleet-73fbd2ce-aa30-494c-8788-1cee4EXAMPLE \
--terminate-instances

The following is example output.

{
"UnsuccessfulFleetDeletions": [],
"SuccessfulFleetDeletions": [
{
"CurrentFleetState": "deleted_terminating",
"PreviousFleetState": "active",
"FleetId": "fleet-73fbd2ce-aa30-494c-8788-1cee4EXAMPLE"
}
]
}

To delete an EC2 Fleet without terminating the instances (AWS CLI)

You can modify the previous command using the --no-terminate-instances parameter to delete
the specified EC2 Fleet without terminating the instances.
Note
--no-terminate-instances is not supported for instant fleets.

aws ec2 delete-fleets \

--fleet-ids fleet-73fbd2ce-aa30-494c-8788-1cee4EXAMPLE \
--no-terminate-instances

The following is example output.

{
"UnsuccessfulFleetDeletions": [],
"SuccessfulFleetDeletions": [
{
"CurrentFleetState": "deleted_running",
"PreviousFleetState": "active",
"FleetId": "fleet-4b8aaae8-dfb5-436d-a4c6-3dafa4c6b7dcEXAMPLE"
}
]
}

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Troubleshoot when a fleet fails to delete

If an EC2 Fleet fails to delete, UnsuccessfulFleetDeletions in the output returns the ID of the EC2
Fleet, an error code, and an error message.

The error codes are:

• ExceededInstantFleetNumForDeletion
• fleetIdDoesNotExist
• fleetIdMalformed
• fleetNotInDeletableState
• NoTerminateInstancesNotSupported
• UnauthorizedOperation
• unexpectedError

Troubleshooting ExceededInstantFleetNumForDeletion

If you try to delete more than 25 instant fleets in a single request, the
ExceededInstantFleetNumForDeletion error is returned. The following is example output for this
error.

{
"UnsuccessfulFleetDeletions": [
{
"FleetId": " fleet-5d130460-0c26-bfd9-2c32-0100a098f625",
"Error": {
"Message": "Can’t delete more than 25 instant fleets in a single
request.",
"Code": "ExceededInstantFleetNumForDeletion"
}
},
{
"FleetId": "fleet-9a941b23-0286-5bf4-2430-03a029a07e31",
"Error": {
"Message": "Can’t delete more than 25 instant fleets in a single
request.",
"Code": "ExceededInstantFleetNumForDeletion"
}
}
.
.
.
],
"SuccessfulFleetDeletions": []
}

Troubleshoot NoTerminateInstancesNotSupported

If you specify that the instances in an instant fleet must not be terminated when you delete the fleet,
the NoTerminateInstancesNotSupported error is returned. --no-terminate-instances is not
supported for instant fleets. The following is example output for this error.

{
"UnsuccessfulFleetDeletions": [
{
"FleetId": "fleet-5d130460-0c26-bfd9-2c32-0100a098f625",
"Error": {
"Message": "NoTerminateInstances option is not supported for
instant fleet",

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"Code": "NoTerminateInstancesNotSupported"
}
}
],
"SuccessfulFleetDeletions": []

Troubleshoot UnauthorizedOperation

If you do not have permission to terminate instances, you get the UnauthorizedOperation error when
deleting a fleet that must terminate its instances. The following is the error response.

<Response><Errors><Error><Code>UnauthorizedOperation</Code><Message>You are not authorized

to perform this
operation. Encoded authorization failure message: VvuncIxj7Z_CPGNYXWqnuFV-
YjByeAU66Q9752NtQ-I3-qnDLWs6JLFd
KnSMMiq5s6cGqjjPtEDpsnGHzzyHasFHOaRYJpaDVravoW25azn6KNkUQQlFwhJyujt2dtNCdduJfrqcFYAjlEiRMkfDHt7N63SKlwe
BHturzDK6A560Y2nDSUiMmAB1y9UNtqaZJ9SNe5sNxKMqZaqKtjRbk02RZu5V2vn9VMk6fm2aMVHbY9JhLvGypLcMUjtJ76H9ytg2zR
VPiU5v2s-
UgZ7h0p2yth6ysUdhlONg6dBYu8_y_HtEI54invCj4CoK0qawqzMNe6rcmCQHvtCxtXsbkgyaEbcwmrm2m01-
EMhekLFZeJLr
DtYOpYcEl4_nWFX1wtQDCnNNCmxnJZAoJvb3VMDYpDTsxjQv1PxODZuqWHs23YXWVywzgnLtHeRf2o4lUhGBw17mXsS07k7XAfdPMP_
PT9vrHtQiILor5VVTsjSPWg7edj__1rsnXhwPSu8gI48ZLRGrPQqFq0RmKO_QIE8N8s6NWzCK4yoX-9gDcheurOGpkprPIC9YPGMLK9
</Message></Error></Errors><RequestID>89b1215c-7814-40ae-a8db-41761f43f2b0</RequestID></
Response>

To resolve the error, you must add the ec2:TerminateInstances action to the IAM policy, as shown in
the following example.

{
"Version": "2012-10-17",
"Statement": [
{
"Sid": "DeleteFleetsAndTerminateInstances",
"Effect": "Allow",
"Action": [
"ec2:DeleteFleets"
"ec2:TerminateInstances"
],
"Resource": "*"
}
]
}

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Spot Fleet

Spot Fleet
A Spot Fleet is set of Spot Instances and optionally On-Demand Instances that is launched based on
criteria that you specify. The Spot Fleet selects the Spot capacity pools that meet your needs and
launches Spot Instances to meet the target capacity for the fleet. By default, Spot Fleets are set to
maintain target capacity by launching replacement instances after Spot Instances in the fleet are
terminated. You can submit a Spot Fleet as a one-time request, which does not persist after the instances
have been terminated. You can include On-Demand Instance requests in a Spot Fleet request.

Topics
• Spot Fleet request types (p. 720)
• Spot Fleet configuration strategies (p. 720)
• Work with Spot Fleets (p. 728)
• CloudWatch metrics for Spot Fleet (p. 747)
• Automatic scaling for Spot Fleet (p. 749)

Spot Fleet request types

There are two types of Spot Fleet requests:

request

If you configure the request type as request, Spot Fleet places an asynchronous one-time request
for your desired capacity. Thereafter, if capacity is diminished because of Spot interruptions, the
fleet does not attempt to replenish Spot Instances, nor does it submit requests in alternative Spot
capacity pools if capacity is unavailable.
maintain

If you configure the request type as maintain, Spot Fleet places an asynchronous request for
your desired capacity, and maintains capacity by automatically replenishing any interrupted Spot
Instances.

To specify the type of request in the Amazon EC2 console, do the following when creating a Spot Fleet
request:

• To create a Spot Fleet of type request, clear the Maintain target capacity check box.
• To create a Spot Fleet of type maintain, select the Maintain target capacity check box.

For more information, see Create a Spot Fleet request using defined parameters (console) (p. 735).

Both types of requests benefit from an allocation strategy. For more information, see Allocation strategy
for Spot Instances (p. 721).

Spot Fleet configuration strategies

A Spot Fleet is a collection, or fleet, of Spot Instances, and optionally On-Demand Instances.

The Spot Fleet attempts to launch the number of Spot Instances and On-Demand Instances to meet the
target capacity that you specified in the Spot Fleet request. The request for Spot Instances is fulfilled
if there is available capacity and the maximum price you specified in the request exceeds the current
Spot price. The Spot Fleet also attempts to maintain its target capacity fleet if your Spot Instances are
interrupted.

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You can also set a maximum amount per hour that you’re willing to pay for your fleet, and Spot Fleet
launches instances until it reaches the maximum amount. When the maximum amount you're willing to
pay is reached, the fleet stops launching instances even if it hasn’t met the target capacity.

A Spot capacity pool is a set of unused EC2 instances with the same instance type (for example,
m5.large), operating system, Availability Zone, and network platform. When you make a Spot Fleet
request, you can include multiple launch specifications, that vary by instance type, AMI, Availability Zone,
or subnet. The Spot Fleet selects the Spot capacity pools that are used to fulfill the request, based on
the launch specifications included in your Spot Fleet request, and the configuration of the Spot Fleet
request. The Spot Instances come from the selected pools.

Contents
• Plan a Spot Fleet request (p. 721)
• Allocation strategy for Spot Instances (p. 721)
• On-Demand in Spot Fleet (p. 723)
• Capacity Rebalancing (p. 724)
• Spot price overrides (p. 726)
• Control spending (p. 726)
• Spot Fleet instance weighting (p. 726)

Plan a Spot Fleet request

Before you create a Spot Fleet request, review Spot Best Practices. Use these best practices when you
plan your Spot Fleet request so that you can provision the type of instances you want at the lowest
possible price. We also recommend that you do the following:

• Determine whether you want to create a Spot Fleet that submits a one-time request for the desired
target capacity, or one that maintains a target capacity over time.
• Determine the instance types that meet your application requirements.
• Determine the target capacity for your Spot Fleet request. You can set the target capacity in instances
or in custom units. For more information, see Spot Fleet instance weighting (p. 726).
• Determine what portion of the Spot Fleet target capacity must be On-Demand capacity. You can
specify 0 for On-Demand capacity.
• Determine your price per unit, if you are using instance weighting. To calculate the price per unit,
divide the price per instance hour by the number of units (or weight) that this instance represents. If
you are not using instance weighting, the default price per unit is the price per instance hour.
• Review the possible options for your Spot Fleet request. For more information, see the request-spot-
fleet command in the AWS CLI Command Reference. For additional examples, see Spot Fleet example
configurations (p. 792).

Allocation strategy for Spot Instances

The allocation strategy for the Spot Instances in your Spot Fleet determines how it fulfills your Spot
Fleet request from the possible Spot capacity pools represented by its launch specifications. The
following are the allocation strategies that you can specify in your Spot Fleet request:

lowestPrice

The Spot Instances come from the pool with the lowest price. This is the default strategy.
diversified

The Spot Instances are distributed across all pools.

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capacityOptimized

The Spot Instances come from the pools with optimal capacity for the number of instances
that are launching. You can optionally set a priority for each instance type in your fleet using
capacityOptimizedPrioritized. Spot Fleet optimizes for capacity first, but honors instance
type priorities on a best-effort basis.

With Spot Instances, pricing changes slowly over time based on long-term trends in supply and
demand, but capacity fluctuates in real time. The capacityOptimized strategy automatically
launches Spot Instances into the most available pools by looking at real-time capacity data and
predicting which are the most available. This works well for workloads such as big data and
analytics, image and media rendering, machine learning, and high performance computing that may
have a higher cost of interruption associated with restarting work and checkpointing. By offering the
possibility of fewer interruptions, the capacityOptimized strategy can lower the overall cost of
your workload.

Alternatively, you can use the capacityOptimizedPrioritized allocation strategy with a

priority parameter to order instance types from highest to lowest priority. You can set the same
priority for different instance types. Spot Fleet will optimize for capacity first, but will honor instance
type priorities on a best-effort basis (for example, if honoring the priorities will not significantly
affect Spot Fleet's ability to provision optimal capacity). This is a good option for workloads where
the possibility of disruption must be minimized and the preference for certain instance types
matters. Using priorities is supported only if your fleet uses a launch template. Note that when you
set the priority for capacityOptimizedPrioritized, the same priority is also applied to your
On-Demand Instances if the On-Demand AllocationStrategy is set to prioritized.
InstancePoolsToUseCount

The Spot Instances are distributed across the number of Spot pools that you specify. This parameter
is valid only when used in combination with lowestPrice.

Maintain target capacity

After Spot Instances are terminated due to a change in the Spot price or available capacity of a Spot
capacity pool, a Spot Fleet of type maintain launches replacement Spot Instances. If the allocation
strategy is lowestPrice, the fleet launches replacement instances in the pool where the Spot price is
currently the lowest. If the allocation strategy is diversified, the fleet distributes the replacement
Spot Instances across the remaining pools. If the allocation strategy is lowestPrice in combination
with InstancePoolsToUseCount, the fleet selects the Spot pools with the lowest price and launches
Spot Instances across the number of Spot pools that you specify.

Choose an appropriate allocation strategy

You can optimize your Spot Fleets based on your use case.

If your fleet runs workloads that may have a higher cost of interruption associated with restarting work
and checkpointing, then use the capacityOptimized strategy. This strategy offers the possibility
of fewer interruptions, which can lower the overall cost of your workload. This is the recommended
strategy. Use the capacityOptimizedPrioritized strategy for workloads where the possibility of
disruption must be minimized and the preference for certain instance types matters.

If your fleet is small or runs for a short time, the probability that your Spot Instances may be interrupted
is low, even with all the instances in a single Spot capacity pool. Therefore, the lowestPrice strategy is
likely to meet your needs while providing the lowest cost.

If your fleet is large or runs for a long time, you can improve the availability of your fleet by distributing
the Spot Instances across multiple pools. For example, if your Spot Fleet request specifies 10 pools and
a target capacity of 100 instances, the fleet launches 10 Spot Instances in each pool. If the Spot price
for one pool exceeds your maximum price for this pool, only 10% of your fleet is affected. Using this

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strategy also makes your fleet less sensitive to increases in the Spot price in any one pool over time. With
the diversified strategy, the Spot Fleet does not launch Spot Instances into any pools with a Spot
price that is equal to or higher than the On-Demand price.

To create a cheap and diversified fleet, use the lowestPrice strategy in combination with
InstancePoolsToUseCount. You can use a low or high number of Spot pools across which to allocate
your Spot Instances. For example, if you run batch processing, we recommend specifying a low number
of Spot pools (for example, InstancePoolsToUseCount=2) to ensure that your queue always has
compute capacity while maximizing savings. If you run a web service, we recommend specifying a high
number of Spot pools (for example, InstancePoolsToUseCount=10) to minimize the impact if a Spot
capacity pool becomes temporarily unavailable.

Configure Spot Fleet for cost optimization

To optimize the costs for your use of Spot Instances, specify the lowestPrice allocation strategy so
that Spot Fleet automatically deploys the least expensive combination of instance types and Availability
Zones based on the current Spot price.

For On-Demand Instance target capacity, Spot Fleet always selects the least expensive instance type
based on the public On-Demand price, while continuing to follow the allocation strategy (either
lowestPrice, capacityOptimized, or diversified) for Spot Instances.

Configure Spot Fleet for cost optimization and diversification

To create a fleet of Spot Instances that is both cheap and diversified, use the lowestPrice allocation
strategy in combination with InstancePoolsToUseCount. Spot Fleet automatically deploys the
cheapest combination of instance types and Availability Zones based on the current Spot price across the
number of Spot pools that you specify. This combination can be used to avoid the most expensive Spot
Instances.

For example, if your target capacity is 10 Spot Instances, and you specify 2 Spot capacity pools (for
InstancePoolsToUseCount), Spot Fleet will draw on the two cheapest pools to fulfill your Spot
capacity.

Note that Spot Fleet attempts to draw Spot Instances from the number of pools that you specify
on a best effort basis. If a pool runs out of Spot capacity before fulfilling your target capacity, Spot
Fleet will continue to fulfill your request by drawing from the next cheapest pool. To ensure that your
target capacity is met, you might receive Spot Instances from more than the number of pools that you
specified. Similarly, if most of the pools have no Spot capacity, you might receive your full target capacity
from fewer than the number of pools that you specified.

Configure Spot Fleet for capacity optimization

To launch Spot Instances into the most-available Spot capacity pools, use the capacityOptimized
allocation strategy. For an example configuration, see Example 9: Launch Spot Instances in a capacity-
optimized fleet (p. 802).

You can also express your pool priorities by using the capacityOptimizedPrioritized allocation
strategy and then setting the order of instance types to use from highest to lowest priority. Using
priorities is supported only if your fleet uses a launch template. Note that when you set priorities for
capacityOptimizedPrioritized, the same priorities are also applied to your On-Demand Instances
if the OnDemandAllocationStrategy is set to prioritized. For an example configuration, see
Example 10: Launch Spot Instances in a capacity-optimized fleet with priorities (p. 802).

On-Demand in Spot Fleet

To ensure that you always have instance capacity, you can include a request for On-Demand capacity
in your Spot Fleet request. In your Spot Fleet request, you specify your desired target capacity and how

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much of that capacity must be On-Demand. The balance comprises Spot capacity, which is launched if
there is available Amazon EC2 capacity and availability. For example, if in your Spot Fleet request you
specify target capacity as 10 and On-Demand capacity as 8, Amazon EC2 launches 8 capacity units as
On-Demand, and 2 capacity units (10-8=2) as Spot.

Prioritize instance types for On-Demand capacity

When Spot Fleet attempts to fulfill your On-Demand capacity, it defaults to launching the lowest-priced
instance type first. If OnDemandAllocationStrategy is set to prioritized, Spot Fleet uses priority
to determine which instance type to use first in fulfilling On-Demand capacity. The priority is assigned to
the launch template override, and the highest priority is launched first.

For example, you have configured three launch template overrides, each with a different instance type:
c3.large, c4.large, and c5.large. The On-Demand price for c5.large is less than for c4.large.
c3.large is the cheapest. If you do not use priority to determine the order, the fleet fulfills On-Demand
capacity by starting with c3.large, and then c5.large. Because you often have unused Reserved
Instances for c4.large, you can set the launch template override priority so that the order is c4.large,
c3.large, and then c5.large.

Capacity Rebalancing
You can configure Spot Fleet to launch a replacement Spot Instance when Amazon EC2 emits a rebalance
recommendation to notify you that a Spot Instance is at an elevated risk of interruption. Capacity
Rebalancing helps you maintain workload availability by proactively augmenting your fleet with a new
Spot Instance before a running instance is interrupted by Amazon EC2. For more information, see EC2
instance rebalance recommendations (p. 316).

To configure Spot Fleet to launch a replacement Spot Instance, you can use the Amazon EC2 console or
the AWS CLI.

• Amazon EC2 console: You must select the Capacity rebalance check box when you create the Spot
Fleet. For more information, see step 6.d. in Create a Spot Fleet request using defined parameters
(console) (p. 735).
• AWS CLI: Use the request-spot-fleet command and the relevant parameters in the
SpotMaintenanceStrategies structure. For more information, see the example launch
configuration (p. 801).

Limitations

• Only available for fleets of type maintain.

• When the fleet is running, you can't modify the Capacity Rebalancing setting. To change the Capacity
Rebalancing setting, you must delete the fleet and create a new fleet.

Considerations

If you configure a Spot Fleet for Capacity Rebalancing, consider the following:

Spot Fleet can launch new replacement Spot Instances until fulfilled capacity is double target
capacity

When a Spot Fleet is configured for Capacity Rebalancing, the fleet attempts to launch a new
replacement Spot Instance for every Spot Instance that receives a rebalance recommendation.
After a Spot Instance receives a rebalance recommendation, it is no longer counted as part of the
fulfilled capacity, and Spot Fleet does not automatically terminate the instance. This gives you the
opportunity to perform rebalancing actions (p. 317) on the instance. Thereafter, you can terminate
the instance, or you can leave it running.

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If your fleet reaches double its target capacity, it stops launching new replacement instances even if
the replacement instances themselves receive a rebalance recommendation.

For example, you create a Spot Fleet with a target capacity of 100 Spot Instances. All the Spot
Instances receive a rebalance recommendation, which causes Spot Fleet to launch 100 replacement
Spot Instances. This raises the number of fulfilled Spot Instances to 200, which is double the target
capacity. Some of the replacement instances receive a rebalance recommendation, but no more
replacement instances are launched because the fleet cannot exceed double its target capacity.

Note that you are charged for all of the instances while they are running.
We recommend that you manually terminate Spot Instances that receive a rebalance
recommendation

If you configure your Spot Fleet for Capacity Rebalancing, we recommend that you monitor the
rebalance recommendation signal that is received by the Spot Instances in the fleet. By monitoring
the signal, you can quickly perform rebalancing actions (p. 317) on the affected instances
before Amazon EC2 interrupts them, and then you can manually terminate them. If you do not
terminate the instances, you continue paying for them while they are running. Spot Fleet does not
automatically terminate the instances that receive a rebalance recommendation.

You can set up notifications using Amazon EventBridge or instance metadata. For more information,
see Monitor rebalance recommendation signals (p. 317).
Spot Fleet does not count instances that receive a rebalance recommendation when calculating
fulfilled capacity during scale in or out

If your Spot Fleet is configured for Capacity Rebalancing, and you change the target capacity to
either scale in or scale out, the fleet does not count the instances that are marked for rebalance as
part of the fulfilled capacity, as follows:
• Scale in – If you decrease your desired target capacity, the fleet terminates instances that are
not marked for rebalance until the desired capacity is reached. The instances that are marked for
rebalance are not counted towards the fulfilled capacity.

For example, you create a Spot Fleet with a target capacity of 100 Spot Instances. 10 instances
receive a rebalance recommendation, so the fleet launches 10 new replacement instances,
resulting in a fulfilled capacity of 110 instances. You then reduce the target capacity to 50 (scale
in), but the fulfilled capacity is actually 60 instances because the 10 instances that are marked for
rebalance are not terminated by the fleet. You need to manually terminate these instances, or you
can leave them running.
• Scale out – If you increase your desired target capacity, the fleet launches new instances until the
desired capacity is reached. The instances that are marked for rebalance are not counted towards
the fulfilled capacity.

For example, you create a Spot Fleet with a target capacity of 100 Spot Instances. 10 instances
receive a rebalance recommendation, so the fleet launches 10 new replacement instances,
resulting in a fulfilled capacity of 110 instances. You then increase the target capacity to 200
(scale out), but the fulfilled capacity is actually 210 instances because the 10 instances that are
marked for rebalance are not counted by the fleet as part of the target capacity. You need to
manually terminate these instances, or you can leave them running.
Provide as many Spot capacity pools in the request as possible

Configure your Spot Fleet to use multiple instance types and Availability Zones. This provides the
flexibility to launch Spot Instances in various Spot capacity pools. For more information, see Be
flexible about instance types and Availability Zones (p. 288).
Configure your Spot Fleet to use the most optimal Spot capacity pools

Use the capacity-optimized allocation strategy to ensure that replacement Spot Instances
are launched in the most optimal Spot capacity pools. For more information, see Use the capacity
optimized allocation strategy (p. 288).

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Spot price overrides

Each Spot Fleet request can include a global maximum price, or use the default (the On-Demand price).
Spot Fleet uses this as the default maximum price for each of its launch specifications.

You can optionally specify a maximum price in one or more launch specifications. This price is specific
to the launch specification. If a launch specification includes a specific price, the Spot Fleet uses this
maximum price, overriding the global maximum price. Any other launch specifications that do not
include a specific maximum price still use the global maximum price.

Control spending
Spot Fleet stops launching instances when it has either reached the target capacity or the maximum
amount you’re willing to pay. To control the amount you pay per hour for your fleet, you can specify the
SpotMaxTotalPrice for Spot Instances and the OnDemandMaxTotalPrice for On-Demand Instances.
When the maximum total price is reached, Spot Fleet stops launching instances even if it hasn’t met the
target capacity.

The following examples show two different scenarios. In the first, Spot Fleet stops launching instances
when it has met the target capacity. In the second, Spot Fleet stops launching instances when it has
reached the maximum amount you’re willing to pay.

Example: Stop launching instances when target capacity is reached

Given a request for m4.large On-Demand Instances, where:

• On-Demand Price: $0.10 per hour

• OnDemandTargetCapacity: 10
• OnDemandMaxTotalPrice: $1.50

Spot Fleet launches 10 On-Demand Instances because the total of $1.00 (10 instances x $0.10) does not
exceed the OnDemandMaxTotalPrice of $1.50.

Example: Stop launching instances when maximum total price is reached

Given a request for m4.large On-Demand Instances, where:

• On-Demand Price: $0.10 per hour

• OnDemandTargetCapacity: 10
• OnDemandMaxTotalPrice: $0.80

If Spot Fleet launches the On-Demand target capacity (10 On-Demand Instances), the total cost per
hour would be $1.00. This is more than the amount ($0.80) specified for OnDemandMaxTotalPrice.
To prevent spending more than you're willing to pay, Spot Fleet launches only 8 On-Demand
Instances (below the On-Demand target capacity) because launching more would exceed the
OnDemandMaxTotalPrice.

Spot Fleet instance weighting

When you request a fleet of Spot Instances, you can define the capacity units that each instance type
would contribute to your application's performance, and adjust your maximum price for each Spot
capacity pool accordingly using instance weighting.

By default, the price that you specify is per instance hour. When you use the instance weighting feature,
the price that you specify is per unit hour. You can calculate your price per unit hour by dividing your
price for an instance type by the number of units that it represents. Spot Fleet calculates the number
of Spot Instances to launch by dividing the target capacity by the instance weight. If the result isn't an

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integer, the Spot Fleet rounds it up to the next integer, so that the size of your fleet is not below its
target capacity. Spot Fleet can select any pool that you specify in your launch specification, even if the
capacity of the instances launched exceeds the requested target capacity.

The following tables provide examples of calculations to determine the price per unit for a Spot Fleet
request with a target capacity of 10.

Instance type Instance Price per Price per unit Number of instances launched
weight instance hour hour

r3.xlarge 2 $0.05 .025 5

(.05 divided by (10 divided by 2)

2)

Instance type Instance Price per Price per unit Number of instances launched
weight instance hour hour

r3.8xlarge 8 $0.10 .0125 2

(.10 divided by (10 divided by 8, result rounded

8) up)

Use Spot Fleet instance weighting as follows to provision the target capacity that you want in the pools
with the lowest price per unit at the time of fulfillment:

1. Set the target capacity for your Spot Fleet either in instances (the default) or in the units of your
choice, such as virtual CPUs, memory, storage, or throughput.
2. Set the price per unit.
3. For each launch configuration, specify the weight, which is the number of units that the instance
type represents toward the target capacity.

Instance weighting example

Consider a Spot Fleet request with the following configuration:

• A target capacity of 24
• A launch specification with an instance type r3.2xlarge and a weight of 6
• A launch specification with an instance type c3.xlarge and a weight of 5

The weights represent the number of units that instance type represents toward the target capacity. If
the first launch specification provides the lowest price per unit (price for r3.2xlarge per instance hour
divided by 6), the Spot Fleet would launch four of these instances (24 divided by 6).

If the second launch specification provides the lowest price per unit (price for c3.xlarge per instance
hour divided by 5), the Spot Fleet would launch five of these instances (24 divided by 5, result rounded
up).

Instance weighting and allocation strategy

Consider a Spot Fleet request with the following configuration:

• A target capacity of 30
• A launch specification with an instance type c3.2xlarge and a weight of 8

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• A launch specification with an instance type m3.xlarge and a weight of 8

• A launch specification with an instance type r3.xlarge and a weight of 8

The Spot Fleet would launch four instances (30 divided by 8, result rounded up). With the lowestPrice
strategy, all four instances come from the pool that provides the lowest price per unit. With the
diversified strategy, the Spot Fleet launches one instance in each of the three pools, and the fourth
instance in whichever pool provides the lowest price per unit.

Work with Spot Fleets

To start using a Spot Fleet, you create a Spot Fleet request that includes the target capacity, an optional
On-Demand portion, one or more launch specifications for the instances, and the maximum price that
you are willing to pay. The fleet request must include a launch specification that defines the information
that the fleet needs to launch an instance, such as an AMI, instance type, subnet or Availability Zone, and
one or more security groups.

If you fleet includes Spot Instances, Amazon EC2 can attempt to maintain your fleet target capacity as
Spot prices change.

It is not possible to modify the target capacity of a one-time request after it's been submitted. To change
the target capacity, cancel the request and submit a new one.

A Spot Fleet request remains active until it expires or you cancel it. When you cancel a fleet request, you
can specify whether canceling the request terminates the Spot Instances in that fleet.

Contents
• Spot Fleet request states (p. 728)
• Spot Fleet health checks (p. 729)
• Spot Fleet permissions (p. 730)
• Create a Spot Fleet request (p. 734)
• Tag a Spot Fleet (p. 738)
• Monitor your Spot Fleet (p. 744)
• Modify a Spot Fleet request (p. 744)
• Cancel a Spot Fleet request (p. 746)

Spot Fleet request states

A Spot Fleet request can be in one of the following states:

• submitted – The Spot Fleet request is being evaluated and Amazon EC2 is preparing to launch the
target number of instances.
• active – The Spot Fleet has been validated and Amazon EC2 is attempting to maintain the target
number of running Spot Instances. The request remains in this state until it is modified or canceled.
• modifying – The Spot Fleet request is being modified. The request remains in this state until the
modification is fully processed or the Spot Fleet is canceled. A one-time request cannot be modified,
and this state does not apply to such Spot requests.
• cancelled_running – The Spot Fleet is canceled and does not launch additional Spot Instances. Its
existing Spot Instances continue to run until they are interrupted or terminated. The request remains
in this state until all instances are interrupted or terminated.
• cancelled_terminating – The Spot Fleet is canceled and its Spot Instances are terminating. The
request remains in this state until all instances are terminated.
• cancelled – The Spot Fleet is canceled and has no running Spot Instances. The Spot Fleet request is
deleted two days after its instances were terminated.

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The following illustration represents the transitions between the request states. If you exceed your Spot
Fleet limits, the request is canceled immediately.

Spot Fleet health checks

Spot Fleet checks the health status of the Spot Instances in the fleet every two minutes. The health
status of an instance is either healthy or unhealthy.

Spot Fleet determines the health status of an instance by using the status checks provided by Amazon
EC2. An instance is determined as unhealthy when the the status of either the instance status check
or the system status check is impaired for three consecutive health checks. For more information, see
Status checks for your instances (p. 821).

You can configure your fleet to replace unhealthy Spot Instances. After enabling health check
replacement, a Spot Instance is replaced when it is reported as unhealthy. The fleet could go below its
target capacity for up to a few minutes while an unhealthy Spot Instance is being replaced.

Requirements

• Health check replacement is supported only for Spot Fleets that maintain a target capacity (fleets of
type maintain), not for one-time Spot Fleets (fleets of type request).
• Health check replacement is supported only for Spot Instances. This feature is not supported for On-
Demand Instances.
• You can configure your Spot Fleet to replace unhealthy instances only when you create it.
• IAM users can use health check replacement only if they have permission to call the
ec2:DescribeInstanceStatus action.

Console

To configure a Spot Fleet to replace unhealthy Spot Instances using the console

1. Follow the steps for creating a Spot Fleet. For more information, see Create a Spot Fleet request
using defined parameters (console) (p. 735).
2. To configure the fleet to replace unhealthy Spot Instances, for Health check, choose Replace
unhealthy instances. To enable this option, you must first choose Maintain target capacity.

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AWS CLI

To configure a Spot Fleet to replace unhealthy Spot Instances using the AWS CLI

1. Follow the steps for creating a Spot Fleet. For more information, see Create a Spot Fleet using
the AWS CLI (p. 737).
2. To configure the fleet to replace unhealthy Spot Instances, for ReplaceUnhealthyInstances,
enter true.

Spot Fleet permissions

If your IAM users will create or manage a Spot Fleet, you need to grant them the required permissions.

If you use the Amazon EC2 console to create a Spot Fleet, it creates two service-linked roles named
AWSServiceRoleForEC2SpotFleet and AWSServiceRoleForEC2Spot, and a role named aws-ec2-
spot-fleet-tagging-role that grant the Spot Fleet the permissions to request, launch, terminate,
and tag resources on your behalf. If you use the AWS CLI or an API, you must ensure that these roles
exist.

Use the following instructions to grant the required permissions and create the roles.

Permissions and roles

• Grant permission to IAM users for Spot Fleet (p. 730)
• Service-linked role for Spot Fleet (p. 732)
• Service-linked role for Spot Instances (p. 734)
• IAM role for tagging a Spot Fleet (p. 734)

Grant permission to IAM users for Spot Fleet

If your IAM users will create or manage a Spot Fleet, be sure to grant them the required permissions as
follows.

To grant an IAM user permissions for Spot Fleet

1. Open the IAM console at https://console.aws.amazon.com/iam/.

2. In the navigation pane, choose Policies, Create policy.
3. On the Create policy page, choose JSON, and replace the text with the following.

{
"Version": "2012-10-17",
"Statement": [
{
"Effect": "Allow",
"Action": [
"ec2:RunInstances",
"ec2:CreateTags",
"ec2:RequestSpotFleet",
"ec2:ModifySpotFleetRequest",
"ec2:CancelSpotFleetRequests",
"ec2:DescribeSpotFleetRequests",
"ec2:DescribeSpotFleetInstances",
"ec2:DescribeSpotFleetRequestHistory"
],
"Resource": "*"
},
{
"Effect": "Allow",

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"Action": "iam:PassRole",
"Resource": "arn:aws:iam::*:role/aws-ec2-spot-fleet-tagging-role"
},
{
"Effect": "Allow",
"Action": [
"iam:CreateServiceLinkedRole",
"iam:ListRoles",
"iam:ListInstanceProfiles"
],
"Resource": "*"
}
]
}

The preceding example policy grants an IAM user the permissions required for most Spot Fleet use
cases. To limit the user to specific API actions, specify only those API actions instead.

Required EC2 and IAM APIs

The following APIs must be included in the policy:

• ec2:RunInstances – Required to launch instances in a Spot Fleet

• ec2:CreateTags – Required to tag the Spot Fleet request, instances, or volumes
• iam:PassRole – Required to specify the Spot Fleet role
• iam:CreateServiceLinkedRole – Required to create the service-linked role
• iam:ListRoles – Required to enumerate existing IAM roles
• iam:ListInstanceProfiles – Required to enumerate existing instance profiles

Important
If you specify a role for the IAM instance profile in the launch specification or launch
template, you must grant the IAM user the permission to pass the role to the service. To do
this, in the IAM policy include "arn:aws:iam::*:role/IamInstanceProfile-role"
as a resource for the iam:PassRole action. For more information, see Granting a user
permissions to pass a role to an AWS service in the IAM User Guide.

Spot Fleet APIs

Add the following Spot Fleet API actions to your policy, as needed:

• ec2:RequestSpotFleet
• ec2:ModifySpotFleetRequest
• ec2:CancelSpotFleetRequests
• ec2:DescribeSpotFleetRequests
• ec2:DescribeSpotFleetInstances
• ec2:DescribeSpotFleetRequestHistory

Optional IAM APIs

(Optional) To enable an IAM user to create roles or instance profiles using the IAM console, you must
add the following actions to the policy:

• iam:AddRoleToInstanceProfile
• iam:AttachRolePolicy
• iam:CreateInstanceProfile
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• iam:CreateRole
• iam:GetRole
• iam:ListPolicies
4. Choose Review policy.
5. On the Review policy page, enter a policy name and description, and choose Create policy.
6. In the navigation pane, choose Users and select the user.
7. Choose Permissions, Add permissions.
8. Choose Attach existing policies directly. Select the policy that you created earlier and choose Next:
Review.
9. Choose Add permissions.

Service-linked role for Spot Fleet

Amazon EC2 uses service-linked roles for the permissions that it requires to call other AWS services on
your behalf. A service-linked role is a unique type of IAM role that is linked directly to an AWS service.
Service-linked roles provide a secure way to delegate permissions to AWS services because only the
linked service can assume a service-linked role. For more information, see Using Service-Linked Roles in
the IAM User Guide.

Amazon EC2 uses the service-linked role named AWSServiceRoleForEC2SpotFleet to launch and
manage instances on your behalf.
Important
If you specify an encrypted AMI (p. 130) or an encrypted Amazon EBS snapshot (p. 1340) in your
Spot Fleet, you must grant the AWSServiceRoleForEC2SpotFleet role permission to use the
CMK so that Amazon EC2 can launch instances on your behalf. For more information, see Grant
access to CMKs for use with encrypted AMIs and EBS snapshots (p. 733).

Permissions granted by AWSServiceRoleForEC2SpotFleet

Amazon EC2 uses AWSServiceRoleForEC2SpotFleet to complete the following actions:

• ec2:RequestSpotInstances - Request Spot Instances

• ec2:RunInstances - Launch instances
• ec2:TerminateInstances - Terminate instances
• ec2:DescribeImages - Describe Amazon Machine Images (AMIs) for the instances
• ec2:DescribeInstanceStatus - Describe the status of the instances
• ec2:DescribeSubnets - Describe the subnets for the instances
• ec2:CreateTags - Add tags to the Spot Fleet request, instances, and volumes
• elasticloadbalancing:RegisterInstancesWithLoadBalancer - Add the specified instances
to the specified load balancer
• elasticloadbalancing:RegisterTargets - Register the specified targets with the specified
target group

Create the service-linked role

Under most circumstances, you don't need to manually create a service-linked role. Amazon EC2 creates
the AWSServiceRoleForEC2SpotFleet service-linked role the first time you create a Spot Fleet using the
console.

If you had an active Spot Fleet request before October 2017, when Amazon EC2 began supporting this
service-linked role, Amazon EC2 created the AWSServiceRoleForEC2SpotFleet role in your AWS account.
For more information, see A new role appeared in my AWS account in the IAM User Guide.

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If you use the AWS CLI or an API to create a Spot Fleet, you must first ensure that this role exists.

To create AWSServiceRoleForEC2SpotFleet using the console

1. Open the IAM console at https://console.aws.amazon.com/iam/.

2. In the navigation pane, choose Roles.
3. Choose Create role.
4. For Select type of trusted entity, choose AWS service.
5. Under Choose a use case, Or select a service to view its use cases, choose EC2.
6. Under Select your use case, choose EC2 - Spot Fleet.
7. Choose Next: Permissions.
8. On the next page, choose Next: Tags.
9. On the next page, choose Next: Review.
10. On the Review page, choose Create role.

To create AWSServiceRoleForEC2SpotFleet using the AWS CLI

Use the create-service-linked-role command as follows.

aws iam create-service-linked-role --aws-service-name spotfleet.amazonaws.com

If you no longer need to use Spot Fleet, we recommend that you delete the
AWSServiceRoleForEC2SpotFleet role. After this role is deleted from your account, Amazon EC2 will
create the role again if you request a Spot Fleet using the console. For more information, see Deleting a
Service-Linked Role in the IAM User Guide.

Grant access to CMKs for use with encrypted AMIs and EBS snapshots

If you specify an encrypted AMI (p. 130) or an encrypted Amazon EBS snapshot (p. 1340) in your Spot
Fleet request and you use a customer managed customer master key (CMK) for encryption, you must
grant the AWSServiceRoleForEC2SpotFleet role permission to use the CMK so that Amazon EC2 can
launch instances on your behalf. To do this, you must add a grant to the CMK, as shown in the following
procedure.

When providing permissions, grants are an alternative to key policies. For more information, see Using
Grants and Using Key Policies in AWS KMS in the AWS Key Management Service Developer Guide.

To grant the AWSServiceRoleForEC2SpotFleet role permissions to use the CMK

• Use the create-grant command to add a grant to the CMK and to specify the principal (the
AWSServiceRoleForEC2SpotFleet service-linked role) that is given permission to perform the
operations that the grant permits. The CMK is specified by the key-id parameter and the ARN of
the CMK. The principal is specified by the grantee-principal parameter and the ARN of the
AWSServiceRoleForEC2SpotFleet service-linked role.

aws kms create-grant \

--region us-east-1 \
--key-id arn:aws:kms:us-
east-1:444455556666:key/1234abcd-12ab-34cd-56ef-1234567890ab \
--grantee-principal arn:aws:iam::111122223333:role/AWSServiceRoleForEC2SpotFleet \
--operations "Decrypt" "Encrypt" "GenerateDataKey"
"GenerateDataKeyWithoutPlaintext" "CreateGrant" "DescribeKey" "ReEncryptFrom"
"ReEncryptTo"

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Service-linked role for Spot Instances

Amazon EC2 uses the service-linked role named AWSServiceRoleForEC2Spot to launch and manage
Spot Instances on your behalf. For more information, see Service-linked role for Spot Instance
requests (p. 296).

IAM role for tagging a Spot Fleet

The aws-ec2-spot-fleet-tagging-role IAM role grants the Spot Fleet permission to tag the Spot
Fleet request, instances, and volumes. For more information, see Tag a Spot Fleet (p. 738).
Important
If you choose to tag instances in the fleet and you choose to maintain target capacity (the
Spot Fleet request is of type maintain), the differences in permissions of the IAM user and
the IamFleetRole might lead to inconsistent tagging behavior of instances in the fleet. If the
IamFleetRole does not include the CreateTags permission, some of the instances launched
by the fleet might not be tagged. While we are working to fix this inconsistency, to ensure that
all instances launched by the fleet are tagged, we recommend that you use the aws-ec2-spot-
fleet-tagging-role role for the IamFleetRole. Alternatively, to use an existing role, attach
the AmazonEC2SpotFleetTaggingRole AWS Managed Policy to the existing role. Otherwise,
you need to manually add the CreateTags permission to your existing policy.

To create the IAM role for tagging a Spot Fleet

1. Open the IAM console at https://console.aws.amazon.com/iam/.

2. In the navigation pane, choose Roles.
3. Choose Create roles.
4. On the Select type of trusted entity page, choose AWS service.
5. Under Choose a use case, Or select a service to view its use cases, choose EC2.
6. Under Select your use case, choose EC2 - Spot Fleet Tagging.
7. Choose Next: Permissions.
8. On the next page, choose Next: Tags.
9. On the next page, choose Next: Review.
10. On the Review page, enter a name for the role (for example, aws-ec2-spot-fleet-tagging-
role) and choose Create role.

Create a Spot Fleet request

Using the AWS Management Console, quickly create a Spot Fleet request by choosing only your
application or task need and minimum compute specs. Amazon EC2 configures a fleet that best meets
your needs and follows Spot best practice. For more information, see Quickly create a Spot Fleet request
(console) (p. 734). Otherwise, you can modify any of the default settings. For more information, see
Create a Spot Fleet request using defined parameters (console) (p. 735) and Create a Spot Fleet using
the AWS CLI (p. 737).

Options for creating a Spot Fleet

• Quickly create a Spot Fleet request (console) (p. 734)
• Create a Spot Fleet request using defined parameters (console) (p. 735)
• Create a Spot Fleet using the AWS CLI (p. 737)

Quickly create a Spot Fleet request (console)

Follow these steps to quickly create a Spot Fleet request.

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To create a Spot Fleet request using the recommended settings (console)

1. Open the Spot console at https://console.aws.amazon.com/ec2spot.

2. If you are new to Spot, you see a welcome page; choose Get started. Otherwise, choose Request
Spot Instances.
3. For Tell us your application or task need, choose Load balancing workloads, Flexible workloads,
or Big data workloads.
4. Under Configure your instances, for Minimum compute unit, choose the minimum hardware
specifications (vCPUs, memory, and storage) that you need for your application or task, either as
specs or as an instance type.

• For as specs, specify the required number of vCPUs and amount of memory.
• For as an instance type, accept the default instance type, or choose Change instance type to
choose a different instance type.
5. Under Tell us how much capacity you need, for Total target capacity, specify the number of units
to request for target capacity. You can choose instances or vCPUs.
6. Review the recommended Fleet request settings based on your application or task selection, and
choose Launch.

Create a Spot Fleet request using defined parameters (console)

You can create a Spot Fleet using the parameters that you define.

To create a Spot Fleet request using defined parameters (console)

1. Open the Spot console at https://console.aws.amazon.com/ec2spot.

2. If you are new to Spot, you see a welcome page; choose Get started. Otherwise, choose Request
Spot Instances.
3. For Tell us your application or task need, choose Load balancing workloads, Flexible workloads,
or Big data workloads.
4. For Configure your instances, do the following:

a. (Optional) For Launch template, choose a launch template. The launch template must specify
an Amazon Machine Image (AMI), as you cannot override the AMI using Spot Fleet if you specify
a launch template.
Important
If you intend to specify Optional On-Demand portion, you must choose a launch
template.
b. For AMI, choose one of the basic AMIs provided by AWS, or choose Search for AMI to use an
AMI from our user community, the AWS Marketplace, or one of your own.
c. For Minimum compute unit, choose the minimum hardware specifications (vCPUs, memory,
and storage) that you need for your application or task, either as specs or as an instance type.

• For as specs, specify the required number of vCPUs and amount of memory.
• For as an instance type, accept the default instance type, or choose Change instance type to
choose a different instance type.
d. For Network, choose an existing VPC or create a new one.

[Existing VPC] Choose the VPC.

[New VPC] Choose Create new VPC to go the Amazon VPC console. When you are done, return
to the wizard and refresh the list.
e. (Optional) For Availability Zone, let AWS choose the Availability Zones for your Spot Instances,
or specify one or more Availability Zones.

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If you have more than one subnet in an Availability Zone, choose the appropriate subnet from
Subnet. To add subnets, choose Create new subnet to go to the Amazon VPC console. When
you are done, return to the wizard and refresh the list.
f. (Optional) For Key pair name, choose an existing key pair or create a new one.

[Existing key pair] Choose the key pair.

[New key pair] Choose Create new key pair to go the Amazon VPC console. When you are done,
return to the wizard and refresh the list.
5. (Optional) For Additional configurations, do the following:

a. (Optional) To enable Amazon EBS optimization, for EBS-optimized, choose Launch EBS-
optimized instances.
b. (Optional) To add temporary block-level storage for your instances, for Instance store, choose
Attach at launch.
c. (Optional) To add storage, specify additional instance store volumes or Amazon EBS volumes,
depending on the instance type.
d. (Optional) By default, basic monitoring is enabled for your instances. To enable detailed
monitoring, for Monitoring, choose Enable CloudWatch detailed monitoring.
e. (Optional) To replace unhealthy Spot Instances, for Health check, choose Replace unhealthy
instances. To enable this option, you must first choose Maintain target capacity.
f. (Optional) To run a Dedicated Spot Instance, for Tenancy, choose Dedicated - run a dedicated
instance.
g. (Optional) For Security groups, choose one or more security groups or create a new one.

[Existing security group] Choose one or more security groups.

[New security group] Choose Create new security group to go the Amazon VPC console. When
you are done, return to the wizard and refresh the list.
h. (Optional) To make your instances reachable from the internet, for Auto-assign IPv4 Public IP,
choose Enable.
i. (Optional) To launch your Spot Instances with an IAM role, for IAM instance profile, choose the
role.
j. (Optional) To run a start-up script, copy it to User data.
k. (Optional) To add a tag, choose Add new tag and enter the key and value for the tag. Repeat for
each tag.

For each tag, to tag the instances and the Spot Fleet request with the same tag, ensure that
both Instance and Fleet are selected. To tag only the instances launched by the fleet, clear
Fleet. To tag only the Spot Fleet request, clear Instance.
6. For Tell us how much capacity you need, do the following:

a. For Total target capacity, specify the number of units to request for target capacity. You can
choose instances or vCPUs. To specify a target capacity of 0 so that you can add capacity later,
choose Maintain target capacity.
b. (Optional) For Optional On-Demand portion, specify the number of On-Demand units to
request. The number must be less than the Total target capacity. Amazon EC2 calculates the
difference, and allocates the difference to Spot units to request.
Important
To specify an optional On-Demand portion, you must first choose a launch template.
c. (Optional) By default, the Spot service terminates Spot Instances when they are interrupted.
To maintain the target capacity, select Maintain target capacity. You can then specify that the

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Spot service terminates, stops, or hibernates Spot Instances when they are interrupted. To do
so, choose the corresponding option from Interruption behavior.
d. (Optional) To allow Spot Fleet to launch a replacement Spot Instance when an instance
rebalance notification is emitted for an existing Spot Instance in the fleet, select Capacity
rebalance. For more information, see Capacity Rebalancing (p. 724).
Note
When a replacement instance is launched, the instance marked for rebalance is not
automatically terminated. You can terminate it, or you can leave it running. You are
charged for both instances while they are running.
The instance marked for rebalance is at an elevated risk of interruption, and you will
receive a two-minute Spot Instance interruption notice before Amazon EC2 interrupts
it.
e. (Optional) To control the amount you pay per hour for all the Spot Instances in your fleet,
select Set maximum cost for Spot Instances and then enter the maximum total amount you're
willing to pay per hour. When the maximum total amount is reached, Spot Fleet stops launching
Spot Instances even if it hasn’t met the target capacity. For more information, see Control
spending (p. 726).
7. For Fleet request settings, do the following:

a. Review the fleet request and fleet allocation strategy based on your application or task
selection. To change the instance types or allocation strategy, clear Apply recommendations.
b. (Optional) For Fleet allocation strategy, choose the strategy that meets your needs. For more
information, see Allocation strategy for Spot Instances (p. 721).
c. (Optional) To remove instance types, for Fleet request, select the instance types to remove and
then choose Delete. To add instance types, choose Select instance types.
8. For Additional request details, do the following:

a. Review the additional request details. To make changes, clear Apply defaults.
b. (Optional) For IAM fleet role, you can use the default role or choose a different role. To use the
default role after changing the role, choose Use default role.
c. (Optional) For Maximum price, you can use the default maximum price (the On-Demand price)
or specify the maximum price you are willing to pay. If your maximum price is lower than the
Spot price for the instance types that you selected, your Spot Instances are not launched.
d. (Optional) To create a request that is valid only during a specific time period, edit Request valid
from and Request valid until.
e. (Optional) By default, we terminate your Spot Instances when the request expires. To keep them
running after your request expires, clear Terminate the instances when the request expires.
f. (Optional) To register your Spot Instances with a load balancer, choose Receive traffic from one
or more load balancers and choose one or more Classic Load Balancers or target groups.
9. (Optional) To download a copy of the launch configuration for use with the AWS CLI, choose JSON
config.
10. Choose Launch.

The Spot Fleet request type is fleet. When the request is fulfilled, requests of type instance are
added, where the state is active and the status is fulfilled.

Create a Spot Fleet using the AWS CLI

To create a Spot Fleet request using the AWS CLI

• Use the request-spot-fleet command to create a Spot Fleet request.

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aws ec2 request-spot-fleet --spot-fleet-request-config file://config.json

For example configuration files, see Spot Fleet example configurations (p. 792).

The following is example output:

{
"SpotFleetRequestId": "sfr-73fbd2ce-aa30-494c-8788-1cee4EXAMPLE"
}

Tag a Spot Fleet

To help categorize and manage your Spot Fleet requests, you can tag them with custom metadata. You
can assign a tag to a Spot Fleet request when you create it, or afterward. You can assign tags using the
Amazon EC2 console or a command line tool.

When you tag a Spot Fleet request, the instances and volumes that are launched by the Spot Fleet are
not automatically tagged. You need to explicitly tag the instances and volumes launched by the Spot
Fleet. You can choose to assign tags to only the Spot Fleet request, or to only the instances launched by
the fleet, or to only the volumes attached to the instances launched by the fleet, or to all three.
Note
Volume tags are only supported for volumes that are attached to On-Demand Instances. You
can't tag volumes that are attached to Spot Instances.

For more information about how tags work, see Tag your Amazon EC2 resources (p. 1463).

Contents
• Prerequisite (p. 738)
• Tag a new Spot Fleet (p. 739)
• Tag a new Spot Fleet and the instances and volumes that it launches (p. 740)
• Tag an existing Spot Fleet (p. 742)
• View Spot Fleet request tags (p. 743)

Prerequisite
Grant the IAM user the permission to tag resources. For more information, see Example: Tag
resources (p. 1111).

To grant an IAM user the permission to tag resources

Create a IAM policy that includes the following:

• The ec2:CreateTags action. This grants the IAM user permission to create tags.
• The ec2:RequestSpotFleet action. This grants the IAM user permission to create a Spot Fleet
request.
• For Resource, you must specify "*". This allows users to tag all resource types.

{
"Version": "2012-10-17",
"Statement": [
{
"Sid": "TagSpotFleetRequest",

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"Effect": "Allow",
"Action": [
"ec2:CreateTags",
"ec2:RequestSpotFleet"
],
"Resource": "*"
}

Important
We currently do not support resource-level permissions for the spot-fleet-request
resource. If you specify spot-fleet-request as a resource, you will get an unauthorized
exception when you try to tag the fleet. The following example illustrates how not to set the
policy.

{
"Effect": "Allow",
"Action": [
"ec2:CreateTags",
"ec2:RequestSpotFleet"
],
"Resource": "arn:aws:ec2:us-east-1:111122223333:spot-fleet-request/*"
}

Tag a new Spot Fleet

To tag a new Spot Fleet request using the console

1. Follow the Create a Spot Fleet request using defined parameters (console) (p. 735) procedure.
2. To add a tag, expand Additional configurations, choose Add new tag, and enter the key and value
for the tag. Repeat for each tag.

For each tag, you can tag the Spot Fleet request and the instances with the same tag. To tag both,
ensure that both Instance tags and Fleet tags are selected. To tag only the Spot Fleet request, clear
Instance tags. To tag only the instances launched by the fleet, clear Fleet tags.
3. Complete the required fields to create a Spot Fleet request, and then choose Launch. For more
information, see Create a Spot Fleet request using defined parameters (console) (p. 735).

To tag a new Spot Fleet request using the AWS CLI

To tag a Spot Fleet request when you create it, configure the Spot Fleet request configuration as follows:

• Specify the tags for the Spot Fleet request in SpotFleetRequestConfig.

• For ResourceType, specify spot-fleet-request. If you specify another value, the fleet request will
fail.
• For Tags, specify the key-value pair. You can specify more than one key-value pair.

In the following example, the Spot Fleet request is tagged with two tags: Key=Environment and
Value=Production, and Key=Cost-Center and Value=123.

{
"SpotFleetRequestConfig": {
"AllocationStrategy": "lowestPrice",
"ExcessCapacityTerminationPolicy": "default",
"IamFleetRole": "arn:aws:iam::111122223333:role/aws-ec2-spot-fleet-tagging-role",
"LaunchSpecifications": [
{
"ImageId": "ami-0123456789EXAMPLE",

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"InstanceType": "c4.large"
}
],
"SpotPrice": "5",
"TargetCapacity": 2,
"TerminateInstancesWithExpiration": true,
"Type": "maintain",
"ReplaceUnhealthyInstances": true,
"InstanceInterruptionBehavior": "terminate",
"InstancePoolsToUseCount": 1,
"TagSpecifications": [
{
"ResourceType": "spot-fleet-request",
"Tags": [
{
"Key": "Environment",
"Value":"Production"
},
{
"Key": "Cost-Center",
"Value":"123"
}
]
}
]
}
}

Tag a new Spot Fleet and the instances and volumes that it launches
To tag a new Spot Fleet request and the instances and volumes that it launches using the AWS CLI

To tag a Spot Fleet request when you create it, and to tag the instances and volumes when they are
launched by the fleet, configure the Spot Fleet request configuration as follows:

Spot Fleet request tags:

• Specify the tags for the Spot Fleet request in SpotFleetRequestConfig.

• For ResourceType, specify spot-fleet-request. If you specify another value, the fleet request will
fail.
• For Tags, specify the key-value pair. You can specify more than one key-value pair.

Instance tags:

• Specify the tags for the instances in LaunchSpecifications.

• For ResourceType, specify instance. If you specify another value, the fleet request will fail.
• For Tags, specify the key-value pair. You can specify more than one key-value pair.

Alternatively, you can specify the tags for the instance in the launch template (p. 403) that is
referenced in the Spot Fleet request.

Volume tags:

• Specify the tags for the volumes in the launch template (p. 403) that is referenced in the Spot Fleet
request. Volume tagging in LaunchSpecifications is not supported.

In the following example, the Spot Fleet request is tagged with two tags: Key=Environment and
Value=Production, and Key=Cost-Center and Value=123. The instances that are launched by the fleet are

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tagged with one tag (which is the same as one of the tags for the Spot Fleet request): Key=Cost-Center
and Value=123.

{
"SpotFleetRequestConfig": {
"AllocationStrategy": "lowestPrice",
"ExcessCapacityTerminationPolicy": "default",
"IamFleetRole": "arn:aws:iam::111122223333:role/aws-ec2-spot-fleet-tagging-role",
"LaunchSpecifications": [
{
"ImageId": "ami-0123456789EXAMPLE",
"InstanceType": "c4.large",
"TagSpecifications": [
{
"ResourceType": "instance",
"Tags": [
{
"Key": "Cost-Center",
"Value": "123"
}
]
}
]
}
],
"SpotPrice": "5",
"TargetCapacity": 2,
"TerminateInstancesWithExpiration": true,
"Type": "maintain",
"ReplaceUnhealthyInstances": true,
"InstanceInterruptionBehavior": "terminate",
"InstancePoolsToUseCount": 1,
"TagSpecifications": [
{
"ResourceType": "spot-fleet-request",
"Tags": [
{
"Key": "Environment",
"Value":"Production"
},
{
"Key": "Cost-Center",
"Value":"123"
}
]
}
]
}
}

To tag instances launched by a Spot Fleet using the AWS CLI

To tag instances when they are launched by the fleet, you can either specify the tags in the launch
template (p. 403) that is referenced in the Spot Fleet request, or you can specify the tags in the Spot
Fleet request configuration as follows:

• Specify the tags for the instances in LaunchSpecifications.

• For ResourceType, specify instance. If you specify another value, the fleet request will fail.
• For Tags, specify the key-value pair. You can specify more than one key-value pair.

In the following example, the instances that are launched by the fleet are tagged with one tag:
Key=Cost-Center and Value=123.

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{
"SpotFleetRequestConfig": {
"AllocationStrategy": "lowestPrice",
"ExcessCapacityTerminationPolicy": "default",
"IamFleetRole": "arn:aws:iam::111122223333:role/aws-ec2-spot-fleet-tagging-role",
"LaunchSpecifications": [
{
"ImageId": "ami-0123456789EXAMPLE",
"InstanceType": "c4.large",
"TagSpecifications": [
{
"ResourceType": "instance",
"Tags": [
{
"Key": "Cost-Center",
"Value": "123"
}
]
}
]
}
],
"SpotPrice": "5",
"TargetCapacity": 2,
"TerminateInstancesWithExpiration": true,
"Type": "maintain",
"ReplaceUnhealthyInstances": true,
"InstanceInterruptionBehavior": "terminate",
"InstancePoolsToUseCount": 1
}
}

To tag volumes attached to On-Demand Instances launched by a Spot Fleet using the AWS CLI

To tag volumes when they are created by the fleet, you must specify the tags in the launch
template (p. 403) that is referenced in the Spot Fleet request.
Note
Volume tags are only supported for volumes that are attached to On-Demand Instances. You
can't tag volumes that are attached to Spot Instances.
Volume tagging in LaunchSpecifications is not supported.

Tag an existing Spot Fleet

To tag an existing Spot Fleet request using the console

After you have created a Spot Fleet request, you can add tags to the fleet request using the console.

1. Open the Spot console at https://console.aws.amazon.com/ec2spot.

2. Select your Spot Fleet request.
3. Choose the Tags tab and choose Create Tag.

To tag an existing Spot Fleet request using the AWS CLI

You can use the create-tags command to tag existing resources. In the following example, the existing
Spot Fleet request is tagged with Key=purpose and Value=test.

aws ec2 create-tags \

--resources sfr-11112222-3333-4444-5555-66666EXAMPLE \
--tags Key=purpose,Value=test

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View Spot Fleet request tags

To view Spot Fleet request tags using the console

1. Open the Spot console at https://console.aws.amazon.com/ec2spot.

2. Select your Spot Fleet request and choose the Tags tab.

To describe Spot Fleet request tags

Use the describe-tags command to view the tags for the specified resource. In the following example,
you describe the tags for the specified Spot Fleet request.

aws ec2 describe-tags \

--filters "Name=resource-id,Values=sfr-11112222-3333-4444-5555-66666EXAMPLE"

{
"Tags": [
{
"Key": "Environment",
"ResourceId": "sfr-11112222-3333-4444-5555-66666EXAMPLE",
"ResourceType": "spot-fleet-request",
"Value": "Production"
},
{
"Key": "Another key",
"ResourceId": "sfr-11112222-3333-4444-5555-66666EXAMPLE",
"ResourceType": "spot-fleet-request",
"Value": "Another value"
}
]
}

You can also view the tags of a Spot Fleet request by describing the Spot Fleet request.

Use the describe-spot-fleet-requests command to view the configuration of the specified Spot Fleet
request, which includes any tags that were specified for the fleet request.

aws ec2 describe-spot-fleet-requests \

--spot-fleet-request-ids sfr-11112222-3333-4444-5555-66666EXAMPLE

{
"SpotFleetRequestConfigs": [
{
"ActivityStatus": "fulfilled",
"CreateTime": "2020-02-13T02:49:19.709Z",
"SpotFleetRequestConfig": {
"AllocationStrategy": "capacityOptimized",
"OnDemandAllocationStrategy": "lowestPrice",
"ExcessCapacityTerminationPolicy": "Default",
"FulfilledCapacity": 2.0,
"OnDemandFulfilledCapacity": 0.0,
"IamFleetRole": "arn:aws:iam::111122223333:role/aws-ec2-spot-fleet-tagging-
role",
"LaunchSpecifications": [
{
"ImageId": "ami-0123456789EXAMPLE",
"InstanceType": "c4.large"
}
],

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"TargetCapacity": 2,
"OnDemandTargetCapacity": 0,
"Type": "maintain",
"ReplaceUnhealthyInstances": false,
"InstanceInterruptionBehavior": "terminate"
},
"SpotFleetRequestId": "sfr-11112222-3333-4444-5555-66666EXAMPLE",
"SpotFleetRequestState": "active",
"Tags": [
{
"Key": "Environment",
"Value": "Production"
},
{
"Key": "Another key",
"Value": "Another value"
}
]
}
]
}

Monitor your Spot Fleet

The Spot Fleet launches Spot Instances when your maximum price exceeds the Spot price and capacity is
available. The Spot Instances run until they are interrupted or you terminate them.

To monitor your Spot Fleet (console)

1. Open the Amazon EC2 console at https://console.aws.amazon.com/ec2/.

2. In the navigation pane, choose Spot Requests.
3. Select your Spot Fleet request. To see the configuration details, choose Description.
4. To list the Spot Instances for the Spot Fleet, choose Instances.
5. To view the history for the Spot Fleet, choose History.

To monitor your Spot Fleet (AWS CLI)

Use the describe-spot-fleet-requests command to describe your Spot Fleet requests.

aws ec2 describe-spot-fleet-requests

Use the describe-spot-fleet-instances command to describe the Spot Instances for the specified Spot
Fleet.

aws ec2 describe-spot-fleet-instances \

--spot-fleet-request-id sfr-73fbd2ce-aa30-494c-8788-1cee4EXAMPLE

Use the describe-spot-fleet-request-history command to describe the history for the specified Spot Fleet
request.

aws ec2 describe-spot-fleet-request-history \

--spot-fleet-request-id sfr-73fbd2ce-aa30-494c-8788-1cee4EXAMPLE \
--start-time 2015-05-18T00:00:00Z

Modify a Spot Fleet request

You can modify an active Spot Fleet request to complete the following tasks:

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• Increase the target capacity and On-Demand portion

• Decrease the target capacity and On-Demand portion

Note
You can't modify a one-time Spot Fleet request. You can only modify a Spot Fleet request if you
selected Maintain target capacity when you created the Spot Fleet request.

When you increase the target capacity, the Spot Fleet launches additional Spot Instances. When you
increase the On-Demand portion, the Spot Fleet launches additional On-Demand Instances.

When you increase the target capacity, the Spot Fleet launches the additional Spot Instances according
to the allocation strategy for its Spot Fleet request. If the allocation strategy is lowestPrice, the Spot
Fleet launches the instances from the lowest-priced Spot capacity pool in the Spot Fleet request. If the
allocation strategy is diversified, the Spot Fleet distributes the instances across the pools in the Spot
Fleet request.

When you decrease the target capacity, the Spot Fleet cancels any open requests that exceed the new
target capacity. You can request that the Spot Fleet terminate Spot Instances until the size of the fleet
reaches the new target capacity. If the allocation strategy is lowestPrice, the Spot Fleet terminates
the instances with the highest price per unit. If the allocation strategy is diversified, the Spot Fleet
terminates instances across the pools. Alternatively, you can request that the Spot Fleet keep the fleet at
its current size, but not replace any Spot Instances that are interrupted or that you terminate manually.

When a Spot Fleet terminates an instance because the target capacity was decreased, the instance
receives a Spot Instance interruption notice.

To modify a Spot Fleet request (console)

1. Open the Spot console at https://console.aws.amazon.com/ec2spot/home/fleet.

2. Select your Spot Fleet request.
3. Choose Actions, Modify target capacity.
4. In Modify target capacity, do the following:

a. Enter the new target capacity and On-Demand portion.

b. (Optional) If you are decreasing the target capacity but want to keep the fleet at its current size,
clear Terminate instances.
c. Choose Submit.

To modify a Spot Fleet request using the AWS CLI

Use the modify-spot-fleet-request command to update the target capacity of the specified Spot Fleet
request.

aws ec2 modify-spot-fleet-request \

--spot-fleet-request-id sfr-73fbd2ce-aa30-494c-8788-1cee4EXAMPLE \
--target-capacity 20

You can modify the previous command as follows to decrease the target capacity of the specified Spot
Fleet without terminating any Spot Instances as a result.

aws ec2 modify-spot-fleet-request \

--spot-fleet-request-id sfr-73fbd2ce-aa30-494c-8788-1cee4EXAMPLE \
--target-capacity 10 \
--excess-capacity-termination-policy NoTermination

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Cancel a Spot Fleet request

When you are finished using your Spot Fleet, you can cancel the Spot Fleet request. This cancels all
Spot requests associated with the Spot Fleet, so that no new Spot Instances are launched for your Spot
Fleet. You must specify whether the Spot Fleet should terminate its Spot Instances. If you terminate
the instances, the Spot Fleet request enters the cancelled_terminating state. Otherwise, the Spot
Fleet request enters the cancelled_running state and the instances continue to run until they are
interrupted or you terminate them manually.

To cancel a Spot Fleet request (console)

1. Open the Spot console at https://console.aws.amazon.com/ec2spot/home/fleet.

2. Select your Spot Fleet request.
3. Choose Actions, Cancel spot request.
4. In Cancel spot request, verify that you want to cancel the Spot Fleet. To keep the fleet at its current
size, clear Terminate instances. When you are ready, choose Confirm.

To cancel a Spot Fleet request using the AWS CLI

Use the cancel-spot-fleet-requests command to cancel the specified Spot Fleet request and terminate
the instances.

aws ec2 cancel-spot-fleet-requests \

--spot-fleet-request-ids sfr-73fbd2ce-aa30-494c-8788-1cee4EXAMPLE \
--terminate-instances

The following is example output:

{
"SuccessfulFleetRequests": [
{
"SpotFleetRequestId": "sfr-73fbd2ce-aa30-494c-8788-1cee4EXAMPLE",
"CurrentSpotFleetRequestState": "cancelled_terminating",
"PreviousSpotFleetRequestState": "active"
}
],
"UnsuccessfulFleetRequests": []
}

You can modify the previous command as follows to cancel the specified Spot Fleet request without
terminating the instances.

aws ec2 cancel-spot-fleet-requests \

--spot-fleet-request-ids sfr-73fbd2ce-aa30-494c-8788-1cee4EXAMPLE \
--no-terminate-instances

The following is example output:

{
"SuccessfulFleetRequests": [
{
"SpotFleetRequestId": "sfr-73fbd2ce-aa30-494c-8788-1cee4EXAMPLE",
"CurrentSpotFleetRequestState": "cancelled_running",
"PreviousSpotFleetRequestState": "active"
}
],
"UnsuccessfulFleetRequests": []

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CloudWatch metrics for Spot Fleet

CloudWatch metrics for Spot Fleet

Amazon EC2 provides Amazon CloudWatch metrics that you can use to monitor your Spot Fleet.
Important
To ensure accuracy, we recommend that you enable detailed monitoring when using
these metrics. For more information, see Enable or turn off detailed monitoring for your
instances (p. 851).

For more information about CloudWatch metrics provided by Amazon EC2, see Monitor your instances
using CloudWatch (p. 851).

Spot Fleet metrics

The AWS/EC2Spot namespace includes the following metrics, plus the CloudWatch metrics for the Spot
Instances in your fleet. For more information, see Instance metrics (p. 854).

Metric Description

AvailableInstancePoolsCount The Spot capacity pools specified in the Spot Fleet request.

Units: Count

BidsSubmittedForCapacity The capacity for which Amazon EC2 has submitted Spot Fleet
requests.

Units: Count

EligibleInstancePoolCount The Spot capacity pools specified in the Spot Fleet request
where Amazon EC2 can fulfill requests. Amazon EC2 does not
fulfill requests in pools where the maximum price you're willing
to pay for Spot Instances is less than the Spot price or the Spot
price is greater than the price for On-Demand Instances.

Units: Count

FulfilledCapacity The capacity that Amazon EC2 has fulfilled.

Units: Count

MaxPercentCapacityAllocation The maximum value of PercentCapacityAllocation across

all Spot Fleet pools specified in the Spot Fleet request.

Units: Percent

PendingCapacity The difference between TargetCapacity and

FulfilledCapacity.

Units: Count

PercentCapacityAllocation The capacity allocated for the Spot capacity pool

for the specified dimensions. To get the maximum
value recorded across all Spot capacity pools, use
MaxPercentCapacityAllocation.

Units: Percent

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Metric Description

TargetCapacity The target capacity of the Spot Fleet request.

Units: Count

TerminatingCapacity The capacity that is being terminated because the provisioned

capacity is greater than the target capacity.

Units: Count

If the unit of measure for a metric is Count, the most useful statistic is Average.

Spot Fleet dimensions

To filter the data for your Spot Fleet, use the following dimensions.

Dimensions Description

AvailabilityZone Filter the data by Availability Zone.

FleetRequestId Filter the data by Spot Fleet request.

InstanceType Filter the data by instance type.

View the CloudWatch metrics for your Spot Fleet

You can view the CloudWatch metrics for your Spot Fleet using the Amazon CloudWatch console. These
metrics are displayed as monitoring graphs. These graphs show data points if the Spot Fleet is active.

Metrics are grouped first by namespace, and then by the various combinations of dimensions within each
namespace. For example, you can view all Spot Fleet metrics or Spot Fleet metrics groups by Spot Fleet
request ID, instance type, or Availability Zone.

To view Spot Fleet metrics

1. Open the CloudWatch console at https://console.aws.amazon.com/cloudwatch/.

2. In the navigation pane, choose Metrics.
3. Choose the EC2 Spot namespace.
Note
If the EC2 Spot namespace is not displayed, there are two reasons for this. Either you've
not yet used Spot Fleet—only the AWS services that you're using send metrics to Amazon
CloudWatch. Or, if you’ve not used Spot Fleet for the past two weeks, the namespace does
not appear.
4. (Optional) To filter the metrics by dimension, select one of the following:

• Fleet Request Metrics – Group by Spot Fleet request

• By Availability Zone – Group by Spot Fleet request and Availability Zone
• By Instance Type – Group by Spot Fleet request and instance type
• By Availability Zone/Instance Type – Group by Spot Fleet request, Availability Zone, and instance
type
5. To view the data for a metric, select the check box next to the metric.

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Automatic scaling for Spot Fleet

Automatic scaling for Spot Fleet

Automatic scaling is the ability to increase or decrease the target capacity of your Spot Fleet
automatically based on demand. A Spot Fleet can either launch instances (scale out) or terminate
instances (scale in), within the range that you choose, in response to one or more scaling policies.

Spot Fleet supports the following types of automatic scaling:

• Target tracking scaling (p. 751) – Increase or decrease

the current capacity of the fleet based on a target value for a specific metric. This is similar to the
way that your thermostat maintains the temperature of your home—you select temperature and the
thermostat does the rest.
• Step scaling (p. 752) – Increase or decrease the current capacity of the fleet based on a set of scaling
adjustments, known as step adjustments, that vary based on the size of the alarm breach.
• Scheduled scaling (p. 753) – Increase or decrease the current capacity of the fleet based on the date
and time.

If you are using instance weighting (p. 726), keep in mind that Spot Fleet can exceed the target capacity
as needed. Fulfilled capacity can be a floating-point number but target capacity must be an integer,
so Spot Fleet rounds up to the next integer. You must take these behaviors into account when you
look at the outcome of a scaling policy when an alarm is triggered. For example, suppose that the
target capacity is 30, the fulfilled capacity is 30.1, and the scaling policy subtracts 1. When the alarm is
triggered, the automatic scaling process subtracts 1 from 30.1 to get 29.1 and then rounds it up to 30, so
no scaling action is taken. As another example, suppose that you selected instance weights of 2, 4, and 8,
and a target capacity of 10, but no weight 2 instances were available so Spot Fleet provisioned instances
of weights 4 and 8 for a fulfilled capacity of 12. If the scaling policy decreases target capacity by 20%
and an alarm is triggered, the automatic scaling process subtracts 12*0.2 from 12 to get 9.6 and then
rounds it up to 10, so no scaling action is taken.

The scaling policies that you create for Spot Fleet support a cooldown period. This is the number of
seconds after a scaling activity completes where previous trigger-related scaling activities can influence
future scaling events. For scale-out policies, while the cooldown period is in effect, the capacity that
has been added by the previous scale-out event that initiated the cooldown is calculated as part of
the desired capacity for the next scale out. The intention is to continuously (but not excessively) scale
out. For scale in policies, the cooldown period is used to block subsequent scale in requests until it has
expired. The intention is to scale in conservatively to protect your application's availability. However, if
another alarm triggers a scale-out policy during the cooldown period after a scale-in, automatic scaling
scales out your scalable target immediately.

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Automatic scaling for Spot Fleet

We recommend that you scale based on instance metrics with a 1-minute frequency because that
ensures a faster response to utilization changes. Scaling on metrics with a 5-minute frequency can
result in slower response time and scaling on stale metric data. To send metric data for your instances
to CloudWatch in 1-minute periods, you must specifically enable detailed monitoring. For more
information, see Enable or turn off detailed monitoring for your instances (p. 851) and Create a Spot
Fleet request using defined parameters (console) (p. 735).

For more information about configuring scaling for Spot Fleet, see the following resources:

• application-autoscaling section of the AWS CLI Command Reference

• Application Auto Scaling API Reference
• Application Auto Scaling User Guide

IAM permissions required for Spot Fleet automatic scaling

Automatic scaling for Spot Fleet is made possible by a combination of the Amazon EC2, Amazon
CloudWatch, and Application Auto Scaling APIs. Spot Fleet requests are created with Amazon EC2,
alarms are created with CloudWatch, and scaling policies are created with Application Auto Scaling.

In addition to the IAM permissions for Spot Fleet (p. 730) and Amazon EC2, the IAM user that accesses
fleet scaling settings must have the appropriate permissions for the services that support dynamic
scaling. IAM users must have permissions to use the actions shown in the following example policy.

{
"Version": "2012-10-17",
"Statement": [
{
"Effect": "Allow",
"Action": [
"application-autoscaling:*",
"ec2:DescribeSpotFleetRequests",
"ec2:ModifySpotFleetRequest",
"cloudwatch:DeleteAlarms",
"cloudwatch:DescribeAlarmHistory",
"cloudwatch:DescribeAlarms",
"cloudwatch:DescribeAlarmsForMetric",
"cloudwatch:GetMetricStatistics",
"cloudwatch:ListMetrics",
"cloudwatch:PutMetricAlarm",
"cloudwatch:DisableAlarmActions",
"cloudwatch:EnableAlarmActions",
"iam:CreateServiceLinkedRole",
"sns:CreateTopic",
"sns:Subscribe",
"sns:Get*",
"sns:List*"
],
"Resource": "*"
}
]
}

You can also create your own IAM policies that allow more fine-grained permissions for calls to the
Application Auto Scaling API. For more information, see Authentication and Access Control in the
Application Auto Scaling User Guide.

The Application Auto Scaling service also needs permission to describe your Spot Fleet and
CloudWatch alarms, and permissions to modify your Spot Fleet target capacity on your behalf.
If you enable automatic scaling for your Spot Fleet, it creates a service-linked role named

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AWSServiceRoleForApplicationAutoScaling_EC2SpotFleetRequest. This service-linked role

grants Application Auto Scaling permission to describe the alarms for your policies, to monitor the
current capacity of the fleet, and to modify the capacity of the fleet. The original managed Spot Fleet
role for Application Auto Scaling was aws-ec2-spot-fleet-autoscale-role, but it is no longer
required. The service-linked role is the default role for Application Auto Scaling. For more information,
see Service-Linked Roles in the Application Auto Scaling User Guide.

Scale Spot Fleet using a target tracking policy

With target tracking scaling policies, you select a metric and set a target value. Spot Fleet creates and
manages the CloudWatch alarms that trigger the scaling policy and calculates the scaling adjustment
based on the metric and the target value. The scaling policy adds or removes capacity as required to keep
the metric at, or close to, the specified target value. In addition to keeping the metric close to the target
value, a target tracking scaling policy also adjusts to the fluctuations in the metric due to a fluctuating
load pattern and minimizes rapid fluctuations in the capacity of the fleet.

You can create multiple target tracking scaling policies for a Spot Fleet, provided that each of them
uses a different metric. The fleet scales based on the policy that provides the largest fleet capacity. This
enables you to cover multiple scenarios and ensure that there is always enough capacity to process your
application workloads.

To ensure application availability, the fleet scales out proportionally to the metric as fast as it can, but
scales in more gradually.

When a Spot Fleet terminates an instance because the target capacity was decreased, the instance
receives a Spot Instance interruption notice.

Do not edit or delete the CloudWatch alarms that Spot Fleet manages for a target tracking scaling policy.
Spot Fleet deletes the alarms automatically when you delete the target tracking scaling policy.

Limitation

The Spot Fleet request must have a request type of maintain. Automatic scaling is not supported for
requests of type request, or Spot blocks.

To configure a target tracking policy (console)

1. Open the Amazon EC2 console at https://console.aws.amazon.com/ec2/.

2. In the navigation pane, choose Spot Requests.
3. Select your Spot Fleet request and choose Auto Scaling.
4. If automatic scaling is not configured, choose Configure.
5. Use Scale capacity between to set the minimum and maximum capacity for your fleet. Automatic
scaling does not scale your fleet below the minimum capacity or above the maximum capacity.
6. For Policy name, enter a name for the policy.
7. Choose a Target metric.
8. Enter a Target value for the metric.
9. (Optional) Set Cooldown period to modify the default cooldown period.
10. (Optional) Select Disable scale-in to omit creating a scale-in policy based on the current
configuration. You can create a scale-in policy using a different configuration.
11. Choose Save.

To configure a target tracking policy using the AWS CLI

1. Register the Spot Fleet request as a scalable target using the register-scalable-target command.
2. Create a scaling policy using the put-scaling-policy command.

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Scale Spot Fleet using step scaling policies

With step scaling policies, you specify CloudWatch alarms to trigger the scaling process. For example,
if you want to scale out when CPU utilization reaches a certain level, create an alarm using the
CPUUtilization metric provided by Amazon EC2.

When you create a step scaling policy, you must specify one of the following scaling adjustment types:

• Add – Increase the target capacity of the fleet by a specified number of capacity units or a specified
percentage of the current capacity.
• Remove – Decrease the target capacity of the fleet by a specified number of capacity units or a
specified percentage of the current capacity.
• Set to – Set the target capacity of the fleet to the specified number of capacity units.

When an alarm is triggered, the automatic scaling process calculates the new target capacity using the
fulfilled capacity and the scaling policy, and then updates the target capacity accordingly. For example,
suppose that the target capacity and fulfilled capacity are 10 and the scaling policy adds 1. When
the alarm is triggered, the automatic scaling process adds 1 to 10 to get 11, so Spot Fleet launches 1
instance.

When a Spot Fleet terminates an instance because the target capacity was decreased, the instance
receives a Spot Instance interruption notice.

Limitation

The Spot Fleet request must have a request type of maintain. Automatic scaling is not supported for
requests of type request, or Spot blocks.

Prerequisites

• Consider which CloudWatch metrics are important to your application. You can create CloudWatch
alarms based on metrics provided by AWS or your own custom metrics.
• For the AWS metrics that you will use in your scaling policies, enable CloudWatch metrics collection if
the service that provides the metrics does not enable it by default.

To create a CloudWatch alarm

1. Open the CloudWatch console at https://console.aws.amazon.com/cloudwatch/.

2. In the navigation pane, choose Alarms.
3. Choose Create alarm.
4. On the Specify metric and conditions page, choose Select metric.
5. Choose EC2 Spot, Fleet Request Metrics, select a metric (for example, TargetCapacity), and then
choose Select metric.

The Specify metric and conditions page appears, showing a graph and other information about the
metric you selected.
6. For Period, choose the evaluation period for the alarm, for example, 1 minute. When evaluating the
alarm, each period is aggregated into one data point.
Note
A shorter period creates a more sensitive alarm.
7. For Conditions, define the alarm by defining the threshold condition. For example, you can define
a threshold to trigger the alarm whenever the value of the metric is greater than or equal to 80
percent.

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8. Under Additional configuration, for Datapoints to alarm, specify how many datapoints (evaluation
periods) must be in the ALARM state to trigger the alarm, for example, 1 evaluation period or 2 out
of 3 evaluation periods. This creates an alarm that goes to ALARM state if that many consecutive
periods are breaching. For more information, see Evaluating an Alarm in the Amazon CloudWatch
User Guide.
9. For Missing data treatment, choose one of the options (or leave the default of Treat missing data
as missing). For more information, see Configuring How CloudWatch Alarms Treat Missing Data in
the Amazon CloudWatch User Guide.
10. Choose Next.
11. (Optional) To receive notification of a scaling event, for Notification, you can choose or create
the Amazon SNS topic you want to use to receive notifications. Otherwise, you can delete the
notification now and add one later as needed.
12. Choose Next.
13. Under Add a description, enter a name and description for the alarm and choose Next.
14. Choose Create alarm.

To configure a step scaling policy for your Spot Fleet (console)

1. Open the Amazon EC2 console at https://console.aws.amazon.com/ec2/.

2. In the navigation pane, choose Spot Requests.
3. Select your Spot Fleet request and choose Auto Scaling.
4. If automatic scaling is not configured, choose Configure.
5. Use Scale capacity between to set the minimum and maximum capacity for your fleet. Automatic
scaling does not scale your fleet below the minimum capacity or above the maximum capacity.
6. Initially, Scaling policies contains policies named ScaleUp and ScaleDown. You can complete these
policies, or choose Remove policy to delete them. You can also choose Add policy.
7. To define a policy, do the following:

a. For Policy name, enter a name for the policy.

b. For Policy trigger, select an existing alarm or choose Create new alarm to open the Amazon
CloudWatch console and create an alarm.
c. For Modify capacity, select a scaling adjustment type, select a number, and select a unit.
d. (Optional) To perform step scaling, choose Define steps. By default, an add policy has a lower
bound of -infinity and an upper bound of the alarm threshold. By default, a remove policy has
a lower bound of the alarm threshold and an upper bound of +infinity. To add another step,
choose Add step.
e. (Optional) To modify the default value for the cooldown period, select a number from
Cooldown period.
8. Choose Save.

To configure step scaling policies for your Spot Fleet using the AWS CLI

1. Register the Spot Fleet request as a scalable target using the register-scalable-target command.
2. Create a scaling policy using the put-scaling-policy command.
3. Create an alarm that triggers the scaling policy using the put-metric-alarm command.

Scale Spot Fleet using scheduled scaling

Scaling based on a schedule enables you to scale your application in response to predictable changes in
demand. To use scheduled scaling, you create scheduled actions, which tell Spot Fleet to perform scaling

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activities at specific times. When you create a scheduled action, you specify an existing Spot Fleet, when
the scaling activity should occur, minimum capacity, and maximum capacity. You can create scheduled
actions that scale one time only or that scale on a recurring schedule.

You can only create a scheduled action for Spot Fleets that already exist. You can't create a scheduled
action at the same time that you create a Spot Fleet.

Limitation

The Spot Fleet request must have a request type of maintain. Automatic scaling is not supported for
requests of type request, or Spot blocks.

To create a one-time scheduled action

1. Open the Amazon EC2 console at https://console.aws.amazon.com/ec2/.

2. In the navigation pane, choose Spot Requests.
3. Select your Spot Fleet request and choose the Scheduled Scaling tab near the bottom of the screen.
4. Choose Create Scheduled Action.
5. For Name, specify a name for the scheduled action.
6. Enter a value for Minimum capacity, Maximum capacity, or both.
7. For Recurrence, choose Once.
8. (Optional) Choose a date and time for Start time, End time, or both.
9. Choose Submit.

To scale on a recurring schedule

1. Open the Amazon EC2 console at https://console.aws.amazon.com/ec2/.

2. In the navigation pane, choose Spot Requests.
3. Select your Spot Fleet request and choose the Scheduled Scaling tab near the bottom of the screen.
4. For Recurrence, choose one of the predefined schedules (for example, Every day), or choose
Custom and enter a cron expression. For more information about the cron expressions supported by
scheduled scaling, see Cron Expressions in the Amazon CloudWatch Events User Guide.
5. (Optional) Choose a date and time for Start time, End time, or both.
6. Choose Submit.

To edit a scheduled action

1. Open the Amazon EC2 console at https://console.aws.amazon.com/ec2/.

2. In the navigation pane, choose Spot Requests.
3. Select your Spot Fleet request and choose the Scheduled Scaling tab near the bottom of the screen.
4. Select the scheduled action and choose Actions, Edit.
5. Make the needed changes and choose Submit.

To delete a scheduled action

1. Open the Amazon EC2 console at https://console.aws.amazon.com/ec2/.

2. In the navigation pane, choose Spot Requests.
3. Select your Spot Fleet request and choose the Scheduled Scaling tab near the bottom of the screen.
4. Select the scheduled action and choose Actions, Delete.
5. When prompted for confirmation, choose Delete.

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To manage scheduled scaling using the AWS CLI

Use the following commands:

• put-scheduled-action
• describe-scheduled-actions
• delete-scheduled-action

Monitor fleet events using Amazon EventBridge

When the state of an EC2 Fleet or Spot Fleet changes, the fleet emits a notification. The notification is
made available as an event that is sent to Amazon EventBridge (formerly known as Amazon CloudWatch
Events). Events are emitted on a best effort basis.

With Amazon EventBridge, you can create rules that trigger programmatic actions in response to
an event. For example, you can create two EventBridge rules, one that's triggered when a fleet state
changes, and one that's triggered when an instance in the fleet is terminated. You can configure the first
rule so that, if the fleet state changes, the rule invokes an SNS topic to send an email notification to
you. You can configure the second rule so that, if an instance is terminated, the rule invokes a Lambda
function to launch a new instance.

Topics
• EC2 Fleet event types (p. 755)
• Spot Fleet event types (p. 760)
• Create Amazon EventBridge rules (p. 764)

EC2 Fleet event types

Note
Only fleets of type maintain and request emit events. Fleets of type instant do not emit
events because they submit synchronous one-time requests, and the state of the fleet is known
immediately in the response.

There are five EC2 Fleet event types. For each event type, there are several sub-types.

The events are sent to EventBridge in JSON format. The following fields in the event form the event
pattern that is defined in the rule, and which trigger an action:

"source": "aws.ec2fleet"

Identifies that the event is from EC2 Fleet.

"detail-type": "EC2 Fleet State Change"

Identifies the event type.

"detail": { "sub-type": "submitted" }

Identifies the event sub-type.

Event types
• EC2 Fleet State Change (p. 756)
• EC2 Fleet Spot Instance Request Change (p. 757)
• EC2 Fleet Instance Change (p. 757)

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• EC2 Fleet Information (p. 758)

• EC2 Fleet Error (p. 759)

EC2 Fleet State Change

EC2 Fleet sends an EC2 Fleet State Change event to Amazon EventBridge when an EC2 Fleet
changes state.

The following is example data for this event.

{
"version": "0",
"id": "715ed6b3-b8fc-27fe-fad6-528c7b8bf8a2",
"detail-type": "EC2 Fleet State Change",
"source": "aws.ec2fleet",
"account": "123456789012",
"time": "2020-11-09T09:00:20Z",
"region": "us-east-1",
"resources": [
"arn:aws:ec2:us-east-1:123456789012:fleet/fleet-598fb973-87b7-422d-
be4d-6b0809bfff0a"
],
"detail": {
"sub-type": "active"
}
}

The possible values for sub-type are:

submitted

The EC2 Fleet request is being evaluated and Amazon EC2 is preparing to launch the target number
of instances.
active

The EC2 Fleet request has been validated and Amazon EC2 is attempting to maintain the target
number of running Spot Instances.
progress

The EC2 Fleet request is in the process of being fulfilled.

cancelled_terminating

The EC2 Fleet request is deleted and its instances are terminating. The request remains in this state
until all instances are terminated.
cancelled_running

The EC2 Fleet request is deleted and does not launch additional instances. Its existing instances
continue to run until they are interrupted or terminated. The request remains in this state until all
instances are interrupted or terminated.
cancelled

The EC2 Fleet request is deleted and has no running instances. The EC2 Fleet will be deleted two
days after its instances are terminated.
modify_in_progress

The EC2 Fleet request is being modified. The request remains in this state until the modification is
fully processed or the EC2 Fleet request is deleted.

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modify_succeeded

The EC2 Fleet request was modified. This state does not apply to instant fleets because instant
fleets cannot be modified.
expired

The EC2 Fleet request has expired. If the request was created with
TerminateInstancesWithExpiration set, a subsequent event indicates that the instances are
terminated.

EC2 Fleet Spot Instance Request Change

EC2 Fleet sends an EC2 Fleet Spot Instance Request Change event to Amazon EventBridge
when a Spot Instance request in the fleet changes state.

The following is example data for this event.

{
"version": "0",
"id": "19331f74-bf4b-a3dd-0f1b-ddb1422032b9",
"detail-type": "EC2 Fleet Spot Instance Request Change",
"source": "aws.ec2fleet",
"account": "123456789012",
"time": "2020-11-09T09:00:05Z",
"region": "us-east-1",
"resources": [
"arn:aws:ec2:us-east-1:123456789012:fleet/
fleet-83fd4e48-552a-40ef-9532-82a3acca5f10"
],
"detail": {
"spot-instance-request-id": "sir-rmqske6h",
"description": "SpotInstanceRequestId sir-rmqske6h, PreviousState:
cancelled_running",
"sub-type": "cancelled"
}
}

The possible values for sub-type are:

submitted

The request is submitted.

disabled

You stopped the Spot Instance.

active

The request is fulfilled and has an associated Spot Instance.

cancelled

You cancelled the request, or the request expired.

EC2 Fleet Instance Change

EC2 Fleet sends an EC2 Fleet Instance Change event to Amazon EventBridge when an instance in
the fleet changes state.

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The following is example data for this event.

{
"version": "0",
"id": "542ce428-c8f1-0608-c015-e8ed6522c5bc",
"detail-type": "EC2 Fleet Instance Change",
"source": "aws.ec2fleet",
"account": "123456789012",
"time": "2020-11-09T09:00:23Z",
"region": "us-east-1",
"resources": [
"arn:aws:ec2:us-east-1:123456789012:fleet/fleet-598fb973-87b7-422d-
be4d-6b0809bfff0a"
],
"detail": {
"instance-id": "i-0c594155dd5ff1829",
"description": "{\"instanceType\":\"c5.large\",\"image\":\"ami-6057e21a\",
\"productDescription\":\"Linux/UNIX\",\"availabilityZone\":\"us-east-1d\"}",
"sub-type": "launched"
}
}

The possible values for sub-type are:

launched

A new instance was launched.

terminated

The instance was terminated.

termination_notified

An instance termination notification was sent.

EC2 Fleet Information

EC2 Fleet sends an EC2 Fleet Information event to Amazon EventBridge when there is an error
during fulfillment. The information event does not block the fleet from attempting to fulfil its target
capacity.

The following is example data for this event.

{
"version": "0",
"id": "76529817-d605-4571-7224-d36cc1b2c0c4",
"detail-type": "EC2 Fleet Information",
"source": "aws.ec2fleet",
"account": "123456789012",
"time": "2020-11-09T08:17:07Z",
"region": "us-east-1",
"resources": [
"arn:aws:ec2:us-east-1:123456789012:fleet/fleet-8becf5fe-
bb9e-415d-8f54-3fa5a8628b91"
],
"detail": {
"description": "r3.8xlarge, ami-032930428bf1abbff, Linux/UNIX, us-east-1a, Spot bid
price is less than Spot market price $0.5291",
"sub-type": "launchSpecUnusable"
}

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The possible values for sub-type are:

launchSpecUnusable

The price in a launch specification is not valid because it is below the Spot price or the Spot price is
above the On-Demand price.
fleetProgressHalted

The price in every launch specification is not valid. A launch specification might become valid if the
Spot price changes.
registerWithLoadBalancersFailed

An attempt to register instances with load balancers failed. For more information, see the
description of the event.
launchSpecTemporarilyBlacklisted

The configuration is not valid and several attempts to launch instances have failed. For more
information, see the description of the event.

EC2 Fleet Error

EC2 Fleet sends an EC2 Fleet Error event to Amazon EventBridge when there is an error during
fulfillment. The error event blocks the fleet from attempting to fulfil its target capacity.

The following is example data for this event.

{
"version": "0",
"id": "69849a22-6d0f-d4ce-602b-b47c1c98240e",
"detail-type": "EC2 Fleet Error",
"source": "aws.ec2fleet",
"account": "123456789012",
"time": "2020-10-07T01:44:24Z",
"region": "us-east-1",
"resources": [
"arn:aws:ec2:us-east-1:123456789012:fleet/fleet-9bb19bc6-60d3-4fd2-ae47-
d33e68eafa08"
],
"detail": {
"description": "m3.large, ami-00068cd7555f543d5, Linux/UNIX: IPv6 is not supported
for the instance type 'm3.large'. ",
"sub-type": "spotFleetRequestConfigurationInvalid"
}
}

The possible values for sub-type are:

allLaunchSpecsTemporarilyBlacklisted

None of the configurations are valid, and several attempts to launch instances have failed. For more
information, see the description of the event.
spotFleetRequestConfigurationInvalid

The configuration is not valid. For more information, see the description of the event.

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Spot Fleet event types

spotInstanceCountLimitExceeded

You’ve reached the limit on the number of Spot Instances that you can launch.

Spot Fleet event types

There are five Spot Fleet event types. For each event type, there are several sub-types.

The events are sent to EventBridge in JSON format. The following fields in the event form the event
pattern that is defined in the rule, and which trigger an action:

"source": "aws.ec2spotfleet"

Identifies that the event is from Spot Fleet.

"detail-type": "EC2 Spot Fleet State Change"

Identifies the event type.

"detail": { "sub-type": "submitted" }

Identifies the event sub-type.

Event types
• EC2 Spot Fleet State Change (p. 760)
• EC2 Spot Fleet Spot Instance Request Change (p. 761)
• EC2 Spot Fleet Instance Change (p. 762)
• EC2 Spot Fleet Information (p. 763)
• EC2 Spot Fleet Error (p. 763)

EC2 Spot Fleet State Change

Spot Fleet sends an EC2 Spot Fleet State Change event to Amazon EventBridge when a Spot Fleet
changes state.

The following is example data for this event.

{
"version": "0",
"id": "d1af1091-6cc3-2e24-203a-3b870e455d5b",
"detail-type": "EC2 Spot Fleet State Change",
"source": "aws.ec2spotfleet",
"account": "123456789012",
"time": "2020-11-09T08:57:06Z",
"region": "us-east-1",
"resources": [
"arn:aws:ec2:us-east-1:123456789012:spot-fleet-request/sfr-4b6d274d-0cea-4b2c-
b3be-9dc627ad1f55"
],
"detail": {
"sub-type": "submitted"
}
}

The possible values for sub-type are:

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submitted

The Spot Fleet request is being evaluated and Amazon EC2 is preparing to launch the target number
of instances.
active

The Spot Fleet request has been validated and Amazon EC2 is attempting to maintain the target
number of running Spot Instances.
progress

The Spot Fleet request is in the process of being fulfilled.

cancelled_terminating

The Spot Fleet request is deleted and its instances are terminating. The request remains in this state
until all instances are terminated.
cancelled_running

The Spot Fleet request is deleted and does not launch additional instances. Its existing instances
continue to run until they are interrupted or terminated. The request remains in this state until all
instances are interrupted or terminated.
cancelled

The Spot Fleet request is deleted and has no running instances. The Spot Fleet will be deleted two
days after its instances are terminated.
modify_in_progress

The Spot Fleet request is being modified. The request remains in this state until the modification is
fully processed or the Spot Fleet request is deleted.
modify_succeeded

The Spot Fleet request was modified.

expired

The Spot Fleet request has expired. If the request was created with
TerminateInstancesWithExpiration set, a subsequent event indicates that the instances are
terminated.

EC2 Spot Fleet Spot Instance Request Change

Spot Fleet sends an EC2 Spot Fleet Spot Instance Request Change event to Amazon
EventBridge when a Spot Instance request in the fleet changes state.

The following is example data for this event.

{
"version": "0",
"id": "cd141ef0-14af-d670-a71d-fe46e9971bd2",
"detail-type": "EC2 Spot Fleet Spot Instance Request Change",
"source": "aws.ec2spotfleet",
"account": "123456789012",
"time": "2020-11-09T08:53:21Z",
"region": "us-east-1",
"resources": [
"arn:aws:ec2:us-east-1:123456789012:spot-fleet-request/sfr-
a98d2133-941a-47dc-8b03-0f94c6852ad1"
],

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"detail": {
"spot-instance-request-id": "sir-a2w9gc5h",
"description": "SpotInstanceRequestId sir-a2w9gc5h, PreviousState:
cancelled_running",
"sub-type": "cancelled"
}
}

The possible values for sub-type are:

submitted

The request is submitted.

disabled

You stopped the Spot Instance.

active

The request is fulfilled and has an associated Spot Instance.

cancelled

You cancelled the request, or the request expired.

EC2 Spot Fleet Instance Change

Spot Fleet sends an EC2 Spot Fleet Instance Change event to Amazon EventBridge when an
instance in the fleet changes state.

The following is example data for this event.

{
"version": "0",
"id": "11591686-5bd7-bbaa-eb40-d46529c2710f",
"detail-type": "EC2 Spot Fleet Instance Change",
"source": "aws.ec2spotfleet",
"account": "123456789012",
"time": "2020-11-09T07:25:02Z",
"region": "us-east-1",
"resources": [
"arn:aws:ec2:us-east-1:123456789012:spot-fleet-request/sfr-c8a764a4-bedc-4b62-
af9c-0095e6e3ba61"
],
"detail": {
"instance-id": "i-08b90df1e09c30c9b",
"description": "{\"instanceType\":\"r4.2xlarge\",\"image\":\"ami-032930428bf1abbff
\",\"productDescription\":\"Linux/UNIX\",\"availabilityZone\":\"us-east-1a\"}",
"sub-type": "launched"
}
}

The possible values for sub-type are:

launched

A new instance was launched.

terminated

The instance was terminated.

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termination_notified

An instance termination notification was sent.

EC2 Spot Fleet Information

Spot Fleet sends an EC2 Spot Fleet Information event to Amazon EventBridge when there is an
error during fulfillment. The information event does not block the fleet from attempting to fulfil its
target capacity.

The following is example data for this event.

{
"version": "0",
"id": "73a60f70-3409-a66c-635c-7f66c5f5b669",
"detail-type": "EC2 Spot Fleet Information",
"source": "aws.ec2spotfleet",
"account": "123456789012",
"time": "2020-11-08T20:56:12Z",
"region": "us-east-1",
"resources": [
"arn:aws:ec2:us-east-1:123456789012:spot-fleet-request/sfr-2531ea06-
af18-4647-8757-7d69c94971b1"
],
"detail": {
"description": "r3.8xlarge, ami-032930428bf1abbff, Linux/UNIX, us-east-1a, Spot bid
price is less than Spot market price $0.5291",
"sub-type": "launchSpecUnusable"
}
}

The possible values for sub-type are:

launchSpecUnusable

The price in a launch specification is not valid because it is below the Spot price or the Spot price is
above the On-Demand price.
fleetProgressHalted

The price in every launch specification is not valid. A launch specification might become valid if the
Spot price changes.
registerWithLoadBalancersFailed

An attempt to register instances with load balancers failed. For more information, see the
description of the event.
launchSpecTemporarilyBlacklisted

The configuration is not valid and several attempts to launch instances have failed. For more
information, see the description of the event.

EC2 Spot Fleet Error

Spot Fleet sends an EC2 Spot Fleet Error event to Amazon EventBridge when there is an error
during fulfillment. The error event blocks the fleet from attempting to fulfil its target capacity.

The following is example data for this event.

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"version": "0",
"id": "10adc4e7-675c-643e-125c-5bfa1b1ba5d2",
"detail-type": "EC2 Spot Fleet Error",
"source": "aws.ec2spotfleet",
"account": "123456789012",
"time": "2020-11-09T06:56:07Z",
"region": "us-east-1",
"resources": [
"arn:aws:ec2:us-east-1:123456789012:spot-fleet-request/
sfr-38725d30-25f1-4f30-83ce-2907c56dba17"
],
"detail": {
"description": "r4.2xlarge, ami-032930428bf1abbff, Linux/UNIX: The
associatePublicIPAddress parameter can only be specified for the network interface with
DeviceIndex 0. ",
"sub-type": "spotFleetRequestConfigurationInvalid"
}
}

The possible values for sub-type are:

allLaunchSpecsTemporarilyBlacklisted

None of the configurations are valid, and several attempts to launch instances have failed. For more
information, see the description of the event.
spotFleetRequestConfigurationInvalid

The configuration is not valid. For more information, see the description of the event.
spotInstanceCountLimitExceeded

You’ve reached the limit on the number of Spot Instances that you can launch.

Create Amazon EventBridge rules

When a notification of a state change is emitted for an EC2 Fleet or Spot Fleet, the event for the
notification is sent to Amazon EventBridge. If EventBridge detects an event pattern that matches a
pattern defined in a rule, EventBridge invokes a target (or targets) specified in the rule.

You can write an EventBridge rule and automate what actions to take when the event pattern matches
the rule.

Topics
• Create Amazon EventBridge rules to monitor EC2 Fleet events (p. 764)
• Create Amazon EventBridge rules to monitor Spot Fleet events (p. 767)

Create Amazon EventBridge rules to monitor EC2 Fleet events

When a notification of a state change is emitted for an EC2 Fleet, the event for the notification is sent
to Amazon EventBridge in the form of a JSON file. You can write an EventBridge rule to automate what
actions to take when an event pattern matches the rule. If EventBridge detects an event pattern that
matches a pattern defined in a rule, EventBridge invokes the target (or targets) specified in the rule.

The following fields form the event pattern that is defined in the rule:

"source": "aws.ec2fleet"

Identifies that the event is from EC2 Fleet.

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"detail-type": "EC2 Fleet State Change"

Identifies the event type.

"detail": { "sub-type": "submitted" }

Identifies the event sub-type.

For the list of EC2 Fleet events and example event data, see the section called “EC2 Fleet event
types” (p. 755).

Examples
• Create an EventBridge rule to send a notification (p. 765)
• Create an EventBridge rule to trigger a Lambda function (p. 766)

Create an EventBridge rule to send a notification

The following example creates an EventBridge rule to send an email, text message, or mobile push
notification every time that Amazon EC2 emits an EC2 Fleet state change notification. The signal in this
example is emitted as an EC2 Fleet State Change event, which triggers the action defined by the
rule. Before creating the EventBridge rule, you must create the Amazon SNS topic for the email, text
message, or mobile push notification.

To create an EventBridge rule to send a notification when an EC2 Fleet state changes

1. Open the Amazon EventBridge console at https://console.aws.amazon.com/events/.

2. Choose Create rule.
3. Enter a Name for the rule, and, optionally, a description.

A rule can't have the same name as another rule in the same Region and on the same event bus.
4. For Define pattern, choose Event pattern.
5. Under Event matching pattern, you can choose Pre-defined pattern by service or Custom pattern.
The Custom pattern allows you to create a more detailed rule.

a. If you choose Pre-defined pattern by service, do the following:

i. For Service provider, choose AWS.

ii. For Service name, choose EC2 Fleet.
iii. For Event type, select the required event type. For this example, choose EC2 Fleet Instance
Change.
b. If you choose Custom pattern, do the following:

• In the Event pattern box, add the following pattern to match the EC2 Fleet Instance
Change event for this example, and then choose Save.

{
"source": ["aws.ec2fleet"],
"detail-type": ["EC2 Fleet Instance Change"]
}

6. For Select event bus, choose AWS default event bus. When an AWS service in your account emits an
event, it always goes to your account's default event bus.
7. Confirm that Enable the rule on the selected event bus is toggled on.
8. For Target, choose SNS topic to send an email, text message, or mobile push notification when the
event occurs.

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9. For Topic, choose an existing topic. You first need to create an Amazon SNS topic using the Amazon
SNS console. For more information, see Using Amazon SNS for application-to-person (A2P)
messaging in the Amazon Simple Notification Service Developer Guide.
10. For Configure input, choose the input for the email, text message, or mobile push notification.
11. Choose Create.

For more information, see Amazon EventBridge rules and Amazon EventBridge event patterns in the
Amazon EventBridge User Guide

Create an EventBridge rule to trigger a Lambda function

The following example creates an EventBridge rule to trigger a Lambda function every time that Amazon
EC2 emits an EC2 Fleet instance change notification for when an instance is launched. The signal in this
example is emitted as an EC2 Fleet Instance Change event, sub-type launched, which triggers the
action defined by the rule. Before creating the EventBridge rule, you must create the Lambda function.

To create an EventBridge rule to trigger a Lambda function when an instance in an EC2 Fleet
changes state

1. Open the AWS Lambda console at https://console.aws.amazon.com/lambda/.

2. Choose Create function.
3. Enter a name for your function, configure the code, and then choose Create function.

For more information about using Lambda, see Create a Lambda function with the console in the
AWS Lambda Developer Guide.
4. Open the Amazon EventBridge console at https://console.aws.amazon.com/events/.
5. Choose Create rule.
6. Enter a Name for the rule, and, optionally, a description.

A rule can't have the same name as another rule in the same Region and on the same event bus.
7. For Define pattern, choose Event pattern.
8. Under Event matching pattern, you can choose Pre-defined pattern by service or Custom pattern.
The Custom pattern allows you to create a more detailed rule.

a. If you choose Pre-defined pattern by service, do the following:

i. For Service provider, choose AWS.

ii. For Service name, choose EC2 Fleet.
iii. For Event type, select the required event type. For this example, choose EC2 Fleet Instance
Change.
b. If you choose Custom pattern, do the following:

• In the Event pattern box, add the following pattern to match the EC2 Fleet Instance
Change event and launched sub-type for this example, and then choose Save.

{
"source": ["aws.ec2fleet"],
"detail-type": ["EC2 Fleet Instance Change"],
"detail": {
"sub-type": ["launched"]
}
}

9. For Target, choose Lambda function, and for Function, choose the function that you created to
respond when the event occurs.

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10. Choose Create.

In this example, the Lambda function will be triggered when the EC2 Fleet Instance Change
event with the sub-type launched occurs.

For a tutorial on how to create a Lambda function and an EventBridge rule that runs the Lambda
function, see Tutorial: Log the State of an Amazon EC2 Instance Using EventBridge in the AWS Lambda
Developer Guide.

Create Amazon EventBridge rules to monitor Spot Fleet events

When a notification of a state change is emitted for a Spot Fleet, the event for the notification is sent
to Amazon EventBridge in the form of a JSON file. You can write an EventBridge rule to automate what
actions to take when an event pattern matches the rule. If EventBridge detects an event pattern that
matches a pattern defined in a rule, EventBridge invokes the target (or targets) specified in the rule.

The following fields form the event pattern that is defined in the rule:

"source": "aws.ec2spotfleet"

Identifies that the event is from Spot Fleet.

"detail-type": "EC2 Spot Fleet State Change"

Identifies the event type.

"detail": { "sub-type": "submitted" }

Identifies the event sub-type.

For the list of Spot Fleet events and example event data, see the section called “Spot Fleet event
types” (p. 760).

Examples
• Create an EventBridge rule to send a notification (p. 765)
• Create an EventBridge rule to trigger a Lambda function (p. 766)

Create an EventBridge rule to send a notification

The following example creates an EventBridge rule to send an email, text message, or mobile push
notification every time that Amazon EC2 emits a Spot Fleet state change notification. The signal in this
example is emitted as an EC2 Spot Fleet State Change event, which triggers the action defined by
the rule. Before creating the EventBridge rule, you must create the Amazon SNS topic for the email, text
message, or mobile push notification.

To create an EventBridge rule to send a notification when a Spot Fleet state changes

1. Open the Amazon EventBridge console at https://console.aws.amazon.com/events/.

2. Choose Create rule.
3. Enter a Name for the rule, and, optionally, a description.

A rule can't have the same name as another rule in the same Region and on the same event bus.
4. For Define pattern, choose Event pattern.
5. Under Event matching pattern, you can choose Pre-defined pattern by service or Custom pattern.
The Custom pattern allows you to create a more detailed rule.

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a. If you choose Pre-defined pattern by service, do the following:

i. For Service provider, choose AWS.

ii. For Service name, choose EC2 Spot Fleet.
iii. For Event type, select the required event type. For this example, choose EC2 Spot Fleet
Instance Change.
b. If you choose Custom pattern, do the following:

• In the Event pattern box, add the following pattern to match the EC2 Spot Fleet
Instance Change event for this example, and then choose Save.

{
"source": ["aws.ec2spotfleet"],
"detail-type": ["EC2 Spot Fleet Instance Change"]
}

6. For Select event bus, choose AWS default event bus. When an AWS service in your account emits an
event, it always goes to your account's default event bus.
7. Confirm that Enable the rule on the selected event bus is toggled on.
8. For Target, choose SNS topic to send an email, text message, or mobile push notification when the
event occurs.
9. For Topic, choose an existing topic. You first need to create an Amazon SNS topic using the Amazon
SNS console. For more information, see Using Amazon SNS for application-to-person (A2P)
messaging in the Amazon Simple Notification Service Developer Guide.
10. For Configure input, choose the input for the email, text message, or mobile push notification.
11. Choose Create.

For more information, see Amazon EventBridge rules and Amazon EventBridge event patterns in the
Amazon EventBridge User Guide

Create an EventBridge rule to trigger a Lambda function

The following example creates an EventBridge rule to trigger a Lambda function every time that Amazon
EC2 emits a Spot Fleet instance change notification for when an instance is launched. The signal in
this example is emitted as an EC2 Spot Fleet Instance Change event, sub-type launched,
which triggers the action defined by the rule. Before creating the EventBridge rule, you must create the
Lambda function.

To create an EventBridge rule to trigger a Lambda function when an instance in a Spot Fleet
changes state

1. Open the AWS Lambda console at https://console.aws.amazon.com/lambda/.

2. Choose Create function.
3. Enter a name for your function, configure the code, and then choose Create function.

For more information about using Lambda, see Create a Lambda function with the console in the
AWS Lambda Developer Guide.
4. Open the Amazon EventBridge console at https://console.aws.amazon.com/events/.
5. Choose Create rule.
6. Enter a Name for the rule, and, optionally, a description.

A rule can't have the same name as another rule in the same Region and on the same event bus.
7. For Define pattern, choose Event pattern.

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8. Under Event matching pattern, you can choose Pre-defined pattern by service or Custom pattern.
The Custom pattern allows you to create a more detailed rule.

a. If you choose Pre-defined pattern by service, do the following:

i. For Service provider, choose AWS.

ii. For Service name, choose EC2 Spot Fleet.
iii. For Event type, select the required event type. For this example, choose EC2 Spot Fleet
Instance Change.
b. If you choose Custom pattern, do the following:

• In the Event pattern box, add the following pattern to match the EC2 Spot Fleet
Instance Change event and launched sub-type for this example, and then choose Save.

{
"source": ["aws.ec2spotfleet"],
"detail-type": ["EC2 Spot Fleet Instance Change"],
"detail": {
"sub-type": ["launched"]
}
}

9. For Target, choose Lambda function, and for Function, choose the function that you created to
respond when the event occurs.
10. Choose Create.

In this example, the Lambda function will be triggered when the EC2 Fleet Instance Change
event with the sub-type launched occurs.

For a tutorial on how to create a Lambda function and an EventBridge rule that runs the Lambda
function, see Tutorial: Log the State of an Amazon EC2 Instance Using EventBridge in the AWS Lambda
Developer Guide.

Tutorials for EC2 Fleet and Spot Fleet

The following tutorials take you through the common processes for creating EC2 Fleets and Spot Fleets.

Tutorials
• Tutorial: Use EC2 Fleet with instance weighting (p. 769)
• Tutorial: Use EC2 Fleet with On-Demand as the primary capacity (p. 772)
• Tutorial: Launch On-Demand Instances using targeted Capacity Reservations (p. 773)
• Tutorial: Use Spot Fleet with instance weighting (p. 778)

Tutorial: Use EC2 Fleet with instance weighting

This tutorial uses a fictitious company called Example Corp to illustrate the process of requesting an EC2
Fleet using instance weighting.

Objective
Example Corp, a pharmaceutical company, wants to use the computational power of Amazon EC2 for
screening chemical compounds that might be used to fight cancer.

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Planning
Example Corp first reviews Spot Best Practices. Next, Example Corp determines the requirements for
their EC2 Fleet.

Instance types

Example Corp has a compute- and memory-intensive application that performs best with at least 60 GB
of memory and eight virtual CPUs (vCPUs). They want to maximize these resources for the application at
the lowest possible price. Example Corp decides that any of the following EC2 instance types would meet
their needs:

Instance type Memory (GiB) vCPUs

r3.2xlarge 61 8

r3.4xlarge 122 16

r3.8xlarge 244 32

Target capacity in units

With instance weighting, target capacity can equal a number of instances (the default) or a combination
of factors such as cores (vCPUs), memory (GiBs), and storage (GBs). By considering the base for their
application (60 GB of RAM and eight vCPUs) as one unit, Example Corp decides that 20 times this
amount would meet their needs. So the company sets the target capacity of their EC2 Fleet request to
20.

Instance weights

After determining the target capacity, Example Corp calculates instance weights. To calculate the
instance weight for each instance type, they determine the units of each instance type that are required
to reach the target capacity as follows:

• r3.2xlarge (61.0 GB, 8 vCPUs) = 1 unit of 20

• r3.4xlarge (122.0 GB, 16 vCPUs) = 2 units of 20
• r3.8xlarge (244.0 GB, 32 vCPUs) = 4 units of 20

Therefore, Example Corp assigns instance weights of 1, 2, and 4 to the respective launch configurations
in their EC2 Fleet request.

Price per unit hour

Example Corp uses the On-Demand price per instance hour as a starting point for their price. They could
also use recent Spot prices, or a combination of the two. To calculate the price per unit hour, they divide
their starting price per instance hour by the weight. For example:

Instance type On-Demand price Instance weight Price per unit hour

r3.2xLarge $0.7 1 $0.7

r3.4xLarge $1.4 2 $0.7

r3.8xLarge $2.8 4 $0.7

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Example Corp could use a global price per unit hour of $0.7 and be competitive for all three instance
types. They could also use a global price per unit hour of $0.7 and a specific price per unit hour of $0.9 in
the r3.8xlarge launch specification.

Verify permissions
Before creating an EC2 Fleet, Example Corp verifies that it has an IAM role with the required permissions.
For more information, see EC2 Fleet prerequisites (p. 702).

Create a launch template

Next, Example Corp creates a launch template. The launch template ID is used in the following step. For
more information, see Create a launch template (p. 403).

Create the EC2 Fleet

Example Corp creates a file, config.json, with the following configuration for its EC2 Fleet. In the
following example, replace the resource identifiers with your own resource identifiers.

{
"LaunchTemplateConfigs": [
{
"LaunchTemplateSpecification": {
"LaunchTemplateId": "lt-07b3bc7625cdab851",
"Version": "1"
},
"Overrides": [
{
"InstanceType": "r3.2xlarge",
"SubnetId": "subnet-482e4972",
"WeightedCapacity": 1
},
{
"InstanceType": "r3.4xlarge",
"SubnetId": "subnet-482e4972",
"WeightedCapacity": 2
},
{
"InstanceType": "r3.8xlarge",
"MaxPrice": "0.90",
"SubnetId": "subnet-482e4972",
"WeightedCapacity": 4
}
]
}
],
"TargetCapacitySpecification": {
"TotalTargetCapacity": 20,
"DefaultTargetCapacityType": "spot"
}
}

Example Corp creates the EC2 Fleet using the following create-fleet command.

aws ec2 create-fleet \

--cli-input-json file://config.json

For more information, see Create an EC2 Fleet (p. 710).

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Fulfillment
The allocation strategy determines which Spot capacity pools your Spot Instances come from.

With the lowest-price strategy (which is the default strategy), the Spot Instances come from the pool
with the lowest price per unit at the time of fulfillment. To provide 20 units of capacity, the EC2 Fleet
launches either 20 r3.2xlarge instances (20 divided by 1), 10 r3.4xlarge instances (20 divided by 2),
or 5 r3.8xlarge instances (20 divided by 4).

If Example Corp used the diversified strategy, the Spot Instances would come from all three pools.
The EC2 Fleet would launch 6 r3.2xlarge instances (which provide 6 units), 3 r3.4xlarge instances
(which provide 6 units), and 2 r3.8xlarge instances (which provide 8 units), for a total of 20 units.

Tutorial: Use EC2 Fleet with On-Demand as the

primary capacity
This tutorial uses a fictitious company called ABC Online to illustrate the process of requesting an EC2
Fleet with On-Demand as the primary capacity, and Spot capacity if available.

Objective
ABC Online, a restaurant delivery company, wants to be able to provision Amazon EC2 capacity across
EC2 instance types and purchasing options to achieve their desired scale, performance, and cost.

Plan
ABC Online requires a fixed capacity to operate during peak periods, but would like to benefit from
increased capacity at a lower price. ABC Online determines the following requirements for their EC2
Fleet:

• On-Demand Instance capacity – ABC Online requires 15 On-Demand Instances to ensure that they can
accommodate traffic at peak periods.
• Spot Instance capacity – ABC Online would like to improve performance, but at a lower price, by
provisioning 5 Spot Instances.

Verify permissions
Before creating an EC2 Fleet, ABC Online verifies that it has an IAM role with the required permissions.
For more information, see EC2 Fleet prerequisites (p. 702).

Create a launch template

Next, ABC Online creates a launch template. The launch template ID is used in the following step. For
more information, see Create a launch template (p. 403).

Create the EC2 Fleet

ABC Online creates a file, config.json, with the following configuration for its EC2 Fleet. In the
following example, replace the resource identifiers with your own resource identifiers.

{
"LaunchTemplateConfigs": [
{
"LaunchTemplateSpecification": {

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"LaunchTemplateId": "lt-07b3bc7625cdab851",
"Version": "2"
}

}
],
"TargetCapacitySpecification": {
"TotalTargetCapacity": 20,
"OnDemandTargetCapacity":15,
"DefaultTargetCapacityType": "spot"
}
}

ABC Online creates the EC2 Fleet using the following create-fleet command.

aws ec2 create-fleet \

--cli-input-json file://config.json

For more information, see Create an EC2 Fleet (p. 710).

Fulfillment
The allocation strategy determines that the On-Demand capacity is always fulfilled, while the balance of
the target capacity is fulfilled as Spot if there is capacity and availability.

Tutorial: Launch On-Demand Instances using

targeted Capacity Reservations
This tutorial walks you through all the steps that you must perform so that your EC2 Fleet launches On-
Demand Instances into targeted Capacity Reservations.

You will learn how to configure a fleet to use targeted On-Demand Capacity Reservations first when
launching On-Demand Instances. You will also learn how to configure the fleet so that, when the total
On-Demand target capacity exceeds the number of available unused Capacity Reservations, the fleet
uses the specified allocation strategy for selecting the instance pools in which to launch the remaining
target capacity.

EC2 Fleet configuration

In this tutorial, the fleet configuration is as follows:

• Target capacity: 10 On-Demand Instances

• Total unused targeted Capacity Reservations: 6 (less than the fleet's On-Demand target capacity of
10 On-Demand Instances)
• Number of Capacity Reservation pools: 2 (us-east-1a and us-east-1b)
• Number of Capacity Reservations per pool: 3
• On-Demand allocation strategy: lowest-price (When the number of unused Capacity Reservations
is less than the On-Demand target capacity, the fleet determines the pools in which to launch the
remaining On-Demand capacity based on the On-Demand allocation strategy.)

Note that you can also use the prioritized allocation strategy instead of the lowest-price
allocation strategy.

To launch On-Demand Instances into targeted Capacity Reservations, you must perform a number of
steps, as follows:

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• Step 1: Create Capacity Reservations (p. 774)
• Step 2: Create a Capacity Reservation resource group (p. 774)
• Step 3: Add the Capacity Reservations to the Capacity Reservation resource group (p. 775)
• (Optional) Step 4: View the Capacity Reservations in the resource group (p. 775)
• Step 5: Create a launch template that specifies that the Capacity Reservation targets a specific
resource group (p. 775)
• (Optional) Step 6: Describe the launch template (p. 776)
• Step 7: Create an EC2 Fleet (p. 776)
• (Optional) Step 8: View the number of remaining unused Capacity Reservations (p. 777)

Step 1: Create Capacity Reservations

Use the create-capacity-reservation command to create the Capacity Reservations, three for us-
east-1a and another three for us-east-1b. Except for the Availability Zone, the other attributes of the
Capacity Reservations are identical.

3 Capacity Reservations in us-east-1a

aws ec2 create-capacity-reservation \

--availability-zone us-east-1a\
--instance-type c5.xlarge\
--instance-platform Linux/UNIX \
--instance-count 3 \
--instance-match-criteria targeted

Example of resulting Capacity Reservation ID

cr-1234567890abcdef1

3 Capacity Reservations in us-east-1b

aws ec2 create-capacity-reservation \

--availability-zone us-east-1b\
--instance-type c5.xlarge\
--instance-platform Linux/UNIX \
--instance-count 3 \
--instance-match-criteria targeted

Example of resulting Capacity Reservation ID

cr-54321abcdef567890

Step 2: Create a Capacity Reservation resource group

Use the resource-groups service and the create-group command to create a Capacity Reservation
resource group. In this example, the resource group is named my-cr-group. For information about why
you must create a resource group, see Use Capacity Reservations for On-Demand Instances (p. 697).

aws resource-groups create-group \

--name my-cr-group \
--configuration '{"Type":"AWS::EC2::CapacityReservationPool"}'
'{"Type":"AWS::ResourceGroups::Generic", "Parameters": [{"Name": "allowed-resource-types",
"Values": ["AWS::EC2::CapacityReservation"]}]}'

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Step 3: Add the Capacity Reservations to the Capacity
Reservation resource group
Use the resource-groups service and the group-resources command to add the Capacity Reservations
that you created in Step 1 to the Capacity Reservations resource group. Note that you must reference the
On-Demand Capacity Reservations by their ARNs.

aws resource-groups group-resources \

--group my-cr-group \
--resource-arns \
arn:aws:ec2:us-east-1:123456789012:capacity-reservation/cr-1234567890abcdef1 \
arn:aws:ec2:us-east-1:123456789012:capacity-reservation/cr-54321abcdef567890

Example output

{
"Failed": [],
"Succeeded": [
"arn:aws:ec2:us-east-1:123456789012:capacity-reservation/cr-1234567890abcdef1",
"arn:aws:ec2:us-east-1:123456789012:capacity-reservation/cr-54321abcdef567890"
]
}

(Optional) Step 4: View the Capacity Reservations in the

resource group
Use the resource-groups service and the list-group-resources command to optionally describe the
resource group to view its Capacity Reservations.

aws resource-groups list-group-resources --group my-cr-group

Example output

{
"ResourceIdentifiers": [
{
"ResourceType": "AWS::EC2::CapacityReservation",
"ResourceArn": "arn:aws:ec2:us-east-1:123456789012:capacity-reservation/
cr-1234567890abcdef1"
},
{
"ResourceType": "AWS::EC2::CapacityReservation",
"ResourceArn": "arn:aws:ec2:us-east-1:123456789012:capacity-reservation/
cr-54321abcdef567890"
}
]
}

Step 5: Create a launch template that specifies that the Capacity

Reservation targets a specific resource group
Use the create-launch-template command to create a launch template in which to specify the Capacity
Reservations to use. In this example, the fleet will use targeted Capacity Reservations, which have been
added to a resource group. Therefore, the launch template data specifies that the Capacity Reservation
targets a specific resource group. In this example, the launch template is named my-launch-template.

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aws ec2 create-launch-template \
--launch-template-name my-launch-template \
--launch-template-data \
'{"ImageId": "ami-0123456789example",
"CapacityReservationSpecification":
{"CapacityReservationTarget":
{ "CapacityReservationResourceGroupArn": "arn:aws:resource-groups:us-
east-1:123456789012:group/my-cr-group" }
}
}'

(Optional) Step 6: Describe the launch template

Use the describe-launch-template command to optionally describe the launch template to view its
configuration.

aws ec2 describe-launch-template-versions --launch-template-name my-launch-template

Example output

{
"LaunchTemplateVersions": [
{
"LaunchTemplateId": "lt-01234567890example",
"LaunchTemplateName": "my-launch-template",
"VersionNumber": 1,
"CreateTime": "2021-01-19T20:50:19.000Z",
"CreatedBy": "arn:aws:iam::123456789012:user/Admin",
"DefaultVersion": true,
"LaunchTemplateData": {
"ImageId": "ami-0947d2ba12ee1ff75",
"CapacityReservationSpecification": {
"CapacityReservationTarget": {
"CapacityReservationResourceGroupArn": "arn:aws:resource-groups:us-
east-1:123456789012:group/my-cr-group"
}
}
}
}
]
}

Step 7: Create an EC2 Fleet

Create an EC2 Fleet that specifies the configuration information for the instances that it will launch.
The following EC2 Fleet configuration shows only the pertinent configurations for this example. The
launch template my-launch-template is the launch template you created in Step 5. There are two
instance pools, each with the same instance type (c5.xlarge), but with different Availability Zones (us-
east-1a and us-east-1b). The price of the instance pools is the same because pricing is defined for
the Region, not per Availability Zone. The total target capacity is 10, and the default target capacity type
is on-demand. The On-Demand allocation strategy is lowest-price. The usage strategy for Capacity
Reservations is use-capacity-reservations-first.
Note
The fleet type must be instant. Other fleet types do not support use-capacity-
reservations-first.

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"LaunchTemplateConfigs": [
{
"LaunchTemplateSpecification": {
"LaunchTemplateName": "my-launch-template",
"Version": "1"
},
"Overrides": [
{
"InstanceType": "c5.xlarge",
"AvailabilityZone": "us-east-1a"
},
{
"InstanceType": "c5.xlarge",
"AvailabilityZone": "us-east-1b"
}
]
}
],
"TargetCapacitySpecification": {
"TotalTargetCapacity": 10,
"DefaultTargetCapacityType": "on-demand"
},
"OnDemandOptions": {
"AllocationStrategy": "lowest-price",
"CapacityReservationOptions": {
"UsageStrategy": "use-capacity-reservations-first"
}
},
"Type": "instant"
}

After you create the instant fleet using the preceding configuration, the following 10 instances are
launched to meet the target capacity:

• The Capacity Reservations are used first to launch 6 On-Demand Instances as follows:
• 3 On-Demand Instances are launched into the 3 c5.xlarge targeted Capacity Reservations in
us-east-1a
• 3 On-Demand Instances are launched into the 3 c5.xlarge targeted Capacity Reservations in
us-east-1b
• To meet the target capacity, 4 additional On-Demand Instances are launched into regular On-Demand
capacity according to the On-Demand allocation strategy, which is lowest-price in this example.
However, because the pools are the same price (because price is per Region and not per Availability
Zone), the fleet launches the remaining 4 On-Demand Instances into either of the pools.

(Optional) Step 8: View the number of remaining unused

Capacity Reservations
After the fleet is launched, you can optionally run describe-capacity-reservations to see how many
unused Capacity Reservations are remaining. In this example, you should see the following response,
which shows that all of the Capacity Reservations in all of the pools were used.

{ "CapacityReservationId": "cr-111",
"InstanceType": "c5.xlarge",
"AvailableInstanceCount": 0
}

{ "CapacityReservationId": "cr-222",
"InstanceType": "c5.xlarge",
"AvailableInstanceCount": 0

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Tutorial: Use Spot Fleet with instance weighting

This tutorial uses a fictitious company called Example Corp to illustrate the process of requesting a Spot
Fleet using instance weighting.

Objective
Example Corp, a pharmaceutical company, wants to leverage the computational power of Amazon EC2
for screening chemical compounds that might be used to fight cancer.

Planning
Example Corp first reviews Spot Best Practices. Next, Example Corp determines the following
requirements for their Spot Fleet.

Instance types

Example Corp has a compute- and memory-intensive application that performs best with at least 60 GB
of memory and eight virtual CPUs (vCPUs). They want to maximize these resources for the application at
the lowest possible price. Example Corp decides that any of the following EC2 instance types would meet
their needs:

Instance type Memory (GiB) vCPUs

r3.2xlarge 61 8

r3.4xlarge 122 16

r3.8xlarge 244 32

Target capacity in units

With instance weighting, target capacity can equal a number of instances (the default) or a combination
of factors such as cores (vCPUs), memory (GiBs), and storage (GBs). By considering the base for their
application (60 GB of RAM and eight vCPUs) as 1 unit, Example Corp decides that 20 times this amount
would meet their needs. So the company sets the target capacity of their Spot Fleet request to 20.

Instance weights

After determining the target capacity, Example Corp calculates instance weights. To calculate the
instance weight for each instance type, they determine the units of each instance type that are required
to reach the target capacity as follows:

• r3.2xlarge (61.0 GB, 8 vCPUs) = 1 unit of 20

• r3.4xlarge (122.0 GB, 16 vCPUs) = 2 units of 20
• r3.8xlarge (244.0 GB, 32 vCPUs) = 4 units of 20

Therefore, Example Corp assigns instance weights of 1, 2, and 4 to the respective launch configurations
in their Spot Fleet request.

Price per unit hour

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Example Corp uses the On-Demand price per instance hour as a starting point for their price. They could
also use recent Spot prices, or a combination of the two. To calculate the price per unit hour, they divide
their starting price per instance hour by the weight. For example:

Instance type On-Demand price Instance weight Price per unit hour

r3.2xLarge $0.7 1 $0.7

r3.4xLarge $1.4 2 $0.7

r3.8xLarge $2.8 4 $0.7

Example Corp could use a global price per unit hour of $0.7 and be competitive for all three instance
types. They could also use a global price per unit hour of $0.7 and a specific price per unit hour of $0.9 in
the r3.8xlarge launch specification.

Verify permissions
Before creating a Spot Fleet request, Example Corp verifies that it has an IAM role with the required
permissions. For more information, see Spot Fleet permissions (p. 730).

Create the request

Example Corp creates a file, config.json, with the following configuration for its Spot Fleet request:

{
"SpotPrice": "0.70",
"TargetCapacity": 20,
"IamFleetRole": "arn:aws:iam::123456789012:role/aws-ec2-spot-fleet-tagging-role",
"LaunchSpecifications": [
{
"ImageId": "ami-1a2b3c4d",
"InstanceType": "r3.2xlarge",
"SubnetId": "subnet-482e4972",
"WeightedCapacity": 1
},
{
"ImageId": "ami-1a2b3c4d",
"InstanceType": "r3.4xlarge",
"SubnetId": "subnet-482e4972",
"WeightedCapacity": 2
},
{
"ImageId": "ami-1a2b3c4d",
"InstanceType": "r3.8xlarge",
"SubnetId": "subnet-482e4972",
"SpotPrice": "0.90",
"WeightedCapacity": 4
}
]
}

Example Corp creates the Spot Fleet request using the request-spot-fleet command.

aws ec2 request-spot-fleet --spot-fleet-request-config file://config.json

For more information, see Spot Fleet request types (p. 720).

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Example configurations

Fulfillment
The allocation strategy determines which Spot capacity pools your Spot Instances come from.

With the lowestPrice strategy (which is the default strategy), the Spot Instances come from the pool
with the lowest price per unit at the time of fulfillment. To provide 20 units of capacity, the Spot Fleet
launches either 20 r3.2xlarge instances (20 divided by 1), 10 r3.4xlarge instances (20 divided by 2),
or 5 r3.8xlarge instances (20 divided by 4).

If Example Corp used the diversified strategy, the Spot Instances would come from all three pools.
The Spot Fleet would launch 6 r3.2xlarge instances (which provide 6 units), 3 r3.4xlarge instances
(which provide 6 units), and 2 r3.8xlarge instances (which provide 8 units), for a total of 20 units.

Example configurations for EC2 Fleet and Spot

Fleet
The following examples show launch configurations that you can use to create EC2 Fleets and Spot
Fleets.

Topics
• EC2 Fleet example configurations (p. 780)
• Spot Fleet example configurations (p. 792)

EC2 Fleet example configurations

The following examples show launch configurations that you can use with the create-fleet command to
create an EC2 Fleet. For more information about the create-fleet parameters, see the EC2 Fleet JSON
configuration file reference (p. 707).

Examples
• Example 1: Launch Spot Instances as the default purchasing option (p. 780)
• Example 2: Launch On-Demand Instances as the default purchasing option (p. 781)
• Example 3: Launch On-Demand Instances as the primary capacity (p. 781)
• Example 4: Launch Spot Instances using the lowest-price allocation strategy (p. 782)
• Example 5: Launch On-Demand Instances using multiple Capacity Reservations (p. 782)
• Example 6: Launch On-Demand Instances using Capacity Reservations when the total target capacity
exceeds the number of unused Capacity Reservations (p. 785)
• Example 7: Launch On-Demand Instances using targeted Capacity Reservations (p. 787)
• Example 8: Configure Capacity Rebalancing to launch replacement Spot Instances (p. 790)
• Example 9: Launch Spot Instances in a capacity-optimized fleet (p. 791)
• Example 10: Launch Spot Instances in a capacity-optimized fleet with priorities (p. 791)

Example 1: Launch Spot Instances as the default purchasing

option
The following example specifies the minimum parameters required in an EC2 Fleet: a launch template,
target capacity, and default purchasing option. The launch template is identified by its launch template
ID and version number. The target capacity for the fleet is 2 instances, and the default purchasing option
is spot, which results in the fleet launching 2 Spot Instances.

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{
"LaunchTemplateConfigs": [
{
"LaunchTemplateSpecification": {
"LaunchTemplateId": "lt-0e8c754449b27161c",
"Version": "1"
}

}
],
"TargetCapacitySpecification": {
"TotalTargetCapacity": 2,
"DefaultTargetCapacityType": "spot"
}
}

Example 2: Launch On-Demand Instances as the default

purchasing option
The following example specifies the minimum parameters required in an EC2 Fleet: a launch template,
target capacity, and default purchasing option. The launch template is identified by its launch template
ID and version number. The target capacity for the fleet is 2 instances, and the default purchasing option
is on-demand, which results in the fleet launching 2 On-Demand Instances.

{
"LaunchTemplateConfigs": [
{
"LaunchTemplateSpecification": {
"LaunchTemplateId": "lt-0e8c754449b27161c",
"Version": "1"
}

}
],
"TargetCapacitySpecification": {
"TotalTargetCapacity": 2,
"DefaultTargetCapacityType": "on-demand"
}
}

Example 3: Launch On-Demand Instances as the primary

capacity
The following example specifies the total target capacity of 2 instances for the fleet, and a target
capacity of 1 On-Demand Instance. The default purchasing option is spot. The fleet launches 1
On-Demand Instance as specified, but needs to launch one more instance to fulfill the total target
capacity. The purchasing option for the difference is calculated as TotalTargetCapacity –
OnDemandTargetCapacity = DefaultTargetCapacityType, which results in the fleet launching 1
Spot Instance.

{
"LaunchTemplateConfigs": [
{
"LaunchTemplateSpecification": {
"LaunchTemplateId": "lt-0e8c754449b27161c",
"Version": "1"
}

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}
],
"TargetCapacitySpecification": {
"TotalTargetCapacity": 2,
"OnDemandTargetCapacity": 1,
"DefaultTargetCapacityType": "spot"
}
}

Example 4: Launch Spot Instances using the lowest-price

allocation strategy
If the allocation strategy for Spot Instances is not specified, the default allocation strategy, which is
lowest-price, is used. The following example uses the lowest-price allocation strategy. The three
launch specifications, which override the launch template, have different instance types but the same
weighted capacity and subnet. The total target capacity is 2 instances and the default purchasing option
is spot. The EC2 Fleet launches 2 Spot Instances using the instance type of the launch specification with
the lowest price.

{
"LaunchTemplateConfigs": [
{
"LaunchTemplateSpecification": {
"LaunchTemplateId": "lt-0e8c754449b27161c",
"Version": "1"
}
"Overrides": [
{
"InstanceType": "c4.large",
"WeightedCapacity": 1,
"SubnetId": "subnet-a4f6c5d3"
},
{
"InstanceType": "c3.large",
"WeightedCapacity": 1,
"SubnetId": "subnet-a4f6c5d3"
},
{
"InstanceType": "c5.large",
"WeightedCapacity": 1,
"SubnetId": "subnet-a4f6c5d3"
}
]

}
],
"TargetCapacitySpecification": {
"TotalTargetCapacity": 2,
"DefaultTargetCapacityType": "spot"
}
}

Example 5: Launch On-Demand Instances using multiple

Capacity Reservations
You can configure a fleet to use On-Demand Capacity Reservations first when launching On-Demand
Instances by setting the usage strategy for Capacity Reservations to use-capacity-reservations-
first. This example demonstrates how the fleet selects the Capacity Reservations to use when there are
more Capacity Reservations than are needed to fulfil the target capacity.

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In this example, the fleet configuration is as follows:

• Target capacity: 12 On-Demand Instances

• Total unused Capacity Reservations: 15 (more than the fleet's target capacity of 12 On-Demand
Instances)
• Number of Capacity Reservation pools: 3 (m5.large, m4.xlarge, and m4.2xlarge)
• Number of Capacity Reservations per pool: 5
• On-Demand allocation strategy: lowest-price (When there are multiple unused Capacity
Reservations in multiple instance pools, the fleet determines the pools in which to launch the On-
Demand Instances based on the On-Demand allocation strategy.)

Note that you can also use the prioritized allocation strategy instead of the lowest-price
allocation strategy.

Capacity Reservations

The account has the following 15 unused Capacity Reservations in 3 different pools. The number of
Capacity Reservations in each pool is indicated by AvailableInstanceCount.

{
"CapacityReservationId": "cr-111",
"InstanceType": "m5.large",
"InstancePlatform": "Linux/UNIX",
"AvailabilityZone": "us-east-1a",
"AvailableInstanceCount": 5,
"InstanceMatchCriteria": "open",
"State": "active"
}

{
"CapacityReservationId": "cr-222",
"InstanceType": "m4.xlarge",
"InstancePlatform": "Linux/UNIX",
"AvailabilityZone": "us-east-1a",
"AvailableInstanceCount": 5,
"InstanceMatchCriteria": "open",
"State": "active"
}

{
"CapacityReservationId": "cr-333",
"InstanceType": "m4.2xlarge",
"InstancePlatform": "Linux/UNIX",
"AvailabilityZone": "us-east-1a",
"AvailableInstanceCount":5,
"InstanceMatchCriteria": "open",
"State": "active"
}

Fleet configuration

The following fleet configuration shows only the pertinent configurations for this example. The
total target capacity is 12, and the default target capacity type is on-demand. The On-Demand
allocation strategy is lowest-price. The usage strategy for Capacity Reservations is use-capacity-
reservations-first.

In this example, the On-Demand Instance price is:

• m5.large – $0.096 per hour

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• m4.xlarge – $0.20 per hour

• m4.2xlarge – $0.40 per hour

Note
The fleet type must be of type instant. Other fleet types do not support use-capacity-
reservations-first.

{
"LaunchTemplateConfigs": [
{
"LaunchTemplateSpecification": {
"LaunchTemplateId": "lt-abc1234567example",
"Version": "1"
}
"Overrides": [
{
"InstanceType": "m5.large",
"AvailabilityZone": "us-east-1a",
"WeightedCapacity": 1
},
{
"InstanceType": "m4.xlarge",
"AvailabilityZone": "us-east-1a",
"WeightedCapacity": 1
},
{
"InstanceType": "m4.2xlarge",
"AvailabilityZone": "us-east-1a",
"WeightedCapacity": 1
}
]

}
],
"TargetCapacitySpecification": {
"TotalTargetCapacity": 12,
"DefaultTargetCapacityType": "on-demand"
},
"OnDemandOptions": {
"AllocationStrategy": "lowest-price"
"CapacityReservationOptions": {
"UsageStrategy": "use-capacity-reservations-first"
}
},
"Type": "instant",
}

After you create the instant fleet using the preceding configuration, the following 12 instances are
launched to meet the target capacity:

• 5 m5.large On-Demand Instances in us-east-1a – m5.large in us-east-1a is the lowest price,

and there are 5 available unused m5.large Capacity Reservations
• 5 m4.xlarge On-Demand Instances in us-east-1a – m4.xlarge in us-east-1a is the next lowest
price, and there are 5 available unused m4.xlarge Capacity Reservations
• 2 m4.2xlarge On-Demand Instances in us-east-1a – m4.2xlarge in us-east-1a is the third lowest
price, and there are 5 available unused m4.2xlarge Capacity Reservations of which only 2 are needed
to meet the target capacity

After the fleet is launched, you can run describe-capacity-reservations to see how many unused Capacity
Reservations are remaining. In this example, you should see the following response, which shows that

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all of the m5.large and m4.xlarge Capacity Reservations were used, with 3 m4.2xlarge Capacity
Reservations remaining unused.

{
"CapacityReservationId": "cr-111",
"InstanceType": "m5.large",
"AvailableInstanceCount": 0
}

{
"CapacityReservationId": "cr-222",
"InstanceType": "m4.xlarge",
"AvailableInstanceCount": 0
}

{
"CapacityReservationId": "cr-333",
"InstanceType": "m4.2xlarge",
"AvailableInstanceCount": 3
}

Example 6: Launch On-Demand Instances using Capacity

Reservations when the total target capacity exceeds the number
of unused Capacity Reservations
You can configure a fleet to use On-Demand Capacity Reservations first when launching On-Demand
Instances by setting the usage strategy for Capacity Reservations to use-capacity-reservations-
first. This example demonstrates how the fleet selects the instance pools in which to launch On-
Demand Instances when the total target capacity exceeds the number of available unused Capacity
Reservations.

In this example, the fleet configuration is as follows:

• Target capacity: 16 On-Demand Instances

• Total unused Capacity Reservations: 15 (less than the fleet's target capacity of 16 On-Demand
Instances)
• Number of Capacity Reservation pools: 3 (m5.large, m4.xlarge, and m4.2xlarge)
• Number of Capacity Reservations per pool: 5
• On-Demand allocation strategy: lowest-price (When the number of unused Capacity Reservations
is less than the On-Demand target capacity, the fleet determines the pools in which to launch the
remaining On-Demand capacity based on the On-Demand allocation strategy.)

Note that you can also use the prioritized allocation strategy instead of the lowest-price
allocation strategy.

Capacity Reservations

The account has the following 15 unused Capacity Reservations in 3 different pools. The number of
Capacity Reservations in each pool is indicated by AvailableInstanceCount.

{
"CapacityReservationId": "cr-111",
"InstanceType": "m5.large",
"InstancePlatform": "Linux/UNIX",
"AvailabilityZone": "us-east-1a",
"AvailableInstanceCount": 5,
"InstanceMatchCriteria": "open",

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"State": "active"
}

{
"CapacityReservationId": "cr-222",
"InstanceType": "m4.xlarge",
"InstancePlatform": "Linux/UNIX",
"AvailabilityZone": "us-east-1a",
"AvailableInstanceCount": 5,
"InstanceMatchCriteria": "open",
"State": "active"
}

{
"CapacityReservationId": "cr-333",
"InstanceType": "m4.2xlarge",
"InstancePlatform": "Linux/UNIX",
"AvailabilityZone": "us-east-1a",
"AvailableInstanceCount":5,
"InstanceMatchCriteria": "open",
"State": "active"
}

Fleet configuration

The following fleet configuration shows only the pertinent configurations for this example. The
total target capacity is 16, and the default target capacity type is on-demand. The On-Demand
allocation strategy is lowest-price. The usage strategy for Capacity Reservations is use-capacity-
reservations-first.

In this example, the On-Demand Instance price is:

• m5.large – $0.096 per hour

• m4.xlarge – $0.20 per hour
• m4.2xlarge – $0.40 per hour

Note
The fleet type must be instant. Other fleet types do not support use-capacity-
reservations-first.

{
"LaunchTemplateConfigs": [
{
"LaunchTemplateSpecification": {
"LaunchTemplateId": "lt-0e8c754449b27161c",
"Version": "1"
}
"Overrides": [
{
"InstanceType": "m5.large",
"AvailabilityZone": "us-east-1a",
"WeightedCapacity": 1
},
{
"InstanceType": "m4.xlarge",
"AvailabilityZone": "us-east-1a",
"WeightedCapacity": 1
},
{
"InstanceType": "m4.2xlarge",
"AvailabilityZone": "us-east-1a",

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"WeightedCapacity": 1
}
]

}
],
"TargetCapacitySpecification": {
"TotalTargetCapacity": 16,
"DefaultTargetCapacityType": "on-demand"
},
"OnDemandOptions": {
"AllocationStrategy": "lowest-price"
"CapacityReservationOptions": {
"UsageStrategy": "use-capacity-reservations-first"
}
},
"Type": "instant",
}

After you create the instant fleet using the preceding configuration, the following 16 instances are
launched to meet the target capacity:

• 6 m5.large On-Demand Instances in us-east-1a – m5.large in us-east-1a is the lowest price,

and there are 5 available unused m5.large Capacity Reservations. The Capacity Reservations are used
first to launch 5 On-Demand Instances. After the remaining m4.xlarge and m4.2xlarge Capacity
Reservations are used, to meet the target capacity an additional On-Demand Instance is launched
according to the On-Demand allocation strategy, which is lowest-price in this example.
• 5 m4.xlarge On-Demand Instances in us-east-1a – m4.xlarge in us-east-1a is the next lowest
price, and there are 5 available unused m4.xlarge Capacity Reservations
• 5 m4.2xlarge On-Demand Instances in us-east-1a – m4.2xlarge in us-east-1a is the third
lowest price, and there are 5 available unused m4.2xlarge Capacity Reservations

After the fleet is launched, you can run describe-capacity-reservations to see how many unused Capacity
Reservations are remaining. In this example, you should see the following response, which shows that all
of the Capacity Reservations in all of the pools were used.

{
"CapacityReservationId": "cr-111",
"InstanceType": "m5.large",
"AvailableInstanceCount": 0
}

{
"CapacityReservationId": "cr-222",
"InstanceType": "m4.xlarge",
"AvailableInstanceCount": 0
}

{
"CapacityReservationId": "cr-333",
"InstanceType": "m4.2xlarge",
"AvailableInstanceCount": 0
}

Example 7: Launch On-Demand Instances using targeted

Capacity Reservations
You can configure a fleet to use targeted On-Demand Capacity Reservations first when launching
On-Demand Instances by setting the usage strategy for Capacity Reservations to use-capacity-

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reservations-first. This example demonstrates how to launch On-Demand Instances into

targeted Capacity Reservations, where the attributes of the Capacity Reservations are the same except
for their Availability Zones (us-east-1a and us-east-1b). It also demonstrates how the fleet selects
the instance pools in which to launch On-Demand Instances when the total target capacity exceeds the
number of available unused Capacity Reservations.

In this example, the fleet configuration is as follows:

• Target capacity: 10 On-Demand Instances

• Total unused targeted Capacity Reservations: 6 (less than the fleet's On-Demand target capacity of
10 On-Demand Instances)
• Number of Capacity Reservation pools: 2 (us-east-1a and us-east-1b)
• Number of Capacity Reservations per pool: 3
• On-Demand allocation strategy: lowest-price (When the number of unused Capacity Reservations
is less than the On-Demand target capacity, the fleet determines the pools in which to launch the
remaining On-Demand capacity based on the On-Demand allocation strategy.)

Note that you can also use the prioritized allocation strategy instead of the lowest-price
allocation strategy.

For a walkthrough of the procedures that you must perform to accomplish this example, see Tutorial:
Launch On-Demand Instances using targeted Capacity Reservations (p. 773).

Capacity Reservations

The account has the following 6 unused Capacity Reservations in 2 different pools. In this example, the
pools differ by their Availability Zones. The number of Capacity Reservations in each pool is indicated by
AvailableInstanceCount.

{
"CapacityReservationId": "cr-111",
"InstanceType": "c5.xlarge",
"InstancePlatform": "Linux/UNIX",
"AvailabilityZone": "us-east-1a",
"AvailableInstanceCount": 3,
"InstanceMatchCriteria": "open",
"State": "active"
}

{
"CapacityReservationId": "cr-222",
"InstanceType": "c5.xlarge",
"InstancePlatform": "Linux/UNIX",
"AvailabilityZone": "us-east-1b",
"AvailableInstanceCount": 3,
"InstanceMatchCriteria": "open",
"State": "active"
}

Fleet configuration

The following fleet configuration shows only the pertinent configurations for this example. The
total target capacity is 10, and the default target capacity type is on-demand. The On-Demand
allocation strategy is lowest-price. The usage strategy for Capacity Reservations is use-capacity-
reservations-first.

In this example, the On-Demand Instance price for c5.xlarge in us-east-1 is $0.17 per hour.

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Note
The fleet type must be instant. Other fleet types do not support use-capacity-
reservations-first.

{
"LaunchTemplateConfigs": [
{
"LaunchTemplateSpecification": {
"LaunchTemplateName": "my-launch-template",
"Version": "1"
},
"Overrides": [
{
"InstanceType": "c5.xlarge",
"AvailabilityZone": "us-east-1a"
},
{
"InstanceType": "c5.xlarge",
"AvailabilityZone": "us-east-1b"
}
]
}
],
"TargetCapacitySpecification": {
"TotalTargetCapacity": 10,
"DefaultTargetCapacityType": "on-demand"
},
"OnDemandOptions": {
"AllocationStrategy": "lowest-price",
"CapacityReservationOptions": {
"UsageStrategy": "use-capacity-reservations-first"
}
},
"Type": "instant"
}

After you create the instant fleet using the preceding configuration, the following 10 instances are
launched to meet the target capacity:

• The Capacity Reservations are used first to launch 6 On-Demand Instances as follows:
• 3 On-Demand Instances are launched into the 3 c5.xlarge targeted Capacity Reservations in
us-east-1a
• 3 On-Demand Instances are launched into the 3 c5.xlarge targeted Capacity Reservations in
us-east-1b
• To meet the target capacity, 4 additional On-Demand Instances are launched into regular On-Demand
capacity according to the On-Demand allocation strategy, which is lowest-price in this example.
However, because the pools are the same price (because price is per Region and not per Availability
Zone), the fleet launches the remaining 4 On-Demand Instances into either of the pools.

After the fleet is launched, you can run describe-capacity-reservations to see how many unused Capacity
Reservations are remaining. In this example, you should see the following response, which shows that all
of the Capacity Reservations in all of the pools were used.

{
"CapacityReservationId": "cr-111",
"InstanceType": "c5.xlarge",
"AvailableInstanceCount": 0
}

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"CapacityReservationId": "cr-222",
"InstanceType": "c5.xlarge",
"AvailableInstanceCount": 0
}

Example 8: Configure Capacity Rebalancing to launch

replacement Spot Instances
The following example configures the EC2 Fleet to launch a replacement Spot Instance when Amazon
EC2 emits a rebalance recommendation for a Spot Instance in the fleet. To configure the automatic
replacement of Spot Instances, for ReplacementStrategy, specify launch.
Note
When a replacement instance is launched, the instance marked for rebalance is not
automatically terminated. You can terminate it, or you can leave it running. You are charged for
both instances while they are running.

The effectiveness of the Capacity Rebalancing strategy depends on the number of Spot capacity pools
specified in the EC2 Fleet request. We recommend that you configure the fleet with a diversified set of
instance types and Availability Zones, and for AllocationStrategy, specify capacity-optimized.
For more information about what you should consider when configuring an EC2 Fleet for Capacity
Rebalancing, see Capacity Rebalancing (p. 697).

{
"ExcessCapacityTerminationPolicy": "termination",
"LaunchTemplateConfigs": [
{
"LaunchTemplateSpecification": {
"LaunchTemplateName": "LaunchTemplate",
"Version": "1"
},
"Overrides": [
{
"InstanceType": "c3.large",
"WeightedCapacity": 1,
"Placement": {
"AvailabilityZone": "us-east-1a"
}
},
{
"InstanceType": "c4.large",
"WeightedCapacity": 1,
"Placement": {
"AvailabilityZone": "us-east-1a"
}
},
{
"InstanceType": "c5.large",
"WeightedCapacity": 1,
"Placement": {
"AvailabilityZone": "us-east-1a"
}
}
]
}
],
"TargetCapacitySpecification": {
"TotalTargetCapacity": 5,
"DefaultTargetCapacityType": "spot"
},
"SpotOptions": {
"AllocationStrategy": "capacity-optimized",

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"MaintenanceStrategies": {
"CapacityRebalance": {
"ReplacementStrategy": "launch"
}
}
}
}

Example 9: Launch Spot Instances in a capacity-optimized fleet

The following example demonstrates how to configure an EC2 Fleet with a Spot allocation strategy that
optimizes for capacity. To optimize for capacity, you must set AllocationStrategy to capacity-
optimized.

In the following example, the three launch specifications specify three Spot capacity pools. The target
capacity is 50 Spot Instances. The EC2 Fleet attempts to launch 50 Spot Instances into the Spot capacity
pool with optimal capacity for the number of instances that are launching.

{
"SpotOptions": {
"AllocationStrategy": "capacity-optimized",
},
"LaunchTemplateConfigs": [
{
"LaunchTemplateSpecification": {
"LaunchTemplateName": "my-launch-template",
"Version": "1"
},
"Overrides": [
{
"InstanceType": "r4.2xlarge",
"Placement": {
"AvailabilityZone": "us-west-2a"
},
},
{
"InstanceType": "m4.2xlarge",
"Placement": {
"AvailabilityZone": us-west-2b
},
},
{
"InstanceType": "c5.2xlarge",
"Placement": {
"AvailabilityZone": us-west-2b
}
}
]
}
],
"TargetCapacitySpecification": {
"TotalTargetCapacity": 50,
"DefaultTargetCapacityType": "spot"
}

Example 10: Launch Spot Instances in a capacity-optimized fleet

with priorities
The following example demonstrates how to configure an EC2 Fleet with a Spot allocation strategy that
optimizes for capacity while using priority on a best-effort basis.

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When using the capacity-optimized-prioritized allocation strategy, you can use the Priority
parameter to specify the priorities of the Spot capacity pools, where the lower the number the higher
priority. You can also set the same priority for several Spot capacity pools if you favor them equally. If
you do not set a priority for a pool, the pool will be considered last in terms of priority.

To prioritize Spot capacity pools, you must set AllocationStrategy to capacity-optimized-

prioritized. EC2 Fleet will optimize for capacity first, but will honor the priorities on a best-effort
basis (for example, if honoring the priorities will not significantly affect EC2 Fleet's ability to provision
optimal capacity). This is a good option for workloads where the possibility of disruption must be
minimized and the preference for certain instance types matters.

In the following example, the three launch specifications specify three Spot capacity pools. Each pool is
prioritized, where the lower the number the higher priority. The target capacity is 50 Spot Instances. The
EC2 Fleet attempts to launch 50 Spot Instances into the Spot capacity pool with the highest priority on a
best-effort basis, but optimizes for capacity first.

{
"SpotOptions": {
"AllocationStrategy": "capacity-optimized-prioritized"
},
"LaunchTemplateConfigs": [
{
"LaunchTemplateSpecification": {
"LaunchTemplateName": "my-launch-template",
"Version": "1"
},
"Overrides": [
{
"InstanceType": "r4.2xlarge",
"Priority": 1
"Placement": {
"AvailabilityZone": "us-west-2a"
},
},
{
"InstanceType": "m4.2xlarge",
"Priority": 2
"Placement": {
"AvailabilityZone": us-west-2b
},
},
{
"InstanceType": "c5.2xlarge",
"Priority": 3
"Placement": {
"AvailabilityZone": us-west-2b
}
}
]
}
],
"TargetCapacitySpecification": {
"TotalTargetCapacity": 50,
"DefaultTargetCapacityType": "spot"
}

Spot Fleet example configurations

The following examples show launch configurations that you can use with the request-spot-
fleet command to create a Spot Fleet request. For more information, see Create a Spot Fleet
request (p. 734).

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Note
For Spot Fleet, you can't specify an network interface ID in a launch specification. Make sure you
omit the NetworkInterfaceID parameter in your launch specification.

Examples
• Example 1: Launch Spot Instances using the lowest-priced Availability Zone or subnet in the
Region (p. 793)
• Example 2: Launch Spot Instances using the lowest-priced Availability Zone or subnet in a specified
list (p. 793)
• Example 3: Launch Spot Instances using the lowest-priced instance type in a specified list (p. 795)
• Example 4. Override the price for the request (p. 796)
• Example 5: Launch a Spot Fleet using the diversified allocation strategy (p. 797)
• Example 6: Launch a Spot Fleet using instance weighting (p. 799)
• Example 7: Launch a Spot Fleet with On-Demand capacity (p. 800)
• Example 8: Configure Capacity Rebalancing to launch replacement Spot Instances (p. 801)
• Example 9: Launch Spot Instances in a capacity-optimized fleet (p. 802)
• Example 10: Launch Spot Instances in a capacity-optimized fleet with priorities (p. 802)

Example 1: Launch Spot Instances using the lowest-priced

Availability Zone or subnet in the Region
The following example specifies a single launch specification without an Availability Zone or subnet. The
Spot Fleet launches the instances in the lowest-priced Availability Zone that has a default subnet. The
price you pay does not exceed the On-Demand price.

{
"TargetCapacity": 20,
"IamFleetRole": "arn:aws:iam::123456789012:role/aws-ec2-spot-fleet-tagging-role",
"LaunchSpecifications": [
{
"ImageId": "ami-1a2b3c4d",
"KeyName": "my-key-pair",
"SecurityGroups": [
{
"GroupId": "sg-1a2b3c4d"
}
],
"InstanceType": "m3.medium",
"IamInstanceProfile": {
"Arn": "arn:aws:iam::123456789012:instance-profile/my-iam-role"
}
}
]
}

Example 2: Launch Spot Instances using the lowest-priced

Availability Zone or subnet in a specified list
The following examples specify two launch specifications with different Availability Zones or subnets,
but the same instance type and AMI.

Availability Zones

The Spot Fleet launches the instances in the default subnet of the lowest-priced Availability Zone that
you specified.

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{
"TargetCapacity": 20,
"IamFleetRole": "arn:aws:iam::123456789012:role/aws-ec2-spot-fleet-tagging-role",
"LaunchSpecifications": [
{
"ImageId": "ami-1a2b3c4d",
"KeyName": "my-key-pair",
"SecurityGroups": [
{
"GroupId": "sg-1a2b3c4d"
}
],
"InstanceType": "m3.medium",
"Placement": {
"AvailabilityZone": "us-west-2a, us-west-2b"
},
"IamInstanceProfile": {
"Arn": "arn:aws:iam::123456789012:instance-profile/my-iam-role"
}
}
]
}

Subnets

You can specify default subnets or nondefault subnets, and the nondefault subnets can be from a
default VPC or a nondefault VPC. The Spot service launches the instances in whichever subnet is in the
lowest-priced Availability Zone.

You can't specify different subnets from the same Availability Zone in a Spot Fleet request.

{
"TargetCapacity": 20,
"IamFleetRole": "arn:aws:iam::123456789012:role/aws-ec2-spot-fleet-tagging-role",
"LaunchSpecifications": [
{
"ImageId": "ami-1a2b3c4d",
"KeyName": "my-key-pair",
"SecurityGroups": [
{
"GroupId": "sg-1a2b3c4d"
}
],
"InstanceType": "m3.medium",
"SubnetId": "subnet-a61dafcf, subnet-65ea5f08",
"IamInstanceProfile": {
"Arn": "arn:aws:iam::123456789012:instance-profile/my-iam-role"
}
}
]
}

If the instances are launched in a default VPC, they receive a public IPv4 address by default. If the
instances are launched in a nondefault VPC, they do not receive a public IPv4 address by default. Use
a network interface in the launch specification to assign a public IPv4 address to instances launched in
a nondefault VPC. When you specify a network interface, you must include the subnet ID and security
group ID using the network interface.

...
{
"ImageId": "ami-1a2b3c4d",
"KeyName": "my-key-pair",

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"InstanceType": "m3.medium",
"NetworkInterfaces": [
{
"DeviceIndex": 0,
"SubnetId": "subnet-1a2b3c4d",
"Groups": [ "sg-1a2b3c4d" ],
"AssociatePublicIpAddress": true
}
],
"IamInstanceProfile": {
"Arn": "arn:aws:iam::880185128111:instance-profile/my-iam-role"
}
}
...

Example 3: Launch Spot Instances using the lowest-priced

instance type in a specified list
The following examples specify two launch configurations with different instance types, but the same
AMI and Availability Zone or subnet. The Spot Fleet launches the instances using the specified instance
type with the lowest price.

Availability Zone

{
"TargetCapacity": 20,
"IamFleetRole": "arn:aws:iam::123456789012:role/aws-ec2-spot-fleet-tagging-role",
"LaunchSpecifications": [
{
"ImageId": "ami-1a2b3c4d",
"SecurityGroups": [
{
"GroupId": "sg-1a2b3c4d"
}
],
"InstanceType": "cc2.8xlarge",
"Placement": {
"AvailabilityZone": "us-west-2b"
}
},
{
"ImageId": "ami-1a2b3c4d",
"SecurityGroups": [
{
"GroupId": "sg-1a2b3c4d"
}
],
"InstanceType": "r3.8xlarge",
"Placement": {
"AvailabilityZone": "us-west-2b"
}
}
]
}

Subnet

{
"TargetCapacity": 20,
"IamFleetRole": "arn:aws:iam::123456789012:role/aws-ec2-spot-fleet-tagging-role",
"LaunchSpecifications": [
{

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"ImageId": "ami-1a2b3c4d",
"SecurityGroups": [
{
"GroupId": "sg-1a2b3c4d"
}
],
"InstanceType": "cc2.8xlarge",
"SubnetId": "subnet-1a2b3c4d"
},
{
"ImageId": "ami-1a2b3c4d",
"SecurityGroups": [
{
"GroupId": "sg-1a2b3c4d"
}
],
"InstanceType": "r3.8xlarge",
"SubnetId": "subnet-1a2b3c4d"
}
]
}

Example 4. Override the price for the request

We recommended that you use the default maximum price, which is the On-Demand price. If you
prefer, you can specify a maximum price for the fleet request and maximum prices for individual launch
specifications.

The following examples specify a maximum price for the fleet request and maximum prices for two
of the three launch specifications. The maximum price for the fleet request is used for any launch
specification that does not specify a maximum price. The Spot Fleet launches the instances using the
instance type with the lowest price.

Availability Zone

{
"SpotPrice": "1.00",
"TargetCapacity": 30,
"IamFleetRole": "arn:aws:iam::123456789012:role/aws-ec2-spot-fleet-tagging-role",
"LaunchSpecifications": [
{
"ImageId": "ami-1a2b3c4d",
"InstanceType": "c3.2xlarge",
"Placement": {
"AvailabilityZone": "us-west-2b"
},
"SpotPrice": "0.10"
},
{
"ImageId": "ami-1a2b3c4d",
"InstanceType": "c3.4xlarge",
"Placement": {
"AvailabilityZone": "us-west-2b"
},
"SpotPrice": "0.20"
},
{
"ImageId": "ami-1a2b3c4d",
"InstanceType": "c3.8xlarge",
"Placement": {
"AvailabilityZone": "us-west-2b"
}
}

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]
}

Subnet

{
"SpotPrice": "1.00",
"TargetCapacity": 30,
"IamFleetRole": "arn:aws:iam::123456789012:role/aws-ec2-spot-fleet-tagging-role",
"LaunchSpecifications": [
{
"ImageId": "ami-1a2b3c4d",
"InstanceType": "c3.2xlarge",
"SubnetId": "subnet-1a2b3c4d",
"SpotPrice": "0.10"
},
{
"ImageId": "ami-1a2b3c4d",
"InstanceType": "c3.4xlarge",
"SubnetId": "subnet-1a2b3c4d",
"SpotPrice": "0.20"
},
{
"ImageId": "ami-1a2b3c4d",
"InstanceType": "c3.8xlarge",
"SubnetId": "subnet-1a2b3c4d"
}
]
}

Example 5: Launch a Spot Fleet using the diversified allocation

strategy
The following example uses the diversified allocation strategy. The launch specifications have
different instance types but the same AMI and Availability Zone or subnet. The Spot Fleet distributes the
30 instances across the three launch specifications, such that there are 10 instances of each type. For
more information, see Allocation strategy for Spot Instances (p. 721).

Availability Zone

{
"SpotPrice": "0.70",
"TargetCapacity": 30,
"AllocationStrategy": "diversified",
"IamFleetRole": "arn:aws:iam::123456789012:role/aws-ec2-spot-fleet-tagging-role",
"LaunchSpecifications": [
{
"ImageId": "ami-1a2b3c4d",
"InstanceType": "c4.2xlarge",
"Placement": {
"AvailabilityZone": "us-west-2b"
}
},
{
"ImageId": "ami-1a2b3c4d",
"InstanceType": "m3.2xlarge",
"Placement": {
"AvailabilityZone": "us-west-2b"
}
},
{

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"ImageId": "ami-1a2b3c4d",
"InstanceType": "r3.2xlarge",
"Placement": {
"AvailabilityZone": "us-west-2b"
}
}
]
}

Subnet

{
"SpotPrice": "0.70",
"TargetCapacity": 30,
"AllocationStrategy": "diversified",
"IamFleetRole": "arn:aws:iam::123456789012:role/aws-ec2-spot-fleet-tagging-role",
"LaunchSpecifications": [
{
"ImageId": "ami-1a2b3c4d",
"InstanceType": "c4.2xlarge",
"SubnetId": "subnet-1a2b3c4d"
},
{
"ImageId": "ami-1a2b3c4d",
"InstanceType": "m3.2xlarge",
"SubnetId": "subnet-1a2b3c4d"
},
{
"ImageId": "ami-1a2b3c4d",
"InstanceType": "r3.2xlarge",
"SubnetId": "subnet-1a2b3c4d"
}
]
}

A best practice to increase the chance that a spot request can be fulfilled by EC2 capacity in the event
of an outage in one of the Availability Zones is to diversify across zones. For this scenario, include each
Availability Zone available to you in the launch specification. And, instead of using the same subnet each
time, use three unique subnets (each mapping to a different zone).

Availability Zone

{
"SpotPrice": "0.70",
"TargetCapacity": 30,
"AllocationStrategy": "diversified",
"IamFleetRole": "arn:aws:iam::123456789012:role/aws-ec2-spot-fleet-tagging-role",
"LaunchSpecifications": [
{
"ImageId": "ami-1a2b3c4d",
"InstanceType": "c4.2xlarge",
"Placement": {
"AvailabilityZone": "us-west-2a"
}
},
{
"ImageId": "ami-1a2b3c4d",
"InstanceType": "m3.2xlarge",
"Placement": {
"AvailabilityZone": "us-west-2b"
}
},
{

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"ImageId": "ami-1a2b3c4d",
"InstanceType": "r3.2xlarge",
"Placement": {
"AvailabilityZone": "us-west-2c"
}
}
]
}

Subnet

{
"SpotPrice": "0.70",
"TargetCapacity": 30,
"AllocationStrategy": "diversified",
"IamFleetRole": "arn:aws:iam::123456789012:role/aws-ec2-spot-fleet-tagging-role",
"LaunchSpecifications": [
{
"ImageId": "ami-1a2b3c4d",
"InstanceType": "c4.2xlarge",
"SubnetId": "subnet-1a2b3c4d"
},
{
"ImageId": "ami-1a2b3c4d",
"InstanceType": "m3.2xlarge",
"SubnetId": "subnet-2a2b3c4d"
},
{
"ImageId": "ami-1a2b3c4d",
"InstanceType": "r3.2xlarge",
"SubnetId": "subnet-3a2b3c4d"
}
]
}

Example 6: Launch a Spot Fleet using instance weighting

The following examples use instance weighting, which means that the price is per unit hour instead of
per instance hour. Each launch configuration lists a different instance type and a different weight. The
Spot Fleet selects the instance type with the lowest price per unit hour. The Spot Fleet calculates the
number of Spot Instances to launch by dividing the target capacity by the instance weight. If the result
isn't an integer, the Spot Fleet rounds it up to the next integer, so that the size of your fleet is not below
its target capacity.

If the r3.2xlarge request is successful, Spot provisions 4 of these instances. Divide 20 by 6 for a total
of 3.33 instances, then round up to 4 instances.

If the c3.xlarge request is successful, Spot provisions 7 of these instances. Divide 20 by 3 for a total of
6.66 instances, then round up to 7 instances.

For more information, see Spot Fleet instance weighting (p. 726).

Availability Zone

{
"SpotPrice": "0.70",
"TargetCapacity": 20,
"IamFleetRole": "arn:aws:iam::123456789012:role/aws-ec2-spot-fleet-tagging-role",
"LaunchSpecifications": [
{
"ImageId": "ami-1a2b3c4d",
"InstanceType": "r3.2xlarge",

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"Placement": {
"AvailabilityZone": "us-west-2b"
},
"WeightedCapacity": 6
},
{
"ImageId": "ami-1a2b3c4d",
"InstanceType": "c3.xlarge",
"Placement": {
"AvailabilityZone": "us-west-2b"
},
"WeightedCapacity": 3
}
]
}

Subnet

{
"SpotPrice": "0.70",
"TargetCapacity": 20,
"IamFleetRole": "arn:aws:iam::123456789012:role/aws-ec2-spot-fleet-tagging-role",
"LaunchSpecifications": [
{
"ImageId": "ami-1a2b3c4d",
"InstanceType": "r3.2xlarge",
"SubnetId": "subnet-1a2b3c4d",
"WeightedCapacity": 6
},
{
"ImageId": "ami-1a2b3c4d",
"InstanceType": "c3.xlarge",
"SubnetId": "subnet-1a2b3c4d",
"WeightedCapacity": 3
}
]
}

Example 7: Launch a Spot Fleet with On-Demand capacity

To ensure that you always have instance capacity, you can include a request for On-Demand capacity in
your Spot Fleet request. If there is capacity, the On-Demand request is always fulfilled. The balance of
the target capacity is fulfilled as Spot if there is capacity and availability.

The following example specifies the desired target capacity as 10, of which 5 must be On-Demand
capacity. Spot capacity is not specified; it is implied in the balance of the target capacity minus the On-
Demand capacity. Amazon EC2 launches 5 capacity units as On-Demand, and 5 capacity units (10-5=5) as
Spot if there is available Amazon EC2 capacity and availability.

For more information, see On-Demand in Spot Fleet (p. 723).

{
"IamFleetRole": "arn:aws:iam::781603563322:role/aws-ec2-spot-fleet-tagging-role",
"AllocationStrategy": "lowestPrice",
"TargetCapacity": 10,
"SpotPrice": null,
"ValidFrom": "2018-04-04T15:58:13Z",
"ValidUntil": "2019-04-04T15:58:13Z",
"TerminateInstancesWithExpiration": true,
"LaunchSpecifications": [],
"Type": "maintain",
"OnDemandTargetCapacity": 5,

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"LaunchTemplateConfigs": [
{
"LaunchTemplateSpecification": {
"LaunchTemplateId": "lt-0dbb04d4a6cca5ad1",
"Version": "2"
},
"Overrides": [
{
"InstanceType": "t2.medium",
"WeightedCapacity": 1,
"SubnetId": "subnet-d0dc51fb"
}
]
}
]
}

Example 8: Configure Capacity Rebalancing to launch

replacement Spot Instances
The following example configures the Spot Fleet to launch a replacement Spot Instance when Amazon
EC2 emits a rebalance recommendation for a Spot Instance in the fleet. To configure the automatic
replacement of Spot Instances, for ReplacementStrategy, specify launch.
Note
When a replacement instance is launched, the instance marked for rebalance is not
automatically terminated. You can terminate it, or you can leave it running. You are charged for
both instances while they are running.

The effectiveness of the Capacity Rebalancing strategy depends on the number of Spot capacity pools
specified in the Spot Fleet request. We recommend that you configure the fleet with a diversified set of
instance types and Availability Zones, and for AllocationStrategy, specify capacityOptimized.
For more information about what you should consider when configuring a Spot Fleet for Capacity
Rebalancing, see Capacity Rebalancing (p. 724).

{
"SpotFleetRequestConfig": {
"AllocationStrategy": "capacityOptimized",
"IamFleetRole": "arn:aws:iam::000000000000:role/aws-ec2-spot-fleet-tagging-role",
"LaunchTemplateConfigs": [
{
"LaunchTemplateSpecification": {
"LaunchTemplateName": "LaunchTemplate",
"Version": "1"
},
"Overrides": [
{
"InstanceType": "c3.large",
"WeightedCapacity": 1,
"Placement": {
"AvailabilityZone": "us-east-1a"
}
},
{
"InstanceType": "c4.large",
"WeightedCapacity": 1,
"Placement": {
"AvailabilityZone": "us-east-1a"
}
},
{
"InstanceType": "c5.large",

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"WeightedCapacity": 1,
"Placement": {
"AvailabilityZone": "us-east-1a"
}
}
]
}
],
"TargetCapacity": 5,
"SpotMaintenanceStrategies": {
"CapacityRebalance": {
"ReplacementStrategy": "launch"
}
}
}
}

Example 9: Launch Spot Instances in a capacity-optimized fleet

The following example demonstrates how to configure a Spot Fleet with a Spot allocation strategy
that optimizes for capacity. To optimize for capacity, you must set AllocationStrategy to
capacityOptimized.

In the following example, the three launch specifications specify three Spot capacity pools. The target
capacity is 50 Spot Instances. The Spot Fleet attempts to launch 50 Spot Instances into the Spot capacity
pool with optimal capacity for the number of instances that are launching.

{
"TargetCapacity": "50",
"SpotFleetRequestConfig": {
"AllocationStrategy": "capacityOptimized",
},
"LaunchTemplateConfigs": [
{
"LaunchTemplateSpecification": {
"LaunchTemplateName": "my-launch-template",
"Version": "1"
},
"Overrides": [
{
"InstanceType": "r4.2xlarge",
"AvailabilityZone": "us-west-2a"
},
{
"InstanceType": "m4.2xlarge",
"AvailabilityZone": us-west-2b
},
{
"InstanceType": "c5.2xlarge",
"AvailabilityZone": us-west-2b
}
]
}
]
}

Example 10: Launch Spot Instances in a capacity-optimized fleet

with priorities
The following example demonstrates how to configure a Spot Fleet with a Spot allocation strategy that
optimizes for capacity while using priority on a best-effort basis.

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When using the capacityOptimizedPrioritized allocation strategy, you can use the Priority
parameter to specify the priorities of the Spot capacity pools, where the lower the number the higher
priority. You can also set the same priority for several Spot capacity pools if you favor them equally. If
you do not set a priority for a pool, the pool will be considered last in terms of priority.

To prioritize Spot capacity pools, you must set AllocationStrategy to

capacityOptimizedPrioritized. Spot Fleet will optimize for capacity first, but will honor the
priorities on a best-effort basis (for example, if honoring the priorities will not significantly affect Spot
Fleet's ability to provision optimal capacity). This is a good option for workloads where the possibility of
disruption must be minimized and the preference for certain instance types matters.

In the following example, the three launch specifications specify three Spot capacity pools. Each pool is
prioritized, where the lower the number the higher priority. The target capacity is 50 Spot Instances. The
Spot Fleet attempts to launch 50 Spot Instances into the Spot capacity pool with the highest priority on
a best-effort basis, but optimizes for capacity first.

{
"TargetCapacity": "50",
"SpotFleetRequestConfig": {
"AllocationStrategy": "capacityOptimizedPrioritized"
},
"LaunchTemplateConfigs": [
{
"LaunchTemplateSpecification": {
"LaunchTemplateName": "my-launch-template",
"Version": "1"
},
"Overrides": [
{
"InstanceType": "r4.2xlarge",
"Priority": 1
"AvailabilityZone": "us-west-2a"
},
{
"InstanceType": "m4.2xlarge",
"Priority": 2
"AvailabilityZone": us-west-2b
},
{
"InstanceType": "c5.2xlarge",
"Priority": 3
"AvailabilityZone": us-west-2b
}
]
}
]
}

Fleet quotas
The usual Amazon EC2 quotas apply to instances launched by an EC2 Fleet or a Spot Fleet, such as Spot
Instance limits (p. 329) and volume limits (p. 1420). In addition, the following limits apply:

• The number of active EC2 Fleets and Spot Fleets per Region: 1,000* †
• The number of Spot capacity pools (unique combination of instance type and subnet): 300* ‡
• The size of the user data in a launch specification: 16 KB †
• The target capacity per EC2 Fleet or Spot Fleet: 10,000
• The target capacity across all EC2 Fleets and Spot Fleets in a Region: 100,000*

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• An EC2 Fleet request or a Spot Fleet request can't span Regions.

• An EC2 Fleet request or a Spot Fleet request can't span different subnets from the same Availability
Zone.

* These limits apply to both your EC2 Fleets and your Spot Fleets.

† These are hard limits. You cannot request a limit increase for these limits.

‡ This limit only applies to fleets of type request or maintain. This limit does not apply to instant
fleets.

To request a limit increase for target capacity

If you need more than the default limits for target capacity, complete the AWS Support Center Create
case form to request a limit increase. For Limit type, choose EC2 Fleet, choose a Region, and then choose
Target Fleet Capacity per Fleet (in units) or Target Fleet Capacity per Region (in units), or both.

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Elastic Graphics basics

Amazon Elastic Graphics

Amazon Elastic Graphics provides flexible, low-cost, and high performance graphics acceleration
for your Windows instances. Elastic Graphics accelerators come in multiple sizes and are a low-cost
alternative to using GPU graphics instance types (such as G2 and G3). You have the flexibility to choose
an instance type that meets the compute, memory, and storage needs of your application. Then, choose
the accelerator for your instance that meets the graphics requirements of your workload.

Elastic Graphics is suited for applications that require a small or intermittent amount of additional
graphics acceleration, and that use OpenGL graphics support. If you need access to full, directly attached
GPUs and use of DirectX, CUDA, or Open Computing Language (OpenCL) parallel computing frameworks,
use an accelerated computing instance type instance instead. For more information, see Windows
accelerated computing instances (p. 218).

Contents
• Elastic Graphics basics (p. 805)
• Pricing for Elastic Graphics (p. 807)
• Elastic Graphics limitations (p. 807)
• Work with Elastic Graphics (p. 807)
• Use CloudWatch metrics to monitor Elastic Graphics (p. 813)
• Troubleshoot (p. 814)

Elastic Graphics basics

To use Elastic Graphics, launch a Windows instance and specify an accelerator type for the instance
during launch. AWS finds available Elastic Graphics capacity and establishes a network connection
between your instance and the Elastic Graphics accelerator.
Note
Bare metal instances are not supported.

Elastic Graphics accelerators are available in the following AWS Regions: us-east-1, us-east-2, us-
west-2, ap-northeast-1, ap-southeast-1, ap-southeast-2, eu-central-1, and eu-west-1.

The following instance types support Elastic Graphics accelerators:

• C3 | C4 | C5 | C5a | C5ad | C5d | C5n

• D2 | D3 | D3en
• H1
• I3 | I3en
• M3 | M4 | M5 | M5d | M5dn | M5n
• P2 | P3 | P3dn
• R3 | R4 | R5 | R5d | R5dn | R5n
• t2.medium or larger | t3.medium or larger
• X1 | X1e

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Elastic Graphics basics

• z1d

The following Elastic Graphics accelerators are available. You can attach any Elastic Graphics accelerator
to any supported instance type.

Elastic Graphics accelerator Graphics memory (GB)

eg1.medium 1

eg1.large 2

eg1.xlarge 4

eg1.2xlarge 8

An Elastic Graphics accelerator does not form part of the hardware of your instance. Instead, it is
network-attached through a network interface, known as the Elastic Graphics network interface. When
you launch or restart an instance with graphics acceleration, the Elastic Graphics network interface is
created in your VPC for you.

The Elastic Graphics network interface is created in the same subnet and VPC as your instance and is
assigned a private IPv4 address from that subnet. The accelerator attached to your Amazon EC2 instance
is allocated from a pool of available accelerators in the same Availability Zone as your instance.

Elastic Graphics accelerators support the API standards for OpenGL 4.3 API and earlier, which can be
used for batch applications or 3D-graphics acceleration. An Amazon-optimized OpenGL library on
your instance detects the attached accelerator. It directs OpenGL API calls from your instance to the
accelerator, which then processes the requests and returns the results. Traffic between the instance and
the accelerator uses the same bandwidth as the instance's network traffic so we recommend that you

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Pricing for Elastic Graphics

have adequate network bandwidth available. Consult your software vendor for any OpenGL compliance
and version questions.

By default, the default security group for your VPC is associated with the Elastic Graphics network
interface. The Elastic Graphics network traffic uses the TCP protocol and port 2007. Ensure that the
security group for your instance allows for this. For more information, see Configure your security
groups (p. 808).

Pricing for Elastic Graphics

You are charged for each second that an Elastic Graphics accelerator is attached to an instance in the
running state when the accelerator is in the Ok state. You are not charged for an accelerator attached
to an instance that is in the pending, stopping, stopped, shutting-down, or terminated state. You
are also not charged when an accelerator is in the Unknown or Impaired state.

Pricing for accelerators is available at On-Demand rates only. You can attach an accelerator to a Reserved
Instance or Spot Instance, however, the On-Demand price for the accelerator applies.

For more information, see Amazon Elastic Graphics Pricing.

Elastic Graphics limitations

Before you start using Elastic Graphics accelerators, be aware of the following limitations:

• You can attach accelerators only to Windows instances with Microsoft Windows Server 2012 R2 or
later. Linux instances are currently not supported.
• You can attach one accelerator to an instance at a time.
• You can attach an accelerator only during instance launch. You cannot attach an accelerator to an
existing instance.
• You can't hibernate an instance with an attached accelerator.
• You can't share an accelerator between instances.
• You can't detach an accelerator from an instance or transfer it to another instance. If you no longer
require an accelerator, you must terminate your instance. To change the accelerator type, create an
AMI from your instance, terminate the instance, and launch a new instance with a different accelerator
specification.
• The only supported versions of the OpenGL API are 4.3 and earlier. DirectX, CUDA, and OpenCL are not
supported.
• The Elastic Graphics accelerator is not visible or accessible through the device manager of your
instance.
• You can't reserve or schedule accelerator capacity.
• You can't attach accelerators to instances in EC2-Classic.
• You can't attach accelerators to instances that are configured to use Instance Metadata Service v2
(IMDSv2).

Work with Elastic Graphics

You can launch an instance and associate it with an Elastic Graphics accelerator during launch. You
must then manually install the necessary libraries on your instance that enable communication with the
accelerator. For limitations, see Elastic Graphics limitations (p. 807).

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Configure your security groups

Tasks
• Configure your security groups (p. 808)
• Launch an instance with an Elastic Graphics accelerator (p. 809)
• Install the required software for Elastic Graphics (p. 810)
• Verify Elastic Graphics functionality on your instance (p. 810)
• View Elastic Graphics information (p. 812)
• Submit feedback (p. 812)

Configure your security groups

Elastic Graphics requires a self-referencing security group that allows inbound and outbound traffic to
and from the security group itself. The security group must include the following inbound and outbound
rules:

Inbound rule

Type Protocol Port Source

Elastic Graphics TCP 2007 The security group ID (its own resource
ID)

Outbound rule

Type Protocol Port range Destination

Elastic Graphics TCP 2007 The security group ID (its own resource
ID)

If you use the Amazon EC2 console to launch your instance with an Elastic Graphics accelerator, you can
either allow the launch instance wizard to automatically create the required security group rules, or you
can select a security that you created previously.

If you are launching your instance using the AWS CLI or an SDK, you must specify a security group that
you created previously.

To create security group for Elastic Graphics

1. Open the Amazon EC2 console at https://console.aws.amazon.com/ec2/.

2. In the navigation pane, choose Security Groups and then choose Create security group.
3. In the Create security group window, do the following:

a. For Security group name, enter a descriptive name for the security group, such as Elastic
Graphics security group.
b. (Optional) For Description, enter a brief description of the security group.
c. For VPC, select the VPC into which you intend to use Elastic Graphics.
d. Choose Create security group.
4. In the navigation pane, choose Security Groups, select the security group that you just created, and
on the Details tab, copy the Security group ID.
5. On the Inbound rules tab, choose Edit inbound rules and then do the following:

a. Choose Add rule.

b. For Type, choose Elastic Graphics.

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c. For Source type, choose Custom.

d. For Source, paste the security group ID that you copied previously.
e. Choose Save rules.
6. On the Outbound rules tab, choose Edit outbound rules and then do the following:

a. Choose Add rule.

b. For Type, choose Elastic Graphics.
c. For Destination type, choose Custom.
d. For Destination, paste the security group ID that you copied previously.
e. Choose Save rules.

For more information, see Amazon EC2 security groups for Windows instances (p. 1148).

Launch an instance with an Elastic Graphics

accelerator
You can associate an Elastic Graphics accelerator to an instance during launch. If the launch fails, the
following are possible reasons:

• Insufficient Elastic Graphics accelerator capacity

• Exceeded limit on Elastic Graphics accelerators in the Region
• Not enough private IPv4 addresses in your VPC to create a network interface for the accelerator

For more information, see Elastic Graphics limitations (p. 807).

To associate an Elastic Graphics accelerator during instance launch (console)

1. Open the Amazon EC2 console at https://console.aws.amazon.com/ec2/.

2. From the dashboard, choose Launch Instance.
3. Select a Windows AMI and a supported instance type. For more information, see Elastic Graphics
basics (p. 805).
4. On the Configure Instance Details page, select a VPC and subnet in which to launch your instance.
5. Choose Add Graphics Acceleration, and select an Elastic Graphics accelerator type.
6. (Optional) On the Add Storage and Add Tags pages, add volumes and tags as needed.
7. On the Configure Security Group page, you can let the console create a security group for you
with the required inbound and outbound rules, or you can use the security group that you created
manually in Configure your security groups (p. 808). Add additional security groups as needed.
8. Choose Review and Launch to review your instance options and then choose Launch.

To associate an Elastic Graphics accelerator during instance launch (AWS CLI)

You can use the run-instances AWS CLI command with the following parameter:

--elastic-gpu-specification Type=eg1.medium

For the --security-group-ids parameter, you must include a security group that has the required
inbound and outbound rules. For more information, see Configure your security groups (p. 808).

To associate an Elastic Graphics accelerator during instance launch (Tools for Windows PowerShell)

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Install the required software for Elastic Graphics

Use the New-EC2Instance Tools for Windows PowerShell command.

Install the required software for Elastic Graphics

If you launched your instance using a current AWS Windows AMI, the required software is installed
automatically during the first boot. If you launched your instance using Windows AMIs that do not
automatically install the required software, you must install the required software on the instance
manually.

To install the required software for Elastic Graphics (if necessary)

1. Connect to the instance.

2. Download the Elastic Graphics installer and open it. The installation manager connects to the Elastic
Graphics endpoint and downloads the latest version of the required software.
3. Reboot the instance to verify.

Verify Elastic Graphics functionality on your instance

The Elastic Graphics packages on your instance include tools that you can use to view the status of the
accelerator, and to verify that OpenGL commands from your instance to the accelerator are functional.

If your instance was launched with an AMI that does not have the Elastic Graphics packages pre-installed,
you can download and install them yourself. For more information, see Install the required software for
Elastic Graphics (p. 810).

Contents
• Use the Elastic Graphics status monitor (p. 810)
• Use the Elastic Graphics command line tool (p. 810)

Use the Elastic Graphics status monitor

You can use the status monitor tool to view information about the status of an attached Elastic Graphics
accelerator. By default, this tool is available in the notification area of the taskbar in your Windows
instance and shows the status of the graphics accelerator. The following are the possible values.

Healthy

The Elastic Graphics accelerator is enabled and healthy.

Updating

The status of the Elastic Graphics accelerator is currently updating. It might take a few minutes to
display the status.
Out of service

The Elastic Graphics accelerator is out of service. To get more information about the error, choose
Read More.

Use the Elastic Graphics command line tool

You can use the Elastic Graphics command line tool, egcli.exe, to check the status of the accelerator. If
there is a problem with the accelerator, the tool returns an error message.

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Verify Elastic Graphics functionality on your instance

To launch the tool, open a command prompt from within your instance and run the following command:

C:\Program Files\Amazon\EC2ElasticGPUs\manager\egcli.exe

The tool also supports the following parameters:

--json, -j

Indicates whether to show the JSON message. The possible values are true and false. The default
is true.
--imds, -i

Indicates whether to check the instance metadata for the availability of the accelerator. The possible
values are true and false. The default is true.

The following is example output. A status of OK indicates that the accelerator is enabled and healthy.

EG Infrastructure is available.
Instance ID egpu-f6d94dfa66df4883b284e96db7397ee6
Instance Type eg1.large
EG Version 1.0.0.885 (Manager) / 1.0.0.95 (OpenGL Library) / 1.0.0.69 (OpenGL Redirector)
EG Status: Healthy
JSON Message:
{
"version": "2016-11-30",
"status": "OK"
}

The following are the possible values for status:

OK

The Elastic Graphics accelerator is enabled and healthy.

UPDATING

The Elastic Graphics driver is being updated.

NEEDS_REBOOT

The Elastic Graphics driver has been updated and a reboot of the Amazon EC2 instance is required.
LOADING_DRIVER

The Elastic Graphics driver is being loaded.

CONNECTING_EGPU

The Elastic Graphics driver is verifying the connectivity with the Elastic Graphics accelerator.
ERROR_UPDATE_RETRY

An error occurred while updating the Elastic Graphics driver, an update will be retried soon.
ERROR_UPDATE

An unrecoverable error occurred while updating the Elastic Graphics driver.

ERROR_LOAD_DRIVER

An error occurred loading the Elastic Graphics driver.

ERROR_EGPU_CONNECTIVITY

The Elastic Graphics accelerator is unreacheable.

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View Elastic Graphics information

View Elastic Graphics information

You can view information about the Elastic Graphics accelerator attached to your instance.

To view information about an Elastic Graphics accelerator (console)

1. Open the Amazon EC2 console at https://console.aws.amazon.com/ec2/.

2. In the navigation pane, choose Instances and select your instance.
3. On the Details tab, find Elastic Graphics ID. Choose the ID to view the following information about
the Elastic Graphics accelerator:

• Attachment State
• Type
• Health status

To view information about an Elastic Graphics accelerator (AWS CLI)

You can use the describe-elastic-gpus AWS CLI command:

aws ec2 describe-elastic-gpus

You can use the describe-network-interfaces AWS CLI command and filter by owner ID to view
information about the Elastic Graphics network interface.

aws ec2 describe-network-interfaces --filters "Name=attachment.instance-owner-

id,Values=amazon-elasticgpus"

To view information about an Elastic Graphics accelerator (Tools for Windows PowerShell)
Use the following commands:

• Get-EC2ElasticGpu
• Get-EC2NetworkInterface

To view information about an Elastic Graphics accelerator using instance metadata

1. Connect to your Windows instance that is using an Elastic Graphics accelerator.

2. Do one of the following:
• From PowerShell, use the following cmdlet:

PS C:\> Invoke-RestMethod -uri http://169.254.169.254/latest/meta-data/elastic-

gpus/associations/egpu-f6d94dfa66df4883b284e96db7397ee6

• From your web browser, paste the following URL into the address field:

http://169.254.169.254/latest/meta-data/elastic-gpus/associations/egpu-
f6d94dfa66df4883b284e96db7397ee6

Submit feedback
You can submit feedback about your experience with Elastic Graphics so the team can make further
improvements.

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Use CloudWatch metrics to monitor Elastic Graphics

To submit feedback using the Elastic Graphics Status Monitor

1. In the notification area of the taskbar in your Windows instance, open the Elastic Graphics Status
Monitor.
2. In the lower left corner, choose Feedback.
3. Enter your feedback and choose Submit.

Use CloudWatch metrics to monitor Elastic

Graphics
You can monitor your Elastic Graphics accelerator using Amazon CloudWatch, which collects metrics
about your accelerator performance. These statistics are recorded for a period of two weeks, so that you
can access historical information and gain a better perspective on how your service is performing.

By default, Elastic Graphics accelerators send metric data to CloudWatch in 5-minute periods.

For more information about Amazon CloudWatch, see the Amazon CloudWatch User Guide.

Elastic Graphics metrics

The AWS/ElasticGPUs namespace includes the following metrics for Elastic Graphics.

Metric Description

GPUConnectivityCheckFailed Reports whether connectivity to the Elastic Graphics

accelerator is active or has failed. A value of zero (0)
indicates that the connection is active. A value of one
(1) indicates a connectivity failure.

Units: Count

GPUHealthCheckFailed Reports whether the Elastic Graphics accelerator has

passed a status health check in the last minute. A value
of zero (0) indicates that the status check passed. A
value of one (1) indicates a status check failure.

Units: Count

GPUMemoryUtilization The GPU memory used.

Units: MiB

Elastic Graphics dimensions

You can filter the metrics data for your Elastic Graphics accelerators using the following dimensions.

Dimension Description

EGPUId Filters the data by the Elastic Graphics accelerator.

InstanceId Filters the data by the instance to which the Elastic Graphics
accelerator is attached.

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View CloudWatch metrics for Elastic Graphics

View CloudWatch metrics for Elastic Graphics

Metrics are grouped first by the service namespace, and then by the supported dimensions. You can use
the following procedures to view the metrics for your Elastic Graphics accelerators.

To view Elastic Graphics metrics using the CloudWatch console

1. Open the CloudWatch console at https://console.aws.amazon.com/cloudwatch/.

2. If necessary, change the Region. From the navigation bar, select the Region where your Elastic
Graphics accelerator resides. For more information, see Regions and Endpoints.
3. In the navigation pane, choose Metrics.
4. For All metrics, select Elastic Graphics, Elastic Graphics Metrics.

To view Elastic Graphics metrics (AWS CLI)

Use the following list-metrics command:

aws cloudwatch list-metrics --namespace "AWS/ElasticGPUs"

Create CloudWatch alarms to monitor Elastic

Graphics
You can create a CloudWatch alarm that sends an Amazon SNS message when the alarm changes state.
An alarm watches a single metric over a time period you specify, and sends a notification to an Amazon
SNS topic based on the value of the metric relative to a given threshold over a number of time periods.

For example, you can create an alarm that monitors the health of an Elastic Graphics accelerator and
sends a notification when the graphics accelerator fails a status health check for three consecutive 5-
minute periods.

To create an alarm for an Elastic Graphics accelerator health status

1. Open the CloudWatch console at https://console.aws.amazon.com/cloudwatch/.

2. In the navigation pane, choose Alarms, Create Alarm.
3. Choose Select metric, Elastic Graphics, Elastic Graphics Metrics.
4. Select the GPUHealthCheckFailed metric and choose Select metric.
5. Configure the alarm as follows:

a. For Alarm details, type a name and description for your alarm. For Whenever, choose >= and
type 1.
b. For Actions, select an existing notification list or choose New list.
c. Choose Create Alarm.

Troubleshoot
The following are common errors and troubleshooting steps.

Contents
• Investigate application performance issues (p. 815)
• OpenGL rendering performance issues (p. 815)

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Investigate application performance issues

• Remote access performance issues (p. 816)

• Resolve unhealthy status issues (p. 816)
• Stop and start the instance (p. 816)
• Verify the installed components (p. 816)
• Check the Elastic Graphics logs (p. 817)

Investigate application performance issues

Elastic Graphics uses the instance network to send OpenGL commands to a remotely attached graphics
card. In addition, a desktop running an OpenGL application with an Elastic Graphics accelerator is
usually accessed using a remote access technology. It is important to distinguish between a performance
problem related to the OpenGL rendering or the desktop remote access technology.

OpenGL rendering performance issues

The OpenGL rendering performance is determined by the number of OpenGL commands and frames
generated on the remote instance.

Rendering performance may vary depending on the following factors:

• Elastic Graphics accelerator performance

• Network performance
• CPU performance
• Rendering model, scenario complexity
• OpenGL application behavior

An easy way to evaluate performance is to display the number of rendered frames on the remote
instance. Elastic Graphics accelerators display a maximum of 25 FPS on the remote instance to achieve
the best perceived quality while reducing network usage.

To show the number of frames produced

1. Open the following file in a text editor. If the file does not exist, create it.

C:\Program Files\Amazon\EC2ElasticGPUs\conf\eg.conf

2. Identify the [Application] section, or add it if it is not present, and add the following
configuration parameter:

[Application]
show_fps=1

3. Restart the application and check the FPS again.

If the FPS reaches 15-25 FPS when updating the rendered scene, then the Elastic Graphics accelerator
is performing at peak. Any other performance problems you experience are likely related to the remote
access to the instance desktop. If that is the case, see the Remote Access Performance Issues section.

If the FPS number is lower than 15, you can try the following:

• Improve Elastic Graphics accelerator performance by selecting a more powerful graphics accelerator
type.
• Improve overall network performance by using these tips:

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Resolve unhealthy status issues

• Check the amount of incoming and outgoing bandwidth to and from the Elastic Graphics accelerator
endpoint. The Elastic Graphics accelerator endpoint can be retrieved with the following PowerShell
command:

PS C:\> (Invoke-WebRequest http://169.254.169.254/latest/meta-data/elastic-gpus/

associations/[ELASTICGPU_ID]).content

• The network traffic from the instance to the Elastic Graphics accelerator endpoint relates to the
volume of commands the OpenGL application is producing.
• The network traffic from the Elastic Graphics accelerator endpoint to the instance relates to the
number of frames generated by the graphics accelerator.
• If you see the network usage reaching the instances maximum network throughput, try using an
instance with a higher network throughput allowance.
• Improve CPU performance:
• Applications may require a lot of CPU resources in addition to what the Elastic Graphics accelerator
requires. If Windows Task Manager is reporting a high usage of CPU resources, try using an instance
with more CPU power.

Remote access performance issues

An instance with an attached Elastic Graphics accelerator can be accessed using different remote access
technologies. Performance and quality may vary depending on:

• The remote access technology

• Instance performance
• Client performance
• Network latency and bandwidth between the client and the instance

Possible choices for the remote access protocol include:

• Microsoft Remote Desktop Connection

• NICE DCV
• VNC

For more information about optimization, see the specific protocol.

Resolve unhealthy status issues

If the Elastic Graphics accelerator is in an unhealthy state, use the following troubleshooting steps to
resolve the issue.

Stop and start the instance

If your Elastic Graphics accelerator is in an unhealthy state, stopping the instance and starting it again is
the simplest option. For more information, see Stop and start your instances (p. 431).
Warning
When you stop an instance, the data on any instance store volumes is erased. To keep data from
instance store volumes, be sure to back it up to persistent storage.

Verify the installed components

Open the Windows Control Panel and confirm that the following components are installed:

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Resolve unhealthy status issues

• Amazon Elastic Graphics Manager

• Amazon Elastic Graphics OpenGL Library
• Amazon EC2 Elastic GPUs OpenGL Redirector

If any of these items are missing, you must install them manually. For more information, see Install the
required software for Elastic Graphics (p. 810).

Check the Elastic Graphics logs

Open the Windows Event Viewer, expand the Application and Services Logs section, and search for
errors in the following event logs:

• EC2ElasticGPUs
• EC2ElasticGPUs GUI

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Monitor Amazon EC2

Monitoring is an important part of maintaining the reliability, availability, and performance of your
Amazon Elastic Compute Cloud (Amazon EC2) instances and your AWS solutions. You should collect
monitoring data from all of the parts in your AWS solutions so that you can more easily debug a multi-
point failure if one occurs. Before you start monitoring Amazon EC2, however, you should create a
monitoring plan that should include:

• What are your goals for monitoring?

• What resources will you monitor?
• How often will you monitor these resources?
• What monitoring tools will you use?
• Who will perform the monitoring tasks?
• Who should be notified when something goes wrong?

After you have defined your monitoring goals and have created your monitoring plan, the next step is
to establish a baseline for normal Amazon EC2 performance in your environment. You should measure
Amazon EC2 performance at various times and under different load conditions. As you monitor Amazon
EC2, you should store a history of monitoring data that you collect. You can compare current Amazon
EC2 performance to this historical data to help you to identify normal performance patterns and
performance anomalies, and devise methods to address them. For example, you can monitor CPU
utilization, disk I/O, and network utilization for your EC2 instances. When performance falls outside your
established baseline, you might need to reconfigure or optimize the instance to reduce CPU utilization,
improve disk I/O, or reduce network traffic.

To establish a baseline you should, at a minimum, monitor the following items:

Item to monitor Amazon EC2 metric Monitoring agent/CloudWatch

Logs

CPU utilization CPUUtilization (p. 853)  

Network utilization NetworkIn (p. 853)  

NetworkOut (p. 853)

Disk performance DiskReadOps (p. 853)  

DiskWriteOps (p. 853)

Disk Reads/Writes DiskReadBytes (p. 853)  

DiskWriteBytes (p. 853)

Memory utilization, disk   [Linux and Windows Server

swap utilization, disk space instances] Collect Metrics
utilization, page file utilization, and Logs from Amazon EC2
log collection Instances and On-Premises
Servers with the CloudWatch
Agent

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Automated and manual monitoring

Item to monitor Amazon EC2 metric Monitoring agent/CloudWatch

Logs
[Migration from previous
CloudWatch Logs agent on
Windows Server instances]
Migrate Windows Server
Instance Log Collection to the
CloudWatch Agent

Automated and manual monitoring

AWS provides various tools that you can use to monitor Amazon EC2. You can configure some of these
tools to do the monitoring for you, while some of the tools require manual intervention.

Monitoring tools
• Automated monitoring tools (p. 819)
• Manual monitoring tools (p. 820)

Automated monitoring tools

You can use the following automated monitoring tools to watch Amazon EC2 and report back to you
when something is wrong:

• System status checks – monitor the AWS systems required to use your instance to ensure that they
are working properly. These checks detect problems with your instance that require AWS involvement
to repair. When a system status check fails, you can choose to wait for AWS to fix the issue or you can
resolve it yourself (for example, by stopping and restarting or terminating and replacing an instance).
Examples of problems that cause system status checks to fail include:
• Loss of network connectivity
• Loss of system power
• Software issues on the physical host
• Hardware issues on the physical host that impact network reachability

For more information, see Status checks for your instances (p. 821).
• Instance status checks – monitor the software and network configuration of your individual instance.
These checks detect problems that require your involvement to repair. When an instance status check
fails, typically you will need to address the problem yourself (for example, by rebooting the instance
or by making modifications in your operating system). Examples of problems that may cause instance
status checks to fail include:
• Failed system status checks
• Misconfigured networking or startup configuration
• Exhausted memory
• Corrupted file system
• Incompatible kernel

For more information, see Status checks for your instances (p. 821).
• Amazon CloudWatch alarms – watch a single metric over a time period you specify, and perform
one or more actions based on the value of the metric relative to a given threshold over a number
of time periods. The action is a notification sent to an Amazon Simple Notification Service (Amazon
SNS) topic or Amazon EC2 Auto Scaling policy. Alarms invoke actions for sustained state changes only.

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Manual monitoring tools

CloudWatch alarms will not invoke actions simply because they are in a particular state; the state
must have changed and been maintained for a specified number of periods. For more information, see
Monitor your instances using CloudWatch (p. 851).
• Amazon EventBridge – automate your AWS services and respond automatically to system events.
Events from AWS services are delivered to EventBridge in near real time, and you can specify
automated actions to take when an event matches a rule you write. For more information, see What is
Amazon EventBridge?.
• Amazon CloudWatch Logs – monitor, store, and access your log files from Amazon EC2 instances, AWS
CloudTrail, or other sources. For more information, see the Amazon CloudWatch Logs User Guide.
• CloudWatch agent – collect logs and system-level metrics from both hosts and guests on your
EC2 instances and on-premises servers. For more information, see Collecting Metrics and Logs
from Amazon EC2 Instances and On-Premises Servers with the CloudWatch Agent in the Amazon
CloudWatch User Guide.
• AWS Management Pack for Microsoft System Center Operations Manager – links Amazon EC2
instances and the Windows or Linux operating systems running inside them. The AWS Management
Pack is an extension to Microsoft System Center Operations Manager. It uses a designated computer in
your datacenter (called a watcher node) and the Amazon Web Services APIs to remotely discover and
collect information about your AWS resources. For more information, see AWS Management Pack for
Microsoft System Center (p. 1564).

Manual monitoring tools

Another important part of monitoring Amazon EC2 involves manually monitoring those items that the
monitoring scripts, status checks, and CloudWatch alarms don't cover. The Amazon EC2 and CloudWatch
console dashboards provide an at-a-glance view of the state of your Amazon EC2 environment.

• Amazon EC2 Dashboard shows:

• Service Health and Scheduled Events by Region
• Instance state
• Status checks
• Alarm status
• Instance metric details (In the navigation pane choose Instances, select an instance, and choose the
Monitoring tab)
• Volume metric details (In the navigation pane choose Volumes, select a volume, and choose the
Monitoring tab)
• Amazon CloudWatch Dashboard shows:
• Current alarms and status
• Graphs of alarms and resources
• Service health status

In addition, you can use CloudWatch to do the following:

• Graph Amazon EC2 monitoring data to troubleshoot issues and discover trends
• Search and browse all your AWS resource metrics
• Create and edit alarms to be notified of problems
• See at-a-glance overviews of your alarms and AWS resources

Best practices for monitoring

Use the following best practices for monitoring to help you with your Amazon EC2 monitoring tasks.

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• Make monitoring a priority to head off small problems before they become big ones.
• Create and implement a monitoring plan that collects monitoring data from all of the parts in your
AWS solution so that you can more easily debug a multi-point failure if one occurs. Your monitoring
plan should address, at a minimum, the following questions:
• What are your goals for monitoring?
• What resources you will monitor?
• How often you will monitor these resources?
• What monitoring tools will you use?
• Who will perform the monitoring tasks?
• Who should be notified when something goes wrong?
• Automate monitoring tasks as much as possible.
• Check the log files on your EC2 instances.

Monitor the status of your instances

You can monitor the status of your instances by viewing status checks and scheduled events for your
instances.

A status check gives you the information that results from automated checks performed by Amazon EC2.
These automated checks detect whether specific issues are affecting your instances. The status check
information, together with the data provided by Amazon CloudWatch, gives you detailed operational
visibility into each of your instances.

You can also see status of specific events that are scheduled for your instances. The status of events
provides information about upcoming activities that are planned for your instances, such as rebooting or
retirement. They also provide the scheduled start and end time of each event.

Contents
• Status checks for your instances (p. 821)
• Scheduled events for your instances (p. 828)

Status checks for your instances

With instance status monitoring, you can quickly determine whether Amazon EC2 has detected
any problems that might prevent your instances from running applications. Amazon EC2 performs
automated checks on every running EC2 instance to identify hardware and software issues. You can view
the results of these status checks to identify specific and detectable problems. The event status data
augments the information that Amazon EC2 already provides about the state of each instance (such as
pending, running, stopping) and the utilization metrics that Amazon CloudWatch monitors (CPU
utilization, network traffic, and disk activity).

Status checks are performed every minute, returning a pass or a fail status. If all checks pass, the overall
status of the instance is OK. If one or more checks fail, the overall status is impaired. Status checks are
built into Amazon EC2, so they cannot be disabled or deleted.

When a status check fails, the corresponding CloudWatch metric for status checks is incremented. For
more information, see Status check metrics (p. 859). You can use these metrics to create CloudWatch
alarms that are triggered based on the result of the status checks. For example, you can create an alarm
to warn you if status checks fail on a specific instance. For more information, see Create and edit status
check alarms (p. 825).

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You can also create an Amazon CloudWatch alarm that monitors an Amazon EC2 instance and
automatically recovers the instance if it becomes impaired due to an underlying issue. For more
information, see Recover your instance (p. 452).

Contents
• Types of status checks (p. 822)
• View status checks (p. 823)
• Report instance status (p. 825)
• Create and edit status check alarms (p. 825)

Types of status checks

There are two types of status checks: system status checks and instance status checks.

System status checks

System status checks monitor the AWS systems on which your instance runs. These checks detect
underlying problems with your instance that require AWS involvement to repair. When a system status
check fails, you can choose to wait for AWS to fix the issue, or you can resolve it yourself. For instances
backed by Amazon EBS, you can stop and start the instance yourself, which in most cases results in the
instance being migrated to a new host. For Linux instances backed by instance store, you can terminate
and replace the instance. For Windows instances, the root volume must be an Amazon EBS volume;
instance store is not supported for the root volume. Note that instance store volumes are ephemeral and
all data is lost when the instance is stopped.

The following are examples of problems that can cause system status checks to fail:

• Loss of network connectivity

• Loss of system power
• Software issues on the physical host
• Hardware issues on the physical host that impact network reachability

Note
If you perform a restart from the operating system on a bare metal instance, the system status
check might temporarily return a fail status. When the instance becomes available, the system
status check should return a pass status.

Instance status checks

Instance status checks monitor the software and network configuration of your individual instance.
Amazon EC2 checks the health of the instance by sending an address resolution protocol (ARP) request
to the network interface (NIC). These checks detect problems that require your involvement to repair.
When an instance status check fails, you typically must address the problem yourself (for example, by
rebooting the instance or by making instance configuration changes).

The following are examples of problems that can cause instance status checks to fail:

• Failed system status checks

• Incorrect networking or startup configuration
• Exhausted memory
• Corrupted file system
• During instance reboot or while a Windows instance store-backed instance is being bundled, an
instance status check reports a failure until the instance becomes available again.

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Note
If you perform a restart from the operating system on a bare metal instance, the instance status
check might temporarily return a fail status. When the instance becomes available, the instance
status check should return a pass status.

View status checks

Amazon EC2 provides you with several ways to view and work with status checks.

View status using the console

You can view status checks by using the AWS Management Console.

New console

To view status checks (console)

1. Open the Amazon EC2 console at https://console.aws.amazon.com/ec2/.

2. In the navigation pane, choose Instances.
3. On the Instances page, the Status check column lists the operational status of each instance.
4. To view the status of a specific instance, select the instance, and then choose the Status checks
tab.

If your instance has a failed status check, you typically must address the problem yourself (for
example, by rebooting the instance or by making instance configuration changes). However, if
your instance has a failed status check and has been unreachable for over 20 minutes, choose
Open support case to submit a request for assistance.
5. To review the CloudWatch metrics for status checks, select the instance, and then choose the
Monitoring tab. Scroll until you see the graphs for the following metrics:

• Status check failed (any)

• Status check failed (instance)
• Status check failed (system)

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Old console

To view status checks (console)

1. Open the Amazon EC2 console at https://console.aws.amazon.com/ec2/.

2. In the navigation pane, choose Instances.
3. On the Instances page, the Status Checks column lists the operational status of each instance.
4. To view the status of a specific instance, select the instance, and then choose the Status Checks
tab.

If you have an instance with a failed status check and the instance has been unreachable for
over 20 minutes, choose AWS Support to submit a request for assistance.
5. To review the CloudWatch metrics for status checks, select the instance, and then choose the
Monitoring tab. Scroll until you see the graphs for the following metrics:

• Status Check Failed (Any)

• Status Check Failed (Instance)
• Status Check Failed (System)

View status using the command line

You can view status checks for running instances by using the describe-instance-status (AWS CLI)
command.

To view the status of all instances, use the following command.

aws ec2 describe-instance-status

To get the status of all instances with an instance status of impaired, use the following command.

aws ec2 describe-instance-status \

--filters Name=instance-status.status,Values=impaired

To get the status of a single instance, use the following command.

aws ec2 describe-instance-status \

--instance-ids i-1234567890abcdef0

Alternatively, use the following commands:

• Get-EC2InstanceStatus (AWS Tools for Windows PowerShell)

• DescribeInstanceStatus (Amazon EC2 Query API)

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Report instance status

You can provide feedback if you are having problems with an instance whose status is not shown as
impaired, or if you want to send AWS additional details about the problems you are experiencing with an
impaired instance.

We use reported feedback to identify issues impacting multiple customers, but do not respond to
individual account issues. Providing feedback does not change the status check results that you currently
see for the instance.

Report status feedback using the console

New console

To report instance status (console)

1. Open the Amazon EC2 console at https://console.aws.amazon.com/ec2/.

2. In the navigation pane, choose Instances.
3. Select the instance, choose the Status Checks tab, choose Actions (the second Actions menu in
the bottom half of the page), and then choose Report instance status.
4. Complete the Report instance status form, and then choose Submit.

Old console

To report instance status (console)

1. Open the Amazon EC2 console at https://console.aws.amazon.com/ec2/.

2. In the navigation pane, choose Instances.
3. Select the instance, choose the Status Checks tab, and choose Submit feedback.
4. Complete the Report Instance Status form, and then choose Submit.

Report status feedback using the command line

Use the report-instance-status (AWS CLI) command to send feedback about the status of an impaired
instance.

aws ec2 report-instance-status \

--instances i-1234567890abcdef0 \
--status impaired \
--reason-codes code

Alternatively, use the following commands:

• Send-EC2InstanceStatus (AWS Tools for Windows PowerShell)

• ReportInstanceStatus (Amazon EC2 Query API)

Create and edit status check alarms

You can use the status check metrics (p. 859) to create CloudWatch alarms to notify you when an
instance has a failed status check.

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Create a status check alarm using the console

Use the following procedure to configure an alarm that sends you a notification by email, or stops,
terminates, or recovers an instance when it fails a status check.

New console

To create a status check alarm (console)

1. Open the Amazon EC2 console at https://console.aws.amazon.com/ec2/.

2. In the navigation pane, choose Instances.
3. Select the instance, choose the Status Checks tab, and choose Actions, Create status check
alarm.
4. On the Manage CloudWatch alarms page, under Add or edit alarm, choose Create an alarm.
5. For Alarm notification, turn the toggle on to configure Amazon Simple Notification Service
(Amazon SNS) notifications. Select an existing Amazon SNS topic or enter a name to create a
new topic.

If you add an email address to the list of recipients or created a new topic, Amazon SNS sends a
subscription confirmation email message to each new address. Each recipient must confirm the
subscription by choosing the link contained in that message. Alert notifications are sent only to
confirmed addresses.
6. For Alarm action, turn the toggle on to specify an action to take when the alarm is triggered.
Select the action.
7. For Alarm thresholds, specify the metric and criteria for the alarm.

You can leave the default settings for Group samples by (Average) and Type of data to sample
(Status check failed:either), or you can change them to suit your needs.

For Consecutive period, set the number of periods to evaluate and, in Period, enter the
evaluation period duration before triggering the alarm and sending an email.
8. (Optional) For Sample metric data, choose Add to dashboard.
9. Choose Create.

Old console

To create a status check alarm (console)

1. Open the Amazon EC2 console at https://console.aws.amazon.com/ec2/.

2. In the navigation pane, choose Instances.
3. Select the instance, choose the Status Checks tab, and choose Create Status Check Alarm.
4. Select Send a notification to. Choose an existing SNS topic, or choose create topic to create
a new one. If creating a new topic, in With these recipients, enter your email address and the
addresses of any additional recipients, separated by commas.
5. (Optional) Select Take the action, and then select the action that you'd like to take.
6. In Whenever, select the status check that you want to be notified about.

If you selected Recover this instance in the previous step, select Status Check Failed (System).
7. In For at least, set the number of periods you want to evaluate and in consecutive periods,
select the evaluation period duration before triggering the alarm and sending an email.
8. (Optional) In Name of alarm, replace the default name with another name for the alarm.
9. Choose Create Alarm.

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Important
If you added an email address to the list of recipients or created a new topic, Amazon
SNS sends a subscription confirmation email message to each new address. Each
recipient must confirm the subscription by choosing the link contained in that message.
Alert notifications are sent only to confirmed addresses.

If you need to make changes to an instance status alarm, you can edit it.

New console

To edit a status check alarm using the console

1. Open the Amazon EC2 console at https://console.aws.amazon.com/ec2/.

2. In the navigation pane, choose Instances.
3. Select the instance and choose Actions, Monitoring, Manage CloudWatch alarms.
4. On the Manage CloudWatch alarms page, under Add or edit alarm, choose Edit an alarm.
5. For Search for alarm, choose the alarm.
6. When you are finished making changes, choose Update.

Old console

To edit a status check alarm using the console

1. Open the Amazon EC2 console at https://console.aws.amazon.com/ec2/.

2. In the navigation pane, choose Instances.
3. Select the instance and choose Actions, CloudWatch Monitoring, Add/Edit Alarms.
4. In the Alarm Details dialog box, choose the name of the alarm.
5. In the Edit Alarm dialog box, make the desired changes, and then choose Save.

Create a status check alarm using the AWS CLI

In the following example, the alarm publishes a notification to an SNS topic, arn:aws:sns:us-
west-2:111122223333:my-sns-topic, when the instance fails either the instance check or system
status check for at least two consecutive periods. The CloudWatch metric used is StatusCheckFailed.

To create a status check alarm using the AWS CLI

1. Select an existing SNS topic or create a new one. For more information, see Using the AWS CLI with
Amazon SNS in the AWS Command Line Interface User Guide.
2. Use the following list-metrics command to view the available Amazon CloudWatch metrics for
Amazon EC2.

aws cloudwatch list-metrics --namespace AWS/EC2

3. Use the following put-metric-alarm command to create the alarm.

aws cloudwatch put-metric-alarm --alarm-name StatusCheckFailed-Alarm-for-

i-1234567890abcdef0 --metric-name StatusCheckFailed --namespace AWS/EC2 --
statistic Maximum --dimensions Name=InstanceId,Value=i-1234567890abcdef0 --unit
Count --period 300 --evaluation-periods 2 --threshold 1 --comparison-operator
GreaterThanOrEqualToThreshold --alarm-actions arn:aws:sns:us-west-2:111122223333:my-
sns-topic

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The period is the time frame, in seconds, in which Amazon CloudWatch metrics are collected. This
example uses 300, which is 60 seconds multiplied by 5 minutes. The evaluation period is the number
of consecutive periods for which the value of the metric must be compared to the threshold. This
example uses 2. The alarm actions are the actions to perform when this alarm is triggered. This
example configures the alarm to send an email using Amazon SNS.

Scheduled events for your instances

AWS can schedule events for your instances, such as a reboot, stop/start, or retirement. These events do
not occur frequently. If one of your instances will be affected by a scheduled event, AWS sends an email
to the email address that's associated with your AWS account prior to the scheduled event. The email
provides details about the event, including the start and end date. Depending on the event, you might be
able to take action to control the timing of the event. AWS also sends an AWS Health event, which you
can monitor and manage by using Amazon CloudWatch Events. For more information about monitoring
AWS Health events with CloudWatch, see Monitoring AWS Health events with CloudWatch Events.

Scheduled events are managed by AWS; you cannot schedule events for your instances. You can view the
events scheduled by AWS, customize scheduled event notifications to include or remove tags from the
email notification, perform actions when an instance is scheduled to reboot, retire, or stop.

To update the contact information for your account so that you can be sure to be notified about
scheduled events, go to the Account Settings page.

Contents
• Types of scheduled events (p. 828)
• View scheduled events (p. 828)
• Customize scheduled event notifications (p. 832)
• Work with instances scheduled to stop or retire (p. 834)
• Work with instances scheduled for reboot (p. 835)
• Work with instances scheduled for maintenance (p. 836)
• Reschedule a scheduled event (p. 837)
• Define event windows for scheduled events (p. 839)

Types of scheduled events

Amazon EC2 can create the following types of events for your instances, where the event occurs at a
scheduled time:

• Instance stop: At the scheduled time, the instance is stopped. When you start it again, it's migrated to
a new host. Applies only to instances backed by Amazon EBS.
• Instance retirement: At the scheduled time, the instance is stopped if it is backed by Amazon EBS, or
terminated if it is backed by instance store.
• Instance reboot: At the scheduled time, the instance is rebooted.
• System reboot: At the scheduled time, the host for the instance is rebooted.
• System maintenance: At the scheduled time, the instance might be temporarily affected by network
maintenance or power maintenance.

View scheduled events

In addition to receiving notification of scheduled events in email, you can check for scheduled events by
using one of the following methods.

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New console

To view scheduled events for your instances using the console

1. Open the Amazon EC2 console at https://console.aws.amazon.com/ec2/.

2. You can view scheduled events in the following screens:
• In the navigation pane, choose Events. Any resources with an associated event are
displayed. You can filter by Resource ID, Resource type, Availability zone, Event status, or
Event type.

• Alternatively, in the navigation pane, choose EC2 Dashboard. Any resources with an
associated event are displayed under Scheduled events.

Old console

To view scheduled events for your instances using the console

1. Open the Amazon EC2 console at https://console.aws.amazon.com/ec2/.

2. You can view scheduled events in the following screens:
• In the navigation pane, choose Events. Any resources with an associated event are
displayed. You can filter by resource type, or by specific event types. You can select the
resource to view details.

• Alternatively, in the navigation pane, choose EC2 Dashboard. Any resources with an
associated event are displayed under Scheduled Events.

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• Some events are also shown for affected resources. For example, in the navigation pane,
choose Instances and select an instance. If the instance has an associated instance stop or
instance retirement event, it is displayed in the lower pane.

AWS CLI

To view scheduled events for your instances using the AWS CLI

Use the describe-instance-status command.

aws ec2 describe-instance-status \

--instance-id i-1234567890abcdef0 \
--query "InstanceStatuses[].Events"

The following example output shows a reboot event.

[
"Events": [
{
"InstanceEventId": "instance-event-0d59937288b749b32",
"Code": "system-reboot",
"Description": "The instance is scheduled for a reboot",
"NotAfter": "2019-03-15T22:00:00.000Z",
"NotBefore": "2019-03-14T20:00:00.000Z",
"NotBeforeDeadline": "2019-04-05T11:00:00.000Z"
}

]
]

The following example output shows an instance retirement event.

[
"Events": [
{
"InstanceEventId": "instance-event-0e439355b779n26",

"Code": "instance-stop",
"Description": "The instance is running on degraded hardware",
"NotBefore": "2015-05-23T00:00:00.000Z"
}
]
]

PowerShell

To view scheduled events for your instances using the AWS Tools for Windows PowerShell

Use the following Get-EC2InstanceStatus command.

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PS C:\> (Get-EC2InstanceStatus -InstanceId i-1234567890abcdef0).Events

The following example output shows an instance retirement event.

Code : instance-stop
Description : The instance is running on degraded hardware
NotBefore : 5/23/2015 12:00:00 AM

Instance metadata

To view scheduled events for your instances using instance metadata

You can retrieve information about active maintenance events for your instances from the instance
metadata (p. 588) by using Instance Metadata Service Version 2 or Instance Metadata Service
Version 1.

IMDSv2

[ec2-user ~]$ TOKEN=`curl -X PUT "http://169.254.169.254/latest/api/token" -H "X-aws-

ec2-metadata-token-ttl-seconds: 21600"` \
&& curl -H "X-aws-ec2-metadata-token: $TOKEN" –v http://169.254.169.254/latest/meta-
data/events/maintenance/scheduled

IMDSv1

[ec2-user ~]$ curl http://169.254.169.254/latest/meta-data/events/maintenance/scheduled

The following is example output with information about a scheduled system reboot event, in JSON
format.

[
{
"NotBefore" : "21 Jan 2019 09:00:43 GMT",
"Code" : "system-reboot",
"Description" : "scheduled reboot",
"EventId" : "instance-event-0d59937288b749b32",
"NotAfter" : "21 Jan 2019 09:17:23 GMT",
"State" : "active"
}
]

To view event history about completed or canceled events for your instances using instance
metadata

You can retrieve information about completed or canceled events for your instances from instance
metadata (p. 588) by using Instance Metadata Service Version 2 or Instance Metadata Service
Version 1.

IMDSv2

[ec2-user ~]$ TOKEN=`curl -X PUT "http://169.254.169.254/latest/api/token" -H "X-aws-

ec2-metadata-token-ttl-seconds: 21600"` \
&& curl -H "X-aws-ec2-metadata-token: $TOKEN" –v http://169.254.169.254/latest/meta-
data/events/maintenance/history

IMDSv1

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[ec2-user ~]$ curl http://169.254.169.254/latest/meta-data/events/maintenance/history

The following is example output with information about a system reboot event that was canceled,
and a system reboot event that was completed, in JSON format.

[
{
"NotBefore" : "21 Jan 2019 09:00:43 GMT",
"Code" : "system-reboot",
"Description" : "[Canceled] scheduled reboot",
"EventId" : "instance-event-0d59937288b749b32",
"NotAfter" : "21 Jan 2019 09:17:23 GMT",
"State" : "canceled"
},
{
"NotBefore" : "29 Jan 2019 09:00:43 GMT",
"Code" : "system-reboot",
"Description" : "[Completed] scheduled reboot",
"EventId" : "instance-event-0d59937288b749b32",
"NotAfter" : "29 Jan 2019 09:17:23 GMT",
"State" : "completed"
}
]

AWS Health

You can use the AWS Personal Health Dashboard to learn about events that can affect your instance.
The AWS Personal Health Dashboard organizes issues in three groups: open issues, scheduled
changes, and other notifications. The scheduled changes group contains items that are ongoing or
upcoming.

For more information, see Getting started with the AWS Personal Health Dashboard in the AWS
Health User Guide.

Customize scheduled event notifications

You can customize scheduled event notifications to include tags in the email notification. This makes it
easier to identify the affected resource (instances or Dedicated Hosts) and to prioritize actions for the
upcoming event.

When you customize event notifications to include tags, you can choose to include:

• All of the tags that are associated with the affected resource
• Only specific tags that are associated with the affected resource

For example, suppose that you assign application, costcenter, project, and owner tags to all
of your instances. You can choose to include all of the tags in event notifications. Alternatively, if you'd
like to see only the owner and project tags in event notifications, then you can choose to include only
those tags.

After you select the tags to include, the event notifications will include the resource ID (instance ID or
Dedicated Host ID) and the tag key and value pairs that are associated with the affected resource.

Topics
• Include tags in event notifications (p. 833)
• Remove tags from event notifications (p. 833)
• View the tags to be included in event notifications (p. 834)

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Include tags in event notifications

The tags that you choose to include apply to all resources (instances and Dedicated Hosts) in the selected
Region. To customize event notifications in other Regions, first select the required Region and then
perform the following steps.

You can include tags in event notifications by using one of the following methods.

New console

To include tags in event notifications

1. Open the Amazon EC2 console at https://console.aws.amazon.com/ec2/.

2. In the navigation pane, choose Events.
3. Choose Actions, Manage event notifications.
4. Select Include resource tags in event notifications.
5. Do one of the following, depending on the tags that you want to include in event notifications:

• To include all of the tags associated with the affected instance or Dedicated Host, select
Include all resource tags.
• To manually select the tags to include, select Choose the tags to include, and then for
Choose the tags to include, enter the tag key and press Enter.
6. Choose Save.

AWS CLI

To include all tags in event notifications

Use the register-instance-event-notification-attributes AWS CLI command and set the

IncludeAllTagsOfInstance parameter to true.

aws ec2 register-instance-event-notification-attributes --instance-tag-attribute

"IncludeAllTagsOfInstance=true"

To include specific tags in event notifications

Use the register-instance-event-notification-attributes AWS CLI command and specify the tags to
include by using the InstanceTagKeys parameter.

aws ec2 register-instance-event-notification-attributes --instance-tag-attribute

'InstanceTagKeys=["tag_key_1", "tag_key_2", "tag_key_3"]'

Remove tags from event notifications

You can remove tags from event notifications by using one of the following methods.

New console

To remove tags from event notifications

1. Open the Amazon EC2 console at https://console.aws.amazon.com/ec2/.

2. In the navigation pane, choose Events.
3. Choose Actions, Manage event notifications.
4. Do one of the following, depending on the tag that you want to remove from event
notifications.

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• To remove all tags from event notifications, clear Include resource tags in event
notifications.
• To remove specific tags from event notifications, choose Remove (X) for the tags listed below
the Choose the tags to include field.
5. Choose Save.

AWS CLI

To remove all tags from event notifications

Use the deregister-instance-event-notification-attributes AWS CLI command and set the

IncludeAllTagsOfInstance parameter to false.

aws ec2 deregister-instance-event-notification-attributes --instance-tag-attribute

"IncludeAllTagsOfInstance=false"

To remove specific tags from event notifications

Use the deregister-instance-event-notification-attributes AWS CLI command and specify the tags to
remove by using the InstanceTagKeys parameter.

aws ec2 deregister-instance-event-notification-attributes --instance-tag-attribute

'InstanceTagKeys=["tag_key_1", "tag_key_2", "tag_key_3"]'

View the tags to be included in event notifications

You can view the tags that are to be included in event notifications by using one of the following
methods.

New console

To view the tags that are to be included in event notifications

1. Open the Amazon EC2 console at https://console.aws.amazon.com/ec2/.

2. In the navigation pane, choose Events.
3. Choose Actions, Manage event notifications.

AWS CLI

To view the tags that are to be included in event notifications

Use the describe-instance-event-notification-attributes AWS CLI command.

aws ec2 describe-instance-event-notification-attributes

Work with instances scheduled to stop or retire

When AWS detects irreparable failure of the underlying host for your instance, it schedules the instance
to stop or terminate, depending on the type of root device for the instance. If the root device is an EBS
volume, the instance is scheduled to stop. If the root device is an instance store volume, the instance is
scheduled to terminate. For more information, see Instance retirement (p. 444).

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Important
Any data stored on instance store volumes is lost when an instance is stopped, hibernated, or
terminated. This includes instance store volumes that are attached to an instance that has an
EBS volume as the root device. Be sure to save data from your instance store volumes that you
might need later before the instance is stopped, hibernated, or terminated.

Actions for Instances Backed by Amazon EBS

You can wait for the instance to stop as scheduled. Alternatively, you can stop and start the instance
yourself, which migrates it to a new host. For more information about stopping your instance, in addition
to information about the changes to your instance configuration when it's stopped, see Stop and start
your instance (p. 429).

You can automate an immediate stop and start in response to a scheduled instance stop event. For more
information, see Automating Actions for EC2 Instances in the AWS Health User Guide.

Actions for Instances Backed by Instance Store

We recommend that you launch a replacement instance from your most recent AMI and migrate all
necessary data to the replacement instance before the instance is scheduled to terminate. Then, you can
terminate the original instance, or wait for it to terminate as scheduled.

Work with instances scheduled for reboot

When AWS must perform tasks such as installing updates or maintaining the underlying host, it
can schedule the instance or the underlying host for a reboot. You can reschedule most reboot
events (p. 837) so that your instance is rebooted at a specific date and time that suits you.

If you stop your linked EC2-Classic instance (p. 1046), it is automatically unlinked from the VPC and the
VPC security groups are no longer associated with the instance. You can link your instance to the VPC
again after you've restarted it.

View the reboot event type

You can view whether a reboot event is an instance reboot or a system reboot by using one of the
following methods.

New console

To view the type of scheduled reboot event using the console

1. Open the Amazon EC2 console at https://console.aws.amazon.com/ec2/.

2. In the navigation pane, choose Events.
3. Choose Resource type: instance from the filter list.
4. For each instance, view the value in the Event type column. The value is either system-reboot
or instance-reboot.

Old console

To view the type of scheduled reboot event using the console

1. Open the Amazon EC2 console at https://console.aws.amazon.com/ec2/.

2. In the navigation pane, choose Events.
3. Choose Instance resources from the filter list.
4. For each instance, view the value in the Event Type column. The value is either system-reboot
or instance-reboot.

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AWS CLI

To view the type of scheduled reboot event using the AWS CLI

Use the describe-instance-status command.

aws ec2 describe-instance-status --instance-id i-1234567890abcdef0

For scheduled reboot events, the value for Code is either system-reboot or instance-reboot.
The following example output shows a system-reboot event.

[
"Events": [
{
"InstanceEventId": "instance-event-0d59937288b749b32",
"Code": "system-reboot",
"Description": "The instance is scheduled for a reboot",
"NotAfter": "2019-03-14T22:00:00.000Z",
"NotBefore": "2019-03-14T20:00:00.000Z",
"NotBeforeDeadline": "2019-04-05T11:00:00.000Z"
}
]
]

Actions for instance reboot

You can wait for the instance reboot to occur within its scheduled maintenance window,
reschedule (p. 837) the instance reboot to a date and time that suits you, or reboot (p. 443) the
instance yourself at a time that is convenient for you.

After your instance is rebooted, the scheduled event is cleared and the event's description is updated.
The pending maintenance to the underlying host is completed, and you can begin using your instance
again after it has fully booted.

Actions for system reboot

It is not possible for you to reboot the system yourself. You can wait for the system reboot to occur
during its scheduled maintenance window, or you can reschedule (p. 837) the system reboot to a date
and time that suits you. A system reboot typically completes in a matter of minutes. After the system
reboot has occurred, the instance retains its IP address and DNS name, and any data on local instance
store volumes is preserved. After the system reboot is complete, the scheduled event for the instance is
cleared, and you can verify that the software on your instance is operating as expected.

Alternatively, if it is necessary to maintain the instance at a different time and you can't reschedule the
system reboot, then you can stop and start an Amazon EBS-backed instance, which migrates it to a new
host. However, the data on the local instance store volumes is not preserved. You can also automate
an immediate instance stop and start in response to a scheduled system reboot event. For more
information, see Automating Actions for EC2 Instances in the AWS Health User Guide. For an instance
store-backed instance, if you can't reschedule the system reboot, then you can launch a replacement
instance from your most recent AMI, migrate all necessary data to the replacement instance before the
scheduled maintenance window, and then terminate the original instance.

Work with instances scheduled for maintenance

When AWS must maintain the underlying host for an instance, it schedules the instance for maintenance.
There are two types of maintenance events: network maintenance and power maintenance.

During network maintenance, scheduled instances lose network connectivity for a brief period of time.
Normal network connectivity to your instance is restored after maintenance is complete.

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During power maintenance, scheduled instances are taken offline for a brief period, and then rebooted.
When a reboot is performed, all of your instance's configuration settings are retained.

After your instance has rebooted (this normally takes a few minutes), verify that your application is
working as expected. At this point, your instance should no longer have a scheduled event associated
with it, or if it does, the description of the scheduled event begins with [Completed]. It sometimes takes
up to 1 hour for the instance status description to refresh. Completed maintenance events are displayed
on the Amazon EC2 console dashboard for up to a week.

Actions for Instances Backed by Amazon EBS

You can wait for the maintenance to occur as scheduled. Alternatively, you can stop and start the
instance, which migrates it to a new host. For more information about stopping your instance, in addition
to information about the changes to your instance configuration when it's stopped, see Stop and start
your instance (p. 429).

You can automate an immediate stop and start in response to a scheduled maintenance event. For more
information, see Automating Actions for EC2 Instances in the AWS Health User Guide.

Actions for instances backed by instance store

You can wait for the maintenance to occur as scheduled. Alternatively, if you want to maintain normal
operation during a scheduled maintenance window, you can launch a replacement instance from
your most recent AMI, migrate all necessary data to the replacement instance before the scheduled
maintenance window, and then terminate the original instance.

Reschedule a scheduled event

You can reschedule an event so that it occurs at a specific date and time that suits you. Only events that
have a deadline date can be rescheduled. There are other limitations for rescheduling an event (p. 838).

You can reschedule an event by using one of the following methods.

New console

To reschedule an event using the console

1. Open the Amazon EC2 console at https://console.aws.amazon.com/ec2/.

2. In the navigation pane, choose Events.
3. Choose Resource type: instance from the filter list.
4. Select one or more instances, and then choose Actions, Schedule event.

Only events that have an event deadline date, indicated by a value for Deadline, can be
rescheduled. If one of the selected events does not have a deadline date, Actions, Schedule
event is disabled.
5. For New start time, enter a new date and time for the event. The new date and time must occur
before the Event deadline.
6. Choose Save.

It might take a minute or 2 for the updated event start time to be reflected in the console.

Old console

To reschedule an event using the console

1. Open the Amazon EC2 console at https://console.aws.amazon.com/ec2/.

2. In the navigation pane, choose Events.
3. Choose Instance resources from the filter list.

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4. Select one or more instances, and then choose Actions, Schedule Event.

Only events that have an event deadline date, indicated by a value for Event Deadline, can be
rescheduled.
5. For Event start time, enter a new date and time for the event. The new date and time must
occur before the Event Deadline.
6. Choose Schedule Event.

It might take a minute or 2 for the updated event start time to be reflected in the console.

AWS CLI

To reschedule an event using the AWS CLI

1. Only events that have an event deadline date, indicated by a value for NotBeforeDeadline,
can be rescheduled. Use the describe-instance-status command to view the
NotBeforeDeadline parameter value.

aws ec2 describe-instance-status --instance-id i-1234567890abcdef0

The following example output shows a system-reboot event that can be rescheduled because
NotBeforeDeadline contains a value.

[
"Events": [
{
"InstanceEventId": "instance-event-0d59937288b749b32",
"Code": "system-reboot",
"Description": "The instance is scheduled for a reboot",
"NotAfter": "2019-03-14T22:00:00.000Z",
"NotBefore": "2019-03-14T20:00:00.000Z",
"NotBeforeDeadline": "2019-04-05T11:00:00.000Z"
}
]
]

2. To reschedule the event, use the modify-instance-event-start-time command. Specify the new
event start time by using the not-before parameter. The new event start time must fall before
the NotBeforeDeadline.

aws ec2 modify-instance-event-start-time --instance-id i-1234567890abcdef0

--instance-event-id instance-event-0d59937288b749b32 --not-
before 2019-03-25T10:00:00.000

It might take a minute or 2 before the describe-instance-status command returns the updated
not-before parameter value.

Limitations
• Only events with an event deadline date can be rescheduled. The event can be rescheduled up to the
event deadline date. The Deadline column in the console and the NotBeforeDeadline field in the
AWS CLI indicate if the event has a deadline date.
• Only events that have not yet started can be rescheduled. The Start time column in the console and
the NotBefore field in the AWS CLI indicate the event start time. Events that are scheduled to start in
the next 5 minutes cannot be rescheduled.
• The new event start time must be at least 60 minutes from the current time.

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• If you reschedule multiple events using the console, the event deadline date is determined by the
event with the earliest event deadline date.

Define event windows for scheduled events

You can define custom event windows that recur weekly for scheduled events that reboot, stop, or
terminate your Amazon EC2 instances. You can associate one or more instances with an event window.
If a scheduled event for those instances is planned, AWS will schedule the events within the associated
event window.

You can use event windows to maximize workload availability by specifying event windows that occur
during off-peak periods for your workload. You can also align the event windows with your internal
maintenance schedules.

You define an event window by specifying a set of time ranges. The minimum time range is 2 hours. The
combined time ranges must total at least 4 hours.

You can associate one or more instances with an event window by using either instance IDs or instance
tags. You can also associate Dedicated Hosts with an event window by using the host ID.
Warning
Event windows are applicable only for scheduled events that stop, reboot, or terminate
instances.
Event windows are not applicable for:

• Expedited scheduled events and network maintenance events.

• Unscheduled maintenance such as AutoRecovery and unplanned reboots.

Work with event windows

• Considerations (p. 839)
• View event windows (p. 840)
• Create event windows (p. 841)
• Modify event windows (p. 845)
• Delete event windows (p. 849)
• Tag event windows (p. 850)

Considerations
• All event window times are in UTC.
• The minimum weekly event window duration is 4 hours.
• The time ranges within an event window must each be at least 2 hours.
• Only one target type (instance ID, Dedicated Host ID, or instance tag) can be associated with an event
window.
• A target (instance ID, Dedicated Host ID, or instance tag) can only be associated with one event
window.
• A maximum of 100 instance IDs, or 50 Dedicated Host IDs, or 50 instance tags can be associated with
an event window. The instance tags can be associated with any number of instances.
• A maximum of 200 event windows can be created per AWS Region.
• Multiple instances that are associated with event windows can potentially have scheduled events occur
at the same time.
• If AWS has already scheduled an event, modifying an event window won't change the time of the
scheduled event. If the event has a deadline date, you can reschedule the event (p. 837).

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• You can stop and start an instance prior to the scheduled event, which migrates the instance to a new
host, and the scheduled event will no longer take place.

View event windows

You can view event windows by using one of the following methods.

Console

To view event windows using the console

1. Open the Amazon EC2 console at https://console.aws.amazon.com/ec2/.

2. In the navigation pane, choose Events.
3. Choose Actions, Manage event windows.
4. Select an event window to view its details.

AWS CLI

To describe all event windows using the AWS CLI

Use the describe-instance-event-windows command.

aws ec2 describe-instance-event-windows \

--region us-east-1

Expected output

{
"InstanceEventWindows": [
{
"InstanceEventWindowId": "iew-0abcdef1234567890",
"Name": "myEventWindowName",
"CronExpression": "* 21-23 * * 2,3",
"AssociationTarget": {
"InstanceIds": [
"i-1234567890abcdef0",
"i-0598c7d356eba48d7"
],
"Tags": [],
"DedicatedHostIds": []
},
"State": "active",
"Tags": []
}

...

],
"NextToken": "9d624e0c-388b-4862-a31e-a85c64fc1d4a"
}

To describe a specific event window using the AWS CLI

Use the describe-instance-event-windows command with the --instance-event-window-id

parameter to describe a specific event window.

aws ec2 describe-instance-event-windows \

--region us-east-1 \

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--instance-event-window-id iew-0abcdef1234567890

To describe event windows that match one or more filters using the AWS CLI

Use the describe-instance-event-windows command with the --filters parameter. In the

following example, the instance-id filter is used to describe all of the event windows that are
associated with the specified instance.

When a filter is used, it performs a direct match. However, the instance-id filter is different. If
there is no direct match to the instance ID, then it falls back to indirect associations with the event
window, such as the instance's tags or Dedicated Host ID (if the instance is on a Dedicated Host).

For the list of supported filters, see describe-instance-event-windows in the AWS CLI Reference.

aws ec2 describe-instance-event-windows \

--region us-east-1 \
--filters Name=instance-id,Values=i-1234567890abcdef0 \
--max-results 100 \
--next-token <next-token-value>

Expected output

In the following example, the instance is on a Dedicated Host, which is associated with the event
window.

{
"InstanceEventWindows": [
{
"InstanceEventWindowId": "iew-0dbc0adb66f235982",
"TimeRanges": [
{
"StartWeekDay": "sunday",
"StartHour": 2,
"EndWeekDay": "sunday",
"EndHour": 8
}
],
"Name": "myEventWindowName",
"AssociationTarget": {
"InstanceIds": [],
"Tags": [],
"DedicatedHostIds": [
"h-0140d9a7ecbd102dd"
]
},
"State": "active",
"Tags": []
}
]
}

Create event windows

You can create one or more event windows. For each event window, you specify one or more blocks of
time. For example, you can create an event window with blocks of time that occur every day at 4 AM for
2 hours. Or you can create an event window with blocks of time that occur on Sundays from 2 AM to 4
AM and on Wednesdays from 3 AM to 5 AM.

For the event window constraints, see Considerations (p. 839) earlier in this topic.

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Event windows recur weekly until you delete them.

Use one of the following methods to create an event window.

Console

To create an event window using the console

1. Open the Amazon EC2 console at https://console.aws.amazon.com/ec2/.

2. In the navigation pane, choose Events.
3. Choose Create instance event window.
4. For Event window name, enter a descriptive name for the event window.
5. For Event window schedule, choose to specify the blocks of time in the event window by using
the cron schedule builder or by specifying time ranges.

• If you choose Cron schedule builder, specify the following:

1. For Days (UTC), specify the days of the week on which the event window occurs.
2. For Start time (UTC), specify the time when the event window begins.
3. For Duration, specify the duration of the blocks of time in the event window. The minimum
duration per block of time is 2 hours. The minimum duration of the event window must
equal or exceed 4 hours in total. All times are in UTC.
• If you choose Time ranges, choose Add new time range and specify the start day and time
and the end day and time. Repeat for each time range. The minimum duration per time range
is 2 hours. The minimum duration for all time ranges combined must equal or exceed 4 hours
in total.
6. (Optional) For Target details, associate one or more instances with the event window so that
if the instances are scheduled for maintenance, the scheduled event will occur during the
associated event window. You can associate one or more instances with an event window by
using instance IDs or instance tags. You can associate Dedicated Hosts with an event window by
using the host ID.

Note that you can create the event window without associating a target with the window. Later,
you can modify the window to associate one or more targets.
7. (Optional) For Event window tags, choose Add tag, and enter the key and value for the tag.
Repeat for each tag.
8. Choose Create event window.

AWS CLI

To create an event window using the AWS CLI, you first create the event window, and then you
associate one or more targets with the event window.

Create an event window

You can define either a set of time ranges or a cron expression when creating the event window, but
not both.

To create an event window with a time range using the AWS CLI

Use the create-instance-event-window command and specify the --time-range parameter. You
can't also specify the --cron-expression parameter.

aws ec2 create-instance-event-window \

--region us-east-1 \
--time-range StartWeekDay=monday,StartHour=2,EndWeekDay=wednesday,EndHour=8 \

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--tag-specifications "ResourceType=instance-event-window,Tags=[{Key=K1,Value=V1}]"
\
--name myEventWindowName

Expected output

{
"InstanceEventWindow": {
"InstanceEventWindowId": "iew-0abcdef1234567890",
"TimeRanges": [
{
"StartWeekDay": "monday",
"StartHour": 2,
"EndWeekDay": "wednesday",
"EndHour": 8
}
],
"Name": "myEventWindowName",
"State": "creating",
"Tags": [
{
"Key": "K1",
"Value": "V1"
}
]
}
}

To create an event window with a cron expression using the AWS CLI

Use the create-instance-event-window command and specify the --cron-expression parameter.

You can't also specify the --time-range parameter.

aws ec2 create-instance-event-window \

--region us-east-1 \
--cron-expression "* 21-23 * * 2,3" \
--tag-specifications "ResourceType=instance-event-window,Tags=[{Key=K1,Value=V1}]"
\
--name myEventWindowName

Expected output

{
"InstanceEventWindow": {
"InstanceEventWindowId": "iew-0abcdef1234567890",
"Name": "myEventWindowName",
"CronExpression": "* 21-23 * * 2,3",
"State": "creating",
"Tags": [
{
"Key": "K1",
"Value": "V1"
}
]
}
}

Associate a target with an event window

You can associate only one type of target (instance IDs, Dedicated Host IDs, or instance tags) with an
event window.

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To associate instance tags with an event window using the AWS CLI

Use the associate-instance-event-window command and specify the instance-event-window-

id parameter to specify the event window. To associate instance tags, specify the --association-
target parameter, and for the parameter values, specify one or more tags.

aws ec2 associate-instance-event-window \

--region us-east-1 \
--instance-event-window-id iew-0abcdef1234567890 \
--association-target "InstanceTags=[{Key=k2,Value=v2},{Key=k1,Value=v1}]"

Expected output

{
"InstanceEventWindow": {
"InstanceEventWindowId": "iew-0abcdef1234567890",
"Name": "myEventWindowName",
"CronExpression": "* 21-23 * * 2,3",
"AssociationTarget": {
"InstanceIds": [],
"Tags": [
{
"Key": "k2",
"Value": "v2"
},
{
"Key": "k1",
"Value": "v1"
}
],
"DedicatedHostIds": []
},
"State": "creating"
}
}

To associate one or more instances with an event window using the AWS CLI

Use the associate-instance-event-window command and specify the instance-event-window-

id parameter to specify the event window. To associate instances, specify the --association-
target parameter, and for the parameter values, specify one or more instance IDs.

aws ec2 associate-instance-event-window \

--region us-east-1 \
--instance-event-window-id iew-0abcdef1234567890 \
--association-target "InstanceIds=i-1234567890abcdef0,i-0598c7d356eba48d7"

Expected output

{
"InstanceEventWindow": {
"InstanceEventWindowId": "iew-0abcdef1234567890",
"Name": "myEventWindowName",
"CronExpression": "* 21-23 * * 2,3",
"AssociationTarget": {
"InstanceIds": [
"i-1234567890abcdef0",
"i-0598c7d356eba48d7"
],
"Tags": [],
"DedicatedHostIds": []

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},
"State": "creating"
}
}

To associate a Dedicated Host with an event window using the AWS CLI

Use the associate-instance-event-window command and specify the instance-event-window-

id parameter to specify the event window. To associate a Dedicated Host, specify the --
association-target parameter, and for the parameter values, specify one or more Dedicated
Host IDs.

aws ec2 associate-instance-event-window \

--region us-east-1 \
--instance-event-window-id iew-0abcdef1234567890 \
--association-target "DedicatedHostIds=h-029fa35a02b99801d"

Expected output

{
"InstanceEventWindow": {
"InstanceEventWindowId": "iew-0abcdef1234567890",
"Name": "myEventWindowName",
"CronExpression": "* 21-23 * * 2,3",
"AssociationTarget": {
"InstanceIds": [],
"Tags": [],
"DedicatedHostIds": [
"h-029fa35a02b99801d"
]
},
"State": "creating"
}
}

Modify event windows

You can modify all of the fields of an event window except its ID. For example, when daylight savings
begin, you might want to modify the event window schedule. For existing event windows, you might
want to add or remove targets.

Use one of the following methods to modify an event window.

Console

To modify an event window using the console

1. Open the Amazon EC2 console at https://console.aws.amazon.com/ec2/.

2. In the navigation pane, choose Events.
3. Choose Actions, Manage event windows.
4. Select the event window to modify, and then choose Actions, Modify instance event window.
5. Modify the fields in the event window, and then choose Modify event window.

AWS CLI

To modify an event window using the AWS CLI, you can modify the time range or cron expression,
and associate or disassociate one or more targets with the event window.

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Modify the event window time

You can modify either a time range or a cron expression when modifying the event window, but not
both.

To modify the time range of an event window using the AWS CLI

Use the modify-instance-event-window command and specify the event window to modify. Specify
the --time-range parameter to modify the time range. You can't also specify the --cron-
expression parameter.

aws ec2 modify-instance-event-window \

--region us-east-1 \
--instance-event-window-id iew-0abcdef1234567890
--time-range StartWeekDay=monday,StartHour=2,EndWeekDay=wednesday,EndHour=8

Expected output

{
"InstanceEventWindow": {
"InstanceEventWindowId": "iew-0abcdef1234567890",
"TimeRanges": [
{
"StartWeekDay": "monday",
"StartHour": 2,
"EndWeekDay": "wednesday",
"EndHour": 8
}
],
"Name": "myEventWindowName",
"AssociationTarget": {
"InstanceIds": [
"i-0abcdef1234567890",
"i-0be35f9acb8ba01f0"
],
"Tags": [],
"DedicatedHostIds": []
},
"State": "creating",
"Tags": [
{
"Key": "K1",
"Value": "V1"
}
]
}
}

To modify a set of time ranges for an event window using the AWS CLI

Use the modify-instance-event-window command and specify the event window to modify. Specify
the --time-range parameter to modify the time range. You can't also specify the --cron-
expression parameter in the same call.

aws ec2 modify-instance-event-window \

--region us-east-1 \
--instance-event-window-id iew-0abcdef1234567890 \
--time-range '[{"StartWeekDay": "monday", "StartHour": 2, "EndWeekDay":
"wednesday", "EndHour": 8},
{"StartWeekDay": "thursday", "StartHour": 2, "EndWeekDay": "friday", "EndHour": 8}]'

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Expected output

{
"InstanceEventWindow": {
"InstanceEventWindowId": "iew-0abcdef1234567890",
"TimeRanges": [
{
"StartWeekDay": "monday",
"StartHour": 2,
"EndWeekDay": "wednesday",
"EndHour": 8
},
{
"StartWeekDay": "thursday",
"StartHour": 2,
"EndWeekDay": "friday",
"EndHour": 8
}
],
"Name": "myEventWindowName",
"AssociationTarget": {
"InstanceIds": [
"i-0abcdef1234567890",
"i-0be35f9acb8ba01f0"
],
"Tags": [],
"DedicatedHostIds": []
},
"State": "creating",
"Tags": [
{
"Key": "K1",
"Value": "V1"
}
]
}
}

To modify the cron expression of an event window using the AWS CLI

Use the modify-instance-event-window command and specify the event window to modify. Specify
the --cron-expression parameter to modify the cron expression. You can't also specify the --
time-range parameter.

aws ec2 modify-instance-event-window \

--region us-east-1 \
--instance-event-window-id iew-0abcdef1234567890 \
--cron-expression "* 21-23 * * 2,3"

Expected output

{
"InstanceEventWindow": {
"InstanceEventWindowId": "iew-0abcdef1234567890",
"Name": "myEventWindowName",
"CronExpression": "* 21-23 * * 2,3",
"AssociationTarget": {
"InstanceIds": [
"i-0abcdef1234567890",
"i-0be35f9acb8ba01f0"
],
"Tags": [],

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"DedicatedHostIds": []
},
"State": "creating",
"Tags": [
{
"Key": "K1",
"Value": "V1"
}
]
}
}

Modify the targets associated with an event window

You can associate additional targets with an event window. You can also disassociate existing targets
from an event window. However, only one type of target (instance IDs, Dedicated Host IDs, or
instance tags) can be associated with an event window.

To associate additional targets with an event window

For the instructions on how to associate targets with an event window, see Associate a target with an
event window.

To disassociate instance tags from an event window using the AWS CLI

Use the disassociate-instance-event-window command and specify the instance-event-

window-id parameter to specify the event window. To disassociate instance tags, specify the --
association-target parameter, and for the parameter values, specify one or more tags.

aws ec2 disassociate-instance-event-window \

--region us-east-1 \
--instance-event-window-id iew-0abcdef1234567890 \
--association-target "InstanceTags=[{Key=k2,Value=v2},{Key=k1,Value=v1}]"

Expected output

{
"InstanceEventWindow": {
"InstanceEventWindowId": "iew-0abcdef1234567890",
"Name": "myEventWindowName",
"CronExpression": "* 21-23 * * 2,3",
"AssociationTarget": {
"InstanceIds": [],
"Tags": [],
"DedicatedHostIds": []
},
"State": "creating"
}
}

To disassociate one or more instances from an event window using the AWS CLI

Use the disassociate-instance-event-window command and specify the instance-event-window-

id parameter to specify the event window. To disassociate instances, specify the --association-
target parameter, and for the parameter values, specify one or more instance IDs.

aws ec2 disassociate-instance-event-window \

--region us-east-1 \
--instance-event-window-id iew-0abcdef1234567890 \
--association-target "InstanceIds=i-1234567890abcdef0,i-0598c7d356eba48d7"

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Expected output

{
"InstanceEventWindow": {
"InstanceEventWindowId": "iew-0abcdef1234567890",
"Name": "myEventWindowName",
"CronExpression": "* 21-23 * * 2,3",
"AssociationTarget": {
"InstanceIds": [],
"Tags": [],
"DedicatedHostIds": []
},
"State": "creating"
}
}

To disassociate a Dedicated Host from an event window using the AWS CLI

Use the disassociate-instance-event-window command and specify the instance-event-window-

id parameter to specify the event window. To disassociate a Dedicated Host, specify the --
association-target parameter, and for the parameter values, specify one or more Dedicated
Host IDs.

aws ec2 disassociate-instance-event-window \

--region us-east-1 \
--instance-event-window-id iew-0abcdef1234567890 \
--association-target DedicatedHostIds=h-029fa35a02b99801d

Expected output

{
"InstanceEventWindow": {
"InstanceEventWindowId": "iew-0abcdef1234567890",
"Name": "myEventWindowName",
"CronExpression": "* 21-23 * * 2,3",
"AssociationTarget": {
"InstanceIds": [],
"Tags": [],
"DedicatedHostIds": []
},
"State": "creating"
}
}

Delete event windows

You can delete one event window at a time by using one of the following methods.

Console

To delete an event window using the console

1. Open the Amazon EC2 console at https://console.aws.amazon.com/ec2/.

2. In the navigation pane, choose Events.
3. Choose Actions, Manage event windows.
4. Select the event window to delete, and then choose Actions, Delete instance event window.
5. When prompted, enter delete, and then choose Delete.

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AWS CLI

To delete an event window using the AWS CLI

Use the delete-instance-event-window command and specify the event window to delete.

aws ec2 delete-instance-event-window \

--region us-east-1 \
--instance-event-window-id iew-0abcdef1234567890

To force delete an event window using the AWS CLI

Use the --force-delete parameter if the event window is currently associated with targets.

aws ec2 delete-instance-event-window \

--region us-east-1 \
--instance-event-window-id iew-0abcdef1234567890 \
--force-delete

Expected output

{
"InstanceEventWindowState": {
"InstanceEventWindowId": "iew-0abcdef1234567890",
"State": "deleting"
}
}

Tag event windows

You can tag an event window when you create it, or afterwards.

To tag an event window when you create it, see Create event windows (p. 841).

Use one of the following methods to tag an event window.

Console

To tag an existing event window using the console

1. Open the Amazon EC2 console at https://console.aws.amazon.com/ec2/.

2. In the navigation pane, choose Events.
3. Choose Actions, Manage event windows.
4. Select the event window to tag, and then choose Actions, Manage instance event window tags.
5. Choose Add tag to add a tag. Repeat for each tag.
6. Choose Save.

AWS CLI

To tag an existing event window using the AWS CLI

Use the create-tags command to tag existing resources. In the following example, the existing event
window is tagged with Key=purpose and Value=test.

aws ec2 create-tags \

--resources iew-0abcdef1234567890 \

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--tags Key=purpose,Value=test

Monitor your instances using CloudWatch

You can monitor your instances using Amazon CloudWatch, which collects and processes raw data
from Amazon EC2 into readable, near real-time metrics. These statistics are recorded for a period of 15
months, so that you can access historical information and gain a better perspective on how your web
application or service is performing.

By default, Amazon EC2 sends metric data to CloudWatch in 5-minute periods. To send metric data for
your instance to CloudWatch in 1-minute periods, you can enable detailed monitoring on the instance.
For more information, see Enable or turn off detailed monitoring for your instances (p. 851).

The Amazon EC2 console displays a series of graphs based on the raw data from Amazon CloudWatch.
Depending on your needs, you might prefer to get data for your instances from Amazon CloudWatch
instead of the graphs in the console.

For more information about Amazon CloudWatch, see the Amazon CloudWatch User Guide.

Contents
• Enable or turn off detailed monitoring for your instances (p. 851)
• List the available CloudWatch metrics for your instances (p. 853)
• Get statistics for metrics for your instances (p. 865)
• Graph metrics for your instances (p. 873)
• Create a CloudWatch alarm for an instance (p. 873)
• Create alarms that stop, terminate, reboot, or recover an instance (p. 875)

Enable or turn off detailed monitoring for your

instances
By default, your instance is enabled for basic monitoring. You can optionally enable detailed monitoring.
After you enable detailed monitoring, the Amazon EC2 console displays monitoring graphs with a 1-
minute period for the instance.

The following describes the data interval and charge for basic and detailed monitoring for instances.

Monitoring type Description Charges

Basic monitoring Data is available automatically in 5- No charge

minute periods.

Detailed Data is available in 1-minute periods. You are charged per metric that is sent
monitoring To get this level of data, you must to CloudWatch. You are not charged
specifically enable it for the instance. for data storage. For more information,
For the instances where you've enabled see Paid tier and Example 1 - EC2
detailed monitoring, you can also get Detailed Monitoring on the Amazon
aggregated data across groups of CloudWatch pricing page.
similar instances.

Topics
• Required IAM permissions (p. 852)

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• Enable detailed monitoring (p. 852)

• Turn off detailed monitoring (p. 853)

Required IAM permissions

To enable detailed monitoring for an instance, your IAM user must have permission to use the
MonitorInstances API action. To turn off detailed monitoring for an instance, your IAM user must have
permission to use the UnmonitorInstances API action.

Enable detailed monitoring

You can enable detailed monitoring on an instance as you launch it or after the instance is running
or stopped. Enabling detailed monitoring on an instance does not affect the monitoring of the EBS
volumes attached to the instance. For more information, see Amazon CloudWatch metrics for Amazon
EBS (p. 1388).

New console

To enable detailed monitoring for an existing instance

1. Open the Amazon EC2 console at https://console.aws.amazon.com/ec2/.

2. In the navigation pane, choose Instances.
3. Select the instance and choose Actions, Monitoring, Manage detailed monitoring.
4. On the Detailed monitoring detail page, for Detailed monitoring, select the Enable check box.
5. Choose Save.

To enable detailed monitoring when launching an instance

When launching an instance using the AWS Management Console, select the Monitoring check box
on the Configure Instance Details page.
Old console

To enable detailed monitoring for an existing instance

1. Open the Amazon EC2 console at https://console.aws.amazon.com/ec2/.

2. In the navigation pane, choose Instances.
3. Select the instance and choose Actions, CloudWatch Monitoring, Enable Detailed Monitoring.
4. In the Enable Detailed Monitoring dialog box, choose Yes, Enable.
5. Choose Close.

To enable detailed monitoring when launching an instance (console)

When launching an instance using the AWS Management Console, select the Monitoring check box
on the Configure Instance Details page.
AWS CLI

To enable detailed monitoring for an existing instance

Use the following monitor-instances command to enable detailed monitoring for the specified
instances.

aws ec2 monitor-instances --instance-ids i-1234567890abcdef0

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To enable detailed monitoring when launching an instance

Use the run-instances command with the --monitoring flag to enable detailed monitoring.

aws ec2 run-instances --image-id ami-09092360 --monitoring Enabled=true...

Turn off detailed monitoring

You can turn off detailed monitoring on an instance as you launch it or after the instance is running or
stopped.

New console

To turn off detailed monitoring

1. Open the Amazon EC2 console at https://console.aws.amazon.com/ec2/.

2. In the navigation pane, choose Instances.
3. Select the instance and choose Actions, Monitoring, Manage detailed monitoring.
4. On the Detailed monitoring detail page, for Detailed monitoring, clear the Enable check box.
5. Choose Save.

Old console

To turn off detailed monitoring

1. Open the Amazon EC2 console at https://console.aws.amazon.com/ec2/.

2. In the navigation pane, choose Instances.
3. Select the instance and choose Actions, CloudWatch Monitoring, Disable Detailed Monitoring.
4. In the Disable Detailed Monitoring dialog box, choose Yes, Disable.
5. Choose Close.

AWS CLI

To turn off detailed monitoring

Use the following unmonitor-instances command to turn off detailed monitoring for the specified
instances.

aws ec2 unmonitor-instances --instance-ids i-1234567890abcdef0

List the available CloudWatch metrics for your

instances
Amazon EC2 sends metrics to Amazon CloudWatch. You can use the AWS Management Console, the
AWS CLI, or an API to list the metrics that Amazon EC2 sends to CloudWatch. By default, each data point
covers the 5 minutes that follow the start time of activity for the instance. If you've enabled detailed
monitoring, each data point covers the next minute of activity from the start time. Note that for the
Minimum, Maximum, and Average statistics, the minimum granularity for the metrics that EC2 provides
is 1 minute.

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For information about getting the statistics for these metrics, see Get statistics for metrics for your
instances (p. 865).

Contents
• Instance metrics (p. 854)
• CPU credit metrics (p. 856)
• Dedicated Host metrics (p. 858)
• Amazon EBS metrics for Nitro-based instances (p. 858)
• Status check metrics (p. 859)
• Traffic mirroring metrics (p. 860)
• Amazon EC2 metric dimensions (p. 860)
• Amazon EC2 usage metrics (p. 861)
• List metrics using the console (p. 862)
• List metrics using the AWS CLI (p. 864)

Instance metrics
The AWS/EC2 namespace includes the following instance metrics.

Metric Description

CPUUtilization The percentage of allocated EC2 compute units that are currently
in use on the instance. This metric identifies the processing power
required to run an application on a selected instance.

Depending on the instance type, tools in your operating system can

show a lower percentage than CloudWatch when the instance is not
allocated a full processor core.

Units: Percent

DiskReadOps Completed read operations from all instance store volumes

available to the instance in a specified period of time.

To calculate the average I/O operations per second (IOPS) for the
period, divide the total operations in the period by the number of
seconds in that period.

If there are no instance store volumes, either the value is 0 or the

metric is not reported.

Units: Count

DiskWriteOps Completed write operations to all instance store volumes available

to the instance in a specified period of time.

To calculate the average I/O operations per second (IOPS) for the
period, divide the total operations in the period by the number of
seconds in that period.

If there are no instance store volumes, either the value is 0 or the

metric is not reported.

Units: Count

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Metric Description

DiskReadBytes Bytes read from all instance store volumes available to the instance.

This metric is used to determine the volume of the data the

application reads from the hard disk of the instance. This can be
used to determine the speed of the application.

The number reported is the number of bytes received during the

period. If you are using basic (5-minute) monitoring, you can divide
this number by 300 to find Bytes/second. If you have detailed (1-
minute) monitoring, divide it by 60.

If there are no instance store volumes, either the value is 0 or the

metric is not reported.

Units: Bytes

DiskWriteBytes Bytes written to all instance store volumes available to the instance.

This metric is used to determine the volume of the data the

application writes onto the hard disk of the instance. This can be
used to determine the speed of the application.

The number reported is the number of bytes received during the

period. If you are using basic (5-minute) monitoring, you can divide
this number by 300 to find Bytes/second. If you have detailed (1-
minute) monitoring, divide it by 60.

If there are no instance store volumes, either the value is 0 or the

metric is not reported.

Units: Bytes

MetadataNoToken The number of times the instance metadata service was successfully
accessed using a method that does not use a token.

This metric is used to determine if there are any processes accessing

instance metadata that are using Instance Metadata Service Version
1, which does not use a token. If all requests use token-backed
sessions, i.e., Instance Metadata Service Version 2, the value is 0. For
more information, see Transition to using Instance Metadata Service
Version 2 (p. 590).

Units: Count

NetworkIn The number of bytes received by the instance on all network

interfaces. This metric identifies the volume of incoming network
traffic to a single instance.

The number reported is the number of bytes received during

the period. If you are using basic (5-minute) monitoring and the
statistic is Sum, you can divide this number by 300 to find Bytes/
second. If you have detailed (1-minute) monitoring and the statistic
is Sum, divide it by 60.

Units: Bytes

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Metric Description

NetworkOut The number of bytes sent out by the instance on all network
interfaces. This metric identifies the volume of outgoing network
traffic from a single instance.

The number reported is the number of bytes sent during the period.
If you are using basic (5-minute) monitoring and the statistic is
Sum, you can divide this number by 300 to find Bytes/second. If
you have detailed (1-minute) monitoring and the statistic is Sum,
divide it by 60.

Units: Bytes

NetworkPacketsIn The number of packets received by the instance on all network

interfaces. This metric identifies the volume of incoming traffic in
terms of the number of packets on a single instance.

This metric is available for basic monitoring only (5-minute

periods). To calculate the number of packets per second (PPS) your
instance received for the 5 minutes, divide the Sum statistic value
by 300.

Units: Count

NetworkPacketsOut The number of packets sent out by the instance on all network
interfaces. This metric identifies the volume of outgoing traffic in
terms of the number of packets on a single instance.

This metric is available for basic monitoring only (5-minute

periods). To calculate the number of packets per second (PPS) your
instance received for the 5 minutes, divide the Sum statistic value
by 300.

Units: Count

CPU credit metrics

The AWS/EC2 namespace includes the following CPU credit metrics for your burstable performance
instances (p. 161).

Metric Description

CPUCreditUsage The number of CPU credits spent by the instance for CPU
utilization. One CPU credit equals one vCPU running at 100%
utilization for one minute or an equivalent combination of vCPUs,
utilization, and time (for example, one vCPU running at 50%
utilization for two minutes or two vCPUs running at 25% utilization
for two minutes).

CPU credit metrics are available at a 5-minute frequency only. If

you specify a period greater than five minutes, use the Sum statistic
instead of the Average statistic.

Units: Credits (vCPU-minutes)

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Metric Description

CPUCreditBalance The number of earned CPU credits that an instance has

accrued since it was launched or started. For T2 Standard, the
CPUCreditBalance also includes the number of launch credits
that have been accrued.

Credits are accrued in the credit balance after they are earned,
and removed from the credit balance when they are spent. The
credit balance has a maximum limit, determined by the instance
size. After the limit is reached, any new credits that are earned are
discarded. For T2 Standard, launch credits do not count towards the
limit.

The credits in the CPUCreditBalance are available for the

instance to spend to burst beyond its baseline CPU utilization.

When an instance is running, credits in the CPUCreditBalance

do not expire. When a T3 or T3a instance stops, the
CPUCreditBalance value persists for seven days. Thereafter,
all accrued credits are lost. When a T2 instance stops, the
CPUCreditBalance value does not persist, and all accrued credits
are lost.

CPU credit metrics are available at a 5-minute frequency only.

Units: Credits (vCPU-minutes)

CPUSurplusCreditBalance The number of surplus credits that have been spent by an

unlimited instance when its CPUCreditBalance value is zero.

The CPUSurplusCreditBalance value is paid down by earned

CPU credits. If the number of surplus credits exceeds the maximum
number of credits that the instance can earn in a 24-hour period,
the spent surplus credits above the maximum incur an additional
charge.

CPU credit metrics are available at a 5-minute frequency only.

Units: Credits (vCPU-minutes)

CPUSurplusCreditsCharged The number of spent surplus credits that are not paid down by
earned CPU credits, and which thus incur an additional charge.

Spent surplus credits are charged when any of the following occurs:

• The spent surplus credits exceed the maximum number of credits

that the instance can earn in a 24-hour period. Spent surplus
credits above the maximum are charged at the end of the hour.
• The instance is stopped or terminated.
• The instance is switched from unlimited to standard.

CPU credit metrics are available at a 5-minute frequency only.

Units: Credits (vCPU-minutes)

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Dedicated Host metrics

The AWS/EC2 namespace includes the following metrics for T3 Dedicated Hosts.

Metric Description

DedicatedHostCPUUtilization The percentage of allocated compute capacity that

is currently in use by the instances running on the
Dedicated Host.

Unit: Percent

Amazon EBS metrics for Nitro-based instances

The AWS/EC2 namespace includes the following Amazon EBS metrics for the Nitro-based instances that
are not bare metal instances. For the list of Nitro-based instance types, see Instances built on the Nitro
System (p. 147).

Metric values for Nitro-based instances will always be integers (whole numbers), whereas values for Xen-
based instances support decimals. Therefore, low instance CPU utilization on Nitro-based instances may
appear to be rounded down to 0.

Metric Description

EBSReadOps Completed read operations from all Amazon EBS

volumes attached to the instance in a specified period
of time.

To calculate the average read I/O operations per second

(Read IOPS) for the period, divide the total operations
in the period by the number of seconds in that period.
If you are using basic (5-minute) monitoring, you can
divide this number by 300 to calculate the Read IOPS.
If you have detailed (1-minute) monitoring, divide it by
60.

Unit: Count

EBSWriteOps Completed write operations to all EBS volumes

attached to the instance in a specified period of time.

To calculate the average write I/O operations per

second (Write IOPS) for the period, divide the total
operations in the period by the number of seconds
in that period. If you are using basic (5-minute)
monitoring, you can divide this number by 300 to
calculate the Write IOPS. If you have detailed (1-minute)
monitoring, divide it by 60.

Unit: Count

EBSReadBytes Bytes read from all EBS volumes attached to the

instance in a specified period of time.

The number reported is the number of bytes read

during the period. If you are using basic (5-minute)

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Metric Description
monitoring, you can divide this number by 300 to find
Read Bytes/second. If you have detailed (1-minute)
monitoring, divide it by 60.

Unit: Bytes

EBSWriteBytes Bytes written to all EBS volumes attached to the

instance in a specified period of time.

The number reported is the number of bytes written

during the period. If you are using basic (5-minute)
monitoring, you can divide this number by 300 to find
Write Bytes/second. If you have detailed (1-minute)
monitoring, divide it by 60.

Unit: Bytes

EBSIOBalance% Provides information about the percentage of I/O

credits remaining in the burst bucket. This metric is
available for basic monitoring only.

Instance sizes that support this metric can be found in

the table under EBS optimized by default (p. 1357): the
instances in the Instance size column that include an
asterisk (*) support this metric.

The Sum statistic is not applicable to this metric.

Unit: Percent

EBSByteBalance% Provides information about the percentage of

throughput credits remaining in the burst bucket. This
metric is available for basic monitoring only.

Instance sizes that support this metric can be found in

the table under EBS optimized by default (p. 1357): the
instances in the Instance size column that include an
asterisk (*) support this metric.

The Sum statistic is not applicable to this metric.

Unit: Percent

For information about the metrics provided for your EBS volumes, see Amazon EBS metrics (p. 1388).
For information about the metrics provided for your Spot fleets, see CloudWatch metrics for Spot
Fleet (p. 747).

Status check metrics

The AWS/EC2 namespace includes the following status check metrics. By default, status check metrics
are available at a 1-minute frequency at no charge. For a newly-launched instance, status check metric
data is only available after the instance has completed the initialization state (within a few minutes
of the instance entering the running state). For more information about EC2 status checks, see Status
checks for your instances (p. 821).

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Metric Description

StatusCheckFailed Reports whether the instance has passed both the instance status
check and the system status check in the last minute.

This metric can be either 0 (passed) or 1 (failed).

By default, this metric is available at a 1-minute frequency at no

charge.

Units: Count

StatusCheckFailed_Instance Reports whether the instance has passed the instance status check
in the last minute.

This metric can be either 0 (passed) or 1 (failed).

By default, this metric is available at a 1-minute frequency at no

charge.

Units: Count

StatusCheckFailed_System Reports whether the instance has passed the system status check in
the last minute.

This metric can be either 0 (passed) or 1 (failed).

By default, this metric is available at a 1-minute frequency at no

charge.

Units: Count

Traffic mirroring metrics

The AWS/EC2 namespace includes metrics for mirrored traffic. For more information, see Monitoring
mirrored traffic using Amazon CloudWatch in the Amazon VPC Traffic Mirroring Guide.

Amazon EC2 metric dimensions

You can use the following dimensions to refine the metrics listed in the previous tables.

Dimension Description

AutoScalingGroupName This dimension filters the data you request for all instances in a
specified capacity group. An Auto Scaling group is a collection of
instances you define if you're using Auto Scaling. This dimension is
available only for Amazon EC2 metrics when the instances are in
such an Auto Scaling group. Available for instances with Detailed or
Basic Monitoring enabled.

ImageId This dimension filters the data you request for all instances running
this Amazon EC2 Amazon Machine Image (AMI). Available for
instances with Detailed Monitoring enabled.

InstanceId This dimension filters the data you request for the identified
instance only. This helps you pinpoint an exact instance from which
to monitor data.

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Dimension Description

InstanceType This dimension filters the data you request for all instances
running with this specified instance type. This helps you categorize
your data by the type of instance running. For example, you
might compare data from an m1.small instance and an m1.large
instance to determine which has the better business value for
your application. Available for instances with Detailed Monitoring
enabled.

Amazon EC2 usage metrics

You can use CloudWatch usage metrics to provide visibility into your account's usage of resources. Use
these metrics to visualize your current service usage on CloudWatch graphs and dashboards.

Amazon EC2 usage metrics correspond to AWS service quotas. You can configure alarms that alert you
when your usage approaches a service quota. For more information about CloudWatch integration with
service quotas, see Service Quotas Integration and Usage Metrics.

Amazon EC2 publishes the following metrics in the AWS/Usage namespace.

Metric Description

ResourceCount The number of the specified resources running in your account. The
resources are defined by the dimensions associated with the metric.

The most useful statistic for this metric is MAXIMUM, which

represents the maximum number of resources used during the 1-
minute period.

The following dimensions are used to refine the usage metrics that are published by Amazon EC2.

Dimension Description

Service The name of the AWS service containing the resource. For Amazon
EC2 usage metrics, the value for this dimension is EC2.

Type The type of entity that is being reported. Currently, the only valid
value for Amazon EC2 usage metrics is Resource.

Resource The type of resource that is running. Currently, the only valid value
for Amazon EC2 usage metrics is vCPU, which returns information
on instances that are running.

Class The class of resource being tracked. For Amazon EC2 usage metrics
with vCPU as the value of the Resource dimension, the valid
values are Standard/OnDemand, F/OnDemand, G/OnDemand,
Inf/OnDemand, P/OnDemand, and X/OnDemand.

The values for this dimension define the first letter of the instance
types that are reported by the metric. For example, Standard/
OnDemand returns information about all running instances with
types that start with A, C, D, H, I, M, R, T, and Z, and G/OnDemand
returns information about all running instances with types that
start with G.

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List metrics using the console

Metrics are grouped first by namespace, and then by the various dimension combinations within each
namespace. For example, you can view all metrics provided by Amazon EC2, or metrics grouped by
instance ID, instance type, image (AMI) ID, or Auto Scaling group.

To view available metrics by category (console)

1. Open the CloudWatch console at https://console.aws.amazon.com/cloudwatch/.

2. In the navigation pane, choose Metrics.
3. Choose the EC2 metric namespace.

4. Select a metric dimension (for example, Per-Instance Metrics).

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5. To sort the metrics, use the column heading. To graph a metric, select the check box next to the
metric. To filter by resource, choose the resource ID and then choose Add to search. To filter by
metric, choose the metric name and then choose Add to search.

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List metrics using the AWS CLI

Use the list-metrics command to list the CloudWatch metrics for your instances.

To list all the available metrics for Amazon EC2 (AWS CLI)

The following example specifies the AWS/EC2 namespace to view all the metrics for Amazon EC2.

aws cloudwatch list-metrics --namespace AWS/EC2

The following is example output:

{
"Metrics": [
{
"Namespace": "AWS/EC2",
"Dimensions": [
{
"Name": "InstanceId",
"Value": "i-1234567890abcdef0"
}
],
"MetricName": "NetworkOut"
},
{
"Namespace": "AWS/EC2",
"Dimensions": [
{
"Name": "InstanceId",
"Value": "i-1234567890abcdef0"
}
],
"MetricName": "CPUUtilization"
},
{
"Namespace": "AWS/EC2",
"Dimensions": [
{
"Name": "InstanceId",
"Value": "i-1234567890abcdef0"
}
],
"MetricName": "NetworkIn"
},
...
]
}

To list all the available metrics for an instance (AWS CLI)

The following example specifies the AWS/EC2 namespace and the InstanceId dimension to view the
results for the specified instance only.

aws cloudwatch list-metrics --namespace AWS/EC2 --dimensions

Name=InstanceId,Value=i-1234567890abcdef0

To list a metric across all instances (AWS CLI)

The following example specifies the AWS/EC2 namespace and a metric name to view the results for the
specified metric only.

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aws cloudwatch list-metrics --namespace AWS/EC2 --metric-name CPUUtilization

Get statistics for metrics for your instances

You can get statistics for the CloudWatch metrics for your instances.

Contents
• Statistics overview (p. 865)
• Get statistics for a specific instance (p. 865)
• Aggregate statistics across instances (p. 869)
• Aggregate statistics by Auto Scaling group (p. 871)
• Aggregate statistics by AMI (p. 872)

Statistics overview
Statistics are metric data aggregations over specified periods of time. CloudWatch provides statistics
based on the metric data points provided by your custom data or provided by other services in AWS to
CloudWatch. Aggregations are made using the namespace, metric name, dimensions, and the data point
unit of measure, within the time period you specify. The following table describes the available statistics.

Statistic Description

Minimum The lowest value observed during the specified period. You can use this value to
determine low volumes of activity for your application.

Maximum The highest value observed during the specified period. You can use this value to
determine high volumes of activity for your application.

Sum All values submitted for the matching metric added together. This statistic can be
useful for determining the total volume of a metric.

Average The value of Sum / SampleCount during the specified period. By comparing this
statistic with the Minimum and Maximum, you can determine the full scope of a metric
and how close the average use is to the Minimum and Maximum. This comparison
helps you to know when to increase or decrease your resources as needed.

SampleCount The count (number) of data points used for the statistical calculation.

pNN.NN The value of the specified percentile. You can specify any percentile, using up to two
decimal places (for example, p95.45).

Get statistics for a specific instance

The following examples show you how to use the AWS Management Console or the AWS CLI to
determine the maximum CPU utilization of a specific EC2 instance.

Requirements

• You must have the ID of the instance. You can get the instance ID using the AWS Management Console
or the describe-instances command.
• By default, basic monitoring is enabled, but you can enable detailed monitoring. For more information,
see Enable or turn off detailed monitoring for your instances (p. 851).

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To display the CPU utilization for a specific instance (console)

1. Open the CloudWatch console at https://console.aws.amazon.com/cloudwatch/.

2. In the navigation pane, choose Metrics.
3. Choose the EC2 metric namespace.

4. Choose the Per-Instance Metrics dimension.

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5. In the search field, enter CPUUtilization and press Enter. Choose the row for the specific
instance, which displays a graph for the CPUUtilization metric for the instance. To name the graph,
choose the pencil icon. To change the time range, select one of the predefined values or choose
custom.

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6. To change the statistic or the period for the metric, choose the Graphed metrics tab. Choose the
column heading or an individual value, and then choose a different value.

To get the CPU utilization for a specific instance (AWS CLI)

Use the following get-metric-statistics command to get the CPUUtilization metric for the specified
instance, using the specified period and time interval:

aws cloudwatch get-metric-statistics --namespace AWS/EC2 --metric-name CPUUtilization --

period 3600 \
--statistics Maximum --dimensions Name=InstanceId,Value=i-1234567890abcdef0 \
--start-time 2016-10-18T23:18:00 --end-time 2016-10-19T23:18:00

The following is example output. Each value represents the maximum CPU utilization percentage for a
single EC2 instance.

{
"Datapoints": [
{

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"Timestamp": "2016-10-19T00:18:00Z",
"Maximum": 0.33000000000000002,
"Unit": "Percent"
},
{
"Timestamp": "2016-10-19T03:18:00Z",
"Maximum": 99.670000000000002,
"Unit": "Percent"
},
{
"Timestamp": "2016-10-19T07:18:00Z",
"Maximum": 0.34000000000000002,
"Unit": "Percent"
},
{
"Timestamp": "2016-10-19T12:18:00Z",
"Maximum": 0.34000000000000002,
"Unit": "Percent"
},
...
],
"Label": "CPUUtilization"
}

Aggregate statistics across instances

Aggregate statistics are available for instances that have detailed monitoring enabled. Instances that
use basic monitoring are not included in the aggregates. Before you can get statistics aggregated across
instances, you must enable detailed monitoring (p. 852) (at an additional charge), which provides data
in 1-minute periods.

Note that Amazon CloudWatch cannot aggregate data across AWS Regions. Metrics are completely
separate between Regions.

This example shows you how to use detailed monitoring to get the average CPU usage for your EC2
instances. Because no dimension is specified, CloudWatch returns statistics for all dimensions in the AWS/
EC2 namespace.
Important
This technique for retrieving all dimensions across an AWS namespace does not work for custom
namespaces that you publish to Amazon CloudWatch. With custom namespaces, you must
specify the complete set of dimensions that are associated with any given data point to retrieve
statistics that include the data point.

To display average CPU utilization across your instances (console)

1. Open the CloudWatch console at https://console.aws.amazon.com/cloudwatch/.

2. In the navigation pane, choose Metrics.
3. Choose the EC2 namespace and then choose Across All Instances.
4. Choose the row that contains CPUUtilization, which displays a graph for the metric for all your EC2
instances. To name the graph, choose the pencil icon. To change the time range, select one of the
predefined values or choose custom.

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5. To change the statistic or the period for the metric, choose the Graphed metrics tab. Choose the
column heading or an individual value, and then choose a different value.

To get average CPU utilization across your instances (AWS CLI)

Use the get-metric-statistics command as follows to get the average of the CPUUtilization metric across
your instances.

aws cloudwatch get-metric-statistics \

--namespace AWS/EC2 \
--metric-name CPUUtilization \
--period 3600 --statistics "Average" "SampleCount" \
--start-time 2016-10-11T23:18:00 \
--end-time 2016-10-12T23:18:00

The following is example output:

{
"Datapoints": [
{
"SampleCount": 238.0,
"Timestamp": "2016-10-12T07:18:00Z",
"Average": 0.038235294117647062,
"Unit": "Percent"
},
{
"SampleCount": 240.0,
"Timestamp": "2016-10-12T09:18:00Z",
"Average": 0.16670833333333332,
"Unit": "Percent"
},
{

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"SampleCount": 238.0,
"Timestamp": "2016-10-11T23:18:00Z",
"Average": 0.041596638655462197,
"Unit": "Percent"
},
...
],
"Label": "CPUUtilization"
}

Aggregate statistics by Auto Scaling group

You can aggregate statistics for the EC2 instances in an Auto Scaling group. Note that Amazon
CloudWatch cannot aggregate data across AWS Regions. Metrics are completely separate between
Regions.

This example shows you how to retrieve the total bytes written to disk for one Auto Scaling group. The
total is computed for 1-minute periods for a 24-hour interval across all EC2 instances in the specified
Auto Scaling group.

To display DiskWriteBytes for the instances in an Auto Scaling group (console)

1. Open the CloudWatch console at https://console.aws.amazon.com/cloudwatch/.

2. In the navigation pane, choose Metrics.
3. Choose the EC2 namespace and then choose By Auto Scaling Group.
4. Choose the row for the DiskWriteBytes metric and the specific Auto Scaling group, which displays
a graph for the metric for the instances in the Auto Scaling group. To name the graph, choose the
pencil icon. To change the time range, select one of the predefined values or choose custom.
5. To change the statistic or the period for the metric, choose the Graphed metrics tab. Choose the
column heading or an individual value, and then choose a different value.

To display DiskWriteBytes for the instances in an Auto Scaling group (AWS CLI)

Use the get-metric-statistics command as follows.

aws cloudwatch get-metric-statistics --namespace AWS/EC2 --metric-name DiskWriteBytes --

period 360 \
--statistics "Sum" "SampleCount" --dimensions Name=AutoScalingGroupName,Value=my-asg --
start-time 2016-10-16T23:18:00 --end-time 2016-10-18T23:18:00

The following is example output:

{
"Datapoints": [
{
"SampleCount": 18.0,
"Timestamp": "2016-10-19T21:36:00Z",
"Sum": 0.0,
"Unit": "Bytes"
},
{
"SampleCount": 5.0,
"Timestamp": "2016-10-19T21:42:00Z",
"Sum": 0.0,
"Unit": "Bytes"
}
],
"Label": "DiskWriteBytes"

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Aggregate statistics by AMI

You can aggregate statistics for your instances that have detailed monitoring enabled. Instances that
use basic monitoring are not included in the aggregates. Before you can get statistics aggregated across
instances, you must enable detailed monitoring (p. 852) (at an additional charge), which provides data
in 1-minute periods.

Note that Amazon CloudWatch cannot aggregate data across AWS Regions. Metrics are completely
separate between Regions.

This example shows you how to determine average CPU utilization for all instances that use a specific
Amazon Machine Image (AMI). The average is over 60-second time intervals for a one-day period.

To display the average CPU utilization by AMI (console)

1. Open the CloudWatch console at https://console.aws.amazon.com/cloudwatch/.

2. In the navigation pane, choose Metrics.
3. Choose the EC2 namespace and then choose By Image (AMI) Id.
4. Choose the row for the CPUUtilization metric and the specific AMI, which displays a graph for the
metric for the specified AMI. To name the graph, choose the pencil icon. To change the time range,
select one of the predefined values or choose custom.
5. To change the statistic or the period for the metric, choose the Graphed metrics tab. Choose the
column heading or an individual value, and then choose a different value.

To get the average CPU utilization for an image ID (AWS CLI)

Use the get-metric-statistics command as follows.

aws cloudwatch get-metric-statistics --namespace AWS/EC2 --metric-name CPUUtilization --

period 3600 \
--statistics Average --dimensions Name=ImageId,Value=ami-3c47a355 --start-
time 2016-10-10T00:00:00 --end-time 2016-10-11T00:00:00

The following is example output. Each value represents an average CPU utilization percentage for the
EC2 instances running the specified AMI.

{
"Datapoints": [
{
"Timestamp": "2016-10-10T07:00:00Z",
"Average": 0.041000000000000009,
"Unit": "Percent"
},
{
"Timestamp": "2016-10-10T14:00:00Z",
"Average": 0.079579831932773085,
"Unit": "Percent"
},
{
"Timestamp": "2016-10-10T06:00:00Z",
"Average": 0.036000000000000011,
"Unit": "Percent"
},
...
],
"Label": "CPUUtilization"

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Graph metrics

Graph metrics for your instances

After you launch an instance, you can open the Amazon EC2 console and view the monitoring graphs for
the instance on the Monitoring tab. Each graph is based on one of the available Amazon EC2 metrics.

The following graphs are available:

• Average CPU Utilization (Percent)

• Average Disk Reads (Bytes)
• Average Disk Writes (Bytes)
• Maximum Network In (Bytes)
• Maximum Network Out (Bytes)
• Summary Disk Read Operations (Count)
• Summary Disk Write Operations (Count)
• Summary Status (Any)
• Summary Status Instance (Count)
• Summary Status System (Count)

For more information about the metrics and the data they provide to the graphs, see List the available
CloudWatch metrics for your instances (p. 853).

Graph Metrics Using the CloudWatch Console

You can also use the CloudWatch console to graph metric data generated by Amazon EC2 and other AWS
services. For more information, see Graph Metrics in the Amazon CloudWatch User Guide.

Create a CloudWatch alarm for an instance

You can create a CloudWatch alarm that monitors CloudWatch metrics for one of your instances.
CloudWatch will automatically send you a notification when the metric reaches a threshold you specify.
You can create a CloudWatch alarm using the Amazon EC2 console, or using the more advanced options
provided by the CloudWatch console.

To create an alarm using the CloudWatch console

For examples, see Creating Amazon CloudWatch Alarms in the Amazon CloudWatch User Guide.

New console

To create an alarm using the Amazon EC2 console

1. Open the Amazon EC2 console at https://console.aws.amazon.com/ec2/.

2. In the navigation pane, choose Instances.
3. Select the instance and choose Actions, Monitor and troubleshoot, Manage CloudWatch
alarms.
4. On the Manage CloudWatch alarms detail page, under Add or edit alarm, select Create an
alarm.
5. For Alarm notification, choose whether to turn the toggle on or off to configure Amazon
Simple Notification Service (Amazon SNS) notifications. Enter an existing Amazon SNS topic or
enter a name to create a new topic.
6. For Alarm action, choose whether to turn the toggle on or off to specify an action to take when
the alarm is triggered. Select an action from the dropdown.

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7. For Alarm thresholds, select the metric and criteria for the alarm. For example, you can
leave the default settings for Group samples by (Average) and Type of data to sample (CPU
utilization). For Alarm when, choose >= and enter 0.80. For Consecutive period, enter 1. For
Period, select 5 minutes.
8. (Optional) For Sample metric data, choose Add to dashboard.
9. Choose Create.

Old console

To create an alarm using the Amazon EC2 console

1. Open the Amazon EC2 console at https://console.aws.amazon.com/ec2/.

2. In the navigation pane, choose Instances.
3. Select the instance.
4. On the Monitoring tab located at the bottom of the page, choose Create Alarm. Or, from the
Actions dropdown, choose CloudWatch Monitoring, Add/Edit Alarm.
5. In the Create Alarm dialog box, do the following:

a. Choose create topic. For Send a notification to, enter a name for the SNS topic. For With
these recipients, enter one or more email addresses to receive notification.
b. Specify the metric and the criteria for the policy. For example, you can leave the default
settings for Whenever (Average of CPU Utilization). For Is, choose >= and enter 80 percent.
For For at least, enter 1 consecutive period of 5 Minutes.
c. Choose Create Alarm.

You can edit your CloudWatch alarm settings from the Amazon EC2 console or the CloudWatch console.
If you want to delete your alarm, you can do so from the CloudWatch console. For more information, see
Editing or Deleting a CloudWatch Alarm in the Amazon CloudWatch User Guide.

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Create alarms that stop, terminate,
reboot, or recover an instance

Create alarms that stop, terminate, reboot, or recover

an instance
Using Amazon CloudWatch alarm actions, you can create alarms that automatically stop, terminate,
reboot, or recover your instances. You can use the stop or terminate actions to help you save money
when you no longer need an instance to be running. You can use the reboot and recover actions to
automatically reboot those instances or recover them onto new hardware if a system impairment occurs.

The AWSServiceRoleForCloudWatchEvents service-linked role enables AWS to perform alarm

actions on your behalf. The first time you create an alarm in the AWS Management Console, the IAM CLI,
or the IAM API, CloudWatch creates the service-linked role for you.

There are a number of scenarios in which you might want to automatically stop or terminate your
instance. For example, you might have instances dedicated to batch payroll processing jobs or scientific
computing tasks that run for a period of time and then complete their work. Rather than letting those
instances sit idle (and accrue charges), you can stop or terminate them, which can help you to save
money. The main difference between using the stop and the terminate alarm actions is that you can
easily start a stopped instance if you need to run it again later, and you can keep the same instance
ID and root volume. However, you cannot start a terminated instance. Instead, you must launch a new
instance.

You can add the stop, terminate, reboot, or recover actions to any alarm that is set on an Amazon EC2
per-instance metric, including basic and detailed monitoring metrics provided by Amazon CloudWatch
(in the AWS/EC2 namespace), as well as any custom metrics that include the InstanceId dimension, as
long as its value refers to a valid running Amazon EC2 instance.

Console support

You can create alarms using the Amazon EC2 console or the CloudWatch console. The procedures in
this documentation use the Amazon EC2 console. For procedures that use the CloudWatch console, see
Create Alarms That Stop, Terminate, Reboot, or Recover an Instance in the Amazon CloudWatch User
Guide.

Permissions

If you are an AWS Identity and Access Management (IAM) user, you must have the
iam:CreateServiceLinkedRole to create or modify an alarm that performs EC2 alarm actions.

Contents
• Add stop actions to Amazon CloudWatch alarms (p. 875)
• Add terminate actions to Amazon CloudWatch alarms (p. 877)
• Add reboot actions to Amazon CloudWatch alarms (p. 878)
• Add recover actions to Amazon CloudWatch alarms (p. 880)
• Use the Amazon CloudWatch console to view alarm and action history (p. 882)
• Amazon CloudWatch alarm action scenarios (p. 882)

Add stop actions to Amazon CloudWatch alarms

You can create an alarm that stops an Amazon EC2 instance when a certain threshold has been met. For
example, you may run development or test instances and occasionally forget to shut them off. You can
create an alarm that is triggered when the average CPU utilization percentage has been lower than 10
percent for 24 hours, signaling that it is idle and no longer in use. You can adjust the threshold, duration,
and period to suit your needs, plus you can add an Amazon Simple Notification Service (Amazon SNS)
notification so that you receive an email when the alarm is triggered.

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Instances that use an Amazon EBS volume as the root device can be stopped or terminated, whereas
instances that use the instance store as the root device can only be terminated.

New console

To create an alarm to stop an idle instance (Amazon EC2 console)

1. Open the Amazon EC2 console at https://console.aws.amazon.com/ec2/.

2. In the navigation pane, choose Instances.
3. Select the instance and choose Actions, Monitor and troubleshoot, Manage CloudWatch
alarms.

Alternatively, you can choose the plus sign ( ) in the Alarm status column.
4. On the Manage CloudWatch alarms page, do the following:

a. Choose Create an alarm.

b. To receive an email when the alarm is triggered, for Alarm notification, choose an existing
Amazon SNS topic. You first need to create an Amazon SNS topic using the Amazon SNS
console. For more information, see Using Amazon SNS for application-to-person (A2P)
messaging in the Amazon Simple Notification Service Developer Guide.
c. Toggle on Alarm action, and choose Stop.
d. For Group samples by and Type of data to sample, choose a statistic and a metric. In this
example, choose Average and CPU utilization.
e. For Alarm When and Percent, specify the metric threshold. In this example, specify <= and
10 percent.
f. For Consecutive period and Period, specify the evaluation period for the alarm. In this
example, specify 1 consecutive period of 5 Minutes.
g. Amazon CloudWatch automatically creates an alarm name for you. To change the name, for
Alarm name, enter a new name. Alarm names must contain only ASCII characters.
Note
You can adjust the alarm configuration based on your own requirements before
creating the alarm, or you can edit them later. This includes the metric, threshold,
duration, action, and notification settings. However, after you create an alarm, you
cannot edit its name later.
h. Choose Create.

Old console

To create an alarm to stop an idle instance (Amazon EC2 console)

1. Open the Amazon EC2 console at https://console.aws.amazon.com/ec2/.

2. In the navigation pane, choose Instances.
3. Select the instance. On the Monitoring tab, choose Create Alarm.
4. In the Create Alarm dialog box, do the following:

a. To receive an email when the alarm is triggered, for Send a notification to, choose an
existing Amazon SNS topic, or choose create topic to create a new one.

To create a new topic, for Send a notification to, enter a name for the topic, and then for
With these recipients, enter the email addresses of the recipients (separated by commas).
After you create the alarm, you will receive a subscription confirmation email that you must
accept before you can get notifications for this topic.
b. Choose Take the action, Stop this instance.

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c. For Whenever, choose the statistic you want to use and then choose the metric. In this
example, choose Average and CPU Utilization.
d. For Is, specify the metric threshold. In this example, enter 10 percent.
e. For For at least, specify the evaluation period for the alarm. In this example, enter 24
consecutive period(s) of 1 Hour.
f. To change the name of the alarm, for Name of alarm, enter a new name. Alarm names
must contain only ASCII characters.

If you don't enter a name for the alarm, Amazon CloudWatch automatically creates one for
you.
Note
You can adjust the alarm configuration based on your own requirements before
creating the alarm, or you can edit them later. This includes the metric, threshold,
duration, action, and notification settings. However, after you create an alarm, you
cannot edit its name later.
g. Choose Create Alarm.

Add terminate actions to Amazon CloudWatch alarms

You can create an alarm that terminates an EC2 instance automatically when a certain threshold has
been met (as long as termination protection is not enabled for the instance). For example, you might
want to terminate an instance when it has completed its work, and you don’t need the instance again.
If you might want to use the instance later, you should stop the instance instead of terminating it. For
information on enabling and disabling termination protection for an instance, see Enable termination
protection (p. 449).

New console

To create an alarm to terminate an idle instance (Amazon EC2 console)

1. Open the Amazon EC2 console at https://console.aws.amazon.com/ec2/.

2. In the navigation pane, choose Instances.
3. Select the instance and choose Actions, Monitor and troubleshoot, Manage CloudWatch
alarms.

Alternatively, you can choose the plus sign ( ) in the Alarm status column.
4. On the Manage CloudWatch alarms page, do the following:

a. Choose Create an alarm.

b. To receive an email when the alarm is triggered, for Alarm notification, choose an existing
Amazon SNS topic. You first need to create an Amazon SNS topic using the Amazon SNS
console. For more information, see Using Amazon SNS for application-to-person (A2P)
messaging in the Amazon Simple Notification Service Developer Guide.
c. Toggle on Alarm action, and choose Terminate.
d. For Group samples by and Type of data to sample, choose a statistic and a metric. In this
example, choose Average and CPU utilization.
e. For Alarm When and Percent, specify the metric threshold. In this example, specify => and
10 percent.
f. For Consecutive period and Period, specify the evaluation period for the alarm. In this
example, specify 24 consecutive periods of 1 Hour.
g. Amazon CloudWatch automatically creates an alarm name for you. To change the name, for
Alarm name, enter a new name. Alarm names must contain only ASCII characters.

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Note
You can adjust the alarm configuration based on your own requirements before
creating the alarm, or you can edit them later. This includes the metric, threshold,
duration, action, and notification settings. However, after you create an alarm, you
cannot edit its name later.
h. Choose Create.

Old console

To create an alarm to terminate an idle instance (Amazon EC2 console)

1. Open the Amazon EC2 console at https://console.aws.amazon.com/ec2/.

2. In the navigation pane, choose Instances.
3. Select the instance. On the Monitoring tab, choose Create Alarm.
4. In the Create Alarm dialog box, do the following:

a. To receive an email when the alarm is triggered, for Send a notification to, choose an
existing Amazon SNS topic, or choose create topic to create a new one.

To create a new topic, for Send a notification to, enter a name for the topic, and then for
With these recipients, enter the email addresses of the recipients (separated by commas).
After you create the alarm, you will receive a subscription confirmation email that you must
accept before you can get notifications for this topic.
b. Choose Take the action, Terminate this instance.
c. For Whenever, choose a statistic and then choose the metric. In this example, choose
Average and CPU Utilization.
d. For Is, specify the metric threshold. In this example, enter 10 percent.
e. For For at least, specify the evaluation period for the alarm. In this example, enter 24
consecutive period(s) of 1 Hour.
f. To change the name of the alarm, for Name of alarm, enter a new name. Alarm names
must contain only ASCII characters.

If you don't enter a name for the alarm, Amazon CloudWatch automatically creates one for
you.
Note
You can adjust the alarm configuration based on your own requirements before
creating the alarm, or you can edit them later. This includes the metric, threshold,
duration, action, and notification settings. However, after you create an alarm, you
cannot edit its name later.
g. Choose Create Alarm.

Add reboot actions to Amazon CloudWatch alarms

You can create an Amazon CloudWatch alarm that monitors an Amazon EC2 instance and automatically
reboots the instance. The reboot alarm action is recommended for Instance Health Check failures (as
opposed to the recover alarm action, which is suited for System Health Check failures). An instance
reboot is equivalent to an operating system reboot. In most cases, it takes only a few minutes to reboot
your instance. When you reboot an instance, it remains on the same physical host, so your instance keeps
its public DNS name, private IP address, and any data on its instance store volumes.

Rebooting an instance doesn't start a new instance billing period (with a minimum one-minute charge),
unlike stopping and restarting your instance. For more information, see Reboot your instance (p. 443).

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Important
To avoid a race condition between the reboot and recover actions, avoid setting the same
number of evaluation periods for a reboot alarm and a recover alarm. We recommend that you
set reboot alarms to three evaluation periods of one minute each. For more information, see
Evaluating an alarm in the Amazon CloudWatch User Guide.

New console

To create an alarm to reboot an instance (Amazon EC2 console)

1. Open the Amazon EC2 console at https://console.aws.amazon.com/ec2/.

2. In the navigation pane, choose Instances.
3. Select the instance and choose Actions, Monitor and troubleshoot, Manage CloudWatch
alarms.

Alternatively, you can choose the plus sign ( ) in the Alarm status column.
4. On the Manage CloudWatch alarms page, do the following:

a. Choose Create an alarm.

b. To receive an email when the alarm is triggered, for Alarm notification, choose an existing
Amazon SNS topic. You first need to create an Amazon SNS topic using the Amazon SNS
console. For more information, see Using Amazon SNS for application-to-person (A2P)
messaging in the Amazon Simple Notification Service Developer Guide.
c. Toggle on Alarm action, and choose Reboot.
d. For Group samples by and Type of data to sample, choose a statistic and a metric. In this
example, choose Average and Status check failed: instance.
e. For Consecutive period and Period, specify the evaluation period for the alarm. In this
example, enter 3 consecutive periods of 5 Minutes.
f. Amazon CloudWatch automatically creates an alarm name for you. To change the name, for
Alarm name, enter a new name. Alarm names must contain only ASCII characters.
g. Choose Create.

Old console

To create an alarm to reboot an instance (Amazon EC2 console)

1. Open the Amazon EC2 console at https://console.aws.amazon.com/ec2/.

2. In the navigation pane, choose Instances.
3. Select the instance. On the Monitoring tab, choose Create Alarm.
4. In the Create Alarm dialog box, do the following:

a. To receive an email when the alarm is triggered, for Send a notification to, choose an
existing Amazon SNS topic, or choose create topic to create a new one.

To create a new topic, for Send a notification to, enter a name for the topic, and for With
these recipients, enter the email addresses of the recipients (separated by commas). After
you create the alarm, you will receive a subscription confirmation email that you must
accept before you can get notifications for this topic.
b. Select Take the action, Reboot this instance.
c. For Whenever, choose Status Check Failed (Instance).
d. For For at least, specify the evaluation period for the alarm. In this example, enter 3
consecutive period(s) of 5 Minutes.
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e. To change the name of the alarm, for Name of alarm, enter a new name. Alarm names
must contain only ASCII characters.

If you don't enter a name for the alarm, Amazon CloudWatch automatically creates one for
you.
f. Choose Create Alarm.

Add recover actions to Amazon CloudWatch alarms

You can create an Amazon CloudWatch alarm that monitors an Amazon EC2 instance. If the instance
becomes impaired due to an underlying hardware failure or a problem that requires AWS involvement
to repair, you can automatically recover the instance. Terminated instances cannot be recovered. A
recovered instance is identical to the original instance, including the instance ID, private IP addresses,
Elastic IP addresses, and all instance metadata.

CloudWatch prevents you from adding a recovery action to an alarm that is on an instance which does
not support recovery actions.

When the StatusCheckFailed_System alarm is triggered, and the recover action is initiated, you are
notified by the Amazon SNS topic that you chose when you created the alarm and associated the recover
action. During instance recovery, the instance is migrated during an instance reboot, and any data that
is in-memory is lost. When the process is complete, information is published to the SNS topic you've
configured for the alarm. Anyone who is subscribed to this SNS topic receives an email notification that
includes the status of the recovery attempt and any further instructions. You notice an instance reboot
on the recovered instance.

The recover action can be used only with StatusCheckFailed_System, not with
StatusCheckFailed_Instance.

The following problems can cause system status checks to fail:

• Loss of network connectivity

• Loss of system power
• Software issues on the physical host
• Hardware issues on the physical host that impact network reachability

The recover action is supported only on instances with the following characteristics:

• Use one of the following instance types: C3, C4, C5, C5a, C5n, M3, M4, M5, M5a, M5n, M5zn, M6i, P3,
R3, R4, R5, R5a, R5b, R5n, T2, T3, T3a, high memory (virtualized only), X1, X1e
• Use default or dedicated instance tenancy
• Use EBS volumes only (do not configure instance store volumes). For more information, see 'Recover
this instance' is disabled.

If your instance has a public IP address, it retains the public IP address after recovery.
Important
To avoid a race condition between the reboot and recover actions, avoid setting the same
number of evaluation periods for a reboot alarm and a recover alarm. We recommend that you
set recover alarms to two evaluation periods of one minute each. For more information, see
Evaluating an Alarm in the Amazon CloudWatch User Guide.

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New console

To create an alarm to recover an instance (Amazon EC2 console)

1. Open the Amazon EC2 console at https://console.aws.amazon.com/ec2/.

2. In the navigation pane, choose Instances.
3. Select the instance and choose Actions, Monitor and troubleshoot, Manage CloudWatch
alarms.

Alternatively, you can choose the plus sign ( ) in the Alarm status column.
4. On the Manage CloudWatch alarms page, do the following:

a. Choose Create an alarm.

b. To receive an email when the alarm is triggered, for Alarm notification, choose an existing
Amazon SNS topic. You first need to create an Amazon SNS topic using the Amazon SNS
console. For more information, see Using Amazon SNS for application-to-person (A2P)
messaging in the Amazon Simple Notification Service Developer Guide.
Note
Users must subscribe to the specified SNS topic to receive email notifications
when the alarm is triggered. The AWS account root user always receives email
notifications when automatic instance recovery actions occur, even if an SNS topic
is not specified or the root user is not subscribed to the specified SNS topic.
c. Toggle on Alarm action, and choose Recover.
d. For Group samples by and Type of data to sample, choose a statistic and a metric. In this
example, choose Average and Status check failed: system.
e. For Consecutive period and Period, specify the evaluation period for the alarm. In this
example, enter 2 consecutive periods of 5 Minutes.
f. Amazon CloudWatch automatically creates an alarm name for you. To change the name, for
Alarm name, enter a new name. Alarm names must contain only ASCII characters.
g. Choose Create.

Old console

To create an alarm to recover an instance (Amazon EC2 console)

1. Open the Amazon EC2 console at https://console.aws.amazon.com/ec2/.

2. In the navigation pane, choose Instances.
3. Select the instance. On the Monitoring tab, choose Create Alarm.
4. In the Create Alarm dialog box, do the following:

a. To receive an email when the alarm is triggered, for Send a notification to, choose an
existing Amazon SNS topic, or choose create topic to create a new one.

To create a new topic, for Send a notification to, enter a name for the topic, and for With
these recipients, enter the email addresses of the recipients (separated by commas). After
you create the alarm, you will receive a subscription confirmation email that you must
accept before you can get email for this topic.
Note

• Users must subscribe to the specified SNS topic to receive email notifications
when the alarm is triggered.
• The AWS account root user always receives email notifications when automatic
instance recovery actions occur, even if an SNS topic is not specified.

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• The AWS account root user always receives email notifications when automatic
instance recovery actions occur, even if it is not subscribed to the specified SNS
topic.
b. Select Take the action, Recover this instance.
c. For Whenever, choose Status Check Failed (System).
d. For For at least, specify the evaluation period for the alarm. In this example, enter 2
consecutive period(s) of 5 Minutes.
e. To change the name of the alarm, for Name of alarm, enter a new name. Alarm names
must contain only ASCII characters.

If you don't enter a name for the alarm, Amazon CloudWatch automatically creates one for
you.
f. Choose Create Alarm.

Use the Amazon CloudWatch console to view alarm and action

history
You can view alarm and action history in the Amazon CloudWatch console. Amazon CloudWatch keeps
the last two weeks' worth of alarm and action history.

To view the history of triggered alarms and actions (CloudWatch console)

1. Open the CloudWatch console at https://console.aws.amazon.com/cloudwatch/.

2. In the navigation pane, choose Alarms.
3. Select an alarm.
4. The Details tab shows the most recent state transition along with the time and metric values.
5. Choose the History tab to view the most recent history entries.

Amazon CloudWatch alarm action scenarios

You can use the Amazon EC2 console to create alarm actions that stop or terminate an Amazon EC2
instance when certain conditions are met. In the following screen capture of the console page where you
set the alarm actions, we've numbered the settings. We've also numbered the settings in the scenarios
that follow, to help you create the appropriate actions.

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Scenario 1: Stop idle development and test instances
Create an alarm that stops an instance used for software development or testing when it has been idle
for at least an hour.

Setting Value

1 Stop

2 Maximum

3 CPU Utilization

4 <=

5 10%

6 1

7 1 Hour

Scenario 2: Stop idle instances

Create an alarm that stops an instance and sends an email when the instance has been idle for 24 hours.

Setting Value

1 Stop and email

2 Average

3 CPU Utilization

4 <=

5 5%

6 24

7 1 Hour

Scenario 3: Send email about web servers with unusually high traffic
Create an alarm that sends email when an instance exceeds 10 GB of outbound network traffic per day.

Setting Value

1 Email

2 Sum

3 Network Out

4 >

5 10 GB

6 24

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Setting Value

7 1 Hour

Scenario 4: Stop web servers with unusually high traffic

Create an alarm that stops an instance and send a text message (SMS) if outbound traffic exceeds 1 GB
per hour.

Setting Value

1 Stop and send SMS

2 Sum

3 Network Out

4 >

5 1 GB

6 1

7 1 Hour

Scenario 5: Stop an impaired instance

Create an alarm that stops an instance that fails three consecutive status checks (performed at 5-minute
intervals).

Setting Value

1 Stop

2 Average

3 Status Check Failed: System

4 -

5 -

6 1

7 15 Minutes

Scenario 6: Terminate instances when batch processing jobs are complete

Create an alarm that terminates an instance that runs batch jobs when it is no longer sending results
data.

Setting Value

1 Terminate

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Automate Amazon EC2 with EventBridge

Setting Value

2 Maximum

3 Network Out

4 <=

5 100,000 bytes

6 1

7 5 Minutes

Automate Amazon EC2 with EventBridge

Amazon EventBridge enables you to automate your AWS services and respond automatically to system
events such as application availability issues or resource changes. Events from AWS services are delivered
to EventBridge in near real time. You can write simple rules to indicate which events are of interest
to you, and the automated actions to take when an event matches a rule. The actions that can be
automatically triggered include the following:

• Invoking an AWS Lambda function

• Invoking Amazon EC2 Run Command
• Relaying the event to Amazon Kinesis Data Streams
• Activating an AWS Step Functions state machine
• Notifying an Amazon SNS topic or an Amazon SQS queue

Some examples of using EventBridge with Amazon EC2 include:

• Activating a Lambda function whenever a new Amazon EC2 instance starts.

• Notifying an Amazon SNS topic when an Amazon EBS volume is created or modified.
• Sending a command to one or more Amazon EC2 instances using Amazon EC2 Run Command
whenever a certain event in another AWS service occurs.

For more information, see the Amazon EventBridge User Guide.

Log Amazon EC2 and Amazon EBS API calls with

AWS CloudTrail
Amazon EC2 and Amazon EBS are integrated with AWS CloudTrail, a service that provides a record of
actions taken by a user, role, or an AWS service in Amazon EC2 and Amazon EBS. CloudTrail captures all
API calls for Amazon EC2 and Amazon EBS as events, including calls from the console and from code
calls to the APIs. If you create a trail, you can enable continuous delivery of CloudTrail events to an
Amazon S3 bucket, including events for Amazon EC2 and Amazon EBS. If you don't configure a trail, you
can still view the most recent events in the CloudTrail console in Event history. Using the information
collected by CloudTrail, you can determine the request that was made to Amazon EC2 and Amazon
EBS, the IP address from which the request was made, who made the request, when it was made, and
additional details.

To learn more about CloudTrail, see the AWS CloudTrail User Guide.

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Amazon EC2 and Amazon EBS information in CloudTrail

Amazon EC2 and Amazon EBS information in

CloudTrail
CloudTrail is enabled on your AWS account when you create the account. When activity occurs in Amazon
EC2 and Amazon EBS, that activity is recorded in a CloudTrail event along with other AWS service events
in Event history. You can view, search, and download recent events in your AWS account. For more
information, see Viewing Events with CloudTrail Event History.

For an ongoing record of events in your AWS account, including events for Amazon EC2 and Amazon
EBS, create a trail. A trail enables CloudTrail to deliver log files to an Amazon S3 bucket. By default, when
you create a trail in the console, the trail applies to all Regions. The trail logs events from all Regions in
the AWS partition and delivers the log files to the Amazon S3 bucket that you specify. Additionally, you
can configure other AWS services to further analyze and act upon the event data collected in CloudTrail
logs. For more information, see:

• Overview for Creating a Trail

• CloudTrail Supported Services and Integrations
• Configuring Amazon SNS Notifications for CloudTrail
• Receiving CloudTrail Log Files from Multiple Regions and Receiving CloudTrail Log Files from Multiple
Accounts

All Amazon EC2 actions, and Amazon EBS management actions, are logged by CloudTrail and
are documented in the Amazon EC2 API Reference. For example, calls to the RunInstances,
DescribeInstances, or CreateImage actions generate entries in the CloudTrail log files.

Every event or log entry contains information about who generated the request. The identity
information helps you determine the following:

• Whether the request was made with root or IAM user credentials.
• Whether the request was made with temporary security credentials for a role or federated user.
• Whether the request was made by another AWS service.

For more information, see the CloudTrail userIdentity Element.

Understand Amazon EC2 and Amazon EBS log file

entries
A trail is a configuration that enables delivery of events as log files to an Amazon S3 bucket that you
specify. CloudTrail log files contain one or more log entries. An event represents a single request from
any source and includes information about the requested action, the date and time of the action, request
parameters, and so on. CloudTrail log files are not an ordered stack trace of the public API calls, so they
do not appear in any specific order.

The following log file record shows that a user terminated an instance.

{
"Records":[
{
"eventVersion":"1.03",
"userIdentity":{
"type":"Root",
"principalId":"123456789012",
"arn":"arn:aws:iam::123456789012:root",

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"accountId":"123456789012",
"accessKeyId":"AKIAIOSFODNN7EXAMPLE",
"userName":"user"
},
"eventTime":"2016-05-20T08:27:45Z",
"eventSource":"ec2.amazonaws.com",
"eventName":"TerminateInstances",
"awsRegion":"us-west-2",
"sourceIPAddress":"198.51.100.1",
"userAgent":"aws-cli/1.10.10 Python/2.7.9 Windows/7botocore/1.4.1",
"requestParameters":{
"instancesSet":{
"items":[{
"instanceId":"i-1a2b3c4d"
}]
}
},
"responseElements":{
"instancesSet":{
"items":[{
"instanceId":"i-1a2b3c4d",
"currentState":{
"code":32,
"name":"shutting-down"
},
"previousState":{
"code":16,
"name":"running"
}
}]
}
},
"requestID":"be112233-1ba5-4ae0-8e2b-1c302EXAMPLE",
"eventID":"6e12345-2a4e-417c-aa78-7594fEXAMPLE",
"eventType":"AwsApiCall",
"recipientAccountId":"123456789012"
}
]
}

Use AWS CloudTrail to audit users that connect via

EC2 Instance Connect
Use AWS CloudTrail to audit the users that connect to your instances via EC2 Instance Connect.

To audit SSH activity via EC2 Instance Connect using the AWS CloudTrail console

1. Open the AWS CloudTrail console at https://console.aws.amazon.com/cloudtrail/.

2. Verify that you are in the correct Region.
3. In the navigation pane, choose Event history.
4. For Filter, choose Event source, ec2-instance-connect.amazonaws.com.
5. (Optional) For Time range, select a time range.
6. Choose the Refresh events icon.
7. The page displays the events that correspond to the SendSSHPublicKey API calls. Expand an event
using the arrow to view additional details, such as the user name and AWS access key that was used
to make the SSH connection, and the source IP address.
8. To display the full event information in JSON format, choose View event. The requestParameters
field contains the destination instance ID, OS user name, and public key that were used to make the
SSH connection.

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{
"eventVersion": "1.05",
"userIdentity": {
"type": "IAMUser",
"principalId": "ABCDEFGONGNOMOOCB6XYTQEXAMPLE",
"arn": "arn:aws:iam::1234567890120:user/IAM-friendly-name",
"accountId": "123456789012",
"accessKeyId": "ABCDEFGUKZHNAW4OSN2AEXAMPLE",
"userName": "IAM-friendly-name",
"sessionContext": {
"attributes": {
"mfaAuthenticated": "false",
"creationDate": "2018-09-21T21:37:58Z"}
}
},
"eventTime": "2018-09-21T21:38:00Z",
"eventSource": "ec2-instance-connect.amazonaws.com",
"eventName": "SendSSHPublicKey ",
"awsRegion": "us-west-2",
"sourceIPAddress": "123.456.789.012",
"userAgent": "aws-cli/1.15.61 Python/2.7.10 Darwin/16.7.0 botocore/1.10.60",
"requestParameters": {
"instanceId": "i-0123456789EXAMPLE",
"osUser": "ec2-user",
"SSHKey": {
"publicKey": "ssh-rsa ABCDEFGHIJKLMNO01234567890EXAMPLE"
}
},
"responseElements": null,
"requestID": "1a2s3d4f-bde6-11e8-a892-f7ec64543add",
"eventID": "1a2w3d4r5-a88f-4e28-b3bf-30161f75be34",
"eventType": "AwsApiCall",
"recipientAccountId": "0987654321"
}

If you have configured your AWS account to collect CloudTrail events in an S3 bucket, you can
download and audit the information programmatically. For more information, see Getting and
Viewing Your CloudTrail Log Files in the AWS CloudTrail User Guide.

Monitor your .NET and SQL Server applications

with CloudWatch Application Insights
CloudWatch Application Insights helps you monitor your .NET and SQL Server applications that use
Amazon EC2 instances along with other AWS application resources. It identifies and sets up key metrics
logs, and alarms across your application resources and technology stack (for example, your Microsoft
SQL Server database, web (IIS) and application servers, OS, load balancers, and queues). It continuously
monitors the metrics and logs to detect and correlate anomalies and errors. When errors and anomalies
are detected, Application Insights generates CloudWatch Events that you can use to set up notifications
or take actions. To aid with troubleshooting, it creates automated dashboards for the detected problems,
which include correlated metric anomalies and log errors, along with additional insights to point you to
the potential root cause. The automated dashboards help you to take swift remedial actions to keep your
applications healthy and to prevent impact to the end users of your application.

To view a complete list of supported logs and metrics, see Logs and Metrics Supported by Amazon
CloudWatch Application Insights.

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Information provided about detected problems:

• A short summary of the problem

• The start time and date of the problem
• The problem severity: High/Medium/Low
• The status of the detected problem: In‐progress/Resolved
• Insights: Automatically generated insights on the detected problem and possible root cause
• Feedback on insights: Feedback you have provided about the usefulness of the insights generated by
CloudWatch Application Insights for .NET and SQL Server
• Related observations: A detailed view of the metric anomalies and error snippets of relevant logs
related to the problem across various application components

Feedback

You can provide feedback on automatically generated insights on detected problems by designating
them useful or not useful. Your feedback on the insights, along with your application diagnostics (metric
anomalies and log exceptions), are used to improve the future detection of similar problems.

For more information, see the CloudWatch Application Insights documentation in the Amazon
CloudWatch User Guide.

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Regions and Zones

Networking in Amazon EC2

Amazon VPC enables you to launch AWS resources, such as Amazon EC2 instances, into a virtual network
dedicated to your AWS account, known as a virtual private cloud (VPC). When you launch an instance,
you can select a subnet from the VPC. The instance is configured with a primary network interface, which
is a logical virtual network card. The instance receives a primary private IP address from the IPv4 address
of the subnet, and it is assigned to the primary network interface.

You can control whether the instance receives a public IP address from Amazon's pool of public IP
addresses. The public IP address of an instance is associated with your instance only until it is stopped
or terminated. If you require a persistent public IP address, you can allocate an Elastic IP address for
your AWS account and associate it with an instance or a network interface. An Elastic IP address remains
associated with your AWS account until you release it, and you can move it from one instance to another
as needed. You can bring your own IP address range to your AWS account, where it appears as an address
pool, and then allocate Elastic IP addresses from your address pool.

To increase network performance and reduce latency, you can launch instances in a placement group.
You can get significantly higher packet per second (PPS) performance using enhanced networking. You
can accelerate high performance computing and machine learning applications using an Elastic Fabric
Adapter (EFA), which is a network device that you can attach to a supported instance type.

Features
• Regions and Zones (p. 891)
• Amazon EC2 instance IP addressing (p. 904)
• Bring your own IP addresses (BYOIP) in Amazon EC2 (p. 919)
• Assigning prefixes to Amazon EC2 network interfaces (p. 928)
• Elastic IP addresses (p. 939)
• Elastic network interfaces (p. 948)
• Amazon EC2 instance network bandwidth (p. 972)
• Enhanced networking on Windows (p. 973)
• Placement groups (p. 988)
• Network maximum transmission unit (MTU) for your EC2 instance (p. 1000)
• Virtual private clouds (p. 1004)
• Ports and Protocols for Windows Amazon Machine Images (AMIs) (p. 1005)
• EC2-Classic (p. 1035)

Regions and Zones

Amazon EC2 is hosted in multiple locations world-wide. These locations are composed of Regions,
Availability Zones, Local Zones, AWS Outposts, and Wavelength Zones. Each Region is a separate
geographic area.

• Availability Zones are multiple, isolated locations within each Region.

• Local Zones provide you the ability to place resources, such as compute and storage, in multiple
locations closer to your end users.
• AWS Outposts brings native AWS services, infrastructure, and operating models to virtually any data
center, co-location space, or on-premises facility.
• Wavelength Zones allow developers to build applications that deliver ultra-low latencies to 5G devices
and end users. Wavelength deploys standard AWS compute and storage services to the edge of
telecommunication carriers' 5G networks.

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Regions

AWS operates state-of-the-art, highly available data centers. Although rare, failures can occur that affect
the availability of instances that are in the same location. If you host all of your instances in a single
location that is affected by a failure, none of your instances would be available.

To help you determine which deployment is best for you, see AWS Wavelength FAQs.

Contents
• Regions (p. 892)
• Availability Zones (p. 896)
• Local Zones (p. 898)
• Wavelength Zones (p. 901)
• AWS Outposts (p. 903)

Regions
Each Amazon EC2 Region is designed to be isolated from the other Amazon EC2 Regions. This achieves
the greatest possible fault tolerance and stability.

When you view your resources, you see only the resources that are tied to the Region that you specified.
This is because Regions are isolated from each other, and we don't automatically replicate resources
across Regions.

When you launch an instance, you must select an AMI that's in the same Region. If the AMI is in another
Region, you can copy the AMI to the Region you're using. For more information, see Copy an AMI (p. 116).

Note that there is a charge for data transfer between Regions. For more information, see Amazon EC2
Pricing - Data Transfer.

Contents
• Available Regions (p. 892)
• Regions and endpoints (p. 893)
• Describe your Regions (p. 894)
• Get the Region name (p. 895)
• Specify the Region for a resource (p. 895)

Available Regions
Your account determines the Regions that are available to you.

• An AWS account provides multiple Regions so that you can launch Amazon EC2 instances in locations
that meet your requirements. For example, you might want to launch instances in Europe to be closer
to your European customers or to meet legal requirements.
• An AWS GovCloud (US-West) account provides access to the AWS GovCloud (US-West) Region and the
AWS GovCloud (US-East) Region. For more information, see AWS GovCloud (US).
• An Amazon AWS (China) account provides access to the Beijing and Ningxia Regions only. For more
information, see AWS in China.

The following table lists the Regions provided by an AWS account. You can't describe or access additional
Regions from an AWS account, such as AWS GovCloud (US) Region or the China Regions. To use a Region
introduced after March 20, 2019, you must enable the Region. For more information, see Managing AWS
Regions in the AWS General Reference.

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Regions

For information about available Wavelength Zones, see Available Wavelength Zones in the AWS
Wavelength Developer Guide. For information about available Local Zones, see the section called
“Available Local Zones” (p. 899).

Code Name Opt-in Status

us-east-2 US East (Ohio) Not required

us-east-1 US East (N. Virginia) Not required

us-west-1 US West (N. California) Not required

us-west-2 US West (Oregon) Not required

af-south-1 Africa (Cape Town) Required

ap-east-1 Asia Pacific (Hong Kong) Required

ap-south-1 Asia Pacific (Mumbai) Not required

ap-northeast-3 Asia Pacific (Osaka) Not required

ap-northeast-2 Asia Pacific (Seoul) Not required

ap-southeast-1 Asia Pacific (Singapore) Not required

ap-southeast-2 Asia Pacific (Sydney) Not required

ap-northeast-1 Asia Pacific (Tokyo) Not required

ca-central-1 Canada (Central) Not required

eu-central-1 Europe (Frankfurt) Not required

eu-west-1 Europe (Ireland) Not required

eu-west-2 Europe (London) Not required

eu-south-1 Europe (Milan) Required

eu-west-3 Europe (Paris) Not required

eu-north-1 Europe (Stockholm) Not required

me-south-1 Middle East (Bahrain) Required

sa-east-1 South America (São Paulo) Not required

For more information, see AWS Global Infrastructure.

The number and mapping of Availability Zones per Region may vary between AWS accounts. To get a list
of the Availability Zones that are available to your account, you can use the Amazon EC2 console or the
command line interface. For more information, see Describe your Regions (p. 894).

Regions and endpoints

When you work with an instance using the command line interface or API actions, you must specify its
Regional endpoint. For more information about the Regions and endpoints for Amazon EC2, see Amazon
EC2 endpoints and quotas in the Amazon Web Services General Reference.

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For more information about endpoints and protocols in AWS GovCloud (US-West), see AWS GovCloud
(US-West) Endpoints in the AWS GovCloud (US) User Guide.

Describe your Regions

You can use the Amazon EC2 console or the command line interface to determine which Regions are
available for your account. For more information about these command line interfaces, see Access
Amazon EC2 (p. 3).

To find your Regions using the console

1. Open the Amazon EC2 console at https://console.aws.amazon.com/ec2/.

2. From the navigation bar, view the options in the Region selector.

3. Your EC2 resources for this Region are displayed on the EC2 Dashboard in the Resources section.

To find your Regions using the AWS CLI

• Use the describe-regions command as follows to describe the Regions that are enabled for your
account.

aws ec2 describe-regions

To describe all Regions, including any Regions that are disabled for your account, add the --all-
regions option as follows.

aws ec2 describe-regions --all-regions

To find your Regions using the AWS Tools for Windows PowerShell

• Use the Get-EC2Region command as follows to describe the Regions for your account.

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PS C:\> Get-EC2Region

Get the Region name

You can use the Amazon Lightsail API to view the name of a Region.

To view the Region name using the AWS CLI

• Use the get-regions command as follows to describe the name of the specified Region.

aws lightsail get-regions --query "regions[?name=='region-name'].displayName" --output

text

The following example returns the name of the us-east-2 Region.

aws lightsail get-regions --query "regions[?name=='us-east-2'].displayName" --output

text

The following is the output:

Ohio

Specify the Region for a resource

Every time you create an Amazon EC2 resource, you can specify the Region for the resource. You can
specify the Region for a resource using the AWS Management Console or the command line.

Considerations

Some AWS resources might not be available in all Regions. Ensure that you can create the resources that
you need in the desired Regions before you launch an instance.

To specify the Region for a resource using the console

1. Open the Amazon EC2 console at https://console.aws.amazon.com/ec2/.

2. Use the Region selector in the navigation bar.

To specify the default Region using the command line

You can set the value of an environment variable to the desired Regional endpoint (for example,
https://ec2.us-east-2.amazonaws.com):

• AWS_DEFAULT_REGION (AWS CLI)

• Set-AWSDefaultRegion (AWS Tools for Windows PowerShell)

Alternatively, you can use the --region (AWS CLI) or -Region (AWS Tools for Windows PowerShell)
command line option with each individual command. For example, --region us-east-2.

For more information about the endpoints for Amazon EC2, see Amazon Elastic Compute Cloud
Endpoints.

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Availability Zones

Availability Zones
Each Region has multiple, isolated locations known as Availability Zones. When you launch an instance,
you can select an Availability Zone or let us choose one for you. If you distribute your instances across
multiple Availability Zones and one instance fails, you can design your application so that an instance in
another Availability Zone can handle requests.

The following diagram illustrates multiple Availability Zones in an AWS Region.

You can also use Elastic IP addresses to mask the failure of an instance in one Availability Zone by rapidly
remapping the address to an instance in another Availability Zone. For more information, see Elastic IP
addresses (p. 939).

An Availability Zone is represented by a Region code followed by a letter identifier; for example,
us-east-1a. To ensure that resources are distributed across the Availability Zones for a Region, we
independently map Availability Zones to names for each AWS account. For example, the Availability Zone
us-east-1a for your AWS account might not be the same location as us-east-1a for another AWS
account.

To coordinate Availability Zones across accounts, you must use the AZ ID, which is a unique and
consistent identifier for an Availability Zone. For example, use1-az1 is an AZ ID for the us-east-1
Region and it has the same location in every AWS account.

You can view AZ IDs to determine the location of resources in one account relative to the resources in
another account. For example, if you share a subnet in the Availability Zone with the AZ ID use-az2 with
another account, this subnet is available to that account in the Availability Zone whose AZ ID is also use-
az2. The AZ ID for each VPC and subnet is displayed in the Amazon VPC console. For more information,
see Working with Shared VPCs in the Amazon VPC User Guide.

As Availability Zones grow over time, our ability to expand them can become constrained. If this
happens, we might restrict you from launching an instance in a constrained Availability Zone unless you
already have an instance in that Availability Zone. Eventually, we might also remove the constrained
Availability Zone from the list of Availability Zones for new accounts. Therefore, your account might have
a different number of available Availability Zones in a Region than another account.

Contents
• Describe your Availability Zones (p. 896)
• Launch instances in an Availability Zone (p. 897)
• Migrate an instance to another Availability Zone (p. 897)

Describe your Availability Zones

You can use the Amazon EC2 console or the command line interface to determine which Availability
Zones are available for your account. For more information about these command line interfaces, see
Access Amazon EC2 (p. 3).

To find your Availability Zones using the console

1. Open the Amazon EC2 console at https://console.aws.amazon.com/ec2/.

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2. From the navigation bar, view the options in the Region selector.
3. On the navigation pane, choose EC2 Dashboard.
4. The Availability Zones are listed under Service health, Zone status.

To find your Availability Zones using the AWS CLI

1. Use the describe-availability-zones command as follows to describe the Availability Zones within the
specified Region.

aws ec2 describe-availability-zones --region region-name

2. Use the describe-availability-zones command as follows to describe the Availability Zones regardless
of the opt-in status.

aws ec2 describe-availability-zones --all-availability-zones

To find your Availability Zones using the AWS Tools for Windows PowerShell

Use the Get-EC2AvailabilityZone command as follows to describe the Availability Zones within the
specified Region.

PS C:\> Get-EC2AvailabilityZone -Region region-name

Launch instances in an Availability Zone

When you launch an instance, select a Region that puts your instances closer to specific customers, or
meets the legal or other requirements that you have. By launching your instances in separate Availability
Zones, you can protect your applications from the failure of a single location.

When you launch an instance, you can optionally specify an Availability Zone in the Region that you are
using. If you do not specify an Availability Zone, we select an Availability Zone for you. When you launch
your initial instances, we recommend that you accept the default Availability Zone, because this allows us
to select the best Availability Zone for you based on system health and available capacity. If you launch
additional instances, specify a Zone only if your new instances must be close to, or separated from, your
running instances.

Migrate an instance to another Availability Zone

If necessary, you can migrate an instance from one Availability Zone to another. For example, let's say
you are trying to modify the instance type of your instance and we can't launch an instance of the new
instance type in the current Availability Zone. In this case, you can migrate the instance to an Availability
Zone where we are able to launch an instance of that instance type.

The migration process involves:

• Creating an AMI from the original instance

• Launching an instance in the new Availability Zone
• Updating the configuration of the new instance, as shown in the following procedure

To migrate an instance to another Availability Zone

1. Create an AMI from the instance. The procedure depends on your operating system and the type of
root device volume for the instance. For more information, see the documentation that corresponds
to your operating system and root device volume:

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• Create an Amazon EBS-backed Linux AMI

• Create an instance store-backed Linux AMI
• Create a custom Windows AMI
2. If you need to preserve the private IPv4 address of the instance, you must delete the subnet in the
current Availability Zone and then create a subnet in the new Availability Zone with the same IPv4
address range as the original subnet. Note that you must terminate all instances in a subnet before
you can delete it. Therefore, you should create AMIs from all of the instances in your subnet so that
you can move all instances from the current subnet to the new subnet.
3. Launch an instance from the AMI that you just created, specifying the new Availability Zone or
subnet. You can use the same instance type as the original instance, or select a new instance type.
For more information, see Launch instances in an Availability Zone (p. 897).
4. If the original instance has an associated Elastic IP address, associate it with the new instance. For
more information, see Disassociate an Elastic IP address (p. 944).
5. If the original instance is a Reserved Instance, change the Availability Zone for your reservation. (If
you also changed the instance type, you can also change the instance type for your reservation.) For
more information, see Submit modification requests (p. 277).
6. (Optional) Terminate the original instance. For more information, see Terminate an instance (p. 448).

Local Zones
A Local Zone is an extension of an AWS Region in geographic proximity to your users. Local Zones have
their own connections to the internet and support AWS Direct Connect, so that resources created in a
Local Zone can serve local users with low-latency communications. For more information, see AWS Local
Zones.

A Local Zone is represented by a Region code followed by an identifier that indicates the location, for
example, us-west-2-lax-1a. For more information, see Available Local Zones (p. 899).

To use a Local Zone, you must first enable it. For more information, see the section called “Opt in to
Local Zones” (p. 900). Next, create a subnet in the Local Zone. Finally, launch any of the following
resources in the Local Zone subnet, so that your applications are close to your end users:

• Amazon EC2 instances

• Amazon EBS volumes
• Amazon ECS
• Amazon EKS
• Internet gateways

In addition to the preceding list, the following resources are available in the Los Angeles Local Zones:

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• Amazon FSx file servers

• Elastic Load Balancing
• Amazon EMR
• Amazon ElastiCache
• Amazon Relational Database Service
• Dedicated Hosts

Contents
• Available Local Zones (p. 899)
• Describe your Local Zones (p. 900)
• Opt in to Local Zones (p. 900)
• Launch instances in a Local Zone (p. 901)

Available Local Zones

The following tables list the available Local Zones by parent Regions. For information about how to opt
in, see the section called “Opt in to Local Zones” (p. 900).

US East (N. Virginia) Local Zones

This table lists Local Zones in US East (N. Virginia):

Parent Region Zone Name Location

US East (N. Virginia) us-east-1-bos-1a Boston

US East (N. Virginia) us-east-1-chi-1a Chicago

US East (N. Virginia) us-east-1-dfw-1a Dallas

US East (N. Virginia) us-east-1-iah-1a Houston

US East (N. Virginia) us-east-1-mci-1a Kansas City

US East (N. Virginia) us-east-1-mia-1a Miami

US East (N. Virginia) us-east-1-msp-1a Minneapolis

US East (N. Virginia) us-east-1-phl-1a Philadelphia

US West (Oregon) Local Zones

This table lists Local Zones in US West (Oregon):

Parent Region Zone Name Location

US West (Oregon) us-west-2-den-1a Denver

US West (Oregon) us-west-2-lax-1a Los Angeles

US West (Oregon) us-west-2-lax-1b Los Angeles

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Local Zones

Describe your Local Zones

You can use the Amazon EC2 console or the command line interface to determine which Local Zones
are available for your account. For more information about these command line interfaces, see Access
Amazon EC2 (p. 3).

To find your Local Zones using the console

1. Open the Amazon EC2 console at https://console.aws.amazon.com/ec2/.

2. From the navigation bar, view the options in the Region selector.
3. On the navigation pane, choose EC2 Dashboard.
4. The Local Zones are listed under Service health, Zone status.

To find your Local Zones using the AWS CLI

1. Use the describe-availability-zones command as follows to describe the Local Zones in the specified
Region.

aws ec2 describe-availability-zones --region region-name

2. Use the describe-availability-zones command as follows to describe the Local Zones regardless of
whether they are enabled.

aws ec2 describe-availability-zones --all-availability-zones

To find your Local Zones using the AWS Tools for Windows PowerShell

Use the Get-EC2AvailabilityZone command as follows to describe the Local Zones in the specified
Region.

PS C:\> Get-EC2AvailabilityZone -Region region-name

Opt in to Local Zones

Before you can specify a Local Zone for a resource or service, you must opt in to Local Zones.

Consideration

Some AWS resources might not be available in all Regions. Make sure that you can create the resources
that you need in the desired Regions or Local Zones before launching an instance in a specific Local Zone.

To opt in to Local Zones using the console

1. Open the Amazon EC2 console at https://console.aws.amazon.com/ec2/.

2. In the upper-left corner of the page, select New EC2 Experience. You cannot complete this task
using the old console experience.
3. From the Region selector in the navigation bar, select the Region for the Local Zone.
4. On the navigation pane, choose EC2 Dashboard.
5. In the upper-right corner of the page, choose Account attributes, Zones.
6. Choose Manage.
7. For Zone group, choose Enabled.

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8. Choose Update zone group.

To opt in to Local Zones using the AWS CLI

• Use the modify-availability-zone-group command.

Launch instances in a Local Zone

When you launch an instance, you can specify a subnet that is in a Local Zone. You also allocate an IP
address from a network border group. A network border group is a unique set of Availability Zones, Local
Zones, or Wavelength Zones from which AWS advertises IP addresses, for example, us-west-2-lax-1a.

You can allocate the following IP addresses from a network border group:

• Amazon-provided Elastic IPv4 addresses

• Amazon-provided IPv6 VPC addresses

To launch an instance in a Local Zone:

1. Enable Local Zones. For more information, see Opt in to Local Zones (p. 900).
2. Create a VPC in a Region that supports the Local Zone. For more information, see Creating a VPC in
the Amazon VPC User Guide.
3. Create a subnet. Select the Local Zone when you create the subnet. For more information, see
Creating a subnet in your VPC in the Amazon VPC User Guide.
4. Launch an instance, and select the subnet that you created in the Local Zone. For more information,
see Launch your instance (p. 394).

Wavelength Zones
AWS Wavelength enables developers to build applications that deliver ultra-low latencies to mobile
devices and end users. Wavelength deploys standard AWS compute and storage services to the edge of
telecommunication carriers' 5G networks. Developers can extend a virtual private cloud (VPC) to one or
more Wavelength Zones, and then use AWS resources like Amazon EC2 instances to run applications that
require ultra-low latency and a connection to AWS services in the Region.

A Wavelength Zone is an isolated zone in the carrier location where the Wavelength infrastructure is
deployed. Wavelength Zones are tied to a Region. A Wavelength Zone is a logical extension of a Region,
and is managed by the control plane in the Region.

A Wavelength Zone is represented by a Region code followed by an identifier that indicates the
Wavelength Zone, for example, us-east-1-wl1-bos-wlz-1.

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Wavelength Zones

To use a Wavelength Zone, you must first opt in to the Zone. For more information, see the section called
“Enable Wavelength Zones” (p. 902). Next, create a subnet in the Wavelength Zone. Finally, launch your
resources in the Wavelength Zones subnet, so that your applications are closer to your end users.

Wavelength Zones are not available in every Region. For information about the Regions that support
Wavelength Zones, see Available Wavelength Zones in the AWS Wavelength Developer Guide.

Contents
• Describe your Wavelength Zones (p. 902)
• Enable Wavelength Zones (p. 902)
• Launch instances in a Wavelength Zone (p. 903)

Describe your Wavelength Zones

You can use the Amazon EC2 console or the command line interface to determine which Wavelength
Zones are available for your account. For more information about these command line interfaces, see
Access Amazon EC2 (p. 3).

To find your Wavelength Zones using the console

1. Open the Amazon EC2 console at https://console.aws.amazon.com/ec2/.

2. From the navigation bar, view the options in the Region selector.
3. On the navigation pane, choose EC2 Dashboard.
4. The Wavelength Zones are listed under Service health, Zone status.

To find your Wavelength Zones using the AWS CLI

1. Use the describe-availability-zones command as follows to describe the Wavelength Zones within
the specified Region.

aws ec2 describe-availability-zones --region region-name

2. Use the describe-availability-zones command as follows to describe the Wavelength Zones

regardless of the opt-in status.

aws ec2 describe-availability-zones --all-availability-zones

To find your Wavelength Zone using the AWS Tools for Windows PowerShell

Use the Get-EC2AvailabilityZone command as follows to describe the Wavelength Zone within the
specified Region.

PS C:\> Get-EC2AvailabilityZone -Region region-name

Enable Wavelength Zones

Before you specify a Wavelength Zone for a resource or service, you must opt in to Wavelength Zones.

Considerations

• Some AWS resources are not available in all Regions. Make sure that you can create the resources
that you need in the desired Region or Wavelength Zone before launching an instance in a specific
Wavelength Zone.

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AWS Outposts

To opt in to Wavelength Zone using the console

1. Open the Amazon EC2 console at https://console.aws.amazon.com/ec2/.

2. In the upper-left corner of the page, select New EC2 Experience. You cannot complete this task
using the old console experience.
3. From the Region selector in the navigation bar, select the Region for the Wavelength Zone.
4. On the navigation pane, choose EC2 Dashboard.
5. In the upper-right corner of the page, choose Account attributes, Zones.
6. Under Wavelength Zones, choose Manage for the Wavelength Zone.
7. Choose Enable.
8. Choose Update zone group.

To enable Wavelength Zones using the AWS CLI

Use the modify-availability-zone-group command.

Launch instances in a Wavelength Zone

When you launch an instance, you can specify a subnet which is in a Wavelength Zone. You also allocate
a carrier IP address from a network border group, which is a unique set of Availability Zones, Local Zones,
or Wavelength Zones from which AWS advertises IP addresses, for example, us-east-1-wl1-bos-
wlz-1.

For information about how to launch an instance in a Wavelength Zone, see Get started with AWS
Wavelength in the AWS Wavelength Developer Guide.

AWS Outposts
AWS Outposts is a fully managed service that extends AWS infrastructure, services, APIs, and tools to
customer premises. By providing local access to AWS managed infrastructure, AWS Outposts enables
customers to build and run applications on premises using the same programming interfaces as in AWS
Regions, while using local compute and storage resources for lower latency and local data processing
needs.

An Outpost is a pool of AWS compute and storage capacity deployed at a customer site. AWS operates,
monitors, and manages this capacity as part of an AWS Region. You can create subnets on your Outpost
and specify them when you create AWS resources such as EC2 instances, EBS volumes, ECS clusters, and
RDS instances. Instances in Outpost subnets communicate with other instances in the AWS Region using
private IP addresses, all within the same VPC.

To begin using AWS Outposts, you must create an Outpost and order Outpost capacity. For more
information about Outposts configurations, see our catalog. After your Outpost equipment is installed,
the compute and storage capacity is available for you when you launch Amazon EC2 instances and create
Amazon EBS volumes on your Outpost.

Launch instances on an Outpost

You can launch EC2 instances in the Outpost subnet that you created. Security groups control inbound
and outbound traffic for instances in an Outpost subnet, as they do for instances in an Availability Zone
subnet. To connect to an EC2 instance in an Outpost subnet, you can specify a key pair when you launch
the instance, as you do for instances in an Availability Zone subnet.

The root volume must be 30 GB or smaller. You can specify data volumes in the block device mapping of
the AMI or the instance to provide additional storage. To trim unused blocks from the boot volume, see
How to Build Sparse EBS Volumes in the AWS Partner Network Blog.

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We recommend that you increase the NVMe timeout for the root volume. For more information, see I/O
operation timeout (p. 1357).

For information about how to create an Outpost, see Get started with AWS Outposts in the AWS
Outposts User Guide.

Create a volume on an Outpost

You can create EBS volumes in the Outpost subnet that you created. When you create the volume,
specify the Amazon Resource Name (ARN) of the Outpost.

The following create-volume command creates an empty 50 GB volume on the specified Outpost.

aws ec2 create-volume --availability-zone us-east-2a --outpost-arn arn:aws:outposts:us-

east-2:123456789012:outpost/op-03e6fecad652a6138 --size 50

You can dynamically modify the size of your Amazon EBS gp2 volumes without detaching them. For
more information about modifying a volume without detaching it, see Request modifications to your EBS
volumes (p. 1330).

Amazon EC2 instance IP addressing

Amazon EC2 and Amazon VPC support both the IPv4 and IPv6 addressing protocols. By default, Amazon
EC2 and Amazon VPC use the IPv4 addressing protocol; you can't disable this behavior. When you create
a VPC, you must specify an IPv4 CIDR block (a range of private IPv4 addresses). You can optionally assign
an IPv6 CIDR block to your VPC and subnets, and assign IPv6 addresses from that block to instances in
your subnet. IPv6 addresses are reachable over the Internet. For more information about IPv6, see IP
Addressing in Your VPC in the Amazon VPC User Guide.

Contents
• Private IPv4 addresses and internal DNS hostnames (p. 904)
• Public IPv4 addresses and external DNS hostnames (p. 905)
• Elastic IP addresses (IPv4) (p. 906)
• Amazon DNS server (p. 906)
• IPv6 addresses (p. 906)
• Work with the IPv4 addresses for your instances (p. 907)
• Work with the IPv6 addresses for your instances (p. 910)
• Multiple IP addresses (p. 912)

Private IPv4 addresses and internal DNS hostnames

A private IPv4 address is an IP address that's not reachable over the Internet. You can use private IPv4
addresses for communication between instances in the same VPC. For more information about the
standards and specifications of private IPv4 addresses, see RFC 1918. We allocate private IPv4 addresses
to instances using DHCP.
Note
You can create a VPC with a publicly routable CIDR block that falls outside of the private IPv4
address ranges specified in RFC 1918. However, for the purposes of this documentation, we refer
to private IPv4 addresses (or 'private IP addresses') as the IP addresses that are within the IPv4
CIDR range of your VPC.

When you launch an instance, we allocate a primary private IPv4 address for the instance. Each instance
is also given an internal DNS hostname that resolves to the primary private IPv4 address; for example,

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Public IPv4 addresses and external DNS hostnames

ip-10-251-50-12.ec2.internal. You can use the internal DNS hostname for communication
between instances in the same VPC, but we can't resolve the internal DNS hostname outside of the VPC.

An instance receives a primary private IP address from the IPv4 address range of the subnet. For more
information, see VPC and subnet sizing in the Amazon VPC User Guide. If you don't specify a primary
private IP address when you launch the instance, we select an available IP address in the subnet's IPv4
range for you. Each instance has a default network interface (eth0) that is assigned the primary private
IPv4 address. You can also specify additional private IPv4 addresses, known as secondary private IPv4
addresses. Unlike primary private IP addresses, secondary private IP addresses can be reassigned from
one instance to another. For more information, see Multiple IP addresses (p. 912).

A private IPv4 address, regardless of whether it is a primary or secondary address, remains associated
with the network interface when the instance is stopped and started, or hibernated and started, and is
released when the instance is terminated.

Public IPv4 addresses and external DNS hostnames

A public IP address is an IPv4 address that's reachable from the Internet. You can use public addresses for
communication between your instances and the Internet.

Each instance that receives a public IP address is also given an external DNS hostname; for example,
ec2-203-0-113-25.compute-1.amazonaws.com. We resolve an external DNS hostname to the
public IP address of the instance from outside its VPC, and to the private IPv4 address of the instance
from inside its VPC. The public IP address is mapped to the primary private IP address through network
address translation (NAT). For more information, see RFC 1631: The IP Network Address Translator (NAT).

When you launch an instance in a default VPC, we assign it a public IP address by default. When you
launch an instance into a nondefault VPC, the subnet has an attribute that determines whether instances
launched into that subnet receive a public IP address from the public IPv4 address pool. By default, we
don't assign a public IP address to instances launched in a nondefault subnet.

You can control whether your instance receives a public IP address as follows:

• Modifying the public IP addressing attribute of your subnet. For more information, see Modifying the
public IPv4 addressing attribute for your subnet in the Amazon VPC User Guide.
• Enabling or disabling the public IP addressing feature during launch, which overrides the subnet's
public IP addressing attribute. For more information, see Assign a public IPv4 address during instance
launch (p. 909).

A public IP address is assigned to your instance from Amazon's pool of public IPv4 addresses, and is not
associated with your AWS account. When a public IP address is disassociated from your instance, it is
released back into the public IPv4 address pool, and you cannot reuse it.

You cannot manually associate or disassociate a public IP (IPv4) address from your instance. Instead, in
certain cases, we release the public IP address from your instance, or assign it a new one:

• We release your instance's public IP address when it is stopped, hibernated, or terminated. Your
stopped or hibernated instance receives a new public IP address when it is started.
• We release your instance's public IP address when you associate an Elastic IP address with it. When you
disassociate the Elastic IP address from your instance, it receives a new public IP address.
• If the public IP address of your instance in a VPC has been released, it will not receive a new one if
there is more than one network interface attached to your instance.
• If your instance's public IP address is released while it has a secondary private IP address that is
associated with an Elastic IP address, the instance does not receive a new public IP address.

If you require a persistent public IP address that can be associated to and from instances as you require,
use an Elastic IP address instead.

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Elastic IP addresses (IPv4)

If you use dynamic DNS to map an existing DNS name to a new instance's public IP address, it might take
up to 24 hours for the IP address to propagate through the Internet. As a result, new instances might
not receive traffic while terminated instances continue to receive requests. To solve this problem, use an
Elastic IP address. You can allocate your own Elastic IP address, and associate it with your instance. For
more information, see Elastic IP addresses (p. 939).

If you assign an Elastic IP address to an instance, it receives an IPv4 DNS hostname if DNS hostnames are
enabled. For more information, see Using DNS with your VPC in the Amazon VPC User Guide.
Note
Instances that access other instances through their public NAT IP address are charged for
regional or Internet data transfer, depending on whether the instances are in the same Region.

Elastic IP addresses (IPv4)

An Elastic IP address is a public IPv4 address that you can allocate to your account. You can associate
it to and disassociate it from instances as you require. It's allocated to your account until you choose
to release it. For more information about Elastic IP addresses and how to use them, see Elastic IP
addresses (p. 939).

We do not support Elastic IP addresses for IPv6.

Amazon DNS server

Amazon provides a DNS server that resolves Amazon-provided IPv4 DNS hostnames to IPv4 addresses.
The Amazon DNS server is located at the base of your VPC network range plus two. For more
information, see Amazon DNS server in the Amazon VPC User Guide.

IPv6 addresses
You can optionally associate an IPv6 CIDR block with your VPC, and associate IPv6 CIDR blocks with
your subnets. The IPv6 CIDR block for your VPC is automatically assigned from Amazon's pool of IPv6
addresses; you cannot choose the range yourself. For more information, see the following topics in the
Amazon VPC User Guide:

• VPC and subnet sizing for IPv6

• Associating an IPv6 CIDR block with your VPC
• Associating an IPv6 CIDR block with your subnet

IPv6 addresses are globally unique, and therefore reachable over the Internet. Your instance receives an
IPv6 address if an IPv6 CIDR block is associated with your VPC and subnet, and if one of the following is
true:

• Your subnet is configured to automatically assign an IPv6 address to an instance during launch. For
more information, see Modifying the IPv6 addressing attribute for your subnet.
• You assign an IPv6 address to your instance during launch.
• You assign an IPv6 address to the primary network interface of your instance after launch.
• You assign an IPv6 address to a network interface in the same subnet, and attach the network
interface to your instance after launch.

When your instance receives an IPv6 address during launch, the address is associated with the primary
network interface (eth0) of the instance. You can disassociate the IPv6 address from the network
interface. We do not support IPv6 DNS hostnames for your instance.

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Work with the IPv4 addresses for your instances

An IPv6 address persists when you stop and start, or hibernate and start, your instance, and is released
when you terminate your instance. You cannot reassign an IPv6 address while it's assigned to another
network interface—you must first unassign it.

You can assign additional IPv6 addresses to your instance by assigning them to a network interface
attached to your instance. The number of IPv6 addresses you can assign to a network interface and
the number of network interfaces you can attach to an instance varies per instance type. For more
information, see IP addresses per network interface per instance type (p. 950).

Work with the IPv4 addresses for your instances

You can assign a public IPv4 address to your instance when you launch it. You can view the IPv4
addresses for your in the console through either the Instances page or the Network Interfaces page.

Contents
• View the IPv4 addresses (p. 907)
• Assign a public IPv4 address during instance launch (p. 909)

View the IPv4 addresses

You can use the Amazon EC2 console to view the private IPv4 addresses, public IPv4 addresses, and
Elastic IP addresses of your instances. You can also determine the public IPv4 and private IPv4 addresses
of your instance from within your instance by using instance metadata. For more information, see
Instance metadata and user data (p. 588).

The public IPv4 address is displayed as a property of the network interface in the console, but it's
mapped to the primary private IPv4 address through NAT. Therefore, if you inspect the properties of your
network interface on your instance, for example, through ifconfig (Linux) or ipconfig (Windows), the
public IPv4 address is not displayed. To determine your instance's public IPv4 address from an instance,
use instance metadata.

New console

To view the IPv4 addresses for an instance using the console

1. Open the Amazon EC2 console at https://console.aws.amazon.com/ec2/.

2. In the navigation pane, choose Instances and select your instance.
3. The following information is available on the Networking tab:

• Public IPv4 address — The public IPv4 address. If you associated an Elastic IP address with
the instance or the primary network interface, this is the Elastic IP address.
• Public IPv4 DNS — The external DNS hostname.
• Private IPv4 addresses — The private IPv4 address.
• Private IPv4 DNS — The internal DNS hostname.
• Secondary private IPv4 addresses — Any secondary private IPv4 addresses.
• Elastic IP addresses — Any associated Elastic IP addresses.
4. Alternatively, under Network interfaces on the Networking tab, choose the interface ID for the
primary network interface (for example, eni-123abc456def78901). The following information is
available:

• Private DNS (IPv4) — The internal DNS hostname.

• Primary private IPv4 IP — The primary private IPv4 address.
• Secondary private IPv4 IPs — Any secondary private IPv4 addresses.

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• Public DNS — The external DNS hostname.

• IPv4 Public IP — The public IPv4 address. If you associated an Elastic IP address with the
instance or the primary network interface, this is the Elastic IP address.
• Elastic IPs — Any associated Elastic IP addresses.

Old console

To view the IPv4 addresses for an instance using the console

1. Open the Amazon EC2 console at https://console.aws.amazon.com/ec2/.

2. In the navigation pane, choose Instances and select your instance.
3. The following information is available on the Description tab:

• Private DNS — The internal DNS hostname.

• Private IPs — The private IPv4 address.
• Secondary private IPs — Any secondary private IPv4 addresses.
• Public DNS — The external DNS hostname.
• IPv4 Public IP — The public IPv4 address. If you associated an Elastic IP address with the
instance or the primary network interface, this is the Elastic IP address.
• Elastic IPs — Any associated Elastic IP addresses.
4. Alternatively, you can view the IPv4 addresses for the instance using the primary network
interface. Under Network interfaces on the Description tab, choose eth0, and then choose the
interface ID (for example, eni-123abc456def78901). The following information is available:

• Private DNS (IPv4) — The internal DNS hostname.

• Primary private IPv4 IP — The primary private IPv4 address.
• Secondary private IPv4 IPs — Any secondary private IPv4 addresses.
• Public DNS — The external DNS hostname.
• IPv4 Public IP — The public IPv4 address. If you associated an Elastic IP address with the
instance or the primary network interface, this is the Elastic IP address.
• Elastic IPs — Any associated Elastic IP addresses.

To view the IPv4 addresses for an instance using the command line

You can use one of the following commands. For more information about these command line interfaces,
see Access Amazon EC2 (p. 3).

• describe-instances (AWS CLI)

• Get-EC2Instance (AWS Tools for Windows PowerShell).

To determine your instance's IPv4 addresses using instance metadata

1. Connect to your instance. For more information, see Connect to your Windows instance (p. 417).
2. Use the following command to access the private IP address:

PS C:\> Invoke-RestMethod http://169.254.169.254/latest/meta-data/local-ipv4

3. Use the following command to access the public IP address:

PS C:\> Invoke-RestMethod http://169.254.169.254/latest/meta-data/public-ipv4

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If an Elastic IP address is associated with the instance, the value returned is that of the Elastic IP
address.

Assign a public IPv4 address during instance launch

Each subnet has an attribute that determines whether instances launched into that subnet are assigned
a public IP address. By default, nondefault subnets have this attribute set to false, and default subnets
have this attribute set to true. When you launch an instance, a public IPv4 addressing feature is also
available for you to control whether your instance is assigned a public IPv4 address; you can override
the default behavior of the subnet's IP addressing attribute. The public IPv4 address is assigned from
Amazon's pool of public IPv4 addresses, and is assigned to the network interface with the device index of
eth0. This feature depends on certain conditions at the time you launch your instance.

Considerations

• You can't manually disassociate the public IP address from your instance after launch. Instead, it's
automatically released in certain cases, after which you cannot reuse it. For more information, see
Public IPv4 addresses and external DNS hostnames (p. 905). If you require a persistent public IP
address that you can associate or disassociate at will, assign an Elastic IP address to the instance after
launch instead. For more information, see Elastic IP addresses (p. 939).
• You cannot auto-assign a public IP address if you specify more than one network interface.
Additionally, you cannot override the subnet setting using the auto-assign public IP feature if you
specify an existing network interface for eth0.
• The public IP addressing feature is only available during launch. However, whether you assign a public
IP address to your instance during launch or not, you can associate an Elastic IP address with your
instance after it's launched. For more information, see Elastic IP addresses (p. 939). You can also
modify your subnet's public IPv4 addressing behavior. For more information, see Modifying the public
IPv4 addressing attribute for your subnet.

To enable or disable the public IP addressing feature using the console

1. Open the Amazon EC2 console at https://console.aws.amazon.com/ec2/.

2. Choose Launch Instance.
3. Select an AMI and an instance type, and then choose Next: Configure Instance Details.
4. On the Configure Instance Details page, for Network, select a VPC. The Auto-assign Public IP list is
displayed. Choose Enable or Disable to override the default setting for the subnet.
5. Follow the steps on the next pages of the wizard to complete your instance's setup. For more
information about the wizard configuration options, see Launch an instance using the Launch
Instance Wizard (p. 396). On the final Review Instance Launch page, review your settings, and then
choose Launch to choose a key pair and launch your instance.
6. On the Instances page, select your new instance and view its public IP address in IPv4 Public IP field
in the details pane.

To enable or disable the public IP addressing feature using the command line

You can use one of the following commands. For more information about these command line interfaces,
see Access Amazon EC2 (p. 3).

• Use the --associate-public-ip-address or the --no-associate-public-ip-address

option with the run-instances command (AWS CLI)
• Use the -AssociatePublicIp parameter with the New-EC2Instance command (AWS Tools for
Windows PowerShell)

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Work with the IPv6 addresses for your instances

You can view the IPv6 addresses assigned to your instance, assign a public IPv6 address to your instance,
or unassign an IPv6 address from your instance. You can view these addresses in the console through
either the Instances page or the Network Interfaces page.

Contents
• View the IPv6 addresses (p. 910)
• Assign an IPv6 address to an instance (p. 911)
• Unassign an IPv6 address from an instance (p. 911)

View the IPv6 addresses

You can use the Amazon EC2 console, AWS CLI, and instance metadata to view the IPv6 addresses for
your instances.

New console

To view the IPv6 addresses for an instance using the console

1. Open the Amazon EC2 console at https://console.aws.amazon.com/ec2/.

2. In the navigation pane, choose Instances.
3. Select the instance.
4. On the Networking tab, locate IPv6 addresses.
5. Alternatively, under Network interfaces on the Networking tab, choose the interface ID for the
network interface (for example, eni-123abc456def78901). Locate IPv6 IPs.

Old console

To view the IPv6 addresses for an instance using the console

1. Open the Amazon EC2 console at https://console.aws.amazon.com/ec2/.

2. In the navigation pane, choose Instances.
3. Select the instance.
4. On the Networking tab, locate IPv6 IPs.
5. Alternatively, under Network interfaces on the Description tab, choose eth0, and then choose
the interface ID (for example, eni-123abc456def78901). Locate IPv6 IPs.

To view the IPv6 addresses for an instance using the command line

You can use one of the following commands. For more information about these command line interfaces,
see Access Amazon EC2 (p. 3).

• describe-instances (AWS CLI)

• Get-EC2Instance (AWS Tools for Windows PowerShell).

To view the IPv6 addresses for an instance using instance metadata

1. Connect to your instance. For more information, see Connect to your Windows instance (p. 417).

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2. Use the following command to view the IPv6 address (you can get the MAC address from
http://169.254.169.254/latest/meta-data/network/interfaces/macs/).

PS C:\> Invoke-RestMethod http://169.254.169.254/latest/meta-data/network/interfaces/

macs/mac-address/ipv6s

Assign an IPv6 address to an instance

If your VPC and subnet have IPv6 CIDR blocks associated with them, you can assign an IPv6 address to
your instance during or after launch. The IPv6 address is assigned from the IPv6 address range of the
subnet, and is assigned to the network interface with the device index of eth0.

To assign an IPv6 address to an instance during launch

1. Open the Amazon EC2 console at https://console.aws.amazon.com/ec2/.

2. Select an AMI and an instance type that supports IPv6, and choose Next: Configure Instance
Details.
3. On the Configure Instance Details page, for Network, select a VPC and for Subnet, select a subnet.
For Auto-assign IPv6 IP, choose Enable.
4. Follow the remaining steps in the wizard to launch your instance.

To assign an IPv6 address to an instance after launch

1. Open the Amazon EC2 console at https://console.aws.amazon.com/ec2/.

2. In the navigation pane, choose Instances.
3. Select your instance, and choose Actions, Networking, Manage IP addresses.
4. Expand the network interface. Under IPv6 addresses, choose Assign new IP address. Enter an IPv6
address from the range of the subnet or leave the field blank to let Amazon choose an IPv6 address
for you.
5. Choose Save.

To assign an IPv6 address using the command line

You can use one of the following commands. For more information about these command line interfaces,
see Access Amazon EC2 (p. 3).

• Use the --ipv6-addresses option with the run-instances command (AWS CLI)
• Use the Ipv6Addresses property for -NetworkInterface in the New-EC2Instance command (AWS
Tools for Windows PowerShell)
• assign-ipv6-addresses (AWS CLI)
• Register-EC2Ipv6AddressList (AWS Tools for Windows PowerShell)

Unassign an IPv6 address from an instance

You can unassign an IPv6 address from an instance at any time.

To unassign an IPv6 address from an instance using the console

1. Open the Amazon EC2 console at https://console.aws.amazon.com/ec2/.

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2. In the navigation pane, choose Instances.

3. Select your instance, and choose Actions, Networking, Manage IP addresses.
4. Expand the network interface. Under IPv6 addresses, choose Unassign next to the IPv6 address.
5. Choose Save.

To unassign an IPv6 address from an instance using the command line

You can use one of the following commands. For more information about these command line interfaces,
see Access Amazon EC2 (p. 3).

• unassign-ipv6-addresses (AWS CLI)

• Unregister-EC2Ipv6AddressList (AWS Tools for Windows PowerShell).

Multiple IP addresses
You can specify multiple private IPv4 and IPv6 addresses for your instances. The number of network
interfaces and private IPv4 and IPv6 addresses that you can specify for an instance depends on the
instance type. For more information, see IP addresses per network interface per instance type (p. 950).

It can be useful to assign multiple IP addresses to an instance in your VPC to do the following:

• Host multiple websites on a single server by using multiple SSL certificates on a single server and
associating each certificate with a specific IP address.
• Operate network appliances, such as firewalls or load balancers, that have multiple IP addresses for
each network interface.
• Redirect internal traffic to a standby instance in case your instance fails, by reassigning the secondary
IP address to the standby instance.

Contents
• How multiple IP addresses work (p. 912)
• Work with multiple IPv4 addresses (p. 913)
• Work with multiple IPv6 addresses (p. 916)

How multiple IP addresses work

The following list explains how multiple IP addresses work with network interfaces:

• You can assign a secondary private IPv4 address to any network interface. The network interface need
not be attached to the instance.
• You can assign multiple IPv6 addresses to a network interface that's in a subnet that has an associated
IPv6 CIDR block.
• You must choose a secondary IPv4 address from the IPv4 CIDR block range of the subnet for the
network interface.
• You must choose IPv6 addresses from the IPv6 CIDR block range of the subnet for the network
interface.
• You associate security groups with network interfaces, not individual IP addresses. Therefore, each IP
address you specify in a network interface is subject to the security group of its network interface.
• Multiple IP addresses can be assigned and unassigned to network interfaces attached to running or
stopped instances.

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• Secondary private IPv4 addresses that are assigned to a network interface can be reassigned to
another one if you explicitly allow it.
• An IPv6 address cannot be reassigned to another network interface; you must first unassign the IPv6
address from the existing network interface.
• When assigning multiple IP addresses to a network interface using the command line tools or API, the
entire operation fails if one of the IP addresses can't be assigned.
• Primary private IPv4 addresses, secondary private IPv4 addresses, Elastic IP addresses, and IPv6
addresses remain with a secondary network interface when it is detached from an instance or attached
to an instance.
• Although you can't detach the primary network interface from an instance, you can reassign the
secondary private IPv4 address of the primary network interface to another network interface.

The following list explains how multiple IP addresses work with Elastic IP addresses (IPv4 only):

• Each private IPv4 address can be associated with a single Elastic IP address, and vice versa.
• When a secondary private IPv4 address is reassigned to another interface, the secondary private IPv4
address retains its association with an Elastic IP address.
• When a secondary private IPv4 address is unassigned from an interface, an associated Elastic IP
address is automatically disassociated from the secondary private IPv4 address.

Work with multiple IPv4 addresses

You can assign a secondary private IPv4 address to an instance, associate an Elastic IPv4 address with a
secondary private IPv4 address, and unassign a secondary private IPv4 address.

Contents
• Assign a secondary private IPv4 address (p. 913)
• Configure the operating system on your instance to recognize secondary private IPv4
addresses (p. 915)
• Associate an Elastic IP address with the secondary private IPv4 address (p. 915)
• View your secondary private IPv4 addresses (p. 915)
• Unassign a secondary private IPv4 address (p. 916)

Assign a secondary private IPv4 address

You can assign the secondary private IPv4 address to the network interface for an instance as you launch
the instance, or after the instance is running. This section includes the following procedures.

• To assign a secondary private IPv4 address when launching an instance (p. 913)
• To assign a secondary IPv4 address during launch using the command line (p. 914)
• To assign a secondary private IPv4 address to a network interface (p. 914)
• To assign a secondary private IPv4 to an existing instance using the command line (p. 915)

To assign a secondary private IPv4 address when launching an instance

1. Open the Amazon EC2 console at https://console.aws.amazon.com/ec2/.

2. Choose Launch Instance.
3. Select an AMI, then choose an instance type and choose Next: Configure Instance Details.
4. On the Configure Instance Details page, for Network, select a VPC and for Subnet, select a subnet.

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5. In the Network Interfaces section, do the following, and then choose Next: Add Storage:

• To add another network interface, choose Add Device. The console enables you to specify up
to two network interfaces when you launch an instance. After you launch the instance, choose
Network Interfaces in the navigation pane to add additional network interfaces. The total
number of network interfaces that you can attach varies by instance type. For more information,
see IP addresses per network interface per instance type (p. 950).
Important
When you add a second network interface, the system can no longer auto-assign a public
IPv4 address. You will not be able to connect to the instance over IPv4 unless you assign
an Elastic IP address to the primary network interface (eth0). You can assign the Elastic
IP address after you complete the Launch wizard. For more information, see Work with
Elastic IP addresses (p. 940).
• For each network interface, under Secondary IP addresses, choose Add IP, and then enter a
private IP address from the subnet range, or accept the default Auto-assign value to let Amazon
select an address.
6. On the next Add Storage page, you can specify volumes to attach to the instance besides the
volumes specified by the AMI (such as the root device volume), and then choose Next: Add Tags.
7. On the Add Tags page, specify tags for the instance, such as a user-friendly name, and then choose
Next: Configure Security Group.
8. On the Configure Security Group page, select an existing security group or create a new one.
Choose Review and Launch.
9. On the Review Instance Launch page, review your settings, and then choose Launch to choose a key
pair and launch your instance. If you're new to Amazon EC2 and haven't created any key pairs, the
wizard prompts you to create one.

Important
After you have added a secondary private IP address to a network interface, you must connect
to the instance and configure the secondary private IP address on the instance itself. For more
information, see Configure the operating system on your instance to recognize secondary
private IPv4 addresses (p. 915).

To assign a secondary IPv4 address during launch using the command line

• You can use one of the following commands. For more information about these command line
interfaces, see Access Amazon EC2 (p. 3).

• The --secondary-private-ip-addresses option with the run-instances command (AWS CLI)

• Define -NetworkInterface and specify the PrivateIpAddresses parameter with the New-
EC2Instance command (AWS Tools for Windows PowerShell).

To assign a secondary private IPv4 address to a network interface

1. Open the Amazon EC2 console at https://console.aws.amazon.com/ec2/.

2. In the navigation pane, choose Network Interfaces, and then select the network interface attached
to the instance.
3. Choose Actions, Manage IP Addresses.
4. Under IPv4 Addresses, choose Assign new IP.
5. Enter a specific IPv4 address that's within the subnet range for the instance, or leave the field blank
to let Amazon select an IP address for you.
6. (Optional) Choose Allow reassignment to allow the secondary private IP address to be reassigned if
it is already assigned to another network interface.

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7. Choose Yes, Update.

Alternatively, you can assign a secondary private IPv4 address to an instance. Choose Instances in the
navigation pane, select the instance, and then choose Actions, Networking, Manage IP Addresses. You
can configure the same information as you did in the steps above. The IP address is assigned to the
primary network interface (eth0) for the instance.

To assign a secondary private IPv4 to an existing instance using the command line

• You can use one of the following commands. For more information about these command line
interfaces, see Access Amazon EC2 (p. 3).

• assign-private-ip-addresses (AWS CLI)

• Register-EC2PrivateIpAddress (AWS Tools for Windows PowerShell)

Configure the operating system on your instance to recognize secondary private

IPv4 addresses
After you assign a secondary private IPv4 address to your instance, you need to configure the operating
system on your instance to recognize the secondary private IP address.

For information about configuring a Windows instance, see Configure a secondary private IPv4 address
for your Windows instance (p. 576).

Associate an Elastic IP address with the secondary private IPv4 address

To associate an Elastic IP address with a secondary private IPv4 address

1. Open the Amazon EC2 console at https://console.aws.amazon.com/ec2/.

2. In the navigation pane, choose Elastic IPs.
3. Choose Actions, and then select Associate address.
4. For Network interface, select the network interface, and then select the secondary IP address from
the Private IP list.
5. Choose Associate.

To associate an Elastic IP address with a secondary private IPv4 address using the command
line

• You can use one of the following commands. For more information about these command line
interfaces, see Access Amazon EC2 (p. 3).

• associate-address (AWS CLI)

• Register-EC2Address (AWS Tools for Windows PowerShell)

View your secondary private IPv4 addresses

To view the private IPv4 addresses assigned to a network interface

1. Open the Amazon EC2 console at https://console.aws.amazon.com/ec2/.

2. In the navigation pane, choose Network Interfaces.
3. Select the network interface with private IP addresses to view.

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4. On the Details tab in the details pane, check the Primary private IPv4 IP and Secondary private
IPv4 IPs fields for the primary private IPv4 address and any secondary private IPv4 addresses
assigned to the network interface.

To view the private IPv4 addresses assigned to an instance

1. Open the Amazon EC2 console at https://console.aws.amazon.com/ec2/.

2. In the navigation pane, choose Instances.
3. Select the instance with private IPv4 addresses to view.
4. On the Description tab in the details pane, check the Private IPs and Secondary private IPs fields
for the primary private IPv4 address and any secondary private IPv4 addresses assigned to the
instance through its network interface.

Unassign a secondary private IPv4 address

If you no longer require a secondary private IPv4 address, you can unassign it from the instance or the
network interface. When a secondary private IPv4 address is unassigned from a network interface, the
Elastic IP address (if it exists) is also disassociated.

To unassign a secondary private IPv4 address from an instance

1. Open the Amazon EC2 console at https://console.aws.amazon.com/ec2/.

2. In the navigation pane, choose Instances.
3. Select an instance, choose Actions, Networking, Manage IP Addresses.
4. Under IPv4 Addresses, choose Unassign for the IPv4 address to unassign.
5. Choose Yes, Update.

To unassign a secondary private IPv4 address from a network interface

1. Open the Amazon EC2 console at https://console.aws.amazon.com/ec2/.

2. In the navigation pane, choose Network Interfaces.
3. Select the network interface, choose Actions, Manage IP Addresses.
4. Under IPv4 Addresses, choose Unassign for the IPv4 address to unassign.
5. Choose Yes, Update.

To unassign a secondary private IPv4 address using the command line

• You can use one of the following commands. For more information about these command line
interfaces, see Access Amazon EC2 (p. 3).

• unassign-private-ip-addresses (AWS CLI)

• Unregister-EC2PrivateIpAddress (AWS Tools for Windows PowerShell)

Work with multiple IPv6 addresses

You can assign multiple IPv6 addresses to your instance, view the IPv6 addresses assigned to your
instance, and unassign IPv6 addresses from your instance.

Contents
• Assign multiple IPv6 addresses (p. 917)

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• View your IPv6 addresses (p. 918)

• Unassign an IPv6 address (p. 919)

Assign multiple IPv6 addresses

You can assign one or more IPv6 addresses to your instance during launch or after launch. To assign
an IPv6 address to an instance, the VPC and subnet in which you launch the instance must have an
associated IPv6 CIDR block. For more information, see VPCs and Subnets in the Amazon VPC User Guide.

To assign multiple IPv6 addresses during launch

1. Open the Amazon EC2 console at https://console.aws.amazon.com/ec2/.

2. From the dashboard, choose Launch Instance.
3. Select an AMI, choose an instance type, and choose Next: Configure Instance Details. Ensure that
you choose an instance type that support IPv6. For more information, see Instance types (p. 142).
4. On the Configure Instance Details page, select a VPC from the Network list, and a subnet from the
Subnet list.
5. In the Network Interfaces section, do the following, and then choose Next: Add Storage:

• To assign a single IPv6 address to the primary network interface (eth0), under IPv6 IPs, choose
Add IP. To add a secondary IPv6 address, choose Add IP again. You can enter an IPv6 address from
the range of the subnet, or leave the default Auto-assign value to let Amazon choose an IPv6
address from the subnet for you.
• Choose Add Device to add another network interface and repeat the steps above to add one
or more IPv6 addresses to the network interface. The console enables you to specify up to two
network interfaces when you launch an instance. After you launch the instance, choose Network
Interfaces in the navigation pane to add additional network interfaces. The total number of
network interfaces that you can attach varies by instance type. For more information, see IP
addresses per network interface per instance type (p. 950).
6. Follow the next steps in the wizard to attach volumes and tag your instance.
7. On the Configure Security Group page, select an existing security group or create a new one. If
you want your instance to be reachable over IPv6, ensure that your security group has rules that
allow access from IPv6 addresses. For more information, see Security group rules for different use
cases (p. 1163). Choose Review and Launch.
8. On the Review Instance Launch page, review your settings, and then choose Launch to choose a key
pair and launch your instance. If you're new to Amazon EC2 and haven't created any key pairs, the
wizard prompts you to create one.

You can use the Instances screen Amazon EC2 console to assign multiple IPv6 addresses to an existing
instance. This assigns the IPv6 addresses to the primary network interface (eth0) for the instance. To
assign a specific IPv6 address to the instance, ensure that the IPv6 address is not already assigned to
another instance or network interface.

To assign multiple IPv6 addresses to an existing instance

1. Open the Amazon EC2 console at https://console.aws.amazon.com/ec2/.

2. In the navigation pane, choose Instances.
3. Select your instance, choose Actions, Networking, Manage IP Addresses.
4. Under IPv6 Addresses, choose Assign new IP for each IPv6 address you want to add. You can specify
an IPv6 address from the range of the subnet, or leave the Auto-assign value to let Amazon choose
an IPv6 address for you.
5. Choose Yes, Update.

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Alternatively, you can assign multiple IPv6 addresses to an existing network interface. The network
interface must have been created in a subnet that has an associated IPv6 CIDR block. To assign a specific
IPv6 address to the network interface, ensure that the IPv6 address is not already assigned to another
network interface.

To assign multiple IPv6 addresses to a network interface

1. Open the Amazon EC2 console at https://console.aws.amazon.com/ec2/.

2. In the navigation pane, choose Network Interfaces.
3. Select your network interface, choose Actions, Manage IP Addresses.
4. Under IPv6 Addresses, choose Assign new IP for each IPv6 address you want to add. You can specify
an IPv6 address from the range of the subnet, or leave the Auto-assign value to let Amazon choose
an IPv6 address for you.
5. Choose Yes, Update.

CLI overview

You can use one of the following commands. For more information about these command line interfaces,
see Access Amazon EC2 (p. 3).

• Assign an IPv6 address during launch:

• Use the --ipv6-addresses or --ipv6-address-count options with the run-instances command
(AWS CLI)
• Define -NetworkInterface and specify the Ipv6Addresses or Ipv6AddressCount parameters
with the New-EC2Instance command (AWS Tools for Windows PowerShell).
• Assign an IPv6 address to a network interface:
• assign-ipv6-addresses (AWS CLI)
• Register-EC2Ipv6AddressList (AWS Tools for Windows PowerShell)

View your IPv6 addresses

You can view the IPv6 addresses for an instance or for a network interface.

To view the IPv6 addresses assigned to an instance

1. Open the Amazon EC2 console at https://console.aws.amazon.com/ec2/.

2. In the navigation pane, choose Instances.
3. Select your instance. In the details pane, review the IPv6 IPs field.

To view the IPv6 addresses assigned to a network interface

1. Open the Amazon EC2 console at https://console.aws.amazon.com/ec2/.

2. In the navigation pane, choose Network Interfaces.
3. Select your network interface. In the details pane, review the IPv6 IPs field.

CLI overview

You can use one of the following commands. For more information about these command line interfaces,
see Access Amazon EC2 (p. 3).

• View the IPv6 addresses for an instance:

• describe-instances (AWS CLI)

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• Get-EC2Instance (AWS Tools for Windows PowerShell).

• View the IPv6 addresses for a network interface:
• describe-network-interfaces (AWS CLI)
• Get-EC2NetworkInterface (AWS Tools for Windows PowerShell)

Unassign an IPv6 address

You can unassign an IPv6 address from the primary network interface of an instance, or you can unassign
an IPv6 address from a network interface.

To unassign an IPv6 address from an instance

1. Open the Amazon EC2 console at https://console.aws.amazon.com/ec2/.

2. In the navigation pane, choose Instances.
3. Select your instance, choose Actions, Networking, Manage IP Addresses.
4. Under IPv6 Addresses, choose Unassign for the IPv6 address to unassign.
5. Choose Yes, Update.

To unassign an IPv6 address from a network interface

1. Open the Amazon EC2 console at https://console.aws.amazon.com/ec2/.

2. In the navigation pane, choose Network Interfaces.
3. Select your network interface, choose Actions, Manage IP Addresses.
4. Under IPv6 Addresses, choose Unassign for the IPv6 address to unassign.
5. Choose Save.

CLI overview
You can use one of the following commands. For more information about these command line interfaces,
see Access Amazon EC2 (p. 3).

• unassign-ipv6-addresses (AWS CLI)

• Unregister-EC2Ipv6AddressList (AWS Tools for Windows PowerShell).

Bring your own IP addresses (BYOIP) in Amazon

EC2
You can bring part or all of your publicly routable IPv4 or IPv6 address range from your on-premises
network to your AWS account. You continue to own the address range, but AWS advertises it on the
internet by default. After you bring the address range to AWS, it appears in your AWS account as an
address pool.

BYOIP is not available in all Regions and for all resources. For a list of supported Regions and resources,
see the FAQ for Bring Your Own IP.
Note
The following steps describe how to bring your own IP address range for use in Amazon EC2
only. For steps to bring your own IP address range for use in AWS Global Accelerator, see Bring
your own IP addresses (BYOIP) in the AWS Global Accelerator Developer Guide.

Contents

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Requirements and quotas

• Requirements and quotas (p. 920)

• Configure your BYOIP address range (p. 920)
• Work with your address range (p. 927)
• Learn more (p. 928)

Requirements and quotas

• The address range must be registered with your regional internet registry (RIR), such as the American
Registry for Internet Numbers (ARIN), Réseaux IP Européens Network Coordination Centre (RIPE), or
Asia-Pacific Network Information Centre (APNIC). It must be registered to a business or institutional
entity and cannot be registered to an individual person.
• The most specific IPv4 address range that you can bring is /24.
• The most specific IPv6 address range that you can bring is /48 for CIDRs that are publicly advertised,
and /56 for CIDRs that are not publicly advertised (p. 926).
• You can bring each address range to one Region at a time.
• You can bring a total of five IPv4 and IPv6 address ranges per Region to your AWS account.
• You cannot share your IP address range with other accounts using AWS Resource Access Manager (AWS
RAM).
• The addresses in the IP address range must have a clean history. We might investigate the reputation
of the IP address range and reserve the right to reject an IP address range if it contains an IP address
that has a poor reputation or is associated with malicious behavior.
• You must own the IP address that you use. This means that only the following are supported:
• ARIN - "Direct Allocation" and "Direct Assignment" network types
• RIPE - "ALLOCATED PA", "LEGACY", "ASSIGNED PI", and "ALLOCATED-BY-RIR" allocation statuses
• APNIC – "ALLOCATED PORTABLE" and "ASSIGNED PORTABLE" allocation statuses

Configure your BYOIP address range

The process to configure BYOIP has these phases:

• Preparation

For authentication purposes, create an RSA key pair and use it to generate a self-signed X.509
certificate.
• RIR configuration

Register with the Resource Public Key Infrastructure (RPKI) of your RIR, and file a Route Origin
Authorization (ROA) that defines the desired address range, the autonomous system numbers (ASNs)
allowed to advertise the address range, and an expiration date. Upload the self-signed certificate to
your RDAP record comments.
• Amazon configuration

Sign a CIDR authorization context message with the private RSA key that you created, and upload the
message and signature to Amazon using the AWS Command Line Interface.

To bring on multiple address ranges, you must repeat this process with each address range. Bringing on
an address range has no effect on any address ranges that you brought on previously.

To configure BYOIP, complete the following tasks. For some tasks, you run Linux commands. On
Windows, you can use the Windows Subsystem for Linux to run the Linux commands.

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Tasks
• Create a key pair and certificate (p. 921)
• Create an ROA object in your RIR (p. 924)
• Update the RDAP record in your RIR (p. 924)
• Provision the address range in AWS (p. 925)
• Advertise the address range through AWS (p. 926)
• Deprovision the address range (p. 927)

Create a key pair and certificate

Use the following procedure to create a self-signed X.509 certificate and add it to the RDAP record for
your RIR. The openssl commands require OpenSSL version 1.0.2 or later.

Copy the commands below and replace only the placeholder values (in colored italic text).

To create a self-signed X.509 certificate and add it to the RDAP record

This procedure follows the best practice of encrypting your private RSA key and requiring a pass phrase
to access it.

1. Generate an RSA 2048-bit key pair as shown in the following.

$ openssl genpkey -aes256 -algorithm RSA -pkeyopt rsa_keygen_bits:2048 -out private-

key.pem

The -aes256 parameter specifies the algorithm used to encrypt the private key. The command
returns the following output, including prompts to set a pass phrase:

......+++
.+++
Enter PEM pass phrase: xxxxxxx
Verifying - Enter PEM pass phrase: xxxxxxx

You can inspect the key using the following command:

$ openssl pkey -in private-key.pem -text

This returns a pass-phrase prompt and the contents of the key, which shouild be similar to the
following:

Enter pass phrase for private-key.pem: xxxxxxx

-----BEGIN PRIVATE KEY-----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v6V3CzMKDkmRr1NrONnSz5QsndQ04Z6ihAQlPmJ96g4wKtgoC7AYpyP0g1a+4/sj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-----END PRIVATE KEY-----
Private-Key: (2048 bit)
modulus:
00:c5:05:71:d1:23:81:d5:28:08:61:de:c7:a2:72:
2a:28:8b:30:91:4d:b2:5e:d7:e6:2c:c4:d4:e3:6b:
85:f2:2b:2a:55:18:81:56:0c:68:59:b3:8e:05:08:
79:4f:38:e4:95:27:e3:6a:3f:be:30:f7:aa:0c:ec:
33:d2:df:1a:3d:91:a4:32:64:11:67:d9:81:29:d8:
40:6a:e6:f7:f7:d3:b2:87:35:19:99:65:49:a4:9f:
4c:c7:39:21:29:36:66:36:7c:cc:48:48:1c:5e:c2:
5c:51:14:09:e2:c2:64:9d:ff:c4:c3:bc:72:4c:63:
d1:6f:00:8b:d6:b9:3b:2f:e6:5d:2d:24:a9:3e:6b:
dd:4a:e3:eb:4e:dd:47:43:47:b4:a7:a3:95:97:13:
17:ec:06:b5:b7:83:5c:9d:a3:74:c1:b3:1f:22:e7:
f6:22:54:e7:0d:02:9c:bb:81:ed:bf:16:2c:18:dd:
a0:97:24:1e:ab:ea:7b:85:e8:7f:26:46:02:38:af:
8b:e4:31:1b:0e:94:08:49:0e:76:4f:35:ec:1e:6e:
8a:3e:2b:74:37:97:06:e0:6e:63:8a:0f:fc:fd:b2:
f9:3c:37:ff:a1:51:30:6d:21:7d:1f:46:d6:c6:f8:
f2:c8:c3:7c:56:44:71:ab:31:29:f6:07:3b:0f:56:
e0:cb
publicExponent: 65537 (0x10001)
privateExponent:
0a:22:54:8f:68:5f:26:42:af:e3:b0:dc:dd:eb:37:
65:ec:7a:ec:0e:6e:0d:58:d7:9b:17:e8:c7:65:e1:
76:ea:67:7c:07:0d:a8:0a:6d:57:a7:d7:b7:44:8f:
50:d6:e1:53:16:c1:28:d6:ec:86:82:46:b9:f1:70:
5c:f9:62:d5:25:e7:a7:3b:e4:75:4e:07:c9:ca:38:
ce:06:e1:5c:5b:04:44:d6:23:61:f3:86:cd:33:f0:
74:12:e9:34:c0:7a:93:74:e9:e1:11:ec:7b:a7:4d:
ae:51:f4:8c:38:69:8a:82:fc:71:01:01:74:12:72:
54:5e:57:d3:0c:a6:11:b9:95:98:2d:23:80:7f:cc:
c6:c0:40:3d:65:ba:64:a8:9c:83:d5:0b:32:55:a2:
01:9d:cc:44:06:4f:8c:71:e0:a5:89:00:02:c5:16:
28:06:c2:07:05:50:71:58:c6:3b:9f:56:8d:f6:63:
cd:35:f9:a5:0b:55:54:7e:bc:ae:e7:22:1f:cf:03:
4d:90:b0:8c:29:23:06:1c:60:f8:e2:24:24:12:c4:
e7:09:21:f3:68:c8:1d:28:af:67:ad:df:97:02:f0:
cf:e1:34:f8:78:44:2d:26:49:ae:7d:8c:63:a2:71:
9a:29:37:a8:d3:54:38:5f:d9:fb:79:ac:76:3d:a5:
b9
prime1:
00:e3:c2:50:bf:de:3c:69:f3:32:72:e8:ff:28:25:
02:af:ed:37:6f:33:05:23:e1:54:96:38:76:41:1c:
bb:f8:7a:f2:5a:6a:26:b4:b9:08:c8:a3:55:03:6b:
c0:18:8a:da:a1:5f:53:66:08:27:a1:18:7f:32:b9:
78:ff:bf:a5:77:0b:33:0a:0e:49:91:af:53:6b:38:
d9:d2:cf:94:2c:9d:d4:34:e1:9e:a2:84:04:25:3e:
62:7d:ea:0e:30:2a:d8:28:0b:b0:18:a7:23:f4:83:
56:be:e3:fb:23:6f:5f:a8:dd:84:08:e2:90:ff:17:
bd:5c:fa:a6:b3:b4:7e:cf:47
prime2:
00:dd:73:6d:f2:36:64:f7:f8:9c:a9:b5:fd:1f:2a:

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31:2f:38:d2:be:c7:05:0a:ce:2f:5c:2f:f3:b3:06:
ae:72:38:80:b5:3f:3d:93:f3:98:0e:7b:58:bc:93:
06:70:b3:ec:65:a4:6e:ae:05:3e:a5:98:82:44:2d:
dd:24:e7:d1:72:ba:93:6e:e1:d3:ef:5f:94:83:e8:
61:aa:77:1e:23:93:d2:af:23:be:2e:b0:67:8e:06:
88:66:17:4a:61:4c:79:2b:58:a0:71:5e:2c:93:d2:
84:bc:ce:39:c9:94:49:fc:ca:c2:29:1a:03:b6:f2:
38:eb:2e:96:87:35:9f:cc:5d
exponent1:
00:df:2c:d7:27:4b:42:f3:a6:c4:b6:68:ad:2d:cf:
26:54:f1:23:32:a9:51:ce:18:cc:63:ee:ab:a1:9d:
e0:6a:d9:3e:85:6e:22:c3:4f:d4:d5:95:86:86:35:
9d:23:ef:5b:d0:68:b2:35:f6:a3:ae:6d:6c:a6:6d:
ab:ad:1f:43:a9:e4:a5:7c:a3:07:5f:e3:e6:df:d7:
f3:49:68:f2:0e:ce:10:d4:48:88:c3:42:8d:35:59:
6d:f5:67:d5:c3:49:18:4a:15:39:d6:ce:60:a3:05:
d7:88:71:a8:f2:cd:fd:74:60:ab:32:71:a0:16:f6:
52:2d:bb:c6:81:ac:c9:dd:9d
exponent2:
00:db:9c:da:7f:27:24:70:aa:33:ab:36:58:e4:ec:
31:c4:b3:e4:83:df:d9:07:43:3c:c2:7e:a7:7e:76:
74:cf:bf:6b:1c:d3:af:9c:a7:29:b7:ca:e9:50:71:
ba:24:50:ba:72:7e:64:68:dd:b8:a7:fe:9b:c9:43:
76:99:5f:f0:5d:87:dc:28:4d:7a:a1:5c:37:6b:ad:
2c:16:22:75:58:31:03:f2:3e:4f:1f:fc:3f:66:20:
e2:69:e4:55:16:33:01:c3:53:ec:21:21:94:b1:b0:
47:84:fa:3b:62:c6:55:ad:85:e2:91:62:44:26:cd:
06:57:6d:67:48:85:8c:88:dd
coefficient:
3f:85:ff:ac:1c:67:ce:50:5b:c9:c0:53:29:00:dd:
6a:d2:23:1f:f7:73:00:c6:76:6e:0d:44:67:2d:f1:
93:99:8d:31:e3:8b:2f:68:8c:c3:83:d4:be:e2:32:
14:50:ff:79:37:85:4b:22:9f:92:c3:32:9f:eb:c9:
61:86:c7:8b:88:68:b6:ad:e3:49:22:0b:b4:f8:23:
ae:83:33:b3:f9:f5:eb:aa:77:3d:f0:d0:f0:fe:55:
4f:a1:ec:64:a2:be:fb:05:0d:dc:92:52:de:db:34:
ad:00:51:52:e1:74:c2:5f:5b:10:cd:f1:05:74:6f:
9a:77:5a:e5:87:d5:4f:01

Keep your private key in a secure location when it is not in use.

2. Generate your public key from the private key as follows. You will use this later to test that your
signed authorization message validates correctly.

$ openssl rsa -in private-key.pem -pubout > public-key.pem

On inspection, your public key should look like this:

$ cat public-key.pem
-----BEGIN PUBLIC KEY-----
MIIBIjANBgkqhkiG9w0BAQEFAAOCAQ8AMIIBCgKCAQEAxQVx0SOB1SgIYd7HonIq
KIswkU2yXtfmLMTU42uF8isqVRiBVgxoWbOOBQh5TzjklSfjaj++MPeqDOwz0t8a
PZGkMmQRZ9mBKdhAaub399OyhzUZmWVJpJ9MxzkhKTZmNnzMSEgcXsJcURQJ4sJk
nf/Ew7xyTGPRbwCL1rk7L+ZdLSSpPmvdSuPrTt1HQ0e0p6OVlxMX7Aa1t4NcnaN0
wbMfIuf2IlTnDQKcu4HtvxYsGN2glyQeq+p7heh/JkYCOK+L5DEbDpQISQ52TzXs
Hm6KPit0N5cG4G5jig/8/bL5PDf/oVEwbSF9H0bWxvjyyMN8VkRxqzEp9gc7D1bg
ywIDAQAB
-----END PUBLIC KEY-----

3. Generate an X.509 certificate using the key pair created in the previous. In this example, the
certificate expires in 365 days, after which time it cannot be trusted. Be sure to set the expiration
appropriately. The tr -d "\n" command strips newline characters (line breaks) from the output.
You need to provide a Common Name when prompted, but the other fields can be left blank.

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$ openssl req -new -x509 -key private-key.pem -days 365 | tr -d "\n" > certificate.pem

This results in output similar to the following:

Enter pass phrase for private-key.pem: xxxxxxx

You are about to be asked to enter information that will be incorporated
into your certificate request.
What you are about to enter is what is called a Distinguished Name or a DN.
There are quite a few fields but you can leave some blank
For some fields there will be a default value,
If you enter '.', the field will be left blank.
-----
Country Name (2 letter code) []:
State or Province Name (full name) []:
Locality Name (eg, city) []:
Organization Name (eg, company) []:
Organizational Unit Name (eg, section) []:
Common Name (eg, fully qualified host name) []:example.com
Email Address []:

You can inspect the certificate with the following command:

$ cat certificate.pem

The output should be a long, PEM-encoded string without line breaks, prefaced by -----BEGIN
CERTIFICATE----- and followed by -----END CERTIFICATE-----.

Create an ROA object in your RIR

Create an ROA object to authorize Amazon ASNs 16509 and 14618 to advertise your address range,
as well as the ASNs that are currently authorized to advertise the address range. You must set the
maximum length to the size of the smallest prefix that you want to bring (for example, /24). It might
take up to 24 hours for the ROA to become available to Amazon. For more information, consult your RIR:

• ARIN — ROA Requests

• RIPE — Managing ROAs
• APNIC — Route Management

Update the RDAP record in your RIR

Add the certificate that you previously created to the RDAP record for your RIR. Be sure to include the
-----BEGIN CERTIFICATE----- and -----END CERTIFICATE----- strings before and after the
encoded portion. All of this content must be on a single, long line. The procedure for updating RDAP
depends on your RIR:

• For ARIN, add the certificate in the "Public Comments" section for your address range. Do not add it to
the comments section for your organization.
• For RIPE, add the certificate as a new "descr" field for your address range. Do not add it to the
comments section for your organization.
• For APNIC, email the public key to [email protected] to manually add it to the "remarks" field for
your address range. Send the email using the APNIC authorized contact for the IP addresses.

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Provision the address range in AWS

When you provision an address range for use with AWS, you are confirming that you own the address
range and are authorizing Amazon to advertise it. We also verify that you own the address range through
a signed authorization message. This message is signed with the self-signed X.509 key pair that you
used when updating the RDAP record with the X.509 certificate. AWS requires a cryptographically signed
authorization message that it presents to the RIR. The RIR authenticates the signature against the
certificate that you added to RDAP, and checks the authorization details against the ROA.

To provision the address range

1. Compose message

Compose the plaintext authorization message. The format of the message is as follows, where the
date is the expiry date of the message:

1|aws|account|cidr|YYYYMMDD|SHA256|RSAPSS

Replace the account number, address range, and expiry date with your own values to create a
message resembling the following:

1|aws|0123456789AB|198.51.100.0/24|20211231|SHA256|RSAPSS

This is not to be confused with an ROA message, which has a similar appearance.
2. Sign message

Sign the plaintext message using the private key that you created previously. The signature returned
by this command is a long string that you need to use in the next step.
Important
We recommend that you copy and paste this command. Except for the message content, do
not modify or replace any of the values.

$ echo -n "1|aws|123456789012|198.51.100.0/24|20211231|SHA256|RSAPSS" | openssl dgst -

sha256 -sigopt rsa_padding_mode:pss -sigopt rsa_pss_saltlen:-1 -sign private-key.pem -
keyform PEM | openssl base64 | tr -- '+=/' '-_~' | tr -d "\n"

3. Provision address

Use the AWS CLI provision-byoip-cidr command to provision the address range. The --cidr-
authorization-context option uses the message and signature strings that you created
previously.

aws ec2 provision-byoip-cidr --cidr address-range --cidr-authorization-context

Message="message",Signature="signature"

Provisioning an address range is an asynchronous operation, so the call returns immediately,

but the address range is not ready to use until its status changes from pending-provision to
provisioned.
4. Monitor progress

It can take up to three weeks to complete the provisioning process for publicly advertisable ranges.
Use the describe-byoip-cidrs command to monitor progress, as in this example:

aws ec2 describe-byoip-cidrs --max-results 5

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If there are issues during provisioning and the status goes to failed-provision, you must run the
provision-byoip-cidr command again after the issues have been resolved.

Provision an IPv6 address range that's not publicly advertised

By default, an address range is provisioned to be publicly advertised to the internet. You can provision an
IPv6 address range that will not be publicly advertised. For routes that are not publicly advertisable, the
provisioning process generally completes within minutes. When you associate an IPv6 CIDR block from a
non-public address range with a VPC, the IPv6 CIDR can only be accessed through an AWS Direct Connect
connection.

An ROA is not required to provision a non-public address range.

Important
You can only specify whether an address range is publicly advertised during provisioning. You
cannot change the advertisable status later on.

To provision an IPv6 address range that will not be publicly advertised, use the following provision-
byoip-cidr command.

aws ec2 provision-byoip-cidr --cidr address-range --cidr-authorization-context

Message="$text_message",Signature="$signed_message" --no-publicly-advertisable

Advertise the address range through AWS

After the address range is provisioned, it is ready to be advertised. You must advertise the exact address
range that you provisioned. You can't advertise only a portion of the provisioned address range.

If you provisioned an IPv6 address range that will not be publicly advertised, you do not need to
complete this step.

We recommend that you stop advertising the address range from other locations before you advertise
it through AWS. If you keep advertising your IP address range from other locations, we can't reliably
support it or troubleshoot issues. Specifically, we can't guarantee that traffic to the address range will
enter our network.

To minimize down time, you can configure your AWS resources to use an address from your address
pool before it is advertised, and then simultaneously stop advertising it from the current location and
start advertising it through AWS. For more information about allocating an Elastic IP address from your
address pool, see Allocate an Elastic IP address (p. 941).

Limitations

• You can run the advertise-byoip-cidr command at most once every 10 seconds, even if you specify
different address ranges each time.
• You can run the withdraw-byoip-cidr command at most once every 10 seconds, even if you specify
different address ranges each time.

To advertise the address range, use the following advertise-byoip-cidr command.

aws ec2 advertise-byoip-cidr --cidr address-range

To stop advertising the address range, use the following withdraw-byoip-cidr command.

aws ec2 withdraw-byoip-cidr --cidr address-range

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Deprovision the address range

To stop using your address range with AWS, first release any Elastic IP addresses and disassociate any
IPv6 CIDR blocks that are still allocated from the address pool. Then stop advertising the address range,
and finally, deprovision the address range.

You cannot deprovision a portion of the address range. If you want to use a more specific address range
with AWS, deprovision the entire address range and provision a more specific address range.

(IPv4) To release each Elastic IP address, use the following release-address command.

aws ec2 release-address --allocation-id eipalloc-12345678abcabcabc

(IPv6) To disassociate an IPv6 CIDR block, use the following disassociate-vpc-cidr-block command.

aws ec2 disassociate-vpc-cidr-block --association-id vpc-cidr-assoc-12345abcd1234abc1

To stop advertising the address range, use the following withdraw-byoip-cidr command.

aws ec2 withdraw-byoip-cidr --cidr address-range

To deprovision the address range, use the following deprovision-byoip-cidr command.

aws ec2 deprovision-byoip-cidr --cidr address-range

It can take up to a day to deprovision an address range.

Work with your address range

You can view and use the IPv4 and IPv6 address ranges that you've provisioned in your account.

IPv4 address ranges

You can create an Elastic IP address from your IPv4 address pool and use it with your AWS resources,
such as EC2 instances, NAT gateways, and Network Load Balancers.

To view information about the IPv4 address pools that you've provisioned in your account, use the
following describe-public-ipv4-pools command.

aws ec2 describe-public-ipv4-pools

To create an Elastic IP address from your IPv4 address pool, use the allocate-address command. You can
use the --public-ipv4-pool option to specify the ID of the address pool returned by describe-
byoip-cidrs. Or you can use the --address option to specify an address from the address range that
you provisioned.

IPv6 address ranges

To view information about the IPv6 address pools that you've provisioned in your account, use the
following describe-ipv6-pools command.

aws ec2 describe-ipv6-pools

To create a VPC and specify an IPv6 CIDR from your IPv6 address pool, use the following create-vpc
command. To let Amazon choose the IPv6 CIDR from your IPv6 address pool, omit the --ipv6-cidr-
block option.

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aws ec2 create-vpc --cidr-block 10.0.0.0/16 --ipv6-cidr-block ipv6-cidr --ipv6-pool pool-id

To associate an IPv6 CIDR block from your IPv6 address pool with a VPC, use the following associate-
vpc-cidr-block command. To let Amazon choose the IPv6 CIDR from your IPv6 address pool, omit the --
ipv6-cidr-block option.

aws ec2 associate-vpc-cidr-block --vpc-id vpc-123456789abc123ab --ipv6-cidr-block ipv6-cidr

--ipv6-pool pool-id

To view your VPCs and the associated IPv6 address pool information, use the describe-vpcs command. To
view information about associated IPv6 CIDR blocks from a specific IPv6 address pool, use the following
get-associated-ipv6-pool-cidrs command.

aws ec2 get-associated-ipv6-pool-cidrs --pool-id pool-id

If you disassociate the IPv6 CIDR block from your VPC, it's released back into your IPv6 address pool.

For more information about working with IPv6 CIDR blocks in the VPC console, see Working with VPCs
and Subnets in the Amazon VPC User Guide.

Learn more
For more information, see the AWS Online Tech talk Deep Dive on Bring Your Own IP.

Assigning prefixes to Amazon EC2 network

interfaces
You can assign a private IPv4 or IPv6 CIDR range, either automatically or manually, to your network
interfaces. By assigning prefixes, you scale and simplify the management of applications, including
container and networking applications that require multiple IP addresses on an instance.

The following assignment options are available:

• Automatic assignment — AWS chooses the prefix from your VPC subnet’s IPv4 or IPv6 CIDR and
assigns to your network interface.
• Manual Assignment — You specify the prefix from your VPC subnet’s IPv4 and IPv6 CIDRs, and AWS
verifies that the prefix is not already assigned to other resources before assigning it to your network
interface.

Assigning prefixes has the following benefits:

• Increased IP addresses on a network interface — When you use a prefix, you assign a block of IP
addresses as opposed to individual IP addresses. This increases the number of IP addresses on a
network interface.
• Simplified VPC management for containers — In container applications, each container requires a
unique IP address. Assigning prefixes to your instance simplifies the management of your VPCs, as
you can launch and terminate containers without having to call Amazon EC2 APIs for individual IP
assignments.

Topics
• Basics for assigning prefixes (p. 929)

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• Considerations and limits for prefixes (p. 929)

• Work with prefixes (p. 929)

Basics for assigning prefixes

• You can assign a prefix to new or existing network interfaces.
• To use prefixes, you first assign a prefix to your network interface, then attach the network interface to
your instance, and then configure your operating system.
• When you choose the option to specify a prefix, the prefix must meet the following requirements:
• The IPv4 prefix that you can specify is /28.
• The IPv6 prefix that you can specify is /80.
• The prefix is in the subnet CIDR of the network interface, and it does not overlap with other prefixes
or IP addresses assigned to existing resources in the subnet.
• You can assign a prefix to the primary or secondary network interface.
• You can assign an Elastic IP address to a network interface that has a prefix assigned to it.
• We resolve the private DNS host name of an instance to the primary private IPv4 address.
• We assign each private IPv4 address on a network interface, including those from prefixes, with the
following forms:
• us-east-1 Region

ip-private-ipv4-address.ec2.internal

• All other Regions

ip-private-ipv4-address.region.compute.internal

Considerations and limits for prefixes

Take the following into consideration when you use prefixes:

• Network interfaces with prefixes are supported with nitro-based instances.

• Prefixes for network interfaces are limited to private IPv4 and IPv6 addresses.
• See IP addresses per network interface per instance type (p. 950) for limitations.
• The number of prefixes and IP addresses on a network interface must be less than the limit on the
instance that the network interface is associated with. For example, if you have a c5.large instance,
the limit is 10 IPv4 addresses and 10 IPv6 addresses on a network interface, and the total number of
/28 and /80 prefixes must be less than 10.
• Prefixes are included in source/destination checks.

Work with prefixes

Topics
• Assign prefixes during network interface creation (p. 930)
• Assign prefixes to existing network interfaces (p. 934)
• Configure your operating system for network interfaces with prefixes (p. 936)
• View the prefixes assigned to your network interfaces (p. 937)
• Remove prefixes from your network interfaces (p. 938)

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Assign prefixes during network interface creation

If you use the automatic assignment option, you can reserve a block of IP addresses in your subnet. AWS
chooses the prefixes from this block. For more information, see Subnet CIDR reservations in the Amazon
VPC User Guide.

After you have created the network interface, use the attach-network-interface AWS CLI command to
attach the network interface to your instance. You must configure your operating system to work with
network interfaces with prefixes. For more information, see Configure your operating system for network
interfaces with prefixes (p. 936).

Topics
• Assign automatic prefixes during network interface creation (p. 930)
• Assign specific prefixes during network interface creation (p. 932)

Assign automatic prefixes during network interface creation

You can assign automatic prefixes during network interface creation using one of the following methods.

Console

To assign automatic prefixes during network interface creation

1. Open the Amazon EC2 console at https://console.aws.amazon.com/ec2/.

2. In the navigation pane, choose Network Interfaces and then choose Create network interface.
3. Specify a description for the network interface, select the subnet in which to create the network
interface, and configure the private IPv4 and IPv6 addresses.
4. Expand Advanced settings and do the following:

a. To automatically assign an IPv4 prefix, for IPv4 prefix delegation, choose Auto-assign.
Then for Number of IPv4 prefixes, specify the number of prefixes to assign.
b. To automatically assign an IPv6 prefix, for IPv6 prefix delegation, choose Auto-assign.
Then for Number of IPv6 prefixes, specify the number of prefixes to assign.
Note
IPv6 prefix delegation appears only if the selected subnet is enabled for IPv6.
5. Select the security groups to associate with the network interface and assign resource tags if
needed.
6. Choose Create network interface.

AWS CLI

To assign automatic IPv4 prefixes during network interface creation

Use the create-network-interface command and set --ipv4-prefix-count to the number of

prefixes that you want AWS to assign. In the following example, AWS assigns 1 prefix.

C:\> aws ec2 create-network-interface \

--subnet-id subnet-047cfed18eEXAMPLE \
--description "IPv4 automatic example" \
--ipv4-prefix-count 1

Example output

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"NetworkInterface": {
"AvailabilityZone": "us-west-2a",
"Description": "IPv4 automatic example",
"Groups": [
{
"GroupName": "default",
"GroupId": "sg-044c2de2c4EXAMPLE"
}
],
"InterfaceType": "interface",
"Ipv6Addresses": [],
"MacAddress": "02:98:65:dd:18:47",
"NetworkInterfaceId": "eni-02b80b4668EXAMPLE",
"OwnerId": "123456789012",
"PrivateIpAddress": "10.0.0.62",
"PrivateIpAddresses": [
{
"Primary": true,
"PrivateIpAddress": "10.0.0.62"
}
],
"Ipv4Prefixes": [
{
"Ipv4Prefix": "10.0.0.208/28"
}
],
"RequesterId": "AIDAIV5AJI5LXF5XXDPCO",
"RequesterManaged": false,
"SourceDestCheck": true,
"Status": "pending",
"SubnetId": "subnet-047cfed18eEXAMPLE",
"TagSet": [],
"VpcId": "vpc-0e12f52b21EXAMPLE"
}
}

To assign automatic IPv6 prefixes during network interface creation

Use the create-network-interface command and set --ipv6-prefix-count to the number of

prefixes that you want AWS to assign. In the following example, AWS assigns 1 prefix.

C:\> aws ec2 create-network-interface \

--subnet-id subnet-047cfed18eEXAMPLE \
--description "IPv6 automatic example" \
--ipv6-prefix-count 1

Example output

{
"NetworkInterface": {
"AvailabilityZone": "us-west-2a",
"Description": "IPv6 automatic example",
"Groups": [
{
"GroupName": "default",
"GroupId": "sg-044c2de2c4EXAMPLE"
}
],
"InterfaceType": "interface",
"Ipv6Addresses": [],
"MacAddress": "02:bb:e4:31:fe:09",
"NetworkInterfaceId": "eni-006edbcfa4EXAMPLE",
"OwnerId": "123456789012",

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"PrivateIpAddress": "10.0.0.73",
"PrivateIpAddresses": [
{
"Primary": true,
"PrivateIpAddress": "10.0.0.73"
}
],
"Ipv6Prefixes": [
{
"Ipv6Prefix": "2600:1f13:fc2:a700:1768::/80"
}
],
"RequesterId": "AIDAIV5AJI5LXF5XXDPCO",
"RequesterManaged": false,
"SourceDestCheck": true,
"Status": "pending",
"SubnetId": "subnet-047cfed18eEXAMPLE",
"TagSet": [],
"VpcId": "vpc-0e12f52b21EXAMPLE"
}
}

Assign specific prefixes during network interface creation

You can assign specific prefixes during network interface creation using one of the following methods.

Console

To assign specific prefixes during network interface creation

1. Open the Amazon EC2 console at https://console.aws.amazon.com/ec2/.

2. In the navigation pane, choose Network Interfaces and then choose Create network interface.
3. Specify a description for the network interface, select the subnet in which to create the network
interface, and configure the private IPv4 and IPv6 addresses.
4. Expand Advanced settings and do the following:

a. To assign a specific IPv4 prefix, for IPv4 prefix delegation, choose Custom. Then choose
Add new prefix and enter the prefix to use.
b. To assign a specific IPv6 prefix, for IPv6 prefix delegation, choose Custom. Then choose
Add new prefix and enter the prefix to use.
Note
IPv6 prefix delegation appears only if the selected subnet is enabled for IPv6.
5. Select the security groups to associate with the network interface and assign resource tags if
needed.
6. Choose Create network interface.

AWS CLI

To assign specific IPv4 prefixes during network interface creation

Use the create-network-interface command and set --ipv4-prefixes to the prefixes. AWS selects
IP addresses from this range. In the following example, the prefix CIDR is 10.0.0.208/28.

C:\> aws ec2 create-network-interface \

--subnet-id subnet-047cfed18eEXAMPLE \
--description "IPv4 manual example" \
--ipv4-prefixes Ipv4Prefix=10.0.0.208/28

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Example output

{
"NetworkInterface": {
"AvailabilityZone": "us-west-2a",
"Description": "IPv4 manual example",
"Groups": [
{
"GroupName": "default",
"GroupId": "sg-044c2de2c4EXAMPLE"
}
],
"InterfaceType": "interface",
"Ipv6Addresses": [],
"MacAddress": "02:98:65:dd:18:47",
"NetworkInterfaceId": "eni-02b80b4668EXAMPLE",
"OwnerId": "123456789012",
"PrivateIpAddress": "10.0.0.62",
"PrivateIpAddresses": [
{
"Primary": true,
"PrivateIpAddress": "10.0.0.62"
}
],
"Ipv4Prefixes": [
{
"Ipv4Prefix": "10.0.0.208/28"
}
],
"RequesterId": "AIDAIV5AJI5LXF5XXDPCO",
"RequesterManaged": false,
"SourceDestCheck": true,
"Status": "pending",
"SubnetId": "subnet-047cfed18eEXAMPLE",
"TagSet": [],
"VpcId": "vpc-0e12f52b21EXAMPLE"
}
}

To assign specific IPv6 prefixes during network interface creation

Use the create-network-interface command and set --ipv6-prefixes to the prefixes.

AWS selects IP addresses from this range. In the following example, the prefix CIDR is
2600:1f13:fc2:a700:1768::/80.

C:\> aws ec2 create-network-interface \

--subnet-id subnet-047cfed18eEXAMPLE \
--description "IPv6 manual example" \
--ipv6-prefixes Ipv6Prefix=2600:1f13:fc2:a700:1768::/80

Example output

{
"NetworkInterface": {
"AvailabilityZone": "us-west-2a",
"Description": "IPv6 automatic example",
"Groups": [
{
"GroupName": "default",
"GroupId": "sg-044c2de2c4EXAMPLE"
}
],

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"InterfaceType": "interface",
"Ipv6Addresses": [],
"MacAddress": "02:bb:e4:31:fe:09",
"NetworkInterfaceId": "eni-006edbcfa4EXAMPLE",
"OwnerId": "123456789012",
"PrivateIpAddress": "10.0.0.73",
"PrivateIpAddresses": [
{
"Primary": true,
"PrivateIpAddress": "10.0.0.73"
}
],
"Ipv6Prefixes": [
{
"Ipv6Prefix": "2600:1f13:fc2:a700:1768::/80"
}
],
"RequesterId": "AIDAIV5AJI5LXF5XXDPCO",
"RequesterManaged": false,
"SourceDestCheck": true,
"Status": "pending",
"SubnetId": "subnet-047cfed18eEXAMPLE",
"TagSet": [],
"VpcId": "vpc-0e12f52b21EXAMPLE"
}
}

Assign prefixes to existing network interfaces

After you have assigned the prefixes, use the attach-network-interface AWS CLI command to attach
the network interface to your instance. You must configure your operating system to work with network
interfaces with prefixes. For more information, see Configure your operating system for network
interfaces with prefixes (p. 936).

Assign automatic prefixes to an existing network interface

You can assign automatic prefixes to an existing network interface using one of the following methods.

Console

To assign automatic prefixes to an existing network interface

1. Open the Amazon EC2 console at https://console.aws.amazon.com/ec2/.

2. In the navigation pane, choose Network Interfaces.
3. Select the network interface to which to assign the prefixes, and choose Actions, Manage
prefixes.
4. To automatically assign an IPv4 prefix, for IPv4 prefix delegation, choose Auto-assign. Then for
Number of IPv4 prefixes, specify the number of prefixes to assign.
5. To automatically assign an IPv6 prefix, for IPv6 prefix delegation, choose Auto-assign. Then for
Number of IPv6 prefixes, specify the number of prefixes to assign.
Note
IPv6 prefix delegation appears only if the selected subnet is enabled for IPv6.
6. Choose Save.

AWS CLI

You can use the assign-ipv6-addresses command to assign IPv6 prefixes and the assign-private-ip-
addresses command to assign IPv4 prefixes to existing network interfaces.

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To assign automatic IPv4 prefixes to an existing network interface

Use the assign-private-ip-addresses command and set --ipv4-prefix-count to the number of

prefixes that you want AWS to assign. In the following example, AWS assigns 1 IPv4 prefix.

C:\> aws ec2 assign-private-ip-addresses \

--network-interface-id eni-081fbb4095EXAMPLE \
--ipv4-prefix-count 1

Example output

{
"NetworkInterfaceId": "eni-081fbb4095EXAMPLE",
"AssignedIpv4Prefixes": [
{
"Ipv4Prefix": "10.0.0.176/28"
}
]
}

To assign automatic IPv6 prefixes to an existing network interface

Use the assign-ipv6-addresses command and set --ipv6-prefix-count to the number of

prefixes that you want AWS to assign. In the following example, AWS assigns 1 IPv6 prefix.

C:\> aws ec2 assign-ipv6-addresses \

--network-interface-id eni-00d577338cEXAMPLE \
--ipv6-prefix-count 1

Example output

{
"AssignedIpv6Prefixes": [
"2600:1f13:fc2:a700:18bb::/80"
],
"NetworkInterfaceId": "eni-00d577338cEXAMPLE"
}

Assign specific prefixes to an existing network interface

You can assign specific prefixes to an existing network interface using one of the following methods.

Console

To assign specific prefixes to an existing network interface

1. Open the Amazon EC2 console at https://console.aws.amazon.com/ec2/.

2. In the navigation pane, choose Network Interfaces.
3. Select the network interface to which to assign the prefixes, and choose Actions, Manage
prefixes.
4. To assign a specific IPv4 prefix, for IPv4 prefix delegation, choose Custom. Then choose Add
new prefix and enter the prefix to use.
5. To assign a specific IPv6 prefix, for IPv6 prefix delegation, choose Custom. Then choose Add
new prefix and enter the prefix to use.
Note
IPv6 prefix delegation appears only if the selected subnet is enabled for IPv6.

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6. Choose Save.

AWS CLI

Assign specific IPv4 prefixes to an existing network interface

Use the assign-private-ip-addresses command and set --ipv4-prefixes to the prefix. AWS
selects IPv4 addresses from this range. In the following example, the prefix CIDR is 10.0.0.208/28.

C:\> aws ec2 assign-private-ip-addresses \

--network-interface-id eni-081fbb4095EXAMPLE \
--ipv4-prefixes 10.0.0.208/28

Example output

{
"NetworkInterfaceId": "eni-081fbb4095EXAMPLE",
"AssignedIpv4Prefixes": [
{
"Ipv4Prefix": "10.0.0.208/28"
}
]
}

Assign specific IPv6 prefixes to an existing network interface

Use the assign-ipv6-addresses command and set --ipv6-prefixes to the prefix.

AWS selects IPv6 addresses from this range. In the following example, the prefix CIDR is
2600:1f13:fc2:a700:18bb::/80.

C:\> aws ec2 assign-ipv6-addresses \

--network-interface-id eni-00d577338cEXAMPLE \
--ipv6-prefixes 2600:1f13:fc2:a700:18bb::/80

Example output

{
"NetworkInterfaceId": "eni-00d577338cEXAMPLE",
"AssignedIpv6Prefixes": [
{
"Ipv6Prefix": "2600:1f13:fc2:a700:18bb::/80"
}
]
}

Configure your operating system for network interfaces with

prefixes
Amazon Linux AMIs might contain additional scripts installed by AWS, known as ec2-net-utils. These
scripts optionally automate the configuration of your network interfaces. They are available for Amazon
Linux only.

If you are not using Amazon Linux, you can use a Container Network Interface (CNI) for Kubernetes plug-
in, or dockerd if you use Docker to manage your containers.

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View the prefixes assigned to your network interfaces

You can view the prefixes assigned to your network interfaces using one of the following methods.

Console

To view the automatic prefixes assigned to an existing network interface

1. Open the Amazon EC2 console at https://console.aws.amazon.com/ec2/.

2. In the navigation pane, choose Network Interfaces.
3. Select the network interface for which to view the prefixes and choose the Details tab.
4. The IPv4 Prefix Delegation field lists the assigned IPv4 prefixes, and the IPv6 Prefix Delegation
field lists the assigned IPv6 prefixes.

AWS CLI

You can use the describe-network-interfaces AWS CLI command to view the prefixes assigned to
your network interfaces.

C:\> aws ec2 describe-network-interfaces

Example output

{
"NetworkInterfaces": [
{
"AvailabilityZone": "us-west-2a",
"Description": "IPv4 automatic example",
"Groups": [
{
"GroupName": "default",
"GroupId": "sg-044c2de2c4EXAMPLE"
}
],
"InterfaceType": "interface",
"Ipv6Addresses": [],
"MacAddress": "02:98:65:dd:18:47",
"NetworkInterfaceId": "eni-02b80b4668EXAMPLE",
"OwnerId": "123456789012",
"PrivateIpAddress": "10.0.0.62",
"PrivateIpAddresses": [
{
"Primary": true,
"PrivateIpAddress": "10.0.0.62"
}
],
"Ipv4Prefixes": [
{
"Ipv4Prefix": "10.0.0.208/28"
}
],
"Ipv6Prefixes": [],
"RequesterId": "AIDAIV5AJI5LXF5XXDPCO",
"RequesterManaged": false,
"SourceDestCheck": true,
"Status": "available",
"SubnetId": "subnet-05eef9fb78EXAMPLE",
"TagSet": [],
"VpcId": "vpc-0e12f52b2146bf252"
},

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{
"AvailabilityZone": "us-west-2a",
"Description": "IPv6 automatic example",
"Groups": [
{
"GroupName": "default",
"GroupId": "sg-044c2de2c411c91b5"
}
],
"InterfaceType": "interface",
"Ipv6Addresses": [],
"MacAddress": "02:bb:e4:31:fe:09",
"NetworkInterfaceId": "eni-006edbcfa4EXAMPLE",
"OwnerId": "123456789012",
"PrivateIpAddress": "10.0.0.73",
"PrivateIpAddresses": [
{
"Primary": true,
"PrivateIpAddress": "10.0.0.73"
}
],
"Ipv4Prefixes": [],
"Ipv6Prefixes": [
{
"Ipv6Prefix": "2600:1f13:fc2:a700:1768::/80"
}
],
"RequesterId": "AIDAIV5AJI5LXF5XXDPCO",
"RequesterManaged": false,
"SourceDestCheck": true,
"Status": "available",
"SubnetId": "subnet-05eef9fb78EXAMPLE",
"TagSet": [],
"VpcId": "vpc-0e12f52b21EXAMPLE"
}
]
}

Remove prefixes from your network interfaces

You can remove prefixes from your network interfaces using one of the following methods.

Console

To remove the prefixes from a network interface

1. Open the Amazon EC2 console at https://console.aws.amazon.com/ec2/.

2. In the navigation pane, choose Network Interfaces.
3. Select the network interface from which to remove the prefixes and choose Actions, Manage
prefixes.
4. Do one of the following:

• To remove all assigned prefixes, for IPv4 prefix delegation and IPv6 prefix delegation,
choose Do not assign.
• To remove specific assigned prefixes, for IPv4 prefix delegation or IPv6 prefix delegation,
choose Custom and then choose Unassign next to the prefixes to remove.

Note
IPv6 prefix delegation appears only if the selected subnet is enabled for IPv6.

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5. Choose Save.

AWS CLI

You can use the unassign-ipv6-addresses command to remove IPv6 prefixes and the unassign-
private-ip-addresses commands to remove IPv4 prefixes from your existing network interfaces.

To remove IPv4 prefixes from a network interface

Use the unassign-private-ip-addresses command and set --ipv4-prefix to the address that you
want to remove.

C:\> aws ec2 unassign-private-ip-addresses \

--network-interface-id eni-081fbb4095EXAMPLE \
--ipv4-prefixes 10.0.0.176/28

To remove IPv6 prefixes from a network interface

Use the unassign-ipv6-addresses command and set --ipv6-prefix to the address that you want
to remove.

C:\> aws ec2 unassign-ipv6-addresses \

--network-interface-id eni-00d577338cEXAMPLE \
--ipv6-prefix 2600:1f13:fc2:a700:18bb::/80

Elastic IP addresses
An Elastic IP address is a static IPv4 address designed for dynamic cloud computing. An Elastic IP address
is allocated to your AWS account, and is yours until you release it. By using an Elastic IP address, you
can mask the failure of an instance or software by rapidly remapping the address to another instance
in your account. Alternatively, you can specify the Elastic IP address in a DNS record for your domain, so
that your domain points to your instance. For more information, see the documentation for your domain
registrar.

An Elastic IP address is a public IPv4 address, which is reachable from the internet. If your instance does
not have a public IPv4 address, you can associate an Elastic IP address with your instance to enable
communication with the internet. For example, this allows you to connect to your instance from your
local computer.

We currently do not support Elastic IP addresses for IPv6.

Contents
• Elastic IP address pricing (p. 939)
• Elastic IP address basics (p. 940)
• Work with Elastic IP addresses (p. 940)
• Use reverse DNS for email applications (p. 946)
• Elastic IP address limit (p. 947)

Elastic IP address pricing

To ensure efficient use of Elastic IP addresses, we impose a small hourly charge if an Elastic IP address
is not associated with a running instance, or if it is associated with a stopped instance or an unattached
network interface. While your instance is running, you are not charged for one Elastic IP address

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associated with the instance, but you are charged for any additional Elastic IP addresses associated with
the instance.

For more information, see Elastic IP Addresses on the Amazon EC2 Pricing, On-Demand Pricing page.

Elastic IP address basics

The following are the basic characteristics of an Elastic IP address:

• An Elastic IP address is static; it does not change over time.

• To use an Elastic IP address, you first allocate one to your account, and then associate it with your
instance or a network interface.
• When you associate an Elastic IP address with an instance, it is also associated with the instance's
primary network interface. When you associate an Elastic IP address with a network interface that is
attached to an instance, it is also associated with the instance.
• When you associate an Elastic IP address with an instance or its primary network interface, the
instance's public IPv4 address (if it had one) is released back into Amazon's pool of public IPv4
addresses. You cannot reuse a public IPv4 address, and you cannot convert a public IPv4 address
to an Elastic IP address. For more information, see Public IPv4 addresses and external DNS
hostnames (p. 905).
• You can disassociate an Elastic IP address from a resource, and then associate it with a different
resource. To avoid unexpected behavior, ensure that all active connections to the resource named in
the existing association are closed before you make the change. After you have associated your Elastic
IP address to a different resource, you can reopen your connections to the newly associated resource.
• A disassociated Elastic IP address remains allocated to your account until you explicitly release it. We
impose a small hourly charge for Elastic IP addresses that are not associated with a running instance.
• When you associate an Elastic IP address with an instance that previously had a public IPv4 address,
the public DNS host name of the instance changes to match the Elastic IP address.
• We resolve a public DNS host name to the public IPv4 address or the Elastic IP address of the instance
outside the network of the instance, and to the private IPv4 address of the instance from within the
network of the instance.
• An Elastic IP address comes from Amazon's pool of IPv4 addresses, or from a custom IP address pool
that you have brought to your AWS account.
• When you allocate an Elastic IP address from an IP address pool that you have brought to your AWS
account, it does not count toward your Elastic IP address limits. For more information, see Elastic IP
address limit (p. 947).
• When you allocate the Elastic IP addresses, you can associate the Elastic IP addresses with a network
border group. This is the location from which we advertise the CIDR block. Setting the network border
group limits the CIDR block to this group. If you do not specify the network border group, we set the
border group containing all of the Availability Zones in the Region (for example, us-west-2).
• An Elastic IP address is for use in a specific network border group only.
• An Elastic IP address is for use in a specific Region only, and cannot be moved to a different Region.

Work with Elastic IP addresses

The following sections describe how you can work with Elastic IP addresses.

Tasks
• Allocate an Elastic IP address (p. 941)
• Describe your Elastic IP addresses (p. 942)
• Tag an Elastic IP address (p. 942)
• Associate an Elastic IP address with an instance or network interface (p. 943)

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• Disassociate an Elastic IP address (p. 944)

• Release an Elastic IP address (p. 945)
• Recover an Elastic IP address (p. 946)

Allocate an Elastic IP address

You can allocate an Elastic IP address from Amazon's pool of public IPv4 addresses, or from a custom IP
address pool that you have brought to your AWS account. For more information about bringing your own
IP address range to your AWS account, see Bring your own IP addresses (BYOIP) in Amazon EC2 (p. 919).

You can allocate an Elastic IP address using one of the following methods.

New console

To allocate an Elastic IP address

1. Open the Amazon EC2 console at https://console.aws.amazon.com/ec2/.

2. In the navigation pane, choose Network & Security, Elastic IPs.
3. Choose Allocate Elastic IP address.
4. For Public IPv4 address pool, choose one of the following:

• Amazon's pool of IPv4 addresses—If you want an IPv4 address to be allocated from
Amazon's pool of IPv4 addresses.
• My pool of public IPv4 addresses—If you want to allocate an IPv4 address from an IP address
pool that you have brought to your AWS account. This option is disabled if you do not have
any IP address pools.
• Customer owned pool of IPv4 addresses—If you want to allocate an IPv4 address from a
pool created from your on-premises network for use with an AWS Outpost. This option is
disabled if you do not have an AWS Outpost.
5. (Optional) Add or remove a tag.

[Add a tag] Choose Add new tag and do the following:

• For Key, enter the key name.

• For Value, enter the key value.

[Remove a tag] Choose Remove to the right of the tag’s Key and Value.
6. Choose Allocate.

Old console

To allocate an Elastic IP address

1. Open the Amazon EC2 console at https://console.aws.amazon.com/ec2/.

2. In the navigation pane, choose Elastic IPs.
3. Choose Allocate new address.
4. For IPv4 address pool, choose Amazon pool.
5. Choose Allocate, and close the confirmation screen.

AWS CLI

To allocate an Elastic IP address

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Use the allocate-address AWS CLI command.

PowerShell

To allocate an Elastic IP address

Use the New-EC2Address AWS Tools for Windows PowerShell command.

Describe your Elastic IP addresses

You can describe an Elastic IP address using one of the following methods.

New console

To describe your Elastic IP addresses

1. Open the Amazon EC2 console at https://console.aws.amazon.com/ec2/.

2. In the navigation pane, choose Elastic IPs.
3. Select the Elastic IP address to view and choose Actions, View details.

Old console

To describe your Elastic IP addresses

1. Open the Amazon EC2 console at https://console.aws.amazon.com/ec2/.

2. In the navigation pane, choose Elastic IPs.
3. Select a filter from the Resource Attribute list to begin searching. You can use multiple filters in
a single search.

AWS CLI

To describe your Elastic IP addresses

Use the describe-addresses AWS CLI command.

PowerShell

To describe your Elastic IP addresses

Use the Get-EC2Address AWS Tools for Windows PowerShell command.

Tag an Elastic IP address

You can assign custom tags to your Elastic IP addresses to categorize them in different ways, for
example, by purpose, owner, or environment. This helps you to quickly find a specific Elastic IP address
based on the custom tags that you assigned to it.

Cost allocation tracking using Elastic IP address tags is not supported.

You can tag an Elastic IP address using one of the following methods.

New console

To tag an Elastic IP address

1. Open the Amazon EC2 console at https://console.aws.amazon.com/ec2/.

2. In the navigation pane, choose Elastic IPs.

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3. Select the Elastic IP address to tag and choose Actions, View details.
4. In the Tags section, choose Manage tags.
5. Specify a tag key and value pair.
6. (Optional) Choose Add tag to add additional tags.
7. Choose Save.

Old console

To tag an Elastic IP address

1. Open the Amazon EC2 console at https://console.aws.amazon.com/ec2/.

2. In the navigation pane, choose Elastic IPs.
3. Select the Elastic IP address to tag and choose Tags.
4. Choose Add/Edit Tags.
5. In the Add/Edit Tags dialog box, choose Create Tag, and then specify the key and value for the
tag.
6. (Optional) Choose Create Tag to add additional tags to the Elastic IP address.
7. Choose Save.

AWS CLI

To tag an Elastic IP address

Use the create-tags AWS CLI command.

aws ec2 create-tags --resources eipalloc-12345678 --tags Key=Owner,Value=TeamA

PowerShell

To tag an Elastic IP address

Use the New-EC2Tag AWS Tools for Windows PowerShell command.

The New-EC2Tag command needs a Tag parameter, which specifies the key and value pair to be
used for the Elastic IP address tag. The following commands create the Tag parameter.

PS C:\> $tag = New-Object Amazon.EC2.Model.Tag

PS C:\> $tag.Key = "Owner"
PS C:\> $tag.Value = "TeamA"

PS C:\> New-EC2Tag -Resource eipalloc-12345678 -Tag $tag

Associate an Elastic IP address with an instance or network

interface
If you're associating an Elastic IP address with your instance to enable communication with the internet,
you must also ensure that your instance is in a public subnet. For more information, see Internet
Gateways in the Amazon VPC User Guide.

You can associate an Elastic IP address with an instance or network interface using one of the following
methods.

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New console

To associate an Elastic IP address with an instance

1. Open the Amazon EC2 console at https://console.aws.amazon.com/ec2/.

2. In the navigation pane, choose Elastic IPs.
3. Select the Elastic IP address to associate and choose Actions, Associate Elastic IP address.
4. For Resource type, choose Instance.
5. For instance, choose the instance with which to associate the Elastic IP address. You can also
enter text to search for a specific instance.
6. (Optional) For Private IP address, specify a private IP address with which to associate the Elastic
IP address.
7. Choose Associate.

To associate an Elastic IP address with a network interface

1. Open the Amazon EC2 console at https://console.aws.amazon.com/ec2/.

2. In the navigation pane, choose Elastic IPs.
3. Select the Elastic IP address to associate and choose Actions, Associate Elastic IP address.
4. For Resource type, choose Network interface.
5. For Network interface, choose the network interface with which to associate the Elastic IP
address. You can also enter text to search for a specific network interface.
6. (Optional) For Private IP address, specify a private IP address with which to associate the Elastic
IP address.
7. Choose Associate.

Old console

To associate an Elastic IP address with an instance

1. Open the Amazon EC2 console at https://console.aws.amazon.com/ec2/.

2. In the navigation pane, choose Elastic IPs.
3. Select an Elastic IP address and choose Actions, Associate address.
4. Select the instance from Instance and then choose Associate.

AWS CLI

To associate an Elastic IP address

Use the associate-address AWS CLI command.

PowerShell

To associate an Elastic IP address

Use the Register-EC2Address AWS Tools for Windows PowerShell command.

Disassociate an Elastic IP address

You can disassociate an Elastic IP address from an instance or network interface at any time. After you
disassociate the Elastic IP address, you can reassociate it with another resource.

You can disassociate an Elastic IP address using one of the following methods.

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New console

To disassociate and reassociate an Elastic IP address

1. Open the Amazon EC2 console at https://console.aws.amazon.com/ec2/.

2. In the navigation pane, choose Elastic IPs.
3. Select the Elastic IP address to disassociate, choose Actions, Disassociate Elastic IP address.
4. Choose Disassociate.

Old console

To disassociate and reassociate an Elastic IP address

1. Open the Amazon EC2 console at https://console.aws.amazon.com/ec2/.

2. In the navigation pane, choose Elastic IPs.
3. Select the Elastic IP address, choose Actions, and then select Disassociate address.
4. Choose Disassociate address.

AWS CLI

To disassociate an Elastic IP address

Use the disassociate-address AWS CLI command.

PowerShell

To disassociate an Elastic IP address

Use the Unregister-EC2Address AWS Tools for Windows PowerShell command.

Release an Elastic IP address

If you no longer need an Elastic IP address, we recommend that you release it using one of the following
methods. The address to release must not be currently associated with an AWS resource, such as an EC2
instance, NAT gateway, or Network Load Balancer.

New console

To release an Elastic IP address

1. Open the Amazon EC2 console at https://console.aws.amazon.com/ec2/.

2. In the navigation pane, choose Elastic IPs.
3. Select the Elastic IP address to release and choose Actions, Release Elastic IP addresses.
4. Choose Release.

Old console

To release an Elastic IP address

1. Open the Amazon EC2 console at https://console.aws.amazon.com/ec2/.

2. In the navigation pane, choose Elastic IPs.
3. Select the Elastic IP address, choose Actions, and then select Release addresses. Choose
Release when prompted.

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Use reverse DNS for email applications

AWS CLI

To release an Elastic IP address

Use the release-address AWS CLI command.

PowerShell

To release an Elastic IP address

Use the Remove-EC2Address AWS Tools for Windows PowerShell command.

Recover an Elastic IP address

If you have released your Elastic IP address, you might be able to recover it. The following rules apply:

• You cannot recover an Elastic IP address if it has been allocated to another AWS account, or if it will
result in your exceeding your Elastic IP address limit.
• You cannot recover tags associated with an Elastic IP address.
• You can recover an Elastic IP address using the Amazon EC2 API or a command line tool only.

AWS CLI

To recover an Elastic IP address

Use the allocate-address AWS CLI command and specify the IP address using the --address
parameter as follows.

aws ec2 allocate-address --domain vpc --address 203.0.113.3

PowerShell

To recover an Elastic IP address

Use the New-EC2Address AWS Tools for Windows PowerShell command and specify the IP address
using the -Address parameter as follows.

PS C:\> New-EC2Address -Address 203.0.113.3 -Domain vpc -Region us-east-1

Use reverse DNS for email applications

If you intend to send email to third parties from an instance, we recommend that you provision one or
more Elastic IP addresses and assign static reverse DNS records to the Elastic IP addresses that you use to
send email. This can help you avoid having your email flagged as spam by some anti-spam organizations.
AWS works with ISPs and internet anti-spam organizations to reduce the chance that your email sent
from these addresses will be flagged as spam.

Considerations

• Before you create a reverse DNS record, you must set a corresponding forward DNS record (record type
A) that points to your Elastic IP address.
• If a reverse DNS record is associated with an Elastic IP address, the Elastic IP address is locked to your
account and cannot be released from your account until the record is removed.

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Console

To create a reverse DNS record for your Elastic IP address

1. Open the Amazon EC2 console at https://console.aws.amazon.com/ec2/.

2. Choose Elastic IPs from the navigation pane.
3. Select the Elastic IP address and choose Actions, Update reverse DNS.
4. For Reverse DNS domain name, enter the domain name to associate with the Elastic IP address.
5. Enter update to confirm.
6. Choose Update.

AWS CLI

To create a reverse DNS record for your Elastic IP address

• Use the modify-address-attribute AWS CLI command to associate your domain name to your
Elastic IP address.

AWS GovCloud (US) Region and China Regions

For these Regions, you can't create a reverse DNS record using the methods above. AWS must assign the
static reverse DNS records for you. Open Request to remove reverse DNS and email sending limitations
and provide us with your Elastic IP addresses and reverse DNS records.

Elastic IP address limit

By default, all AWS accounts are limited to five (5) Elastic IP addresses per Region, because public (IPv4)
internet addresses are a scarce public resource. We strongly encourage you to use an Elastic IP address
primarily for the ability to remap the address to another instance in the case of instance failure, and to
use DNS hostnames for all other inter-node communication.

To verify how many Elastic IP addresses are in use

Open the Amazon EC2 console at https://console.aws.amazon.com/ec2/ and choose Elastic IPs from the
navigation pane.

To verify your current account limit for Elastic IP addresses

You can verify your limit in either the Amazon EC2 console or the Service Quotas console. Do one of the
following:

• Open the Amazon EC2 console at https://console.aws.amazon.com/ec2/.

Choose Limits from the navigation pane, and then enter IP in the search field. The limit is EC2-VPC
Elastic IPs. If you have access to EC2-Classic, there is an additional limit, EC2-Classic Elastic IPs.
• Open the Service Quotas console at https://console.aws.amazon.com/servicequotas/.

On the Dashboard, choose Amazon Elastic Compute Cloud (Amazon EC2). If Amazon Elastic Compute
Cloud (Amazon EC2) is not listed on the Dashboard, choose AWS services, enter EC2 in the search
field, and then choose Amazon Elastic Compute Cloud (Amazon EC2).

On the Amazon EC2 service quotas page, enter IP in the search field. The limit is EC2-VPC Elastic
IPs. If you have access to EC2-Classic, there is an additional limit, EC2-Classic Elastic IPs. For more
information, choose the limit.

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Network interfaces

If you think your architecture warrants additional Elastic IP addresses, you can request a quota increase
directly from the Service Quotas console.

Elastic network interfaces

An elastic network interface is a logical networking component in a VPC that represents a virtual network
card. It can include the following attributes:

• A primary private IPv4 address from the IPv4 address range of your VPC
• One or more secondary private IPv4 addresses from the IPv4 address range of your VPC
• One Elastic IP address (IPv4) per private IPv4 address
• One public IPv4 address
• One or more IPv6 addresses
• One or more security groups
• A MAC address
• A source/destination check flag
• A description

You can create and configure network interfaces and attach them to instances in the same Availability
Zone. Your account might also have requester-managed network interfaces, which are created and
managed by AWS services to enable you to use other resources and services. You cannot manage these
network interfaces yourself. For more information, see Requester-managed network interfaces (p. 971).

This AWS resource is referred to as a network interface in the AWS Management Console and the Amazon
EC2 API. Therefore, we use "network interface" in this documentation instead of "elastic network
interface". The term "network interface" in this documentation always means "elastic network interface".

Contents
• Network interface basics (p. 948)
• IP addresses per network interface per instance type (p. 950)
• Work with network interfaces (p. 961)
• Scenarios for network interfaces (p. 968)
• Best practices for configuring network interfaces (p. 970)
• Requester-managed network interfaces (p. 971)

Network interface basics

You can create a network interface, attach it to an instance, detach it from an instance, and attach it to
another instance. The attributes of a network interface follow it as it's attached or detached from an
instance and reattached to another instance. When you move a network interface from one instance to
another, network traffic is redirected to the new instance.

Primary network interface

Each instance has a default network interface, called the primary network interface. You cannot detach
a primary network interface from an instance. You can create and attach additional network interfaces.
The maximum number of network interfaces that you can use varies by instance type. For more
information, see IP addresses per network interface per instance type (p. 950).

Public IPv4 addresses for network interfaces

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Network interface basics

In a VPC, all subnets have a modifiable attribute that determines whether network interfaces created in
that subnet (and therefore instances launched into that subnet) are assigned a public IPv4 address. For
more information, see IP addressing behavior for your subnet in the Amazon VPC User Guide. The public
IPv4 address is assigned from Amazon's pool of public IPv4 addresses. When you launch an instance, the
IP address is assigned to the primary network interface that's created.

When you create a network interface, it inherits the public IPv4 addressing attribute from the subnet.
If you later modify the public IPv4 addressing attribute of the subnet, the network interface keeps the
setting that was in effect when it was created. If you launch an instance and specify an existing network
interface as the primary network interface, the public IPv4 address attribute is determined by this
network interface.

For more information, see Public IPv4 addresses and external DNS hostnames (p. 905).

Elastic IP addresses for network interface

If you have an Elastic IP address, you can associate it with one of the private IPv4 addresses for the
network interface. You can associate one Elastic IP address with each private IPv4 address.

If you disassociate an Elastic IP address from a network interface, you can release it back to the address
pool. This is the only way to associate an Elastic IP address with an instance in a different subnet or VPC,
as network interfaces are specific to subnets.

IPv6 addresses for network interfaces

If you associate IPv6 CIDR blocks with your VPC and subnet, you can assign one or more IPv6 addresses
from the subnet range to a network interface. Each IPv6 address can be assigned to one network
interface.

All subnets have a modifiable attribute that determines whether network interfaces created in that
subnet (and therefore instances launched into that subnet) are automatically assigned an IPv6 address
from the range of the subnet. For more information, see IP addressing behavior for your subnet in the
Amazon VPC User Guide. When you launch an instance, the IPv6 address is assigned to the primary
network interface that's created.

For more information, see IPv6 addresses (p. 906).

Prefix Delegation

A Prefix Delegation prefix is a reserved private IPv4 or IPv6 CIDR range that you allocate for automatic
or manual assignment to network interfaces that are associated with an instance. By using Delegated
Prefixes, you can launch services faster by assigning a range of IP addresses as a single prefix.

Termination behavior

You can set the termination behavior for a network interface that's attached to an instance. You can
specify whether the network interface should be automatically deleted when you terminate the instance
to which it's attached.

Source/destination checking

You can enable or disable source/destination checks, which ensure that the instance is either the source
or the destination of any traffic that it receives. Source/destination checks are enabled by default. You
must disable source/destination checks if the instance runs services such as network address translation,
routing, or firewalls.

Monitoring IP traffic

You can enable a VPC flow log on your network interface to capture information about the IP traffic
going to and from a network interface. After you've created a flow log, you can view and retrieve its data
in Amazon CloudWatch Logs. For more information, see VPC Flow Logs in the Amazon VPC User Guide.

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IP addresses per network interface per instance type

IP addresses per network interface per instance type

The following table lists the maximum number of network interfaces per instance type, and the
maximum number of private IPv4 addresses and IPv6 addresses per network interface. The limit for IPv6
addresses is separate from the limit for private IPv4 addresses per network interface. Not all instance
types support IPv6 addressing.

Instance type Maximum network Private IPv4 addresses IPv6 addresses per
interfaces per interface interface

c1.medium 2 6 IPv6 not supported

c1.xlarge 4 15 IPv6 not supported

c3.large 3 10 10

c3.xlarge 4 15 15

c3.2xlarge 4 15 15

c3.4xlarge 8 30 30

c3.8xlarge 8 30 30

c4.large 3 10 10

c4.xlarge 4 15 15

c4.2xlarge 4 15 15

c4.4xlarge 8 30 30

c4.8xlarge 8 30 30

c5.large 3 10 10

c5.xlarge 4 15 15

c5.2xlarge 4 15 15

c5.4xlarge 8 30 30

c5.9xlarge 8 30 30

c5.12xlarge 8 30 30

c5.18xlarge 15 50 50

c5.24xlarge 15 50 50

c5.metal 15 50 50

c5a.large 3 10 10

c5a.xlarge 4 15 15

c5a.2xlarge 4 15 15

c5a.4xlarge 8 30 30

c5a.8xlarge 8 30 30

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Instance type Maximum network Private IPv4 addresses IPv6 addresses per
interfaces per interface interface

c5a.12xlarge 8 30 30

c5a.16xlarge 15 50 50

c5a.24xlarge 15 50 50

c5ad.large 3 10 10

c5ad.xlarge 4 15 15

c5ad.2xlarge 4 15 15

c5ad.4xlarge 8 30 30

c5ad.8xlarge 8 30 30

c5ad.12xlarge 8 30 30

c5ad.16xlarge 15 50 50

c5ad.24xlarge 15 50 50

c5d.large 3 10 10

c5d.xlarge 4 15 15

c5d.2xlarge 4 15 15

c5d.4xlarge 8 30 30

c5d.9xlarge 8 30 30

c5d.12xlarge 8 30 30

c5d.18xlarge 15 50 50

c5d.24xlarge 15 50 50

c5d.metal 15 50 50

c5n.large 3 10 10

c5n.xlarge 4 15 15

c5n.2xlarge 4 15 15

c5n.4xlarge 8 30 30

c5n.9xlarge 8 30 30

c5n.18xlarge 15 50 50

c5n.metal 15 50 50

cc2.8xlarge 8 30 IPv6 not supported

cr1.8xlarge 8 30 IPv6 not supported

d2.xlarge 4 15 15

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Instance type Maximum network Private IPv4 addresses IPv6 addresses per
interfaces per interface interface

d2.2xlarge 4 15 15

d2.4xlarge 8 30 30

d2.8xlarge 8 30 30

d3.xlarge 4 3 3

d3.2xlarge 4 5 5

d3.4xlarge 4 10 10

d3.8xlarge 3 20 20

d3en.large 4 2 2

d3en.xlarge 4 3 3

d3en.2xlarge 4 5 5

d3en.4xlarge 4 10 10

d3en.6large 4 15 15

d3en.8xlarge 4 20 20

d3en.12xlarge 3 30 30

f1.2xlarge 4 15 15

f1.4xlarge 8 30 30

f1.16xlarge 8 50 50

g2.2xlarge 4 15 IPv6 not supported

g2.8xlarge 8 30 IPv6 not supported

g3s.xlarge 4 15 15

g3.4xlarge 8 30 30

g3.8xlarge 8 30 30

g3.16xlarge 15 50 50

g4ad.xlarge 2 4 4

g4ad.2xlarge 2 4 4

g4ad.4xlarge 3 10 10

g4ad.8xlarge 4 15 15

g4ad.16xlarge 8 30 30

g4dn.xlarge 3 10 10

g4dn.2xlarge 3 10 10

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Instance type Maximum network Private IPv4 addresses IPv6 addresses per
interfaces per interface interface

g4dn.4xlarge 3 10 10

g4dn.8xlarge 4 15 15

g4dn.12xlarge 8 30 30

g4dn.16xlarge 4 15 15

g4dn.metal 15 50 50

h1.2xlarge 4 15 15

h1.4xlarge 8 30 30

h1.8xlarge 8 30 30

h1.16xlarge 15 50 50

hs1.8xlarge 8 30 IPv6 not supported

i2.xlarge 4 15 15

i2.2xlarge 4 15 15

i2.4xlarge 8 30 30

i2.8xlarge 8 30 30

i3.large 3 10 10

i3.xlarge 4 15 15

i3.2xlarge 4 15 15

i3.4xlarge 8 30 30

i3.8xlarge 8 30 30

i3.16xlarge 15 50 50

i3.metal 15 50 50

i3en.large 3 10 10

i3en.xlarge 4 15 15

i3en.2xlarge 4 15 15

i3en.3xlarge 4 15 15

i3en.6xlarge 8 30 30

i3en.12xlarge 8 30 30

i3en.24xlarge 15 50 50

i3en.metal 15 50 50

m1.small 2 4 IPv6 not supported

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Instance type Maximum network Private IPv4 addresses IPv6 addresses per
interfaces per interface interface

m1.medium 2 6 IPv6 not supported

m1.large 3 10 IPv6 not supported

m1.xlarge 4 15 IPv6 not supported

m2.xlarge 4 15 IPv6 not supported

m2.2xlarge 4 30 IPv6 not supported

m2.4xlarge 8 30 IPv6 not supported

m3.medium 2 6 IPv6 not supported

m3.large 3 10 IPv6 not supported

m3.xlarge 4 15 IPv6 not supported

m3.2xlarge 4 30 IPv6 not supported

m4.large 2 10 10

m4.xlarge 4 15 15

m4.2xlarge 4 15 15

m4.4xlarge 8 30 30

m4.10xlarge 8 30 30

m4.16xlarge 8 30 30

m5.large 3 10 10

m5.xlarge 4 15 15

m5.2xlarge 4 15 15

m5.4xlarge 8 30 30

m5.8xlarge 8 30 30

m5.12xlarge 8 30 30

m5.16xlarge 15 50 50

m5.24xlarge 15 50 50

m5.metal 15 50 50

m5a.large 3 10 10

m5a.xlarge 4 15 15

m5a.2xlarge 4 15 15

m5a.4xlarge 8 30 30

m5a.8xlarge 8 30 30

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Instance type Maximum network Private IPv4 addresses IPv6 addresses per
interfaces per interface interface

m5a.12xlarge 8 30 30

m5a.16xlarge 15 50 50

m5a.24xlarge 15 50 50

m5ad.large 3 10 10

m5ad.xlarge 4 15 15

m5ad.2xlarge 4 15 15

m5ad.4xlarge 8 30 30

m5ad.8xlarge 8 30 30

m5ad.12xlarge 8 30 30

m5ad.16xlarge 15 50 50

m5ad.24xlarge 15 50 50

m5d.large 3 10 10

m5d.xlarge 4 15 15

m5d.2xlarge 4 15 15

m5d.4xlarge 8 30 30

m5d.8xlarge 8 30 30

m5d.12xlarge 8 30 30

m5d.16xlarge 15 50 50

m5d.24xlarge 15 50 50

m5d.metal 15 50 50

m5dn.large 3 10 10

m5dn.xlarge 4 15 15

m5dn.2xlarge 4 15 15

m5dn.4xlarge 8 30 30

m5dn.8xlarge 8 30 30

m5dn.12xlarge 8 30 30

m5dn.16xlarge 15 50 50

m5dn.24xlarge 15 50 50

m5dn.metal 15 50 50

m5n.large 3 10 10

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Instance type Maximum network Private IPv4 addresses IPv6 addresses per
interfaces per interface interface

m5n.xlarge 4 15 15

m5n.2xlarge 4 15 15

m5n.4xlarge 8 30 30

m5n.8xlarge 8 30 30

m5n.12xlarge 8 30 30

m5n.16xlarge 15 50 50

m5n.24xlarge 15 50 50

m5n.metal 15 50 50

m5zn.large 3 10 10

m5zn.xlarge 4 15 15

m5zn.2xlarge 4 15 15

m5zn.3xlarge 8 30 30

m5zn.6xlarge 8 30 30

m5zn.12xlarge 15 50 50

m5zn.metal 15 50 50

m6i.large 3 10 10

m6i.xlarge 4 15 15

m6i.2xlarge 4 15 15

m6i.4xlarge 8 30 30

m6i.8xlarge 8 30 30

m6i.12xlarge 8 30 30

m6i.16xlarge 15 50 50

m6i.24xlarge 15 50 50

m6i.32xlarge 15 50 50

p2.xlarge 4 15 15

p2.8xlarge 8 30 30

p2.16xlarge 8 30 30

p3.2xlarge 4 15 15

p3.8xlarge 8 30 30

p3.16xlarge 8 30 30

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Instance type Maximum network Private IPv4 addresses IPv6 addresses per
interfaces per interface interface

p3dn.24xlarge 15 50 50

r3.large 3 10 10

r3.xlarge 4 15 15

r3.2xlarge 4 15 15

r3.4xlarge 8 30 30

r3.8xlarge 8 30 30

r4.large 3 10 10

r4.xlarge 4 15 15

r4.2xlarge 4 15 15

r4.4xlarge 8 30 30

r4.8xlarge 8 30 30

r4.16xlarge 15 50 50

r5.large 3 10 10

r5.xlarge 4 15 15

r5.2xlarge 4 15 15

r5.4xlarge 8 30 30

r5.8xlarge 8 30 30

r5.12xlarge 8 30 30

r5.16xlarge 15 50 50

r5.24xlarge 15 50 50

r5.metal 15 50 50

r5a.large 3 10 10

r5a.xlarge 4 15 15

r5a.2xlarge 4 15 15

r5a.4xlarge 8 30 30

r5a.8xlarge 8 30 30

r5a.12xlarge 8 30 30

r5a.16xlarge 15 50 50

r5a.24xlarge 15 50 50

r5ad.large 3 10 10

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Instance type Maximum network Private IPv4 addresses IPv6 addresses per
interfaces per interface interface

r5ad.xlarge 4 15 15

r5ad.2xlarge 4 15 15

r5ad.4xlarge 8 30 30

r5ad.8xlarge 8 30 30

r5ad.12xlarge 8 30 30

r5ad.16xlarge 15 50 50

r5ad.24xlarge 15 50 50

r5b.large 3 10 10

r5b.xlarge 4 15 15

r5b.2xlarge 4 15 15

r5b.4xlarge 8 30 30

r5b.8xlarge 8 30 30

r5b.12xlarge 8 30 30

r5b.16xlarge 15 50 50

r5b.24xlarge 15 50 50

r5b.metal 15 50 50

r5d.large 3 10 10

r5d.xlarge 4 15 15

r5d.2xlarge 4 15 15

r5d.4xlarge 8 30 30

r5d.8xlarge 8 30 30

r5d.12xlarge 8 30 30

r5d.16xlarge 15 50 50

r5d.24xlarge 15 50 50

r5d.metal 15 50 50

r5dn.large 3 10 10

r5dn.xlarge 4 15 15

r5dn.2xlarge 4 15 15

r5dn.4xlarge 8 30 30

r5dn.8xlarge 8 30 30

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Instance type Maximum network Private IPv4 addresses IPv6 addresses per
interfaces per interface interface

r5dn.12xlarge 8 30 30

r5dn.16xlarge 15 50 50

r5dn.24xlarge 15 50 50

r5dn.metal 15 50 50

r5n.large 3 10 10

r5n.xlarge 4 15 15

r5n.2xlarge 4 15 15

r5n.4xlarge 8 30 30

r5n.8xlarge 8 30 30

r5n.12xlarge 8 30 30

r5n.16xlarge 15 50 50

r5n.24xlarge 15 50 50

r5n.metal 15 50 50

t1.micro 2 2 IPv6 not supported

t2.nano 2 2 2

t2.micro 2 2 2

t2.small 3 4 4

t2.medium 3 6 6

t2.large 3 12 12

t2.xlarge 3 15 15

t2.2xlarge 3 15 15

t3.nano 2 2 2

t3.micro 2 2 2

t3.small 3 4 4

t3.medium 3 6 6

t3.large 3 12 12

t3.xlarge 4 15 15

t3.2xlarge 4 15 15

t3a.nano 2 2 2

t3a.micro 2 2 2

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Instance type Maximum network Private IPv4 addresses IPv6 addresses per
interfaces per interface interface

t3a.small 2 4 4

t3a.medium 3 6 6

t3a.large 3 12 12

t3a.xlarge 4 15 15

t3a.2xlarge 4 15 15

u-6tb1.56xlarge15 50 50

15
u-6tb1.112xlarge 50 50

u-6tb1.metal 15 50 50

15
u-9tb1.112xlarge 50 50

u-9tb1.metal 15 50 50

15
u-12tb1.112xlarge 50 50

u-12tb1.metal 15 50 50

u-18tb1.metal 15 50 50

u-24tb1.metal 15 50 50

x1.16xlarge 8 30 30

x1.32xlarge 8 30 30

x1e.xlarge 3 10 10

x1e.2xlarge 4 15 15

x1e.4xlarge 4 15 15

x1e.8xlarge 4 15 15

x1e.16xlarge 8 30 30

x1e.32xlarge 8 30 30

z1d.large 3 10 10

z1d.xlarge 4 15 15

z1d.2xlarge 4 15 15

z1d.3xlarge 8 30 30

z1d.6xlarge 8 30 30

z1d.12xlarge 15 50 50

z1d.metal 15 50 50

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You can use the describe-instance-types AWS CLI command to display information about an instance
type, such as the supported network interfaces and IP addresses per interface. The following example
displays this information for all C5 instances.

aws ec2 describe-instance-types --filters "Name=instance-type,Values=c5.*" --query

"InstanceTypes[].{Type: InstanceType, MaxENI: NetworkInfo.MaximumNetworkInterfaces,
IPv4addr: NetworkInfo.Ipv4AddressesPerInterface}" --output table
---------------------------------------
| DescribeInstanceTypes |
+----------+----------+---------------+
| IPv4addr | MaxENI | Type |
+----------+----------+---------------+
| 30 | 8 | c5.4xlarge |
| 50 | 15 | c5.24xlarge |
| 15 | 4 | c5.xlarge |
| 30 | 8 | c5.12xlarge |
| 10 | 3 | c5.large |
| 15 | 4 | c5.2xlarge |
| 50 | 15 | c5.metal |
| 30 | 8 | c5.9xlarge |
| 50 | 15 | c5.18xlarge |
+----------+----------+---------------+

Work with network interfaces

You can work with network interfaces using the Amazon EC2 console or the command line.

Contents
• Create a network interface (p. 961)
• View details about a network interface (p. 962)
• Attach a network interface to an instance (p. 963)
• Detach a network interface from an instance (p. 964)
• Manage IP addresses (p. 965)
• Modify network interface attributes (p. 966)
• Add or edit tags (p. 967)
• Delete a network interface (p. 968)

Create a network interface

You can create a network interface in a subnet. You can't move the network interface to another subnet
after it's created. You must attach a network interface to an instance in the same Availability Zone.

New console

To create a network interface using the console

1. Open the Amazon EC2 console at https://console.aws.amazon.com/ec2/.

2. In the navigation pane, choose Network Interfaces.
3. Choose Create network interface.
4. (Optional) For Description, enter a descriptive name.
5. For Subnet, select a subnet.
6. For Private IPv4 address, do one of the following:
• Choose Auto-assign to allow Amazon EC2 to select an IPv4 address from the subnet.

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• Choose Custom and enter an IPv4 address that you select from the subnet.
7. (Subnets with IPv6 addresses only) For IPv6 address, do one of the following:
• Choose None if you do not want to assign an IPv6 address to the network interface.
• Choose Auto-assign to allow Amazon EC2 to select an IPv6 address from the subnet.
• Choose Custom and enter an IPv6 address that you select from the subnet.
8. (Optional) To create an Elastic Fabric Adapter, choose Elastic Fabric Adapter, Enable.
9. For Security groups, select one or more security groups.
10. (Optional) For each tag, choose Add new tag and enter a tag key and an optional tag value.
11. Choose Create network interface.

Old console

To create a network interface using the console

1. Open the Amazon EC2 console at https://console.aws.amazon.com/ec2/.

2. In the navigation pane, choose Network Interfaces.
3. Choose Create Network Interface.
4. For Description, enter a descriptive name.
5. For Subnet, select the subnet.
6. For Private IP (or IPv4 Private IP), enter the primary private IPv4 address. If you don't specify an
IPv4 address, we select an available private IPv4 address from within the selected subnet.
7. (IPv6 only) If you selected a subnet that has an associated IPv6 CIDR block, you can optionally
specify an IPv6 address in the IPv6 IP field.
8. To create an Elastic Fabric Adapter, select Elastic Fabric Adapter.
9. For Security groups, select one or more security groups.
10. (Optional) Choose Add Tag and enter a tag key and a tag value.
11. Choose Yes, Create.

To create a network interface using the command line

You can use one of the following commands. For more information about these command line interfaces,
see Access Amazon EC2 (p. 3).

• create-network-interface (AWS CLI)

• New-EC2NetworkInterface (AWS Tools for Windows PowerShell)

View details about a network interface

You can view all the network interfaces in your account.

New console

To describe a network interface using the console

1. Open the Amazon EC2 console at https://console.aws.amazon.com/ec2/.

2. In the navigation pane, choose Network Interfaces.
3. To view the details page for a network interface, select the ID of the network interface.
Alternatively, to view information without leaving the network interfaces page, select the
checkbox for the network interface.

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Old console

To describe a network interface using the console

1. Open the Amazon EC2 console at https://console.aws.amazon.com/ec2/.

2. In the navigation pane, choose Network Interfaces.
3. Select the network interface.
4. To view the details, choose Details.

To describe a network interface using the command line

You can use one of the following commands. For more information about these command line interfaces,
see Access Amazon EC2 (p. 3).

• describe-network-interfaces (AWS CLI)

• Get-EC2NetworkInterface (AWS Tools for Windows PowerShell)

To describe a network interface attribute using the command line

You can use one of the following commands. For more information about these command line interfaces,
see Access Amazon EC2 (p. 3).

• describe-network-interface-attribute (AWS CLI)

• Get-EC2NetworkInterfaceAttribute (AWS Tools for Windows PowerShell)

Attach a network interface to an instance

You can attach a network interface to any instance in the same Availability Zone as the network
interface, using either the Instances or Network Interfaces page of the Amazon EC2 console.
Alternatively, you can specify existing network interfaces when you launch instances (p. 396).

If the public IPv4 address on your instance is released, it does not receive a new one if there is more than
one network interface attached to the instance. For more information about the behavior of public IPv4
addresses, see Public IPv4 addresses and external DNS hostnames (p. 905).

Instances page

To attach a network interface to an instance using the Instances page

1. Open the Amazon EC2 console at https://console.aws.amazon.com/ec2/.

2. In the navigation pane, choose Instances.
3. Select the checkbox for the instance.
4. Choose Actions, Networking, Attach network interface.
5. Select a network interface. If the instance supports multiple network cards, you can choose a
network card.
6. Choose Attach.

Network Interfaces page

To attach a network interface to an instance using the Network Interfaces page

1. Open the Amazon EC2 console at https://console.aws.amazon.com/ec2/.

2. In the navigation pane, choose Network Interfaces.

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3. Select the checkbox for the network interface.

4. Choose Actions, Attach.
5. Choose an instance. If the instance supports multiple network cards, you can choose a network
card.
6. Choose Attach.

To attach a network interface to an instance using the command line

You can use one of the following commands. For more information about these command line interfaces,
see Access Amazon EC2 (p. 3).

• attach-network-interface (AWS CLI)

• Add-EC2NetworkInterface (AWS Tools for Windows PowerShell)

Detach a network interface from an instance

You can detach a secondary network interface that is attached to an EC2 instance at any time, using
either the Instances or Network Interfaces page of the Amazon EC2 console.

If you try to detach a network interface that is attached to a resource from another service, such as
an Elastic Load Balancing load balancer, a Lambda function, a WorkSpace, or a NAT gateway, you get
an error that you do not have permission to access the resource. To find which service created the
resource attached to a network interface, check the description of the network interface. If you delete
the resource, then its network interface is deleted.

Instances page

To detach a network interface from an instance using the Instances page

1. Open the Amazon EC2 console at https://console.aws.amazon.com/ec2/.

2. In the navigation pane, choose Instances.
3. Select the checkbox for the instance. Check the Network interfaces section of the Networking
tab to verify that the network interface is attached to an instance as a secondary network
interface.
4. Choose Actions, Networking, Detach network interface.
5. Select the network interface and choose Detach.

Network Interfaces page

To detach a network interface from an instance using the Network Interfaces page

1. Open the Amazon EC2 console at https://console.aws.amazon.com/ec2/.

2. In the navigation pane, choose Network Interfaces.
3. Select the checkbox for the network interface. Check the Instance details section of the Details
tab to verify that the network interface is attached to an instance as a secondary network
interface.
4. Choose Actions, Detach.
5. When prompted for confirmation, choose Detach.
6. If the network interface fails to detach from the instance, choose Force detachment, Enable
and then try again. We recommend that force detachment only as a last resort. Forcing a
detachment can prevent you from attaching a different network interface on the same index
until you restart the instance. It can also prevent the instance metadata from reflecting that the
network interface was detached until you restart the instance.

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To detach a network interface using the command line

You can use one of the following commands. For more information about these command line interfaces,
see Access Amazon EC2 (p. 3).

• detach-network-interface (AWS CLI)

• Dismount-EC2NetworkInterface (AWS Tools for Windows PowerShell)

Manage IP addresses
You can manage the following IP addresses for your network interfaces:

• Elastic IP addresses (one per private IPv4 address)

• IPv4 addresses
• IPv6 addresses

To manage the Elastic IP addresses of a network interface using the console

1. Open the Amazon EC2 console at https://console.aws.amazon.com/ec2/.

2. In the navigation pane, choose Network Interfaces.
3. Select the checkbox for the network interface.
4. To associate an Elastic IP address, do the following:

a. Choose Actions, Associate address.

b. For Elastic IP address, select the Elastic IP address.
c. For Private IPv4 address, select the private IPv4 address to associate with the Elastic IP address.
d. (Optional) Choose Allow the Elastic IP address to be reassociated if the network interface is
currently associated with another instance or network interface.
e. Choose Associate.
5. To disassociate an Elastic IP address, do the following:

a. Choose Actions, Disassociate address.

b. For Public IP address, select the Elastic IP address.
c. Choose Disassociate.

To manage the IPv4 and IPv6 addresses of a network interface using the console

1. Open the Amazon EC2 console at https://console.aws.amazon.com/ec2/.

2. In the navigation pane, choose Network Interfaces.
3. Select the network interface.
4. Choose Actions, Manage IP addresses.
5. Expand the network interface.
6. For IPv4 addresses, modify the IP addresses as needed. To assign an IPv4 address, choose Assign
new IP address and then specify an IPv4 address from the subnet range or let AWS choose one for
you. To unassign an IPv4 address, choose Unassign next to the address.
7. For IPv6 addresses, modify the IP addresses as needed. To assign an IPv6 address, choose Assign
new IP address and then specify an IPv6 address from the subnet range or let AWS choose one for
you. To unassign an IPv6 address, choose Unassign next to the address.
8. Choose Save.

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To manage the IP addresses of a network interface using the AWS CLI

You can use one of the following commands. For more information about these command line interfaces,
see Access Amazon EC2 (p. 3).

• assign-ipv6-addresses
• associate-address
• disassociate-address
• unassign-ipv6-addresses

To manage the IP addresses of a network interface using the Tools for Windows PowerShell

You can use one of the following commands.

• Register-EC2Address
• Register-EC2Ipv6AddressList
• Unregister-EC2Address
• Unregister-EC2Ipv6AddressList

Modify network interface attributes

You can change the following network interface attributes:

• Description (p. 966)

• Security groups (p. 966)
• Delete on termination (p. 967)
• Source/destination check (p. 967)

To change the description of a network interface using the console

1. Open the Amazon EC2 console at https://console.aws.amazon.com/ec2/.

2. In the navigation pane, choose Network Interfaces.
3. Select the checkbox for the network interface.
4. Choose Actions, Change description.
5. For Description, enter a description for the network interface.
6. Choose Save.

To change the security groups of a network interface using the console

1. Open the Amazon EC2 console at https://console.aws.amazon.com/ec2/.

2. In the navigation pane, choose Network Interfaces.
3. Select the checkbox for the network interface.
4. Choose Actions, Change security groups.
5. For Associated security groups, select the security groups to use, and then choose Save.

The security group and network interface must be created for the same VPC. To change the security
group for interfaces owned by other services, such as Elastic Load Balancing, do so through that
service.

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To change the termination behavior of a network interface using the console

1. Open the Amazon EC2 console at https://console.aws.amazon.com/ec2/.

2. In the navigation pane, choose Network Interfaces.
3. Select the checkbox for the network interface.
4. Choose Actions, Change termination behavior.
5. Select or clear Delete on termination, Enable as needed, and then choose Save.

To change source/destination checking for a network interface using the console

1. Open the Amazon EC2 console at https://console.aws.amazon.com/ec2/.

2. In the navigation pane, choose Network Interfaces.
3. Select the checkbox for the network interface.
4. Choose Actions, Change source/dest check.
5. Select or clear Source/destination check, Enable as needed, and then choose Save.

To modify network interface attributes using the command line

You can use one of the following commands. For more information about these command line interfaces,
see Access Amazon EC2 (p. 3).

• modify-network-interface-attribute (AWS CLI)

• Edit-EC2NetworkInterfaceAttribute (AWS Tools for Windows PowerShell)

Add or edit tags

Tags are metadata that you can add to a network interface. Tags are private and are only visible to your
account. Each tag consists of a key and an optional value. For more information about tags, see Tag your
Amazon EC2 resources (p. 1463).

New console

To add or edit tags for a network interface using the console

1. Open the Amazon EC2 console at https://console.aws.amazon.com/ec2/.

2. In the navigation pane, choose Network Interfaces.
3. Select the checkbox for the network interface.
4. In Tags tab, choose Manage tags.
5. For each tag to create, choose Add new tag and enter a key and optional value. When you're
done, choose Save.

Old console

To add or edit tags for a network interface using the console

1. Open the Amazon EC2 console at https://console.aws.amazon.com/ec2/.

2. In the navigation pane, choose Network Interfaces.
3. Select the network interface.
4. In the details pane, choose Tags, Add/Edit Tags.

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5. In the Add/Edit Tags dialog box, choose Create Tag for each tag to create, and enter a key and
optional value. When you're done, choose Save.

To add or edit tags for a network interface using the command line

You can use one of the following commands. For more information about these command line interfaces,
see Access Amazon EC2 (p. 3).

• create-tags (AWS CLI)

• New-EC2Tag (AWS Tools for Windows PowerShell)

Delete a network interface

Deleting a network interface releases all attributes associated with the interface and releases any private
IP addresses or Elastic IP addresses to be used by another instance.

You cannot delete a network interface that is in use. First, you must detach the network
interface (p. 964).

New console

To delete a network interface using the console

1. Open the Amazon EC2 console at https://console.aws.amazon.com/ec2/.

2. In the navigation pane, choose Network Interfaces.
3. Select the checkbox for the network interface, and then choose Actions, Delete.
4. When prompted for confirmation, choose Delete.

Old console

To delete a network interface using the console

1. Open the Amazon EC2 console at https://console.aws.amazon.com/ec2/.

2. In the navigation pane, choose Network Interfaces.
3. Select a network interface and choose Delete.
4. In the Delete Network Interface dialog box, choose Yes, Delete.

To delete a network interface using the command line

You can use one of the following commands. For more information about these command line interfaces,
see Access Amazon EC2 (p. 3).

• delete-network-interface (AWS CLI)

• Remove-EC2NetworkInterface (AWS Tools for Windows PowerShell)

Scenarios for network interfaces

Attaching multiple network interfaces to an instance is useful when you want to:

• Create a management network.

• Use network and security appliances in your VPC.

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Scenarios for network interfaces

• Create dual-homed instances with workloads/roles on distinct subnets.

• Create a low-budget, high-availability solution.

Create a management network

You can create a management network using network interfaces. In this scenario, as illustrated in the
following image:

• The primary network interface (eth0) on the instance handles public traffic.
• The secondary network interface (eth1) handles backend management traffic, and is connected to a
separate subnet in your VPC that has more restrictive access controls.

The public interface, which may or may not be behind a load balancer, has an associated security
group that allows access to the server from the internet (for example, allow TCP port 80 and 443 from
0.0.0.0/0, or from the load balancer).

The private facing interface has an associated security group allowing RDP access only from an allowed
range of IP addresses, either within the VPC, or from the internet, a private subnet within the VPC, or a
virtual private gateway.

To ensure failover capabilities, consider using a secondary private IPv4 for incoming traffic on a network
interface. In the event of an instance failure, you can move the interface and/or secondary private IPv4
address to a standby instance.

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Best practices for configuring network interfaces

Use network and security appliances in your VPC

Some network and security appliances, such as load balancers, network address translation (NAT)
servers, and proxy servers prefer to be configured with multiple network interfaces. You can create
and attach secondary network interfaces to instances that are running these types of applications and
configure the additional interfaces with their own public and private IP addresses, security groups, and
source/destination checking.

Creating dual-homed instances with workloads/roles on distinct

subnets
You can place a network interface on each of your web servers that connects to a mid-tier network where
an application server resides. The application server can also be dual-homed to a backend network
(subnet) where the database server resides. Instead of routing network packets through the dual-
homed instances, each dual-homed instance receives and processes requests on the front end, initiates a
connection to the backend, and then sends requests to the servers on the backend network.

Create a low budget high availability solution

If one of your instances serving a particular function fails, its network interface can be attached to a
replacement or hot standby instance pre-configured for the same role in order to rapidly recover the
service. For example, you can use a network interface as your primary or secondary network interface to
a critical service such as a database instance or a NAT instance. If the instance fails, you (or more likely,
the code running on your behalf) can attach the network interface to a hot standby instance. Because
the interface maintains its private IP addresses, Elastic IP addresses, and MAC address, network traffic
begins flowing to the standby instance as soon as you attach the network interface to the replacement
instance. Users experience a brief loss of connectivity between the time the instance fails and the time
that the network interface is attached to the standby instance, but no changes to the route table or your
DNS server are required.

Best practices for configuring network interfaces

• You can attach a network interface to an instance when it's running (hot attach), when it's stopped
(warm attach), or when the instance is being launched (cold attach).
• You can detach secondary network interfaces when the instance is running or stopped. However, you
can't detach the primary network interface.
• You can move a network interface from one instance to another, if the instances are in the same
Availability Zone and VPC but in different subnets.
• When launching an instance using the CLI, API, or an SDK, you can specify the primary network
interface and additional network interfaces.
• Launching an Amazon Linux or Windows Server instance with multiple network interfaces
automatically configures interfaces, private IPv4 addresses, and route tables on the operating system
of the instance.
• A warm or hot attach of an additional network interface might require you to manually bring up
the second interface, configure the private IPv4 address, and modify the route table accordingly.
Instances running Amazon Linux or Windows Server automatically recognize the warm or hot attach
and configure themselves.
• You cannot attach another network interface to an instance (for example, a NIC teaming configuration)
to increase or double the network bandwidth to or from the dual-homed instance.
• If you attach two or more network interfaces from the same subnet to an instance, you might
encounter networking issues such as asymmetric routing. If possible, use a secondary private IPv4
address on the primary network interface instead. If you need to use multiple network interfaces, you
must configure the network interfaces to use static routing.

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Requester-managed network interfaces

Requester-managed network interfaces

A requester-managed network interface is a network interface that an AWS service creates in your VPC.
This network interface can represent an instance for another service, such as an Amazon RDS instance, or
it can enable you to access another service or resource, such as an AWS PrivateLink service, or an Amazon
ECS task.

You cannot modify or detach a requester-managed network interface. If you delete the resource that
the network interface represents, the AWS service detaches and deletes the network interface for
you. To change the security groups for a requester-managed network interface, you might have to
use the console or command line tools for that service. For more information, see the service-specific
documentation.

You can tag a requester-managed network interface. For more information, see Add or edit
tags (p. 967).

You can view the requester-managed network interfaces that are in your account.

To view requester-managed network interfaces using the console

1. Open the Amazon EC2 console at https://console.aws.amazon.com/ec2/.

2. In the navigation pane, choose Network Interfaces.
3. Select the network interface and view the following information on the details pane:

• Attachment owner: If you created the network interface, this field displays your AWS account ID.
Otherwise, it displays an alias or ID for the principal or service that created the network interface.
• Description: Provides information about the purpose of the network interface; for example, "VPC
Endpoint Interface".

To view requester-managed network interfaces using the command line

1. Use the describe-network-interfaces AWS CLI command to describe the network interfaces in your
account.

aws ec2 describe-network-interfaces

2. In the output, the RequesterManaged field displays true if the network interface is managed by
another AWS service.

{
"Status": "in-use",
...
"Description": "VPC Endpoint Interface vpce-089f2123488812123",
"NetworkInterfaceId": "eni-c8fbc27e",
"VpcId": "vpc-1a2b3c4d",
"PrivateIpAddresses": [
{
"PrivateDnsName": "ip-10-0-2-227.ec2.internal",
"Primary": true,
"PrivateIpAddress": "10.0.2.227"
}
],
"RequesterManaged": true,
...
}

Alternatively, use the Get-EC2NetworkInterface Tools for Windows PowerShell command.

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Network bandwidth

Amazon EC2 instance network bandwidth

The network bandwidth available to an EC2 instance depends on several factors.

Bandwidth for aggregate multi-flow traffic available to an instance depends on the destination of the
traffic.

Within the Region

Traffic can utilize the full network bandwidth available to the instance.
To other Regions, an internet gateway, or Direct Connect

Traffic can utilize up to 50% of the network bandwidth available to a current generation
instance (p. 143) with a minimum of 32 vCPUs. Bandwidth for a current generation instance with less
than 32 vCPUs is limited to 5 Gbps.

Bandwidth for single-flow (5-tuple) traffic is limited to 5 Gbps, regardless of the destination of the
traffic. For use cases that require low latency and high single-flow bandwidth, use a cluster placement
group (p. 989) to achieve up to 10 Gbps for instances in the same placement group. Alternatively, set
up multiple paths between two endpoints to achieve higher bandwidth using Multipath TCP (MPTCP).

Available instance bandwidth

The available network bandwidth of an instance depends on the number of vCPUs that it has.
For example, an m5.8xlarge instance has 32 vCPUs and 10 Gbps network bandwidth, and an
m5.16xlarge instance has 64 vCPUs and 20 Gbps network bandwidth. However, instances might not
achieve this bandwidth; for example, if they exceed network allowances at the instance level, such
as packet per second or number of tracked connections. How much of the available bandwidth the
traffic can utilize depends on the number of vCPUs and the destination. For example, an m5.16xlarge
instance has 64 vCPUs, so traffic to another instance in the Region can utilize the full bandwidth
available (20 Gbps). However, traffic to another instance in a different Region can utilize only 50% of the
bandwidth available (10 Gbps).

Typically, instances with 16 vCPUs or fewer (size 4xlarge and smaller) are documented as having "up
to" a specified bandwidth; for example, "up to 10 Gbps". These instances have a baseline bandwidth. To
meet additional demand, they can use a network I/O credit mechanism to burst beyond their baseline
bandwidth. Instances can use burst bandwidth for a limited time, typically from 5 to 60 minutes,
depending on the instance size.

An instance receives the maximum number of network I/O credits at launch. If the instance exhausts its
network I/O credits, it returns to its baseline bandwidth. A running instance earns network I/O credits
whenever it uses less network bandwidth than its baseline bandwidth. A stopped instance does not earn
network I/O credits. Instance burst is on a best effort basis, even when the instance has credits available,
as burst bandwidth is a shared resource.

The following documentation describes the network performance for all instances, plus the baseline
network bandwidth available for instances that can use burst bandwidth.

• General purpose instances (p. 155)

• Compute optimized instances (p. 195)
• Memory optimized instances (p. 201)
• Storage optimized instances (p. 212)
• Accelerated computing instances (p. 221)

To view network performance using the AWS CLI

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Monitor instance bandwidth

You can use the describe-instance-types AWS CLI command to display information about an instance
type. The following example displays network performance information for all C5 instances.

aws ec2 describe-instance-types --filters "Name=instance-type,Values=c5.*" --query

"InstanceTypes[].[InstanceType, NetworkInfo.NetworkPerformance]" --output table
-------------------------------------
| DescribeInstanceTypes |
+--------------+--------------------+
| c5.4xlarge | Up to 10 Gigabit |
| c5.xlarge | Up to 10 Gigabit |
| c5.12xlarge | 12 Gigabit |
| c5.24xlarge | 25 Gigabit |
| c5.9xlarge | 10 Gigabit |
| c5.2xlarge | Up to 10 Gigabit |
| c5.large | Up to 10 Gigabit |
| c5.metal | 25 Gigabit |
| c5.18xlarge | 25 Gigabit |
+--------------+--------------------+

Monitor instance bandwidth

You can use CloudWatch metrics to monitor instance network bandwidth and the packets sent and
received. You can use the network performance metrics provided by the Elastic Network Adapter (ENA)
driver to monitor when traffic exceeds the network allowances that Amazon EC2 defines at the instance
level.

You can configure whether Amazon EC2 sends metric data for the instance to CloudWatch using one-
minute periods or five-minute periods. It is possible that the network performance metrics would show
that an allowance was exceeded and packets were dropped while the CloudWatch instance metrics do
not. This can happen when the instance has a short spike in demand for network resources (known as a
microburst), but the CloudWatch metrics are not granular enough to reflect these microsecond spikes.

Learn more

• Instance metrics (p. 854)

• Network performance metrics (p. 986)

Enhanced networking on Windows

Enhanced networking uses single root I/O virtualization (SR-IOV) to provide high-performance
networking capabilities on supported instance types (p. 974). SR-IOV is a method of device
virtualization that provides higher I/O performance and lower CPU utilization when compared to
traditional virtualized network interfaces. Enhanced networking provides higher bandwidth, higher
packet per second (PPS) performance, and consistently lower inter-instance latencies. There is no
additional charge for using enhanced networking.

For information about the supported network speed for each instance type, see Amazon EC2 Instance
Types.

Contents
• Enhanced networking support (p. 974)
• Enable enhanced networking on your instance (p. 974)
• Enable enhanced networking with the Elastic Network Adapter (ENA) on Windows
instances (p. 974)

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Enhanced networking support

• Enable enhanced networking with the Intel 82599 VF interface on Windows instances (p. 981)
• Operating system optimizations (p. 985)
• Monitor network performance for your EC2 instance (p. 986)

Enhanced networking support

All current generation (p. 143) instance types support enhanced networking, except for T2 instances.

You can enable enhanced networking using one of the following mechanisms:

Elastic Network Adapter (ENA)

The Elastic Network Adapter (ENA) supports network speeds of up to 100 Gbps for supported
instance types.

The current generation instances use ENA for enhanced networking, except for C4, D2, and M4
instances smaller than m4.16xlarge.
Intel 82599 Virtual Function (VF) interface

The Intel 82599 Virtual Function interface supports network speeds of up to 10 Gbps for supported
instance types.

The following instance types use the Intel 82599 VF interface for enhanced networking: C3, C4, D2,
I2, M4 (excluding m4.16xlarge), and R3.

For a summary of the enhanced networking mechanisms by instance type, see Summary of networking
and storage features (p. 149).

Enable enhanced networking on your instance

If your instance type supports the Elastic Network Adapter for enhanced networking, follow the
procedures in Enable enhanced networking with the Elastic Network Adapter (ENA) on Windows
instances (p. 974).

If your instance type supports the Intel 82599 VF interface for enhanced networking, follow
the procedures in Enable enhanced networking with the Intel 82599 VF interface on Windows
instances (p. 981).

Enable enhanced networking with the Elastic

Network Adapter (ENA) on Windows instances
Amazon EC2 provides enhanced networking capabilities through the Elastic Network Adapter (ENA). To
use enhanced networking, you must install the required ENA module and enable ENA support.

Contents
• Requirements (p. 975)
• Enhanced networking performance (p. 975)
• Test whether enhanced networking is enabled (p. 975)
• Enable enhanced networking on Windows (p. 976)
• Amazon ENA driver versions (p. 977)
• Subscribe to notifications (p. 532)

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Enhanced networking: ENA

Requirements
To prepare for enhanced networking using the ENA, set up your instance as follows:

• Launch the instance using a current generation (p. 143) instance type, other than C4, D2, M4 instances
smaller than m4.16xlarge, or T2.
• If the instance is running Windows Server 2008 R2 SP1, ensure that is has the SHA-2 code signing
support update.
• Ensure that the instance has internet connectivity.
• Use AWS CloudShell from the AWS Management Console, or install and configure the AWS CLI or
the AWS Tools for Windows PowerShell on any computer you choose, preferably your local desktop
or laptop. For more information, see Access Amazon EC2 (p. 3) or the AWS CloudShell User Guide.
Enhanced networking cannot be managed from the Amazon EC2 console.
• If you have important data on the instance that you want to preserve, you should back that data up
now by creating an AMI from your instance. Updating kernels and kernel modules, as well as enabling
the enaSupport attribute, might render incompatible instances or operating systems unreachable. If
you have a recent backup, your data will still be retained if this happens.

Enhanced networking performance

The following documentation provides a summary of the network performance for the instance types
that support ENA enhanced networking:

• Network Performance for Accelerated Computing Instances (p. 221)

• Network Performance for Compute Optimized Instances (p. 197)
• Network Performance for General Purpose Instances (p. 155)
• Network Performance for Memory Optimized Instances (p. 206)
• Network Performance for Storage Optimized Instances (p. 215)

Test whether enhanced networking is enabled

To test whether enhanced networking is already enabled, verify that the driver is installed on your
instance and that the enaSupport attribute is set.

Instance attribute (enaSupport)

To check whether an instance has the enhanced networking enaSupport attribute set, use one of the
following commands. If the attribute is set, the response is true.

• describe-instances (AWS CLI/AWS CloudShell)

aws ec2 describe-instances --instance-ids instance_id --query

"Reservations[].Instances[].EnaSupport"

• Get-EC2Instance (Tools for Windows PowerShell)

(Get-EC2Instance -InstanceId instance-id).Instances.EnaSupport

Image attribute (enaSupport)

To check whether an AMI has the enhanced networking enaSupport attribute set, use one of the
following commands. If the attribute is set, the response is true.

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Enhanced networking: ENA

• describe-images (AWS CLI/AWS CloudShell)

aws ec2 describe-images --image-id ami_id --query "Images[].EnaSupport"

• Get-EC2Image (Tools for Windows PowerShell)

(Get-EC2Image -ImageId ami_id).EnaSupport

Enable enhanced networking on Windows

If you launched your instance and it does not have enhanced networking enabled already, you
must download and install the required network adapter driver on your instance, and then set the
enaSupport instance attribute to activate enhanced networking. You can only enable this attribute on
supported instance types and only if the ENA driver is installed. For more information, see Enhanced
networking support (p. 974).

To enable enhanced networking

1. Connect to your instance and log in as the local administrator.

2. [Windows Server 2016 and later only] Run the following EC2Launch PowerShell script to configure
the instance after the driver is installed.

PS C:\> C:\ProgramData\Amazon\EC2-Windows\Launch\Scripts\InitializeInstance.ps1 -
Schedule

3. From the instance, install the driver as follows:

a. Download the latest driver to the instance.

b. Extract the zip archive.
c. Install the driver by running the install.ps1 PowerShell script.
Note
If you get an execution policy error, set the policy to Unrestricted (by default it is set
to Restricted or RemoteSigned). In a command line, run Set-ExecutionPolicy
-ExecutionPolicy Unrestricted, and then run the install.ps1 PowerShell
script again.
4. From your local computer, stop the instance using the Amazon EC2 console or one of the following
commands: stop-instances (AWS CLI/AWS CloudShell), Stop-EC2Instance (AWS Tools for Windows
PowerShell). If your instance is managed by AWS OpsWorks, you should stop the instance in the AWS
OpsWorks console so that the instance state remains in sync.
5. Enable ENA support on your instance as follows:

a. From your local computer, check the EC2 instance ENA support attribute on your instance by
running one of the following commands. If the attribute is not enabled, the output will be "[]"
or blank. EnaSupport is set to false by default.

• describe-instances (AWS CLI/AWS CloudShell)

aws ec2 describe-instances --instance-ids instance_id --query

"Reservations[].Instances[].EnaSupport"

• Get-EC2Instance (Tools for Windows PowerShell)

(Get-EC2Instance -InstanceId instance-id).Instances.EnaSupport

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Enhanced networking: ENA

b. To enable ENA support, run one of the following commands:

• modify-instance-attribute (AWS CLI/AWS CloudShell)

aws ec2 modify-instance-attribute --instance-id instance_id --ena-support

• Edit-EC2InstanceAttribute (AWS Tools for Windows PowerShell)

Edit-EC2InstanceAttribute -InstanceId instance_id -EnaSupport $true

If you encounter problems when you restart the instance, you can also disable ENA support
using one of the following commands:

• modify-instance-attribute (AWS CLI/AWS CloudShell)

aws ec2 modify-instance-attribute --instance-id instance_id --no-ena-support

• Edit-EC2InstanceAttribute (AWS Tools for Windows PowerShell)

Edit-EC2InstanceAttribute -InstanceId instance_id -EnaSupport $false

c. Verify that the attribute has been set to true using describe-instances or Get-EC2Instance as
shown previously. You should now see the following output:

[
true
]

6. From your local computer, start the instance using the Amazon EC2 console or one of the following
commands: start-instances (AWS CLI/AWS CloudShell), Start-EC2Instance (AWS Tools for Windows
PowerShell). If your instance is managed by AWS OpsWorks, you should start the instance using the
AWS OpsWorks console so that the instance state remains in sync.
7. On the instance, validate that the ENA driver is installed and enabled as follows:

a. Right-click the network icon and choose Open Network and Sharing Center.
b. Choose the Ethernet adapter (for example, Ethernet 2).
c. Choose Details. For Network Connection Details, check that Description is Amazon Elastic
Network Adapter.
8. (Optional) Create an AMI from the instance. The AMI inherits the enaSupport attribute from the
instance. Therefore, you can use this AMI to launch another instance with ENA enabled by default.
For more information, see Create a custom Windows AMI (p. 37).

Amazon ENA driver versions

Windows AMIs include the Amazon ENA driver to enable enhanced networking. The following table
summarizes the changes for each release.

Driver version Details Release date

2.2.3 New Feature March 25, 2021

• Adds support for new Nitro cards with up to 400 Gbps

instance networking.

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Enhanced networking: ENA

Driver version Details Release date

Bug Fix

• Fixes race condition between system time change and

system time query by the ENA driver, which causes false-
positive detection of HW unresponsiveness.

2.2.2 New Feature December 21,

2020
• Adds support to query network adapter performance
metrics with CloudWatch and the Performance Counters
for Windows consumers.

Bug Fix

• Fixes performance issues on bare metal instances.

2.2.1 New Feature October 1, 2020

• Adds a method to allow the host to query the Elastic

Network Adapter for network performance metrics.

2.2.0 New Features August 12, 2020

• Adds support for next generation hardware types.

• Improves instance start time after resuming from stop-
hibernate, and eliminates false positive ENA error
messages.

Performance Optimizations

• Optimizes processing of inbound traffic.

• Improves shared memory management in low resource
environment.

Bug Fix

• Avoids system crash upon ENA device removal in rare

scenario where driver fails to reset.

2.1.5 Bug Fix June 23, 2020

• Fixes occasional network adapter initialization failure on

bare metal instances.

2.1.4 Bug Fixes November 25,

2019
• Prevent connectivity issues caused by corrupted LSO
packet metadata arrviving from the network stack.
• Prevent system crash caused by a rare race condition that
results in accessing an already released packet memory.

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Enhanced networking: ENA

Driver version Details Release date

2.1.2 New Feature November 4, 2019

• Added support for vendor ID report to allow OS to

generate MAC-based UUIDs.

Bug Fixes

• Improved DHCP network configuration performance

during initialization.
• Properly calculate L4 checksum on inbound IPv6 traffic
when the maximum transmission unit (MTU) exceeds 4K.
• General improvements to driver stability and minor bug
fixes.

2.1.1 Bug Fixes September 16,

2019
• Prevent drops of highly fragmented TCP LSO packets
arriving from operating system.
• Properly handle Encapsulating Security Payload (ESP)
protocol within the IPSec in IPv6 networks.

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Enhanced networking: ENA

Driver version Details Release date

2.1.0 ENA Windows driver v2.1 introduces new ENA device July 1, 2019
capabilities, provides a performance boost, adds new
features, and includes multiple stability improvements.

• New features
• Use standardized Windows registry key for Jumbo
frames configuration.
• Allow VLAN ID setting via the ENA driver properties GUI.
• Improved Recovery flows
• Improved failure identification mechanism.
• Added support for tunable recovery parameters.
• Support up to 32 I/O queues for newer EC2 instances
that have more than 8 vCPUs.
• ~90% reduction of driver memory footprint.
• Performance optimizations
• Reduced transmit path latency.
• Support for receive checksum offload.
• Performance optimization for heavily loaded system
(optimized usage of locking mechanisms).
• Further enhancements to reduce CPU utilization and
improve system responsiveness under load.
• Bug Fixes
• Fix crash due to invalid parsing of non-contiguous Tx
headers.
• Fix driver v1.5 crash during ENI detach on Bare Metal
instances.
• Fix LSO pseudo-header checksum calculation error over
IPv6.
• Fix potential memory resource leak upon initialization
failure.
• Disable TCP/UDP checksum offload for IPv4 fragments.
• Fix for VLAN configuration. VLAN was incorrectly
disabled when only VLAN priority should have been
disabled.
• Enable correct parsing of custom driver messages by the
event viewer.
• Fix failure to initialize driver due to invalid timestamp
handling.
• Fix race condition between data processing and ENA
device disabling.

1.5.0 • Improved stability and performance fixes. October 4, 2018

• Receive Buffers can now be configured up to a value of
8192 in Advanced Properties of the ENA NIC.
• Default Receive Buffers of 1k.

1.2.3 Includes reliability fixes and unifies support for Windows February 13, 2018
Server 2008 R2 through Windows Server 2016.

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Enhanced networking: Intel 82599 VF

Driver version Details Release date

1.0.9 Includes some reliability fixes. Applies only to Windows December 2016
Server 2008 R2. Not recommended for other versions of
Windows Server.

1.0.8 The initial release. Included in AMIs for Windows Server July 2016
2008 R2, Windows Server 2012 RTM, Windows Server 2012
R2, and Windows Server 2016.

Subscribe to notifications
Amazon SNS can notify you when new versions of EC2 Windows Drivers are released. Use the following
procedure to subscribe to these notifications.

To subscribe to EC2 notifications

1. Open the Amazon SNS console at https://console.aws.amazon.com/sns/v3/home.

2. In the navigation bar, change the Region to US East (N. Virginia), if necessary. You must select this
Region because the SNS notifications that you are subscribing to are in this Region.
3. In the navigation pane, choose Subscriptions.
4. Choose Create subscription.
5. In the Create subscription dialog box, do the following:

a. For TopicARN, copy the following Amazon Resource Name (ARN):

arn:aws:sns:us-east-1:801119661308:ec2-windows-drivers
b. For Protocol, choose Email.
c. For Endpoint, enter an email address that you can use to receive the notifications.
d. Choose Create subscription.
6. You'll receive a confirmation email. Open the email and follow the directions to complete your
subscription.

Whenever new EC2 Windows drivers are released, we send notifications to subscribers. If you no longer
want to receive these notifications, use the following procedure to unsubscribe.

To unsubscribe from Amazon EC2 Windows driver notification

1. Open the Amazon SNS console at https://console.aws.amazon.com/sns/v3/home.

2. In the navigation pane, choose Subscriptions.
3. Select the check box for the subscription and then choose Actions, Delete subscriptions. When
prompted for confirmation, choose Delete.

Enable enhanced networking with the Intel 82599 VF

interface on Windows instances
Amazon EC2 provides enhanced networking capabilities through the Intel 82599 VF interface, which uses
the Intel ixgbevf driver.

Contents

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Enhanced networking: Intel 82599 VF

• Requirements (p. 982)

• Test whether enhanced networking is enabled (p. 982)
• Enable enhanced networking on Windows (p. 983)

Requirements
To prepare for enhanced networking using the Intel 82599 VF interface, set up your instance as follows:

• Select from the following supported instance types: C3, C4, D2, I2, M4 (excluding m4.16xlarge), and
R3.
• Launch the instance from a 64-bit HVM AMI. You can't enable enhanced networking on Windows
Server 2008 and Windows Server 2003. Enhanced networking is already enabled for Windows Server
2012 R2 and Windows Server 2016 and later AMIs. Windows Server 2012 R2 includes Intel driver
1.0.15.3 and we recommend that you upgrade that driver to the latest version using the Pnputil.exe
utility.
• Ensure that the instance has internet connectivity.
• Use AWS CloudShell from the AWS Management Console, or install and configure the AWS CLI or
the AWS Tools for Windows PowerShell on any computer you choose, preferably your local desktop
or laptop. For more information, see Access Amazon EC2 (p. 3) or the AWS CloudShell User Guide.
Enhanced networking cannot be managed from the Amazon EC2 console.
• If you have important data on the instance that you want to preserve, you should back that data
up now by creating an AMI from your instance. Updating kernels and kernel modules, as well as
enabling the sriovNetSupport attribute, might render incompatible instances or operating systems
unreachable. If you have a recent backup, your data will still be retained if this happens.

Test whether enhanced networking is enabled

Enhanced networking with the Intel 82599 VF interface is enabled if the driver is installed on your
instance and the sriovNetSupport attribute is set.

Driver

To verify that the driver is installed, connect to your instance and open Device Manager. You should see
"Intel(R) 82599 Virtual Function" listed under Network adapters.

Instance attribute (sriovNetSupport)

To check whether an instance has the enhanced networking sriovNetSupport attribute set, use one of
the following commands:

• describe-instance-attribute (AWS CLI/AWS CloudShell)

aws ec2 describe-instance-attribute --instance-id instance_id --attribute sriovNetSupport

• Get-EC2InstanceAttribute (AWS Tools for Windows PowerShell)

Get-EC2InstanceAttribute -InstanceId instance-id -Attribute sriovNetSupport

If the attribute isn't set, SriovNetSupport is empty. If the attribute is set, the value is simple, as shown
in the following example output.

"SriovNetSupport": {

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"Value": "simple"
},

Image attribute (sriovNetSupport)

To check whether an AMI already has the enhanced networking sriovNetSupport attribute set, use
one of the following commands:

• describe-images (AWS CLI/AWS CloudShell)

aws ec2 describe-images --image-id ami_id --query "Images[].SriovNetSupport"

• Get-EC2Image (AWS Tools for Windows PowerShell)

(Get-EC2Image -ImageId ami-id).SriovNetSupport

If the attribute isn't set, SriovNetSupport is empty. If the attribute is set, the value is simple.

Enable enhanced networking on Windows

If you launched your instance and it does not have enhanced networking enabled already, you
must download and install the required network adapter driver on your instance, and then set
the sriovNetSupport instance attribute to activate enhanced networking. You can only enable
this attribute on supported instance types. For more information, see Enhanced networking
support (p. 974).
Important
To view the latest version of the Intel driver in the Windows AMIs, see Details about AWS
Windows AMI versions (p. 30).
Warning
There is no way to disable the enhanced networking attribute after you've enabled it.

To enable enhanced networking

1. Connect to your instance and log in as the local administrator.

2. [Windows Server 2016 and later] Run the following EC2Launch PowerShell script to configure the
instance after the driver is installed.

PS C:\> C:\ProgramData\Amazon\EC2-Windows\Launch\Scripts\InitializeInstance.ps1 -
Schedule

Important
The administrator password will reset when you enable the initialize instance EC2Launch
script. You can modify the configuration file to disable the administrator password reset by
specifying it in the settings for the initialization tasks. For steps on how to disable password
reset, see Configure initialization tasks (p. 496).
3. From the instance, download the Intel network adapter driver for your operating system:

• Windows Server 2019 including for Server version 1809 and later*

Visit the download page and download Wired_driver_version_x64.zip.

• Windows Server 2016 including for Server version 1803 and earlier*

Visit the download page and download Wired_driver_version_x64.zip.

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• Windows Server 2012 R2

Visit the download page and download Wired_driver_version_x64.zip.

• Windows Server 2012

Visit the download page and download Wired_driver_version_x64.zip.

• Windows Server 2008 R2

Visit the download page and download PROWinx64Legacy.exe.

*Server versions 1803 and earlier as well as 1809 and later are not specifically addressed on the Intel
Drivers and Software pages.
4. Install the Intel network adapter driver for your operating system.

• Windows Server 2008 R2

1. In the Downloads folder, locate the PROWinx64Legacy.exe file and rename it to
PROWinx64Legacy.zip.
2. Extract the contents of the PROWinx64Legacy.zip file.
3. Open the command line, navigate to the extracted folder, and run the following command to
use the pnputil utility to add and install the INF file in the driver store.

C:\> pnputil -a
PROXGB\Winx64\NDIS62\vxn62x64.inf.

• Windows Server 2019, Windows Server 2016, Windows Server 2012 R2, and Windows Server
2012
1. In the Downloads folder, extract the contents of the Wired_driver_version_x64.zip file.
2. In the extracted folder, locate the Wired_driver_version_x64.exe file and rename it to
Wired_driver_version_x64.zip.
3. Extract the contents of the Wired_driver_version_x64.zip file.
4. Open the command line, navigate to the extracted folder, and run one of the following
commands to use the pnputil utility to add and install the INF file in the driver store.
• Windows Server 2019

C:\> pnputil -i -a PROXGB\Winx64\NDIS68\vxn68x64.inf

• Windows Server 2016

C:\> pnputil -i -a PROXGB\Winx64\NDIS65\vxn65x64.inf

• Windows Server 2012 R2

C:\> pnputil -i -a PROXGB\Winx64\NDIS64\vxn64x64.inf

• Windows Server 2012

C:\> pnputil -i -a PROXGB\Winx64\NDIS63\vxn63x64.inf

5. From your local computer, stop the instance using the Amazon EC2 console or one of the following
commands: stop-instances (AWS CLI), Stop-EC2Instance (AWS Tools for Windows PowerShell). If your
instance is managed by AWS OpsWorks, you should stop the instance in the AWS OpsWorks console
so that the instance state remains in sync.
6. From your local computer, enable the enhanced networking attribute using one of the following
commands:

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• modify-instance-attribute (AWS CLI/AWS CloudShell)

aws ec2 modify-instance-attribute --instance-id instance_id --sriov-net-support

simple

• Edit-EC2InstanceAttribute (AWS Tools for Windows PowerShell)

Edit-EC2InstanceAttribute -InstanceId instance_id -SriovNetSupport "simple"

7. (Optional) Create an AMI from the instance, as described in Create a custom Windows AMI (p. 37).
The AMI inherits the enhanced networking attribute from the instance. Therefore, you can use this
AMI to launch another instance with enhanced networking enabled by default.
8. From your local computer, start the instance using the Amazon EC2 console or one of the following
commands: start-instances (AWS CLI), Start-EC2Instance (AWS Tools for Windows PowerShell). If
your instance is managed by AWS OpsWorks, you should start the instance in the AWS OpsWorks
console so that the instance state remains in sync.

Operating system optimizations

To achieve the maximum network performance on instances with enhanced networking, you might
need to modify the default operating system configuration. We recommend the following configuration
changes for applications that require high network performance. Other optimizations (such as turning on
checksum offloading and enabling RSS, for example) are already in place on official Windows AMIs.
Note
TCP chimney offloading should be disabled in most use cases, and has been deprecated as of
Windows Server 2016.

In addition to these operating system optimizations, you should also consider the maximum transmission
unit (MTU) of your network traffic, and adjust according to your workload and network architecture. For
more information, see Network maximum transmission unit (MTU) for your EC2 instance (p. 1000).

AWS regularly measures average round trip latencies between instances launched in a cluster placement
group of 50us and tail latencies of 200us at the 99.9 percentile. If your applications require consistently
low latencies, we recommend using the latest version of the ENA drivers on fixed performance instances
built on the Nitro System.

Configure RSS CPU affinity

Receive side scaling (RSS) is used to distribute network traffic CPU load across multiple processors.
By default, the official Amazon Windows AMIs are configured with RSS enabled. ENA ENIs provide up
to eight RSS queues. By defining CPU affinity for RSS queues, as well as for other system processes,
it is possible to spread the CPU load out over multi-core systems, enabling more network traffic
to be processed. On instance types with more than 16 vCPUs, we recommend you use the Set-
NetAdapterRSS PowerShell cmdlt (available from Windows Server 2012 and later), which manually
excludes the boot processor (logical processor 0 and 1 when hyper-threading is enabled) from the RSS
configuration for all ENIs, in order to prevent contention with various system components.

Windows is hyper-thread aware and will ensure the RSS queues of a single NIC are always placed on
different physical cores. Therefore, unless hyper-threading is disabled, in order to completely prevent
contention with other NICs, spread the RSS configuration of each NIC between a range of 16 logical
processors. The Set-NetAdapterRss cmdlt allows you to define the per-NIC range of valid logical
processors by defining the values of BaseProcessorGroup, BaseProcessorNumber, MaxProcessingGroup,
MaxProcessorNumber, and NumaNode (optional). If there are not enough physical cores to completely
eliminate inter-NIC contention, minimize the overlapping ranges or reduce the number of logical
processors in the ENI ranges depending on the expected workload of the ENI (in other words, a low

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volume admin network ENI may not need as many RSS queues assigned). Also, as noted above, various
components must run on CPU 0, and therefore we recommend excluding it from all RSS configurations
when sufficient vCPUs are available.

For example, when there are three ENIs on a 72 vCPU instance with 2 NUMA nodes with hyper-threading
enabled, the following commands spread the network load between the two CPUs without overlap and
preventthe use of core 0 completely.

Set-NetAdapterRss -Name NIC1 -BaseProcessorGroup 0 -BaseProcessorNumber 2 -

MaxProcessorNumber 16
Set-NetAdapterRss -Name NIC2 -BaseProcessorGroup 1 -BaseProcessorNumber 0 -
MaxProcessorNumber 14
Set-NetAdapterRss -Name NIC3 -BaseProcessorGroup 1 -BaseProcessorNumber 16 -
MaxProcessorNumber 30

Note that these settings are persistent for each network adapter. If an instance is resized to one with
a different number of vCPUs, you should reevaluate the RSS configuration for each enabled ENI. The
complete Microsoft documentation for the Set-NetAdapterRss cmdlt can be found here: https://
docs.microsoft.com/en-us/powershell/module/netadapter/set-netadapterrss.

Special note for SQL workloads: We also recommend that you review your IO thread affinity settings
along with your ENI RSS configuration to minimize IO and network contention for the same CPUs. See
affinity mask Server Configuration Option.

Monitor network performance for your EC2 instance

The Elastic Network Adapter (ENA) driver publishes network performance metrics from the instances
where they are enabled. You can use these metrics to troubleshoot instance performance issues, choose
the right instance size for a workload, plan scaling activities proactively, and benchmark applications to
determine whether they maximize the performance available on an instance.

Amazon EC2 defines network maximums at the instance level to ensure a high-quality networking
experience, including consistent network performance across instance sizes. AWS provides maximums for
the following for each instance:

• Bandwidth capability – Each EC2 instance has a maximum bandwidth for aggregate inbound and
outbound traffic, based on instance type and size. Some instances use a network I/O credit mechanism
to allocate network bandwidth based on average bandwidth utilization. Amazon EC2 also has
maximum bandwidth for traffic to AWS Direct Connect and the internet.
• Packet-per-second (PPS) performance – Each EC2 instance has a maximum PPS performance, based
on instance type and size.
• Connections tracked – The security group tracks each connection established to ensure that return
packets are delivered as expected. There is a maximum number of connections that can be tracked per
instance.
• Link-local service access – Amazon EC2 provides a maximum PPS per network interface for traffic to
services such as the DNS service, the Instance Metadata Service, and the Amazon Time Sync Service.

When the network traffic for an instance exceeds a maximum, AWS shapes the traffic that exceeds the
maximum by queueing and then dropping network packets. You can monitor when traffic exceeds a
maximum using the network performance metrics. These metrics inform you, in real time, of impact to
network traffic and possible network performance issues.

Contents
• Requirements (p. 987)
• Metrics for the ENA driver (p. 987)
• View the network performance metrics for your Windows instance (p. 987)

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Requirements
• Install ENA driver version 2.2.2 or later. To verify the installed version, use Device Manager as follows.
1. Open Device Manager by running devmgmt.msc.
2. Expand Network Adapters.
3. Choose Amazon Elastic Network Adapter, Properties.
4. On the Driver tab, locate Driver Version.

To upgrade your ENA driver, see Enhanced networking (p. 974).

• To import these metrics to Amazon CloudWatch, install the CloudWatch agent. For more information,
see Collect advanced network metrics in the Amazon CloudWatch User Guide.

Metrics for the ENA driver

The ENA driver delivers the following metrics to the instance in real time. They provide the cumulative
number of packets queued or dropped on each network interface since the last driver reset.

Metric Description

bw_in_allowance_exceeded The number of packets queued or dropped because the

inbound aggregate bandwidth exceeded the maximum
for the instance.

bw_out_allowance_exceeded The number of packets queued or dropped because the

outbound aggregate bandwidth exceeded the maximum
for the instance.

conntrack_allowance_exceeded The number of packets dropped because connection

tracking exceeded the maximum for the instance and
new connections could not be established. This can
result in packet loss for traffic to or from the instance.

linklocal_allowance_exceeded The number of packets dropped because the PPS of the

traffic to local proxy services exceeded the maximum for
the network interface. This impacts traffic to the DNS
service, the Instance Metadata Service, and the Amazon
Time Sync Service.

pps_allowance_exceeded The number of packets queued or dropped because

the bidirectional PPS exceeded the maximum for the
instance.

View the network performance metrics for your Windows

instance
You can view the metrics using any consumer of Windows performance counters. The data can be parsed
according to the EnaPerfCounters manifest. This is an XML file that defines the performance counter
provider and its countersets.

Manifest installation
If you launched the instance using an AMI that contains ENA driver 2.2.2 or later, or used the install
script in the driver package for ENA driver 2.2.2, the manifest is already installed. To install the manifest
manually, use the following steps:

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1. Remove the existing manifest using the following command:

unlodctr /m:EnaPerfCounters.man

2. Copy the manifest file _EnaPerfCounters.man_ from the driver installation package to
%SystemRoot%\System32\drivers.
3. Install the new manifest using the following command:

lodctr /m:EnaPerfCounters.man

View metrics using Performance Monitor

1. Open Performance Monitor.

2. Press Ctrl+N to add new counters.
3. Choose ENA Packets Shaping from the list.
4. Select the instances to monitor and choose Add.
5. Choose OK.

Placement groups
When you launch a new EC2 instance, the EC2 service attempts to place the instance in such a way that
all of your instances are spread out across underlying hardware to minimize correlated failures. You can
use placement groups to influence the placement of a group of interdependent instances to meet the
needs of your workload. Depending on the type of workload, you can create a placement group using
one of the following placement strategies:

• Cluster – packs instances close together inside an Availability Zone. This strategy enables workloads
to achieve the low-latency network performance necessary for tightly-coupled node-to-node
communication that is typical of HPC applications.
• Partition – spreads your instances across logical partitions such that groups of instances in one
partition do not share the underlying hardware with groups of instances in different partitions. This
strategy is typically used by large distributed and replicated workloads, such as Hadoop, Cassandra,
and Kafka.
• Spread – strictly places a small group of instances across distinct underlying hardware to reduce
correlated failures.

There is no charge for creating a placement group.

Contents
• Cluster placement groups (p. 989)
• Partition placement groups (p. 989)
• Spread placement groups (p. 990)
• Placement group rules and limitations (p. 991)
• Create a placement group (p. 992)
• Tag a placement group (p. 993)
• Launch instances in a placement group (p. 995)
• Describe instances in a placement group (p. 996)
• Change the placement group for an instance (p. 998)

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• Delete a placement group (p. 999)

Cluster placement groups

A cluster placement group is a logical grouping of instances within a single Availability Zone. A cluster
placement group can span peered VPCs in the same Region. Instances in the same cluster placement
group enjoy a higher per-flow throughput limit for TCP/IP traffic and are placed in the same high-
bisection bandwidth segment of the network.

The following image shows instances that are placed into a cluster placement group.

Cluster placement groups are recommended for applications that benefit from low network latency,
high network throughput, or both. They are also recommended when the majority of the network
traffic is between the instances in the group. To provide the lowest latency and the highest packet-per-
second network performance for your placement group, choose an instance type that supports enhanced
networking. For more information, see Enhanced Networking (p. 973).

We recommend that you launch your instances in the following way:

• Use a single launch request to launch the number of instances that you need in the placement group.
• Use the same instance type for all instances in the placement group.

If you try to add more instances to the placement group later, or if you try to launch more than one
instance type in the placement group, you increase your chances of getting an insufficient capacity error.

If you stop an instance in a placement group and then start it again, it still runs in the placement group.
However, the start fails if there isn't enough capacity for the instance.

If you receive a capacity error when launching an instance in a placement group that already has running
instances, stop and start all of the instances in the placement group, and try the launch again. Starting
the instances may migrate them to hardware that has capacity for all of the requested instances.

Partition placement groups

Partition placement groups help reduce the likelihood of correlated hardware failures for your
application. When using partition placement groups, Amazon EC2 divides each group into logical
segments called partitions. Amazon EC2 ensures that each partition within a placement group has

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its own set of racks. Each rack has its own network and power source. No two partitions within a
placement group share the same racks, allowing you to isolate the impact of hardware failure within your
application.

The following image is a simple visual representation of a partition placement group in a single
Availability Zone. It shows instances that are placed into a partition placement group with three
partitions—Partition 1, Partition 2, and Partition 3. Each partition comprises multiple instances. The
instances in a partition do not share racks with the instances in the other partitions, allowing you to
contain the impact of a single hardware failure to only the associated partition.

Partition placement groups can be used to deploy large distributed and replicated workloads, such as
HDFS, HBase, and Cassandra, across distinct racks. When you launch instances into a partition placement
group, Amazon EC2 tries to distribute the instances evenly across the number of partitions that you
specify. You can also launch instances into a specific partition to have more control over where the
instances are placed.

A partition placement group can have partitions in multiple Availability Zones in the same Region. A
partition placement group can have a maximum of seven partitions per Availability Zone. The number
of instances that can be launched into a partition placement group is limited only by the limits of your
account.

In addition, partition placement groups offer visibility into the partitions — you can see which instances
are in which partitions. You can share this information with topology-aware applications, such as HDFS,
HBase, and Cassandra. These applications use this information to make intelligent data replication
decisions for increasing data availability and durability.

If you start or launch an instance in a partition placement group and there is insufficient unique
hardware to fulfill the request, the request fails. Amazon EC2 makes more distinct hardware available
over time, so you can try your request again later.

Spread placement groups

A spread placement group is a group of instances that are each placed on distinct racks, with each rack
having its own network and power source.

The following image shows seven instances in a single Availability Zone that are placed into a spread
placement group. The seven instances are placed on seven different racks.

Spread placement groups are recommended for applications that have a small number of critical
instances that should be kept separate from each other. Launching instances in a spread placement

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group reduces the risk of simultaneous failures that might occur when instances share the same racks.
Spread placement groups provide access to distinct racks, and are therefore suitable for mixing instance
types or launching instances over time.

A spread placement group can span multiple Availability Zones in the same Region. You can have a
maximum of seven running instances per Availability Zone per group.

If you start or launch an instance in a spread placement group and there is insufficient unique hardware
to fulfill the request, the request fails. Amazon EC2 makes more distinct hardware available over time, so
you can try your request again later.

Placement group rules and limitations

General rules and limitations
Before you use placement groups, be aware of the following rules:

• The name that you specify for a placement group must be unique within your AWS account for the
Region.
• You can't merge placement groups.
• An instance can be launched in one placement group at a time; it cannot span multiple placement
groups.
• On-Demand Capacity Reservation (p. 371) and zonal Reserved Instances (p. 249) provide a capacity
reservation for EC2 instances in a specific Availability Zone. The capacity reservation can be used
by instances in a placement group. However, it is not possible to explicitly reserve capacity for a
placement group.
• You cannot launch Dedicated Hosts in placement groups.

Cluster placement group rules and limitations

The following rules apply to cluster placement groups:

• The following instance types are supported:

• Current generation (p. 143) instances, except for burstable performance (p. 161) instances (for
example, T2).
• The following previous generation (p. 146) instances: A1, C3, cc2.8xlarge, cr1.8xlarge, G2,
hs1.8xlarge, I2, and R3.
• A cluster placement group can't span multiple Availability Zones.
• The maximum network throughput speed of traffic between two instances in a cluster placement
group is limited by the slower of the two instances. For applications with high-throughput
requirements, choose an instance type with network connectivity that meets your requirements.
• For instances that are enabled for enhanced networking, the following rules apply:
• Instances within a cluster placement group can use up to 10 Gbps for single-flow traffic. Instances
that are not within a cluster placement group can use up to 5 Gbps for single-flow traffic.
• Traffic to and from Amazon S3 buckets within the same Region over the public IP address space or
through a VPC endpoint can use all available instance aggregate bandwidth.
• You can launch multiple instance types into a cluster placement group. However, this reduces the
likelihood that the required capacity will be available for your launch to succeed. We recommend using
the same instance type for all instances in a cluster placement group.
• Network traffic to the internet and over an AWS Direct Connect connection to on-premises resources is
limited to 5 Gbps.

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Partition placement group rules and limitations

The following rules apply to partition placement groups:

• A partition placement group supports a maximum of seven partitions per Availability Zone. The
number of instances that you can launch in a partition placement group is limited only by your account
limits.
• When instances are launched into a partition placement group, Amazon EC2 tries to evenly distribute
the instances across all partitions. Amazon EC2 doesn’t guarantee an even distribution of instances
across all partitions.
• A partition placement group with Dedicated Instances can have a maximum of two partitions.

Spread placement group rules and limitations

The following rules apply to spread placement groups:

• A spread placement group supports a maximum of seven running instances per Availability Zone. For
example, in a Region with three Availability Zones, you can run a total of 21 instances in the group
(seven per zone). If you try to start an eighth instance in the same Availability Zone and in the same
spread placement group, the instance will not launch. If you need to have more than seven instances
in an Availability Zone, then the recommendation is to use multiple spread placement groups. Using
multiple spread placement groups does not provide guarantees about the spread of instances between
groups, but it does ensure the spread for each group, thus limiting impact from certain classes of
failures.
• Spread placement groups are not supported for Dedicated Instances.

Create a placement group

You can create a placement group using one of the following methods.
Note
You can tag a placement group on creation using the command line tools only.

New console

To create a placement group using the console

1. Open the Amazon EC2 console at https://console.aws.amazon.com/ec2/.

2. In the navigation pane, choose Placement Groups, Create placement group.
3. Specify a name for the group.
4. Choose the placement strategy for the group. If you choose Partition, choose the number of
partitions within the group.
5. Choose Create group.

Old console

To create a placement group using the console

1. Open the Amazon EC2 console at https://console.aws.amazon.com/ec2/.

2. In the navigation pane, choose Placement Groups, Create Placement Group.
3. Specify a name for the group.
4. Choose the placement strategy for the group. If you choose Partition, specify the number of
partitions within the group.

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5. Choose Create.

AWS CLI

To create a placement group using the AWS CLI

Use the create-placement-group command. The following example creates a placement group
named my-cluster that uses the cluster placement strategy, and it applies a tag with a key of
purpose and a value of production.

aws ec2 create-placement-group --group-name my-cluster --strategy cluster --tag-

specifications 'ResourceType=placement-group,Tags={Key=purpose,Value=production}'

To create a partition placement group using the AWS CLI

Use the create-placement-group command. Specify the --strategy parameter with the value
partition, and specify the --partition-count parameter with the desired number of
partitions. In this example, the partition placement group is named HDFS-Group-A and is created
with five partitions.

aws ec2 create-placement-group --group-name HDFS-Group-A --strategy partition --

partition-count 5

PowerShell

To create a placement group using the AWS Tools for Windows PowerShell

Use the New-EC2PlacementGroup command.

Tag a placement group

To help categorize and manage your existing placement groups, you can tag them with custom
metadata. For more information about how tags work, see Tag your Amazon EC2 resources (p. 1463).

When you tag a placement group, the instances that are launched into the placement group are not
automatically tagged. You need to explicitly tag the instances that are launched into the placement
group. For more information, see Add a tag when you launch an instance (p. 1471).

You can view, add, and delete tags using the new console and the command line tools.

New console

To view, add, or delete a tag for an existing placement group

1. Open the Amazon EC2 console at https://console.aws.amazon.com/ec2/.

2. In the navigation pane, choose Placement Groups.
3. Select a placement group, and then choose Actions, Manage tags.
4. The Manage tags section displays any tags that are assigned to the placement group. Do the
following to add or remove tags:

• To add a tag, choose Add tag, and then enter the tag key and value. You can add up to 50
tags per placement group. For more information, see Tag restrictions (p. 1467).
• To delete a tag, choose Remove next to the tag that you want to delete.
5. Choose Save changes.

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AWS CLI

To view placement group tags

Use the describe-tags command to view the tags for the specified resource. In the following
example, you describe the tags for all of your placement groups.

aws ec2 describe-tags \

--filters Name=resource-type,Values=placement-group

{
"Tags": [
{
"Key": "Environment",
"ResourceId": "pg-0123456789EXAMPLE",
"ResourceType": "placement-group",
"Value": "Production"
},
{
"Key": "Environment",
"ResourceId": "pg-9876543210EXAMPLE",
"ResourceType": "placement-group",
"Value": "Production"
}
]
}

You can also use the describe-tags command to view the tags for a placement group by specifying
its ID. In the following example, you describe the tags for pg-0123456789EXAMPLE.

aws ec2 describe-tags \

--filters Name=resource-id,Values=pg-0123456789EXAMPLE

{
"Tags": [
{
"Key": "Environment",
"ResourceId": "pg-0123456789EXAMPLE",
"ResourceType": "placement-group",
"Value": "Production"
}
]
}

You can also view the tags of a placement group by describing the placement group.

Use the describe-placement-groups command to view the configuration of the specified placement
group, which includes any tags that were specified for the placement group.

aws ec2 describe-placement-groups \

--group-name my-cluster

{
"PlacementGroups": [
{
"GroupName": "my-cluster",
"State": "available",
"Strategy": "cluster",
"GroupId": "pg-0123456789EXAMPLE",

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"Tags": [
{
"Key": "Environment",
"Value": "Production"
}
]
}
]
}

To tag an existing placement group using the AWS CLI

You can use the create-tags command to tag existing resources. In the following example, the
existing placement group is tagged with Key=Cost-Center and Value=CC-123.

aws ec2 create-tags \

--resources pg-0123456789EXAMPLE \
--tags Key=Cost-Center,Value=CC-123

To delete a tag from a placement group using the AWS CLI

You can use the delete-tags command to delete tags from existing resources. For examples, see
Examples in the AWS CLI Command Reference.
PowerShell

To view placement group tags

Use the Get-EC2Tag command.

To describe the tags for a specific placement group

Use the Get-EC2PlacementGroup command.

To tag an existing placement group

Use the New-EC2Tag command.

To delete a tag from a placement group

Use the Remove-EC2Tag command.

Launch instances in a placement group

You can launch an instance into a placement group if the placement group rules and limitations are
met (p. 991) using one of the following methods.

Console

To launch instances into a placement group using the console

1. Open the Amazon EC2 console at https://console.aws.amazon.com/ec2/.

2. In the navigation pane, choose Instances.
3. Choose Launch Instance. Complete the wizard as directed, taking care to do the following:

• On the Choose an Instance Type page, select an instance type that can be launched into a
placement group.
• On the Configure Instance Details page, the following fields are applicable to placement
groups:

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Describe instances in a placement group

• For Number of instances, enter the total number of instances that you need in this
placement group, because you might not be able to add instances to the placement group
later.
• For Placement group, select the Add instance to placement group check box. If you do not
see Placement group on this page, verify that you have selected an instance type that can
be launched into a placement group. Otherwise, this option is not available.
• For Placement group name, you can choose to add the instances to an existing placement
group or to a new placement group that you create.
• For Placement group strategy, choose the appropriate strategy. If you choose partition,
for Target partition, choose Auto distribution to have Amazon EC2 do a best effort to
distribute the instances evenly across all the partitions in the group. Alternatively, specify
the partition in which to launch the instances.

AWS CLI

To launch instances into a placement group using the AWS CLI

Use the run-instances command and specify the placement group name using the --placement
"GroupName = my-cluster" parameter. In this example, the placement group is named my-
cluster.

aws ec2 run-instances --placement "GroupName = my-cluster"

To launch instances into a specific partition of a partition placement group using the AWS CLI

Use the run-instances command and specify the placement group name and partition using the
--placement "GroupName = HDFS-Group-A, PartitionNumber = 3" parameter. In this
example, the placement group is named HDFS-Group-A and the partition number is 3.

aws ec2 run-instances --placement "GroupName = HDFS-Group-A, PartitionNumber = 3"

PowerShell

To launch instances into a placement group using AWS Tools for Windows PowerShell

Use the New-EC2Instance command and specify the placement group name using the -
Placement_GroupName parameter.

Describe instances in a placement group

You can view the placement information of your instances using one of the following methods. You can
also filter partition placement groups by the partition number using the AWS CLI.

New console

To view the placement group and partition number of an instance using the console

1. Open the Amazon EC2 console at https://console.aws.amazon.com/ec2/.

2. In the navigation pane, choose Instances.
3. Select the instance.
4. On the Details tab, under Host and placement group, find Placement group. If the instance is
not in a placement group, the field is empty. Otherwise, it contains the name of the placement
group name. If the placement group is a partition placement group, Partition number contains
the partition number for the instance.

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Describe instances in a placement group

Old console

To view the placement group and partition number of an instance using the console

1. Open the Amazon EC2 console at https://console.aws.amazon.com/ec2/.

2. In the navigation pane, choose Instances.
3. Select the instance.
4. In the Description tab, find Placement group. If the instance is not in a placement group, the
field is empty. Otherwise, it contains the name of the placement group name. If the placement
group is a partition placement group, Partition number contains the partition number for the
instance.

AWS CLI

To view the partition number for an instance in a partition placement group using the AWS CLI

Use the describe-instances command and specify the --instance-id parameter.

aws ec2 describe-instances --instance-id i-0123a456700123456

The response contains the placement information, which includes the placement group name and
the partition number for the instance.

"Placement": {
"AvailabilityZone": "us-east-1c",
"GroupName": "HDFS-Group-A",
"PartitionNumber": 3,
"Tenancy": "default"
}

To filter instances for a specific partition placement group and partition number using the AWS
CLI

Use the describe-instances command and specify the --filters parameter with the placement-
group-name and placement-partition-number filters. In this example, the placement group is
named HDFS-Group-A and the partition number is 7.

aws ec2 describe-instances --filters "Name = placement-group-name, Values = HDFS-Group-

A" "Name = placement-partition-number, Values = 7"

The response lists all the instances that are in the specified partition within the specified placement
group. The following is example output showing only the instance ID, instance type, and placement
information for the returned instances.

"Instances": [
{
"InstanceId": "i-0a1bc23d4567e8f90",
"InstanceType": "r4.large",
},

"Placement": {
"AvailabilityZone": "us-east-1c",
"GroupName": "HDFS-Group-A",
"PartitionNumber": 7,
"Tenancy": "default"
}

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Change the placement group for an instance

"InstanceId": "i-0a9b876cd5d4ef321",
"InstanceType": "r4.large",
},

"Placement": {
"AvailabilityZone": "us-east-1c",
"GroupName": "HDFS-Group-A",
"PartitionNumber": 7,
"Tenancy": "default"
}
],

Change the placement group for an instance

You can change the placement group for an instance in any of the following ways:

• Move an existing instance to a placement group

• Move an instance from one placement group to another
• Remove an instance from a placement group

Before you move or remove the instance, the instance must be in the stopped state. You can move or
remove an instance using the AWS CLI or an AWS SDK.

AWS CLI

To move an instance to a placement group using the AWS CLI

1. Stop the instance using the stop-instances command.

2. Use the modify-instance-placement command and specify the name of the placement group to
which to move the instance.

aws ec2 modify-instance-placement --instance-id i-0123a456700123456 --group-

name MySpreadGroup

3. Start the instance using the start-instances command.

PowerShell

To move an instance to a placement group using the AWS Tools for Windows PowerShell

1. Stop the instance using the Stop-EC2Instance command.

2. Use the Edit-EC2InstancePlacement command and specify the name of the placement group to
which to move the instance.
3. Start the instance using the Start-EC2Instance command.

AWS CLI

To remove an instance from a placement group using the AWS CLI

1. Stop the instance using the stop-instances command.

2. Use the modify-instance-placement command and specify an empty string for the placement
group name.

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Delete a placement group

aws ec2 modify-instance-placement --instance-id i-0123a456700123456 --group-name ""

3. Start the instance using the start-instances command.

PowerShell

To remove an instance from a placement group using the AWS Tools for Windows
PowerShell

1. Stop the instance using the Stop-EC2Instance command.

2. Use the Edit-EC2InstancePlacement command and specify an empty string for the placement
group name.
3. Start the instance using the Start-EC2Instance command.

Delete a placement group

If you need to replace a placement group or no longer need one, you can delete it. You can delete a
placement group using one of the following methods.

Requirement

Before you can delete a placement group, it must contain no instances. You can terminate (p. 448) all
instances that you launched into the placement group, move (p. 998) them to another placement
group, or remove (p. 998) them from the placement group.

New console

To delete a placement group using the console

1. Open the Amazon EC2 console at https://console.aws.amazon.com/ec2/.

2. In the navigation pane, choose Placement Groups.
3. Select the placement group and choose Actions, Delete.
4. When prompted for confirmation, enter Delete and then choose Delete.

Old console

To delete a placement group using the console

1. Open the Amazon EC2 console at https://console.aws.amazon.com/ec2/.

2. In the navigation pane, choose Placement Groups.
3. Select the placement group and choose Actions, Delete Placement Group.
4. When prompted for confirmation, choose Delete.

AWS CLI

To delete a placement group using the AWS CLI

Use the delete-placement-group command and specify the placement group name to delete the
placement group. In this example, the placement group name is my-cluster.

aws ec2 delete-placement-group --group-name my-cluster

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 Amazon Elastic Compute Cloud
User Guide for Windows Instances
Network MTU

PowerShell

To delete a placement group using the AWS Tools for Windows PowerShell

Use the Remove-EC2PlacementGroup command to delete the placement group.

Network maximum transmission unit (MTU) for

your EC2 instance
The maximum transmission unit (MTU) of a network connection is the size, in bytes, of the largest
permissible packet that can be passed over the connection. The larger the MTU of a connection, the more
data that can be passed in a single packet. Ethernet packets consist of the frame, or the actual data you
are sending, and the network overhead information that surrounds it.

Ethernet frames can come in different formats, and the most common format is the standard Ethernet
v2 frame format. It supports 1500 MTU, which is the largest Ethernet packet size supported over most of
the internet. The maximum supported MTU for an instance depends on its instance type. All Amazon EC2
instance types support 1500 MTU, and many current instance sizes support 9001 MTU, or jumbo frames.

The following rules apply to instances that are in Wavelength Zones:

• Traffic that goes from one instance to another within a VPC in the same Wavelength Zone has an MTU
of 1300.
• Traffic that goes from one instance to another that uses the carrier IP within a Wavelength Zone has an
MTU of 1500.
• Traffic that goes from one instance to another between a Wavelength Zone and the Region that uses a
public IP address has an MTU of 1500.
• Traffic that goes from one instance to another between a Wavelength Zone and the Region that uses a
private IP address has an MTU of 1300.

To see Network MTU information for Linux instances, switch to this page in the Amazon EC2 User Guide
for Linux Instances guide: Network maximum transmission unit (MTU) for your EC2 instance.

Contents
• Jumbo frames (9001 MTU) (p. 1000)
• Path MTU Discovery (p. 1001)
• Check the path MTU between two hosts (p. 1001)
• Check and set the MTU on your Windows instance (p. 1002)
• Troubleshoot (p. 1004)

Jumbo frames (9001 MTU)

Jumbo frames allow more than 1500 bytes of data by increasing the payload size per packet, and thus
increasing the percentage of the packet that is not packet overhead. Fewer packets are needed to send
the same amount of usable data. However, traffic is limited to a maximum MTU of 1500 in the following
cases:

• Traffic outside of a given AWS Region for EC2-Classic

• Traffic outside of a single VPC
• Traffic over an inter-region VPC peering connection

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Path MTU Discovery

• Traffic over VPN connections

• Traffic over an internet gateway

If packets are over 1500 bytes, they are fragmented, or they are dropped if the Don't Fragment flag is
set in the IP header.

Jumbo frames should be used with caution for internet-bound traffic or any traffic that leaves a VPC.
Packets are fragmented by intermediate systems, which slows down this traffic. To use jumbo frames
inside a VPC and not slow traffic that's bound for outside the VPC, you can configure the MTU size by
route, or use multiple elastic network interfaces with different MTU sizes and different routes.

For instances that are collocated inside a cluster placement group, jumbo frames help to achieve the
maximum network throughput possible, and they are recommended in this case. For more information,
see Placement groups (p. 988).

You can use jumbo frames for traffic between your VPCs and your on-premises networks over AWS Direct
Connect. For more information, and for how to verify Jumbo Frame capability, see Setting Network MTU
in the AWS Direct Connect User Guide.

All current generation instances (p. 149) support jumbo frames. The following previous generation
instances support jumbo frames: A1, C3, G2, I2, M3, and R3.

For more information about supported MTU sizes for transit gateways, see MTU in Amazon VPC Transit
Gateways.

Path MTU Discovery

Path MTU Discovery is used to determine the path MTU between two devices. The path MTU is the
maximum packet size that's supported on the path between the originating host and the receiving host.

For IPv4, when a host sends a packet that's larger than the MTU of the receiving host or that's larger
than the MTU of a device along the path, the receiving host or device drops the packet, and then returns
the following ICMP message: Destination Unreachable: Fragmentation Needed and Don't
Fragment was Set (Type 3, Code 4). This instructs the transmitting host to split the payload into
multiple smaller packets, and then retransmit them.

The IPv6 protocol does not support fragmentation in the network. When a host sends a packet that's
larger than the MTU of the receiving host or that's larger than the MTU of a device along the path,
the receiving host or device drops the packet, and then returns the following ICMP message: ICMPv6
Packet Too Big (PTB) (Type 2). This instructs the transmitting host to split the payload into multiple
smaller packets, and then retransmit them.

By default, security groups do not allow any inbound ICMP traffic. However, security groups are stateful,
therefore ICMP responses to outbound requests are allowed to flow in, regardless of security group
rules. Therefore, you do not need to explicitly add an inbound ICMP rule to ensure that your instance can
receive the ICMP message response. For more information about configuring ICMP rules in a network
ACL, see Path MTU Discovery in the Amazon VPC User Guide.
Important
Path MTU Discovery does not guarantee that jumbo frames will not be dropped by some
routers. An internet gateway in your VPC will forward packets up to 1500 bytes only. 1500 MTU
packets are recommended for internet traffic.

Check the path MTU between two hosts

You can check the path MTU between two hosts using the mturoute.exe command, which you can
download and install from http://www.elifulkerson.com/projects/mturoute.php.

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 Amazon Elastic Compute Cloud
User Guide for Windows Instances
Check and set the MTU on your Windows instance

To check path MTU using mturoute.exe

1. Download mturoute.exe from http://www.elifulkerson.com/projects/mturoute.php.

2. Open a Command Prompt window and change to the directory where you downloaded
mturoute.exe.
3. Use the following command to check the path MTU between your EC2 instance and another host.
You can use a DNS name or an IP address as the destination. If the destination is another EC2
instance, verify that the security group allows inbound UDP traffic. This example checks the path
MTU between an EC2 instance and www.elifulkerson.com.

.\mturoute.exe www.elifulkerson.com
* ICMP Fragmentation is not permitted. *
* Speed optimization is enabled. *
* Maximum payload is 10000 bytes. *
+ ICMP payload of 1472 bytes succeeded.
- ICMP payload of 1473 bytes is too big.
Path MTU: 1500 bytes.

In this example, the path MTU is 1500.

Check and set the MTU on your Windows instance

Some drivers are configured to use jumbo frames, and others are configured to use standard frame sizes.
You might want to use jumbo frames for network traffic within your VPC or standard frames for internet
traffic. Whatever your use case, we recommend that you verify that your instances behave as expected.

If your instance runs in a Wavelength Zone, the maximum MTU value is 1300.

ENA Driver
For Driver Versions 1.5 and Earlier

You can change the MTU setting using Device Manager or the Set-NetAdapterAdvancedProperty
command.

To get the current MTU setting using the Get-NetAdapterAdvancedProperty command, use the
following command. Check the entry for the interface name MTU. A value of 9001 indicates that Jumbo
frames are enabled. Jumbo frames are disabled by default.

Get-NetAdapterAdvancedProperty -Name "Ethernet"

Enable jumbo frames as follows:

Set-NetAdapterAdvancedProperty -Name "Ethernet" -RegistryKeyword "MTU" -RegistryValue 9001

Disable jumbo frames as follows:

Set-NetAdapterAdvancedProperty -Name "Ethernet" -RegistryKeyword "MTU" -RegistryValue 1500

For Driver Versions 2.1.0 and Later

You can change the MTU setting using Device Manager or the Set-NetAdapterAdvancedProperty
command.

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 Amazon Elastic Compute Cloud
User Guide for Windows Instances
Check and set the MTU on your Windows instance

To get the current MTU setting using the Get-NetAdapterAdvancedProperty command, use the
following command. Check the entry for the interface name *JumboPacket. A value of 9015 indicates
that Jumbo frames are enabled. Jumbo frames are disabled by default.

Run Get-NetAdapterAdvancedProperty or use wildcard (asterisk) to detect all corresponding Ethernet

names.

Get-NetAdapterAdvancedProperty -Name "Ethernet*"

Run the following commands and include the Ethernet name you want to query.

Get-NetAdapterAdvancedProperty -Name "Ethernet"

Enable jumbo frames as follows.

Set-NetAdapterAdvancedProperty -Name "Ethernet" -RegistryKeyword "*JumboPacket" -

RegistryValue 9015

Disable jumbo frames as follows:

Set-NetAdapterAdvancedProperty -Name "Ethernet" -RegistryKeyword "*JumboPacket" -

RegistryValue 1514

Intel SRIOV 82599 driver

You can change the MTU setting using Device Manager or the Set-NetAdapterAdvancedProperty
command.

To get the current MTU setting using the Get-NetAdapterAdvancedProperty command, use the
following command. Check the entry for the interface name *JumboPacket. A value of 9014 indicates
that Jumbo frames are enabled. (Note that the MTU size includes the header and the payload.) Jumbo
frames are disabled by default.

Get-NetAdapterAdvancedProperty -Name "Ethernet"

Enable jumbo frames as follows:

Set-NetAdapterAdvancedProperty -Name "Ethernet" -RegistryKeyword "*JumboPacket" -

RegistryValue 9014

Disable jumbo frames as follows:

Set-NetAdapterAdvancedProperty -Name "Ethernet" -RegistryKeyword "*JumboPacket" -

RegistryValue 1514

AWS PV driver
You cannot change the MTU setting using Device Manager, but you can change it using the netsh
command.

Get the current MTU setting using the following command. The name of the interface can vary. In the
output, look for an entry with the name "Ethernet," "Ethernet 2," or "Local Area Connection". You'll need

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 Amazon Elastic Compute Cloud
User Guide for Windows Instances
Troubleshoot

the interface name to enable or disable jumbo frames. A value of 9001 indicates that Jumbo frames are
enabled.

netsh interface ipv4 show subinterface

Enable jumbo frames as follows:

netsh interface ipv4 set subinterface "Ethernet" mtu=9001

Disable jumbo frames as follows:

netsh interface ipv4 set subinterface "Ethernet" mtu=1500

Troubleshoot
If you experience connectivity issues between your EC2 instance and an Amazon Redshift cluster when
using jumbo frames, see Queries Appear to Hang in the Amazon Redshift Cluster Management Guide

Virtual private clouds

Amazon Virtual Private Cloud (Amazon VPC) enables you to define a virtual network in your own
logically isolated area within the AWS cloud, known as a virtual private cloud (VPC). You can launch your
Amazon EC2 resources, such as instances, into the subnets of your VPC. Your VPC closely resembles a
traditional network that you might operate in your own data center, with the benefits of using scalable
infrastructure from AWS. You can configure your VPC; you can select its IP address range, create subnets,
and configure route tables, network gateways, and security settings. You can connect instances in your
VPC to the internet or to your own data center.

When you create your AWS account, we create a default VPC for you in each Region. A default VPC is a
VPC that is already configured and ready for you to use. You can launch instances into your default VPC
immediately. Alternatively, you can create your own nondefault VPC and configure it as you need.

If you created your AWS account before 2013-12-04, you might have support for the EC2-Classic
platform in some regions. If you created your AWS account after 2013-12-04, it does not support EC2-
Classic, so you must launch your resources in a VPC. For more information, see EC2-Classic (p. 1035).

Amazon VPC documentation

For more information about Amazon VPC, see the following documentation.

Guide Description

Amazon VPC User Guide Describes key concepts and provides instructions
for using the features of Amazon VPC.

Amazon VPC Peering Guide Describes VPC peering connections and provides
instructions for using them.

Amazon VPC Transit Gateways Describes transit gateways and provides

instructions for configuring and using them.

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 Amazon Elastic Compute Cloud
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Ports and Protocols

Guide Description

AWS Site-to-Site VPN User Guide Describes Site-to-Site VPN connections and
provides instructions for configuring and using
them.

Ports and Protocols for Windows Amazon Machine

Images (AMIs)
The following tables list the ports, protocols, and directions by workload for Windows Amazon Machine
Images.

Contents
• AllJoyn Router (p. 1005)
• Cast to Device (p. 1006)
• Core Networking (p. 1008)
• Delivery Optimization (p. 1026)
• Diag Track (p. 1027)
• DIAL Protocol Server (p. 1027)
• Distributed File System (DFS) Management (p. 1027)
• File and Printer Sharing (p. 1028)
• File Server Remote Management (p. 1030)
• ICMP v4 All (p. 1031)
• Multicast (p. 1031)
• Remote Desktop (p. 1032)
• Windows Device Management (p. 1034)
• Windows Firewall Remote Management (p. 1034)
• Windows Remote Management (p. 1035)

AllJoyn Router
OS Rule Description Port Protocol Direction

Windows AllJoyn Router Inbound rule Local: 9955 TCP In

Server 2016 (TCP-In) for AllJoyn
Router traffic Remote: Any
Windows [TCP]
Server 2019
AllJoyn Router Outbound rule Local: Any TCP Out
(TCP-Out) for AllJoyn
Router traffic Remote: Any
[TCP]

AllJoyn Router Inbound rule Local: Any UDP In

(UDP-In) for AllJoyn
Router traffic Remote: Any
[UDP]

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 Amazon Elastic Compute Cloud
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Cast to Device

OS Rule Description Port Protocol Direction

AllJoyn Router Outbound rule Local: Any UDP Out

(UDP-Out) for AllJoyn
Router traffic Remote: Any
[UDP]

Cast to Device

OS Rule Description Port Protocol Direction

Windows Cast to Device Inbound rule Local: 2177 TCP In

Server 2016 functionality for the Cast
(qWave-TCP- to Device Remote: Any
Windows In) functionality
Server 2019 to allow use
of the Quality
Windows
Audio Video
Experience
Service. [TCP
2177]

Cast to Device Outbound Local: Any TCP Out

functionality rule for the
(qWave-TCP- Cast to Device Remote: 2177
Out) functionality
to allow use
of the Quality
Windows
Audio Video
Experience
Service. [TCP
2177]

Cast to Device Inbound rule Local: 2177 UDP In

functionality for the Cast
(qWave-UDP- to Device Remote: Any
In) functionality
to allow use
of the Quality
Windows
Audio Video
Experience
Service. [UDP
2177]

Cast to Device Outbound Local: Any UDP Out

functionality rule for the
(qWave-UDP- Cast to Device Remote: 2177
Out) functionality
to allow use
of the Quality
Windows
Audio Video

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 Amazon Elastic Compute Cloud
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Cast to Device

OS Rule Description Port Protocol Direction

Experience
Service. [UDP
2177]

Cast to Inbound Local: Ply2Disc UDP In

Device SSDP rule to allow
Discovery discovery of Remote: Any
(UDP-In) Cast to Device
targets using
SSDP

Cast to Device Inbound rule Local: 10246 TCP In

Streaming for the Cast
Server (HTTP- to Device Remote: Any
Streaming-In) server to allow
streaming
using HTTP.
[TCP 10246]

Cast to Device Inbound rule Local: Any UDP In

Streaming for the Cast
Server (RTCP- to Device Remote: Any
Streaming-In) server to allow
streaming
using RTSP
and RTP. [UDP]

Cast to Device Outbound Local: Any UDP Out

Streaming rule for the
Server (RTP- Cast to Device Remote: Any
Streaming- server to allow
Out) streaming
using RTSP
and RTP. [UDP]

Cast to Device Inbound rule Local: 235, TCP In

Streaming for the Cast 542, 355, 523,
Server (RTSP- to Device 556
Streaming-In) server to allow
streaming Remote: Any
using RTSP
and RTP. [TCP
23554, 23555,
23556]

Cast to Device Inbound Local: 2869 TCP In

UPnP Events rule to allow
(TCP-In) receiving UPnP Remote: Any
Events from
Cast to Device
targets

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 Amazon Elastic Compute Cloud
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Core Networking

Core Networking
Windows Server 2012, 2012 R2, 2016, and 2019

OS Rule Definition Port Protocol Direction

Windows Destination Destination Local: 68 ICMPv6 In

Server 2012 Unreachable Unreachable
(ICMPv6-In) error Remote: 67
Windows messages are
Server 2012 sent from
R2 any node
that a packet
Windows traverses
Server 2016 which is
unable to
Windows
forward the
Server 2019
packet for any
reason except
congestion.

Destination Destination Local: 68 ICMPv4 In

Unreachable Unreachable
Fragmentation Fragmentation Remote: 67
Needed Needed error
(ICMPv4-In) messages are
sent from
any node
that a packet
traverses
which is
unable to
forward
the packet
because
fragmentation
was needed
and the don't
fragment bit
was set.

Core Outbound rule Local: Any UDP Out

Networking to allow DNS
- DNS (UDP- requests. DNS Remote: 53
Out) responses
based on
requests
that match
this rule are
permitted
regardless
of source
address. This
behavior is
classified as

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 Amazon Elastic Compute Cloud
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Core Networking

OS Rule Definition Port Protocol Direction

loose source
mapping.

Dynamic Host Allows DHCP Local: 68 UDP In

Configuration (Dynamic Host
Protocol Configuration Remote: 67
(DHCP-In) Protocol)
messages for
stateful auto-
configuration.

Dynamic Host Allows DHCP Local: 68 UDP Out

Configuration (Dynamic Host
Protocol Configuration Remote: 67
(DHCP-Out) Protocol)
messages for
stateful auto-
configuration.

Dynamic Host Allows Local: 546 UDP In

Configuration DHCPV6
Protocol for (Dynamic Host Remote: 547
IPv6(DHCPV6- Configuration
In) Protocol
for IPv6)
messages
for stateful
and stateless
configuration.

Dynamic Host Allows Local: 546 UDP Out

Configuration DHCPV6
Protocol for (Dynamic Host Remote: 547
IPv6(DHCPV6- Configuration
Out) Protocol
for IPv6)
messages
for stateful
and stateless
configuration.

Core Outbound Local: Any TCP Out

Networking - rule to allow
Group Policy remote LSASS Remote: Any
(LSASS-Out) traffic for
Group Policy
updates.

Core Core Local: Any TCP Out

Networking - Networking -
Group Policy Group Policy Remote: 445
(NP-Out) (NP-Out)

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Core Networking

OS Rule Definition Port Protocol Direction

Core Outbound Local: Any TCP Out

Networking - rule to allow
Group Policy remote RPC Remote: Any
(TCP-Out) traffic for
Group Policy
updates.

Internet IGMP Local: 68 2 In

Group messages
Management are sent and Remote: 67
Protocol received by
(IGMP-In) nodes to
create, join,
and depart
multicast
groups.

Core IGMP Local: 68 2 Out

Networking messages
- Internet are sent and Remote: 67
Group received by
Management nodes to
Protocol create, join,
(IGMP-Out) and depart
multicast
groups.

Core Inbound TCP Local: IPHTPS TCP In

Networking rule to allow
- IPHTTPS IPHTTPS Remote: Any
(TCP-In) tunneling
technology
to provide
connectivity
across HTTP
proxies and
firewalls.

Core Outbound Local: Any TCP Out

Networking TCP rule to
- IPHTTPS allow IPHTTPS Remote:
(TCP-Out) tunneling IPHTPS
technology
to provide
connectivity
across HTTP
proxies and
firewalls.

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Core Networking

OS Rule Definition Port Protocol Direction

IPv6 (IPv6-In) Inbound rule Local: Any 41 In

required
to permit Remote: 445
IPv6 traffic
for ISATAP
(Intra-Site
Automatic
Tunnel
Addressing
Protocol)
and 6to4
tunneling
services.

IPv6 (IPv6- Outbound Local: Any 41 Out

Out) rule required
to permit Remote: 445
IPv6 traffic
for ISATAP
(Intra-Site
Automatic
Tunnel
Addressing
Protocol)
and 6to4
tunneling
services.

Multicast Multicast Local: 68 ICMPv6 In

Listener Done Listener Done
(ICMPv6-In) messages Remote: 67
inform local
routers that
there are no
longer any
members
remaining
for a specific
multicast
address on the
subnet.

Multicast Multicast Local: 68 ICMPv6 Out

Listener Done Listener Done
(ICMPv6-Out) messages Remote: 67
inform local
routers that
there are no
longer any
members
remaining
for a specific
multicast
address on the
subnet.

1011
 Amazon Elastic Compute Cloud
User Guide for Windows Instances
Core Networking

OS Rule Definition Port Protocol Direction

Multicast An IPv6 Local: 68 ICMPv6 In

Listener Query multicast-
(ICMPv6-In) capable router Remote: 67
uses the
Multicast
Listener Query
message to
query a link
for multicast
group
membership.

Multicast An IPv6 Local: 68 ICMPv6 Out

Listener Query multicast-
(ICMPv6-Out) capable router Remote: 67
uses the
Multicast
Listener Query
message to
query a link
for multicast
group
membership.

Multicast The Multicast Local: 68 ICMPv6 In

Listener Listener
Report Report Remote: 67
(ICMPv6-In) message
is used by
a listening
node to either
immediately
report its
interest in
receiving
multicast
traffic at
a specific
multicast
address or in
response to
a Multicast
Listener
Query.

1012
 Amazon Elastic Compute Cloud
User Guide for Windows Instances
Core Networking

OS Rule Definition Port Protocol Direction

Multicast The Multicast Local: 68 ICMPv6 Out

Listener Listener
Report Report Remote: 67
(ICMPv6-Out) message
is used by
a listening
node to either
immediately
report its
interest in
receiving
multicast
traffic at
a specific
multicast
address or in
response to
a Multicast
Listener
Query.

Multicast Multicast Local: 68 ICMPv6 In

Listener Listener
Report v2 Report v2 Remote: 67
(ICMPv6-In) message
is used by
a listening
node to either
immediately
report its
interest in
receiving
multicast
traffic at
a specific
multicast
address or in
response to
a Multicast
Listener
Query.

1013
 Amazon Elastic Compute Cloud
User Guide for Windows Instances
Core Networking

OS Rule Definition Port Protocol Direction

Multicast Multicast Local: 68 ICMPv6 Out

Listener Listener
Report v2 Report v2 Remote: 67
(ICMPv6-Out) message
is used by
a listening
node to either
immediately
report its
interest in
receiving
multicast
traffic at
a specific
multicast
address or in
response to
a Multicast
Listener
Query.

Neighbor Neighbor Local: 68 ICMPv6 In

Discovery Discovery
Advertisement Advertisement Remote: 67
(ICMPv6-In) messages are
sent by nodes
to notify other
nodes of link-
layer address
changes or in
response to
a Neighbor
Discovery
Solicitation
request.

Neighbor Neighbor Local: 68 ICMPv6 Out

Discovery Discovery
Advertisement Advertisement Remote: 67
(ICMPv6-Out) messages are
sent by nodes
to notify other
nodes of link-
layer address
changes or in
response to
a Neighbor
Discovery
Solicitation
request.

1014
 Amazon Elastic Compute Cloud
User Guide for Windows Instances
Core Networking

OS Rule Definition Port Protocol Direction

Neighbor Neighbor Local: 68 ICMPv6 In

Discovery Discovery
Solicitation Solicitations Remote: 67
(ICMPv6-In) are sent by
nodes to
discover the
link-layer
address of
another on-
link IPv6
node.

Neighbor Neighbor Local: 68 ICMPv6 Out

Discovery Discovery
Solicitation Solicitations Remote: 67
(ICMPv6-Out) are sent by
nodes to
discover the
link-layer
address of
another on-
link IPv6
node.

Packet Too Big Packet Too Local: 68 ICMPv6 In

(ICMPv6-In) Big error
messages are Remote: 67
sent from
any node
that a packet
traverses
which is
unable to
forward
the packet
because the
packet is too
large for the
next link.

Packet Too Big Packet Too Local: 68 ICMPv6 Out

(ICMPv6-Out) Big error
messages are Remote: 67
sent from
any node
that a packet
traverses
which is
unable to
forward
the packet
because the
packet is too
large for the
next link.

1015
 Amazon Elastic Compute Cloud
User Guide for Windows Instances
Core Networking

OS Rule Definition Port Protocol Direction

Parameter Parameter Local: 68 ICMPv6 In

Problem Problem error
(ICMPv6-In) messages are Remote: 67
sent by nodes
when packets
are incorrectly
generated.

Parameter Parameter Local: 68 ICMPv6 Out

Problem Problem error
(ICMPv6-Out) messages are Remote: 67
sent by nodes
when packets
are incorrectly
generated.

Router Router Local: 68 ICMPv6 In

Advertisement Advertisement
(ICMPv6-In) messages Remote: 67
are sent
by routers
to other
nodes for
stateless auto-
configuration.

Router Router Local: 68 ICMPv6 Out

Advertisement Advertisement
(ICMPv6-Out) messages Remote: 67
are sent
by routers
to other
nodes for
stateless auto-
configuration.

Router Router Local: 68 ICMPv6 In

Solicitation Solicitation
(ICMPv6-In) messages Remote: 67
are sent by
nodes seeking
routers to
provide
stateless auto-
configuration.

Router Router Local: 68 ICMPv6 Out

Solicitation Solicitation
(ICMPv6-Out) messages Remote: 67
are sent by
nodes seeking
routers to
provide
stateless auto-
configuration.

1016
 Amazon Elastic Compute Cloud
User Guide for Windows Instances
Core Networking

OS Rule Definition Port Protocol Direction

Core Inbound UDP Local: Teredo UDP In

Networking - rule to allow
Teredo (UDP- Teredo edge Remote: Any
In) traversal. This
technology
provides
address
assignment
and automatic
tunneling for
unicast IPv6
traffic when
an IPv6/IPv4
host is located
behind an
IPv4 network
address
translator.

Core Outbound Local: Any UDP Out

Networking - UDP rule
Teredo (UDP- to allow Remote: Any
Out) Teredo edge
traversal. This
technology
provides
address
assignment
and automatic
tunneling for
unicast IPv6
traffic when
an IPv6/IPv4
host is located
behind an
IPv4 network
address
translator.

Time Time Local: 68 ICMPv6 In

Exceeded Exceeded
(ICMPv6-In) error Remote: 67
messages are
generated
from any node
that a packet
traverses
if the Hop
Limit value is
decremented
to zero at any
point on the
path.

1017
 Amazon Elastic Compute Cloud
User Guide for Windows Instances
Core Networking

OS Rule Definition Port Protocol Direction

Time Time Local: 68 ICMPv6 Out

Exceeded Exceeded
(ICMPv6-Out) error Remote: 67
messages are
generated
from any node
that a packet
traverses
if the Hop
Limit value is
decremented
to zero at any
point on the
path.

Windows Server 2008 R2 and SP2

OS Rule Definition Port Protocol Direction

Windows Destination Destination Local: 68 ICMPv6 In

Server 2008 Unreachable Unreachable
R2 (ICMPv6-In) error Remote: 67
messages are
Windows sent from
Server 2008 any node
SP2 that a packet
traverses
which is
unable to
forward the
packet for any
reason except
congestion.

Destination Destination Local: 68 ICMPv4 In

Unreachable Unreachable
Fragmentation Fragmentation Remote: 67
Needed Needed error
(ICMPv4-In) messages are
sent from
any node
that a packet
traverses
which is
unable to
forward
the packet
because
fragmentation
was needed
and the don't
fragment bit
was set.

1018
 Amazon Elastic Compute Cloud
User Guide for Windows Instances
Core Networking

OS Rule Definition Port Protocol Direction

Dynamic Host Allows DHCP Local: 68 UDP In

Configuration (Dynamic Host
Protocol Configuration Remote: 67
(DHCP-In) Protocol)
messages for
stateful auto-
configuration.

Dynamic Host Allows DHCP Local: 68 UDP Out

Configuration (Dynamic Host
Protocol Configuration Remote: 67
(DHCP-Out) Protocol)
messages for
stateful auto-
configuration.

Dynamic Host Allows Local: 546 UDP In

Configuration DHCPV6
Protocol for (Dynamic Host Remote: 547
IPv6(DHCPV6- Configuration
In) Protocol
for IPv6)
messages
for stateful
and stateless
configuration.

Dynamic Host Allows Local: 546 UDP Out

Configuration DHCPV6
Protocol for (Dynamic Host Remote: 547
IPv6(DHCPV6- Configuration
Out) Protocol
for IPv6)
messages
for stateful
and stateless
configuration.

Internet IGMP Local: 68 2 In

Group messages
Management are sent and Remote: 67
Protocol received by
(IGMP-In) nodes to
create, join,
and depart
multicast
groups.

1019
 Amazon Elastic Compute Cloud
User Guide for Windows Instances
Core Networking

OS Rule Definition Port Protocol Direction

IPv6 (IPv6-In) Inbound rule Local: Any 41 In

required
to permit Remote: 445
IPv6 traffic
for ISATAP
(Intra-Site
Automatic
Tunnel
Addressing
Protocol)
and 6to4
tunneling
services.

IPv6 (IPv6- Outbound Local: Any 41 Out

Out) rule required
to permit Remote: 445
IPv6 traffic
for ISATAP
(Intra-Site
Automatic
Tunnel
Addressing
Protocol)
and 6to4
tunneling
services.

Multicast Multicast Local: 68 ICMPv6 In

Listener Done Listener Done
(ICMPv6-In) messages Remote: 67
inform local
routers that
there are no
longer any
members
remaining
for a specific
multicast
address on the
subnet.

Multicast Multicast Local: 68 ICMPv6 Out

Listener Done Listener Done
(ICMPv6-Out) messages Remote: 67
inform local
routers that
there are no
longer any
members
remaining
for a specific
multicast
address on the
subnet.

1020
 Amazon Elastic Compute Cloud
User Guide for Windows Instances
Core Networking

OS Rule Definition Port Protocol Direction

Multicast An IPv6 Local: 68 ICMPv6 In

Listener Query multicast-
(ICMPv6-In) capable router Remote: 67
uses the
Multicast
Listener Query
message to
query a link
for multicast
group
membership.

Multicast An IPv6 Local: 68 ICMPv6 Out

Listener Query multicast-
(ICMPv6-Out) capable router Remote: 67
uses the
Multicast
Listener Query
message to
query a link
for multicast
group
membership.

Multicast The Multicast Local: 68 ICMPv6 In

Listener Listener
Report Report Remote: 67
(ICMPv6-In) message
is used by
a listening
node to either
immediately
report its
interest in
receiving
multicast
traffic at
a specific
multicast
address, or in
response to
a Multicast
Listener
Query.

1021
 Amazon Elastic Compute Cloud
User Guide for Windows Instances
Core Networking

OS Rule Definition Port Protocol Direction

Multicast The Multicast Local: 68 ICMPv6 Out

Listener Listener
Report Report Remote: 67
(ICMPv6-Out) message
is used by
a listening
node to either
immediately
report its
interest in
receiving
multicast
traffic at
a specific
multicast
address, or in
response to
a Multicast
Listener
Query.

Multicast Multicast Local: 68 ICMPv6 In

Listener Listener
Report v2 Report v2 Remote: 67
(ICMPv6-In) message
is used by
a listening
node to either
immediately
report its
interest in
receiving
multicast
traffic at
a specific
multicast
address, or in
response to
a Multicast
Listener
Query.

1022
 Amazon Elastic Compute Cloud
User Guide for Windows Instances
Core Networking

OS Rule Definition Port Protocol Direction

Multicast Multicast Local: 68 ICMPv6 Out

Listener Listener
Report v2 Report v2 Remote: 67
(ICMPv6-Out) message
is used by
a listening
node to either
immediately
report its
interest in
receiving
multicast
traffic at
a specific
multicast
address, or in
response to
a Multicast
Listener
Query.

Neighbor Neighbor Local: 68 ICMPv6 In

Discovery Discovery
Advertisement Advertisement Remote: 67
(ICMPv6-In) messages are
sent by nodes
to notify other
nodes of link-
layer address
changes or in
response to
a Neighbor
Discovery
Solicitation
request.

Neighbor Neighbor Local: 68 ICMPv6 Out

Discovery Discovery
Advertisement Advertisement Remote: 67
(ICMPv6-Out) messages are
sent by nodes
to notify other
nodes of link-
layer address
changes or in
response to
a Neighbor
Discovery
Solicitation
request.

1023
 Amazon Elastic Compute Cloud
User Guide for Windows Instances
Core Networking

OS Rule Definition Port Protocol Direction

Neighbor Neighbor Local: 68 ICMPv6 In

Discovery Discovery
Solicitation Solicitations Remote: 67
(ICMPv6-In) are sent by
nodes to
discover the
link-layer
address of
another on-
link IPv6
node.

Neighbor Neighbor Local: 68 ICMPv6 Out

Discovery Discovery
Solicitation Solicitations Remote: 67
(ICMPv6-Out) are sent by
nodes to
discover the
link-layer
address of
another on-
link IPv6
node.

Packet Too Big Packet Too Local: 68 ICMPv6 In

(ICMPv6-In) Big error
messages are Remote: 67
sent from
any node
that a packet
traverses
which is
unable to
forward
the packet
because the
packet is too
large for the
next link.

Packet Too Big Packet Too Local: 68 ICMPv6 Out

(ICMPv6-Out) Big error
messages are Remote: 67
sent from
any node
that a packet
traverses
which is
unable to
forward
the packet
because the
packet is too
large for the
next link.

1024
 Amazon Elastic Compute Cloud
User Guide for Windows Instances
Core Networking

OS Rule Definition Port Protocol Direction

Parameter Parameter Local: 68 ICMPv6 In

Problem Problem error
(ICMPv6-In) messages are Remote: 67
sent by nodes
when packets
are incorrectly
generated.

Parameter Parameter Local: 68 ICMPv6 Out

Problem Problem error
(ICMPv6-Out) messages are Remote: 67
sent by nodes
when packets
are incorrectly
generated.

Router Router Local: 68 ICMPv6 In

Advertisement Advertisement
(ICMPv6-In) messages Remote: 67
are sent
by routers
to other
nodes for
stateless auto-
configuration.

Router Router Local: 68 ICMPv6 Out

Advertisement Advertisement
(ICMPv6-Out) messages Remote: 67
are sent
by routers
to other
nodes for
stateless auto-
configuration.

Router Router Local: 68 ICMPv6 In

Solicitation Solicitation
(ICMPv6-In) messages Remote: 67
are sent by
nodes seeking
routers to
provide
stateless auto-
configuration.

Router Router Local: 68 ICMPv6 Out

Solicitation Solicitation
(ICMPv6-Out) messages Remote: 67
are sent by
nodes seeking
routers to
provide
stateless auto-
configuration.

1025
 Amazon Elastic Compute Cloud
User Guide for Windows Instances
Delivery Optimization

OS Rule Definition Port Protocol Direction

Time Time Local: 68 ICMPv6 In

Exceeded Exceeded
(ICMPv6-In) error Remote: 67
messages are
generated
from any node
that a packet
traverses
if the Hop
Limit value is
decremented
to zero at any
point on the
path.

Time Time Local: 68 ICMPv6 Out

Exceeded Exceeded
(ICMPv6-Out) error Remote: 67
messages are
generated
from any node
that a packet
traverses
if the Hop
Limit value is
decremented
to zero at any
point on the
path.

Delivery Optimization

OS Rule Definition Port Protocol Direction

Windows DeliveryOptimization-
Inbound Local: 7680 TCP In
Server 2019 TCP-In rule to allow
Delivery Remote: Any
Optimization
to connect
to remote
endpoints.

DeliveryOptimization-
Inbound Local: 7680 UDP In
UDP-In rule to allow
Delivery Remote: Any
Optimization
to connect
to remote
endpoints.

1026
 Amazon Elastic Compute Cloud
User Guide for Windows Instances
Diag Track

Diag Track
Windows Server 2019

OS Rule Definition Port Protocol Direction

Windows Connected Unified Local: Any TCP Out

Server 2019 User Telemetry
Experiences Client Remote: 443
and Telemetry Outbound
Traffic

Windows Server 2016

OS Rule Definition Port Protocol Direction

Windows Connected Unified Local: Any TCP Out

Server 2016 User Telemetry
Experiences Client Remote: Any
and Telemetry Outbound
Traffic

DIAL Protocol Server

OS Rule Definition Port Protocol Direction

Windows DIAL protocol Inbound Local: 10247 TCP In

Server 2016 server (HTTP- rule for DIAL
In) protocol Remote: Any
Windows server to allow
Server 2019 remote control
of Apps using
HTTP.

Distributed File System (DFS) Management

OS Rule Definition Port Protocol Direction

Windows DFS Inbound rule Local: 445 TCP In

Server 2008 R2 Management to allow SMB
(SMB-In) traffic to Remote: Any
manage the
File Services
role.

DFS Inbound rule Local: RPC TCP In

Management to allow WMI
(WMI-In) traffic to Remote: Any
manage the

1027
 Amazon Elastic Compute Cloud
User Guide for Windows Instances
File and Printer Sharing

OS Rule Definition Port Protocol Direction

File Services
role.

DFS Inbound rule Local: 135 TCP In

Management to allow DCOM
(DCOM-In) traffic to Remote: Any
manage the
File Services
role.

DFS Inbound rule Local: RPC TCP In

Management to allow TCP
(TCP-In) traffic to Remote: Any
manage the
File Services
role.

File and Printer Sharing

OS Rule Definition Port Protocol Direction

Windows File and Printer Echo Request Local: 5355 ICMPv4 In

Server 2008 R2 Sharing (Echo messages are
Request - sent as ping Remote: Any
Windows ICMPv4-In) requests to
Server 2008 other nodes.
SP2
File and Printer Echo Request Local: 5355 ICMPv4 Out
Windows Sharing (Echo messages are
Server 2012 Request - sent as ping Remote: Any
ICMPv4-Out) requests to
Windows other nodes.
Server 2012 R2
File and Printer Echo Request Local: 5355 ICMPv6 In
Sharing (Echo messages are
Request - sent as ping Remote: Any
ICMPv6-In) requests to
other nodes.

File and Printer Echo Request Local: 5355 ICMPv6 Out

Sharing (Echo messages are
Request - sent as ping Remote: Any
ICMPv6-Out) requests to
other nodes.

File and Inbound rule Local: 5355 UDP In

Printer Sharing for File and
(LLMNR-UDP- Printer Sharing Remote: Any
In) to allow Link
Local Multicast
Name
Resolution.

1028
 Amazon Elastic Compute Cloud
User Guide for Windows Instances
File and Printer Sharing

OS Rule Definition Port Protocol Direction

File and Outbound rule Local: Any UDP Out

Printer Sharing for File and
(LLMNR-UDP- Printer Sharing Remote: 5355
Out) to allow Link
Local Multicast
Name
Resolution.

File and Printer Inbound Local: 138 UDP In

Sharing (NB- rule for File
Datagram-In) and Printer Remote: Any
Sharing to
allow NetBIOS
Datagram
transmission
and reception.

File and Printer Outbound Local: Any UDP Out

Sharing (NB- rule for File
Datagram-Out) and Printer Remote: 138
Sharing to
allow NetBIOS
Datagram
transmission
and reception.

File and Printer Inbound rule Local: 137 UDP In

Sharing (NB- for File and
Name-In) Printer Sharing Remote: Any
to allow
NetBIOS Name
Resolution.

File and Printer Outbound rule Local: Any UDP Out

Sharing (NB- for File and
Name-Out) Printer Sharing Remote: 137
to allow
NetBIOS Name
Resolution.

File and Printer Inbound Local: 139 TCP In

Sharing (NB- rule for File
Session-In) and Printer Remote: Any
Sharing to
allow NetBIOS
Session Service
connections.

File and Printer Outbound Local: Any TCP Out

Sharing (NB- rule for File
Session-Out) and Printer Remote: 139
Sharing to
allow NetBIOS
Session Service
connections.

1029
 Amazon Elastic Compute Cloud
User Guide for Windows Instances
File Server Remote Management

OS Rule Definition Port Protocol Direction

File and Printer Inbound rule Local: 445 TCP In

Sharing (SMB- for File and
In) Printer Sharing Remote: Any
to allow Server
Message Block
transmission
and reception
via Named
Pipes.

File and Printer Outbound rule Local: Any TCP Out

Sharing (SMB- for File and
Out) Printer Sharing Remote: 445
to allow Server
Message Block
transmission
and reception
via Named
Pipes.

File and Inbound rule Local: RPC TCP In

Printer Sharing for File and
(Spooler Printer Sharing Remote: Any
Service - RPC) to allow the
Print Spooler
Service to
communicate
via TCP/RPC.

File and Inbound rule Local: RPC- TCP In

Printer Sharing for the RPCSS EPMap
(Spooler service to
Service - RPC- allow RPC/ Remote: Any
EPMAP) TCP traffic for
the Spooler
Service.

File Server Remote Management

OS Rule Definition Port Protocol Direction

Windows File Server Inbound rule Local: 135 TCP In

Server 2008 Remote to allow DCOM
SP2 Management traffic to Remote: Any
(DCOM-In) manage the
Windows File Services
Server 2012 role.

Windows File Server Inbound rule Local: 445 TCP In

Server 2012 R2 Remote to allow SMB
Management traffic to Remote: Any
(SMB-In) manage the

1030
 Amazon Elastic Compute Cloud
User Guide for Windows Instances
ICMP v4 All

OS Rule Definition Port Protocol Direction

File Services
role.

WMI-In Inbound rule Local: RPC TCP In

to allow WMI
traffic to Remote: Any
manage the
File Services
role.

ICMP v4 All

OS Rule Port Protocol Direction

Windows Server All ICMP v4 Local: 139 ICMPv4 In

2012
Remote: Any
Windows Server
2012 R2

Multicast
Windows Server 2019

OS Rule Definition Port Protocol Direction

Windows mDNS (UDP- Inbound rule Local: 5353 UDP In

Server 2019 In) for mDNS
traffic. Remote: Any

mDNS (UDP- Outbound Local: Any UDP Out

Out) rule for mDNS
traffic. Remote: 5353

Windows Server 2016

OS Rule Definition Port Protocol Direction

Windows mDNS (UDP- Inbound rule Local: mDNS UDP In

Server 2016 In) for mDNS
traffic. Remote: Any

mDNS (UDP- Outbound Local: 5353 UDP Out

Out) rule for mDNS
traffic. Remote: Any

1031
 Amazon Elastic Compute Cloud
User Guide for Windows Instances
Remote Desktop

Remote Desktop
Windows Server 2012 R2, 2016, and 2019

OS Rule Definition Port Protocol Direction

Windows Remote Inbound Local: Any TCP In

Server 2012 Desktop - rule for the
R2 Shadow (TCP- Remote Remote: Any
In) Desktop
Windows service
Server 2016 to allow
shadowing
Windows of an existing
Server 2019 Remote
Desktop
session.

Remote Inbound Local: 3389 TCP In

Desktop - rule for the
User Mode Remote Remote: Any
(TCP-In) Desktop
service to
allow RDP
traffic.

Remote Inbound Local: 3389 UDP In

Desktop - rule for the
User Mode Remote Remote: Any
(UDP-In) Desktop
service to
allow RDP
traffic.

Windows Server 2012

OS Rule Definition Port Protocol Direction

Windows Remote Inbound Local: 3389 TCP In

Server 2012 Desktop - rule for the
User Mode Remote Remote: Any
(TCP-In) Desktop
service to
allow RDP
traffic.

Remote Inbound Local: 3389 UDP In

Desktop - rule for the
User Mode Remote Remote: Any
(UDP-In) Desktop
service to
allow RDP
traffic.

1032
 Amazon Elastic Compute Cloud
User Guide for Windows Instances
Remote Desktop

Windows Server 2008 SP2

OS Rule Definition Port Protocol Direction

Windows Remote Inbound Local: Any TCP In

Server 2008 Desktop - rule for the
SP2 Shadow (TCP- Remote Remote: Any
In) Desktop
service
to allow
shadowing
of an existing
Remote
Desktop
session.

Remote Inbound Local: 3389 TCP In

Desktop - rule for the
User Mode Remote Remote: Any
(TCP-In) Desktop
service to
allow RDP
traffic.

Remote Inbound Local: 3389 UDP In

Desktop - rule for the
User Mode Remote Remote: Any
(UDP-In) Desktop
service to
allow RDP
traffic.

Windows Server 2008 R2

OS Rule Definition Port Protocol Direction

Windows RemoteFX Inbound Local: 3389 TCP In

Server 2008 (TCP-In) rule for the
R2 Remote Remote: Any
Desktop
service to
allow RDP
traffic.

TCP-In Inbound Local: 3389 TCP In

rule for the
Remote Remote: Any
Desktop
service to
allow RDP
traffic.

1033
 Amazon Elastic Compute Cloud
User Guide for Windows Instances
Windows Device Management

Windows Device Management

OS Rule Definition Port Protocol Direction

Windows Windows Allow Local: Any TCP Out

Server 2019 Device outbound
Management TCP traffic Remote: Any
Certificate from Windows
Installer (TCP Device
out) Management
Certificate
Installer.

Windows Allow Local: Any TCP Out

Device outbound
Management TCP traffic Remote: Any
Enrollment from Windows
Service (TCP Device
out) Management
Enrollment
Service.

Windows Allow Local: Any TCP Out

Device outbound
Management TCP traffic Remote: Any
Sync Client from Windows
(TCP out) Device
Management
Sync Client.

Windows Allow Local: Any TCP Out

Enrollment outbound
WinRT (TCP TCP traffic Remote: Any
Out) from Windows
Enrollment
WinRT.

Windows Firewall Remote Management

OS Rule Definition Port Protocol Direction

Windows Windows Inbound Local: RPC TCP In

Server 2008 Firewall rule for the
SP2 Remote Windows Remote: Any
Management Firewall to
Windows (RPC) be remotely
Server 2012 R2 managed via
RPC/TCP.

Windows Inbound rule Local: RPC- TCP In

Firewall for the RPCSS EPMap
Remote service to
Management allow RPC/ Remote: Any
(RPC-EPMAP) TCP traffic for

1034
 Amazon Elastic Compute Cloud
User Guide for Windows Instances
Windows Remote Management

OS Rule Definition Port Protocol Direction

the Windows
Firewall.

Windows Remote Management

OS Rule Definition Port Protocol Direction

Windows Windows Inbound rule Local: 5985 TCP In

Server 2008 R2 Remote for Windows
Management Remote Remote: Any
Windows (HTTP-In) Management
Server 2008 via WS-
SP2 Management.

Windows
Server 2012

Windows
Server 2012 R2

Windows
Server 2016

Windows
Server 2019

For more information about Amazon EC2 security groups, see Amazon EC2 Security Groups for Windows
Instances.

EC2-Classic
With EC2-Classic, your instances run in a single, flat network that you share with other customers. With
Amazon VPC, your instances run in a virtual private cloud (VPC) that's logically isolated to your AWS
account.

The EC2-Classic platform was introduced in the original release of Amazon EC2. If you created your
AWS account after 2013-12-04, it does not support EC2-Classic, so you must launch your Amazon EC2
instances in a VPC.

If your account does not support EC2-Classic, we create a default VPC for you. By default, when you
launch an instance, we launch it into your default VPC. Alternatively, you can create a nondefault VPC
and specify it when you launch an instance.

Detect supported platforms

The Amazon EC2 console indicates which platforms you can launch instances into for the selected region,
and whether you have a default VPC in that Region.

Verify that the Region you'll use is selected in the navigation bar. On the Amazon EC2 console
dashboard, look for Supported Platforms under Account Attributes.

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Detect supported platforms

Accounts that support EC2-Classic

The dashboard displays the following under Account Attributes to indicate that the account supports
both the EC2-Classic platform and VPCs in this Region, but the Region does not have a default VPC.

The output of the describe-account-attributes command includes both the EC2 and VPC values for the
supported-platforms attribute.

aws ec2 describe-account-attributes --attribute-names supported-platforms

{
"AccountAttributes": [
{
"AttributeName": "supported-platforms",
"AttributeValues": [
{
"AttributeValue": "EC2"
},
{
"AttributeValue": "VPC"
}
]
}
]
}

Accounts that require a VPC

The dashboard displays the following under Account Attributes to indicate that the account requires a
VPC to launch instances in this Region, does not support the EC2-Classic platform in this Region, and the
Region has a default VPC with the identifier vpc-1a2b3c4d.

The output of the describe-account-attributes command for the specified Region includes only the VPC
value for the supported-platforms attribute.

aws ec2 describe-account-attributes --attribute-names supported-platforms --region us-

east-2
{
"AccountAttributes": [
{
"AttributeValues": [
{
"AttributeValue": "VPC"
}
]

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Instance types available in EC2-Classic

"AttributeName": "supported-platforms",
}
]
}

Instance types available in EC2-Classic

Most of the newer instance types require a VPC. The following are the only instance types supported in
EC2-Classic:

• General purpose: M1, M3, and T1

• Compute optimized: C1, C3, and CC2
• Memory optimized: CR1, M2, and R3
• Storage optimized: D2, HS1, and I2
• Accelerated computing: G2

If your account supports EC2-Classic but you have not created a nondefault VPC, you can do one of the
following to launch instances that require a VPC:

• Create a nondefault VPC and launch your VPC-only instance into it by specifying a subnet ID or a
network interface ID in the request. Note that you must create a nondefault VPC if you do not have
a default VPC and you are using the AWS CLI, Amazon EC2 API, or AWS SDK to launch a VPC-only
instance.
• Launch your VPC-only instance using the Amazon EC2 console. The Amazon EC2 console creates a
nondefault VPC in your account and launches the instance into the subnet in the first Availability Zone.
The console creates the VPC with the following attributes:
• One subnet in each Availability Zone, with the public IPv4 addressing attribute set to true so that
instances receive a public IPv4 address. For more information, see IP Addressing in Your VPC in the
Amazon VPC User Guide.
• An Internet gateway, and a main route table that routes traffic in the VPC to the Internet gateway.
This enables the instances you launch in the VPC to communicate over the Internet. For more
information, see Internet Gateways in the Amazon VPC User Guide.
• A default security group for the VPC and a default network ACL that is associated with each subnet.
For more information, see Security Groups for Your VPC in the Amazon VPC User Guide.

If you have other resources in EC2-Classic, you can take steps to migrate them to a VPC. For more
information, see Migrate from EC2-Classic to a VPC (p. 1054).

Differences between instances in EC2-Classic and a

VPC
The following table summarizes the differences between instances launched in EC2-Classic, instances
launched in a default VPC, and instances launched in a nondefault VPC.

Characteristic EC2-Classic Default VPC Nondefault VPC

Public IPv4 Your instance receives a Your instance launched in Your instance doesn't
address (from public IPv4 address from a default subnet receives receive a public IPv4
Amazon's the EC2-Classic public IPv4 a public IPv4 address address by default, unless
public IP address pool. by default, unless you you specify otherwise
address pool) specify otherwise during during launch, or you
launch, or you modify

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Characteristic EC2-Classic Default VPC Nondefault VPC

the subnet's public IPv4 modify the subnet's public
address attribute. IPv4 address attribute.

Private IPv4 Your instance receives a Your instance receives a Your instance receives a
address private IPv4 address from static private IPv4 address static private IPv4 address
the EC2-Classic range each from the address range of from the address range of
time it's started. your default VPC. your VPC.

Multiple We select a single You can assign multiple You can assign multiple
private IPv4 private IP address for private IPv4 addresses to private IPv4 addresses to
addresses your instance; multiple your instance. your instance.
IP addresses are not
supported.

Elastic IP An Elastic IP is An Elastic IP remains An Elastic IP remains

address (IPv4) disassociated from your associated with your associated with your
instance when you stop it. instance when you stop it. instance when you stop it.

Associating You associate an Elastic IP An Elastic IP address is An Elastic IP address is

an Elastic IP address with an instance. a property of a network a property of a network
address interface. You associate interface. You associate
an Elastic IP address with an Elastic IP address with
an instance by updating an instance by updating
the network interface the network interface
attached to the instance. attached to the instance.

Reassociating If the Elastic IP address is If the Elastic IP address is If the Elastic IP address
an Elastic IP already associated with already associated with is already associated
address another instance, the another instance, the with another instance,
address is automatically address is automatically it succeeds only if you
associated with the new associated with the new allowed reassociation.
instance. instance.

Tagging Elastic You cannot apply tags to You can apply tags to an You can apply tags to an
IP addresses an Elastic IP address. Elastic IP address. Elastic IP address.

DNS DNS hostnames are DNS hostnames are DNS hostnames are
hostnames enabled by default. enabled by default. disabled by default.

Security group A security group can A security group can A security group can
reference security groups reference security groups reference security groups
that belong to other AWS for your VPC, or for a for your VPC only.
accounts. peer VPC in a VPC peering
connection.

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Differences between instances in EC2-Classic and a VPC

Characteristic EC2-Classic Default VPC Nondefault VPC

Security group You can't change the You can assign up to 5 You can assign up to 5
association security groups of your security groups to an security groups to an
running instance. You can instance. instance.
either modify the rules
of the assigned security You can assign security You can assign security
groups, or replace the groups to your instance groups to your instance
instance with a new one when you launch it and when you launch it and
(create an AMI from the while it's running. while it's running.
instance, launch a new
instance from this AMI
with the security groups
that you need, disassociate
any Elastic IP address
from the original instance
and associate it with the
new instance, and then
terminate the original
instance).

Security group You can add rules for You can add rules for You can add rules for
rules inbound traffic only. inbound and outbound inbound and outbound
traffic. traffic.

Tenancy Your instance runs on You can run your instance You can run your instance
shared hardware. on shared hardware or on shared hardware or
single-tenant hardware. single-tenant hardware.

Accessing the Your instance can access By default, your instance By default, your instance
Internet the Internet. Your instance can access the Internet. cannot access the Internet.
automatically receives a Your instance receives Your instance doesn't
public IP address, and can a public IP address by receive a public IP address
access the Internet directly default. An Internet by default. Your VPC may
through the AWS network gateway is attached to have an Internet gateway,
edge. your default VPC, and your depending on how it was
default subnet has a route created.
to the Internet gateway.

IPv6 IPv6 addressing is not You can optionally You can optionally
addressing supported. You cannot associate an IPv6 CIDR associate an IPv6 CIDR
assign IPv6 addresses to block with your VPC, and block with your VPC, and
your instances. assign IPv6 addresses to assign IPv6 addresses to
instances in your VPC. instances in your VPC.

Security groups for EC2-Classic

If you're using EC2-Classic, you must use security groups created specifically for EC2-Classic. When you
launch an instance in EC2-Classic, you must specify a security group in the same Region as the instance.
You can't specify a security group that you created for a VPC when you launch an instance in EC2-Classic.

After you launch an instance in EC2-Classic, you can't change its security groups. However, you can
add rules to or remove rules from a security group, and those changes are automatically applied to all
instances that are associated with the security group after a short period.

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Your AWS account automatically has a default security group per Region for EC2-Classic. If you try
to delete the default security group, you'll get the following error: Client.InvalidGroup.Reserved: The
security group 'default' is reserved.

You can create custom security groups. The security group name must be unique within your account for
the Region. To create a security group for use in EC2-Classic, choose No VPC for the VPC.

You can add inbound rules to your default and custom security groups. You can't change the outbound
rules for an EC2-Classic security group. When you create a security group rule, you can use a different
security group for EC2-Classic in the same Region as the source or destination. To specify a security
group for another AWS account, add the AWS account ID as a prefix; for example, 111122223333/sg-
edcd9784.

In EC2-Classic, you can have up to 500 security groups in each Region for each account. You can add
up to 100 rules to a security group. You can have up to 800 security group rules per instance. This is
calculated as the multiple of rules per security group and security groups per instance. If you reference
other security groups in your security group rules, we recommend that you use security group names
that are 22 characters or less in length.

IP addressing and DNS

Amazon provides a DNS server that resolves Amazon-provided IPv4 DNS hostnames to IPv4 addresses. In
EC2-Classic, the Amazon DNS server is located at 172.16.0.23.

If you create a custom firewall configuration in EC2-Classic, you must create a rule in your firewall that
allows inbound traffic from port 53 (DNS)—with a destination port from the ephemeral range—from
the address of the Amazon DNS server; otherwise, internal DNS resolution from your instances fails. If
your firewall doesn't automatically allow DNS query responses, then you need to allow traffic from the
IP address of the Amazon DNS server. To get the IP address of the Amazon DNS server, use the following
command from within your instance:

ipconfig /all | findstr /c:"DNS Servers"

Elastic IP addresses
If your account supports EC2-Classic, there's one pool of Elastic IP addresses for use with the EC2-Classic
platform and another for use with your VPCs. You can't associate an Elastic IP address that you allocated
for use with a VPC with an instance in EC2-Classic, and vice- versa. However, you can migrate an Elastic
IP address you've allocated for use in the EC2-Classic platform for use with a VPC. You cannot migrate an
Elastic IP address to another Region.

To allocate an Elastic IP address for use in EC2-Classic using the console

1. Open the Amazon EC2 console at https://console.aws.amazon.com/ec2/.

2. In the navigation pane, choose Elastic IPs.
3. Choose Allocate new address.
4. Select Classic, and then choose Allocate. Close the confirmation screen.

Migrate an Elastic IP Address from EC2-Classic

If your account supports EC2-Classic, you can migrate Elastic IP addresses that you've allocated for use
with EC2-Classic platform to be used with a VPC, within the same Region. This can assist you to migrate
your resources from EC2-Classic to a VPC; for example, you can launch new web servers in your VPC, and

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Differences between instances in EC2-Classic and a VPC

then use the same Elastic IP addresses that you used for your web servers in EC2-Classic for your new
VPC web servers.

After you've migrated an Elastic IP address to a VPC, you cannot use it with EC2-Classic. However, if
required, you can restore it to EC2-Classic. You cannot migrate an Elastic IP address that was originally
allocated for use with a VPC to EC2-Classic.

To migrate an Elastic IP address, it must not be associated with an instance. For more information about
disassociating an Elastic IP address from an instance, see Disassociate an Elastic IP address (p. 944).

You can migrate as many EC2-Classic Elastic IP addresses as you can have in your account. However,
when you migrate an Elastic IP address, it counts against your Elastic IP address limit for VPCs. You
cannot migrate an Elastic IP address if it will result in your exceeding your limit. Similarly, when you
restore an Elastic IP address to EC2-Classic, it counts against your Elastic IP address limit for EC2-Classic.
For more information, see Elastic IP address limit (p. 947).

You cannot migrate an Elastic IP address that has been allocated to your account for less than 24 hours.

You can migrate an Elastic IP address from EC2-Classic using the Amazon EC2 console or the Amazon
VPC console. This option is only available if your account supports EC2-Classic.

To move an Elastic IP address using the Amazon EC2 console

1. Open the Amazon EC2 console at https://console.aws.amazon.com/ec2/.

2. In the navigation pane, choose Elastic IPs.
3. Select the Elastic IP address, and choose Actions, Move to VPC scope.
4. In the confirmation dialog box, choose Move Elastic IP.

You can restore an Elastic IP address to EC2-Classic using the Amazon EC2 console or the Amazon VPC
console.

To restore an Elastic IP address to EC2-Classic using the Amazon EC2 console

1. Open the Amazon EC2 console at https://console.aws.amazon.com/ec2/.

2. In the navigation pane, choose Elastic IPs.
3. Select the Elastic IP address, choose Actions, Restore to EC2 scope.
4. In the confirmation dialog box, choose Restore.

After you've performed the command to move or restore your Elastic IP address, the process of
migrating the Elastic IP address can take a few minutes. Use the describe-moving-addresses command to
check whether your Elastic IP address is still moving, or has completed moving.

After you've moved your Elastic IP address, you can view its allocation ID on the Elastic IPs page in the
Allocation ID field.

If the Elastic IP address is in a moving state for longer than 5 minutes, contact Premium Support.

To move an Elastic IP address using the command line

You can use one of the following commands. For more information about these command line interfaces,
see Access Amazon EC2 (p. 3).

• move-address-to-vpc (AWS CLI)

• Move-EC2AddressToVpc (AWS Tools for Windows PowerShell)

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Share and access resources between EC2-Classic and a VPC

To restore an Elastic IP address to EC2-Classic using the command line

You can use one of the following commands. For more information about these command line interfaces,
see Access Amazon EC2 (p. 3).

• restore-address-to-classic (AWS CLI)

• Restore-EC2AddressToClassic (AWS Tools for Windows PowerShell)

To describe the status of your moving addresses using the command line

You can use one of the following commands. For more information about these command line interfaces,
see Access Amazon EC2 (p. 3).

• describe-moving-addresses (AWS CLI)

• Get-EC2Address (AWS Tools for Windows PowerShell)

Share and access resources between EC2-Classic and

a VPC
Some resources and features in your AWS account can be shared or accessed between EC2-Classic and a
VPC, for example, through ClassicLink. For more information, see ClassicLink (p. 1043).

If your account supports EC2-Classic, you might have set up resources for use in EC2-Classic. If you
want to migrate from EC2-Classic to a VPC, you must recreate those resources in your VPC. For more
information about migrating from EC2-Classic to a VPC, see Migrate from EC2-Classic to a VPC (p. 1054).

The following resources can be shared or accessed between EC2-Classic and a VPC.

Resource Notes

AMI  

Bundle task  

EBS volume  

Elastic IP address (IPv4) You can migrate an Elastic IP address from EC2-
Classic to a VPC. You can't migrate an Elastic
IP address that was originally allocated for use
in a VPC to EC2-Classic. For more information,
see Migrate an Elastic IP Address from EC2-
Classic (p. 1040).

Instance An EC2-Classic instance can communicate with

instances in a VPC using public IPv4 addresses, or
you can use ClassicLink to enable communication
over private IPv4 addresses.

You can't migrate an instance from EC2-Classic to

a VPC. However, you can migrate your application
from an instance in EC2-Classic to an instance in a
VPC. For more information, see Migrate from EC2-
Classic to a VPC (p. 1054).

Key pair  

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ClassicLink

Resource Notes

Load balancer If you're using ClassicLink, you can register a

linked EC2-Classic instance with a load balancer in
a VPC, provided that the VPC has a subnet in the
same Availability Zone as the instance.

You can't migrate a load balancer from EC2-

Classic to a VPC. You can't register an instance in a
VPC with a load balancer in EC2-Classic.

Placement group  

Reserved Instance You can change the network platform for your
Reserved Instances from EC2-Classic to a VPC.
For more information, see Modify Reserved
Instances (p. 275).

Security group A linked EC2-Classic instance can use a VPC

security groups through ClassicLink to control
traffic to and from the VPC. VPC instances can't
use EC2-Classic security groups.

You can't migrate a security group from EC2-

Classic to a VPC. You can copy rules from a
security group for EC2-Classic to a security group
for a VPC. For more information, see Create a
security group (p. 1154).

Snapshot  

The following resources can't be shared or moved between EC2-Classic and a VPC:

• Spot Instances

ClassicLink
ClassicLink allows you to link EC2-Classic instances to a VPC in your account, within the same Region. If
you associate the VPC security groups with a EC2-Classic instance, this enables communication between
your EC2-Classic instance and instances in your VPC using private IPv4 addresses. ClassicLink removes
the need to make use of public IPv4 addresses or Elastic IP addresses to enable communication between
instances in these platforms.

ClassicLink is available to all users with accounts that support the EC2-Classic platform, and can be
used with any EC2-Classic instance. For more information about migrating your resources to a VPC, see
Migrate from EC2-Classic to a VPC (p. 1054).

There is no additional charge for using ClassicLink. Standard charges for data transfer and instance usage
apply.

Contents
• ClassicLink basics (p. 1044)
• ClassicLink limitations (p. 1046)
• Work with ClassicLink (p. 1047)
• Example IAM policies for ClassicLink (p. 1050)

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ClassicLink

• Example: ClassicLink security group configuration for a three-tier web application (p. 1052)

ClassicLink basics
There are two steps to linking an EC2-Classic instance to a VPC using ClassicLink. First, you must enable
the VPC for ClassicLink. By default, all VPCs in your account are not enabled for ClassicLink, to maintain
their isolation. After you've enabled the VPC for ClassicLink, you can then link any running EC2-Classic
instance in the same Region in your account to that VPC. Linking your instance includes selecting security
groups from the VPC to associate with your EC2-Classic instance. After you've linked the instance, it
can communicate with instances in your VPC using their private IP addresses, provided the VPC security
groups allow it. Your EC2-Classic instance does not lose its private IP address when linked to the VPC.

Linking your instance to a VPC is sometimes referred to as attaching your instance.

A linked EC2-Classic instance can communicate with instances in a VPC, but it does not form part of the
VPC. If you list your instances and filter by VPC, for example, through the DescribeInstances API
request, or by using the Instances screen in the Amazon EC2 console, the results do not return any EC2-
Classic instances that are linked to the VPC. For more information about viewing your linked EC2-Classic
instances, see View your ClassicLink-enabled VPCs and linked instances (p. 1049).

By default, if you use a public DNS hostname to address an instance in a VPC from a linked EC2-Classic
instance, the hostname resolves to the instance's public IP address. The same occurs if you use a public
DNS hostname to address a linked EC2-Classic instance from an instance in the VPC. If you want the
public DNS hostname to resolve to the private IP address, you can enable ClassicLink DNS support for
the VPC. For more information, see Enable ClassicLink DNS support (p. 1049).

If you no longer require a ClassicLink connection between your instance and the VPC, you can unlink
the EC2-Classic instance from the VPC. This disassociates the VPC security groups from the EC2-Classic
instance. A linked EC2-Classic instance is automatically unlinked from a VPC when it's stopped. After
you've unlinked all linked EC2-Classic instances from the VPC, you can disable ClassicLink for the VPC.

Use other AWS services in your VPC with ClassicLink

Linked EC2-Classic instances can access the following AWS services in the VPC: Amazon Redshift,
Amazon ElastiCache, Elastic Load Balancing, and Amazon RDS. However, instances in the VPC cannot
access the AWS services provisioned by the EC2-Classic platform using ClassicLink.

If you use Elastic Load Balancing, you can register your linked EC2-Classic instances with the load
balancer. You must create your load balancer in the ClassicLink-enabled VPC and enable the Availability
Zone in which the instance runs. If you terminate the linked EC2-Classic instance, the load balancer
deregisters the instance.

If you use Amazon EC2 Auto Scaling, you can create an Amazon EC2 Auto Scaling group with instances
that are automatically linked to a specified ClassicLink-enabled VPC at launch. For more information, see
Linking EC2-Classic Instances to a VPC in the Amazon EC2 Auto Scaling User Guide.

If you use Amazon RDS instances or Amazon Redshift clusters in your VPC, and they are publicly
accessible (accessible from the Internet), the endpoint you use to address those resources from a linked
EC2-Classic instance by default resolves to a public IP address. If those resources are not publicly
accessible, the endpoint resolves to a private IP address. To address a publicly accessible RDS instance
or Redshift cluster over private IP using ClassicLink, you must use their private IP address or private DNS
hostname, or you must enable ClassicLink DNS support for the VPC.

If you use a private DNS hostname or a private IP address to address an RDS instance, the linked EC2-
Classic instance cannot use the failover support available for Multi-AZ deployments.

You can use the Amazon EC2 console to find the private IP addresses of your Amazon Redshift, Amazon
ElastiCache, or Amazon RDS resources.

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To locate the private IP addresses of AWS resources in your VPC

1. Open the Amazon EC2 console at https://console.aws.amazon.com/ec2/.

2. In the navigation pane, choose Network Interfaces.
3. Check the descriptions of the network interfaces in the Description column. A network interface
that's used by Amazon Redshift, Amazon ElastiCache, or Amazon RDS will have the name of the
service in the description. For example, a network interface that's attached to an Amazon RDS
instance will have the following description: RDSNetworkInterface.
4. Select the required network interface.
5. In the details pane, get the private IP address from the Primary private IPv4 IP field.

Control the use of ClassicLink

By default, IAM users do not have permission to work with ClassicLink. You can create an IAM policy
that grants users permissions to enable or disable a VPC for ClassicLink, link or unlink an instance to a
ClassicLink-enabled VPC, and to view ClassicLink-enabled VPCs and linked EC2-Classic instances. For
more information about IAM policies for Amazon EC2, see IAM policies for Amazon EC2 (p. 1073).

For more information about policies for working with ClassicLink, see the following example: Example
IAM policies for ClassicLink (p. 1050).

Security groups in ClassicLink

Linking your EC2-Classic instance to a VPC does not affect your EC2-Classic security groups. They
continue to control all traffic to and from the instance. This excludes traffic to and from instances in the
VPC, which is controlled by the VPC security groups that you associated with the EC2-Classic instance.
EC2-Classic instances that are linked to the same VPC cannot communicate with each other through
the VPC; regardless of whether they are associated with the same VPC security group. Communication
between EC2-Classic instances is controlled by the EC2-Classic security groups associated with those
instances. For an example of a security group configuration, see Example: ClassicLink security group
configuration for a three-tier web application (p. 1052).

After you've linked your instance to a VPC, you cannot change which VPC security groups are associated
with the instance. To associate different security groups with your instance, you must first unlink the
instance, and then link it to the VPC again, choosing the required security groups.

Routing for ClassicLink

When you enable a VPC for ClassicLink, a static route is added to all of the VPC route tables with a
destination of 10.0.0.0/8 and a target of local. This allows communication between instances in the
VPC and any EC2-Classic instances that are then linked to the VPC. If you add a custom route table to a
ClassicLink-enabled VPC, a static route is automatically added with a destination of 10.0.0.0/8 and a
target of local. When you disable ClassicLink for a VPC, this route is automatically deleted in all of the
VPC route tables.

VPCs that are in the 10.0.0.0/16 and 10.1.0.0/16 IP address ranges can be enabled for ClassicLink
only if they do not have any existing static routes in route tables in the 10.0.0.0/8 IP address range,
excluding the local routes that were automatically added when the VPC was created. Similarly, if you've
enabled a VPC for ClassicLink, you may not be able to add any more specific routes to your route tables
within the 10.0.0.0/8 IP address range.
Important
If your VPC CIDR block is a publicly routable IP address range, consider the security implications
before you link an EC2-Classic instance to your VPC. For example, if your linked EC2-Classic
instance receives an incoming Denial of Service (DoS) request flood attack from a source IP

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ClassicLink

address that falls within the VPC’s IP address range, the response traffic is sent into your VPC.
We strongly recommend that you create your VPC using a private IP address range as specified
in RFC 1918.

For more information about route tables and routing in your VPC, see Route Tables in the Amazon VPC
User Guide.

Enable a VPC peering connection for ClassicLink

If you have a VPC peering connection between two VPCs, and there are one or more EC2-Classic
instances that are linked to one or both of the VPCs via ClassicLink, you can extend the VPC peering
connection to enable communication between the EC2-Classic instances and the instances in the
VPC on the other side of the VPC peering connection. This enables the EC2-Classic instances and the
instances in the VPC to communicate using private IP addresses. To do this, you can enable a local VPC
to communicate with a linked EC2-Classic instance in a peer VPC, or you can enable a local linked EC2-
Classic instance to communicate with instances in a peer VPC.

If you enable a local VPC to communicate with a linked EC2-Classic instance in a peer VPC, a static route
is automatically added to your route tables with a destination of 10.0.0.0/8 and a target of local.

For more information and examples, see Configurations With ClassicLink in the Amazon VPC Peering
Guide.

ClassicLink limitations
To use the ClassicLink feature, you need to be aware of the following limitations:

• You can link an EC2-Classic instance to only one VPC at a time.

• If you stop your linked EC2-Classic instance, it's automatically unlinked from the VPC and the VPC
security groups are no longer associated with the instance. You can link your instance to the VPC again
after you've restarted it.
• You cannot link an EC2-Classic instance to a VPC that's in a different Region or a different AWS
account.
• You cannot use ClassicLink to link a VPC instance to a different VPC, or to a EC2-Classic resource.
To establish a private connection between VPCs, you can use a VPC peering connection. For more
information, see the Amazon VPC Peering Guide.
• You cannot associate a VPC Elastic IP address with a linked EC2-Classic instance.
• You cannot enable EC2-Classic instances for IPv6 communication. You can associate an IPv6 CIDR block
with your VPC and assign IPv6 address to resources in your VPC, however, communication between a
ClassicLinked instance and resources in the VPC is over IPv4 only.
• VPCs with routes that conflict with the EC2-Classic private IP address range of 10/8 cannot be
enabled for ClassicLink. This does not include VPCs with 10.0.0.0/16 and 10.1.0.0/16 IP address
ranges that already have local routes in their route tables. For more information, see Routing for
ClassicLink (p. 1045).
• VPCs configured for dedicated hardware tenancy cannot be enabled for ClassicLink. Contact Amazon
Web Services Support to request that your dedicated tenancy VPC be allowed to be enabled for
ClassicLink.
Important
EC2-Classic instances are run on shared hardware. If you've set the tenancy of your VPC to
dedicated because of regulatory or security requirements, then linking an EC2-Classic
instance to your VPC might not conform to those requirements, as this allows a shared
tenancy resource to address your isolated resources directly using private IP addresses. If you
need to enable your dedicated VPC for ClassicLink, provide a detailed reason in your request
to Amazon Web Services Support.

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• If you link your EC2-Classic instance to a VPC in the 172.16.0.0/16 range, and you have a DNS
server running on the 172.16.0.23/32 IP address within the VPC, then your linked EC2-Classic
instance can't access the VPC DNS server. To work around this issue, run your DNS server on a different
IP address within the VPC.
• ClassicLink doesn't support transitive relationships out of the VPC. Your linked EC2-Classic instance
doesn't have access to any VPN connection, VPC gateway endpoint, NAT gateway, or Internet gateway
associated with the VPC. Similarly, resources on the other side of a VPN connection or an Internet
gateway don't have access to a linked EC2-Classic instance.

Work with ClassicLink

You can use the Amazon EC2 and Amazon VPC consoles to work with the ClassicLink feature. You can
enable or disable a VPC for ClassicLink, and link and unlink EC2-Classic instances to a VPC.
Note
The ClassicLink features are only visible in the consoles for accounts and Regions that support
EC2-Classic.

Tasks
• Enable a VPC for ClassicLink (p. 1047)
• Create a VPC with ClassicLink enabled (p. 1047)
• Link an instance to a VPC (p. 1048)
• Link an instance to a VPC at launch (p. 1048)
• View your ClassicLink-enabled VPCs and linked instances (p. 1049)
• Enable ClassicLink DNS support (p. 1049)
• Disable ClassicLink DNS support (p. 1049)
• Unlink an instance from a VPC (p. 1049)
• Disable ClassicLink for a VPC (p. 1050)

Enable a VPC for ClassicLink

To link an EC2-Classic instance to a VPC, you must first enable the VPC for ClassicLink. You cannot enable
a VPC for ClassicLink if the VPC has routing that conflicts with the EC2-Classic private IP address range.
For more information, see Routing for ClassicLink (p. 1045).

To enable a VPC for ClassicLink

1. Open the Amazon VPC console at https://console.aws.amazon.com/vpc/.

2. In the navigation pane, choose Your VPCs.
3. Select the VPC.
4. Choose Actions, Enable ClassicLink.
5. When prompted for confirmation, choose Enable ClassicLink.
6. (Optional) If you want the public DNS hostname to resolve to the private IP address, enable
ClassicLink DNS support for the VPC before you link any instances. For more information, see Enable
ClassicLink DNS support (p. 1049).

Create a VPC with ClassicLink enabled

You can create a new VPC and immediately enable it for ClassicLink by using the VPC wizard in the
Amazon VPC console.

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ClassicLink

To create a VPC with ClassicLink enabled

1. Open the Amazon VPC console at https://console.aws.amazon.com/vpc/.

2. From the Amazon VPC dashboard, choose Launch VPC Wizard.
3. Select one of the VPC configuration options and choose Select.
4. On the next page of the wizard, choose Yes for Enable ClassicLink. Complete the rest of the steps in
the wizard to create your VPC. For more information about using the VPC wizard, see Scenarios for
Amazon VPC in the Amazon VPC User Guide.
5. (Optional) If you want the public DNS hostname to resolve to the private IP address, enable
ClassicLink DNS support for the VPC before you link any instances. For more information, see Enable
ClassicLink DNS support (p. 1049).

Link an instance to a VPC

After you've enabled a VPC for ClassicLink, you can link an EC2-Classic instance to it. The instance must
be in the running state.

If you want the public DNS hostname to resolve to the private IP address, enable ClassicLink DNS
support for the VPC before you link the instance. For more information, see Enable ClassicLink DNS
support (p. 1049).

To link an instance to a VPC

1. Open the Amazon EC2 console at https://console.aws.amazon.com/ec2/.

2. In the navigation pane, choose Instances.
3. Select one or more running EC2-Classic instances.
4. Choose Actions, ClassicLink, Link to VPC.
5. Choose the VPC. The console displays only VPCs that are enabled for ClassicLink.
6. Select one or more security groups to associate with your instances. The console displays security
groups only for VPCs enabled for ClassicLink.
7. Choose Link.

Link an instance to a VPC at launch

You can use the launch wizard in the Amazon EC2 console to launch an EC2-Classic instance and
immediately link it to a ClassicLink-enabled VPC.

To link an instance to a VPC at launch

1. Open the Amazon EC2 console at https://console.aws.amazon.com/ec2/.

2. From the Amazon EC2 dashboard, choose Launch Instance.
3. Select an AMI, and then choose an instance type that is supported on EC2-Classic. For more
information, see Instance types available in EC2-Classic (p. 1037).
4. On the Configure Instance Details page, do the following:

a. For Network, choose Launch into EC2-Classic. If this option is disabled, then the instance type
is not supported on EC2-Classic.
b. Expand Link to VPC (ClassicLink) and choose a VPC from Link to VPC. The console displays
only VPCs with ClassicLink enabled.
5. Complete the rest of the steps in the wizard to launch your instance. For more information, see
Launch an instance using the Launch Instance Wizard (p. 396).

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ClassicLink

View your ClassicLink-enabled VPCs and linked instances

You can view all of your ClassicLink-enabled VPCs in the Amazon VPC console, and your linked EC2-
Classic instances in the Amazon EC2 console.

To view your ClassicLink-enabled VPCs

1. Open the Amazon VPC console at https://console.aws.amazon.com/vpc/.

2. In the navigation pane, choose Your VPCs.
3. Select the VPC.
4. If the value of ClassicLink is Enabled, then the VPC is enabled for ClassicLink.

Enable ClassicLink DNS support

You can enable ClassicLink DNS support for your VPC so that DNS hostnames that are addressed
between linked EC2-Classic instances and instances in the VPC resolve to private IP addresses and not
public IP addresses. For this feature to work, your VPC must be enabled for DNS hostnames and DNS
resolution.
Note
If you enable ClassicLink DNS support for your VPC, your linked EC2-Classic instance can access
any private hosted zone associated with the VPC. For more information, see Working with
Private Hosted Zones in the Amazon Route 53 Developer Guide.

To enable ClassicLink DNS support

1. Open the Amazon VPC console at https://console.aws.amazon.com/vpc/.

2. In the navigation pane, choose Your VPCs.
3. Select the VPC.
4. Choose Actions, Edit ClassicLink DNS Support.
5. For ClassicLink DNS support, select Enable.
6. Choose Save changes.

Disable ClassicLink DNS support

You can disable ClassicLink DNS support for your VPC so that DNS hostnames that are addressed
between linked EC2-Classic instances and instances in the VPC resolve to public IP addresses and not
private IP addresses.

To disable ClassicLink DNS support

1. Open the Amazon VPC console at https://console.aws.amazon.com/vpc/.

2. In the navigation pane, choose Your VPCs.
3. Select the VPC.
4. Choose Actions, Edit ClassicLink DNS Support.
5. For ClassicLink DNS Support, clear Enable.
6. Choose Save changes.

Unlink an instance from a VPC

If you no longer require a ClassicLink connection between your EC2-Classic instance and your VPC, you
can unlink the instance from the VPC. Unlinking the instance disassociates the VPC security groups from
the instance.

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ClassicLink

A stopped instance is automatically unlinked from a VPC.

To unlink an instance from a VPC

1. Open the Amazon EC2 console at https://console.aws.amazon.com/ec2/.

2. In the navigation pane, choose Instances.
3. Select one or more of your instances.
4. Choose Actions, ClassicLink, Unlink from VPC.
5. When prompted for confirmation, choose Unlink.

Disable ClassicLink for a VPC

If you no longer require a connection between EC2-Classic instances and your VPC, you can disable
ClassicLink on the VPC. You must first unlink all linked EC2-Classic instances that are linked to the VPC.

To disable ClassicLink for a VPC

1. Open the Amazon VPC console at https://console.aws.amazon.com/vpc/.

2. In the navigation pane, choose Your VPCs.
3. Select your VPC.
4. Choose Actions, Disable ClassicLink.
5. When prompted for confirmation, choose Disable ClassicLink.

Example IAM policies for ClassicLink

You can enable a VPC for ClassicLink and then link an EC2-Classic instance to the VPC. You can
also view your ClassicLink-enabled VPCs, and all of your EC2-Classic instances that are linked to a
VPC. You can create policies with resource-level permission for the ec2:EnableVpcClassicLink,
ec2:DisableVpcClassicLink, ec2:AttachClassicLinkVpc, and ec2:DetachClassicLinkVpc
actions to control how users are able to use those actions. Resource-level permissions are not supported
for ec2:Describe* actions.

Examples
• Full permissions to work with ClassicLink (p. 1050)
• Enable and disable a VPC for ClassicLink (p. 1051)
• Link instances (p. 1051)
• Unlink instances (p. 1052)

Full permissions to work with ClassicLink

The following policy grants users permissions to view ClassicLink-enabled VPCs and linked EC2-
Classic instances, to enable and disable a VPC for ClassicLink, and to link and unlink instances from a
ClassicLink-enabled VPC.

{
"Version": "2012-10-17",
"Statement": [{
"Effect": "Allow",
"Action": [
"ec2:DescribeClassicLinkInstances", "ec2:DescribeVpcClassicLink",
"ec2:EnableVpcClassicLink", "ec2:DisableVpcClassicLink",
"ec2:AttachClassicLinkVpc", "ec2:DetachClassicLinkVpc"

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],
"Resource": "*"
}
]
}

Enable and disable a VPC for ClassicLink

The following policy allows user to enable and disable VPCs for ClassicLink that have the specific tag
'purpose=classiclink'. Users cannot enable or disable any other VPCs for ClassicLink.

{
"Version": "2012-10-17",
"Statement": [
{
"Effect": "Allow",
"Action": "ec2:*VpcClassicLink",
"Resource": "arn:aws:ec2:region:account:vpc/*",
"Condition": {
"StringEquals": {
"ec2:ResourceTag/purpose":"classiclink"
}
}
}
]
}

Link instances
The following policy grants users permissions to link instances to a VPC only if the instance is an
m3.large instance type. The second statement allows users to use the VPC and security group
resources, which are required to link an instance to a VPC.

{
"Version": "2012-10-17",
"Statement": [
{
"Effect": "Allow",
"Action": "ec2:AttachClassicLinkVpc",
"Resource": "arn:aws:ec2:region:account:instance/*",
"Condition": {
"StringEquals": {
"ec2:InstanceType":"m3.large"
}
}
},
{
"Effect": "Allow",
"Action": "ec2:AttachClassicLinkVpc",
"Resource": [
"arn:aws:ec2:region:account:vpc/*",
"arn:aws:ec2:region:account:security-group/*"
]
}
]
}

The following policy grants users permissions to link instances to a specific VPC (vpc-1a2b3c4d) only,
and to associate only specific security groups from the VPC to the instance (sg-1122aabb and sg-
aabb2233). Users cannot link an instance to any other VPC, and they cannot specify any other of the
VPC security groups to associate with the instance in the request.

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{
"Version": "2012-10-17",
"Statement": [
{
"Effect": "Allow",
"Action": "ec2:AttachClassicLinkVpc",
"Resource": [
"arn:aws:ec2:region:account:vpc/vpc-1a2b3c4d",
"arn:aws:ec2:region:account:instance/*",
"arn:aws:ec2:region:account:security-group/sg-1122aabb",
"arn:aws:ec2:region:account:security-group/sg-aabb2233"
]
}
]
}

Unlink instances
The following grants users permission to unlink any linked EC2-Classic instance from a VPC, but only if
the instance has the tag "unlink=true". The second statement grants users permissions to use the VPC
resource, which is required to unlink an instance from a VPC.

{
"Version": "2012-10-17",
"Statement": [{
"Effect": "Allow",
"Action": "ec2:DetachClassicLinkVpc",
"Resource": [
"arn:aws:ec2:region:account:instance/*"
],
"Condition": {
"StringEquals": {
"ec2:ResourceTag/unlink":"true"
}
}
},
{
"Effect": "Allow",
"Action": "ec2:DetachClassicLinkVpc",
"Resource": [
"arn:aws:ec2:region:account:vpc/*"
]
}
]
}

Example: ClassicLink security group configuration for a three-

tier web application
In this example, you have an application with three instances: a public-facing web server, an application
server, and a database server. Your web server accepts HTTPS traffic from the Internet, and then
communicates with your application server over TCP port 6001. Your application server then
communicates with your database server over TCP port 6004. You're in the process of migrating your
entire application to a VPC in your account. You've already migrated your application server and your
database server to your VPC. Your web server is still in EC2-Classic and linked to your VPC via ClassicLink.

You want a security group configuration that allows traffic to flow only between these instances. You
have four security groups: two for your web server (sg-1a1a1a1a and sg-2b2b2b2b), one for your
application server (sg-3c3c3c3c), and one for your database server (sg-4d4d4d4d).

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The following diagram displays the architecture of your instances, and their security group configuration.

Security groups for your web server (sg-1a1a1a1a and sg-2b2b2b2b)

You have one security group in EC2-Classic, and the other in your VPC. You associated the VPC security
group with your web server instance when you linked the instance to your VPC via ClassicLink. The VPC
security group enables you to control the outbound traffic from your web server to your application
server.

The following are the security group rules for the EC2-Classic security group (sg-1a1a1a1a).

Inbound

Source Type Port Range Comments

0.0.0.0/0 HTTPS 443 Allows Internet traffic

to reach your web
server.

The following are the security group rules for the VPC security group (sg-2b2b2b2b).

Outbound

Destination Type Port Range Comments

sg-3c3c3c3c TCP 6001 Allows outbound traffic

from your web server
to your application
server in your VPC

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(or to any other

instance associated with
sg-3c3c3c3c).

Security group for your application server (sg-3c3c3c3c)

The following are the security group rules for the VPC security group that's associated with your
application server.

Inbound

Source Type Port Range Comments

sg-2b2b2b2b TCP 6001 Allows the specified

type of traffic from
your web server (or
any other instance
associated with
sg-2b2b2b2b) to reach
your application server.

Outbound

Destination Type Port Range Comments

sg-4d4d4d4d TCP 6004 Allows outbound traffic

from the application
server to the database
server (or to any other
instance associated with
sg-4d4d4d4d).

Security group for your database server (sg-4d4d4d4d)

The following are the security group rules for the VPC security group that's associated with your
database server.

Inbound

Source Type Port Range Comments

sg-3c3c3c3c TCP 6004 Allows the specified

type of traffic from
your application
server (or any other
instance associated with
sg-3c3c3c3c) to reach
your database server.

Migrate from EC2-Classic to a VPC

If you created your AWS account before December 4, 2013, you might have support for EC2-Classic in
some AWS Regions. Some Amazon EC2 resources and features, such as enhanced networking and newer
instance types, require a virtual private cloud (VPC). Some resources can be shared between EC2-Classic

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and a VPC, while some can't. For more information, see Share and access resources between EC2-Classic
and a VPC (p. 1042). We recommend that you migrate to a VPC to take advantage of VPC-only features.

To migrate from EC2-Classic to a VPC, you must migrate or recreate your EC2-Classic resources in a VPC.
You can migrate and recreate your resources in full, or you can perform an incremental migration over
time using ClassicLink.

Contents
• Options for getting a default VPC (p. 1055)
• Migrate your resources to a VPC (p. 1056)
• Use ClassicLink for an incremental migration (p. 1059)
• Example: Migrate a simple web application (p. 1061)

Options for getting a default VPC

A default VPC is a VPC that is configured and ready for you to use, and is only available in Regions that
are VPC-only. For Regions that support EC2-Classic, you can create a nondefault VPC to set up your
resources. However, you might want to use a default VPC if you prefer not to set up a VPC yourself, or if
you do not have specific requirements for your VPC configuration. For more information about default
VPCs, see Default VPC and Default Subnets in the Amazon VPC User Guide.

The following are options for using a default VPC when you have an AWS account that supports EC2-
Classic.

Options
• Switch to a VPC-only Region (p. 1055)
• Create a new AWS account (p. 1055)
• Convert your existing AWS account to VPC-only (p. 1055)

Switch to a VPC-only Region

Use this option if you want to use your existing account to set up your resources in a default VPC and
you do not need to use a specific Region. To find a Region that has a default VPC, see Detect supported
platforms (p. 1035).

Create a new AWS account

New AWS accounts support VPC only. Use this option if you want an account that has a default VPC in
every Region.

Convert your existing AWS account to VPC-only

Use this option if you want a default VPC in every Region in your existing account. Before you can
convert your account, you must delete all of your EC2-Classic resources. You can also migrate some
resources to a VPC. For more information, see Migrate your resources to a VPC (p. 1056).

To convert your EC2-Classic account

1. Delete or migrate (if applicable) the resources that you have created for use in EC2-Classic. These
include the following:

• Amazon EC2 instances

• EC2-Classic security groups (excluding the default security group, which you cannot delete
yourself)

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• EC2-Classic Elastic IP addresses

• Classic Load Balancers
• Amazon RDS resources
• Amazon ElastiCache resources
• Amazon Redshift resources
• AWS Elastic Beanstalk resources
• AWS Data Pipeline resources
• Amazon EMR resources
• AWS OpsWorks resources
2. Go to the Amazon Web Services Support Center at console.aws.amazon.com/support.
3. Choose Create case.
4. Choose Account and billing support.
5. For Type, choose Account. For Category, choose Convert EC2 Classic to VPC.
6. Fill in the other details as required, and choose Submit. We will review your request and contact you
to guide you through the next steps.

Migrate your resources to a VPC

You can migrate or move some of your resources to a VPC. Some resources can only be migrated from
EC2-Classic to a VPC that's in the same Region and in the same AWS account. If the resource cannot be
migrated, you must create a new resource for use in your VPC.

Prerequisites

Before you begin, you must have a VPC. If you don't have a default VPC, you can create a nondefault VPC
using one of these methods:

• In the Amazon VPC console, use the VPC wizard to create a new VPC. For more information, see
Amazon VPC Console Wizard Configurations. Use this option if you want to set up a VPC quickly, using
one of the available configuration options.
• In the Amazon VPC console, set up the components of a VPC according to your requirements. For more
information, see VPCs and Subnets. Use this option if you have specific requirements for your VPC,
such as a particular number of subnets.

Topics
• Security groups (p. 1056)
• Elastic IP addresses (p. 1057)
• AMIs and instances (p. 1057)
• Amazon RDS DB instances (p. 1059)

Security groups
If you want your instances in your VPC to have the same security group rules as your EC2-Classic
instances, you can use the Amazon EC2 console to copy your existing EC2-Classic security group rules to
a new VPC security group.

You can only copy security group rules to a new security group in the same AWS account in the same
Region. If you are using a different Region or a different AWS account, you must create a new security
group and manually add the rules yourself. For more information, see Amazon EC2 security groups for
Windows instances (p. 1148).

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To copy your security group rules to a new security group

1. Open the Amazon EC2 console at https://console.aws.amazon.com/ec2/.

2. In the navigation pane, choose Security Groups.
3. Select the security group that's associated with your EC2-Classic instance, then choose Actions, and
select Copy to new.
Note
To identify an EC2-Classic security group, check the VPC ID column. For each EC2-Classic
security group, the value in the column is blank or a - symbol.
4. In the Create Security Group dialog box, specify a name and description for your new security
group. Select your VPC from the VPC list.
5. The Inbound tab is populated with the rules from your EC2-Classic security group. You can modify
the rules as required. In the Outbound tab, a rule that allows all outbound traffic has automatically
been created for you. For more information about modifying security group rules, see Amazon EC2
security groups for Windows instances (p. 1148).
Note
If you've defined a rule in your EC2-Classic security group that references another security
group, you cannot use the same rule in your VPC security group. Modify the rule to
reference a security group in the same VPC.
6. Choose Create.

Elastic IP addresses
You can migrate an Elastic IP address that is allocated for use in EC2-Classic for use with a VPC. You
cannot migrate an Elastic IP address to another Region or AWS account. For more information, see
Migrate an Elastic IP Address from EC2-Classic (p. 1040).

To identify an Elastic IP address that is allocated for use in EC2-Classic

In the Amazon EC2 console, choose Elastic IPs in the navigation pane. In the Scope column, the value is
standard.

Alternatively, use the following describe-addresses command.

aws ec2 describe-addresses --filters Name=domain,Values=standard

AMIs and instances

An AMI is a template for launching your Amazon EC2 instance. You can create your own AMI based on an
existing EC2-Classic instance, then use that AMI to launch instances into your VPC.

Contents
• Identify EC2-Classic instances (p. 1057)
• Create an AMI (p. 1058)
• (Optional) Share or copy your AMI (p. 1058)
• (Optional) Store your data on Amazon EBS volumes (p. 1059)
• Launch an instance into your VPC (p. 1059)

Identify EC2-Classic instances

If you have instances running in both EC2-Classic and a VPC, you can identify your EC2-Classic instances.

Amazon EC2 console

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Choose Instances in the navigation pane. In the VPC ID column, the value for each EC2-Classic instance
is blank or a - symbol. If the VPC ID column is not present, choose the gear icon and make the column
visible.

AWS CLI

Use the following describe-instances AWS CLI command. The --query parameter displays only instances
where the value for VpcId is null.

aws ec2 describe-instances --query 'Reservations[*].Instances[?VpcId==`null`]'

Create an AMI
After you've identified your EC2-Classic instance, you can create an AMI from it.

To create a Windows AMI

For more information, see Creating a custom Windows AMI.

To create a Linux AMI

The method that you use to create your Linux AMI depends on the root device type of your instance,
and the operating system platform on which your instance runs. To find out the root device type of your
instance, go to the Instances page, select your instance, and look at the information in the Root device
type field in the Description tab. If the value is ebs, then your instance is EBS-backed. If the value is
instance-store, then your instance is instance store-backed. You can also use the describe-instances
AWS CLI command to find out the root device type.

The following table provides options for you to create your Linux AMI based on the root device type of
your instance, and the software platform.
Important
Some instance types support both PV and HVM virtualization, while others support only
one or the other. If you plan to use your AMI to launch a different instance type than your
current instance type, verify that the instance type supports the type of virtualization that your
AMI offers. If your AMI supports PV virtualization, and you want to use an instance type that
supports HVM virtualization, you might have to reinstall your software on a base HVM AMI. For
more information about PV and HVM virtualization, see Linux AMI virtualization types.

Instance root device Action

type

EBS Create an EBS-backed AMI from your instance. For more information, see
Creating an Amazon EBS-backed Linux AMI.

Instance store Create an instance store-backed AMI from your instance using the AMI tools.
For more information, see Creating an instance store-backed Linux AMI.

Instance store Convert your instance store-backed instance to an EBS-backed instance.

For more information, see Converting your instance store-backed AMI to an
Amazon EBS-backed AMI.

(Optional) Share or copy your AMI

To use your AMI to launch an instance in a new AWS account, you must first share the AMI with your new
account. For more information, see Share an AMI with specific AWS accounts (p. 109).

To use your AMI to launch an instance in a VPC in a different Region, you must first copy the AMI to that
Region. For more information, see Copy an AMI (p. 116).

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(Optional) Store your data on Amazon EBS volumes

You can create an Amazon EBS volume and use it to back up and store the data on your instance—
like you would use a physical hard drive. Amazon EBS volumes can be attached and detached from any
instance in the same Availability Zone. You can detach a volume from your instance in EC2-Classic, and
attach it to a new instance that you launch into your VPC in the same Availability Zone.

For more information about Amazon EBS volumes, see the following topics:

• Amazon EBS volumes (p. 1174)

• Create an Amazon EBS volume (p. 1196)
• Attach an Amazon EBS volume to an instance (p. 1199)

To back up the data on your Amazon EBS volume, you can take periodic snapshots of your volume.
For more information, see Create Amazon EBS snapshots (p. 1224). If you need to, you can create
an Amazon EBS volume from your snapshot. For more information, see Create a volume from a
snapshot (p. 1197).

Launch an instance into your VPC

After you've created an AMI, you can use the Amazon EC2 launch wizard to launch an instance into your
VPC. The instance will have the same data and configurations as your existing EC2-Classic instance.
Note
You can use this opportunity to upgrade to a current generation instance type.

To launch an instance into your VPC

1. Open the Amazon EC2 console at https://console.aws.amazon.com/ec2/.

2. On the dashboard, choose Launch instance.
3. On the Choose an Amazon Machine Image page, select the My AMIs category, and select the AMI
you created. Alternatively, if you shared an AMI from another account, in the Ownership filter list,
choose Shared with me. Select the AMI that you shared from your EC2-Classic account.
4. On the Choose an Instance Type page, select the type of instance, and choose Next: Configure
Instance Details.
5. On the Configure Instance Details page, select your VPC from the Network list. Select the required
subnet from the Subnet list. Configure any other details that you require, then go through the next
pages of the wizard until you reach the Configure Security Group page.
6. Select Select an existing group, and select the security group that you created for your VPC. Choose
Review and Launch.
7. Review your instance details, then choose Launch to specify a key pair and launch your instance.

For more information about the parameters that you can configure in each step of the wizard, see
Launch an instance using the Launch Instance Wizard (p. 396).

Amazon RDS DB instances

You can move your EC2-Classic DB instance to a VPC in the same Region, in the same account. For more
information, see Updating the VPC for a DB Instance in the Amazon RDS User Guide.

Use ClassicLink for an incremental migration

The ClassicLink feature makes it easier to manage an incremental migration to a VPC. ClassicLink enables
you to link an EC2-Classic instance to a VPC in your account in the same Region, allowing your new VPC

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resources to communicate with the EC2-Classic instance using private IPv4 addresses. You can then
migrate functionality one component at a time until your application is running fully in your VPC.

Use this option if you cannot afford downtime during the migration, for example, if you have a multi-tier
application with processes that cannot be interrupted.

For more information about ClassicLink, see ClassicLink (p. 1043).

Tasks
• Step 1: Prepare your migration sequence (p. 1060)
• Step 2: Enable your VPC for ClassicLink (p. 1060)
• Step 3: Link your EC2-Classic instances to your VPC (p. 1060)
• Step 4: Complete the VPC migration (p. 1061)

Step 1: Prepare your migration sequence

To use ClassicLink effectively, you must first identify the components of your application that must be
migrated to the VPC, and then confirm the order in which to migrate that functionality.

For example, you have an application that relies on a presentation web server, a backend database
server, and authentication logic for transactions. You may decide to start the migration process with the
authentication logic, then the database server, and finally, the web server.

Then, you can start migrating or recreating your resources. For more information, see Migrate your
resources to a VPC (p. 1056).

Step 2: Enable your VPC for ClassicLink

After you've configured your new VPC instances and made the functionality of your application available
in the VPC, you can use ClassicLink to enable private IP communication between your new VPC instances
and your EC2-Classic instances. First, you must enable your VPC for ClassicLink.

To enable a VPC for ClassicLink

1. Open the Amazon VPC console at https://console.aws.amazon.com/vpc/.

2. In the navigation pane, choose Your VPCs.
3. Select a VPC.
4. Choose Actions, Enable ClassicLink.
5. When prompted for confirmation, choose Enable ClassicLink.

Step 3: Link your EC2-Classic instances to your VPC

After you've enabled ClassicLink in your VPC, you can link your EC2-Classic instances to the VPC. The
instance must be in the running state.

To link an instance to a VPC

1. Open the Amazon EC2 console at https://console.aws.amazon.com/ec2/.

2. In the navigation pane, choose Instances.
3. Select one or more running EC2-Classic instances.
4. Choose Actions, ClassicLink, Link to VPC.
5. Choose a VPC. The console displays only VPCs that are enabled for ClassicLink.

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6. Select one or more security groups to associate with your instances. The console displays security
groups only for VPCs enabled for ClassicLink.
7. Choose Link.

Step 4: Complete the VPC migration

Depending on the size of your application and the functionality that must be migrated, repeat the
preceding steps until you've moved all of the components of your application from EC2-Classic into your
VPC.

After you've enabled internal communication between the EC2-Classic and VPC instances, you must
update your application to point to your migrated service in your VPC, instead of your service in the EC2-
Classic platform. The exact steps for this depend on your application’s design. Generally, this includes
updating your destination IP addresses to point to the IP addresses of your VPC instances instead of your
EC2-Classic instances.

After you've completed this step and you've tested that the application is functioning from your VPC, you
can terminate your EC2-Classic instances, and disable ClassicLink for your VPC. You can also clean up any
EC2-Classic resources that you no longer need to avoid incurring charges for them. For example, you can
release Elastic IP addresses and delete the volumes that were associated with your EC2-Classic instances.

Example: Migrate a simple web application

In this example, you use AWS to host your gardening website. To manage your website, you have three
running instances in EC2-Classic. Instances A and B host your public-facing web application, and you use
Elastic Load Balancing to load balance the traffic between these instances. You've assigned Elastic IP
addresses to instances A and B so that you have static IP addresses for configuration and administration
tasks on those instances. Instance C holds your MySQL database for your website. You've registered the
domain name www.garden.example.com, and you've used Route 53 to create a hosted zone with an
alias record set that's associated with the DNS name of your load balancer.

The first part of migrating to a VPC is deciding what kind of VPC architecture suits your needs. In this
case, you've decided on the following: one public subnet for your web servers, and one private subnet for
your database server. As your website grows, you can add more web servers and database servers to your
subnets. By default, instances in the private subnet cannot access the internet; however, you can enable
internet access through a Network Address Translation (NAT) device in the public subnet. You might
want to set up a NAT device to support periodic updates and patches from the internet for your database
server. You'll migrate your Elastic IP addresses to a VPC, and create a load balancer in your public subnet
to load balance the traffic between your web servers.

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To migrate your web application to a VPC, you can follow these steps:

• Create a VPC: In this case, you can use the VPC wizard in the Amazon VPC console to create your VPC
and subnets. The second wizard configuration creates a VPC with one private and one public subnet,
and launches and configures a NAT device in your public subnet for you. For more information, see VPC
with public and private subnets (NAT) in the Amazon VPC User Guide.
• Configure your security groups: In your EC2-Classic environment, you have one security group for
your web servers, and another security group for your database server. You can use the Amazon EC2
console to copy the rules from each security group into new security groups for your VPC. For more
information, see Security groups (p. 1056).
Tip
Create the security groups that are referenced by other security groups first.
• Create AMIs and launch new instances: Create an AMI from one of your web servers, and a second
AMI from your database server. Then, launch replacement web servers into your public subnet, and
launch your replacement database server into your private subnet. For more information, see Create
an AMI (p. 1058).
• Configure your NAT device: If you are using a NAT instance, you must create a security group for
it that allows HTTP and HTTPS traffic from your private subnet. For more information, see NAT
instances. If you are using a NAT gateway, traffic from your private subnet is automatically allowed.
• Configure your database: When you created an AMI from your database server in EC2-Classic, all
of the configuration information that was stored in that instance was copied to the AMI. You might
have to connect to your new database server and update the configuration details. For example, if you
configured your database to grant full read, write, and modification permissions to your web servers in
EC2-Classic, you need to update the configuration files to grant the same permissions to your new VPC
web servers instead.
• Configure your web servers: Your web servers will have the same configuration settings as your
instances in EC2-Classic. For example, if you configured your web servers to use the database in EC2-
Classic, update your web servers' configuration settings to point to your new database instance.

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Note
By default, instances launched into a nondefault subnet are not assigned a public IP address,
unless you specify otherwise at launch. Your new database server might not have a public
IP address. In this case, you can update your web servers' configuration file to use your new
database server's private DNS name. Instances in the same VPC can communicate with each
other via private IP address.
• Migrate your Elastic IP addresses: Disassociate your Elastic IP addresses from your web servers in EC2-
Classic, and then migrate them to a VPC. After you've migrated them, you can associate them with
your new web servers in your VPC. For more information, see Migrate an Elastic IP Address from EC2-
Classic (p. 1040).
• Create a new load balancer: To continue using Elastic Load Balancing to load balance the traffic to
your instances, make sure you understand the various ways to configure your load balancer in VPC. For
more information, see the Elastic Load Balancing User Guide.
• Update your DNS records: After you've set up your load balancer in your public subnet, verify that
your www.garden.example.com domain points to your new load balancer. To do this, update your
DNS records and your alias record set in Route 53. For more information about using Route 53, see
Getting Started with Route 53.
• Shut down your EC2-Classic resources: After you've verified that your web application is working from
within the VPC architecture, you can shut down your EC2-Classic resources to stop incurring charges
for them.

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Security in Amazon EC2

Cloud security at AWS is the highest priority. As an AWS customer, you benefit from a data center
and network architecture that are built to meet the requirements of the most security-sensitive
organizations.

Security is a shared responsibility between AWS and you. The shared responsibility model describes this
as security of the cloud and security in the cloud:

• Security of the cloud – AWS is responsible for protecting the infrastructure that runs AWS services in
the AWS Cloud. AWS also provides you with services that you can use securely. Third-party auditors
regularly test and verify the effectiveness of our security as part of the AWS Compliance Programs.
To learn about the compliance programs that apply to Amazon EC2, see AWS Services in Scope by
Compliance Program.
• Security in the cloud – Your responsibility includes the following areas:
• Controlling network access to your instances, for example, through configuring your VPC and
security groups. For more information, see Controlling network traffic (p. 1065).
• Managing the credentials used to connect to your instances.
• Managing the guest operating system and software deployed to the guest operating system,
including updates and security patches. For more information, see Update management in Amazon
EC2 (p. 1169).
• Configuring the IAM roles that are attached to the instance and the permissions associated with
those roles. For more information, see IAM roles for Amazon EC2 (p. 1128).

This documentation helps you understand how to apply the shared responsibility model when using
Amazon EC2. It shows you how to configure Amazon EC2 to meet your security and compliance
objectives. You also learn how to use other AWS services that help you to monitor and secure your
Amazon EC2 resources.

For security best practices for Amazon EC2 running Windows Server, see Security and Network under
Best practices for Windows on Amazon EC2 (p. 18).

Contents
• Infrastructure security in Amazon EC2 (p. 1065)
• Amazon EC2 and interface VPC endpoints (p. 1067)
• Resilience in Amazon EC2 (p. 1068)
• Data protection in Amazon EC2 (p. 1069)
• Identity and access management for Amazon EC2 (p. 1071)
• Amazon EC2 key pairs and Windows instances (p. 1140)
• Amazon EC2 security groups for Windows instances (p. 1148)
• Configuration management in Amazon EC2 (p. 1168)
• Update management in Amazon EC2 (p. 1169)
• Change management in Amazon EC2 (p. 1169)
• Compliance validation for Amazon EC2 (p. 1169)
• Audit and accountability in Amazon EC2 (p. 1170)

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Infrastructure security

Infrastructure security in Amazon EC2

As a managed service, Amazon EC2 is protected by the AWS global network security procedures that are
described in the Amazon Web Services: Overview of Security Processes whitepaper.

You use AWS published API calls to access Amazon EC2 through the network. Clients must support
Transport Layer Security (TLS) 1.0 or later. We recommend TLS 1.2 or later. Clients must also support
cipher suites with perfect forward secrecy (PFS) such as Ephemeral Diffie-Hellman (DHE) or Elliptic Curve
Ephemeral Diffie-Hellman (ECDHE). Most modern systems such as Java 7 and later support these modes.

Additionally, requests must be signed using an access key ID and a secret access key that is associated
with an IAM principal. Or you can use the AWS Security Token Service (AWS STS) to generate temporary
security credentials to sign requests.

Network isolation
A virtual private cloud (VPC) is a virtual network in your own logically isolated area in the AWS Cloud.
Use separate VPCs to isolate infrastructure by workload or organizational entity.

A subnet is a range of IP addresses in a VPC. When you launch an instance, you launch it into a subnet
in your VPC. Use subnets to isolate the tiers of your application (for example, web, application, and
database) within a single VPC. Use private subnets for your instances if they should not be accessed
directly from the internet.

To call the Amazon EC2 API from your VPC without sending traffic over the public internet, use AWS
PrivateLink.

Isolation on physical hosts

Different EC2 instances on the same physical host are isolated from each other as though they are
on separate physical hosts. The hypervisor isolates CPU and memory, and the instances are provided
virtualized disks instead of access to the raw disk devices.

When you stop or terminate an instance, the memory allocated to it is scrubbed (set to zero) by the
hypervisor before it is allocated to a new instance, and every block of storage is reset. This ensures that
your data is not unintentionally exposed to another instance.

Network MAC addresses are dynamically assigned to instances by the AWS network infrastructure. IP
addresses are either dynamically assigned to instances by the AWS network infrastructure, or assigned
by an EC2 administrator through authenticated API requests. The AWS network allows instances to send
traffic only from the MAC and IP addresses assigned to them. Otherwise, the traffic is dropped.

By default, an instance cannot receive traffic that is not specifically addressed to it. If you need to run
network address translation (NAT), routing, or firewall services on your instance, you can disable source/
destination checking for the network interface.

Controlling network traffic

Consider the following options for controlling network traffic to your EC2 instances:

• Restrict access to your instances using security groups (p. 1148). Configure Amazon EC2 instance
security groups to permit the minimum required network traffic for the Amazon EC2instance and
to allow access only from defined, expected, and approved locations. For example, if an Amazon
EC2 instance is an IIS web server, configure its security groups to permit only inbound HTTP/HTTPS,
Windows management traffic, and minimal outbound connections.

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• Leverage security groups as the primary mechanism for controlling network access to Amazon EC2
instances. When necessary, use network ACLs sparingly to provide stateless, coarse-grain network
control. Security groups are more versatile than network ACLs due to their ability to perform stateful
packet filtering and create rules that reference other security groups. However, network ACLs can be
effective as a secondary control for denying a specific subset of traffic or providing high-level subnet
guard rails. Also, because network ACLs apply to an entire subnet, they can be used as defense-in-
depth in case an instance is ever launched unintentionally without a correct security group.
• Centrally manage Windows Firewall settings with Group Policy Objects (GPO) to further enhance
network controls. Customers often use the Windows Firewall for further visibility into network traffic
and to complement security group filters, creating advanced rules to block specific applications from
accessing the network or to filter traffic from a subset IP addresses. For example, the Windows Firewall
can limit access to the EC2 metadata service IP address to specific users or applications. Alternatively,
a public-facing service might use security groups to restrict traffic to specific ports and the Windows
Firewall to maintain a list of explicitly blocked IP addresses.
• When managing Windows instances, limit access to a few well-defined centralized management
servers or bastion hosts to reduce the environment’s attack surface. Also, use secure administration
protocols like RDP encapsulation over SSL/TLS. The Remote Desktop Gateway Quick Start provides
best practices for deploying remote desktop gateway, including configuring RDP to use SSL/TLS.
• Use Active Directory or AWS Directory Service to tightly and centrally control and monitor interactive
user and group access to Windows instances, and avoid local user permissions. Also avoid using
Domain Administrators and instead create more granular, application-specific role-based accounts.
Just Enough Administration (JEA) allows changes to Windows instances to be managed without
interactive or administrator access. In addition, JEA enables organizations to lock down administrative
access to the subset of Windows PowerShell commands required for instance administration. For
additional information, see the section on "Managing OS-level Access to Amazon EC2" in the AWS
Security Best Practices whitepaper.
• Systems Administrators should use Windows accounts with limited access to perform daily activities,
and only elevate access when necessary to perform specific configuration changes. Additionally, only
access Windows instances directly when absolutely necessary. Instead, leverage central configuration
management systems such as EC2 Run Command, Systems Center Configuration Manager (SCCM),
Windows PowerShell DSC, or Amazon EC2 Systems Manager (SSM) to push changes to Windows
servers.
• Configure Amazon VPC subnet route tables with the minimal required network routes. For example,
place only Amazon EC2 instances that requite direct Internet access into subnets with routes to an
Internet Gateway, and place only Amazon EC2 instances that need direct access to internal networks
into subnets with routes to a virtual private gateway.
• Consider using additional security groups or ENIs to control and audit Amazon EC2 instance
management traffic separately from regular application traffic. This approach allows customers
to implement special IAM policies for change control, making it easier to audit changes to security
group rules or automated rule-verification scripts. Multiple ENIs also provide additional options for
controlling network traffic including the ability to create host-based routing policies or leverage
different VPC subnet routing rules based on an ENI’s assigned subnet.
• Use AWS Virtual Private Network or AWS Direct Connect to establish private connections from your
remote networks to your VPCs. For more information, see Network-to-Amazon VPC Connectivity
Options.
• Use VPC Flow Logs to monitor the traffic that reaches your instances.
• Use AWS Security Hub to check for unintended network accessibility from your instances.
• Use AWS Systems Manager Session Manager to access your instances remotely instead of opening
inbound RDP ports.
• Use AWS Systems Manager Run Command to automate common administrative tasks instead of
opening inbound RDP ports.
• Many of the Windows OS roles and Microsoft business applications also provide enhanced
functionality such as IP Address Range restrictions within IIS, TCP/IP filtering policies in Microsoft SQL

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Server, and connection filter policies in Microsoft Exchange. Network restriction functionality within
the application layer can provide additional layers of defense for critical business application servers.

In addition to restricting network access to each Amazon EC2 instance, Amazon VPC supports
implementing additional network security controls like in-line gateways, proxy servers, and various
network monitoring options.

For more information, see the AWS Security Best Practices whitepaper.

Amazon EC2 and interface VPC endpoints

You can improve the security posture of your VPC by configuring Amazon EC2 to use an interface
VPC endpoint. Interface endpoints are powered by AWS PrivateLink, a technology that enables you to
privately access Amazon EC2 APIs by restricting all network traffic between your VPC and Amazon EC2 to
the Amazon network. With interface endpoints, you also don't need an internet gateway, a NAT device,
or a virtual private gateway.

You are not required to configure AWS PrivateLink, but it's recommended. For more information about
AWS PrivateLink and VPC endpoints, see Interface VPC Endpoints (AWS PrivateLink).

Topics
• Create an interface VPC endpoint (p. 1067)
• Create an interface VPC endpoint policy (p. 1067)

Create an interface VPC endpoint

Create an endpoint for Amazon EC2 using the following service name:

• com.amazonaws.region.ec2 — Creates an endpoint for the Amazon EC2 API actions.

For more information, see Creating an Interface Endpoint in the Amazon VPC User Guide.

Create an interface VPC endpoint policy

You can attach a policy to your VPC endpoint to control access to the Amazon EC2 API. The policy
specifies:

• The principal that can perform actions.

• The actions that can be performed.
• The resource on which the actions can be performed.

Important
When a non-default policy is applied to an interface VPC endpoint for Amazon EC2, certain
failed API requests, such as those failing from RequestLimitExceeded, might not be logged
to AWS CloudTrail or Amazon CloudWatch.

For more information, see Controlling Access to Services with VPC Endpoints in the Amazon VPC User
Guide.

The following example shows a VPC endpoint policy that denies permission to create unencrypted
volumes or to launch instances with unencrypted volumes. The example policy also grants permission to
perform all other Amazon EC2 actions.

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{
"Version": "2012-10-17",
"Statement": [
{
"Action": "ec2:*",
"Effect": "Allow",
"Resource": "*",
"Principal": "*"
},
{
"Action": [
"ec2:CreateVolume"
],
"Effect": "Deny",
"Resource": "*",
"Principal": "*",
"Condition": {
"Bool": {
"ec2:Encrypted": "false"
}
}
},
{
"Action": [
"ec2:RunInstances"
],
"Effect": "Deny",
"Resource": "*",
"Principal": "*",
"Condition": {
"Bool": {
"ec2:Encrypted": "false"
}
}
}]
}

Resilience in Amazon EC2

The AWS global infrastructure is built around AWS Regions and Availability Zones. Regions provide
multiple physically separated and isolated Availability Zones, which are connected through low-latency,
high-throughput, and highly redundant networking. With Availability Zones, you can design and operate
applications and databases that automatically fail over between zones without interruption. Availability
Zones are more highly available, fault tolerant, and scalable than traditional single or multiple data
center infrastructures.

If you need to replicate your data or applications over greater geographic distances, use AWS Local
Zones. An AWS Local Zone is an extension of an AWS Region in geographic proximity to your users. Local
Zones have their own connections to the internet and support AWS Direct Connect. Like all AWS Regions,
AWS Local Zones are completely isolated from other AWS Zones.

If you need to replicate your data or applications in an AWS Local Zone, AWS recommends that you use
one of the following zones as the failover zone:

• Another Local Zone

• An Availability Zone in the Region that is not the parent zone. You can use the describe-availability-
zones command to view the parent zone.

For more information about AWS Regions and Availability Zones, see AWS Global Infrastructure.

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Data protection

In addition to the AWS global infrastructure, Amazon EC2 offers the following features to support your
data resiliency:

• Copying AMIs across Regions

• Copying EBS snapshots across Regions
• Automating EBS-backed AMIs using Amazon Data Lifecycle Manager
• Automating EBS snapshots using Amazon Data Lifecycle Manager
• Maintaining the health and availability of your fleet using Amazon EC2 Auto Scaling
• Distributing incoming traffic across multiple instances in a single Availability Zone or multiple
Availability Zones using Elastic Load Balancing

Data protection in Amazon EC2

The AWS shared responsibility model applies to data protection in Amazon Elastic Compute Cloud.
As described in this model, AWS is responsible for protecting the global infrastructure that runs all
of the AWS Cloud. You are responsible for maintaining control over your content that is hosted on
this infrastructure. This content includes the security configuration and management tasks for the
AWS services that you use. For more information about data privacy, see the Data Privacy FAQ. For
information about data protection in Europe, see the AWS Shared Responsibility Model and GDPR blog
post on the AWS Security Blog.

For data protection purposes, we recommend that you protect AWS account credentials and set up
individual user accounts with AWS Identity and Access Management (IAM). That way each user is given
only the permissions necessary to fulfill their job duties. We also recommend that you secure your data
in the following ways:

• Use multi-factor authentication (MFA) with each account.

• Use SSL/TLS to communicate with AWS resources. We recommend TLS 1.2 or later.
• Set up API and user activity logging with AWS CloudTrail.
• Use AWS encryption solutions, along with all default security controls within AWS services.
• Use advanced managed security services such as Amazon Macie, which assists in discovering and
securing personal data that is stored in Amazon S3.
• If you require FIPS 140-2 validated cryptographic modules when accessing AWS through a command
line interface or an API, use a FIPS endpoint. For more information about the available FIPS endpoints,
see Federal Information Processing Standard (FIPS) 140-2.

We strongly recommend that you never put confidential or sensitive information, such as your
customers' email addresses, into tags or free-form fields such as a Name field. This includes when you
work with Amazon EC2 or other AWS services using the console, API, AWS CLI, or AWS SDKs. Any data
that you enter into tags or free-form fields used for names may be used for billing or diagnostic logs.
If you provide a URL to an external server, we strongly recommend that you do not include credentials
information in the URL to validate your request to that server.

Encryption at rest
EBS volumes

Amazon EBS encryption is an encryption solution for your EBS volumes and snapshots. It uses AWS KMS
keys. For more information, see Amazon EBS encryption (p. 1340).

You can also use Microsoft EFS and NTFS permissions for folder- and file-level encryption.

Instance store volumes

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Encryption in transit

The data on NVMe instance store volumes is encrypted using an XTS-AES-256 cipher implemented on
a hardware module on the instance. The encryption keys are generated using the hardware module and
are unique to each NVMe instance storage device. All encryption keys are destroyed when the instance
is stopped or terminated and cannot be recovered. You cannot disable this encryption and you cannot
provide your own encryption key.

The data on HDD instance store volumes on H1, D3, and D3en instances is encrypted using XTS-AES-256
and one-time keys.

Memory

Memory encryption is enabled on the following instances:

• Instances with AWS Graviton 2 processors, such as M6g instances. These processors support always-on
memory encryption. The encryption keys are securely generated within the host system, do not leave
the host system, and are destroyed when the host is rebooted or powered down.
• Instances with Intel Xeon Scalable processors (Ice Lake), such as M6i instances. These processors
support always-on memory encryption using Intel Total Memory Encryption (TME).

Encryption in transit
Encryption at the physical layer

All data flowing across AWS Regions over the AWS global network is automatically encrypted at the
physical layer before it leaves AWS secured facilities. All traffic between AZs is encrypted. Additional
layers of encryption, including those listed in this section, may provide additional protections.

Encryption provided by Amazon VPC and Transit Gateway cross-Region peering

All cross-Region traffic that uses Amazon VPC and Transit Gateway peering is automatically bulk-
encrypted when it exits a Region. An additional layer of encryption is automatically provided at the
physical layer for all cross-Region traffic, as previously noted in this section.

Encryption between instances

AWS provides secure and private connectivity between EC2 instances of all types. In addition, some
instance types use the offload capabilities of the underlying Nitro System hardware to automatically
encrypt in-transit traffic between instances, using AEAD algorithms with 256-bit encryption. There is
no impact on network performance. To support this additional in-transit traffic encryption between
instances, the following requirements must be met:

• The instances use the following instance types:

• General purpose: M5dn | M5n | M5zn | M6i
• Compute optimized: C5a | C5ad | C5n
• Memory optimized: R5dn | R5n | high memory (u-*), virtualized only
• Storage optimized: D3 | D3en | I3en
• Accelerated computing: G4ad | G4dn | P3dn
• The instances are in the same Region.
• The instances are in the same VPC or peered VPCs, and the traffic does not pass through a virtual
network device or service, such as a load balancer or a transit gateway.

An additional layer of encryption is automatically provided at the physical layer for all traffic before it
leaves AWS secured facilities, as previously noted in this section.

To view the instance types that encrypt in-transit traffic between instances using the AWS CLI

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Use the following describe-instance-types command.

aws ec2 describe-instance-types \

--filters Name=network-info.encryption-in-transit-supported,Values=true \
--query "InstanceTypes[*].[InstanceType]" --output text

Encryption to and from AWS Outposts

An Outpost creates special network connections called service links to its AWS home Region and,
optionally, private connectivity to a VPC subnet that you specify. All traffic over those connection is fully
encrypted. For more information, see Connectivity through service links and Encryption in transit in the
AWS Outposts User Guide.

Remote access encryption

RDP provides a secure communications channel for remote access to your Windows instances, whether
directly or through EC2 Instance Connect. Remote access to your instances using AWS Systems Manager
Session Manager or the Run Command is encrypted using TLS 1.2, and requests to create a connection
are signed using SigV4 and authenticated and authorized by AWS Identity and Access Management.

It is your responsibility to use an encryption protocol, such as Transport Layer Security (TLS), to encrypt
sensitive data in transit between clients and your Amazon EC2 instances.

Make sure to allow only encrypted connections between EC2 instances and the AWS API endpoints or
other sensitive remote network services. You can enforce this through an outbound security group or
Windows Firewall rules.

Identity and access management for Amazon EC2

Your security credentials identify you to services in AWS and grant you unlimited use of your AWS
resources, such as your Amazon EC2 resources. You can use features of Amazon EC2 and AWS Identity
and Access Management (IAM) to allow other users, services, and applications to use your Amazon EC2
resources without sharing your security credentials. You can use IAM to control how other users use
resources in your AWS account, and you can use security groups to control access to your Amazon EC2
instances. You can choose to allow full use or limited use of your Amazon EC2 resources.

Contents
• Network access to your instance (p. 1071)
• Amazon EC2 permission attributes (p. 1072)
• IAM and Amazon EC2 (p. 1072)
• IAM policies for Amazon EC2 (p. 1073)
• AWS managed policies for Amazon Elastic Compute Cloud (p. 1127)
• IAM roles for Amazon EC2 (p. 1128)
• Authorize inbound traffic for your Windows instances (p. 1137)

Network access to your instance

A security group acts as a firewall that controls the traffic allowed to reach one or more instances. When
you launch an instance, you assign it one or more security groups. You add rules to each security group
that control traffic for the instance. You can modify the rules for a security group at any time; the new
rules are automatically applied to all instances to which the security group is assigned.

For more information, see Authorize inbound traffic for your Windows instances (p. 1137).

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Amazon EC2 permission attributes

Your organization might have multiple AWS accounts. Amazon EC2 enables you to specify additional
AWS accounts that can use your Amazon Machine Images (AMIs) and Amazon EBS snapshots. These
permissions work at the AWS account level only; you can't restrict permissions for specific users within
the specified AWS account. All users in the AWS account that you've specified can use the AMI or
snapshot.

Each AMI has a LaunchPermission attribute that controls which AWS accounts can access the AMI. For
more information, see Make an AMI public (p. 107).

Each Amazon EBS snapshot has a createVolumePermission attribute that controls which AWS
accounts can use the snapshot. For more information, see Share an Amazon EBS snapshot (p. 1247).

IAM and Amazon EC2

IAM enables you to do the following:

• Create users and groups under your AWS account

• Assign unique security credentials to each user under your AWS account
• Control each user's permissions to perform tasks using AWS resources
• Allow the users in another AWS account to share your AWS resources
• Create roles for your AWS account and define the users or services that can assume them
• Use existing identities for your enterprise to grant permissions to perform tasks using AWS resources

By using IAM with Amazon EC2, you can control whether users in your organization can perform a task
using specific Amazon EC2 API actions and whether they can use specific AWS resources.

This topic helps you answer the following questions:

• How do I create groups and users in IAM?

• How do I create a policy?
• What IAM policies do I need to carry out tasks in Amazon EC2?
• How do I grant permissions to perform actions in Amazon EC2?
• How do I grant permissions to perform actions on specific resources in Amazon EC2?

Create an IAM group and users

To create an IAM group

1. Open the IAM console at https://console.aws.amazon.com/iam/.

2. In the navigation pane, choose Groups and then choose Create New Group.
3. For Group Name, enter a name for your group, and then choose Next Step.
4. On the Attach Policy page, select an AWS managed policy and then choose Next Step. For example,
for Amazon EC2, one of the following AWS managed policies might meet your needs:

• PowerUserAccess
• ReadOnlyAccess
• AmazonEC2FullAccess
• AmazonEC2ReadOnlyAccess

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5. Choose Create Group.

Your new group is listed under Group Name.

To create an IAM user, add the user to your group, and create a password for the user

1. In the navigation pane, choose Users, Add user.

2. For User name, enter a user name.
3. For Access type, select both Programmatic access and AWS Management Console access.
4. For Console password, choose one of the following:

• Autogenerated password. Each user gets a randomly generated password that meets the current
password policy in effect (if any). You can view or download the passwords when you get to the
Final page.
• Custom password. Each user is assigned the password that you enter in the box.
5. Choose Next: Permissions.
6. On the Set permissions page, choose Add user to group. Select the check box next to the group
that you created earlier and choose Next: Review.
7. Choose Create user.
8. To view the users' access keys (access key IDs and secret access keys), choose Show next to each
password and secret access key to see. To save the access keys, choose Download .csv and then save
the file to a safe location.
Important
You cannot retrieve the secret access key after you complete this step; if you misplace it you
must create a new one.
9. Choose Close.
10. Give each user his or her credentials (access keys and password); this enables them to use services
based on the permissions you specified for the IAM group.

Related topics
For more information about IAM, see the following:

• IAM policies for Amazon EC2 (p. 1073)

• IAM roles for Amazon EC2 (p. 1128)
• AWS Identity and Access Management (IAM)
• IAM User Guide

IAM policies for Amazon EC2

By default, IAM users don't have permission to create or modify Amazon EC2 resources, or perform tasks
using the Amazon EC2 API. (This means that they also can't do so using the Amazon EC2 console or CLI.)
To allow IAM users to create or modify resources and perform tasks, you must create IAM policies that
grant IAM users permission to use the specific resources and API actions they'll need, and then attach
those policies to the IAM users or groups that require those permissions.

When you attach a policy to a user or group of users, it allows or denies the users permission to perform
the specified tasks on the specified resources. For more general information about IAM policies, see
Permissions and Policies in the IAM User Guide. For more information about managing and creating
custom IAM policies, see Managing IAM Policies.

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Getting Started

An IAM policy must grant or deny permissions to use one or more Amazon EC2 actions. It must also
specify the resources that can be used with the action, which can be all resources, or in some cases,
specific resources. The policy can also include conditions that you apply to the resource.

Amazon EC2 partially supports resource-level permissions. This means that for some EC2 API actions,
you cannot specify which resource a user is allowed to work with for that action. Instead, you have to
allow users to work with all resources for that action.

Task Topic

Understand the basic structure of a policy Policy syntax (p. 1074)

Define actions in your policy Actions for Amazon EC2 (p. 1075)

Define specific resources in your policy Amazon Resource Names (ARNs) for Amazon
EC2 (p. 1076)

Apply conditions to the use of the resources Condition keys for Amazon EC2 (p. 1077)

Work with the available resource-level Actions, resources, and condition keys for Amazon
permissions for Amazon EC2 EC2

Test your policy Check that users have the required

permissions (p. 1078)

Generate an IAM policy Generate policies based on access activity

Example policies for a CLI or SDK Example policies for working with the AWS CLI or
an AWS SDK (p. 1081)

Example policies for the Amazon EC2 console Example policies for working in the Amazon EC2
console (p. 1118)

Policy structure
The following topics explain the structure of an IAM policy.

Contents
• Policy syntax (p. 1074)
• Actions for Amazon EC2 (p. 1075)
• Supported resource-level permissions for Amazon EC2 API actions (p. 1076)
• Amazon Resource Names (ARNs) for Amazon EC2 (p. 1076)
• Condition keys for Amazon EC2 (p. 1077)
• Check that users have the required permissions (p. 1078)

Policy syntax
An IAM policy is a JSON document that consists of one or more statements. Each statement is structured
as follows.

{
"Statement":[{
"Effect":"effect",

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"Action":"action",
"Resource":"arn",
"Condition":{
"condition":{
"key":"value"
}
}
}
]
}

There are various elements that make up a statement:

• Effect: The effect can be Allow or Deny. By default, IAM users don't have permission to use resources
and API actions, so all requests are denied. An explicit allow overrides the default. An explicit deny
overrides any allows.
• Action: The action is the specific API action for which you are granting or denying permission. To learn
about specifying action, see Actions for Amazon EC2 (p. 1075).
• Resource: The resource that's affected by the action. Some Amazon EC2 API actions allow you to
include specific resources in your policy that can be created or modified by the action. You specify
a resource using an Amazon Resource Name (ARN) or using the wildcard (*) to indicate that the
statement applies to all resources. For more information, see Supported resource-level permissions for
Amazon EC2 API actions (p. 1076).
• Condition: Conditions are optional. They can be used to control when your policy is in effect. For
more information about specifying conditions for Amazon EC2, see Condition keys for Amazon
EC2 (p. 1077).

For more information about example IAM policy statements for Amazon EC2, see Example policies for
working with the AWS CLI or an AWS SDK (p. 1081).

Actions for Amazon EC2

In an IAM policy statement, you can specify any API action from any service that supports IAM.
For Amazon EC2, use the following prefix with the name of the API action: ec2:. For example:
ec2:RunInstances and ec2:CreateImage.

To specify multiple actions in a single statement, separate them with commas as follows:

"Action": ["ec2:action1", "ec2:action2"]

You can also specify multiple actions using wildcards. For example, you can specify all actions whose
name begins with the word "Describe" as follows:

"Action": "ec2:Describe*"

Note
Currently, the Amazon EC2 Describe* API actions do not support resource-level permissions.
For more information about resource-level permissions for Amazon EC2, see IAM policies for
Amazon EC2 (p. 1073).

To specify all Amazon EC2 API actions, use the * wildcard as follows:

"Action": "ec2:*"

For a list of Amazon EC2 actions, see Actions defined by Amazon EC2 in the Service Authorization
Reference.

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Supported resource-level permissions for Amazon EC2 API actions

Resource-level permissions refers to the ability to specify which resources users are allowed to perform
actions on. Amazon EC2 has partial support for resource-level permissions. This means that for certain
Amazon EC2 actions, you can control when users are allowed to use those actions based on conditions
that have to be fulfilled, or specific resources that users are allowed to use. For example, you can grant
users permissions to launch instances, but only of a specific type, and only using a specific AMI.

To specify a resource in an IAM policy statement, use its Amazon Resource Name (ARN). For more
information about specifying the ARN value, see Amazon Resource Names (ARNs) for Amazon
EC2 (p. 1076). If an API action does not support individual ARNs, you must use a wildcard (*) to specify
that all resources can be affected by the action.

To see tables that identify which Amazon EC2 API actions support resource-level permissions, and the
ARNs and condition keys that you can use in a policy, see Actions, resources, and condition keys for
Amazon EC2.

Keep in mind that you can apply tag-based resource-level permissions in the IAM policies you use for
Amazon EC2 API actions. This gives you better control over which resources a user can create, modify, or
use. For more information, see Grant permission to tag resources during creation (p. 1078).

Amazon Resource Names (ARNs) for Amazon EC2

Each IAM policy statement applies to the resources that you specify using their ARNs.

An ARN has the following general syntax:

arn:aws:[service]:[region]:[account]:resourceType/resourcePath

service

The service (for example, ec2).

region

The Region for the resource (for example, us-east-1).

account

The AWS account ID, with no hyphens (for example, 123456789012).

resourceType

The type of resource (for example, instance).

resourcePath

A path that identifies the resource. You can use the * wildcard in your paths.

For example, you can indicate a specific instance (i-1234567890abcdef0) in your statement using its
ARN as follows.

"Resource": "arn:aws:ec2:us-east-1:123456789012:instance/i-1234567890abcdef0"

You can specify all instances that belong to a specific account by using the * wildcard as follows.

"Resource": "arn:aws:ec2:us-east-1:123456789012:instance/*"

You can also specify all Amazon EC2 resources that belong to a specific account by using the * wildcard
as follows.

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"Resource": "arn:aws:ec2:us-east-1:123456789012:*"

To specify all resources, or if a specific API action does not support ARNs, use the * wildcard in the
Resource element as follows.

"Resource": "*"

Many Amazon EC2 API actions involve multiple resources. For example, AttachVolume attaches an
Amazon EBS volume to an instance, so an IAM user must have permissions to use the volume and the
instance. To specify multiple resources in a single statement, separate their ARNs with commas, as
follows.

"Resource": ["arn1", "arn2"]

For a list of ARNs for Amazon EC2 resources, see Resource types defined by Amazon EC2.

Condition keys for Amazon EC2

In a policy statement, you can optionally specify conditions that control when it is in effect. Each
condition contains one or more key-value pairs. Condition keys are not case-sensitive. We've defined
AWS-wide condition keys, plus additional service-specific condition keys.

For a list of service-specific condition keys for Amazon EC2, see Condition keys for Amazon EC2. Amazon
EC2 also implements the AWS-wide condition keys. For more information, see Information available in all
requests in the IAM User Guide.

To use a condition key in your IAM policy, use the Condition statement. For example, the following
policy grants users permission to add and remove inbound and outbound rules for any security group. It
uses the ec2:Vpc condition key to specify that these actions can only be performed on security groups
in a specific VPC.

{
"Version": "2012-10-17",
"Statement":[{
"Effect":"Allow",
"Action": [
"ec2:AuthorizeSecurityGroupIngress",
"ec2:AuthorizeSecurityGroupEgress",
"ec2:RevokeSecurityGroupIngress",
"ec2:RevokeSecurityGroupEgress"],
"Resource": "arn:aws:ec2:region:account:security-group/*",
"Condition": {
"StringEquals": {
"ec2:Vpc": "arn:aws:ec2:region:account:vpc/vpc-11223344556677889"
}
}
}
]
}

If you specify multiple conditions, or multiple keys in a single condition, we evaluate them using a
logical AND operation. If you specify a single condition with multiple values for one key, we evaluate the
condition using a logical OR operation. For permissions to be granted, all conditions must be met.

You can also use placeholders when you specify conditions. For example, you can grant an IAM user
permission to use resources with a tag that specifies his or her IAM user name. For more information, see
IAM policy elements: Variables and tags in the IAM User Guide.

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Important
Many condition keys are specific to a resource, and some API actions use multiple resources.
If you write a policy with a condition key, use the Resource element of the statement to
specify the resource to which the condition key applies. If not, the policy may prevent users
from performing the action at all, because the condition check fails for the resources to which
the condition key does not apply. If you do not want to specify a resource, or if you've written
the Action element of your policy to include multiple API actions, then you must use the
...IfExists condition type to ensure that the condition key is ignored for resources that do
not use it. For more information, see ...IfExists Conditions in the IAM User Guide.

All Amazon EC2 actions support the aws:RequestedRegion and ec2:Region condition keys. For more
information, see Example: Restrict access to a specific Region (p. 1082).

The ec2:SourceInstanceARN key can be used for conditions that specify the ARN of the instance from
which a request is made. This condition key is available AWS-wide and is not service-specific. For policy
examples, see Amazon EC2: Attach or detach volumes to an EC2 instance and Example: Allow a specific
instance to view resources in other AWS services (p. 1114). The ec2:SourceInstanceARN key cannot
be used as a variable to populate the ARN for the Resource element in a statement.

For example policy statements for Amazon EC2, see Example policies for working with the AWS CLI or an
AWS SDK (p. 1081).

Check that users have the required permissions

After you've created an IAM policy, we recommend that you check whether it grants users the
permissions to use the particular API actions and resources they need before you put the policy into
production.

First, create an IAM user for testing purposes, and then attach the IAM policy that you created to the test
user. Then, make a request as the test user.

If the Amazon EC2 action that you are testing creates or modifies a resource, you should make the
request using the DryRun parameter (or run the AWS CLI command with the --dry-run option). In
this case, the call completes the authorization check, but does not complete the operation. For example,
you can check whether the user can terminate a particular instance without actually terminating it. If
the test user has the required permissions, the request returns DryRunOperation; otherwise, it returns
UnauthorizedOperation.

If the policy doesn't grant the user the permissions that you expected, or is overly permissive, you can
adjust the policy as needed and retest until you get the desired results.
Important
It can take several minutes for policy changes to propagate before they take effect. Therefore,
we recommend that you allow five minutes to pass before you test your policy updates.

If an authorization check fails, the request returns an encoded message with diagnostic information. You
can decode the message using the DecodeAuthorizationMessage action. For more information, see
DecodeAuthorizationMessage in the AWS Security Token Service API Reference, and decode-authorization-
message in the AWS CLI Command Reference.

Grant permission to tag resources during creation

Some resource-creating Amazon EC2 API actions enable you to specify tags when you create the
resource. You can use resource tags to implement attribute-based control (ABAC). For more information,
see Tag your resources (p. 1464) and Control access to EC2 resources using resource tags (p. 1081).

To enable users to tag resources on creation, they must have permissions to use the action that creates
the resource, such as ec2:RunInstances or ec2:CreateVolume. If tags are specified in the resource-

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creating action, Amazon performs additional authorization on the ec2:CreateTags action to verify
if users have permissions to create tags. Therefore, users must also have explicit permissions to use the
ec2:CreateTags action.

In the IAM policy definition for the ec2:CreateTags action, use the Condition element with the
ec2:CreateAction condition key to give tagging permissions to the action that creates the resource.

The following example demonstrates a policy that allows users to launch instances and apply any tags to
instances and volumes during launch. Users are not permitted to tag any existing resources (they cannot
call the ec2:CreateTags action directly).

{
"Statement": [
{
"Effect": "Allow",
"Action": [
"ec2:RunInstances"
],
"Resource": "*"
},
{
"Effect": "Allow",
"Action": [
"ec2:CreateTags"
],
"Resource": "arn:aws:ec2:region:account:*/*",
"Condition": {
"StringEquals": {
"ec2:CreateAction" : "RunInstances"
}
}
}
]
}

Similarly, the following policy allows users to create volumes and apply any tags to the volumes
during volume creation. Users are not permitted to tag any existing resources (they cannot call the
ec2:CreateTags action directly).

{
"Statement": [
{
"Effect": "Allow",
"Action": [
"ec2:CreateVolume"
],
"Resource": "*"
},
{
"Effect": "Allow",
"Action": [
"ec2:CreateTags"
],
"Resource": "arn:aws:ec2:region:account:*/*",
"Condition": {
"StringEquals": {
"ec2:CreateAction" : "CreateVolume"
}
}
}
]
}

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The ec2:CreateTags action is only evaluated if tags are applied during the resource-creating action.
Therefore, a user that has permissions to create a resource (assuming there are no tagging conditions)
does not require permissions to use the ec2:CreateTags action if no tags are specified in the request.
However, if the user attempts to create a resource with tags, the request fails if the user does not have
permissions to use the ec2:CreateTags action.

The ec2:CreateTags action is also evaluated if tags are provided in a launch template. For an example
policy, see Tags in a launch template (p. 1102).

Control access to specific tags

You can use additional conditions in the Condition element of your IAM policies to control the tag keys
and values that can be applied to resources.

The following condition keys can be used with the examples in the preceding section:

• aws:RequestTag: To indicate that a particular tag key or tag key and value must be present in a
request. Other tags can also be specified in the request.
• Use with the StringEquals condition operator to enforce a specific tag key and value combination,
for example, to enforce the tag cost-center=cc123:

"StringEquals": { "aws:RequestTag/cost-center": "cc123" }

• Use with the StringLike condition operator to enforce a specific tag key in the request; for
example, to enforce the tag key purpose:

"StringLike": { "aws:RequestTag/purpose": "*" }

• aws:TagKeys: To enforce the tag keys that are used in the request.
• Use with the ForAllValues modifier to enforce specific tag keys if they are provided in the request
(if tags are specified in the request, only specific tag keys are allowed; no other tags are allowed). For
example, the tag keys environment or cost-center are allowed:

"ForAllValues:StringEquals": { "aws:TagKeys": ["environment","cost-center"] }

• Use with the ForAnyValue modifier to enforce the presence of at least one of the specified tag
keys in the request. For example, at least one of the tag keys environment or webserver must be
present in the request:

"ForAnyValue:StringEquals": { "aws:TagKeys": ["environment","webserver"] }

These condition keys can be applied to resource-creating actions that support tagging, as well as the
ec2:CreateTags and ec2:DeleteTags actions. To learn whether an Amazon EC2 API action supports
tagging, see Actions, resources, and condition keys for Amazon EC2.

To force users to specify tags when they create a resource, you must use the aws:RequestTag condition
key or the aws:TagKeys condition key with the ForAnyValue modifier on the resource-creating action.
The ec2:CreateTags action is not evaluated if a user does not specify tags for the resource-creating
action.

For conditions, the condition key is not case-sensitive and the condition value is case-sensitive. Therefore,
to enforce the case-sensitivity of a tag key, use the aws:TagKeys condition key, where the tag key is
specified as a value in the condition.

For example IAM policies, see Example policies for working with the AWS CLI or an AWS SDK (p. 1081).
For more information about multi-value conditions, see Creating a Condition That Tests Multiple Key
Values in the IAM User Guide.

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Control access to EC2 resources using resource tags

When you create an IAM policy that grants IAM users permission to use EC2 resources, you can include
tag information in the Condition element of the policy to control access based on tags. This is known
as attribute-based access control (ABAC). ABAC provides better control over which resources a user can
modify, use, or delete. For more information, see What is ABAC for AWS?

For example, you can create a policy that allows users to terminate an instance, but denies the action
if the instance has the tag environment=production. To do this, you use the ec2:ResourceTag
condition key to allow or deny access to the resource based on the tags that are attached to the resource.

"StringEquals": { "ec2:ResourceTag/environment": "production" }

To learn whether an Amazon EC2 API action supports controlling access using the ec2:ResourceTag
condition key, see Actions, resources, and condition keys for Amazon EC2. Note that the Describe
actions do not support resource-level permissions, so you must specify them in a separate statement
without conditions.

For example IAM policies, see Example policies for working with the AWS CLI or an AWS SDK (p. 1081).

If you allow or deny users access to resources based on tags, you must consider explicitly denying users
the ability to add those tags to or remove them from the same resources. Otherwise, it's possible for a
user to circumvent your restrictions and gain access to a resource by modifying its tags.

Example policies for working with the AWS CLI or an AWS SDK
The following examples show policy statements that you could use to control the permissions that IAM
users have to Amazon EC2. These policies are designed for requests that are made with the AWS CLI
or an AWS SDK. For example policies for working in the Amazon EC2 console, see Example policies for
working in the Amazon EC2 console (p. 1118). For examples of IAM policies specific to Amazon VPC, see
Identity and Access Management for Amazon VPC.

Examples
• Example: Read-only access (p. 1081)
• Example: Restrict access to a specific Region (p. 1082)
• Work with instances (p. 1082)
• Work with volumes (p. 1084)
• Work with snapshots (p. 1086)
• Launch instances (RunInstances) (p. 1094)
• Work with Spot Instances (p. 1105)
• Example: Work with Reserved Instances (p. 1110)
• Example: Tag resources (p. 1111)
• Example: Work with IAM roles (p. 1112)
• Example: Work with route tables (p. 1114)
• Example: Allow a specific instance to view resources in other AWS services (p. 1114)
• Example: Work with launch templates (p. 1115)
• Work with instance metadata (p. 1115)

Example: Read-only access

The following policy grants users permissions to use all Amazon EC2 API actions whose names begin
with Describe. The Resource element uses a wildcard to indicate that users can specify all resources
with these API actions. The * wildcard is also necessary in cases where the API action does not support

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resource-level permissions. For more information about which ARNs you can use with which Amazon EC2
API actions, see Actions, resources, and condition keys for Amazon EC2.

Users don't have permission to perform any actions on the resources (unless another statement grants
them permission to do so) because they're denied permission to use API actions by default.

{
"Version": "2012-10-17",
"Statement": [
{
"Effect": "Allow",
"Action": "ec2:Describe*",
"Resource": "*"
}
]
}

Example: Restrict access to a specific Region

The following policy denies users permission to use all Amazon EC2 API actions unless the Region is
Europe (Frankfurt). It uses the global condition key aws:RequestedRegion, which is supported by all
Amazon EC2 API actions.

{
"Version":"2012-10-17",
"Statement": [
{
"Effect": "Deny",
"Action": "ec2:*",
"Resource": "*",
"Condition": {
"StringNotEquals": {
"aws:RequestedRegion": "eu-central-1"
}
}
}
]
}

Alternatively, you can use the condition key ec2:Region, which is specific to Amazon EC2 and is
supported by all Amazon EC2 API actions.

{
"Version":"2012-10-17",
"Statement": [
{
"Effect": "Deny",
"Action": "ec2:*",
"Resource": "*",
"Condition": {
"StringNotEquals": {
"ec2:Region": "eu-central-1"
}
}
}
]
}

Work with instances

Examples

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• Example: Describe, launch, stop, start, and terminate all instances (p. 1083)
• Example: Describe all instances, and stop, start, and terminate only particular instances (p. 1083)

Example: Describe, launch, stop, start, and terminate all instances

The following policy grants users permissions to use the API actions specified in the Action element.
The Resource element uses a * wildcard to indicate that users can specify all resources with these API
actions. The * wildcard is also necessary in cases where the API action does not support resource-level
permissions. For more information about which ARNs you can use with which Amazon EC2 API actions,
see Actions, resources, and condition keys for Amazon EC2.

The users don't have permission to use any other API actions (unless another statement grants them
permission to do so) because users are denied permission to use API actions by default.

{
"Version": "2012-10-17",
"Statement": [
{
"Effect": "Allow",
"Action": [
"ec2:DescribeInstances",
"ec2:DescribeImages",
"ec2:DescribeKeyPairs",
"ec2:DescribeSecurityGroups",
"ec2:DescribeAvailabilityZones",
"ec2:RunInstances",
"ec2:TerminateInstances",
"ec2:StopInstances",
"ec2:StartInstances"
],
"Resource": "*"
}
]
}

Example: Describe all instances, and stop, start, and terminate only particular instances

The following policy allows users to describe all instances, to start and stop only instances
i-1234567890abcdef0 and i-0598c7d356eba48d7, and to terminate only instances in the US East (N.
Virginia) Region (us-east-1) with the resource tag "purpose=test".

The first statement uses a * wildcard for the Resource element to indicate that users can
specify all resources with the action; in this case, they can list all instances. The * wildcard is also
necessary in cases where the API action does not support resource-level permissions (in this case,
ec2:DescribeInstances). For more information about which ARNs you can use with which Amazon
EC2 API actions, see Actions, resources, and condition keys for Amazon EC2.

The second statement uses resource-level permissions for the StopInstances and StartInstances
actions. The specific instances are indicated by their ARNs in the Resource element.

The third statement allows users to terminate all instances in the US East (N. Virginia) Region
(us-east-1) that belong to the specified AWS account, but only where the instance has the tag
"purpose=test". The Condition element qualifies when the policy statement is in effect.

{
"Version": "2012-10-17",
"Statement": [
{
"Effect": "Allow",

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"Action": "ec2:DescribeInstances",
"Resource": "*"
},
{
"Effect": "Allow",
"Action": [
"ec2:StopInstances",
"ec2:StartInstances"
],
"Resource": [
"arn:aws:ec2:us-east-1:123456789012:instance/i-1234567890abcdef0",
"arn:aws:ec2:us-east-1:123456789012:instance/i-0598c7d356eba48d7"
]
},
{
"Effect": "Allow",
"Action": "ec2:TerminateInstances",
"Resource": "arn:aws:ec2:us-east-1:123456789012:instance/*",
"Condition": {
"StringEquals": {
"ec2:ResourceTag/purpose": "test"
}
}
}

]
}

Work with volumes

Examples
• Example: Attach and detach volumes (p. 1084)
• Example: Create a volume (p. 1085)
• Example: Create a volume with tags (p. 1085)

Example: Attach and detach volumes

When an API action requires a caller to specify multiple resources, you must create a policy statement
that allows users to access all required resources. If you need to use a Condition element with one or
more of these resources, you must create multiple statements as shown in this example.

The following policy allows users to attach volumes with the tag "volume_user=iam-user-name" to
instances with the tag "department=dev", and to detach those volumes from those instances. If you
attach this policy to an IAM group, the aws:username policy variable gives each IAM user in the group
permission to attach or detach volumes from the instances with a tag named volume_user that has his
or her IAM user name as a value.

{
"Version": "2012-10-17",
"Statement": [
{
"Effect": "Allow",
"Action": [
"ec2:AttachVolume",
"ec2:DetachVolume"
],
"Resource": "arn:aws:ec2:us-east-1:123456789012:instance/*",
"Condition": {
"StringEquals": {
"ec2:ResourceTag/department": "dev"
}

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}
},
{
"Effect": "Allow",
"Action": [
"ec2:AttachVolume",
"ec2:DetachVolume"
],
"Resource": "arn:aws:ec2:us-east-1:123456789012:volume/*",
"Condition": {
"StringEquals": {
"ec2:ResourceTag/volume_user": "${aws:username}"
}
}
}
]
}

Example: Create a volume

The following policy allows users to use the CreateVolume API action. The user is allowed to create a
volume only if the volume is encrypted and only if the volume size is less than 20 GiB.

{
"Version": "2012-10-17",
"Statement": [
{
"Effect": "Allow",
"Action": [
"ec2:CreateVolume"
],
"Resource": "arn:aws:ec2:us-east-1:123456789012:volume/*",
"Condition":{
"NumericLessThan": {
"ec2:VolumeSize" : "20"
},
"Bool":{
"ec2:Encrypted" : "true"
}
}
}
]
}

Example: Create a volume with tags

The following policy includes the aws:RequestTag condition key that requires users to tag any volumes
they create with the tags costcenter=115 and stack=prod. The aws:TagKeys condition key uses
the ForAllValues modifier to indicate that only the keys costcenter and stack are allowed in the
request (no other tags can be specified). If users don't pass these specific tags, or if they don't specify
tags at all, the request fails.

For resource-creating actions that apply tags, users must also have permissions to use the CreateTags
action. The second statement uses the ec2:CreateAction condition key to allow users to create tags
only in the context of CreateVolume. Users cannot tag existing volumes or any other resources. For
more information, see Grant permission to tag resources during creation (p. 1078).

{
"Version": "2012-10-17",
"Statement": [
{
"Sid": "AllowCreateTaggedVolumes",

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"Effect": "Allow",
"Action": "ec2:CreateVolume",
"Resource": "arn:aws:ec2:us-east-1:123456789012:volume/*",
"Condition": {
"StringEquals": {
"aws:RequestTag/costcenter": "115",
"aws:RequestTag/stack": "prod"
},
"ForAllValues:StringEquals": {
"aws:TagKeys": ["costcenter","stack"]
}
}
},
{
"Effect": "Allow",
"Action": [
"ec2:CreateTags"
],
"Resource": "arn:aws:ec2:us-east-1:123456789012:volume/*",
"Condition": {
"StringEquals": {
"ec2:CreateAction" : "CreateVolume"
}
}
}
]
}

The following policy allows users to create a volume without having to specify tags. The CreateTags
action is only evaluated if tags are specified in the CreateVolume request. If users do specify tags, the
tag must be purpose=test. No other tags are allowed in the request.

{
"Version": "2012-10-17",
"Statement": [
{
"Effect": "Allow",
"Action": "ec2:CreateVolume",
"Resource": "*"
},
{
"Effect": "Allow",
"Action": [
"ec2:CreateTags"
],
"Resource": "arn:aws:ec2:us-east-1:1234567890:volume/*",
"Condition": {
"StringEquals": {
"aws:RequestTag/purpose": "test",
"ec2:CreateAction" : "CreateVolume"
},
"ForAllValues:StringEquals": {
"aws:TagKeys": "purpose"
}
}
}
]
}

Work with snapshots

The following are example policies for both CreateSnapshot (point-in-time snapshot of an EBS
volume) and CreateSnapshots (multi-volume snapshots).

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Examples
• Example: Create a snapshot (p. 1087)
• Example: Create snapshots (p. 1087)
• Example: Create a snapshot with tags (p. 1088)
• Example: Create snapshots with tags (p. 1088)
• Example: Copying snapshots (p. 1093)
• Example: Modify permission settings for snapshots (p. 1093)

Example: Create a snapshot

The following policy allows customers to use the CreateSnapshot API action. The customer can create
snapshots only if the volume is encrypted and only if the volume size is less than 20 GiB.

{
"Version":"2012-10-17",
"Statement": [
{
"Effect":"Allow",
"Action":"ec2:CreateSnapshot",
"Resource":"arn:aws:ec2:us-east-1::snapshot/*"
},
{
"Effect":"Allow",
"Action":"ec2:CreateSnapshot",
"Resource":"arn:aws:ec2:us-east-1:123456789012:volume/*",
"Condition":{
"NumericLessThan":{
"ec2:VolumeSize":"20"
},
"Bool":{
"ec2:Encrypted":"true"
}
}
}
]
}

Example: Create snapshots

The following policy allows customers to use the CreateSnapshots API action. The customer can create
snapshots only if all of the volumes on the instance are type GP2.

{
"Version":"2012-10-17",
"Statement": [
{
"Effect":"Allow",
"Action":"ec2:CreateSnapshots",
"Resource":[
"arn:aws:ec2:us-east-1::snapshot/*",
"arn:aws:ec2:*:*:instance/*"
]
},
{
"Effect":"Allow",
"Action":"ec2:CreateSnapshots",
"Resource":"arn:aws:ec2:us-east-1:*:volume/*",
"Condition":{
"StringLikeIfExists":{
"ec2:VolumeType":"gp2"

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}
}

}
]
}

Example: Create a snapshot with tags

The following policy includes the aws:RequestTag condition key that requires the customer to apply
the tags costcenter=115 and stack=prod to any new snapshot. The aws:TagKeys condition
key uses the ForAllValues modifier to indicate that only the keys costcenter and stack can be
specified in the request. The request fails if either of these conditions is not met.

For resource-creating actions that apply tags, customers must also have permissions to use the
CreateTags action. The third statement uses the ec2:CreateAction condition key to allow
customers to create tags only in the context of CreateSnapshot. Customers cannot tag existing
volumes or any other resources. For more information, see Grant permission to tag resources during
creation (p. 1078).

{
"Version":"2012-10-17",
"Statement": [
{
"Effect":"Allow",
"Action":"ec2:CreateSnapshot",
"Resource":"arn:aws:ec2:us-east-1:123456789012:volume/*"
},
{
"Sid":"AllowCreateTaggedSnapshots",
"Effect":"Allow",
"Action":"ec2:CreateSnapshot",
"Resource":"arn:aws:ec2:us-east-1::snapshot/*",
"Condition":{
"StringEquals":{
"aws:RequestTag/costcenter":"115",
"aws:RequestTag/stack":"prod"
},
"ForAllValues:StringEquals":{
"aws:TagKeys":[
"costcenter",
"stack"
]
}
}
},
{
"Effect":"Allow",
"Action":"ec2:CreateTags",
"Resource":"arn:aws:ec2:us-east-1::snapshot/*",
"Condition":{
"StringEquals":{
"ec2:CreateAction":"CreateSnapshot"
}
}
}
]
}

Example: Create snapshots with tags

The following policy includes the aws:RequestTag condition key that requires the customer to apply
the tags costcenter=115 and stack=prod to any new snapshot. The aws:TagKeys condition

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key uses the ForAllValues modifier to indicate that only the keys costcenter and stack can be
specified in the request. The request fails if either of these conditions is not met.

{
"Version":"2012-10-17",
"Statement": [
{
"Effect":"Allow",
"Action":"ec2:CreateSnapshots",
"Resource":[
"arn:aws:ec2:us-east-1::snapshot/*",
"arn:aws:ec2:*:*:instance/*",
"arn:aws:ec2:*:*:volume/*"

]
},
{
"Sid":"AllowCreateTaggedSnapshots",
"Effect":"Allow",
"Action":"ec2:CreateSnapshots",
"Resource":"arn:aws:ec2:us-east-1::snapshot/*",
"Condition":{
"StringEquals":{
"aws:RequestTag/costcenter":"115",
"aws:RequestTag/stack":"prod"
},
"ForAllValues:StringEquals":{
"aws:TagKeys":[
"costcenter",
"stack"
]
}
}
},
{
"Effect":"Allow",
"Action":"ec2:CreateTags",
"Resource":"arn:aws:ec2:us-east-1::snapshot/*",
"Condition":{
"StringEquals":{
"ec2:CreateAction":"CreateSnapshots"
}
}
}
]
}

The following policy allows customers to create a snapshot without having to specify tags.
The CreateTags action is evaluated only if tags are specified in the CreateSnapshot or
CreateSnapshots request. If a tag is specified, the tag must be purpose=test. No other tags are
allowed in the request.

{
"Version":"2012-10-17",
"Statement": [
{
"Effect":"Allow",
"Action":"ec2:CreateSnapshot",
"Resource":"*"
},
{
"Effect":"Allow",
"Action":"ec2:CreateTags",

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"Resource":"arn:aws:ec2:us-east-1::snapshot/*",
"Condition":{
"StringEquals":{
"aws:RequestTag/purpose":"test",
"ec2:CreateAction":"CreateSnapshot"
},
"ForAllValues:StringEquals":{
"aws:TagKeys":"purpose"
}
}
}
]
}

{
"Version":"2012-10-17",
"Statement": [
{
"Effect":"Allow",
"Action":"ec2:CreateSnapshots",
"Resource":"*"
},
{
"Effect":"Allow",
"Action":"ec2:CreateTags",
"Resource":"arn:aws:ec2:us-east-1::snapshot/*",
"Condition":{
"StringEquals":{
"aws:RequestTag/purpose":"test",
"ec2:CreateAction":"CreateSnapshots"
},
"ForAllValues:StringEquals":{
"aws:TagKeys":"purpose"
}
}
}
]
}

The following policy allows snapshots to be created only if the source volume is tagged with
User:username for the customer, and the snapshot itself is tagged with Environment:Dev and
User:username. The customer can add additional tags to the snapshot.

{
"Version":"2012-10-17",
"Statement": [
{
"Effect":"Allow",
"Action":"ec2:CreateSnapshot",
"Resource":"arn:aws:ec2:us-east-1:123456789012:volume/*",
"Condition":{
"StringEquals":{
"ec2:ResourceTag/User":"${aws:username}"
}
}
},
{
"Effect":"Allow",
"Action":"ec2:CreateSnapshot",
"Resource":"arn:aws:ec2:us-east-1::snapshot/*",
"Condition":{
"StringEquals":{
"aws:RequestTag/Environment":"Dev",

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"aws:RequestTag/User":"${aws:username}"
}
}
},
{
"Effect":"Allow",
"Action":"ec2:CreateTags",
"Resource":"arn:aws:ec2:us-east-1::snapshot/*"
}
]
}

The following policy for CreateSnapshots allows snapshots to be created only if the source
volume is tagged with User:username for the customer, and the snapshot itself is tagged with
Environment:Dev and User:username.

{
"Version":"2012-10-17",
"Statement": [
{
"Effect":"Allow",
"Action":"ec2:CreateSnapshots",
"Resource":"arn:aws:ec2:us-east-1:*:instance/*",
},
{
"Effect":"Allow",
"Action":"ec2:CreateSnapshots",
"Resource":"arn:aws:ec2:us-east-1:123456789012:volume/*",
"Condition":{
"StringEquals":{
"ec2:ResourceTag/User":"${aws:username}"
}
}
},
{
"Effect":"Allow",
"Action":"ec2:CreateSnapshots",
"Resource":"arn:aws:ec2:us-east-1::snapshot/*",
"Condition":{
"StringEquals":{
"aws:RequestTag/Environment":"Dev",
"aws:RequestTag/User":"${aws:username}"
}
}
},
{
"Effect":"Allow",
"Action":"ec2:CreateTags",
"Resource":"arn:aws:ec2:us-east-1::snapshot/*"
}
]
}

The following policy allows deletion of a snapshot only if the snapshot is tagged with User:username for
the customer.

{
"Version":"2012-10-17",
"Statement": [
{
"Effect":"Allow",
"Action":"ec2:DeleteSnapshot",
"Resource":"arn:aws:ec2:us-east-1::snapshot/*",

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"Condition":{
"StringEquals":{
"ec2:ResourceTag/User":"${aws:username}"
}
}
}
]
}

The following policy allows a customer to create a snapshot but denies the action if the snapshot being
created has a tag key value=stack.

{
"Version":"2012-10-17",
"Statement": [
{
"Effect":"Allow",
"Action":[
"ec2:CreateSnapshot",
"ec2:CreateTags"
],
"Resource":"*"
},
{
"Effect":"Deny",
"Action":"ec2:CreateSnapshot",
"Resource":"arn:aws:ec2:us-east-1::snapshot/*",
"Condition":{
"ForAnyValue:StringEquals":{
"aws:TagKeys":"stack"
}
}
}
]
}

The following policy allows a customer to create snapshots but denies the action if the snapshots being
created have a tag key value=stack.

{
"Version":"2012-10-17",
"Statement": [
{
"Effect":"Allow",
"Action":[
"ec2:CreateSnapshots",
"ec2:CreateTags"
],
"Resource":"*"
},
{
"Effect":"Deny",
"Action":"ec2:CreateSnapshots",
"Resource":"arn:aws:ec2:us-east-1::snapshot/*",
"Condition":{
"ForAnyValue:StringEquals":{
"aws:TagKeys":"stack"
}
}
}
]
}

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The following policy allows you to combine multiple actions into a single policy. You can only create a
snapshot (in the context of CreateSnapshots) when the snapshot is created in Region us-east-1. You
can only create snapshots (in the context of CreateSnapshots) when the snapshots are being created
in the Region us-east-1 and when the instance type is t2*.

{
"Version":"2012-10-17",
"Statement": [
{
"Effect":"Allow",
"Action":[
"ec2:CreateSnapshots",
"ec2:CreateSnapshot",
"ec2:CreateTags"
],
"Resource": [
"arn:aws:ec2:*:*:instance/*",
"arn:aws:ec2:*:*:snapshot/*",
"arn:aws:ec2:*:*:volume/*"
],
"Condition":{
"StringEqualsIgnoreCase": {
"ec2:Region": "us-east-1"
},
"StringLikeIfExists": {
"ec2:InstanceType": ["t2.*"]
}
}
}
]
}

Example: Copying snapshots

Resource-level permissions specified for the CopySnapshot action apply to the new snapshot only. They
cannot be specified for the source snapshot.

The following example policy allows principals to copy snapshots only if the new snapshot is created
with tag key of purpose and a tag value of production (purpose=production).

{
"Version": "2012-10-17",
"Statement": [
{
"Sid": "AllowCopySnapshotWithTags",
"Effect": "Allow",
"Action": "ec2:CopySnapshot",
"Resource": "arn:aws:ec2:*:123456789012:snapshot/*",
"Condition": {
"StringEquals": {
"aws:RequestTag/purpose": "production"
}
}
}
]
}

Example: Modify permission settings for snapshots

The following policy allows modification of a snapshot only if the snapshot is tagged with
User:username, where username is the customer's AWS account user name. The request fails if this
condition is not met.

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{
"Version":"2012-10-17",
"Statement": [
{
"Effect":"Allow",
"Action":"ec2: ModifySnapshotAttribute",
"Resource":"arn:aws:ec2:us-east-1::snapshot/*",
"Condition":{
"StringEquals":{
"ec2:ResourceTag/user-name":"${aws:username}"
}
}
}
]
}

Launch instances (RunInstances)

The RunInstances API action launches one or more On-Demand Instances or one or more Spot Instances.
RunInstances requires an AMI and creates an instance. Users can specify a key pair and security group
in the request. Launching into a VPC requires a subnet, and creates a network interface. Launching from
an Amazon EBS-backed AMI creates a volume. Therefore, the user must have permissions to use these
Amazon EC2 resources. You can create a policy statement that requires users to specify an optional
parameter on RunInstances, or restricts users to particular values for a parameter.

For more information about the resource-level permissions that are required to launch an instance, see
Actions, resources, and condition keys for Amazon EC2.

By default, users don't have permissions to describe, start, stop, or terminate the resulting instances. One
way to grant the users permission to manage the resulting instances is to create a specific tag for each
instance, and then create a statement that enables them to manage instances with that tag. For more
information, see Work with instances (p. 1082).

Resources
• AMIs (p. 1094)
• Instance types (p. 1095)
• Subnets (p. 1096)
• EBS volumes (p. 1097)
• Tags (p. 1098)
• Tags in a launch template (p. 1102)
• Elastic GPUs (p. 1103)
• Launch templates (p. 1103)

AMIs

The following policy allows users to launch instances using only the specified AMIs, ami-9e1670f7 and
ami-45cf5c3c. The users can't launch an instance using other AMIs (unless another statement grants
the users permission to do so).

{
"Version": "2012-10-17",
"Statement": [
{
"Effect": "Allow",
"Action": "ec2:RunInstances",
"Resource": [
"arn:aws:ec2:region::image/ami-9e1670f7",

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"arn:aws:ec2:region::image/ami-45cf5c3c",
"arn:aws:ec2:region:account:instance/*",
"arn:aws:ec2:region:account:volume/*",
"arn:aws:ec2:region:account:key-pair/*",
"arn:aws:ec2:region:account:security-group/*",
"arn:aws:ec2:region:account:subnet/*",
"arn:aws:ec2:region:account:network-interface/*"
]
}
]
}

Alternatively, the following policy allows users to launch instances from all AMIs owned by Amazon. The
Condition element of the first statement tests whether ec2:Owner is amazon. The users can't launch
an instance using other AMIs (unless another statement grants the users permission to do so).

{
"Version": "2012-10-17",
"Statement": [
{
"Effect": "Allow",
"Action": "ec2:RunInstances",
"Resource": [
"arn:aws:ec2:region::image/ami-*"
],
"Condition": {
"StringEquals": {
"ec2:Owner": "amazon"
}
}
},
{
"Effect": "Allow",
"Action": "ec2:RunInstances",
"Resource": [
"arn:aws:ec2:region:account:instance/*",
"arn:aws:ec2:region:account:subnet/*",
"arn:aws:ec2:region:account:volume/*",
"arn:aws:ec2:region:account:network-interface/*",
"arn:aws:ec2:region:account:key-pair/*",
"arn:aws:ec2:region:account:security-group/*"
]
}
]
}

Instance types
The following policy allows users to launch instances using only the t2.micro or t2.small instance
type, which you might do to control costs. The users can't launch larger instances because the
Condition element of the first statement tests whether ec2:InstanceType is either t2.micro or
t2.small.

{
"Version": "2012-10-17",
"Statement": [
{
"Effect": "Allow",
"Action": "ec2:RunInstances",
"Resource": [
"arn:aws:ec2:region:account:instance/*"
],
"Condition": {

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"StringEquals": {
"ec2:InstanceType": ["t2.micro", "t2.small"]
}
}
},
{
"Effect": "Allow",
"Action": "ec2:RunInstances",
"Resource": [
"arn:aws:ec2:region::image/ami-*",
"arn:aws:ec2:region:account:subnet/*",
"arn:aws:ec2:region:account:network-interface/*",
"arn:aws:ec2:region:account:volume/*",
"arn:aws:ec2:region:account:key-pair/*",
"arn:aws:ec2:region:account:security-group/*"
]
}
]
}

Alternatively, you can create a policy that denies users permissions to launch any instances except
t2.micro and t2.small instance types.

{
"Version": "2012-10-17",
"Statement": [
{
"Effect": "Deny",
"Action": "ec2:RunInstances",
"Resource": [
"arn:aws:ec2:region:account:instance/*"
],
"Condition": {
"StringNotEquals": {
"ec2:InstanceType": ["t2.micro", "t2.small"]
}
}
},
{
"Effect": "Allow",
"Action": "ec2:RunInstances",
"Resource": [
"arn:aws:ec2:region::image/ami-*",
"arn:aws:ec2:region:account:network-interface/*",
"arn:aws:ec2:region:account:instance/*",
"arn:aws:ec2:region:account:subnet/*",
"arn:aws:ec2:region:account:volume/*",
"arn:aws:ec2:region:account:key-pair/*",
"arn:aws:ec2:region:account:security-group/*"
]
}
]
}

Subnets

The following policy allows users to launch instances using only the specified subnet,
subnet-12345678. The group can't launch instances into any another subnet (unless another statement
grants the users permission to do so).

{
"Version": "2012-10-17",
"Statement": [

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{
"Effect": "Allow",
"Action": "ec2:RunInstances",
"Resource": [
"arn:aws:ec2:region:account:subnet/subnet-12345678",
"arn:aws:ec2:region:account:network-interface/*",
"arn:aws:ec2:region:account:instance/*",
"arn:aws:ec2:region:account:volume/*",
"arn:aws:ec2:region::image/ami-*",
"arn:aws:ec2:region:account:key-pair/*",
"arn:aws:ec2:region:account:security-group/*"
]
}
]
}

Alternatively, you could create a policy that denies users permissions to launch an instance into any other
subnet. The statement does this by denying permission to create a network interface, except where
subnet subnet-12345678 is specified. This denial overrides any other policies that are created to allow
launching instances into other subnets.

{
"Version": "2012-10-17",
"Statement": [
{
"Effect": "Deny",
"Action": "ec2:RunInstances",
"Resource": [
"arn:aws:ec2:region:account:network-interface/*"
],
"Condition": {
"ArnNotEquals": {
"ec2:Subnet": "arn:aws:ec2:region:account:subnet/subnet-12345678"
}
}
},
{
"Effect": "Allow",
"Action": "ec2:RunInstances",
"Resource": [
"arn:aws:ec2:region::image/ami-*",
"arn:aws:ec2:region:account:network-interface/*",
"arn:aws:ec2:region:account:instance/*",
"arn:aws:ec2:region:account:subnet/*",
"arn:aws:ec2:region:account:volume/*",
"arn:aws:ec2:region:account:key-pair/*",
"arn:aws:ec2:region:account:security-group/*"
]
}
]
}

EBS volumes

The following policy allows users to launch instances only if the EBS volumes for the instance are
encrypted. The user must launch an instance from an AMI that was created with encrypted snapshots, to
ensure that the root volume is encrypted. Any additional volume that the user attaches to the instance
during launch must also be encrypted.

{
"Version": "2012-10-17",
"Statement": [

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{
"Effect": "Allow",
"Action": "ec2:RunInstances",
"Resource": [
"arn:aws:ec2:*:*:volume/*"
],
"Condition": {
"Bool": {
"ec2:Encrypted": "true"
}
}
},
{
"Effect": "Allow",
"Action": "ec2:RunInstances",
"Resource": [
"arn:aws:ec2:*::image/ami-*",
"arn:aws:ec2:*:*:network-interface/*",
"arn:aws:ec2:*:*:instance/*",
"arn:aws:ec2:*:*:subnet/*",
"arn:aws:ec2:*:*:key-pair/*",
"arn:aws:ec2:*:*:security-group/*"
]
}
]
}

Tags

Tag instances on creation

The following policy allows users to launch instances and tag the instances during creation. For resource-
creating actions that apply tags, users must have permissions to use the CreateTags action. The second
statement uses the ec2:CreateAction condition key to allow users to create tags only in the context
of RunInstances, and only for instances. Users cannot tag existing resources, and users cannot tag
volumes using the RunInstances request.

For more information, see Grant permission to tag resources during creation (p. 1078).

{
"Version": "2012-10-17",
"Statement": [
{
"Effect": "Allow",
"Action": [
"ec2:RunInstances"
],
"Resource": "*"
},
{
"Effect": "Allow",
"Action": [
"ec2:CreateTags"
],
"Resource": "arn:aws:ec2:us-east-1:123456789012:instance/*",
"Condition": {
"StringEquals": {
"ec2:CreateAction" : "RunInstances"
}
}
}
]
}

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Tag instances and volumes on creation with specific tags

The following policy includes the aws:RequestTag condition key that requires users to tag any
instances and volumes that are created by RunInstances with the tags environment=production
and purpose=webserver. The aws:TagKeys condition key uses the ForAllValues modifier to
indicate that only the keys environment and purpose are allowed in the request (no other tags can be
specified). If no tags are specified in the request, the request fails.

{
"Version": "2012-10-17",
"Statement": [
{
"Effect": "Allow",
"Action": [
"ec2:RunInstances"
],
"Resource": [
"arn:aws:ec2:region::image/*",
"arn:aws:ec2:region:account:subnet/*",
"arn:aws:ec2:region:account:network-interface/*",
"arn:aws:ec2:region:account:security-group/*",
"arn:aws:ec2:region:account:key-pair/*"
]
},
{
"Effect": "Allow",
"Action": [
"ec2:RunInstances"
],
"Resource": [
"arn:aws:ec2:region:account:volume/*",
"arn:aws:ec2:region:account:instance/*"
],
"Condition": {
"StringEquals": {
"aws:RequestTag/environment": "production" ,
"aws:RequestTag/purpose": "webserver"
},
"ForAllValues:StringEquals": {
"aws:TagKeys": ["environment","purpose"]
}
}
},
{
"Effect": "Allow",
"Action": [
"ec2:CreateTags"
],
"Resource": "arn:aws:ec2:region:account:*/*",
"Condition": {
"StringEquals": {
"ec2:CreateAction" : "RunInstances"
}
}
}
]
}

Tag instances and volumes on creation with at least one specific tag

The following policy uses the ForAnyValue modifier on the aws:TagKeys condition to indicate that at
least one tag must be specified in the request, and it must contain the key environment or webserver.
The tag must be applied to both instances and volumes. Any tag values can be specified in the request.

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{
"Version": "2012-10-17",
"Statement": [
{
"Effect": "Allow",
"Action": [
"ec2:RunInstances"
],
"Resource": [
"arn:aws:ec2:region::image/*",
"arn:aws:ec2:region:account:subnet/*",
"arn:aws:ec2:region:account:network-interface/*",
"arn:aws:ec2:region:account:security-group/*",
"arn:aws:ec2:region:account:key-pair/*"
]
},
{
"Effect": "Allow",
"Action": [
"ec2:RunInstances"
],
"Resource": [
"arn:aws:ec2:region:account:volume/*",
"arn:aws:ec2:region:account:instance/*"
],
"Condition": {
"ForAnyValue:StringEquals": {
"aws:TagKeys": ["environment","webserver"]
}
}
},
{
"Effect": "Allow",
"Action": [
"ec2:CreateTags"
],
"Resource": "arn:aws:ec2:region:account:*/*",
"Condition": {
"StringEquals": {
"ec2:CreateAction" : "RunInstances"
}
}
}
]
}

If instances are tagged on creation, they must be tagged with a specific tag

In the following policy, users do not have to specify tags in the request, but if they do, the tag must be
purpose=test. No other tags are allowed. Users can apply the tags to any taggable resource in the
RunInstances request.

{
"Version": "2012-10-17",
"Statement": [
{
"Effect": "Allow",
"Action": [
"ec2:RunInstances"
],
"Resource": "*"
},
{
"Effect": "Allow",

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"Action": [
"ec2:CreateTags"
],
"Resource": "arn:aws:ec2:region:account:*/*",
"Condition": {
"StringEquals": {
"aws:RequestTag/purpose": "test",
"ec2:CreateAction" : "RunInstances"
},
"ForAllValues:StringEquals": {
"aws:TagKeys": "purpose"
}
}
}
]
}

To disallow anyone called tag on create for RunInstances

{
"Version": "2012-10-17",
"Statement": [
{
"Sid": "AllowRun",
"Effect": "Allow",
"Action": [
"ec2:RunInstances"
],
"Resource": [
"arn:aws:ec2:us-east-1::image/*",
"arn:aws:ec2:us-east-1:*:subnet/*",
"arn:aws:ec2:us-east-1:*:network-interface/*",
"arn:aws:ec2:us-east-1:*:security-group/*",
"arn:aws:ec2:us-east-1:*:key-pair/*",
"arn:aws:ec2:us-east-1:*:volume/*",
"arn:aws:ec2:us-east-1:*:instance/*",
"arn:aws:ec2:us-east-1:*:spot-instances-request/*"
]
},
{
"Sid": "VisualEditor0",
"Effect": "Deny",
"Action": "ec2:CreateTags",
"Resource": "*"
}
]
}

Only allow specific tags for spot-instances-request. Surprise inconsistency number 2 comes into play
here. Under normal circumstances, specifying no tags will result in Unauthenticated. In the case of spot-
instances-request, this policy will not be evaluated if there are no spot-instances-request tags, so a non-
tag Spot on Run request will succeed.

{
"Version": "2012-10-17",
"Statement": [
{
"Sid": "AllowRun",
"Effect": "Allow",
"Action": [

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"ec2:RunInstances"
],
"Resource": [
"arn:aws:ec2:us-east-1::image/*",
"arn:aws:ec2:us-east-1:*:subnet/*",
"arn:aws:ec2:us-east-1:*:network-interface/*",
"arn:aws:ec2:us-east-1:*:security-group/*",
"arn:aws:ec2:us-east-1:*:key-pair/*",
"arn:aws:ec2:us-east-1:*:volume/*",
"arn:aws:ec2:us-east-1:*:instance/*",
]
},
{
"Sid": "VisualEditor0",
"Effect": "Allow",
"Action": "ec2:RunInstances",
"Resource": "arn:aws:ec2:us-east-1:*:spot-instances-request/*",
"Condition": {
"StringEquals": {
"aws:RequestTag/environment": "production"
}
}
}
]
}

Tags in a launch template

In the following example, users can launch instances, but only if they use a specific launch template
(lt-09477bcd97b0d310e). The ec2:IsLaunchTemplateResource condition key prevents users from
overriding any of the resources specified in the launch template. The second part of the statement allows
users to tag instances on creation—this part of the statement is necessary if tags are specified for the
instance in the launch template.

{
"Version": "2012-10-17",
"Statement": [
{
"Effect": "Allow",
"Action": "ec2:RunInstances",
"Resource": "*",
"Condition": {
"ArnLike": {
"ec2:LaunchTemplate": "arn:aws:ec2:region:account:launch-template/
lt-09477bcd97b0d310e"
},
"Bool": {
"ec2:IsLaunchTemplateResource": "true"
}
}
},
{
"Effect": "Allow",
"Action": [
"ec2:CreateTags"
],
"Resource": "arn:aws:ec2:region:account:instance/*",
"Condition": {
"StringEquals": {
"ec2:CreateAction" : "RunInstances"
}
}
}
]

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Elastic GPUs

In the following policy, users can launch an instance and specify an elastic GPU to attach to the instance.
Users can launch instances in any Region, but they can only attach an elastic GPU during a launch in the
us-east-2 Region.

The ec2:ElasticGpuType condition key uses the ForAnyValue modifier to indicate that only the
elastic GPU types eg1.medium and eg1.large are allowed in the request.

{
"Version": "2012-10-17",
"Statement": [
{
"Effect": "Allow",
"Action": [
"ec2:RunInstances"
],
"Resource": [
"arn:aws:ec2:*:account:elastic-gpu/*"
],
"Condition": {
"StringEquals": {
"ec2:Region": "us-east-2"
},
"ForAnyValue:StringLike": {
"ec2:ElasticGpuType": [
"eg1.medium",
"eg1.large"
]
}
}
},
{
"Effect": "Allow",
"Action": "ec2:RunInstances",
"Resource": [
"arn:aws:ec2:*::image/ami-*",
"arn:aws:ec2:*:account:network-interface/*",
"arn:aws:ec2:*:account:instance/*",
"arn:aws:ec2:*:account:subnet/*",
"arn:aws:ec2:*:account:volume/*",
"arn:aws:ec2:*:account:key-pair/*",
"arn:aws:ec2:*:account:security-group/*"
]
}
]
}

Launch templates

In the following example, users can launch instances, but only if they use a specific launch template
(lt-09477bcd97b0d310e). Users can override any parameters in the launch template by specifying the
parameters in the RunInstances action.

{
"Version": "2012-10-17",
"Statement": [
{
"Effect": "Allow",
"Action": "ec2:RunInstances",

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"Resource": "*",
"Condition": {
"ArnLike": {
"ec2:LaunchTemplate": "arn:aws:ec2:region:account:launch-template/
lt-09477bcd97b0d310e"
}
}
}
]
}

In this example, users can launch instances only if they use a launch template. The policy uses the
ec2:IsLaunchTemplateResource condition key to prevent users from overriding any pre-existing
ARNs in the launch template.

{
"Version": "2012-10-17",
"Statement": [
{
"Effect": "Allow",
"Action": "ec2:RunInstances",
"Resource": "*",
"Condition": {
"ArnLike": {
"ec2:LaunchTemplate": "arn:aws:ec2:region:account:launch-template/*"
},
"Bool": {
"ec2:IsLaunchTemplateResource": "true"
}
}
}
]
}

The following example policy allows user to launch instances, but only if they use a launch template.
Users cannot override the subnet and network interface parameters in the request; these parameters
can only be specified in the launch template. The first part of the statement uses the NotResource
element to allow all other resources except subnets and network interfaces. The second part of the
statement allows the subnet and network interface resources, but only if they are sourced from the
launch template.

{
"Version": "2012-10-17",
"Statement": [
{
"Effect": "Allow",
"Action": "ec2:RunInstances",
"NotResource": ["arn:aws:ec2:region:account:subnet/*",
"arn:aws:ec2:region:account:network-interface/*" ],
"Condition": {
"ArnLike": {
"ec2:LaunchTemplate": "arn:aws:ec2:region:account:launch-template/*"
}
}
},
{
"Effect": "Allow",
"Action": "ec2:RunInstances",
"Resource": ["arn:aws:ec2:region:account:subnet/*",
"arn:aws:ec2:region:account:network-interface/*" ],
"Condition": {
"ArnLike": {

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"ec2:LaunchTemplate": "arn:aws:ec2:region:account:launch-template/*"
},
"Bool": {
"ec2:IsLaunchTemplateResource": "true"
}
}
}
]
}

The following example allows users to launch instances only if they use a launch template, and only
if the launch template has the tag Purpose=Webservers. Users cannot override any of the launch
template parameters in the RunInstances action.

{
"Version": "2012-10-17",
"Statement": [
{
"Effect": "Allow",
"Action": "ec2:RunInstances",
"NotResource": "arn:aws:ec2:region:account:launch-template/*",
"Condition": {
"ArnLike": {
"ec2:LaunchTemplate": "arn:aws:ec2:region:account:launch-template/*"
},
"Bool": {
"ec2:IsLaunchTemplateResource": "true"
}
}
},
{
"Effect": "Allow",
"Action": "ec2:RunInstances",
"Resource": "arn:aws:ec2:region:account:launch-template/*",
"Condition": {
"StringEquals": {
"ec2:ResourceTag/Purpose": "Webservers"
}
}
}
]
}

Work with Spot Instances

You can use the RunInstances action to create Spot Instance requests, and tag the Spot Instance requests
on create. The resource to specify for RunInstances is spot-instances-request.

The spot-instances-request resource is evaluated in the IAM policy as follows:

• If you don't tag a Spot Instance request on create, Amazon EC2 does not evaluate the spot-
instances-request resource in the RunInstances statement.
• If you tag a Spot Instance request on create, Amazon EC2 evaluates the spot-instances-request
resource in the RunInstances statement.

Therefore, for the spot-instances-request resource, the following rules apply to the IAM policy:

• If you use RunInstances to create a Spot Instance request and you don't intend to tag the Spot Instance
request on create, you don’t need to explicitly allow the spot-instances-request resource; the call
will succeed.

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• If you use RunInstances to create a Spot Instance request and intend to tag the Spot Instance request
on create, you must include the spot-instances-request resource in the RunInstances allow
statement, otherwise the call will fail.
• If you use RunInstances to create a Spot Instance request and intend to tag the Spot Instance request
on create, you must specify the spot-instances-request resource or * wildcard in the CreateTags
allow statement, otherwise the call will fail.

You can request Spot Instances using RunInstances or RequestSpotInstances. The following example IAM
policies apply only when requesting Spot Instances using RunInstances.

Example: Request Spot Instances using RunInstances

The following policy allows users to request Spot Instances by using the RunInstances action. The spot-
instances-request resource, which is created by RunInstances, requests Spot Instances.
Note
To use RunInstances to create Spot Instance requests, you can omit spot-instances-
request from the Resource list if you do not intend to tag the Spot Instance requests on
create. This is because Amazon EC2 does not evaluate the spot-instances-request resource
in the RunInstances statement if the Spot Instance request is not tagged on create.

{
"Version": "2012-10-17",
"Statement": [
{
"Sid": "AllowRun",
"Effect": "Allow",
"Action": [
"ec2:RunInstances"
],
"Resource": [
"arn:aws:ec2:us-east-1::image/*",
"arn:aws:ec2:us-east-1:*:subnet/*",
"arn:aws:ec2:us-east-1:*:network-interface/*",
"arn:aws:ec2:us-east-1:*:security-group/*",
"arn:aws:ec2:us-east-1:*:key-pair/*",
"arn:aws:ec2:us-east-1:*:volume/*",
"arn:aws:ec2:us-east-1:*:instance/*",
"arn:aws:ec2:us-east-1:*:spot-instances-request/*"
]
}
]
}

Warning
NOT SUPPORTED – Example: Deny users permission to request Spot Instances using
RunInstances
The following policy is not supported for the spot-instances-request resource.
The following policy is meant to give users the permission to launch On-Demand Instances, but
deny users the permission to request Spot Instances. The spot-instances-request resource,
which is created by RunInstances, is the resource that requests Spot Instances. The second
statement is meant to deny the RunInstances action for the spot-instances-request
resource. However, this condition is not supported because Amazon EC2 does not evaluate
the spot-instances-request resource in the RunInstances statement if the Spot Instance
request is not tagged on create.

{
"Version": "2012-10-17",
"Statement": [

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{
"Sid": "AllowRun",
"Effect": "Allow",
"Action": [
"ec2:RunInstances"
],
"Resource": [
"arn:aws:ec2:us-east-1::image/*",
"arn:aws:ec2:us-east-1:*:subnet/*",
"arn:aws:ec2:us-east-1:*:network-interface/*",
"arn:aws:ec2:us-east-1:*:security-group/*",
"arn:aws:ec2:us-east-1:*:key-pair/*",
"arn:aws:ec2:us-east-1:*:volume/*",
"arn:aws:ec2:us-east-1:*:instance/*"
]
},
{
"Sid": "DenySpotInstancesRequests - NOT SUPPORTED - DO NOT USE!",
"Effect": "Deny",
"Action": "ec2:RunInstances",
"Resource": "arn:aws:ec2:us-east-1:*:spot-instances-request/*"
}
]
}

Example: Tag Spot Instance requests on create

The following policy allows users to tag all resources that are created during instance launch. The first
statement allows RunInstances to create the listed resources. The spot-instances-request resource,
which is created by RunInstances, is the resource that requests Spot Instances. The second statement
provides a * wildcard to allow all resources to be tagged when they are created at instance launch.
Note
If you tag a Spot Instance request on create, Amazon EC2 evaluates the spot-instances-
request resource in the RunInstances statement. Therefore, you must explicitly allow the
spot-instances-request resource for the RunInstances action, otherwise the call will fail.

{
"Version": "2012-10-17",
"Statement": [
{
"Sid": "AllowRun",
"Effect": "Allow",
"Action": [
"ec2:RunInstances"
],
"Resource": [
"arn:aws:ec2:us-east-1::image/*",
"arn:aws:ec2:us-east-1:*:subnet/*",
"arn:aws:ec2:us-east-1:*:network-interface/*",
"arn:aws:ec2:us-east-1:*:security-group/*",
"arn:aws:ec2:us-east-1:*:key-pair/*",
"arn:aws:ec2:us-east-1:*:volume/*",
"arn:aws:ec2:us-east-1:*:instance/*",
"arn:aws:ec2:us-east-1:*:spot-instances-request/*"
]
},
{
"Sid": "TagResources",
"Effect": "Allow",
"Action": "ec2:CreateTags",
"Resource": "*"
}
]

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Example: Deny tag on create for Spot Instance requests

The following policy denies users the permission to tag the resources that are created during instance
launch.

The first statement allows RunInstances to create the listed resources. The spot-instances-request
resource, which is created by RunInstances, is the resource that requests Spot Instances. The second
statement provides a * wildcard to deny all resources being tagged when they are created at instance
launch. If spot-instances-request or any other resource is tagged on create, the RunInstances call
will fail.

{
"Version": "2012-10-17",
"Statement": [
{
"Sid": "AllowRun",
"Effect": "Allow",
"Action": [
"ec2:RunInstances"
],
"Resource": [
"arn:aws:ec2:us-east-1::image/*",
"arn:aws:ec2:us-east-1:*:subnet/*",
"arn:aws:ec2:us-east-1:*:network-interface/*",
"arn:aws:ec2:us-east-1:*:security-group/*",
"arn:aws:ec2:us-east-1:*:key-pair/*",
"arn:aws:ec2:us-east-1:*:volume/*",
"arn:aws:ec2:us-east-1:*:instance/*",
"arn:aws:ec2:us-east-1:*:spot-instances-request/*"
]
},
{
"Sid": "DenyTagResources",
"Effect": "Deny",
"Action": "ec2:CreateTags",
"Resource": "*"
}
]
}

Warning
NOT SUPPORTED – Example: Allow creating a Spot Instance request only if it is assigned a
specific tag
The following policy is not supported for the spot-instances-request resource.
The following policy is meant to grant RunInstances the permission to create a Spot Instance
request only if the request is tagged with a specific tag.
The first statement allows RunInstances to create the listed resources.
The second statement is meant to grant users the permission to create a Spot Instance request
only if the request has the tag environment=production. If this condition is applied to other
resources created by RunInstances, specifying no tags results in an Unauthenticated error.
However, if no tags are specified for the Spot Instance request, Amazon EC2 does not evaluate
the spot-instances-request resource in the RunInstances statement, which results in non-
tagged Spot Instance requests being created by RunInstances.
Note that specifying another tag other than environment=production results in an
Unauthenticated error, because if a user tags a Spot Instance request, Amazon EC2 evaluates
the spot-instances-request resource in the RunInstances statement.

{
"Version": "2012-10-17",

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"Statement": [
{
"Sid": "AllowRun",
"Effect": "Allow",
"Action": [
"ec2:RunInstances"
],
"Resource": [
"arn:aws:ec2:us-east-1::image/*",
"arn:aws:ec2:us-east-1:*:subnet/*",
"arn:aws:ec2:us-east-1:*:network-interface/*",
"arn:aws:ec2:us-east-1:*:security-group/*",
"arn:aws:ec2:us-east-1:*:key-pair/*",
"arn:aws:ec2:us-east-1:*:volume/*",
"arn:aws:ec2:us-east-1:*:instance/*"
]
},
{
"Sid": "RequestSpotInstancesOnlyIfTagIs_environment=production - NOT
SUPPORTED - DO NOT USE!",
"Effect": "Allow",
"Action": "ec2:RunInstances",
"Resource": "arn:aws:ec2:us-east-1:*:spot-instances-request/*",
"Condition": {
"StringEquals": {
"aws:RequestTag/environment": "production"
}
}
},
{
"Sid": "TagResources",
"Effect": "Allow",
"Action": "ec2:CreateTags",
"Resource": "*"
}

]
}

Example: Deny creating a Spot Instance request if it is assigned a specific tag

The following policy denies RunInstances the permission to create a Spot Instance request if the request
is tagged with environment=production.

The first statement allows RunInstances to create the listed resources.

The second statement denies users the permission to create a Spot Instance request if the request has
the tag environment=production. Specifying environment=production as a tag results in an
Unauthenticated error. Specifying other tags or specifying no tags will result in the creation of a Spot
Instance request.

{
"Version": "2012-10-17",
"Statement": [
{
"Sid": "AllowRun",
"Effect": "Allow",
"Action": [
"ec2:RunInstances"
],
"Resource": [
"arn:aws:ec2:us-east-1::image/*",
"arn:aws:ec2:us-east-1:*:subnet/*",
"arn:aws:ec2:us-east-1:*:network-interface/*",

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"arn:aws:ec2:us-east-1:*:security-group/*",
"arn:aws:ec2:us-east-1:*:key-pair/*",
"arn:aws:ec2:us-east-1:*:volume/*",
"arn:aws:ec2:us-east-1:*:instance/*",
"arn:aws:ec2:us-east-1:*:spot-instances-request/*"
]
},
{
"Sid": "DenySpotInstancesRequests",
"Effect": "Deny",
"Action": "ec2:RunInstances",
"Resource": "arn:aws:ec2:us-east-1:*:spot-instances-request/*",
"Condition": {
"StringEquals": {
"aws:RequestTag/environment": "production"
}
}
},
{
"Sid": "TagResources",
"Effect": "Allow",
"Action": "ec2:CreateTags",
"Resource": "*"
}
]
}

Example: Work with Reserved Instances

The following policy gives users permission to view, modify, and purchase Reserved Instances in your
account.

It is not possible to set resource-level permissions for individual Reserved Instances. This policy means
that users have access to all the Reserved Instances in the account.

The Resource element uses a * wildcard to indicate that users can specify all resources with the action;
in this case, they can list and modify all Reserved Instances in the account. They can also purchase
Reserved Instances using the account credentials. The * wildcard is also necessary in cases where the API
action does not support resource-level permissions.

{
"Version": "2012-10-17",
"Statement": [
{
"Effect": "Allow",
"Action": [
"ec2:DescribeReservedInstances",
"ec2:ModifyReservedInstances",
"ec2:PurchaseReservedInstancesOffering",
"ec2:DescribeAvailabilityZones",
"ec2:DescribeReservedInstancesOfferings"
],
"Resource": "*"
}
]
}

To allow users to view and modify the Reserved Instances in your account, but not purchase new
Reserved Instances.

{
"Version": "2012-10-17",

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"Statement": [
{
"Effect": "Allow",
"Action": [
"ec2:DescribeReservedInstances",
"ec2:ModifyReservedInstances",
"ec2:DescribeAvailabilityZones"
],
"Resource": "*"
}
]
}

Example: Tag resources

The following policy allows users to use the CreateTags action to apply tags to an instance only if
the tag contains the key environment and the value production. The ForAllValues modifier is
used with the aws:TagKeys condition key to indicate that only the key environment is allowed in the
request (no other tags are allowed). The user cannot tag any other resource types.

{
"Version": "2012-10-17",
"Statement": [
{
"Effect": "Allow",
"Action": [
"ec2:CreateTags"
],
"Resource": "arn:aws:ec2:region:account:instance/*",
"Condition": {
"StringEquals": {
"aws:RequestTag/environment": "production"
},
"ForAllValues:StringEquals": {
"aws:TagKeys": [
"environment"
]
}
}
}
]
}

The following policy allows users to tag any taggable resource that already has a tag with a key
of owner and a value of the IAM username. In addition, users must specify a tag with a key of
anycompany:environment-type and a value of either test or prod in the request. Users can specify
additional tags in the request.

{
"Version": "2012-10-17",
"Statement": [
{
"Effect": "Allow",
"Action": [
"ec2:CreateTags"
],
"Resource": "arn:aws:ec2:region:account:*/*",
"Condition": {
"StringEquals": {
"aws:RequestTag/anycompany:environment-type": ["test","prod"],
"ec2:ResourceTag/owner": "${aws:username}"

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}
}
}
]
}

You can create an IAM policy that allows users to delete specific tags for a resource. For example, the
following policy allows users to delete tags for a volume if the tag keys specified in the request are
environment or cost-center. Any value can be specified for the tag but the tag key must match
either of the specified keys.
Note
If you delete a resource, all tags associated with the resource are also deleted. Users do not need
permissions to use the ec2:DeleteTags action to delete a resource that has tags; they only
need permissions to perform the deleting action.

{
"Version": "2012-10-17",
"Statement": [
{
"Effect": "Allow",
"Action": "ec2:DeleteTags",
"Resource": "arn:aws:ec2:us-east-1:123456789012:volume/*",
"Condition": {
"ForAllValues:StringEquals": {
"aws:TagKeys": ["environment","cost-center"]
}
}
}
]
}

This policy allows users to delete only the environment=prod tag on any resource, and only if the
resource is already tagged with a key of owner and a value of the IAM username. Users cannot delete
any other tags for a resource.

{
"Version": "2012-10-17",
"Statement": [
{
"Effect": "Allow",
"Action": [
"ec2:DeleteTags"
],
"Resource": "arn:aws:ec2:region:account:*/*",
"Condition": {
"StringEquals": {
"aws:RequestTag/environment": "prod",
"ec2:ResourceTag/owner": "${aws:username}"
},
"ForAllValues:StringEquals": {
"aws:TagKeys": ["environment"]
}
}
}
]
}

Example: Work with IAM roles

The following policy allows users to attach, replace, and detach an IAM role to instances that have the
tag department=test. Replacing or detaching an IAM role requires an association ID, therefore the

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policy also grants users permission to use the ec2:DescribeIamInstanceProfileAssociations

action.

IAM users must have permission to use the iam:PassRole action in order to pass the role to the
instance.

{
"Version": "2012-10-17",
"Statement": [
{
"Effect": "Allow",
"Action": [
"ec2:AssociateIamInstanceProfile",
"ec2:ReplaceIamInstanceProfileAssociation",
"ec2:DisassociateIamInstanceProfile"
],
"Resource": "arn:aws:ec2:us-east-1:123456789012:instance/*",
"Condition": {
"StringEquals": {
"ec2:ResourceTag/department":"test"
}
}
},
{
"Effect": "Allow",
"Action": "ec2:DescribeIamInstanceProfileAssociations",
"Resource": "*"
},
{
"Effect": "Allow",
"Action": "iam:PassRole",
"Resource": "arn:aws:iam::123456789012:role/DevTeam*"
}
]
}

The following policy allows users to attach or replace an IAM role for any instance. Users can only attach
or replace IAM roles with names that begin with TestRole-. For the iam:PassRole action, ensure that
you specify the name of the IAM role and not the instance profile (if the names are different). For more
information, see Instance profiles (p. 1128).

{
"Version": "2012-10-17",
"Statement": [
{
"Effect": "Allow",
"Action": [
"ec2:AssociateIamInstanceProfile",
"ec2:ReplaceIamInstanceProfileAssociation"
],
"Resource": "*"
},
{
"Effect": "Allow",
"Action": "ec2:DescribeIamInstanceProfileAssociations",
"Resource": "*"
},
{
"Effect": "Allow",
"Action": "iam:PassRole",
"Resource": "arn:aws:iam::account:role/TestRole-*"
}
]

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Example: Work with route tables

The following policy allows users to add, remove, and replace routes for route tables that are associated
with VPC vpc-ec43eb89 only. To specify a VPC for the ec2:Vpc condition key, you must specify the full
ARN of the VPC.

{
"Version": "2012-10-17",
"Statement": [
{
"Effect": "Allow",
"Action": [
"ec2:DeleteRoute",
"ec2:CreateRoute",
"ec2:ReplaceRoute"
],
"Resource": [
"arn:aws:ec2:region:account:route-table/*"
],
"Condition": {
"StringEquals": {
"ec2:Vpc": "arn:aws:ec2:region:account:vpc/vpc-ec43eb89"
}
}
}
]
}

Example: Allow a specific instance to view resources in other AWS services

The following is an example of a policy that you might attach to an IAM role. The policy allows an
instance to view resources in various AWS services. It uses the ec2:SourceInstanceARN condition key
to specify that the instance from which the request is made must be instance i-093452212644b0dd6.
If the same IAM role is associated with another instance, the other instance cannot perform any of these
actions.

The ec2:SourceInstanceARN key is an AWS-wide condition key, therefore it can be used for other
service actions, not just Amazon EC2.

{
"Version": "2012-10-17",
"Statement": [
{
"Effect": "Allow",
"Action": [
"ec2:DescribeVolumes",
"s3:ListAllMyBuckets",
"dynamodb:ListTables",
"rds:DescribeDBInstances"
],
"Resource": [
"*"
],
"Condition": {
"ArnEquals": {
"ec2:SourceInstanceARN": "arn:aws:ec2:region:account:instance/
i-093452212644b0dd6"
}
}

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}
]
}

Example: Work with launch templates

The following policy allows users to create a launch template version and modify a launch template, but
only for a specific launch template (lt-09477bcd97b0d3abc). Users cannot work with other launch
templates.

{
"Version": "2012-10-17",
"Statement": [
{
"Action": [
"ec2:CreateLaunchTemplateVersion",
"ec2:ModifyLaunchTemplate"
],
"Effect": "Allow",
"Resource": "arn:aws:ec2:region:account:launch-template/lt-09477bcd97b0d3abc"
}
]
}

The following policy allows users to delete any launch template and launch template version, provided
that the launch template has the tag Purpose=Testing.

{
"Version": "2012-10-17",
"Statement": [
{
"Action": [
"ec2:DeleteLaunchTemplate",
"ec2:DeleteLaunchTemplateVersions"
],
"Effect": "Allow",
"Resource": "arn:aws:ec2:region:account:launch-template/*",
"Condition": {
"StringEquals": {
"ec2:ResourceTag/Purpose": "Testing"
}
}
}
]
}

Work with instance metadata

The following policies ensure that users can only retrieve instance metadata (p. 588) using Instance
Metadata Service Version 2 (IMDSv2). You can combine the following four policies into one policy with
four statements. When combined as one policy, you can use the policy as a service control policy (SCP). It
can work equally well as a deny policy that you apply to an existing IAM policy (taking away and limiting
existing permission), or as an SCP that is applied globally across an account, an organizational unit (OU),
or an entire organization.
Note
The following RunInstances metadata options policies must be used in conjunction with a policy
that gives the principal permissions to launch an instance with RunInstances. If the principal
does not also have RunInstances permissions, it will not be able to launch an instance. For

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more information, see the policies in Work with instances (p. 1082) and Launch instances
(RunInstances) (p. 1094).
Important
If you use Auto Scaling groups and you need to require the use of IMDSv2 on all new instances,
your Auto Scaling groups must use launch templates.
When an Auto Scaling group uses a launch template, the ec2:RunInstances permissions of
the IAM principal are checked when a new Auto Scaling group is created. They are also checked
when an existing Auto Scaling group is updated to use a new launch template or a new version
of a launch template.
Restrictions on the use of IMDSv1 on IAM principals for RunInstances are only checked
when an Auto Scaling group that is using a launch template, is created or updated. For an
Auto Scaling group that is configured to use the Latest or Default launch template, the
permissions are not checked when a new version of the launch template is created. For
permissions to be checked, you must configure the Auto Scaling group to use a specific version
of the launch template.

To enforce the use of IMDSv2 on instances launched by Auto Scaling groups, the
following additional steps are required:

1. Disable the use of launch configurations for all accounts in your organization by using
either service control policies (SCPs) or IAM permissions boundaries for new principals
that are created. For existing IAM principals with Auto Scaling group permissions,
update their associated policies with this condition key. To disable the use of launch
configurations, create or modify the relevant SCP, permissions boundary, or IAM policy with
the "autoscaling:LaunchConfigurationName" condition key with the value specified as
null.
2. For new launch templates, configure the instance metadata options in the launch template.
For existing launch templates, create a new version of the launch template and configure the
instance metadata options in the new version.
3. In the policy that gives any principal the permission to use a launch
template, restrict association of $latest and $default by specifying
"autoscaling:LaunchTemplateVersionSpecified": "true". By restricting the
use to a specific version of a launch template, you can ensure that new instances will be
launched using the version in which the instance metadata options are configured. For more
information, see LaunchTemplateSpecification in the Amazon EC2 Auto Scaling API Reference,
specifically the Version parameter.
4. For an Auto Scaling group that uses a launch configuration, replace the launch configuration
with a launch template. For more information, see Replacing a Launch Configuration with a
Launch Template in the Amazon EC2 Auto Scaling User Guide.
5. For an Auto Scaling group that uses a launch template, make sure that it uses a new launch
template with the instance metadata options configured, or uses a new version of the current
launch template with the instance metadata options configured. For more information, see
update-auto-scaling-group in the AWS CLI Command Reference.

Examples
• Require the use of IMDSv2 (p. 1116)
• Specify maximum hop limit (p. 1117)
• Limit who can modify the instance metadata options (p. 1117)
• Require role credentials to be retrieved from IMDSv2 (p. 1118)

Require the use of IMDSv2

The following policy specifies that you can’t call the RunInstances API unless the instance is also opted in
to require the use of IMDSv2 (indicated by "ec2:MetadataHttpTokens": "required"). If you do not

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specify that the instance requires IMDSv2, you get an UnauthorizedOperation error when you call the
RunInstances API.

{
"Version": "2012-10-17",
"Statement": [
{
"Sid": "RequireImdsV2",
"Effect": "Deny",
"Action": "ec2:RunInstances",
"Resource": "arn:aws:ec2:*:*:instance/*",
"Condition": {
"StringNotEquals": {
"ec2:MetadataHttpTokens": "required"
}
}
}
]
}

Specify maximum hop limit

The following policy specifies that you can’t call the RunInstances API unless you also specify a hop limit,
and the hop limit can’t be more than 3. If you fail to do that, you get an UnauthorizedOperation
error when you call the RunInstances API.

{
"Version": "2012-10-17",
"Statement": [
{
"Sid": "MaxImdsHopLimit",
"Effect": "Deny",
"Action": "ec2:RunInstances",
"Resource": "arn:aws:ec2:*:*:instance/*",
"Condition": {
"NumericGreaterThan": {
"ec2:MetadataHttpPutResponseHopLimit": "3"
}
}
}
]
}

Limit who can modify the instance metadata options

The following policy removes the ability for the general population of administrators to modify instance
metadata options, and permits only users with the role ec2-imds-admins to make changes. If any
principal other than the ec2-imds-admins role tries to call the ModifyInstanceMetadataOptions API,
it will get an UnauthorizedOperation error. This statement could be used to control the use of the
ModifyInstanceMetadataOptions API; there are currently no fine-grained access controls (conditions) for
the ModifyInstanceMetadataOptions API.

{
"Version": "2012-10-17",
"Statement": [
{
"Sid": "AllowOnlyImdsAdminsToModifySettings",
"Effect": "Deny",
"Action": "ec2:ModifyInstanceMetadataOptions",
"Resource": "*",
"Condition": {

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"StringNotLike": {
"aws:PrincipalARN": "arn:aws:iam::*:role/ec2-imds-admins"
}
}
}
]
}

Require role credentials to be retrieved from IMDSv2

The following policy specifies that if this policy is applied to a role, and the role is assumed by
the EC2 service and the resulting credentials are used to sign a request, then the request must
be signed by EC2 role credentials retrieved from IMDSv2. Otherwise, all of its API calls will get an
UnauthorizedOperation error. This statement/policy can be applied generally because, if the request
is not signed by EC2 role credentials, it has no effect.

{
"Version": "2012-10-17",
"Statement": [
{
"Sid": "RequireAllEc2RolesToUseV2",
"Effect": "Deny",
"Action": "*",
"Resource": "*",
"Condition": {
"NumericLessThan": {
"ec2:RoleDelivery": "2.0"
}
}
}
]
}

Example policies for working in the Amazon EC2 console

You can use IAM policies to grant users permissions to view and work with specific resources in the
Amazon EC2 console. You can use the example policies in the previous section; however, they are
designed for requests that are made with the AWS CLI or an AWS SDK. The console uses additional
API actions for its features, so these policies may not work as expected. For example, a user that has
permission to use only the DescribeVolumes API action will encounter errors when trying to view
volumes in the console. This section demonstrates policies that enable users to work with specific parts
of the console.
Tip
To help you work out which API actions are required to perform tasks in the console, you can
use a service such as AWS CloudTrail. For more information, see the AWS CloudTrail User Guide.
If your policy does not grant permission to create or modify a specific resource, the console
displays an encoded message with diagnostic information. You can decode the message using
the DecodeAuthorizationMessage API action for AWS STS, or the decode-authorization-message
command in the AWS CLI.

Examples
• Example: Read-only access (p. 1119)
• Example: Use the EC2 launch wizard (p. 1120)
• Example: Work with volumes (p. 1123)
• Example: Work with security groups (p. 1123)
• Example: Work with Elastic IP addresses (p. 1125)

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• Example: Work with Reserved Instances (p. 1126)

For additional information about creating policies for the Amazon EC2 console, see the following AWS
Security Blog post: Granting Users Permission to Work in the Amazon EC2 Console.

Example: Read-only access

To allow users to view all resources in the Amazon EC2 console, you can use the same policy as the
following example: Example: Read-only access (p. 1081). Users cannot perform any actions on those
resources or create new resources, unless another statement grants them permission to do so.

View instances, AMIs, and snapshots

Alternatively, you can provide read-only access to a subset of resources. To do this, replace the *
wildcard in the ec2:Describe API action with specific ec2:Describe actions for each resource. The
following policy allows users to view all instances, AMIs, and snapshots in the Amazon EC2 console.
The ec2:DescribeTags action allows users to view public AMIs. The console requires the tagging
information to display public AMIs; however, you can remove this action to allow users to view only
private AMIs.

{
"Version": "2012-10-17",
"Statement": [{
"Effect": "Allow",
"Action": [
"ec2:DescribeInstances",
"ec2:DescribeImages",
"ec2:DescribeTags",
"ec2:DescribeSnapshots"
],
"Resource": "*"
}
]
}

Note
The Amazon EC2 ec2:Describe* API actions do not support resource-level permissions, so
you cannot control which individual resources users can view in the console. Therefore, the *
wildcard is necessary in the Resource element of the above statement. For more information
about which ARNs you can use with which Amazon EC2 API actions, see Actions, resources, and
condition keys for Amazon EC2.

View instances and CloudWatch metrics

The following policy allows users to view instances in the Amazon EC2 console, as well as CloudWatch
alarms and metrics in the Monitoring tab of the Instances page. The Amazon EC2 console uses the
CloudWatch API to display the alarms and metrics, so you must grant users permission to use the
cloudwatch:DescribeAlarms and cloudwatch:GetMetricStatistics actions.

{
"Version": "2012-10-17",
"Statement": [{
"Effect": "Allow",
"Action": [
"ec2:DescribeInstances",
"cloudwatch:DescribeAlarms",
"cloudwatch:GetMetricStatistics"
],
"Resource": "*"

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}
]
}

Example: Use the EC2 launch wizard

The Amazon EC2 launch wizard is a series of screens with options to configure and launch an instance.
Your policy must include permission to use the API actions that allow users to work with the wizard's
options. If your policy does not include permission to use those actions, some items in the wizard cannot
load properly, and users cannot complete a launch.

Basic launch wizard access

To complete a launch successfully, users must be given permission to use the ec2:RunInstances API
action, and at least the following API actions:

• ec2:DescribeImages: To view and select an AMI.

• ec2:DescribeInstanceTypes: To view and select an instance type.
• ec2:DescribeVpcs: To view the available network options.
• ec2:DescribeSubnets: To view all available subnets for the chosen VPC.
• ec2:DescribeSecurityGroups or ec2:CreateSecurityGroup: To view and select an existing
security group, or to create a new one.
• ec2:DescribeKeyPairs or ec2:CreateKeyPair: To select an existing key pair, or to create a new
one.
• ec2:AuthorizeSecurityGroupIngress: To add inbound rules.

{
"Version": "2012-10-17",
"Statement": [
{
"Effect": "Allow",
"Action": [
"ec2:DescribeInstances",
"ec2:DescribeImages",
"ec2:DescribeInstanceTypes",
"ec2:DescribeKeyPairs",
"ec2:DescribeVpcs",
"ec2:DescribeSubnets",
"ec2:DescribeSecurityGroups",
"ec2:CreateSecurityGroup",
"ec2:AuthorizeSecurityGroupIngress",
"ec2:CreateKeyPair"
],
"Resource": "*"
},
{
"Effect": "Allow",
"Action": "ec2:RunInstances",
"Resource": "*"
}
]
}

You can add API actions to your policy to provide more options for users, for example:

• ec2:DescribeAvailabilityZones: To view and select a specific Availability Zone.

• ec2:DescribeNetworkInterfaces: To view and select existing network interfaces for the selected
subnet.

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• To add outbound rules to VPC security groups, users must be granted permission to use the
ec2:AuthorizeSecurityGroupEgress API action. To modify or delete existing rules, users must be
granted permission to use the relevant ec2:RevokeSecurityGroup* API action.
• ec2:CreateTags: To tag the resources that are created by RunInstances. For more information, see
Grant permission to tag resources during creation (p. 1078). If users do not have permission to use this
action and they attempt to apply tags on the tagging page of the launch wizard, the launch fails.
Important
Be careful about granting users permission to use the ec2:CreateTags action, because
doing so limits your ability to use the ec2:ResourceTag condition key to restrict their use
of other resources. If you grant users permission to use the ec2:CreateTags action, they
can change a resource's tag in order to bypass those restrictions. For more information, see
Control access to EC2 resources using resource tags (p. 1081).
• To use Systems Manager parameters when selecting an AMI, you must add
ssm:DescribeParameters and ssm:GetParameters to your policy. ssm:DescribeParameters
grants your IAM users the permission to view and select Systems Manager parameters.
ssm:GetParameters grants your IAM users the permission to get the values of the Systems
Manager parameters. You can also restrict access to specific Systems Manager parameters. For more
information, see Restrict access to specific Systems Manager parameters later in this section.

Currently, the Amazon EC2 Describe* API actions do not support resource-level permissions, so you
cannot restrict which individual resources users can view in the launch wizard. However, you can apply
resource-level permissions on the ec2:RunInstances API action to restrict which resources users can
use to launch an instance. The launch fails if users select options that they are not authorized to use.

Restrict access to a specific instance type, subnet, and Region

The following policy allows users to launch t2.micro instances using AMIs owned by Amazon, and only
into a specific subnet (subnet-1a2b3c4d). Users can only launch in the sa-east-1 Region. If users select
a different Region, or select a different instance type, AMI, or subnet in the launch wizard, the launch
fails.

The first statement grants users permission to view the options in the launch wizard or to create new
ones, as explained in the example above. The second statement grants users permission to use the
network interface, volume, key pair, security group, and subnet resources for the ec2:RunInstances
action, which are required to launch an instance into a VPC. For more information about using the
ec2:RunInstances action, see Launch instances (RunInstances) (p. 1094). The third and fourth
statements grant users permission to use the instance and AMI resources respectively, but only if the
instance is a t2.micro instance, and only if the AMI is owned by Amazon.

{
"Version": "2012-10-17",
"Statement": [{
"Effect": "Allow",
"Action": [
"ec2:DescribeInstances",
"ec2:DescribeImages",
"ec2:DescribeInstanceTypes",
"ec2:DescribeKeyPairs",
"ec2:CreateKeyPair",
"ec2:DescribeVpcs",
"ec2:DescribeSubnets",
"ec2:DescribeSecurityGroups",
"ec2:CreateSecurityGroup",
"ec2:AuthorizeSecurityGroupIngress"
],
"Resource": "*"
},
{

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"Effect": "Allow",
"Action":"ec2:RunInstances",
"Resource": [
"arn:aws:ec2:sa-east-1:111122223333:network-interface/*",
"arn:aws:ec2:sa-east-1:111122223333:volume/*",
"arn:aws:ec2:sa-east-1:111122223333:key-pair/*",
"arn:aws:ec2:sa-east-1:111122223333:security-group/*",
"arn:aws:ec2:sa-east-1:111122223333:subnet/subnet-1a2b3c4d"
]
},
{
"Effect": "Allow",
"Action": "ec2:RunInstances",
"Resource": [
"arn:aws:ec2:sa-east-1:111122223333:instance/*"
],
"Condition": {
"StringEquals": {
"ec2:InstanceType": "t2.micro"
}
}
},
{
"Effect": "Allow",
"Action": "ec2:RunInstances",
"Resource": [
"arn:aws:ec2:sa-east-1::image/ami-*"
],
"Condition": {
"StringEquals": {
"ec2:Owner": "amazon"
}
}
}
]
}

Restrict access to specific Systems Manager parameters

The following policy grants access to use Systems Manager parameters with a specific name.

The first statement grants users the permission to view Systems Manager parameters when selecting an
AMI in the launch wizard. The second statement grants users the permission to only use parameters that
are named prod-*.

{
"Version": "2012-10-17",
"Statement": [{
"Effect": "Allow",
"Action": [
"ssm:DescribeParameters"
],
"Resource": "*"
},
{
"Effect": "Allow",
"Action": [
"ssm:GetParameters"
],
"Resource": "arn:aws:ssm:us-east-2:123456123:parameter/prod-*"
}
]
}

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Example: Work with volumes

The following policy grants users permission to view and create volumes, and attach and detach volumes
to specific instances.

Users can attach any volume to instances that have the tag "purpose=test", and also detach volumes
from those instances. To attach a volume using the Amazon EC2 console, it is helpful for users to have
permission to use the ec2:DescribeInstances action, as this allows them to select an instance from a
pre-populated list in the Attach Volume dialog box. However, this also allows users to view all instances
on the Instances page in the console, so you can omit this action.

In the first statement, the ec2:DescribeAvailabilityZones action is necessary to ensure that a user
can select an Availability Zone when creating a volume.

Users cannot tag the volumes that they create (either during or after volume creation).

{
"Version": "2012-10-17",
"Statement": [{
"Effect": "Allow",
"Action": [
"ec2:DescribeVolumes",
"ec2:DescribeAvailabilityZones",
"ec2:CreateVolume",
"ec2:DescribeInstances"
],
"Resource": "*"
},
{
"Effect": "Allow",
"Action": [
"ec2:AttachVolume",
"ec2:DetachVolume"
],
"Resource": "arn:aws:ec2:region:111122223333:instance/*",
"Condition": {
"StringEquals": {
"ec2:ResourceTag/purpose": "test"
}
}
},
{
"Effect": "Allow",
"Action": [
"ec2:AttachVolume",
"ec2:DetachVolume"
],
"Resource": "arn:aws:ec2:region:111122223333:volume/*"
}
]
}

Example: Work with security groups

View security groups and add and remove rules

The following policy grants users permission to view security groups in the Amazon EC2 console, to add
and remove inbound and outbound rules, and to list and modify rule descriptions for existing security
groups that have the tag Department=Test.

In the first statement, the ec2:DescribeTags action allows users to view tags in the console, which
makes it easier for users to identify the security groups that they are allowed to modify.

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{
"Version": "2012-10-17",
"Statement": [{
"Effect": "Allow",
"Action": [
"ec2:DescribeSecurityGroups",
"ec2:DescribeSecurityGroupRules",
"ec2:DescribeTags"
],
"Resource": "*"
},
{
"Effect": "Allow",
"Action": [
"ec2:AuthorizeSecurityGroupIngress",
"ec2:RevokeSecurityGroupIngress",
"ec2:AuthorizeSecurityGroupEgress",
"ec2:RevokeSecurityGroupEgress",
"ec2:ModifySecurityGroupRules",
"ec2:UpdateSecurityGroupRuleDescriptionsIngress",
"ec2:UpdateSecurityGroupRuleDescriptionsEgress"
],
"Resource": [
"arn:aws:ec2:region:111122223333:security-group/*"
],
"Condition": {
"StringEquals": {
"ec2:ResourceTag/Department": "Test"
}
}
},
{
"Effect": "Allow",
"Action": [
"ec2:ModifySecurityGroupRules"
],
"Resource": [
"arn:aws:ec2:region:111122223333:security-group-rule/*"
]
}
]}

Work with the Create Security Group dialog box

You can create a policy that allows users to work with the Create Security Group dialog box in the
Amazon EC2 console. To use this dialog box, users must be granted permission to use at the least the
following API actions:

• ec2:CreateSecurityGroup: To create a new security group.

• ec2:DescribeVpcs: To view a list of existing VPCs in the VPC list.

With these permissions, users can create a new security group successfully, but they cannot add any rules
to it. To work with rules in the Create Security Group dialog box, you can add the following API actions
to your policy:

• ec2:AuthorizeSecurityGroupIngress: To add inbound rules.

• ec2:AuthorizeSecurityGroupEgress: To add outbound rules to VPC security groups.
• ec2:RevokeSecurityGroupIngress: To modify or delete existing inbound rules. This is useful to
allow users to use the Copy to new feature in the console. This feature opens the Create Security
Group dialog box and populates it with the same rules as the security group that was selected.

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• ec2:RevokeSecurityGroupEgress: To modify or delete outbound rules for VPC security groups.

This is useful to allow users to modify or delete the default outbound rule that allows all outbound
traffic.
• ec2:DeleteSecurityGroup: To cater for when invalid rules cannot be saved. The console first
creates the security group, and then adds the specified rules. If the rules are invalid, the action fails,
and the console attempts to delete the security group. The user remains in the Create Security Group
dialog box so that they can correct the invalid rule and try to create the security group again. This API
action is not required, but if a user is not granted permission to use it and attempts to create a security
group with invalid rules, the security group is created without any rules, and the user must add them
afterward.
• ec2:UpdateSecurityGroupRuleDescriptionsIngress: To add or update descriptions of ingress
(inbound) security group rules.
• ec2:UpdateSecurityGroupRuleDescriptionsEgress: To add or update descriptions of egress
(outbound) security group rules.
• ec2:ModifySecurityGroupRules: To modify security group rules.
• ec2:DescribeSecurityGroupRules: To list security group rules.

The following policy grants users permission to use the Create Security Group dialog box, and to create
inbound and outbound rules for security groups that are associated with a specific VPC (vpc-1a2b3c4d).
Users can create security groups for EC2-Classic or another VPC, but they cannot add any rules to them.
Similarly, users cannot add any rules to any existing security group that's not associated with VPC
vpc-1a2b3c4d. Users are also granted permission to view all security groups in the console. This makes
it easier for users to identify the security groups to which they can add inbound rules. This policy also
grants users permission to delete security groups that are associated with VPC vpc-1a2b3c4d.

{
"Version": "2012-10-17",
"Statement": [{
"Effect": "Allow",
"Action": [
"ec2:DescribeSecurityGroups",
"ec2:CreateSecurityGroup",
"ec2:DescribeVpcs"
],
"Resource": "*"
},
{
"Effect": "Allow",
"Action": [
"ec2:DeleteSecurityGroup",
"ec2:AuthorizeSecurityGroupIngress",
"ec2:AuthorizeSecurityGroupEgress"
],
"Resource": "arn:aws:ec2:region:111122223333:security-group/*",
"Condition":{
"ArnEquals": {
"ec2:Vpc": "arn:aws:ec2:region:111122223333:vpc/vpc-1a2b3c4d"
}
}
}
]
}

Example: Work with Elastic IP addresses

To allow users to view Elastic IP addresses in the Amazon EC2 console, you must grant users permission
to use the ec2:DescribeAddresses action.

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To allow users to work with Elastic IP addresses, you can add the following actions to your policy.

• ec2:AllocateAddress: To allocate an Elastic IP address.

• ec2:ReleaseAddress: To release an Elastic IP address.
• ec2:AssociateAddress: To associate an Elastic IP address with an instance or a network interface.
• ec2:DescribeNetworkInterfaces and ec2:DescribeInstances: To work with the Associate
address screen. The screen displays the available instances or network interfaces to which you can
associate an Elastic IP address.
• ec2:DisassociateAddress: To disassociate an Elastic IP address from an instance or a network
interface.

The following policy allows users to view, allocate, and associate Elastic IP addresses with instances.
Users cannot associate Elastic IP addresses with network interfaces, disassociate Elastic IP addresses, or
release them.

{
"Version": "2012-10-17",
"Statement": [
{
"Effect": "Allow",
"Action": [
"ec2:DescribeAddresses",
"ec2:AllocateAddress",
"ec2:DescribeInstances",
"ec2:AssociateAddress"
],
"Resource": "*"
}
]
}

Example: Work with Reserved Instances

The following policy can be attached to an IAM user. It gives the user access to view and modify Reserved
Instances in your account, as well as purchase new Reserved Instances in the AWS Management Console.

This policy allows users to view all the Reserved Instances, as well as On-Demand Instances, in the
account. It's not possible to set resource-level permissions for individual Reserved Instances.

{
"Version": "2012-10-17",
"Statement": [{
"Effect": "Allow",
"Action": [
"ec2:DescribeReservedInstances",
"ec2:ModifyReservedInstances",
"ec2:PurchaseReservedInstancesOffering",
"ec2:DescribeInstances",
"ec2:DescribeInstanceTypes",
"ec2:DescribeAvailabilityZones",
"ec2:DescribeReservedInstancesOfferings"
],
"Resource": "*"
}
]
}

The ec2:DescribeAvailabilityZones action is necessary to ensure that the Amazon EC2 console
can display information about the Availability Zones in which you can purchase Reserved Instances. The

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ec2:DescribeInstances action is not required, but ensures that the user can view the instances in the
account and purchase reservations to match the correct specifications.

You can adjust the API actions to limit user access, for example removing ec2:DescribeInstances
and ec2:DescribeAvailabilityZones means the user has read-only access.

AWS managed policies for Amazon Elastic Compute

Cloud
To add permissions to users, groups, and roles, it is easier to use AWS managed policies than to write
policies yourself. It takes time and expertise to create IAM customer managed policies that provide your
team with only the permissions they need. To get started quickly, you can use our AWS managed policies.
These policies cover common use cases and are available in your AWS account. For more information
about AWS managed policies, see AWS managed policies in the IAM User Guide.

AWS services maintain and update AWS managed policies. You can't change the permissions in AWS
managed policies. Services occasionally add additional permissions to an AWS managed policy to
support new features. This type of update affects all identities (users, groups, and roles) where the policy
is attached. Services are most likely to update an AWS managed policy when a new feature is launched
or when new operations become available. Services do not remove permissions from an AWS managed
policy, so policy updates won't break your existing permissions.

Additionally, AWS supports managed policies for job functions that span multiple services. For example,
the ReadOnlyAccess AWS managed policy provides read-only access to all AWS services and resources.
When a service launches a new feature, AWS adds read-only permissions for new operations and
resources. For a list and descriptions of job function policies, see AWS managed policies for job functions
in the IAM User Guide.

AWS managed policy: AmazonEC2FullAccess

You can attach the AmazonEC2FullAccess policy to your IAM identities. This policy grants permissions
that allow full access to Amazon EC2.

To view the permissions for this policy, see AmazonEC2FullAccess in the AWS Management Console.

AWS managed policy: AmazonEC2ReadOnlyAccess

You can attach the AmazonEC2ReadOnlyAccess policy to your IAM identities. This policy grants
permissions that allow read-only access to Amazon EC2.

To view the permissions for this policy, see AmazonEC2ReadOnlyAccess in the AWS Management
Console.

AWS managed policy: AWSEC2FleetServiceRolePolicy

This policy is attached to the service-linked role named AWSServiceRoleForEC2Fleet to allow EC2 Fleet
to request, launch, terminate, and tag instances on your behalf. For more information, see Service-linked
role for EC2 Fleet (p. 703).

AWS managed policy: AWSEC2SpotFleetServiceRolePolicy

This policy is attached to the service-linked role named AWSServiceRoleForEC2SpotFleet to allow Spot
Fleet to launch and manage instances on your behalf. For more information, see Service-linked role for
Spot Fleet (p. 732).

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AWS managed policy: AWSEC2SpotServiceRolePolicy

This policy is attached to the service-linked role named AWSServiceRoleForEC2Spot to allow Amazon
EC2 to launch and manage Spot Instances on your behalf. For more information, see Service-linked role
for Spot Instance requests (p. 296).

IAM roles for Amazon EC2

Applications must sign their API requests with AWS credentials. Therefore, if you are an application
developer, you need a strategy for managing credentials for your applications that run on EC2 instances.
For example, you can securely distribute your AWS credentials to the instances, enabling the applications
on those instances to use your credentials to sign requests, while protecting your credentials from other
users. However, it's challenging to securely distribute credentials to each instance, especially those that
AWS creates on your behalf, such as Spot Instances or instances in Auto Scaling groups. You must also be
able to update the credentials on each instance when you rotate your AWS credentials.

We designed IAM roles so that your applications can securely make API requests from your instances,
without requiring you to manage the security credentials that the applications use. Instead of creating
and distributing your AWS credentials, you can delegate permission to make API requests using IAM roles
as follows:

1. Create an IAM role.

2. Define which accounts or AWS services can assume the role.
3. Define which API actions and resources the application can use after assuming the role.
4. Specify the role when you launch your instance, or attach the role to an existing instance.
5. Have the application retrieve a set of temporary credentials and use them.

For example, you can use IAM roles to grant permissions to applications running on your instances that
need to use a bucket in Amazon S3. You can specify permissions for IAM roles by creating a policy in
JSON format. These are similar to the policies that you create for IAM users. If you change a role, the
change is propagated to all instances.

You can only attach one IAM role to an instance, but you can attach the same role to many instances. For
more information about creating and using IAM roles, see Roles in the IAM User Guide.

You can apply resource-level permissions to your IAM policies to control the users' ability to attach,
replace, or detach IAM roles for an instance. For more information, see Supported resource-level
permissions for Amazon EC2 API actions (p. 1076) and the following example: Example: Work with IAM
roles (p. 1112).

Contents
• Instance profiles (p. 1128)
• Retrieve security credentials from instance metadata (p. 1129)
• Grant an IAM user permission to pass an IAM role to an instance (p. 1130)
• Work with IAM roles (p. 1130)

Instance profiles
Amazon EC2 uses an instance profile as a container for an IAM role. When you create an IAM role using
the IAM console, the console creates an instance profile automatically and gives it the same name as the
role to which it corresponds. If you use the Amazon EC2 console to launch an instance with an IAM role
or to attach an IAM role to an instance, you choose the role based on a list of instance profile names.

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If you use the AWS CLI, API, or an AWS SDK to create a role, you create the role and instance profile as
separate actions, with potentially different names. If you then use the AWS CLI, API, or an AWS SDK to
launch an instance with an IAM role or to attach an IAM role to an instance, specify the instance profile
name.

An instance profile can contain only one IAM role. This limit cannot be increased.

For more information, see Instance Profiles in the IAM User Guide.

Retrieve security credentials from instance metadata

An application on the instance retrieves the security credentials provided by the role from the instance
metadata item iam/security-credentials/role-name. The application is granted the permissions
for the actions and resources that you've defined for the role through the security credentials associated
with the role. These security credentials are temporary and we rotate them automatically. We make new
credentials available at least five minutes before the expiration of the old credentials.
Warning
If you use services that use instance metadata with IAM roles, ensure that you don't expose your
credentials when the services make HTTP calls on your behalf. The types of services that could
expose your credentials include HTTP proxies, HTML/CSS validator services, and XML processors
that support XML inclusion.

The following command retrieves the security credentials for an IAM role named s3access.

IMDSv2

PS C:\> $token = Invoke-RestMethod -Headers @{"X-aws-ec2-metadata-token-ttl-seconds" =

"21600"} -Method PUT –Uri http://169.254.169.254/latest/api/token

PS C:\> Invoke-RestMethod -Headers @{"X-aws-ec2-metadata-token" = $token} -Method GET -

Uri http://169.254.169.254/latest/meta-data/iam/security-credentials/s3access

IMDSv1

PS C:\> Invoke-RestMethod –uri http://169.254.169.254/latest/meta-data/iam/security-

credentials/s3access

The following is example output.

{
"Code" : "Success",
"LastUpdated" : "2012-04-26T16:39:16Z",
"Type" : "AWS-HMAC",
"AccessKeyId" : "ASIAIOSFODNN7EXAMPLE",
"SecretAccessKey" : "wJalrXUtnFEMI/K7MDENG/bPxRfiCYEXAMPLEKEY",
"Token" : "token",
"Expiration" : "2017-05-17T15:09:54Z"
}

For applications, AWS CLI, and Tools for Windows PowerShell commands that run on the instance, you
do not have to explicitly get the temporary security credentials—the AWS SDKs, AWS CLI, and Tools for
Windows PowerShell automatically get the credentials from the EC2 instance metadata service and use
them. To make a call outside of the instance using temporary security credentials (for example, to test
IAM policies), you must provide the access key, secret key, and the session token. For more information,
see Using Temporary Security Credentials to Request Access to AWS Resources in the IAM User Guide.

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For more information about instance metadata, see Instance metadata and user data (p. 588). For
information about the instance metadata IP address, see Retrieve instance metadata (p. 595).

Grant an IAM user permission to pass an IAM role to an instance

To enable an IAM user to launch an instance with an IAM role or to attach or replace an IAM role for an
existing instance, you must grant the user permission to use the following API actions:

• iam:PassRole
• ec2:AssociateIamInstanceProfile
• ec2:ReplaceIamInstanceProfileAssociation

For example, the following IAM policy grants users permission to launch instances with an IAM role, or to
attach or replace an IAM role for an existing instance using the AWS CLI.
Note
If you want the policy to grant IAM users access to all of your roles, specify the resource as * in
the policy. However, please consider the principle of least privilege as a best-practice .

{
"Version": "2012-10-17",
"Statement": [
{
"Effect": "Allow",
"Action": [
"ec2:RunInstances",
"ec2:AssociateIamInstanceProfile",
"ec2:ReplaceIamInstanceProfileAssociation"
],
"Resource": "*"
},
{
"Effect": "Allow",
"Action": "iam:PassRole",
"Resource": "arn:aws:iam::123456789012:role/DevTeam*"
}
]
}

To grant users permission to launch instances with an IAM role, or to attach or replace an IAM role
for an existing instance using the Amazon EC2 console, you must grant them permission to use
iam:ListInstanceProfiles, iam:PassRole, ec2:AssociateIamInstanceProfile, and
ec2:ReplaceIamInstanceProfileAssociation in addition to any other permissions they might
need. For example policies, see Example policies for working in the Amazon EC2 console (p. 1118).

Work with IAM roles

You can create an IAM role and attach it to an instance during or after launch. You can also replace or
detach an IAM role for an instance.

Contents
• Create an IAM role (p. 1131)
• Launch an instance with an IAM role (p. 1132)
• Attach an IAM role to an instance (p. 1134)
• Replace an IAM role (p. 1135)
• Detach an IAM role (p. 1136)

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• Generate a policy for your IAM role based on access activity (p. 1137)

Create an IAM role

You must create an IAM role before you can launch an instance with that role or attach it to an instance.

To create an IAM role using the IAM console

1. Open the IAM console at https://console.aws.amazon.com/iam/.

2. In the navigation pane, choose Roles, Create role.
3. On the Select role type page, choose EC2 and the EC2 use case. Choose Next: Permissions.
4. On the Attach permissions policy page, select an AWS managed policy that grants your instances
access to the resources that they need.
5. On the Review page, enter a name for the role and choose Create role.

Alternatively, you can use the AWS CLI to create an IAM role. The following example creates an IAM role
with a policy that allows the role to use an Amazon S3 bucket.

To create an IAM role and instance profile (AWS CLI)

1. Create the following trust policy and save it in a text file named ec2-role-trust-policy.json.

{
"Version": "2012-10-17",
"Statement": [
{
"Effect": "Allow",
"Principal": { "Service": "ec2.amazonaws.com"},
"Action": "sts:AssumeRole"
}
]
}

2. Create the s3access role and specify the trust policy that you created using the create-role
command.

aws iam create-role --role-name s3access --assume-role-policy-document file://ec2-role-

trust-policy.json
{
"Role": {
"AssumeRolePolicyDocument": {
"Version": "2012-10-17",
"Statement": [
{
"Action": "sts:AssumeRole",
"Effect": "Allow",
"Principal": {
"Service": "ec2.amazonaws.com"
}
}
]
},
"RoleId": "AROAIIZKPBKS2LEXAMPLE",
"CreateDate": "2013-12-12T23:46:37.247Z",
"RoleName": "s3access",
"Path": "/",
"Arn": "arn:aws:iam::123456789012:role/s3access"
}
}

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3. Create an access policy and save it in a text file named ec2-role-access-policy.json. For
example, this policy grants administrative permissions for Amazon S3 to applications running on the
instance.

{
"Version": "2012-10-17",
"Statement": [
{
"Effect": "Allow",
"Action": ["s3:*"],
"Resource": ["*"]
}
]
}

4. Attach the access policy to the role using the put-role-policy command.

aws iam put-role-policy --role-name s3access --policy-name S3-Permissions --policy-

document file://ec2-role-access-policy.json

5. Create an instance profile named s3access-profile using the create-instance-profile command.

aws iam create-instance-profile --instance-profile-name s3access-profile

{
"InstanceProfile": {
"InstanceProfileId": "AIPAJTLBPJLEGREXAMPLE",
"Roles": [],
"CreateDate": "2013-12-12T23:53:34.093Z",
"InstanceProfileName": "s3access-profile",
"Path": "/",
"Arn": "arn:aws:iam::123456789012:instance-profile/s3access-profile"
}
}

6. Add the s3access role to the s3access-profile instance profile.

aws iam add-role-to-instance-profile --instance-profile-name s3access-profile --role-

name s3access

Alternatively, you can use the following AWS Tools for Windows PowerShell commands:

• New-IAMRole
• Register-IAMRolePolicy
• New-IAMInstanceProfile

Launch an instance with an IAM role

After you've created an IAM role, you can launch an instance, and associate that role with the instance
during launch.
Important
After you create an IAM role, it might take several seconds for the permissions to propagate. If
your first attempt to launch an instance with a role fails, wait a few seconds before trying again.
For more information, see Troubleshooting Working with Roles in the IAM User Guide.

To launch an instance with an IAM role (console)

1. Open the Amazon EC2 console at https://console.aws.amazon.com/ec2/.

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2. On the dashboard, choose Launch instance.

3. Select an AMI and instance type and then choose Next: Configure Instance Details.
4. On the Configure Instance Details page, for IAM role, select the IAM role that you created.
Note
The IAM role list displays the name of the instance profile that you created when you
created your IAM role. If you created your IAM role using the console, the instance profile
was created for you and given the same name as the role. If you created your IAM role using
the AWS CLI, API, or an AWS SDK, you may have named your instance profile differently.
5. Configure any other details, then follow the instructions through the rest of the wizard, or choose
Review and Launch to accept default settings and go directly to the Review Instance Launch page.
6. Review your settings, then choose Launch to choose a key pair and launch your instance.
7. If you are using the Amazon EC2 API actions in your application, retrieve the AWS security
credentials made available on the instance and use them to sign the requests. The AWS SDK does
this for you.

IMDSv2

PS C:\> $token = Invoke-RestMethod -Headers @{"X-aws-ec2-metadata-token-ttl-

seconds" = "21600"} -Method PUT –Uri http://169.254.169.254/latest/api/token

PS C:\> Invoke-RestMethod -Headers @{"X-aws-ec2-metadata-token" = $token}

-Method GET -Uri http://169.254.169.254/latest/meta-data/iam/security-
credentials/role_name

IMDSv1

PS C:\> Invoke-RestMethod –uri http://169.254.169.254/latest/meta-data/iam/

security-credentials/role_name

Alternatively, you can use the AWS CLI to associate a role with an instance during launch. You must
specify the instance profile in the command.

To launch an instance with an IAM role (AWS CLI)

1. Use the run-instances command to launch an instance using the instance profile. The following
example shows how to launch an instance with the instance profile.

AWS ec2 run-instances \

--image-id ami-11aa22bb \
--iam-instance-profile Name="s3access-profile" \
--key-name my-key-pair \
--security-groups my-security-group \
--subnet-id subnet-1a2b3c4d

Alternatively, use the New-EC2Instance Tools for Windows PowerShell command.

2. If you are using the Amazon EC2 API actions in your application, retrieve the AWS security
credentials made available on the instance and use them to sign the requests. The AWS SDK does
this for you.

curl http://169.254.169.254/latest/meta-data/iam/security-credentials/role_name

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Attach an IAM role to an instance

To attach an IAM role to an instance that has no role, the instance can be in the stopped or running
state.

New console

To attach an IAM role to an instance

1. Open the Amazon EC2 console at https://console.aws.amazon.com/ec2/.

2. In the navigation pane, choose Instances.
3. Select the instance, choose Actions, Security, Modify IAM role.
4. Select the IAM role to attach to your instance, and choose Save.

Old console

To attach an IAM role to an instance

1. Open the Amazon EC2 console at https://console.aws.amazon.com/ec2/.

2. In the navigation pane, choose Instances.
3. Select the instance, choose Actions, Instance Settings, Attach/Replace IAM role.
4. Select the IAM role to attach to your instance, and choose Apply.

To attach an IAM role to an instance (AWS CLI)

1. If required, describe your instances to get the ID of the instance to which to attach the role.

aws ec2 describe-instances

2. Use the associate-iam-instance-profile command to attach the IAM role to the instance by specifying
the instance profile. You can use the Amazon Resource Name (ARN) of the instance profile, or you
can use its name.

aws ec2 associate-iam-instance-profile \

--instance-id i-1234567890abcdef0 \
--iam-instance-profile Name="TestRole-1"

{
"IamInstanceProfileAssociation": {
"InstanceId": "i-1234567890abcdef0",
"State": "associating",
"AssociationId": "iip-assoc-0dbd8529a48294120",
"IamInstanceProfile": {
"Id": "AIPAJLNLDX3AMYZNWYYAY",
"Arn": "arn:aws:iam::123456789012:instance-profile/TestRole-1"
}
}
}

Alternatively, use the following Tools for Windows PowerShell commands:

• Get-EC2Instance
• Register-EC2IamInstanceProfile

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Replace an IAM role

To replace the IAM role on an instance that already has an attached IAM role, the instance must be in the
running state. You can do this if you want to change the IAM role for an instance without detaching
the existing one first. For example, you can do this to ensure that API actions performed by applications
running on the instance are not interrupted.

New console

To replace an IAM role for an instance

1. Open the Amazon EC2 console at https://console.aws.amazon.com/ec2/.

2. In the navigation pane, choose Instances.
3. Select the instance, choose Actions, Security, Modify IAM role.
4. Select the IAM role to attach to your instance, and choose Save.

Old console

To replace an IAM role for an instance

1. Open the Amazon EC2 console at https://console.aws.amazon.com/ec2/.

2. In the navigation pane, choose Instances.
3. Select the instance, choose Actions, Instance Settings, Attach/Replace IAM role.
4. Select the IAM role to attach to your instance, and choose Apply.

To replace an IAM role for an instance (AWS CLI)

1. If required, describe your IAM instance profile associations to get the association ID for the IAM
instance profile to replace.

aws ec2 describe-iam-instance-profile-associations

2. Use the replace-iam-instance-profile-association command to replace the IAM instance profile by

specifying the association ID for the existing instance profile and the ARN or name of the instance
profile that should replace it.

aws ec2 replace-iam-instance-profile-association \

--association-id iip-assoc-0044d817db6c0a4ba \
--iam-instance-profile Name="TestRole-2"

{
"IamInstanceProfileAssociation": {
"InstanceId": "i-087711ddaf98f9489",
"State": "associating",
"AssociationId": "iip-assoc-09654be48e33b91e0",
"IamInstanceProfile": {
"Id": "AIPAJCJEDKX7QYHWYK7GS",
"Arn": "arn:aws:iam::123456789012:instance-profile/TestRole-2"
}
}
}

Alternatively, use the following Tools for Windows PowerShell commands:

• Get-EC2IamInstanceProfileAssociation

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• Set-EC2IamInstanceProfileAssociation

Detach an IAM role

You can detach an IAM role from a running or stopped instance.

New console

To detach an IAM role from an instance

1. Open the Amazon EC2 console at https://console.aws.amazon.com/ec2/.

2. In the navigation pane, choose Instances.
3. Select the instance, choose Actions, Security, Modify IAM role.
4. For IAM role, choose No IAM Role. Choose Save.
5. In the confirmation dialog box, enter Detach, and then choose Detach.

Old console

To detach an IAM role from an instance

1. Open the Amazon EC2 console at https://console.aws.amazon.com/ec2/.

2. In the navigation pane, choose Instances.
3. Select the instance, choose Actions, Instance Settings, Attach/Replace IAM role.
4. For IAM role, choose No Role. Choose Apply.
5. In the confirmation dialog box, choose Yes, Detach.

To detach an IAM role from an instance (AWS CLI)

1. If required, use describe-iam-instance-profile-associations to describe your IAM instance profile

associations and get the association ID for the IAM instance profile to detach.

aws ec2 describe-iam-instance-profile-associations

{
"IamInstanceProfileAssociations": [
{
"InstanceId": "i-088ce778fbfeb4361",
"State": "associated",
"AssociationId": "iip-assoc-0044d817db6c0a4ba",
"IamInstanceProfile": {
"Id": "AIPAJEDNCAA64SSD265D6",
"Arn": "arn:aws:iam::123456789012:instance-profile/TestRole-2"
}
}
]
}

2. Use the disassociate-iam-instance-profile command to detach the IAM instance profile using its
association ID.

aws ec2 disassociate-iam-instance-profile --association-id iip-assoc-0044d817db6c0a4ba

{
"IamInstanceProfileAssociation": {
"InstanceId": "i-087711ddaf98f9489",

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Network access

"State": "disassociating",
"AssociationId": "iip-assoc-0044d817db6c0a4ba",
"IamInstanceProfile": {
"Id": "AIPAJEDNCAA64SSD265D6",
"Arn": "arn:aws:iam::123456789012:instance-profile/TestRole-2"
}
}
}

Alternatively, use the following Tools for Windows PowerShell commands:

• Get-EC2IamInstanceProfileAssociation
• Unregister-EC2IamInstanceProfile

Generate a policy for your IAM role based on access activity

When you first create an IAM role for your applications, you might sometimes grant permissions beyond
what is required. Before launching your application in your production environment, you can generate
an IAM policy that is based on the access activity for an IAM role. IAM Access Analyzer reviews your AWS
CloudTrail logs and generates a policy template that contains the permissions that have been used by
the role in your specified date range. You can use the template to create a managed policy with fine-
grained permissions and then attach it to the IAM role. That way, you grant only the permissions that the
role needs to interact with AWS resources for your specific use case. This helps you adhere to the best
practice of granting least privilege. To learn more, see Generate policies based on access activity in the
IAM User Guide.

Authorize inbound traffic for your Windows instances

Security groups enable you to control traffic to your instance, including the kind of traffic that can reach
your instance. For example, you can allow computers from only your home network to access your
instance using RDP. If your instance is a web server, you can allow all IP addresses to access your instance
using HTTP or HTTPS, so that external users can browse the content on your web server.

Your default security groups and newly created security groups include default rules that do not
enable you to access your instance from the internet. For more information, see Default security
groups (p. 1153) and Custom security groups (p. 1154). To enable network access to your instance, you
must allow inbound traffic to your instance. To open a port for inbound traffic, add a rule to a security
group that you associated with your instance when you launched it.

To connect to your instance, you must set up a rule to authorize RDP traffic from your computer's public
IPv4 address. To allow RDP traffic from additional IP address ranges, add another rule for each range you
need to authorize.

If you've enabled your VPC for IPv6 and launched your instance with an IPv6 address, you can connect to
your instance using its IPv6 address instead of a public IPv4 address. Your local computer must have an
IPv6 address and must be configured to use IPv6.

If you need to enable network access to a Linux instance, see Authorizing inbound traffic for your Linux
instances in the Amazon EC2 User Guide for Linux Instances.

Before you start

Decide who requires access to your instance; for example, a single host or a specific network that you
trust such as your local computer's public IPv4 address. The security group editor in the Amazon EC2
console can automatically detect the public IPv4 address of your local computer for you. Alternatively,

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Network access

you can use the search phrase "what is my IP address" in an internet browser, or use the following
service: Check IP. If you are connecting through an ISP or from behind your firewall without a static IP
address, you need to find out the range of IP addresses used by client computers.
Warning
If you use 0.0.0.0/0, you enable all IPv4 addresses to access your instance using RDP. If you
use ::/0, you enable all IPv6 address to access your instance. This is acceptable for a short time
in a test environment, but it's unsafe for production environments. In production, you authorize
only a specific IP address or range of addresses to access your instance.

Windows Firewall may also block incoming traffic. If you're having trouble setting up access to your
instance, you may have to disable Windows Firewall. For more information, see Remote Desktop can't
connect to the remote computer (p. 1482).

Add a rule for inbound RDP traffic to a Windows instance

Security groups act as a firewall for associated instances, controlling both inbound and outbound traffic
at the instance level. You must add rules to a security group to enable you to connect to your Windows
instance from your IP address using RDP.

New console

To add a rule to a security group for inbound RDP traffic over IPv4 (console)

1. Open the Amazon EC2 console at https://console.aws.amazon.com/ec2/.

2. In the navigation pane, choose Instances.
3. Select your instance and, in bottom half of the screen, choose the Security tab. Security groups
lists the security groups that are associated with the instance. Inbound rules displays a list of
the inbound rules that are in effect for the instance.
4. For the security group to which you'll add the new rule, choose the security group ID link to
open the security group.
5. On the Inbound rules tab, choose Edit inbound rules.
6. On the Edit inbound rules page, do the following:

a. Choose Add rule.

b. For Type, choose RDP.
c. For Source, choose My IP to automatically populate the field with the public IPv4 address
of your local computer.

Alternatively, for Source, choose Custom and enter the public IPv4 address of your
computer or network in CIDR notation. For example, if your IPv4 address is 203.0.113.25,
enter 203.0.113.25/32 to list this single IPv4 address in CIDR notation. If your company
allocates addresses from a range, enter the entire range, such as 203.0.113.0/24.

For information about finding your IP address, see Before you start (p. 1137).
d. Choose Save rules.

Old console

To add a rule to a security group for inbound RDP traffic over IPv4 (console)

1. In the navigation pane of the Amazon EC2 console, choose Instances. Select your instance and
look at the Description tab; Security groups lists the security groups that are associated with
the instance. Choose view inbound rules to display a list of the rules that are in effect for the
instance.

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2. In the navigation pane, choose Security Groups. Select one of the security groups associated
with your instance.
3. In the details pane, on the Inbound tab, choose Edit. In the dialog, choose Add Rule, and then
choose RDP from the Type list.
4. In the Source field, choose My IP to automatically populate the field with the public IPv4
address of your local computer. Alternatively, choose Custom and specify the public IPv4
address of your computer or network in CIDR notation. For example, if your IPv4 address
is 203.0.113.25, specify 203.0.113.25/32 to list this single IPv4 address in CIDR
notation. If your company allocates addresses from a range, specify the entire range, such as
203.0.113.0/24.

For information about finding your IP address, see Before you start (p. 1137).
5. Choose Save.

If you launched an instance with an IPv6 address and want to connect to your instance using its IPv6
address, you must add rules that allow inbound IPv6 traffic over RDP.

New console

To add a rule to a security group for inbound RDP traffic over IPv6 (console)

1. Open the Amazon EC2 console at https://console.aws.amazon.com/ec2/.

2. In the navigation pane, choose Instances.
3. Select your instance and, in bottom half of the screen, choose the Security tab. Security groups
lists the security groups that are associated with the instance. Inbound rules displays a list of
the inbound rules that are in effect for the instance.
4. For the security group to which you'll add the new rule, choose the security group ID link to
open the security group.
5. On the Inbound rules tab, choose Edit inbound rules.
6. On the Edit inbound rules page, do the following:

a. Choose Add rule.

b. For Type, choose RDP.
c. For Source, choose Custom and enter the IPv6 address of your computer in CIDR notation.
For example, if your IPv6 address is 2001:db8:1234:1a00:9691:9503:25ad:1761,
enter 2001:db8:1234:1a00:9691:9503:25ad:1761/128 to list the single IP address
in CIDR notation. If your company allocates addresses from a range, enter the entire range,
such as 2001:db8:1234:1a00::/64.
d. Choose Save rules.

Old console

To add a rule to a security group for inbound RDP traffic over IPv6 (console)

1. Open the Amazon EC2 console at https://console.aws.amazon.com/ec2/.

2. In the navigation pane, choose Security Groups. Select the security group for your instance.
3. Choose Inbound, Edit, Add Rule.
4. For Type, choose RDP.
5. In the Source field, specify the IPv6 address of your computer in CIDR notation. For
example, if your IPv6 address is 2001:db8:1234:1a00:9691:9503:25ad:1761, specify
2001:db8:1234:1a00:9691:9503:25ad:1761/128 to list the single IP address in CIDR
notation. If your company allocates addresses from a range, specify the entire range, such as
2001:db8:1234:1a00::/64.

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Key pairs

6. Choose Save.

Note
Be sure to run the following commands on your local system, not on the instance itself. For
more information about these command line interfaces, see Access Amazon EC2 (p. 3).

To add a rule to a security group using the command line

1. Find the security group that is associated with your instance using one of the following commands:

• describe-instance-attribute (AWS CLI)

aws ec2 describe-instance-attribute --instance-id instance_id --attribute groupSet

• Get-EC2InstanceAttribute (AWS Tools for Windows PowerShell)

PS C:\> (Get-EC2InstanceAttribute -InstanceId instance_id -Attribute groupSet).Groups

Both commands return a security group ID, which you use in the next step.
2. Add the rule to the security group using one of the following commands:

• authorize-security-group-ingress (AWS CLI)

aws ec2 authorize-security-group-ingress --group-id security_group_id --protocol tcp

--port 3389 --cidr cidr_ip_range

• Grant-EC2SecurityGroupIngress (AWS Tools for Windows PowerShell)

The Grant-EC2SecurityGroupIngress command needs an IpPermission parameter, which

describes the protocol, port range, and IP address range to be used for the security group rule. The
following command creates the IpPermission parameter:

PS C:\> $ip1 = @{ IpProtocol="tcp"; FromPort="3389"; ToPort="3389";

IpRanges="cidr_ip_range" }

PS C:\> Grant-EC2SecurityGroupIngress -GroupId security_group_id -IpPermission

@($ip1)

Assign a security group to an instance

You can assign a security group to an instance when you launch the instance. When you add or remove
rules, those changes are automatically applied to all instances to which you've assigned the security
group.

After you launch an instance, you can change its security groups. For more information, see Changing an
instance's security groups in the Amazon VPC User Guide.

Amazon EC2 key pairs and Windows instances

A key pair, consisting of a public key and a private key, is a set of security credentials that you use to
prove your identity when connecting to an Amazon EC2 instance. Amazon EC2 stores the public key

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Create a key pair using Amazon EC2

on your instance, and you store the private key. For Windows instances, the private key is required to
decrypt the administrator password. You then use the decrypted password to connect to your instance.
Anyone who possesses your private key can connect to your instances, so it's important that you store
your private key in a secure place.

When you launch an instance, you are prompted for a key pair (p. 401). If you plan to connect to the
instance using RDP, you must specify a key pair. You can choose an existing key pair or create a new one.
With Windows instances, you use the private key to obtain the administrator password and then log
in using RDP. For more information about connecting to your instance, see Connect to your Windows
instance (p. 417). For more information about key pairs and Linux instances, see Amazon EC2 key pairs
and Linux instances in the Amazon EC2 User Guide for Linux Instances.

Because Amazon EC2 doesn't keep a copy of your private key, there is no way to recover a private key if
you lose it. However, there can still be a way to connect to instances for which you've lost the private key.
For more information, see Connect to your Windows instance if you lose your private key (p. 1148).

You can use Amazon EC2 to create your key pairs. You can also use a third-party tool to create your key
pairs, and then import the public keys to Amazon EC2.

The keys that Amazon EC2 uses are ED25519 or 2048-bit SSH-2 RSA keys.

You can have up to 5,000 key pairs per Region.

Contents
• Create a key pair using Amazon EC2 (p. 1141)
• Create a key pair using a third-party tool and import the public key to Amazon EC2 (p. 1143)
• Tag a public key (p. 1144)
• Retrieve the public key from the private key (p. 1146)
• Retrieve the public key through instance metadata (p. 1146)
• Identify the key pair that was specified at launch (p. 1146)
• Verify your key pair's fingerprint (p. 1147)
• Delete your key pair (p. 1147)
• Connect to your Windows instance if you lose your private key (p. 1148)

Create a key pair using Amazon EC2

You can create a key pair using one of the following methods.

Console

To create your key pair

1. Open the Amazon EC2 console at https://console.aws.amazon.com/ec2/.

2. In the navigation pane, under Network & Security, choose Key Pairs.
3. Choose Create key pair.
4. For Name, enter a descriptive name for the key pair. Amazon EC2 associates the public key with
the name that you specify as the key name. A key name can include up to 255 ASCII characters.
It can’t include leading or trailing spaces.
5. For Key pair type, choose either RSA or ED25519. Note that ED25519 keys are not supported
for Windows instances, EC2 Instance Connect, or EC2 Serial Console.
6. For Private key file format, choose the format in which to save the private key. To save the
private key in a format that can be used with OpenSSH, choose pem. To save the private key in a
format that can be used with PuTTY, choose ppk.

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If you chose ED25519 in the previous step, the Private key file format options do not appear,
and the private key format defaults to pem.
7. To add a tag to the public key, choose Add tag, and enter the key and value for the tag. Repeat
for each tag.
8. Choose Create key pair.
9. The private key file is automatically downloaded by your browser. The base file name is the
name that you specified as the name of your key pair, and the file name extension is determined
by the file format that you chose. Save the private key file in a safe place.
Important
This is the only chance for you to save the private key file.

AWS CLI

To create your key pair

• Use the create-key-pair command as follows to generate the key pair and to save the private key
to a .pem file.

For --key-name, specify a name for the public key. The name can be up to 255 ASCII
characters.

For --key-type, specify either rsa or ed25519. If you do not include the --key-type
parameter, an rsa key is created by default. Note that ED25519 keys are not supported for
Windows instances, EC2 Instance Connect, and EC2 Serial Console.

--query "KeyMaterial" prints the private key material to the output.

--output text > my-key-pair.pem saves the private key material in a file with the .pem
extension. The private key can have a name that's different from the public key name, but for
ease of use, use the same name.

aws ec2 create-key-pair \

--key-name my-key-pair \
--key-type rsa \
--query "KeyMaterial" \
--output text > my-key-pair.pem

PowerShell

To create your key pair

Use the New-EC2KeyPair AWS Tools for Windows PowerShell command as follows to generate the
key and save it to a .pem file.

For -KeyName, specify a name for the public key. The name can be up to 255 ASCII characters.

For -KeyType, specify either rsa or ed25519. If you do not include the -KeyType parameter, an
rsa key is created by default. Note that ED25519 keys are not supported for Windows instances,
EC2 Instance Connect, and EC2 Serial Console.

KeyMaterial prints the private key material to the output.

Out-File -Encoding ascii -FilePath C:\path\my-key-pair.pem saves the private key

material in a file with the .pem extension. The private key can have a name that's different from the
public key name, but for ease of use, use the same name.

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Create a key pair using a third-party tool
and import the public key to Amazon EC2
PS C:\> (New-EC2KeyPair -KeyName "my-key-pair" -KeyType "rsa").KeyMaterial | Out-File -
Encoding ascii -FilePath C:\path\my-key-pair.pem

Create a key pair using a third-party tool and import

the public key to Amazon EC2
Instead of using Amazon EC2 to create your key pair, you can create an RSA or ED25519 key pair by using
a third-party tool, and then import the public key to Amazon EC2.

Requirements for key pairs

• Supported types: RSA and ED25519. Amazon EC2 does not accept DSA keys.
• Note that ED25519 keys are not supported for Windows instances, EC2 Instance Connect, and EC2
Serial Console.
• Supported formats:
• OpenSSH public key format
• SSH private key file format must be PEM
• (RSA only) Base64 encoded DER format
• (RSA only) SSH public key file format as specified in RFC 4716
• Supported lengths: 1024, 2048, and 4096.

To create a key pair using a third-party tool

1. Generate a key pair with a third-party tool of your choice. For example, you can use ssh-keygen
(a tool provided with the standard OpenSSH installation). Alternatively, Java, Ruby, Python, and
many other programming languages provide standard libraries that you can use to create an RSA or
ED25519 key pair.
Important
The private key must be in the PEM format. For example, use ssh-keygen -m PEM to
generate the OpenSSH key in the PEM format.
2. Save the public key to a local file. For example, C:\keys\my-key-pair.pub. The file name
extension for this file is not important.
3. Save the private key to a local file that has the .pem extension. For example, C:\keys\my-key-
pair.pem. The file name extension for this file is important because only .pem files can be selected
when connecting to your Windows instance from the EC2 console.
Important
Save the private key file in a safe place. You'll need to provide the name of your public key
when you launch an instance, and the corresponding private key each time you connect to
the instance.

After you have created the key pair, use one of the following methods to import your public key to
Amazon EC2.

Console

To import the public key

1. Open the Amazon EC2 console at https://console.aws.amazon.com/ec2/.

2. In the navigation pane, choose Key Pairs.

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Tag a public key

3. Choose Import key pair.

4. For Name, enter a descriptive name for the public key. The name can include up to 255 ASCII
characters. It can’t include leading or trailing spaces.
Note
When you connect to your instance from the EC2 console, the console suggests this
name for the name of your private key file.
5. Either choose Browse to navigate to and select your public key, or paste the contents of your
public key into the Public key contents field.
6. Choose Import key pair.
7. Verify that the public key that you imported appears in the list of key pairs.

AWS CLI

To import the public key

Use the import-key-pair AWS CLI command.

To verify that the key pair was imported successfully

Use the describe-key-pairs AWS CLI command.

PowerShell

To import the public key

Use the Import-EC2KeyPair AWS Tools for Windows PowerShell command.

To verify that the key pair was imported successfully

Use the Get-EC2KeyPair AWS Tools for Windows PowerShell command.

Tag a public key

To help categorize and manage the public keys that you've either created using Amazon EC2 or imported
to Amazon EC2, you can tag them with custom metadata. For more information about how tags work,
see Tag your Amazon EC2 resources (p. 1463).

You can view, add, and delete tags using one of the following methods.

Console

To view, add, or delete a tag for an existing public key

1. Open the Amazon EC2 console at https://console.aws.amazon.com/ec2/.

2. In the navigation pane, choose Key Pairs.
3. Select a public key, and then choose Actions, Manage tags.
4. The Manage tags page displays any tags that are assigned to the public key.

• To add a tag, choose Add tag, and then enter the tag key and value. You can add up to 50
tags per key. For more information, see Tag restrictions (p. 1467).
• To delete a tag, choose Remove next to the tag to delete.
5. Choose Save.

AWS CLI

To view public key tags

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Tag a public key

Use the describe-tags AWS CLI command. In the following example, you describe the tags for all of
your public keys.

C:\> aws ec2 describe-tags --filters "Name=resource-type,Values=key-pair"

{
"Tags": [
{
"Key": "Environment",
"ResourceId": "key-0123456789EXAMPLE",
"ResourceType": "key-pair",
"Value": "Production"
},
{
"Key": "Environment",
"ResourceId": "key-9876543210EXAMPLE",
"ResourceType": "key-pair",
"Value": "Production"
}]
}

To describe the tags for a specific public key

Use the describe-key-pairs AWS CLI command.

C:\> aws ec2 describe-key-pairs --key-pair-ids key-0123456789EXAMPLE

{
"KeyPairs": [
{
"KeyName": "MyKeyPair",
"KeyFingerprint":
"1f:51:ae:28:bf:89:e9:d8:1f:25:5d:37:2d:7d:b8:ca:9f:f5:f1:6f",
"KeyPairId": "key-0123456789EXAMPLE",
"Tags": [
{
"Key": "Environment",
"Value": "Production"
}]
}]
}

To tag an existing public key

Use the create-tags AWS CLI command. In the following example, the existing key is tagged with
Key=Cost-Center and Value=CC-123.

C:\> aws ec2 create-tags --resources key-0123456789EXAMPLE --tags Key=Cost-

Center,Value=CC-123

To delete a tag from a public key

Use the delete-tags AWS CLI command. For examples, see Examples in the AWS CLI Command
Reference.
PowerShell

To view public key tags

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Retrieve the public key from the private key

Use the Get-EC2Tag command.

To describe the tags for a specific public key

Use the Get-EC2KeyPair command.

To tag an existing public key

Use the New-EC2Tag command.

To delete a tag from a public key

Use the Remove-EC2Tag command.

Retrieve the public key from the private key

On your local Windows computer, you can use PuTTYgen to get the public key for your key pair.

Start PuTTYgen and choose Load. Select the .ppk or .pem private key file. PuTTYgen displays the public
key under Public key for pasting into OpenSSH authorized_keys file. You can also view the public key
by choosing Save public key, specifying a name for the file, saving the file, and then opening the file.

Retrieve the public key through instance metadata

The public key that you specified when you launched an instance is also available through the instance
metadata. To view the public key that you specified when launching the instance, use the following
command from your instance.

PS C:\> Invoke-RestMethod -uri http://169.254.169.254/latest/meta-data/public-keys/0/

openssh-key

The following is an example output.

ssh-rsa AAAAB3NzaC1yc2EAAAADAQABAAABAQClKsfkNkuSevGj3eYhCe53pcjqP3maAhDFcvBS7O6V
hz2ItxCih+PnDSUaw+WNQn/mZphTk/a/gU8jEzoOWbkM4yxyb/wB96xbiFveSFJuOp/d6RJhJOI0iBXr
lsLnBItntckiJ7FbtxJMXLvvwJryDUilBMTjYtwB+QhYXUMOzce5Pjz5/i8SeJtjnV3iAoG/cQk+0FzZ
qaeJAAHco+CY/5WrUBkrHmFJr6HcXkvJdWPkYQS3xqC0+FmUZofz221CBt5IMucxXPkX4rWi+z7wB3Rb
BQoQzd8v7yeb7OzlPnWOyN0qFU0XA246RA8QFYiCNYwI3f05p6KLxEXAMPLE my-key-pair

If you change the key pair that you use to connect to the instance, we don't update the instance
metadata to show the new public key. Instead, the instance metadata continues to show the public key
for the key pair that you specified when you launched the instance. For more information, see Retrieve
instance metadata (p. 595).

Identify the key pair that was specified at launch

When you launch an instance, you are prompted for a key pair (p. 401). If you plan to connect to the
instance using RDP, you must specify a key pair.

To identify the key pair that was specified at launch

1. Open the Amazon EC2 console at https://console.aws.amazon.com/ec2/.

2. In the navigation pane, choose Instances, and then select your instance.

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3. On the Details tab, under Instance details, the Key pair name field displays the name of the key
pair that you specified when you launched the instance. The value of the Key pair name does not
change even if you change the public key on the instance, or add key pairs.

Verify your key pair's fingerprint

On the Key Pairs page in the Amazon EC2 console, the Fingerprint column displays the fingerprints
generated from your key pairs. AWS calculates the fingerprint differently depending on whether the key
pair was generated by AWS or a third-party tool. If you created the key pair using AWS, the fingerprint is
calculated using an SHA-1 hash function. If you created the key pair with a third-party tool and uploaded
the public key to AWS, or if you generated a new public key from an existing AWS-created private key
and uploaded it to AWS, the fingerprint is calculated using an MD5 hash function.

You can use the SSH2 fingerprint that's displayed on the Key Pairs page to verify that the private key
you have on your local machine matches the public key stored in AWS. From the computer where you
downloaded the private key file, generate an SSH2 fingerprint from the private key file. The output
should match the fingerprint that's displayed in the console.

If you're using a Windows local machine, you can run the following commands using the Windows
Subsystem for Linux (WSL). Install the WSL and a Linux distribution using the instructions in the
Windows 10 Installation Guide. The example in the instructions installs the Ubuntu distribution of Linux,
but you can install any distribution. You are prompted to restart your computer for the changes to take
effect.

If you created your key pair using AWS, you can use the OpenSSL tools to generate a fingerprint as
shown in the following example.

$ openssl pkcs8 -in path_to_private_key -inform PEM -outform DER -topk8 -nocrypt | openssl
sha1 -c

If you created a key pair using a third-party tool and uploaded the public key to AWS, you can use the
OpenSSL tools to generate the fingerprint as shown in the following example.

$ openssl rsa -in path_to_private_key -pubout -outform DER | openssl md5 -c

If you created an OpenSSH key pair using OpenSSH 7.8 or later and uploaded the public key to AWS, you
can use ssh-keygen to generate the fingerprint as shown in the following examples.

For RSA key pairs:

$ ssh-keygen -ef path_to_private_key -m PEM | openssl rsa -RSAPublicKey_in -outform DER |

openssl md5 -c

For ED25519 key pairs:

$ ssh-keygen -l -f path_to_private_key.pem

Delete your key pair

When you delete a key pair using the following methods, you are only deleting the public key that you
saved in Amazon EC2 when you created (p. 1141) or imported (p. 1143) the key pair. Deleting a key pair
doesn't delete the public key from any instances that were previously launched using that key pair. It also
doesn't delete the private key on your local computer. You can continue to connect to instances that you

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Connect to your Windows instance
if you lose your private key
launched using a key pair that is subsequently deleted, as long as you still have the private key (.pem)
file.

If you're using an Auto Scaling group (for example, in an Elastic Beanstalk environment), ensure that
the key pair you're deleting is not specified in an associated launch template or launch configuration. If
Amazon EC2 Auto Scaling detects an unhealthy instance, it launches a replacement instance. However,
the instance launch fails if the key pair cannot be found. For more information, see Launch templates in
the Amazon EC2 Auto Scaling User Guide.

You can delete a key pair using one of the following methods.

Console

To delete your key pair

1. Open the Amazon EC2 console at https://console.aws.amazon.com/ec2/.

2. In the navigation pane, choose Key Pairs.
3. Select the key pair to delete and choose Delete.
4. In the confirmation field, enter Delete and then choose Delete.

AWS CLI

To delete your key pair

Use the delete-key-pair AWS CLI command.

PowerShell

To delete your key pair

Use the Remove-EC2KeyPair AWS Tools for Windows PowerShell command.

Connect to your Windows instance if you lose your

private key
When you connect to a newly launched Windows instance, you decrypt the password for the
Administrator account using the private key for the key pair that you specified when you launched the
instance.

If you lose the Administrator password and you no longer have the private key, you must reset
the password or create a new instance. For more information, see Reset a lost or expired Windows
administrator password (p. 1497). For steps to reset the password using an Systems Manager document,
see Walkthrough: Reset passwords and SSH keys on EC2 instances in the AWS Systems Manager User
Guide.

Amazon EC2 security groups for Windows

instances
A security group acts as a virtual firewall for your EC2 instances to control incoming and outgoing traffic.
Inbound rules control the incoming traffic to your instance, and outbound rules control the outgoing
traffic from your instance. When you launch an instance, you can specify one or more security groups.

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Security groups

If you don't specify a security group, Amazon EC2 uses the default security group. You can add rules
to each security group that allow traffic to or from its associated instances. You can modify the rules
for a security group at any time. New and modified rules are automatically applied to all instances that
are associated with the security group. When Amazon EC2 decides whether to allow traffic to reach an
instance, it evaluates all of the rules from all of the security groups that are associated with the instance.

When you launch an instance in a VPC, you must specify a security group that's created for that VPC.
After you launch an instance, you can change its security groups. Security groups are associated with
network interfaces. Changing an instance's security groups changes the security groups associated
with the primary network interface (eth0). For more information, see Changing an instance's security
groups in the Amazon VPC User Guide. You can also change the security groups associated with any other
network interface. For more information, see Modify network interface attributes (p. 966).

Security is a shared responsibility between AWS and you. For more information, see Security in Amazon
EC2 (p. 1064). AWS provides security groups as one of the tools for securing your instances, and you
need to configure them to meet your security needs. If you have requirements that aren't fully met by
security groups, you can maintain your own firewall on any of your instances in addition to using security
groups.

To allow traffic to a Linux instance, see Amazon EC2 security groups for Linux instances in the Amazon
EC2 User Guide for Linux Instances.

Contents
• Security group rules (p. 1150)
• Security group connection tracking (p. 1151)
• Untracked connections (p. 1151)
• Example (p. 1152)
• Throttling (p. 1152)
• Default and custom security groups (p. 1153)
• Default security groups (p. 1153)
• Custom security groups (p. 1154)
• Work with security groups (p. 1154)
• Create a security group (p. 1154)
• Copy a security group (p. 1155)
• View your security groups (p. 1156)
• Add rules to a security group (p. 1157)
• Update security group rules (p. 1159)
• Delete rules from a security group (p. 1161)
• Delete a security group (p. 1162)
• Assign a security group to an instance (p. 1162)
• Change an instance's security group (p. 1163)
• Security group rules for different use cases (p. 1163)
• Web server rules (p. 1164)
• Database server rules (p. 1164)
• Rules to connect to instances from your computer (p. 1165)
• Rules to connect to instances from an instance with the same security group (p. 1166)
• Rules for ping/ICMP (p. 1166)
• DNS server rules (p. 1166)
• Amazon EFS rules (p. 1167)
• Elastic Load Balancing rules (p. 1167)
• VPC peering rules (p. 1168)

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Security group rules

The rules of a security group control the inbound traffic that's allowed to reach the instances that are
associated with the security group. The rules also control the outbound traffic that's allowed to leave
them.

The following are the characteristics of security group rules:

• By default, security groups allow all outbound traffic. Note that Amazon EC2 blocks traffic on port 25
by default. For more information, see Restriction on email sent using port 25 (p. 1477).
• Security group rules are always permissive; you can't create rules that deny access.
• Security group rules enable you to filter traffic based on protocols and port numbers.
• Security groups are stateful—if you send a request from your instance, the response traffic for that
request is allowed to flow in regardless of inbound security group rules. For VPC security groups, this
also means that responses to allowed inbound traffic are allowed to flow out, regardless of outbound
rules. For more information, see Security group connection tracking (p. 1151).
• You can add and remove rules at any time. Your changes are automatically applied to the instances
that are associated with the security group.

The effect of some rule changes can depend on how the traffic is tracked. For more information, see
Security group connection tracking (p. 1151).
• When you associate multiple security groups with an instance, the rules from each security group
are effectively aggregated to create one set of rules. Amazon EC2 uses this set of rules to determine
whether to allow access.

You can assign multiple security groups to an instance. Therefore, an instance can have hundreds of
rules that apply. This might cause problems when you access the instance. We recommend that you
condense your rules as much as possible.

When you create a rule, you can specify the following:

• Name: The name for the security group (for example, "my-security-group").

A name can be up to 255 characters in length. Allowed characters are a-z, A-Z, 0-9, spaces, and ._-:/
()#,@[]+=;{}!$*. When the name contains trailing spaces, we trim the spaces when we save the name.
For example, if you enter "Test Security Group " for the name, we store it as "Test Security Group".
• Protocol: The protocol to allow. The most common protocols are 6 (TCP), 17 (UDP), and 1 (ICMP).
• Port range: For TCP, UDP, or a custom protocol, the range of ports to allow. You can specify a single
port number (for example, 22), or range of port numbers (for example, 7000-8000).
• ICMP type and code: For ICMP and ICMPv6, the ICMP type and code. For example, use type 8 for ICMP
Echo Request or type 128 for ICMPv6 Echo Request.
• Source or destination: The source (inbound rules) or destination (outbound rules) for the traffic.
Specify one of these options:
• An individual IPv4 address. You must use the /32 prefix length; for example, 203.0.113.1/32.
• An individual IPv6 address. You must use the /128 prefix length; for example,
2001:db8:1234:1a00::123/128.
• A range of IPv4 addresses, in CIDR block notation; for example, 203.0.113.0/24.
• A range of IPv6 addresses, in CIDR block notation; for example, 2001:db8:1234:1a00::/64.
• A prefix list ID, for example, pl-1234abc1234abc123. For more information, see Prefix lists in the
Amazon VPC User Guide.
• Another security group. This allows instances that are associated with the specified security group
to access instances associated with this security group. Choosing this option does not add rules

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from the source security group to this security group. You can specify one of the following security
groups:
• The current security group
• A different security group for the same VPC
• A different security group for a peer VPC in a VPC peering connection
• (Optional) Description: You can add a description for the rule, which can help you identify it later. A
description can be up to 255 characters in length. Allowed characters are a-z, A-Z, 0-9, spaces, and ._-:/
()#,@[]+=;{}!$*.

When you create a security group rule, AWS assigns a unique ID to the rule. You can use the ID of a rule
when you use the API or CLI to modify or delete the rule.

When you specify a security group as the source or destination for a rule, the rule affects all instances
that are associated with the security group. Incoming traffic is allowed based on the private IP addresses
of the instances that are associated with the source security group (and not the public IP or Elastic IP
addresses). For more information about IP addresses, see Amazon EC2 instance IP addressing (p. 904). If
your security group rule references a security group in a peer VPC, and the referenced security group or
VPC peering connection is deleted, the rule is marked as stale. For more information, see Working with
Stale Security Group Rules in the Amazon VPC Peering Guide.

If there is more than one rule for a specific port, Amazon EC2 applies the most permissive rule. For
example, if you have a rule that allows access to TCP port 3389 (RDP) from IP address 203.0.113.1, and
another rule that allows access to TCP port 3389 from everyone, everyone has access to TCP port 3389.

When you add, update, or remove rules, the changes are automatically applied to all instances associated
with the security group.

Security group connection tracking

Your security groups use connection tracking to track information about traffic to and from the instance.
Rules are applied based on the connection state of the traffic to determine if the traffic is allowed or
denied. With this approach, security groups are stateful. This means that responses to inbound traffic are
allowed to flow out of the instance regardless of outbound security group rules, and vice versa.

As an example, suppose that you initiate an ICMP ping command to your instances from your home
computer, and your inbound security group rules allow ICMP traffic. Information about the connection
(including the port information) is tracked. Response traffic from the instance for the ping command is
not tracked as a new request, but rather as an established connection, and is allowed to flow out of the
instance, even if your outbound security group rules restrict outbound ICMP traffic.

For protocols other than TCP, UDP, or ICMP, only the IP address and protocol number is tracked. If your
instance sends traffic to another host (host B), and host B initiates the same type of traffic to your
instance in a separate request within 600 seconds of the original request or response, your instance
accepts it regardless of inbound security group rules. Your instance accepts it because it’s regarded as
response traffic.

To ensure that traffic is immediately interrupted when you remove a security group rule, or to ensure
that all inbound traffic is subject to firewall rules, you can use a network ACL for your subnet. Network
ACLs are stateless and therefore do not automatically allow response traffic. For more information, see
Network ACLs in the Amazon VPC User Guide.

Untracked connections
Not all flows of traffic are tracked. If a security group rule permits TCP or UDP flows for all traffic
(0.0.0.0/0 or ::/0) and there is a corresponding rule in the other direction that permits all response traffic

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(0.0.0.0/0 or ::/0) for all ports (0-65535), then that flow of traffic is not tracked. The response traffic is
therefore allowed to flow based on the inbound or outbound rule that permits the response traffic, and
not on tracking information.

An untracked flow of traffic is immediately interrupted if the rule that enables the flow is removed or
modified. For example, if you have an open (0.0.0.0/0) outbound rule, and you remove a rule that allows
all (0.0.0.0/0) inbound SSH (TCP port 22) traffic to the instance (or modify it such that the connection
would no longer be permitted), your existing SSH connections to the instance are immediately dropped.
The connection was not previously being tracked, so the change will break the connection. On the other
hand, if you have a narrower inbound rule that initially allows the SSH connection (meaning that the
connection was tracked), but change that rule to no longer allow new connections from the address of
the current SSH client, the existing connection will not be broken by changing the rule.

Example
In the following example, the security group has specific inbound rules for TCP and ICMP traffic, and
outbound rules that allow all outbound IPv4 and IPv6 traffic.

Inbound rules

Protocol type Port number Source IP

TCP 22 (SSH) 203.0.113.1/32

TCP 80 (HTTP) 0.0.0.0/0

TCP 80 (HTTP) ::/0

ICMP All 0.0.0.0/0

Outbound rules

Protocol type Port number Destination IP

All All 0.0.0.0/0

All All ::/0

• TCP traffic on port 22 (SSH) to and from the instance is tracked, because the inbound rule allows traffic
from 203.0.113.1/32 only, and not all IP addresses (0.0.0.0/0).
• TCP traffic on port 80 (HTTP) to and from the instance is not tracked, because both the inbound and
outbound rules allow all traffic (0.0.0.0/0 or ::/0).
• ICMP traffic is always tracked, regardless of rules.
• If you remove the outbound rule from the security group, all traffic to and from the instance is tracked,
including traffic on port 80 (HTTP).

Throttling
Amazon EC2 defines the maximum number of connections that can be tracked per instance. After the
maximum is reached, any packets that are sent or received are dropped because a new connection
cannot be established. When this happens, applications that send and receive packets cannot
communicate properly.

To determine whether packets were dropped because the network traffic for your instance exceeded
the maximum number of connections that can be tracked, use the conntrack_allowance_exceeded

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Default and custom security groups

network performance metric. For more information, see Monitor network performance for your EC2
instance (p. 986).

Connections made through a Network Load Balancer are automatically tracked, even if the security
group configuration does not require tracking. If you exceed the maximum number of connections that
can be tracked per instance, we recommend that you scale either the number of instances registered with
the load balancer or the size of the instances registered with the load balancer.

Default and custom security groups

Your AWS account automatically has a default security group for the default VPC in each Region. If you
don't specify a security group when you launch an instance, the instance is automatically associated with
the default security group for the VPC. If you don't want your instances to use the default security group,
you can create your own custom security groups and specify them when you launch your instances.

Topics
• Default security groups (p. 1153)
• Custom security groups (p. 1154)

Default security groups

Your AWS account automatically has a default security group for the default VPC in each Region. If you
don't specify a security group when you launch an instance, the instance is automatically associated with
the default security group for the VPC.

A default security group is named "default", and it has an ID assigned by AWS. The following table
describes the default rules for a default security group.

Inbound rule

Source Protocol Port range Description

The security group ID All All Allows inbound traffic

(its own resource ID) from network interfaces
and instances that are
assigned to the same
security group.

Outbound rules

Destination Protocol Port range Description

0.0.0.0/0 All All Allows all outbound

IPv4 traffic.

::/0 All All Allows all outbound

IPv6 traffic. This rule is
added only if your VPC
has an associated IPv6
CIDR block.

You can add or remove inbound and outbound rules for any default security group.

You can't delete a default security group. If you try to delete a default security group, you see the
following error: Client.CannotDelete: the specified group: "sg-51530134" name:
"default" cannot be deleted by a user.

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Custom security groups

If you don't want your instances to use the default security group, you can create your own security
groups and specify them when you launch your instances. You can create multiple security groups to
reflect the different roles that your instances play; for example, a web server or a database server.

When you create a security group, you must provide it with a name and a description. Security group
names and descriptions can be up to 255 characters in length, and are limited to the following
characters:

a-z, A-Z, 0-9, spaces, and ._-:/()#,@[]+=&;{}!$*

A security group name cannot start with the following: sg-. A security group name must be unique for
the VPC.

The following are the default rules for a security group that you create:

• Allows no inbound traffic

• Allows all outbound traffic

After you've created a security group, you can change its inbound rules to reflect the type of inbound
traffic that you want to reach the associated instances. You can also change its outbound rules.

For more information about the rules you can add to a security group, see Security group rules for
different use cases (p. 1163).

Work with security groups

You can assign a security group to an instance when you launch the instance. When you add or remove
rules, those changes are automatically applied to all instances to which you've assigned the security
group. For more information, see Assign a security group to an instance (p. 1162).

After you launch an instance, you can change its security groups. For more information, see Change an
instance's security group (p. 1163).

You can create, view, update, and delete security groups and security group rules using the Amazon EC2
console and the command line tools.

Tasks
• Create a security group (p. 1154)
• Copy a security group (p. 1155)
• View your security groups (p. 1156)
• Add rules to a security group (p. 1157)
• Update security group rules (p. 1159)
• Delete rules from a security group (p. 1161)
• Delete a security group (p. 1162)
• Assign a security group to an instance (p. 1162)
• Change an instance's security group (p. 1163)

Create a security group

Although you can use the default security group for your instances, you might want to create your own
groups to reflect the different roles that instances play in your system.

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By default, new security groups start with only an outbound rule that allows all traffic to leave the
instances. You must add rules to enable any inbound traffic or to restrict the outbound traffic.

A security group can be used only in the VPC for which it is created.

New console

To create a security group

1. Open the Amazon EC2 console at https://console.aws.amazon.com/ec2/.

2. In the navigation pane, choose Security Groups.
3. Choose Create security group.
4. In the Basic details section, do the following.

a. Enter a descriptive name and brief description for the security group. They can't be edited
after the security group is created. The name and description can be up to 255 characters
long. The valid characters are a-z, A-Z, 0-9, spaces, and ._-:/()#,@[]+=&;{}!$*.
b. For VPC, choose the VPC.
5. You can add security group rules now, or you can add them later. For more information, see Add
rules to a security group (p. 1157).
6. You can add tags now, or you can add them later. To add a tag, choose Add new tag and enter
the tag key and value.
7. Choose Create security group.

Old console

To create a security group

1. Open the Amazon EC2 console at https://console.aws.amazon.com/ec2/.

2. In the navigation pane, choose Security Groups.
3. Choose Create Security Group.
4. Specify a name and description for the security group.
5. For VPC, choose the ID of the VPC.
6. You can start adding rules, or you can choose Create to create the security group now (you can
always add rules later). For more information about adding rules, see Add rules to a security
group (p. 1157).

Command line

To create a security group

Use one of the following commands:

• create-security-group (AWS CLI)

• New-EC2SecurityGroup (AWS Tools for Windows PowerShell)

Copy a security group

You can create a new security group by creating a copy of an existing one. When you copy a security
group, the copy is created with the same inbound and outbound rules as the original security group. If
the original security group is in a VPC, the copy is created in the same VPC unless you specify a different
one.

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The copy receives a new unique security group ID and you must give it a name. You can also add a
description.

You can't copy a security group from one Region to another Region.

You can create a copy of a security group using one of the following methods.

New console

To copy a security group

1. Open the Amazon EC2 console at https://console.aws.amazon.com/ec2/.

2. In the navigation pane, choose Security Groups.
3. Select the security group to copy and choose Actions, Copy to new security group.
4. Specify a name and optional description, and change the VPC and security group rules if
needed.
5. Choose Create.

Old console

To copy a security group

1. Open the Amazon EC2 console at https://console.aws.amazon.com/ec2/.

2. In the navigation pane, choose Security Groups.
3. Select the security group you want to copy, choose Actions, Copy to new.
4. The Create Security Group dialog opens, and is populated with the rules from the existing
security group. Specify a name and description for your new security group. For VPC, choose the
ID of the VPC. When you are done, choose Create.

View your security groups

You can view information about your security groups using one of the following methods.

New console

To view your security groups

1. Open the Amazon EC2 console at https://console.aws.amazon.com/ec2/.

2. In the navigation pane, choose Security Groups.
3. Your security groups are listed. To view the details for a specific security group, including its
inbound and outbound rules, choose its ID in the Security group ID column.

Old console

To view your security groups

1. Open the Amazon EC2 console at https://console.aws.amazon.com/ec2/.

2. In the navigation pane, choose Security Groups.
3. (Optional) Select VPC ID from the filter list, then choose the ID of the VPC.
4. Select a security group. General information is displayed on the Description tab, inbound rules
on the Inbound tab, outbound rules on the Outbound tab, and tags on the Tags tab.

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Command line

To view your security groups

Use one of the following commands.

• describe-security-groups (AWS CLI)

• describe-security-group-rules (AWS CLI)
• Get-EC2SecurityGroup (AWS Tools for Windows PowerShell)

Amazon EC2 Global View

You can use Amazon EC2 Global View to view your security groups across all Regions for which your
AWS account is enabled. For more information, see List and filter resources across Regions using
Amazon EC2 Global View (p. 1462).

Add rules to a security group

When you add a rule to a security group, the new rule is automatically applied to any instances that are
associated with the security group. There might be a short delay before the rule is applied. For more
information, see Security group rules for different use cases (p. 1163) and Security group rules (p. 1150).

New console

To add an inbound rule to a security group

1. Open the Amazon EC2 console at https://console.aws.amazon.com/ec2/.

2. In the navigation pane, choose Security Groups.
3. Select the security group, and choose Actions, Edit inbound rules.
4. For each rule, choose Add rule and do the following.

a. For Type, choose the type of protocol to allow.

• For custom TCP or UDP, you must enter the port range to allow.
• For custom ICMP, you must choose the ICMP type from Protocol, and, if applicable, the
code from Port range. For example, to allow ping commands, choose Echo Request from
Protocol.
• For any other type, the protocol and port range are configured for you.
b. For Source, do one of the following to allow traffic.

• Choose Custom and then enter an IP address in CIDR notation, a CIDR block, another
security group, or a prefix list.
• Choose Anywhere to allow all traffic for the specified protocol to reach your instance.
This option automatically adds the 0.0.0.0/0 IPv4 CIDR block as the source. This
is acceptable for a short time in a test environment, but it's unsafe in production
environments. In production, authorize only a specific IP address or range of addresses to
access your instances.

If your security group is in a VPC that's enabled for IPv6, this option automatically adds a
rule for the ::/0 IPv6 CIDR block.
• Choose My IP to allow inbound traffic from only your local computer's public IPv4
address.
c. For Description, optionally specify a brief description for the rule.
5. Choose Preview changes, Save rules.

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To add an outbound rule to a security group

1. Open the Amazon EC2 console at https://console.aws.amazon.com/ec2/.

2. In the navigation pane, choose Security Groups.
3. Select the security group, and choose Actions, Edit outbound rules.
4. For each rule, choose Add rule and do the following.

a. For Type, choose the type of protocol to allow.

• For custom TCP or UDP, you must enter the port range to allow.
• For custom ICMP, you must choose the ICMP type from Protocol, and, if applicable, the
code from Port range.
• For any other type, the protocol and port range are configured automatically.
b. For Destination, do one of the following.

• Choose Custom and then enter an IP address in CIDR notation, a CIDR block, another
security group, or a prefix list for which to allow outbound traffic.
• Choose Anywhere to allow outbound traffic to all IP addresses. This option automatically
adds the 0.0.0.0/0 IPv4 CIDR block as the destination.

If your security group is in a VPC that's enabled for IPv6, this option automatically adds a
rule for the ::/0 IPv6 CIDR block.
• Choose My IP to allow outbound traffic only to your local computer's public IPv4 address.
c. (Optional) For Description, specify a brief description for the rule.
5. Choose Preview changes, Confirm.

Old console

To add rules to a security group

1. Open the Amazon EC2 console at https://console.aws.amazon.com/ec2/.

2. In the navigation pane, choose Security Groups and select the security group.
3. On the Inbound tab, choose Edit.
4. In the dialog, choose Add Rule and do the following:

• For Type, select the protocol.

• If you select a custom TCP or UDP protocol, specify the port range in Port Range.
• If you select a custom ICMP protocol, choose the ICMP type name from Protocol, and, if
applicable, the code name from Port Range. For example, to allow ping commands, choose
Echo Request from Protocol.
• For Source, choose one of the following:
• Custom: in the provided field, you must specify an IP address in CIDR notation, a CIDR
block, or another security group.
• Anywhere: automatically adds the 0.0.0.0/0 IPv4 CIDR block. This option enables all traffic
of the specified type to reach your instance. This is acceptable for a short time in a test
environment, but it's unsafe for production environments. In production, authorize only a
specific IP address or range of addresses to access your instance.

If your security group is in a VPC that's enabled for IPv6, the Anywhere option creates two
rules—one for IPv4 traffic (0.0.0.0/0) and one for IPv6 traffic (::/0).
• My IP: automatically adds the public IPv4 address of your local computer.
• For Description, you can optionally specify a description for the rule.
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For more information about the types of rules that you can add, see Security group rules for
different use cases (p. 1163).
5. Choose Save.
6. You can also specify outbound rules. On the Outbound tab, choose Edit, Add Rule, and do the
following:

• For Type, select the protocol.

• If you select a custom TCP or UDP protocol, specify the port range in Port Range.
• If you select a custom ICMP protocol, choose the ICMP type name from Protocol, and, if
applicable, the code name from Port Range.
• For Destination, choose one of the following:
• Custom: in the provided field, you must specify an IP address in CIDR notation, a CIDR
block, or another security group.
• Anywhere: automatically adds the 0.0.0.0/0 IPv4 CIDR block. This option enables outbound
traffic to all IP addresses.

If your security group is in a VPC that's enabled for IPv6, the Anywhere option creates two
rules—one for IPv4 traffic (0.0.0.0/0) and one for IPv6 traffic (::/0).
• My IP: automatically adds the IP address of your local computer.
• For Description, you can optionally specify a description for the rule.
7. Choose Save.

Command line

To add rules to a security group

Use one of the following commands.

• authorize-security-group-ingress (AWS CLI)

• Grant-EC2SecurityGroupIngress (AWS Tools for Windows PowerShell)

To add one or more egress rules to a security group

Use one of the following commands.

• authorize-security-group-egress (AWS CLI)

• Grant-EC2SecurityGroupEgress (AWS Tools for Windows PowerShell)

Update security group rules

You can update a security group rule using one of the following methods. The updated rule is
automatically applied to any instances that are associated with the security group.

New console

When you modify the protocol, port range, or source or destination of an existing security group rule
using the console, the console deletes the existing rule and adds a new one for you.

To update a security group rule

1. Open the Amazon EC2 console at https://console.aws.amazon.com/ec2/.

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2. In the navigation pane, choose Security Groups.

3. Select the security group.
4. Choose Actions, Edit inbound rules to update a rule for inbound traffic or Actions, Edit
outbound rules to update a rule for outbound traffic.
5. Update the rule as required.
6. Choose Preview changes, Confirm.

To tag a security group rule

1. Open the Amazon EC2 console at https://console.aws.amazon.com/ec2/.

2. In the navigation pane, choose Security Groups.
3. Select the security group.
4. On the Inbound rules or Outbound rules tab, select the check box for the rule and then choose
Manage tags.
5. The Manage tags page displays any tags that are assigned to the rule. To add a tag, choose Add
tag and enter the tag key and value. To delete a tag, choose Remove next to the tag that you
want to delete.
6. Choose Save changes.

Old console

When you modify the protocol, port range, or source or destination of an existing security group rule
using the console, the console deletes the existing rule and adds a new one for you.

To update a security group rule

1. Open the Amazon EC2 console at https://console.aws.amazon.com/ec2/.

2. In the navigation pane, choose Security Groups.
3. Select the security group to update, and choose the Inbound tab to update a rule for inbound
traffic or the Outbound tab to update a rule for outbound traffic.
4. Choose Edit.
5. Modify the rule entry as required and choose Save.

Command line

You cannot modify the protocol, port range, or source or destination of an existing rule using the
Amazon EC2 API or a command line tools. Instead, you must delete the existing rule and add a new
rule. You can, however, update the description of an existing rule.

To update a rule

Use one the following command.

• modify-security-group-rules (AWS CLI)

To update the description for an existing inbound rule

Use one of the following commands.

• update-security-group-rule-descriptions-ingress (AWS CLI)

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• Update-EC2SecurityGroupRuleIngressDescription (AWS Tools for Windows PowerShell)

To update the description for an existing outbound rule

Use one of the following commands.

• update-security-group-rule-descriptions-egress (AWS CLI)

• Update-EC2SecurityGroupRuleEgressDescription (AWS Tools for Windows PowerShell)

To tag a security group rule

Use one of the following commands.

• create-tags (AWS CLI)

• New-EC2Tag (AWS Tools for Windows PowerShell)

Delete rules from a security group

When you delete a rule from a security group, the change is automatically applied to any instances
associated with the security group.

You can delete rules from a security group using one of the following methods.

New console

To delete a security group rule

1. Open the Amazon EC2 console at https://console.aws.amazon.com/ec2/.

2. In the navigation pane, choose Security Groups.
3. Select the security group to update, choose Actions, and then choose Edit inbound rules to
remove an inbound rule or Edit outbound rules to remove an outbound rule.
4. Choose the Delete button to the right of the rule to delete.
5. Choose Preview changes, Confirm.

Old console

To delete a security group rule

1. Open the Amazon EC2 console at https://console.aws.amazon.com/ec2/.

2. In the navigation pane, choose Security Groups.
3. Select a security group.
4. On the Inbound tab (for inbound rules) or Outbound tab (for outbound rules), choose Edit.
Choose Delete (a cross icon) next to each rule to delete.
5. Choose Save.

Command line

To remove one or more ingress rules from a security group

Use one of the following commands.

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• revoke-security-group-ingress (AWS CLI)

• Revoke-EC2SecurityGroupIngress (AWS Tools for Windows PowerShell)

To remove one or more egress rules from a security group

Use one of the following commands.

• revoke-security-group-egress (AWS CLI)

• Revoke-EC2SecurityGroupEgress (AWS Tools for Windows PowerShell)

Delete a security group

You can't delete a security group that is associated with an instance. You can't delete the default security
group. You can't delete a security group that is referenced by a rule in another security group in the same
VPC. If your security group is referenced by one of its own rules, you must delete the rule before you can
delete the security group.

New console

To delete a security group

1. Open the Amazon EC2 console at https://console.aws.amazon.com/ec2/.

2. In the navigation pane, choose Security Groups.
3. Select the security group to delete and choose Actions, Delete security group, Delete.

Old console

To delete a security group

1. Open the Amazon EC2 console at https://console.aws.amazon.com/ec2/.

2. In the navigation pane, choose Security Groups.
3. Select a security group and choose Actions, Delete Security Group.
4. Choose Yes, Delete.

Command line

To delete a security group

Use one of the following commands.

• delete-security-group (AWS CLI)

• Remove-EC2SecurityGroup (AWS Tools for Windows PowerShell)

Assign a security group to an instance

You can assign one or more security groups to an instance when you launch the instance. You can also
specify one or more security groups in a launch template. The security groups will be assigned to all
instances that are launched using the launch template.

• To assign a security group to an instance when you launch the instance, see Step 6: Configure Security
Group (p. 401).

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• To specify a security group in a launch template, see Step 6 of Create a new launch template using
parameters you define (p. 403).

Change an instance's security group

After you launch an instance, you can change its security groups by adding or removing security groups.
You can change the security groups when the instance is in the running or stopped state.

New console

To change the security groups for an instance using the console

1. Open the Amazon EC2 console at https://console.aws.amazon.com/ec2/.

2. In the navigation pane, choose Instances.
3. Select your instance, and then choose Actions, Security, Change security groups.
4. For Associated security groups, select a security group from the list and choose Add security
group.

To remove an already associated security group, choose Remove for that security group.
5. Choose Save.

Old console

To change the security groups for an instance using the console

1. Open the Amazon EC2 console at https://console.aws.amazon.com/ec2/.

2. In the navigation pane, choose Instances.
3. Select your instance, and then choose Actions, Networking, Change Security Groups.
4. To add one or more security groups, select its check box.

To remove an already associated security group, clear its check box.

5. Choose Assign Security Groups.

Command line

To change the security groups for an instance using the command line

Use one of the following commands.

• modify-instance-attribute (AWS CLI)

• Edit-EC2InstanceAttribute (AWS Tools for Windows PowerShell)

Security group rules for different use cases

You can create a security group and add rules that reflect the role of the instance that's associated with
the security group. For example, an instance that's configured as a web server needs security group rules
that allow inbound HTTP and HTTPS access. Likewise, a database instance needs rules that allow access
for the type of database, such as access over port 3306 for MySQL.

The following are examples of the kinds of rules that you can add to security groups for specific kinds of
access.

Examples

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• Web server rules (p. 1164)

• Database server rules (p. 1164)
• Rules to connect to instances from your computer (p. 1165)
• Rules to connect to instances from an instance with the same security group (p. 1166)
• Rules for ping/ICMP (p. 1166)
• DNS server rules (p. 1166)
• Amazon EFS rules (p. 1167)
• Elastic Load Balancing rules (p. 1167)
• VPC peering rules (p. 1168)

Web server rules

The following inbound rules allow HTTP and HTTPS access from any IP address. If your VPC is enabled
for IPv6, you can add rules to control inbound HTTP and HTTPS traffic from IPv6 addresses.

Protocol type Protocol Port Source IP Notes

number

TCP 6 80 (HTTP) 0.0.0.0/0 Allows inbound HTTP access

from any IPv4 address

TCP 6 443 (HTTPS) 0.0.0.0/0 Allows inbound HTTPS access

from any IPv4 address

TCP 6 80 (HTTP) ::/0 Allows inbound HTTP access

from any IPv6 address

TCP 6 443 (HTTPS) ::/0 Allows inbound HTTPS access

from any IPv6 address

Database server rules

The following inbound rules are examples of rules you might add for database access, depending on
what type of database you're running on your instance. For more information about Amazon RDS
instances, see the Amazon RDS User Guide.

For the source IP, specify one of the following:

• A specific IP address or range of IP addresses (in CIDR block notation) in your local network
• A security group ID for a group of instances that access the database

Protocol type Protocol number Port Notes

TCP 6 1433 (MS SQL) The default port to access a Microsoft

SQL Server database, for example, on
an Amazon RDS instance

TCP 6 3306 (MYSQL/ The default port to access a MySQL or

Aurora) Aurora database, for example, on an
Amazon RDS instance

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Protocol type Protocol number Port Notes

TCP 6 5439 (Redshift) The default port to access an Amazon

Redshift cluster database.

TCP 6 5432 (PostgreSQL) The default port to access a PostgreSQL

database, for example, on an Amazon
RDS instance

TCP 6 1521 (Oracle) The default port to access an Oracle

database, for example, on an Amazon
RDS instance

You can optionally restrict outbound traffic from your database servers. For example, you might want
to allow access to the internet for software updates, but restrict all other kinds of traffic. You must first
remove the default outbound rule that allows all outbound traffic.

Protocol type Protocol Port Destination IP Notes

number

TCP 6 80 (HTTP) 0.0.0.0/0 Allows outbound HTTP access to

any IPv4 address

TCP 6 443 (HTTPS) 0.0.0.0/0 Allows outbound HTTPS access

to any IPv4 address

TCP 6 80 (HTTP) ::/0 (IPv6-enabled VPC only) Allows

outbound HTTP access to any
IPv6 address

TCP 6 443 (HTTPS) ::/0 (IPv6-enabled VPC only) Allows

outbound HTTPS access to any
IPv6 address

Rules to connect to instances from your computer

To connect to your instance, your security group must have inbound rules that allow SSH access (for
Linux instances) or RDP access (for Windows instances).

Protocol type Protocol number Port Source IP

TCP 6 22 (SSH) The public IPv4 address of your

computer, or a range of IP addresses
in your local network. If your VPC is
enabled for IPv6 and your instance has
an IPv6 address, you can enter an IPv6
address or range.

TCP 6 3389 (RDP) The public IPv4 address of your

computer, or a range of IP addresses
in your local network. If your VPC is
enabled for IPv6 and your instance has
an IPv6 address, you can enter an IPv6
address or range.

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Rules to connect to instances from an instance with the same

security group
To allow instances that are associated with the same security group to communicate with each other, you
must explicitly add rules for this.

The following table describes the inbound rule for a security group that enables associated instances to
communicate with each other. The rule allows all types of traffic.

Protocol type Protocol number Ports Source IP

-1 (All) -1 (All) -1 (All) The ID of the security group.

Rules for ping/ICMP

The ping command is a type of ICMP traffic. To ping your instance, you must add the following inbound
ICMP rule.

Protocol type Protocol ICMP type ICMP code Source IP

number

ICMP 1 8 (Echo N/A The public IPv4 address of your

Request) computer, or a range of IPv4
addresses in your local network.

To use the ping6 command to ping the IPv6 address for your instance, you must add the following
inbound ICMPv6 rule.

Protocol type Protocol ICMP type ICMP code Source IP

number

ICMPv6 58 128 (Echo 0 The IPv6 address of your

Request) computer, or a range of IPv6
addresses in your local network.

DNS server rules

If you've set up your EC2 instance as a DNS server, you must ensure that TCP and UDP traffic can reach
your DNS server over port 53.

For the source IP, specify one of the following:

• An IP address or range of IP addresses (in CIDR block notation) in a network

• The ID of a security group for the set of instances in your network that require access to the DNS
server

Protocol type Protocol number Port

TCP 6 53

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Protocol type Protocol number Port

UDP 17 53

Amazon EFS rules

If you're using an Amazon EFS file system with your Amazon EC2 instances, the security group that you
associate with your Amazon EFS mount targets must allow traffic over the NFS protocol.

Protocol Protocol Ports Source IP Notes

type number

TCP 6 2049 (NFS) The ID of the security group Allows inbound NFS
access from resources
(including the mount
target) associated with this
security group

To mount an Amazon EFS file system on your Amazon EC2 instance, you must connect to your instance.
Therefore, the security group associated with your instance must have rules that allow inbound SSH from
your local computer or local network.

Protocol Protocol Ports Source IP Notes

type number

TCP 6 22 (SSH) The IP address range of Allows inbound SSH access

your local computer, or the from your local computer.
range of IP addresses (in
CIDR block notation) for
your network.

Elastic Load Balancing rules

If you're using a load balancer, the security group associated with your load balancer must have rules
that allow communication with your instances or targets.

Inbound

Protocol type Protocol number Port Source IP Notes

TCP 6 The listener port For an Internet- Allow inbound

facing load- traffic on the load
balancer: 0.0.0.0/0 balancer listener
(all IPv4 addresses) port.

For an internal
load-balancer: the
IPv4 CIDR block of
the VPC

Outbound

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Protocol type Protocol number Port Destination IP Notes

TCP 6 The instance The ID of the Allow outbound

listener port instance security traffic to instances
group on the instance
listener port.

TCP 6 The health check The ID of the Allow outbound

port instance security traffic to instances
group on the health
check port.

The security group rules for your instances must allow the load balancer to communicate with your
instances on both the listener port and the health check port.

Inbound

Protocol type Protocol number Port Source IP Notes

TCP 6 The instance The ID of the load Allow traffic from

listener port balancer security the load balancer
group on the instance
listener port.

TCP 6 The health check The ID of the load Allow traffic from
port balancer security the load balancer
group on the health
check port.

For more information, see Configure security groups for your Classic Load Balancer in the User Guide
for Classic Load Balancers, and Security groups for your Application Load Balancer in the User Guide for
Application Load Balancers.

VPC peering rules

You can update the inbound or outbound rules for your VPC security groups to reference security groups
in the peered VPC. Doing so allows traffic to flow to and from instances that are associated with the
referenced security group in the peered VPC. For more information about how to configure security
groups for VPC peering, see Updating your security groups to reference peer VPC groups.

Configuration management in Amazon EC2

Amazon Machine Images (AMIs) provide an initial configuration for an Amazon EC2 instance, which
includes the Windows OS and optional customer-specific customizations, such as applications and
security controls. Create an AMI catalog containing customized security configuration baselines to ensure
all Windows instances are launched with standard security controls. Security baselines can be baked
into an AMI, bootstrapped dynamically when an EC2 instance is launched, or packaged as a product for
uniform distribution through AWS Service Catalog portfolios. For more information on securing an AMI,
see Best Practices for Building an AMI.

Each Amazon EC2 instance should adhere to organizational security standards. Do not install any
Windows roles and features that are not required, and do install software to protect against malicious
code (antivirus, antimalware, exploit mitigation), monitor host-integrity, and perform intrusion detection.
Configure security software to monitor and maintain OS security settings, protect the integrity of critical

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OS files, and alert on deviations from the security baseline. Consider implementing recommended
security configuration benchmarks published by Microsoft, the Center for Internet Security (CIS), or
the National Institute of Standards and Technology (NIST). Consider using other Microsoft tools for
particular application servers, such as the Best Practice Analyzer for SQL Server.

AWS customers can also run Amazon Inspector assessments to improve the security and compliance of
applications deployed on Amazon EC2 instances. Amazon Inspector automatically assesses applications
for vulnerabilities or deviations from best practices and includes a knowledge base of hundreds of rules
mapped to common security compliance standards (for example, PCI DSS) and vulnerability definitions.
Examples of built-in rules include checking if remote root login is enabled, or if vulnerable software
versions are installed. These rules are regularly updated by AWS security researchers.

Update management in Amazon EC2

We recommend that you regularly patch, update, and secure the operating system and applications
on your EC2 instances. You can use AWS Systems Manager Patch Manager to automate the process of
installing security-related updates for both the operating system and applications. Alternatively, you can
use any automatic update services or recommended processes for installing updates that are provided by
the application vendor.

You should configure Windows Update on your Amazon EC2 instances running Windows Server. By
default, you will not receive Windows updates on AWS-provided AMIs. For a list of the latest Amazon EC2
AMIs running Windows Server, see Details About AWS Windows AMI Versions.

Change management in Amazon EC2

After initial security baselines are applied to Amazon EC2 instances at launch, control ongoing Amazon
EC2 changes to maintain the security of your virtual machines. Establish a change management process
to authorize and incorporate changes to AWS resources (such as security groups, route tables, and
network ACLs) as well as to OS and application configurations (such as Windows or application patching,
software upgrades, or configuration file updates).

AWS provides several tools to help manage changes to AWS resources, including AWS CloudTrail, AWS
Config, AWS CloudFormation, and AWS Elastic Beanstalk, AWS OpsWorks, and management packs for
Systems Center Operations Manager and System Center Virtual Machine Manager. Note that Microsoft
releases Windows patches every Tuesday (sometimes even daily) and AWS updates all AWS-managed
Windows AMIs within five days after Microsoft releases a patch. Therefore it is important to continually
patch all baseline AMIs, update AWS CloudFormation templates and Auto Scaling group configurations
with the latest AMI IDs, and implement tools to automate running instance patch management.

Microsoft provides several options for managing Windows OS and application changes. SCCM, for
example, provides full lifecycle coverage of environment modifications. Select tools that address
business requirements and control how changes will affect application SLAs, capacity, security, and
disaster recovery procedures. Avoid manual changes and instead leverage automated configuration
management software or command line tools such as the EC2 Run Command or Windows PowerShell to
implement scripted, repeatable change processes. To assist with this requirement, use bastion hosts with
enhanced logging for all interactions with your Windows instances to ensure that all events and tasks are
automatically recorded.

Compliance validation for Amazon EC2

Third-party auditors assess the security and compliance of AWS services as part of multiple AWS
compliance programs, such as SOC, PCI, FedRAMP, and HIPAA.

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To learn whether Amazon Elastic Compute Cloud or other AWS services are in scope of specific
compliance programs, see AWS Services in Scope by Compliance Program. For general information, see
AWS Compliance Programs.

You can download third-party audit reports using AWS Artifact. For more information, see Downloading
Reports in AWS Artifact.

Your compliance responsibility when using AWS services is determined by the sensitivity of your data,
your company's compliance objectives, and applicable laws and regulations. AWS provides the following
resources to help with compliance:

• Security and Compliance Quick Start Guides – These deployment guides discuss architectural
considerations and provide steps for deploying baseline environments on AWS that are security and
compliance focused.
• Architecting for HIPAA Security and Compliance Whitepaper – This whitepaper describes how
companies can use AWS to create HIPAA-compliant applications.
Note
Not all services are compliant with HIPAA.
• AWS Compliance Resources – This collection of workbooks and guides might apply to your industry
and location.
• Evaluating Resources with Rules in the AWS Config Developer Guide – The AWS Config service assesses
how well your resource configurations comply with internal practices, industry guidelines, and
regulations.
• AWS Security Hub – This AWS service provides a comprehensive view of your security state within AWS
that helps you check your compliance with security industry standards and best practices.
• AWS Audit Manager – This AWS service helps you continuously audit your AWS usage to simplify how
you manage risk and compliance with regulations and industry standards.

Amazon EC2 provides Amazon Machine Images (AMI) for Microsoft Windows Server to help you meet
the compliance standards of the Security Technical Implementation Guide (STIG). These AMIs are pre-
configured with a number of STIG standards to help you get started with your deployments while
meeting STIG compliance standards. For more information, see Amazon EC2 Windows Server AMIs for
STIG compliance (p. 54).

Audit and accountability in Amazon EC2

AWS CloudTrail, AWS Config, and AWS Config Rules provide audit and change tracking features for
auditing AWS resource changes. Configure Windows event logs to send local log files to a centralized
log management system to preserve log data for security and operational behavior analysis. Microsoft
System Center Operations Manager (SCOM) aggregates information about Microsoft applications
deployed to Windows instances and applies preconfigured and custom rulesets based on application
roles and services. System Center Management Packs build on SCOM to provide application-specific
monitoring and configuration guidance. These Management Packs support Windows Server Active
Directory, SharePoint Server 2013, Exchange Server 2013, Lync Server 2013, SQL Server 2014, and many
more servers and technologies. The AWS Management Pack for Microsoft System Center Operations
Manager (SCOM) and the Systems Manager for Microsoft System Center Virtual Machine Manager
(SCVMM) integrate with Microsoft Systems Center to help you monitor and manage your on-premises
and AWS environments together.

In addition to Microsoft systems management tools, customers can use Amazon CloudWatch to monitor
instance CPU utilization, disk performance, network I/O, and perform host and instance status checks.
The EC2Config and EC2Launch services provide access to additional, advanced features for Windows
instances. For example, they can export Windows system, security, application, and Internet Information

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Services (IIS) logs to CloudWatch Logs which can then be integrated with Amazon CloudWatch metrics
and alarms. Customers can also create scripts that export Windows performance counters to Amazon
CloudWatch custom metrics.

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Storage
Amazon EC2 provides you with flexible, cost effective, and easy-to-use data storage options for your
instances. Each option has a unique combination of performance and durability. These storage options
can be used independently or in combination to suit your requirements.

After reading this section, you should have a good understanding about how you can use the data
storage options supported by Amazon EC2 to meet your specific requirements. These storage options
include the following:

• Amazon Elastic Block Store (p. 1173)

• Amazon EC2 instance store (p. 1405)
• Use Amazon S3 with Amazon EC2 (p. 1418)

The following figure shows the relationship between these storage options and your instance.

Amazon EBS

Amazon EBS provides durable, block-level storage volumes that you can attach to a running instance.
You can use Amazon EBS as a primary storage device for data that requires frequent and granular
updates. For example, Amazon EBS is the recommended storage option when you run a database on an
instance.

An EBS volume behaves like a raw, unformatted, external block device that you can attach to a single
instance. The volume persists independently from the running life of an instance. After an EBS volume
is attached to an instance, you can use it like any other physical hard drive. As illustrated in the previous
figure, multiple volumes can be attached to an instance. You can also detach an EBS volume from one
instance and attach it to another instance. You can dynamically change the configuration of a volume
attached to an instance. EBS volumes can also be created as encrypted volumes using the Amazon EBS
encryption feature. For more information, see Amazon EBS encryption (p. 1340).

To keep a backup copy of your data, you can create a snapshot of an EBS volume, which is stored in
Amazon S3. You can create an EBS volume from a snapshot, and attach it to another instance. For more
information, see Amazon Elastic Block Store (p. 1173).

Amazon EC2 instance store

Many instances can access storage from disks that are physically attached to the host computer. This
disk storage is referred to as instance store. Instance store provides temporary block-level storage for

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instances. The data on an instance store volume persists only during the life of the associated instance;
if you stop, hibernate, or terminate an instance, any data on instance store volumes is lost. For more
information, see Amazon EC2 instance store (p. 1405).

Amazon S3

Amazon S3 provides access to reliable and inexpensive data storage infrastructure. It is designed to
make web-scale computing easier by enabling you to store and retrieve any amount of data, at any time,
from within Amazon EC2 or anywhere on the web. For example, you can use Amazon S3 to store backup
copies of your data and applications. Amazon EC2 uses Amazon S3 to store EBS snapshots and instance
store-backed AMIs. For more information, see Use Amazon S3 with Amazon EC2 (p. 1418).

Adding storage

Every time you launch an instance from an AMI, a root storage device is created for that instance. The
root storage device contains all the information necessary to boot the instance. You can specify storage
volumes in addition to the root device volume when you create an AMI or launch an instance using block
device mapping. For more information, see Block device mappings (p. 1426).

You can also attach EBS volumes to a running instance. For more information, see Attach an Amazon EBS
volume to an instance (p. 1199).

Storage pricing

For information about storage pricing, open AWS Pricing, scroll down to Services Pricing, choose
Storage, and then choose the storage option to open that storage option's pricing page. For information
about estimating the cost of storage, see the AWS Pricing Calculator.

Amazon Elastic Block Store (Amazon EBS)

Amazon Elastic Block Store (Amazon EBS) provides block level storage volumes for use with EC2
instances. EBS volumes behave like raw, unformatted block devices. You can mount these volumes
as devices on your instances. EBS volumes that are attached to an instance are exposed as storage
volumes that persist independently from the life of the instance. You can create a file system on top
of these volumes, or use them in any way you would use a block device (such as a hard drive). You can
dynamically change the configuration of a volume attached to an instance.

We recommend Amazon EBS for data that must be quickly accessible and requires long-term persistence.
EBS volumes are particularly well-suited for use as the primary storage for file systems, databases, or for
any applications that require fine granular updates and access to raw, unformatted, block-level storage.
Amazon EBS is well suited to both database-style applications that rely on random reads and writes, and
to throughput-intensive applications that perform long, continuous reads and writes.

With Amazon EBS, you pay only for what you use. For more information about Amazon EBS pricing, see
the Projecting Costs section of the Amazon Elastic Block Store page.

Contents
• Features of Amazon EBS (p. 1174)
• Amazon EBS volumes (p. 1174)
• Amazon EBS snapshots (p. 1220)
• Amazon Data Lifecycle Manager (p. 1285)
• Amazon EBS data services (p. 1328)
• Amazon EBS and NVMe on Windows instances (p. 1355)
• Amazon EBS–optimized instances (p. 1357)

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Features of Amazon EBS

• Amazon EBS volume performance on Windows instances (p. 1374)

• Amazon CloudWatch metrics for Amazon EBS (p. 1388)
• Amazon CloudWatch Events for Amazon EBS (p. 1394)
• Amazon EBS quotas (p. 1405)

Features of Amazon EBS

• You create an EBS volume in a specific Availability Zone, and then attach it to an instance in that
same Availability Zone. To make a volume available outside of the Availability Zone, you can create a
snapshot and restore that snapshot to a new volume anywhere in that Region. You can copy snapshots
to other Regions and then restore them to new volumes there, making it easier to leverage multiple
AWS Regions for geographical expansion, data center migration, and disaster recovery.
• Amazon EBS provides the following volume types: General Purpose SSD, Provisioned IOPS SSD,
Throughput Optimized HDD, and Cold HDD. For more information, see EBS volume types (p. 1177).

The following is a summary of performance and use cases for each volume type.
• General Purpose SSD volumes (gp2 and gp3) balance price and performance for a wide variety of
transactional workloads. These volumes are ideal for use cases such as boot volumes, medium-size
single instance databases, and development and test environments.
• Provisioned IOPS SSD volumes (io1 and io2) are designed to meet the needs of I/O-intensive
workloads that are sensitive to storage performance and consistency. They provide a consistent
IOPS rate that you specify when you create the volume. This enables you to predictably scale to tens
of thousands of IOPS per instance. Additionally, io2 volumes provide the highest levels of volume
durability.
• Throughput Optimized HDD volumes (st1) provide low-cost magnetic storage that defines
performance in terms of throughput rather than IOPS. These volumes are ideal for large, sequential
workloads such as Amazon EMR, ETL, data warehouses, and log processing.
• Cold HDD volumes (sc1) provide low-cost magnetic storage that defines performance in terms of
throughput rather than IOPS. These volumes are ideal for large, sequential, cold-data workloads.
If you require infrequent access to your data and are looking to save costs, these volumes provides
inexpensive block storage.
• You can create your EBS volumes as encrypted volumes, in order to meet a wide range of data-at-rest
encryption requirements for regulated/audited data and applications. When you create an encrypted
EBS volume and attach it to a supported instance type, data stored at rest on the volume, disk I/O, and
snapshots created from the volume are all encrypted. The encryption occurs on the servers that host
EC2 instances, providing encryption of data-in-transit from EC2 instances to EBS storage. For more
information, see Amazon EBS encryption (p. 1340).
• You can create point-in-time snapshots of EBS volumes, which are persisted to Amazon S3. Snapshots
protect data for long-term durability, and they can be used as the starting point for new EBS volumes.
The same snapshot can be used to instantiate as many volumes as you wish. These snapshots can be
copied across AWS Regions. For more information, see Amazon EBS snapshots (p. 1220).
• Performance metrics, such as bandwidth, throughput, latency, and average queue length, are available
through the AWS Management Console. These metrics, provided by Amazon CloudWatch, allow you to
monitor the performance of your volumes to make sure that you are providing enough performance
for your applications without paying for resources you don't need. For more information, see Amazon
EBS volume performance on Windows instances (p. 1374).

Amazon EBS volumes

An Amazon EBS volume is a durable, block-level storage device that you can attach to your instances.
After you attach a volume to an instance, you can use it as you would use a physical hard drive. EBS

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volumes are flexible. For current-generation volumes attached to current-generation instance types, you
can dynamically increase size, modify the provisioned IOPS capacity, and change volume type on live
production volumes.

You can use EBS volumes as primary storage for data that requires frequent updates, such as the system
drive for an instance or storage for a database application. You can also use them for throughput-
intensive applications that perform continuous disk scans. EBS volumes persist independently from the
running life of an EC2 instance.

You can attach multiple EBS volumes to a single instance. The volume and instance must be in the same
Availability Zone.

Amazon EBS provides the following volume types: General Purpose SSD (gp2 and gp3), Provisioned IOPS
SSD (io1 and io2), Throughput Optimized HDD (st1), Cold HDD (sc1), and Magnetic (standard). They
differ in performance characteristics and price, allowing you to tailor your storage performance and cost
to the needs of your applications. For more information, see Amazon EBS volume types (p. 1177).

Your account has a limit on the number of EBS volumes that you can use, and the total storage available
to you. For more information about these limits, and how to request an increase in your limits, see
Amazon EC2 service quotas (p. 1475).

For more information about pricing, see Amazon EBS Pricing.

Contents
• Benefits of using EBS volumes (p. 1175)
• Amazon EBS volume types (p. 1177)
• Constraints on the size and configuration of an EBS volume (p. 1193)
• Create an Amazon EBS volume (p. 1196)
• Attach an Amazon EBS volume to an instance (p. 1199)
• Make an Amazon EBS volume available for use on Windows (p. 1200)
• View information about an Amazon EBS volume (p. 1204)
• Replace an Amazon EBS volume (p. 1206)
• Monitor the status of your volumes (p. 1210)
• Detach an Amazon EBS volume from a Windows instance (p. 1217)
• Delete an Amazon EBS volume (p. 1219)

Benefits of using EBS volumes

EBS volumes provide benefits that are not provided by instance store volumes.

Data availability
When you create an EBS volume, it is automatically replicated within its Availability Zone to prevent data
loss due to failure of any single hardware component. You can attach an EBS volume to any EC2 instance
in the same Availability Zone. After you attach a volume, it appears as a native block device similar to
a hard drive or other physical device. At that point, the instance can interact with the volume just as it
would with a local drive. You can connect to the instance and format the EBS volume with a file system,
such as NTFS, and then install applications.

If you attach multiple volumes to a device that you have named, you can stripe data across the volumes
for increased I/O and throughput performance.

You can get monitoring data for your EBS volumes, including root device volumes for EBS-backed
instances, at no additional charge. For more information about monitoring metrics, see Amazon

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CloudWatch metrics for Amazon EBS (p. 1388). For information about tracking the status of your
volumes, see Amazon CloudWatch Events for Amazon EBS (p. 1394).

Data persistence
An EBS volume is off-instance storage that can persist independently from the life of an instance. You
continue to pay for the volume usage as long as the data persists.

EBS volumes that are attached to a running instance can automatically detach from the instance with
their data intact when the instance is terminated if you uncheck the Delete on Termination check
box when you configure EBS volumes for your instance on the EC2 console. The volume can then be
reattached to a new instance, enabling quick recovery. If the check box for Delete on Termination
is checked, the volume(s) will delete upon termination of the EC2 instance. If you are using an EBS-
backed instance, you can stop and restart that instance without affecting the data stored in the attached
volume. The volume remains attached throughout the stop-start cycle. This enables you to process
and store the data on your volume indefinitely, only using the processing and storage resources when
required. The data persists on the volume until the volume is deleted explicitly. The physical block
storage used by deleted EBS volumes is overwritten with zeroes before it is allocated to another account.
If you are dealing with sensitive data, you should consider encrypting your data manually or storing
the data on a volume protected by Amazon EBS encryption. For more information, see Amazon EBS
encryption (p. 1340).

By default, the root EBS volume that is created and attached to an instance at launch is deleted
when that instance is terminated. You can modify this behavior by changing the value of the flag
DeleteOnTermination to false when you launch the instance. This modified value causes the
volume to persist even after the instance is terminated, and enables you to attach the volume to another
instance.

By default, additional EBS volumes that are created and attached to an instance at launch are not
deleted when that instance is terminated. You can modify this behavior by changing the value of the flag
DeleteOnTermination to true when you launch the instance. This modified value causes the volumes
to be deleted when the instance is terminated.

Data encryption
For simplified data encryption, you can create encrypted EBS volumes with the Amazon EBS encryption
feature. All EBS volume types support encryption. You can use encrypted EBS volumes to meet a wide
range of data-at-rest encryption requirements for regulated/audited data and applications. Amazon EBS
encryption uses 256-bit Advanced Encryption Standard algorithms (AES-256) and an Amazon-managed
key infrastructure. The encryption occurs on the server that hosts the EC2 instance, providing encryption
of data-in-transit from the EC2 instance to Amazon EBS storage. For more information, see Amazon EBS
encryption (p. 1340).

Amazon EBS encryption uses AWS Key Management Service (AWS KMS) master keys when creating
encrypted volumes and any snapshots created from your encrypted volumes. The first time you create
an encrypted EBS volume in a region, a default master key is created for you automatically. This key
is used for Amazon EBS encryption unless you select a customer master key (CMK) that you created
separately using AWS KMS. Creating your own CMK gives you more flexibility, including the ability to
create, rotate, disable, define access controls, and audit the encryption keys used to protect your data.
For more information, see the AWS Key Management Service Developer Guide.

Snapshots
Amazon EBS provides the ability to create snapshots (backups) of any EBS volume and write a copy of
the data in the volume to Amazon S3, where it is stored redundantly in multiple Availability Zones. The
volume does not need to be attached to a running instance in order to take a snapshot. As you continue
to write data to a volume, you can periodically create a snapshot of the volume to use as a baseline for

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new volumes. These snapshots can be used to create multiple new EBS volumes or move volumes across
Availability Zones. Snapshots of encrypted EBS volumes are automatically encrypted.

When you create a new volume from a snapshot, it's an exact copy of the original volume at the time
the snapshot was taken. EBS volumes that are created from encrypted snapshots are automatically
encrypted. By optionally specifying a different Availability Zone, you can use this functionality to create a
duplicate volume in that zone. The snapshots can be shared with specific AWS accounts or made public.
When you create snapshots, you incur charges in Amazon S3 based on the volume's total size. For a
successive snapshot of the volume, you are only charged for any additional data beyond the volume's
original size.

Snapshots are incremental backups, meaning that only the blocks on the volume that have changed
after your most recent snapshot are saved. If you have a volume with 100 GiB of data, but only 5 GiB of
data have changed since your last snapshot, only the 5 GiB of modified data is written to Amazon S3.
Even though snapshots are saved incrementally, the snapshot deletion process is designed so that you
need to retain only the most recent snapshot.

To help categorize and manage your volumes and snapshots, you can tag them with metadata of your
choice. For more information, see Tag your Amazon EC2 resources (p. 1463).

To back up your volumes automatically, you can use Amazon Data Lifecycle Manager (p. 1285) or AWS
Backup.

Flexibility
EBS volumes support live configuration changes while in production. You can modify volume type,
volume size, and IOPS capacity without service interruptions. For more information, see Amazon EBS
Elastic Volumes (p. 1328).

Amazon EBS volume types

Amazon EBS provides the following volume types, which differ in performance characteristics and price,
so that you can tailor your storage performance and cost to the needs of your applications. The volumes
types fall into these categories:

• Solid state drives (SSD) (p. 1177) — Optimized for transactional workloads involving frequent read/
write operations with small I/O size, where the dominant performance attribute is IOPS.
• Hard disk drives (HDD) (p. 1179) — Optimized for large streaming workloads where the dominant
performance attribute is throughput.
• Previous generation (p. 1179) — Hard disk drives that can be used for workloads with small datasets
where data is accessed infrequently and performance is not of primary importance. We recommend
that you consider a current generation volume type instead.

There are several factors that can affect the performance of EBS volumes, such as instance configuration,
I/O characteristics, and workload demand. To fully use the IOPS provisioned on an EBS volume, use EBS-
optimized instances (p. 1357). For more information about getting the most out of your EBS volumes,
see Amazon EBS volume performance on Windows instances (p. 1374).

For more information about pricing, see Amazon EBS Pricing.

Solid state drives (SSD)

The SSD-backed volumes provided by Amazon EBS fall into these categories:

• General Purpose SSD — Provides a balance of price and performance. We recommend these volumes
for most workloads.

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• Provisioned IOPS SSD — Provides high performance for mission-critical, low-latency, or high-
throughput workloads.

The following is a summary of the use cases and characteristics of SSD-backed volumes. For information
about the maximum IOPS and throughput per instance, see Amazon EBS–optimized instances (p. 1357).

  General Purpose SSD Provisioned IOPS SSD

Volume gp3 gp2 io2 Block io2      io1

type Express ‡

Durability99.8% - 99.9% 99.8% - 99.9% 99.999% 99.999% 99.8% - 99.9%

durability (0.1% durability (0.1% durability durability durability (0.1%
- 0.2% annual - 0.2% annual (0.001% annual (0.001% annual - 0.2% annual
failure rate) failure rate) failure rate) failure rate) failure rate)

Use • Low-latency interactive apps Workloads that • Workloads that require sustained
cases • Development and test require: IOPS performance or more than
environments 16,000 IOPS
• Sub-
• I/O-intensive database workloads
millisecond
latency
• Sustained
IOPS
performance
• More than
64,000 IOPS
or 1,000 MiB/s
of throughput

Volume 1 GiB - 16 TiB 4 GiB - 64 TiB 4 GiB - 16 TiB

size

Max 16,000 256,000 64,000 †

IOPS
per
volume
(16 KiB
I/O)

Max 1,000 MiB/s 250 MiB/s * 4,000 MiB/s 1,000 MiB/s †

throughput
per
volume

Amazon Not supported Supported

EBS
Multi-
attach

Boot Supported
volume

* The throughput limit is between 128 MiB/s and 250 MiB/s, depending on the volume size. Volumes
smaller than or equal to 170 GiB deliver a maximum throughput of 128 MiB/s. Volumes larger than 170
GiB but smaller than 334 GiB deliver a maximum throughput of 250 MiB/s if burst credits are available.

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Volumes larger than or equal to 334 GiB deliver 250 MiB/s regardless of burst credits. gp2 volumes that
were created before December 3, 2018 and that have not been modified since creation might not reach
full performance unless you modify the volume (p. 1328).

† Maximum IOPS and throughput are guaranteed only on Instances built on the Nitro System (p. 147)
provisioned with more than 32,000 IOPS. Other instances guarantee up to 32,000 IOPS and 500 MiB/s.
io1 volumes that were created before December 6, 2017 and that have not been modified since creation
might not reach full performance unless you modify the volume (p. 1328).

‡ io2 Block Express volumes are supported with R5b instances only. io2 volumes attached to an R5b
instance during or after launch automatically run on Block Express. For more information, see io2 Block
Express volumes (p. 1185).

Hard disk drives (HDD)

The HDD-backed volumes provided by Amazon EBS fall into these categories:

• Throughput Optimized HDD — A low-cost HDD designed for frequently accessed, throughput-
intensive workloads.
• Cold HDD — The lowest-cost HDD design for less frequently accessed workloads.

The following is a summary of the use cases and characteristics of HDD-backed volumes. For information
about the maximum IOPS and throughput per instance, see Amazon EBS–optimized instances (p. 1357).

  Throughput Optimized HDD Cold HDD

Volume type st1 sc1

Durability 99.8% - 99.9% durability (0.1% - 0.2% 99.8% - 99.9% durability (0.1% - 0.2%
annual failure rate) annual failure rate)

Use cases • Big data • Throughput-oriented storage for

• Data warehouses data that is infrequently accessed
• Log processing • Scenarios where the lowest storage
cost is important

Volume size 125 GiB - 16 TiB 125 GiB - 16 TiB

Max IOPS per 500 250

volume (1 MiB I/
O)

Max throughput 500 MiB/s 250 MiB/s

per volume

Amazon EBS Not supported Not supported

Multi-attach

Boot volume Not supported Not supported

Previous generation volume types

The following table describes previous-generation EBS volume types. If you need higher performance
or performance consistency than previous-generation volumes can provide, we recommend that you
consider using General Purpose SSD (gp2 and gp3) or other current volume types. For more information,
see Previous Generation Volumes.

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  Magnetic

Volume type standard

Use cases Workloads where data is infrequently accessed

Volume size 1 GiB-1 TiB

Max IOPS per volume 40–200

Max throughput per volume 40–90 MiB/s

Boot volume Supported

General Purpose SSD volumes (gp3)

General Purpose SSD (gp3) volumes offer cost-effective storage that is ideal for a broad range of
workloads. These volumes deliver a consistent baseline rate of 3,000 IOPS and 125 MiB/s, included with
the price of storage. You can provision additional IOPS (up to 16,000) and throughput (up to 1,000 MiB/
s) for an additional cost.

The maximum ratio of provisioned IOPS to provisioned volume size is 500 IOPS per GiB. The maximum
ratio of provisioned throughput to provisioned IOPS is .25 MiB/s per IOPS. The following volume
configurations support provisioning either maximum IOPS or maximum throughput:

• 32 GiB or larger: 500 IOPS/GiB x 32 GiB = 16,000 IOPS

• 8 GiB or larger and 4,000 IOPS or higher: 4,000 IOPS x 0.25 MiB/s/IOPS = 1,000 MiB/s

General Purpose SSD volumes (gp2)

General Purpose SSD (gp2) volumes offer cost-effective storage that is ideal for a broad range of
workloads. These volumes deliver single-digit millisecond latencies and the ability to burst to 3,000
IOPS for extended periods of time. Between a minimum of 100 IOPS (at 33.33 GiB and below) and a
maximum of 16,000 IOPS (at 5,334 GiB and above), baseline performance scales linearly at 3 IOPS per
GiB of volume size. AWS designs gp2 volumes to deliver their provisioned performance 99% of the time.
A gp2 volume can range in size from 1 GiB to 16 TiB.

I/O Credits and burst performance

The performance of gp2 volumes is tied to volume size, which determines the baseline performance
level of the volume and how quickly it accumulates I/O credits; larger volumes have higher baseline
performance levels and accumulate I/O credits faster. I/O credits represent the available bandwidth
that your gp2 volume can use to burst large amounts of I/O when more than the baseline performance
is needed. The more credits your volume has for I/O, the more time it can burst beyond its baseline
performance level and the better it performs when more performance is needed. The following diagram
shows the burst-bucket behavior for gp2.

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Each volume receives an initial I/O credit balance of 5.4 million I/O credits, which is enough to sustain
the maximum burst performance of 3,000 IOPS for at least 30 minutes. This initial credit balance is
designed to provide a fast initial boot cycle for boot volumes and to provide a good bootstrapping
experience for other applications. Volumes earn I/O credits at the baseline performance rate of 3 IOPS
per GiB of volume size. For example, a 100 GiB gp2 volume has a baseline performance of 300 IOPS.

When your volume requires more than the baseline performance I/O level, it draws on I/O credits in the
credit balance to burst to the required performance level, up to a maximum of 3,000 IOPS. When your
volume uses fewer I/O credits than it earns in a second, unused I/O credits are added to the I/O credit
balance. The maximum I/O credit balance for a volume is equal to the initial credit balance (5.4 million I/
O credits).

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When the baseline performance of a volume is higher than maximum burst performance, I/O credits are
never spent. If the volume is attached to an instance built on the Nitro System (p. 147), the burst balance
is not reported. For other instances, the reported burst balance is 100%.

The burst duration of a volume is dependent on the size of the volume, the burst IOPS required, and the
credit balance when the burst begins. This is shown in the following equation:

(Credit balance)
Burst duration = ------------------------------------
(Burst IOPS) - 3(Volume size in GiB)

The following table lists several volume sizes and the associated baseline performance of the volume
(which is also the rate at which it accumulates I/O credits), the burst duration at the 3,000 IOPS
maximum (when starting with a full credit balance), and the time in seconds that the volume would take
to refill an empty credit balance.

Volume size (GiB) Baseline performance Burst duration when Seconds to fill empty
(IOPS) driving sustained credit balance when
3,000 IOPS (second) driving no IO

1 100 1,802 54,000

100 300 2,000 18,000

250 750 2,400 7,200

334 (Min. size for max 1,002 2,703 5,389

throughput)

500 1,500 3,600 3,600

750 2,250 7,200 2,400

1,000 3,000 N/A* N/A*

5,334 (Min. size for max 16,000 N/A* N/A*

IOPS)

16,384 (16 TiB, max 16,000 N/A* N/A*

volume size)

* The baseline performance of the volume exceeds the maximum burst performance.

What happens if I empty my I/O credit balance?

If your gp2 volume uses all of its I/O credit balance, the maximum IOPS performance of the volume
remains at the baseline IOPS performance level (the rate at which your volume earns credits) and the
volume's maximum throughput is reduced to the baseline IOPS multiplied by the maximum I/O size.
Throughput can never exceed 250 MiB/s. When I/O demand drops below the baseline level and unused
credits are added to the I/O credit balance, the maximum IOPS performance of the volume again
exceeds the baseline. For example, a 100 GiB gp2 volume with an empty credit balance has a baseline
performance of 300 IOPS and a throughput limit of 75 MiB/s (300 I/O operations per second * 256 KiB
per I/O operation = 75 MiB/s). The larger a volume is, the greater the baseline performance is and the
faster it replenishes the credit balance. For more information about how IOPS are measured, see I/O
characteristics and monitoring (p. 1376).

If you notice that your volume performance is frequently limited to the baseline level (due to an empty I/
O credit balance), you should consider switching to a gp3 volume.

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For information about using CloudWatch metrics and alarms to monitor your burst bucket balance, see
Monitor the burst bucket balance for volumes (p. 1193).

Throughput performance

Throughput for a gp2 volume can be calculated using the following formula, up to the throughput limit
of 250 MiB/s:

Throughput in MiB/s = ((Volume size in GiB) × (IOPS per GiB) × (I/O size in KiB))

Assuming V = volume size, I = I/O size, R = I/O rate, and T = throughput, this can be simplified to:

T = VIR

The smallest volume size that achieves the maximum throughput is given by:

T
V = -----
I R

250 MiB/s
= ---------------------
(256 KiB)(3 IOPS/GiB)

[(250)(2^20)(Bytes)]/s
= ------------------------------------------
(256)(2^10)(Bytes)([3 IOP/s]/[(2^30)(Bytes)])

(250)(2^20)(2^30)(Bytes)
= ------------------------
(256)(2^10)(3)

= 357,913,941,333 Bytes

= 333# GiB (334 GiB in practice because volumes are provisioned in whole gibibytes)

Provisioned IOPS SSD volumes

Provisioned IOPS SSD (io1 and io2) volumes are designed to meet the needs of I/O-intensive
workloads, particularly database workloads, that are sensitive to storage performance and consistency.
Provisioned IOPS SSD volumes use a consistent IOPS rate, which you specify when you create the
volume, and Amazon EBS delivers the provisioned performance 99.9 percent of the time.

io1 volumes are designed to provide 99.8 to 99.9 percent volume durability with an annual failure
rate (AFR) no higher than 0.2 percent, which translates to a maximum of twovolume failures per 1,000
running volumes over a one-year period. io2 volumes are designed to provide 99.999 percent volume
durability with an AFR no higher than 0.001 percent, which translates to a single volume failure per
100,000 running volumes over a one-year period.

Provisioned IOPS SSD io1 and io2 volumes are available for all Amazon EC2 instance types. Provisioned
IOPS SSD io2 volumes attached to R5b instances run on EBS Block Express. For more information, see
io2 Block Express volumes.

Considerations for io2 volumes

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• Keep the following in mind when launching instances with io2 volumes:
• If you launch an R5b instance with an io2 volume, the volume automatically runs on Block
Express (p. 1185), regardless of the volume’s size and IOPS.
• You can't launch an instance type that does not support Block Express (p. 1185) with an io2 volume
that has a size greater than 16 TiB or IOPS greater than 64,000.
• You can't launch an R5b instance with an encrypted io2 volume that has a size greater than 16 TiB
or IOPS greater than 64,000 from an unencrypted AMI or a shared encrypted AMI. In this case, you
must first create an encrypted AMI in your account and then use that AMI to launch the instance.
• Keep the following in mind when creating io2 volumes:
• If you create an io2 volume with a size greater than 16 TiB or IOPS greater than 64,000 in a Region
where Block Express (p. 1185) is supported, the volume automatically runs on Block Express.
• You can't create an io2 volume with a size greater than 16 TiB or IOPS greater than 64,000 in a
Region where Block Express (p. 1185) is not supported.
• If you create an io2 volume with a size of 16 TiB or less and IOPS of 64,000 or less in a Region
where Block Express (p. 1185) is supported, the volume does not run on Block Express.
• You can't create an encrypted io2 volume that has a size greater than 16 TiB or IOPS greater than
64,000 from an unencrypted snapshot or a shared encrypted snapshot. In this case, you must first
create an encrypted snapshot in your account and then use that snapshot to create the volume.
• Keep the following in mind when attaching io2 volumes to instances:
• If you attach an io2 volume to an R5b instance, the volume automatically runs on Block
Express (p. 1185). It can take up to 48 hours to optimize the volume for Block Express. During this
time, the volume provides io2 latency. After the volume has been optimized, it provides the sub-
millisecond latency supported by Block Express.
• You can't attach an io2 volume with a size greater than 16 TiB or IOPS greater than 64,000 to an
instance type that does not support Block Express (p. 1185).
• If you detach an io2 volume with a size of 16 TiB or less and IOPS of 64,000 or less from an R5b
instance and attach it to an instance type that does not support Block Express (p. 1185), the volume
no longer runs on Block Express and it provides io2 latency.
• Keep the following in mind when modifying io2 volumes:
• You can't modify an io2 volume and increase its size beyond 16 TiB or its IOPS beyond 64,000 while
it is attached to an instance type that does not support Block Express (p. 1185).
• You can't modify the size or provisioned IOPS of an io2 volume that is attached to an R5b instance.

Performance

Provisioned IOPS SSD volumes can range in size from 4 GiB to 16 TiB and you can provision from 100
IOPS up to 64,000 IOPS per volume. You can achieve up to 64,000 IOPS only on Instances built on the
Nitro System (p. 147). On other instance families you can achieve performance up to 32,000 IOPS. The
maximum ratio of provisioned IOPS to requested volume size (in GiB) is 50:1 for io1 volumes, and 500:1
for io2 volumes. For example, a 100 GiB io1 volume can be provisioned with up to 5,000 IOPS, while
a 100 GiB io2 volume can be provisioned with up to 50,000 IOPS. On a supported instance type, the
following volume sizes allow provisioning up to the 64,000 IOPS maximum:

• io1 volume 1,280 GiB in size or greater (50 × 1,280 GiB = 64,000 IOPS)
• io2 volume 128 GiB in size or greater (500 × 128 GiB = 64,000 IOPS)

Provisioned IOPS SSD volumes provisioned with up to 32,000 IOPS support a maximum I/O size of 256
KiB and yield as much as 500 MiB/s of throughput. With the I/O size at the maximum, peak throughput
is reached at 2,000 IOPS. Volumes provisioned with more than 32,000 IOPS (up to the maximum
of 64,000 IOPS) yield a linear increase in throughput at a rate of 16 KiB per provisioned IOPS. For
example, a volume provisioned with 48,000 IOPS can support up to 750 MiB/s of throughput (16 KiB
per provisioned IOPS x 48,000 provisioned IOPS = 750 MiB/s). To achieve the maximum throughput of

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1,000 MiB/s, a volume must be provisioned with 64,000 IOPS (16 KiB per provisioned IOPS x 64,000
provisioned IOPS = 1,000 MiB/s). The following graph illustrates these performance characteristics:

Your per-I/O latency experience depends on the provisioned IOPS and on your workload profile. For the
best I/O latency experience, ensure that you provision IOPS to meet the I/O profile of your workload.

io2 Block Express volumes

Note
io2 Block Express volumes are supported with R5b instances only.

io2 Block Express volumes is the next generation of Amazon EBS storage server architecture. It has been
built for the purpose of meeting the performance requirements of the most demanding I/O intensive
applications that run on Nitro-based Amazon EC2 instances.

Block Express architecture increases performance and scale. Block Express servers communicate with
Nitro-based instances using the Scalable Reliable Datagram (SRD) networking protocol. This interface
is implemented in the Nitro Card dedicated for Amazon EBS I/O function on the host hardware of the
instance. It minimizes I/O delay and latency variation (network jitter), which provides faster and more
consistent performance for your applications. For more information, see io2 Block Express volumes.

io2 Block Express volumes are suited for workloads that benefit from a single volume that provides sub-
millisecond latency, and supports higher IOPS, higher throughput, and larger capacity than io2 volumes.

io2 Block Express volumes support the same features as io2 volumes, including Multi-Attach, Elastic
Volume operations, and encryption.

Topics
• Considerations (p. 1185)
• Performance (p. 1186)
• Quotas (p. 1186)
• Pricing and billing (p. 1186)

Considerations

• io2 Block Express volumes are currently supported with R5b instances only.
• io2 Block Express volumes are currently available in all Regions where R5b instances are available,
including us-east-1, us-east-2, us-west-2, ap-southeast-1, ap-northeast-1, and eu-
central-1. R5b instance availability might vary by Availability Zone. For more information about R5b
availability, see Find an Amazon EC2 instance type.
• io2 Block Express volumes do not support fast snapshot restore. We recommend that you initialize
these volumes to ensure that they deliver full performance. For more information, see Initialize
Amazon EBS volumes (p. 1379).

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Performance
With io2 Block Express volumes, you can provision volumes with:

• Sub-millisecond average latency

• Storage capacity up to 64 TiB (65,536 GiB)
• Provisioned IOPS up to 256,000, with an IOPS:GiB ratio of 1,000:1. Maximum IOPS can be provisioned
with volumes 256 GiB in size and larger (1,000 IOPS x 256 GiB = 256,000 IOPS).
• Volume throughput up to 4,000 MiB/s. Throughput scales proportionally up to 0.256 MiB/s per
provisioned IOPS. Maximum throughput can be achieved at 16,000 IOPS or higher.

Quotas
io2 Block Express volumes adhere to the same service quotas as io2 volumes. For more information, see
Amazon EBS quotas.

Pricing and billing

io2 volumes and io2 Block Express volumes are billed at the same rate. For more information, see
Amazon EBS pricing.

Usage reports do not distinguish between io2 Block Express volumes and io2 volumes. We recommend
that you use tags to help you identify costs associated with io2 Block Express volumes.

Throughput Optimized HDD volumes

Throughput Optimized HDD (st1) volumes provide low-cost magnetic storage that defines performance
in terms of throughput rather than IOPS. This volume type is a good fit for large, sequential workloads
such as Amazon EMR, ETL, data warehouses, and log processing. Bootable st1 volumes are not
supported.

Throughput Optimized HDD (st1) volumes, though similar to Cold HDD (sc1) volumes, are designed to
support frequently accessed data.

This volume type is optimized for workloads involving large, sequential I/O, and we recommend that
customers with workloads performing small, random I/O use gp2. For more information, see Inefficiency
of small read/writes on HDD (p. 1193).

Throughput credits and burst performance

Like gp2, st1 uses a burst-bucket model for performance. Volume size determines the baseline
throughput of your volume, which is the rate at which the volume accumulates throughput credits.

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Volume size also determines the burst throughput of your volume, which is the rate at which you can
spend credits when they are available. Larger volumes have higher baseline and burst throughput. The
more credits your volume has, the longer it can drive I/O at the burst level.

The following diagram shows the burst-bucket behavior for st1.

Subject to throughput and throughput-credit caps, the available throughput of an st1 volume is
expressed by the following formula:

(Volume size) x (Credit accumulation rate per TiB) = Throughput

For a 1-TiB st1 volume, burst throughput is limited to 250 MiB/s, the bucket fills with credits at 40 MiB/
s, and it can hold up to 1 TiB-worth of credits.

Larger volumes scale these limits linearly, with throughput capped at a maximum of 500 MiB/s. After the
bucket is depleted, throughput is limited to the baseline rate of 40 MiB/s per TiB.

On volume sizes ranging from 0.125 TiB to 16 TiB, baseline throughput varies from 5 MiB/s to a cap of
500 MiB/s, which is reached at 12.5 TiB as follows:

40 MiB/s
12.5 TiB x ---------- = 500 MiB/s
1 TiB

Burst throughput varies from 31 MiB/s to a cap of 500 MiB/s, which is reached at 2 TiB as follows:

250 MiB/s
2 TiB x ---------- = 500 MiB/s
1 TiB

The following table states the full range of base and burst throughput values for st1:

Volume size (TiB) ST1 base throughput (MiB/s) ST1 burst throughput (MiB/s)

0.125 5 31

0.5 20 125

1 40 250

2 80 500

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Volume size (TiB) ST1 base throughput (MiB/s) ST1 burst throughput (MiB/s)

3 120 500

4 160 500

5 200 500

6 240 500

7 280 500

8 320 500

9 360 500

10 400 500

11 440 500

12 480 500

12.5 500 500

13 500 500

14 500 500

15 500 500

16 500 500

The following diagram plots the table values:

Note
When you create a snapshot of a Throughput Optimized HDD (st1) volume, performance may
drop as far as the volume's baseline value while the snapshot is in progress.

For information about using CloudWatch metrics and alarms to monitor your burst bucket balance, see
Monitor the burst bucket balance for volumes (p. 1193).

Cold HDD volumes

Cold HDD (sc1) volumes provide low-cost magnetic storage that defines performance in terms of
throughput rather than IOPS. With a lower throughput limit than st1, sc1 is a good fit for large,

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sequential cold-data workloads. If you require infrequent access to your data and are looking to save
costs, sc1 provides inexpensive block storage. Bootable sc1 volumes are not supported.

Cold HDD (sc1) volumes, though similar to Throughput Optimized HDD (st1) volumes, are designed to
support infrequently accessed data.
Note
This volume type is optimized for workloads involving large, sequential I/O, and we recommend
that customers with workloads performing small, random I/O use gp2. For more information,
see Inefficiency of small read/writes on HDD (p. 1193).

Throughput credits and burst performance

Like gp2, sc1 uses a burst-bucket model for performance. Volume size determines the baseline
throughput of your volume, which is the rate at which the volume accumulates throughput credits.
Volume size also determines the burst throughput of your volume, which is the rate at which you can
spend credits when they are available. Larger volumes have higher baseline and burst throughput. The
more credits your volume has, the longer it can drive I/O at the burst level.

Subject to throughput and throughput-credit caps, the available throughput of an sc1 volume is
expressed by the following formula:

(Volume size) x (Credit accumulation rate per TiB) = Throughput

For a 1-TiB sc1 volume, burst throughput is limited to 80 MiB/s, the bucket fills with credits at 12 MiB/s,
and it can hold up to 1 TiB-worth of credits.

Larger volumes scale these limits linearly, with throughput capped at a maximum of 250 MiB/s. After the
bucket is depleted, throughput is limited to the baseline rate of 12 MiB/s per TiB.

On volume sizes ranging from 0.125 TiB to 16 TiB, baseline throughput varies from 1.5 MiB/s to a
maximum of 192 MiB/s, which is reached at 16 TiB as follows:

12 MiB/s
16 TiB x ---------- = 192 MiB/s
1 TiB

Burst throughput varies from 10 MiB/s to a cap of 250 MiB/s, which is reached at 3.125 TiB as follows:

80 MiB/s
3.125 TiB x ----------- = 250 MiB/s

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1 TiB

The following table states the full range of base and burst throughput values for sc1:

Volume Size (TiB) SC1 Base Throughput (MiB/s) SC1 Burst Throughput (MiB/s)

0.125 1.5 10

0.5 6 40

1 12 80

2 24 160

3 36 240

3.125 37.5 250

4 48 250

5 60 250

6 72 250

7 84 250

8 96 250

9 108 250

10 120 250

11 132 250

12 144 250

13 156 250

14 168 250

15 180 250

16 192 250

The following diagram plots the table values:

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Note
When you create a snapshot of a Cold HDD (sc1) volume, performance may drop as far as the
volume's baseline value while the snapshot is in progress.

For information about using CloudWatch metrics and alarms to monitor your burst bucket balance, see
Monitor the burst bucket balance for volumes (p. 1193).

Magnetic volumes
Magnetic volumes are backed by magnetic drives and are suited for workloads where data is accessed
infrequently, and scenarios where low-cost storage for small volume sizes is important. These volumes
deliver approximately 100 IOPS on average, with burst capability of up to hundreds of IOPS, and they
can range in size from 1 GiB to 1 TiB.
Note
Magnetic is a previous generation volume type. For new applications, we recommend using one
of the newer volume types. For more information, see Previous Generation Volumes.

For information about using CloudWatch metrics and alarms to monitor your burst bucket balance, see
Monitor the burst bucket balance for volumes (p. 1193).

Performance considerations when using HDD volumes

For optimal throughput results using HDD volumes, plan your workloads with the following
considerations in mind.

Comparing Throughput Optimized HDD and Cold HDD

The st1 and sc1 bucket sizes vary according to volume size, and a full bucket contains enough tokens
for a full volume scan. However, larger st1 and sc1 volumes take longer for the volume scan to
complete due to per-instance and per-volume throughput limits. Volumes attached to smaller instances
are limited to the per-instance throughput rather than the st1 or sc1 throughput limits.

Both st1 and sc1 are designed for performance consistency of 90% of burst throughput 99% of the
time. Non-compliant periods are approximately uniformly distributed, targeting 99% of expected total
throughput each hour.

In general, scan times are expressed by this formula:

Volume size
------------ = Scan time
Throughput

For example, taking the performance consistency guarantees and other optimizations into account, an
st1 customer with a 5-TiB volume can expect to complete a full volume scan in 2.91 to 3.27 hours.

• Optimal scan time

5 TiB 5 TiB
----------- = ------------------ = 10,486 seconds = 2.91 hours
500 MiB/s 0.00047684 TiB/s

• Maximum scan time

2.91 hours
-------------- = 3.27 hours
(0.90)(0.99) <-- From expected performance of 90% of burst 99% of the time

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Similarly, an sc1 customer with a 5-TiB volume can expect to complete a full volume scan in 5.83 to 6.54
hours.

• Optimal scan time

5 TiB 5 TiB
----------- = ------------------- = 20972 seconds = 5.83 hours
250 MiB/s 0.000238418 TiB/s

• Maximum scan time

5.83 hours
-------------- = 6.54 hours
(0.90)(0.99)

The following table shows ideal scan times for volumes of various size, assuming full buckets and
sufficient instance throughput.

Volume size (TiB) ST1 scan time with burst SC1 scan time with burst
(hours)* (hours)*

1 1.17 3.64

2 1.17 3.64

3 1.75 3.64

4 2.33 4.66

5 2.91 5.83

6 3.50 6.99

7 4.08 8.16

8 4.66 9.32

9 5.24 10.49

10 5.83 11.65

11 6.41 12.82

12 6.99 13.98

13 7.57 15.15

14 8.16 16.31

15 8.74 17.48

16 9.32 18.64

* These scan times assume an average queue depth (rounded to the nearest whole number) of four or
more when performing 1 MiB of sequential I/O.

Therefore if you have a throughput-oriented workload that needs to complete scans quickly (up to 500
MiB/s), or requires several full volume scans a day, use st1. If you are optimizing for cost, your data is

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relatively infrequently accessed, and you don’t need more than 250 MiB/s of scanning performance, then
use sc1.

Inefficiency of small read/writes on HDD

The performance model for st1 and sc1 volumes is optimized for sequential I/Os, favoring high-
throughput workloads, offering acceptable performance on workloads with mixed IOPS and throughput,
and discouraging workloads with small, random I/O.

For example, an I/O request of 1 MiB or less counts as a 1 MiB I/O credit. However, if the I/Os are
sequential, they are merged into 1 MiB I/O blocks and count only as a 1 MiB I/O credit.

Limitations on per-instance throughput

Throughput for st1 and sc1 volumes is always determined by the smaller of the following:

• Throughput limits of the volume

• Throughput limits of the instance

As for all Amazon EBS volumes, we recommend that you select an appropriate EBS-optimized EC2
instance in order to avoid network bottlenecks. For more information, see Amazon EBS–optimized
instances (p. 1357).

Monitor the burst bucket balance for volumes

You can monitor the burst-bucket level for gp2, st1, and sc1 volumes using the EBS BurstBalance
metric available in Amazon CloudWatch. This metric shows the percentage of I/O credits (for gp2)
or throughput credits (for st1 and sc1) remaining in the burst bucket. For more information
about the BurstBalance metric and other metrics related to I/O, see I/O characteristics and
monitoring (p. 1376). CloudWatch also allows you to set an alarm that notifies you when the
BurstBalance value falls to a certain level. For more information, see Creating Amazon CloudWatch
Alarms.

Constraints on the size and configuration of an EBS volume

The size of an Amazon EBS volume is constrained by the physics and arithmetic of block data storage,
as well as by the implementation decisions of operating system (OS) and file system designers. AWS
imposes additional limits on volume size to safeguard the reliability of its services.

The following sections describe the most important factors that limit the usable size of an EBS volume
and offer recommendations for configuring your EBS volumes.

Contents
• Storage capacity (p. 1193)
• Service limitations (p. 1194)
• Partitioning schemes (p. 1194)
• Data block sizes (p. 1195)

Storage capacity
The following table summarizes the theoretical and implemented storage capacities for the most
commonly used file systems on Amazon EBS, assuming a 4,096 byte block size.

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Partitioning Max Theoretical Ext4 XFS NTFS Max

scheme addressable max size implemented implemented implemented supported
blocks (blocks × max size* max size** max size by EBS
block size)
32
MBR 2 2 TiB 2 TiB 2 TiB 2 TiB 2 TiB
64
GPT 2 64 ZiB 1 EiB = 500 TiB 256 TiB 64 TiB †
2
1024 TiB
(certified on
(50 TiB RHEL7)
certified on
RHEL7)

* https://ext4.wiki.kernel.org/index.php/Ext4_Howto and https://access.redhat.com/solutions/1532

** https://access.redhat.com/solutions/1532

† io2 Block Express volumes support up to 64 TiB for GPT partitions. For more information, see io2
Block Express volumes (p. 1185).

Service limitations
Amazon EBS abstracts the massively distributed storage of a data center into virtual hard disk drives. To
an operating system installed on an EC2 instance, an attached EBS volume appears to be a physical hard
disk drive containing 512-byte disk sectors. The OS manages the allocation of data blocks (or clusters)
onto those virtual sectors through its storage management utilities. The allocation is in conformity with
a volume partitioning scheme, such as master boot record (MBR) or GUID partition table (GPT), and
within the capabilities of the installed file system (ext4, NTFS, and so on).

EBS is not aware of the data contained in its virtual disk sectors; it only ensures the integrity of the
sectors. This means that AWS actions and OS actions are independent of each other. When you are
selecting a volume size, be aware of the capabilities and limits of both, as in the following cases:

• EBS currently supports a maximum volume size of 64 TiB. This means that you can create an EBS
volume as large as 64 TiB, but whether the OS recognizes all of that capacity depends on its own
design characteristics and on how the volume is partitioned.
• Amazon EC2 requires Windows boot volumes to use MBR partitioning. As discussed in Partitioning
schemes (p. 1194), this means that boot volumes cannot be larger than 2 TiB. Windows data volumes
are not subject to this limitation and can use GPT partitioning. If a Windows boot volume that is 2 TiB
or larger is converted to use a dynamic MBR partition table, you will see an error for the volume in Disk
Manager.
• Windows non-boot volumes that are 2 TiB (2048 GiB) or larger must use a GPT partition table to
access the entire volume. If an EBS volume over 2 TiB in size is attached to a Windows instance at
launch, it is automatically formatted with a GPT partition table. If you attach an EBS volume over 2 TiB
in size to a Windows instance after launch, you must initialize it with a GPT table manually. For more
information, see Make an Amazon EBS volume available for use on Windows (p. 1200).

Partitioning schemes
Among other impacts, the partitioning scheme determines how many logical data blocks can be uniquely
addressed in a single volume. For more information, see Data block sizes (p. 1195). The common
partitioning schemes in use are master boot record (MBR) and GUID partition table (GPT). The important
differences between these schemes can be summarized as follows.

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MBR
MBR uses a 32-bit data structure to store block addresses. This means that each data block is mapped
32
with one of 2 possible integers. The maximum addressable size of a volume is given by the following
formula:

(232 - 1) × Block size

The block size for MBR volumes is conventionally limited to 512 bytes. Therefore:

(232 - 1) × 512 bytes = 2 TiB - 512 bytes

Engineering workarounds to increase this 2-TiB limit for MBR volumes have not met with widespread
industry adoption. Consequently, Linux and Windows never detect an MBR volume as being larger than 2
TiB even if AWS shows its size to be larger.

GPT
GPT uses a 64-bit data structure to store block addresses. This means that each data block is mapped
64
with one of 2 possible integers. The maximum addressable size of a volume is given by the following
formula:

(264 - 1) × Block size

The block size for GPT volumes is commonly 4,096 bytes. Therefore:

(264 - 1) × 4,096 bytes

= 264 x 4,096 bytes - 1 x 4,096 bytes
= 264 x 212 bytes - 4,096 bytes
= 270 x 26 bytes - 4,096 bytes
= 64 ZiB - 4,096 bytes

Real-world computer systems don't support anything close to this theoretical maximum. Implemented
file-system size is currently limited to 50 TiB for ext4 and 256 TiB for NTFS—both of which exceed the
16-TiB limit imposed by AWS.

Data block sizes

Data storage on a modern hard drive is managed through logical block addressing, an abstraction layer
that allows the operating system to read and write data in logical blocks without knowing much about
the underlying hardware. The OS relies on the storage device to map the blocks to its physical sectors.
EBS advertises 512-byte sectors to the operating system, which reads and writes data to disk using data
blocks that are a multiple of the sector size.

The industry default size for logical data blocks is currently 4,096 bytes (4 KiB). Because certain
workloads benefit from a smaller or larger block size, file systems support non-default block sizes
that can be specified during formatting. Scenarios in which non-default block sizes should be used are
outside the scope of this topic, but the choice of block size has consequences for the storage capacity of
the volume. The following table shows storage capacity as a function of block size:

Block size Max volume size

4 KiB (default) 16 TiB

8 KiB 32 TiB

16 KiB 64 TiB

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Block size Max volume size

32 KiB 128 TiB

64 KiB (maximum) 256 TiB

The EBS-imposed limit on volume size (16 TiB) is currently equal to the maximum size enabled by 4-KiB
data blocks.

Create an Amazon EBS volume

You can create an Amazon EBS volume and then attach it to any EC2 instance in the same Availability
Zone. If you create an encrypted EBS volume, you can only attach it to supported instance types. For
more information, see Supported instance types (p. 1342).

If you are creating a volume for a high-performance storage scenario, you should make sure to use
a Provisioned IOPS SSD volume (io1 or io2) and attach it to an instance with enough bandwidth to
support your application, such as an EBS-optimized instance. The same advice holds for Throughput
Optimized HDD (st1) and Cold HDD (sc1) volumes. For more information, see Amazon EBS–optimized
instances (p. 1357).
Note
If you create a volume for use with a Windows instance, and it's larger than 2048 GiB (or is a
volume that's smaller than 2048 GiB but might be increased later), ensure that you configure
the volume to use GPT partition tables. For more information, see Windows support for hard
disks that are larger than 2 TB..

Empty EBS volumes receive their maximum performance the moment that they are available and do not
require initialization (formerly known as pre-warming). However, storage blocks on volumes that were
created from snapshots must be initialized (pulled down from Amazon S3 and written to the volume)
before you can access the block. This preliminary action takes time and can cause a significant increase
in the latency of an I/O operation the first time each block is accessed. Volume performance is achieved
after all blocks have been downloaded and written to the volume. For most applications, amortizing this
cost over the lifetime of the volume is acceptable. To avoid this initial performance hit in a production
environment, you can force immediate initialization of the entire volume or enable fast snapshot restore.
For more information, see Initialize Amazon EBS volumes (p. 1379).
Important
If you create an io2 volume with a size greater than 16 TiB or with IOPS greater than 64,000 in
a Region where EBS Block Express is supported, the volume automatically runs on Block Express.
io2 Block Express volumes can be attached to R5b instances only. For more information, see
io2 Block Express volumes.

Methods of creating a volume

• Create and attach EBS volumes when you launch instances by specifying a block device mapping. For
more information, see Launch an instance using the Launch Instance Wizard (p. 396) and Block device
mappings (p. 1426).
• Create an empty EBS volume and attach it to a running instance. For more information, see Create an
empty volume (p. 1196) below.
• Create an EBS volume from a previously created snapshot and attach it to a running instance. For more
information, see Create a volume from a snapshot (p. 1197) below.

Create an empty volume

Empty volumes receive their maximum performance the moment that they are available and do not
require initialization.

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You can create an empty EBS volume using one of the following methods.

Console

To create an empty EBS volume using the console

1. Open the Amazon EC2 console at https://console.aws.amazon.com/ec2/.

2. From the navigation bar, select the Region in which you would like to create your volume. This
choice is important because some Amazon EC2 resources can be shared between Regions, while
others can't. For more information, see Resource locations (p. 1454).
3. In the navigation pane, choose ELASTIC BLOCK STORE, Volumes.
4. Choose Create Volume.
5. For Volume Type, choose a volume type. For more information, see Amazon EBS volume
types (p. 1177).
6. For Size, enter the size of the volume, in GiB. For more information, see Constraints on the size
and configuration of an EBS volume (p. 1193).
7. For IOPS, enter the maximum number of input/output operations per second (IOPS) that the
volume should provide. You can specify IOPS only for gp3, io1, and io2 volumes.
8. For Throughput, enter the throughput that the volume should provide, in MiB/s. You can
specify throughput only for gp3 volumes.
9. For Availability Zone, choose the Availability Zone in which to create the volume. An EBS
volume must be attached to an EC2 instance that is in the same Availability Zone as the volume.
10. (Optional) If the instance type supports EBS encryption and you want to encrypt the volume,
select Encrypt this volume and choose a CMK. If encryption by default is enabled in this Region,
EBS encryption is enabled and the default CMK for EBS encryption is chosen. You can choose a
different CMK from Master Key or paste the full ARN of any key that you can access. For more
information, see Amazon EBS encryption (p. 1340).
11. (Optional) Choose Create additional tags to add tags to the volume. For each tag, provide a tag
key and a tag value. For more information, see Tag your Amazon EC2 resources (p. 1463).
12. Choose Create Volume. The volume is ready for use when the volume status is Available.
13. To use your new volume, attach it to an instance, format it, and mount it. For more information,
see Attach an Amazon EBS volume to an instance (p. 1199).

AWS CLI

To create an empty EBS volume using the command line

You can use one of the following commands. For more information about these command line
interfaces, see Access Amazon EC2 (p. 3).

• create-volume (AWS CLI)

• New-EC2Volume (AWS Tools for Windows PowerShell)

Create a volume from a snapshot

Volumes created from snapshots load lazily in the background. This means that there is no need to
wait for all of the data to transfer from Amazon S3 to your EBS volume before the instance can start
accessing an attached volume and all its data. If your instance accesses data that hasn't yet been
loaded, the volume immediately downloads the requested data from Amazon S3, and then continues
loading the rest of the volume data in the background. Volume performance is achieved after all
blocks are downloaded and written to the volume. To avoid the initial performance hit in a production
environment, see Initialize Amazon EBS volumes (p. 1379).

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New EBS volumes that are created from encrypted snapshots are automatically encrypted. You can also
encrypt a volume on-the-fly while restoring it from an unencrypted snapshot. Encrypted volumes can
only be attached to instance types that support EBS encryption. For more information, see Supported
instance types (p. 1342).

You can create a volume from a snapshot using one of the following methods.

Console

To create an EBS volume from a snapshot using the console

1. Open the Amazon EC2 console at https://console.aws.amazon.com/ec2/.

2. From the navigation bar, select the Region that your snapshot is located in.

To use the snapshot to create a volume in a different region, copy your snapshot to the new
Region and then use it to create a volume in that Region. For more information, see Copy an
Amazon EBS snapshot (p. 1242).
3. In the navigation pane, choose ELASTIC BLOCK STORE, Volumes.
4. Choose Create Volume.
5. For Volume Type, choose a volume type. For more information, see Amazon EBS volume
types (p. 1177).
6. For Snapshot ID, start typing the ID or description of the snapshot from which you are restoring
the volume, and choose it from the list of suggested options.
7. (Optional) Select Encrypt this volume to change the encryption state of your volume. This is
optional if encryption by default (p. 1344) is enabled. Select a CMK from Master Key to specify
a CMK other than the default CMK for EBS encryption.
8. For Size, verify that the default size of the snapshot meets your needs or enter the size of the
volume, in GiB.

If you specify both a volume size and a snapshot, the size must be equal to or greater than the
snapshot size. When you select a volume type and a snapshot, the minimum and maximum sizes
for the volume are shown next to Size. For more information, see Constraints on the size and
configuration of an EBS volume (p. 1193).
9. For IOPS, enter the maximum number of input/output operations per second (IOPS) that the
volume should provide. You can specify IOPS only for gp3, io1, and io2 volumes.
10. For Throughput, enter the throughput that the volume should provide, in MiB/s. You can
specify throughput only for gp3 volumes.
11. For Availability Zone, choose the Availability Zone in which to create the volume. An EBS
volume must be attached to an EC2 instance that is in the same Availability Zone as the volume.
12. (Optional) Choose Create additional tags to add tags to the volume. For each tag, provide a tag
key and a tag value.
13. Choose Create Volume.
14. To use your new volume, attach it to an instance and mount it. For more information, see Attach
an Amazon EBS volume to an instance (p. 1199).
15. If you created a volume that is larger than the snapshot, you must extend the file system on
the volume to take advantage of the extra space. For more information, see Amazon EBS Elastic
Volumes (p. 1328).

AWS CLI

To create an EBS volume from a snapshot using the command line

You can use one of the following commands. For more information about these command line
interfaces, see Access Amazon EC2 (p. 3).

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• create-volume (AWS CLI)

• New-EC2Volume (AWS Tools for Windows PowerShell)

Attach an Amazon EBS volume to an instance

You can attach an available EBS volume to one or more of your instances that is in the same Availability
Zone as the volume.

For information about adding EBS volumes to your instance at launch, see Instance block device
mapping (p. 1431).

Prerequisites

• Determine how many volumes you can attach to your instance. For more information, see Instance
volume limits (p. 1420).
• If a volume is encrypted, it can only be attached to an instance that supports Amazon EBS encryption.
For more information, see Supported instance types (p. 1342).
• If a volume has an AWS Marketplace product code:
• The volume can only be attached to a stopped instance.
• You must be subscribed to the AWS Marketplace code that is on the volume.
• The configuration (instance type, operating system) of the instance must support that specific AWS
Marketplace code. For example, you cannot take a volume from a Windows instance and attach it to
a Linux instance.
• AWS Marketplace product codes are copied from the volume to the instance.

Important
If you attach an io2 volume to an R5b instance, the volume always runs on EBS Block Express.
Currently, only R5b instances support io2 Block Express volumes. For more information, see
io2 Block Express volumes.

You can attach a volume to an instance using one of the following methods.

Console

To attach an EBS volume to an instance using the console

1. Open the Amazon EC2 console at https://console.aws.amazon.com/ec2/.

2. In the navigation pane, choose Elastic Block Store, Volumes.
3. Select an available volume and choose Actions, Attach Volume.
4. For Instance, start typing the name or ID of the instance. Select the instance from the list of
options (only instances that are in the same Availability Zone as the volume are displayed).
5. For Device, you can keep the suggested device name, or type a different supported device name.
For more information, see Device names on Windows instances (p. 1425).
6. Choose Attach.
7. Connect to your instance and mount the volume. For more information, see Make an Amazon
EBS volume available for use on Windows (p. 1200).

AWS CLI

To attach an EBS volume to an instance using the command line

You can use one of the following commands. For more information about these command line
interfaces, see Access Amazon EC2 (p. 3).

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• attach-volume (AWS CLI)

• Add-EC2Volume (AWS Tools for Windows PowerShell)

Note
In some situations, you may find that a volume other than the volume attached to /dev/xvda
or /dev/sda has become the root volume of your instance. This can happen when you have
attached the root volume of another instance, or a volume created from the snapshot of a root
volume, to an instance with an existing root volume. For more information, see Boot from the
wrong volume.

Make an Amazon EBS volume available for use on Windows

After you attach an Amazon EBS volume to your instance that runs on Xen hypervisor, it is exposed as
a block device, and appears as a removable disk in Windows. You can format the volume with any file
system and then mount it. After you make the EBS volume available for use, you can access it in the
same ways that you access any other volume. Any data written to this file system is written to the EBS
volume and is transparent to applications using the device.

On Nitro instances, the Amazon EBS volume is exposed as a block device when the NVMe controller scans
the PCI bus. The disk does not appear as removable. Unlike Xen-based instances, there is only one NVMe
controller per EBS volume on Nitro instances.

You can take snapshots of your EBS volume for backup purposes or to use as a baseline when you create
another volume. For more information, see Amazon EBS snapshots (p. 1220).

You can get directions for volumes on a Linux instance from Make a volume available for use on Linux in
the Amazon EC2 User Guide for Linux Instances.

You can make an EBS volume available for use using the Disk Management utility and the DiskPart
command line tool.

To make an EBS volume available for use using the Disk Management utility

1. Log in to your Windows instance using Remote Desktop. For more information, see Connect to your
Windows instance (p. 417).
2. Start the Disk Management utility. On the taskbar, open the context (right-click) menu for the
Windows logo and choose Disk Management.
Note
On Windows Server 2008, choose Start, Administrative Tools, Computer Management,
Disk Management.
3. Bring the volume online. In the lower pane, open the context (right-click) menu for the left panel for
the disk for the EBS volume. Choose Online.

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4. (Conditional) You must initialize the disk before you can use it.
Warning
If you're mounting a volume that already has data on it (for example, a public data set, or
a volume that you created from a snapshot), do not reformat the volume or you will delete
the existing data.

If the disk is not initialized, initialize it as follows. Open the context (right-click) menu for the left
panel for the disk and choose Initialize Disk. In the Initialize Disk dialog box, select a partition style
and choose OK.

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5. Open the context (right-click) menu for the right panel for the disk and choose New Simple Volume.
Complete the wizard.

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To make an EBS volume available for use using the DiskPart command line tool

1. Log in to your Windows instance using Remote Desktop. For more information, see Connect to your
Windows instance (p. 417).
2. Create a new script file named diskpart.txt.
3. Add the following commands to the script file and specify the volume label and drive letter. This
script configures the volume to use the master boot record (MBR) partition structure, formats the
volume as an NTFS volume, sets the volume label, and assigns it a drive letter.
Warning
If you're mounting a volume that already has data on it, do not reformat the volume or you
will delete the existing data.

select disk 1
attributes disk clear readonly
online disk
convert mbr
create partition primary
format quick fs=ntfs label="volume_label"
assign letter="drive_letter"

For more information, see DiskPart Syntax and Parameters.

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4. Navigate to the folder in which the script is located and run the following command:

C:\> diskpart /s diskpart.txt

View information about an Amazon EBS volume

You can view descriptive information about your EBS volumes. For example, you can view information
about all volumes in a specific Region or view detailed information about a single volume, including its
size, volume type, whether the volume is encrypted, which master key was used to encrypt the volume,
and the specific instance to which the volume is attached.

You can get additional information about your EBS volumes, such as how much disk space is available,
from the operating system on the instance.

View volume information

You can view information about a volume using one of the following methods.

Console

To view information about an EBS volume using the console

1. Open the Amazon EC2 console at https://console.aws.amazon.com/ec2/.

2. In the navigation pane, choose Volumes.
3. (Optional) Use the filter options in the search field to display only the volumes that interest you.
For example, if you know the instance ID, choose Instance ID from the search field menu, and
then choose the instance ID from the list provided. To remove a filter, choose it again.
4. Select the volume.
5. In the details pane, you can inspect the information provided about the volume. Attachment
information shows the instance ID this volume is attached to and the device name under which
it is attached.
6. (Optional) Choose the Attachment information link to view additional details about the
instance.

To view the EBS volumes that are attached to an instance using the console

1. Open the Amazon EC2 console at https://console.aws.amazon.com/ec2/.

2. In the navigation pane, choose Instances.
3. Select the instance.
4. In the Storage tab, view the information provided about root and block devices.
5. (Optional) Choose a link in the Volume ID column to view additional details for the volume.

AWS CLI

To view information about an EBS volume using the command line

You can use one of the following commands to view volume attributes. For more information, see
Access Amazon EC2 (p. 3).

• describe-volumes (AWS CLI)

• Get-EC2Volume (AWS Tools for Windows PowerShell)

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Amazon EC2 Global View

You can use Amazon EC2 Global View to view your volumes across all Regions for which your AWS
account is enabled. For more information, see List and filter resources across Regions using Amazon
EC2 Global View (p. 1462).

Volume state

Volume state describes the availability of an Amazon EBS volume. You can view the volume state in the
State column on the Volumes page in the console, or by using the describe-volumes AWS CLI command.

The possible volume states are:

creating

The volume is being created.

available

The volume is not attached to an instance.

in-use

The volume is attached to an instance.

deleting

The volume is being deleted.

deleted

The volume is deleted.

error

The underlying hardware related to your EBS volume has failed, and the data associated with the
volume is unrecoverable. For information about how to restore the volume or recover the data on
the volume, see My EBS volume has a status of "error".

View volume metrics

You can get additional information about your EBS volumes from Amazon CloudWatch. For more
information, see Amazon CloudWatch metrics for Amazon EBS (p. 1388).

View free disk space

You can get additional information about your EBS volumes, such as how much disk space is available,
from the Windows operating system on the instance. For example, you can view the free disk space by
opening File Explorer and selecting This PC.

You can also view the free disk space using the following dir command and examining the last line of
the output:

C:\> dir C:
Volume in drive C has no label.
Volume Serial Number is 68C3-8081

Directory of C:\

03/25/2018 02:10 AM <DIR> .

03/25/2018 02:10 AM <DIR> ..
03/25/2018 03:47 AM <DIR> Contacts
03/25/2018 03:47 AM <DIR> Desktop

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03/25/2018 03:47 AM <DIR> Documents

03/25/2018 03:47 AM <DIR> Downloads
03/25/2018 03:47 AM <DIR> Favorites
03/25/2018 03:47 AM <DIR> Links
03/25/2018 03:47 AM <DIR> Music
03/25/2018 03:47 AM <DIR> Pictures
03/25/2018 03:47 AM <DIR> Saved Games
03/25/2018 03:47 AM <DIR> Searches
03/25/2018 03:47 AM <DIR> Videos
0 File(s) 0 bytes
13 Dir(s) 18,113,662,976 bytes free

You can also view the free disk space using the following fsutil command:

C:\> fsutil volume diskfree C:

Total # of free bytes : 18113204224
Total # of bytes : 32210153472
Total # of avail free bytes : 18113204224

For information about viewing free disk space on a Linux instance, see View free disk space in the
Amazon EC2 User Guide for Linux Instances.

Replace an Amazon EBS volume

Amazon EBS snapshots are the preferred backup tool on Amazon EC2 because of their speed,
convenience, and cost. When creating a volume from a snapshot, you recreate its state at a specific point
in the past with all data intact. By attaching a volume created from a snapshot to an instance, you can
duplicate data across Regions, create test environments, replace a damaged or corrupted production
volume in its entirety, or retrieve specific files and directories and transfer them to another attached
volume. For more information, see Amazon EBS snapshots (p. 1220).

The procedure for replacing a volume differs depending on whether the volume is the root volume or a
data volume.

Topics
• Replace a root volume (p. 1206)
• Replace a data volume (p. 1209)

Replace a root volume

Amazon EC2 enables you to replace the root EBS volume for an instance without stopping the instance.
You can restore the root volume for an instance to its launch state, or to a specific snapshot. This allows
you to fix issues, such as root volume corruption or guest operating system network configuration errors,
while retaining the following:

• Data stored on instance store volumes — Instance store volumes remain attached to the instance after
the root volume has been replaced.
• Network configuration — All network interfaces remain attached to the instance and they retain
their IP addresses, identifiers, and attachment IDs. When the instance becomes available, all pending
network traffic is flushed. Additionally, the instance remains on the same physical host, so it retains its
public and private IP addresses and DNS name.
• IAM policies — IAM profiles and policies (such as tag-based policies) that are associated with the
instance are retained and enforced.

When you replace the root volume for an instance, a new volume is restored to the original volume's
launch state, or using a specific snapshot. The original volume is detached from the instance, and the

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new volume is attached to the instance in its place. The original volume is not automatically deleted.
If you no longer need it, you can delete it manually after the root volume replacement task completes.
For more information about root volume replacement task states, see View root volume replacement
tasks (p. 1208).

Topics
• Considerations (p. 241)
• Replace a root volume (p. 1207)
• View root volume replacement tasks (p. 1208)

Considerations

• The instance is automatically rebooted when the root volume is replaced. The contents of the memory
(RAM) is erased during the reboot.
• You can't replace the root volume if it is an instance store volume.
• You can't replace the root volume for metal instances.
• You can only use snapshots that belong to the same lineage as the instance's current root volume. You
can't use snapshot copies created from snapshots that were taken from the root volume. Additionally,
after successfully completing a root volume replacement task, snapshots taken from the previous root
volume can't be used to create a root volume replacement task for the new volume.

Replace a root volume

When you replace the root volume for an instance, you can choose to restore the volume to its initial
launch state, or you can choose to restore the volume to a specific snapshot. If you choose to restore
the volume to a specific snapshot, then you must select a snapshot that was taken of that root volume.
If you choose to restore the root volume to its initial launch state, the root volume is restored from the
snapshot that was used to create the volume.

You can replace the root volume for an instance using one of the following methods. If you use the
Amazon EC2 console, note that replacing the root volume is only available in the new console.

Amazon EC2 console

To replace the root volume

1. Open the Amazon EC2 console at https://console.aws.amazon.com/ec2/.

2. In the navigation pane, choose Instances.
3. Select the instance for which to replace the root volume and choose Actions, Monitor and
troubleshoot, Replace root volume.
4. In the Replace root volume screen, do one of the following:

• To restore the instance's root volume to its initial launch state, choose Create replacement
task without selecting a snapshot.
• To restore the instance's root volume to a specific snapshot, for Snapshot, select the snapshot
to use, and then choose Create replacement task.

AWS CLI

To restore the root volume to the initial launch state

Use the create-replace-root-volume-task command. Specify the ID of the instance for which to
replace the root volume and omit the --snapshot-id parameter.

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$ aws ec2 create-replace-root-volume-task --instance-id instance_id

For example:

$ aws ec2 create-replace-root-volume-task --instance-id i-1234567890abcdef0

To restore the root volume to a specific snapshot

Use the create-replace-root-volume-task command. Specify the ID of the instance for which to
replace the root volume and the ID of the snapshot to use.

$ aws ec2 create-replace-root-volume-task --instance-id instance_id --snapshot-

id snapshot_id

For example:

$ aws ec2 create-replace-root-volume-task --instance-id i-1234567890abcdef0 --snapshot-

id snap-9876543210abcdef0

View root volume replacement tasks

After you start a root volume replacement task, the task enters the following states:

• pending — the replacement volume is being created.

• in-progress — the original volume is being detached and the replacement volume is being
attached.
• succeeded — the replacement volume has been successfully attached to the instance and the
instance is available.
• failing — the replacement task is in the process of failing.
• failed — the replacement task has failed but the original root volume is still attached.
• failing-detached — the replacement task is in the process of failing. The instance might have no
root volume attached.
• failed-detached — the replacement task has failed and the instance has no root volume attached.

You can view the root volume replacement tasks for an instance using one of the following methods.

Amazon EC2 console

To view the root volume replacement tasks

1. Open the Amazon EC2 console at https://console.aws.amazon.com/ec2/.

2. In the navigation pane, choose Instances.
3. Select the instance for which to view the root volume replacement tasks, and then choose the
Storage tab.
4. In the Storage tab, expand Recent root volume replacement tasks.

AWS CLI

To view the status of a root volume replacement task

Use the describe-replace-root-volume-tasks command and specify the IDs of the root volume
replacement tasks to view.

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$ aws ec2 describe-replace-root-volume-tasks --replace-root-volume-task-

ids task_id_1 task_id_2

For example:

$ aws ec2 describe-replace-root-volume-tasks --replace-root-volume-task-ids

replacevol-1234567890abcdef0

{
"ReplaceRootVolumeTasks": [
{
"ReplaceRootVolumeTaskId": "replacevol-1234567890abcdef0",
"InstanceId": "i-1234567890abcdef0",
"TaskState": "succeeded",
"StartTime": "2020-11-06 13:09:54.0",
"CompleteTime": "2020-11-06 13:10:14.0"
}]
}

Alternatively, specify the instance-id filter to filter the results by instance.

$ aws ec2 describe-replace-root-volume-tasks --filters Name=instance-

id,Values=instance_id

For example:

$ aws ec2 describe-replace-root-volume-tasks --filters Name=instance-

id,Values=i-1234567890abcdef0

Replace a data volume

You can use the following procedure to replace a (non-root) data volume with another volume created
from a previous snapshot of that volume. You must detach the current volume and then attach the new
volume.

Note that EBS volumes can only be attached to EC2 instances in the same Availability Zone.

Use the following method.

Console

To replace a data volume

1. Create a volume from the snapshot and write down the ID of the new volume. For more
information, see Create a volume from a snapshot (p. 1197).
2. On the volumes page, select the check box for the volume to replace. On the Description tab,
find Attachment information and write down the device name of the volume (for example, /
dev/sda1) and the ID of the instance.
3. With the volume still selected, choose Actions, Detach Volume. When prompted for
confirmation, choose Yes, Detach. Clear the check box for this volume.
4. Select the check box for the new volume that you created in step 1. Choose Actions, Attach
Volume. Enter the instance ID and device name that you wrote down in step 2, and then choose
Attach.
5. Connect to your instance and mount the volume. For more information, see Make an Amazon
EBS volume available for use on Windows (p. 1200).

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Monitor the status of your volumes

Amazon Web Services (AWS) automatically provides data that you can use to monitor your Amazon
Elastic Block Store (Amazon EBS) volumes.

Contents
• EBS volume status checks (p. 1210)
• EBS volume events (p. 1212)
• Work with an impaired volume (p. 1213)
• Work with the Auto-Enabled IO volume attribute (p. 1215)

For additional monitoring information, see Amazon CloudWatch metrics for Amazon EBS (p. 1388) and
Amazon CloudWatch Events for Amazon EBS (p. 1394).

EBS volume status checks

Volume status checks enable you to better understand, track, and manage potential inconsistencies in
the data on an Amazon EBS volume. They are designed to provide you with the information that you
need to determine whether your Amazon EBS volumes are impaired, and to help you control how a
potentially inconsistent volume is handled.

Volume status checks are automated tests that run every 5 minutes and return a pass or fail status. If
all checks pass, the status of the volume is ok. If a check fails, the status of the volume is impaired. If
the status is insufficient-data, the checks may still be in progress on the volume. You can view the
results of volume status checks to identify any impaired volumes and take any necessary actions.

When Amazon EBS determines that a volume's data is potentially inconsistent, the default is that it
disables I/O to the volume from any attached EC2 instances, which helps to prevent data corruption.
After I/O is disabled, the next volume status check fails, and the volume status is impaired. In addition,
you'll see an event that lets you know that I/O is disabled, and that you can resolve the impaired status
of the volume by enabling I/O to the volume. We wait until you enable I/O to give you the opportunity
to decide whether to continue to let your instances use the volume, or to run a consistency check using a
command, such as chkdsk, before doing so.
Note
Volume status is based on the volume status checks, and does not reflect the volume state.
Therefore, volume status does not indicate volumes in the error state (for example, when
a volume is incapable of accepting I/O.) For information about volume states, see Volume
state (p. 1205).

If the consistency of a particular volume is not a concern, and you'd prefer that the volume be made
available immediately if it's impaired, you can override the default behavior by configuring the volume
to automatically enable I/O. If you enable the Auto-Enable IO volume attribute (autoEnableIO in the
API), the volume status check continues to pass. In addition, you'll see an event that lets you know that
the volume was determined to be potentially inconsistent, but that its I/O was automatically enabled.
This enables you to check the volume's consistency or replace it at a later time.

The I/O performance status check compares actual volume performance to the expected performance of
a volume. It alerts you if the volume is performing below expectations. This status check is available only
for Provisioned IOPS SSD (io1 and io2) volumes that are attached to an instance. The status check is
not valid for General Purpose SSD (gp2 and gp3), Throughput Optimized HDD (st1), Cold HDD (sc1), or
Magnetic(standard) volumes. The I/O performance status check is performed once every minute, and
CloudWatch collects this data every 5 minutes. It might take up to 5 minutes from the moment that you
attach an io1 or io2 volume to an instance for the status check to report the I/O performance status.
Important
While initializing Provisioned IOPS SSD volumes that were restored from snapshots, the
performance of the volume may drop below 50 percent of its expected level, which causes the

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volume to display a warning state in the I/O Performance status check. This is expected, and
you can ignore the warning state on Provisioned IOPS SSD volumes while you are initializing
them. For more information, see Initialize Amazon EBS volumes (p. 1379).

The following table lists statuses for Amazon EBS volumes.

Volume status I/O enabled status I/O performance status (io1

and io2 volumes only)

ok Enabled (I/O Enabled or I/O Normal (Volume performance is

Auto-Enabled) as expected)

warning Enabled (I/O Enabled or I/O Degraded (Volume performance

Auto-Enabled) is below expectations)

Severely Degraded (Volume

performance is well below
expectations)

impaired Enabled (I/O Enabled or I/O Stalled (Volume performance is

Auto-Enabled) severely impacted)

Disabled (Volume is offline and Not Available (Unable to

pending recovery, or is waiting determine I/O performance
for the user to enable I/O) because I/O is disabled)

insufficient-data Enabled (I/O Enabled or I/O Insufficient Data

Auto-Enabled)

Insufficient Data

You can view and work with status checks using the following methods.

Console

To view status checks

1. Open the Amazon EC2 console at https://console.aws.amazon.com/ec2/.

2. In the navigation pane, choose Volumes. The Volume Status column displays the operational
status of each volume.
3. To view the status details of a volume, select the volume and choose Status Checks.

4. If you have a volume with a failed status check (status is impaired), see Work with an impaired
volume (p. 1213).

Alternatively, you can choose Events in the navigator to view all the events for your instances and
volumes. For more information, see EBS volume events (p. 1212).

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AWS CLI

To view volume status information

Use one of the following commands.

• describe-volume-status (AWS CLI)

• Get-EC2VolumeStatus (AWS Tools for Windows PowerShell)

For more information about these command line interfaces, see Access Amazon EC2 (p. 3).

EBS volume events

When Amazon EBS determines that a volume's data is potentially inconsistent, it disables I/O to the
volume from any attached EC2 instances by default. This causes the volume status check to fail, and
creates a volume status event that indicates the cause of the failure.

To automatically enable I/O on a volume with potential data inconsistencies, change the setting of the
Auto-Enabled IO volume attribute (autoEnableIO in the API). For more information about changing
this attribute, see Work with an impaired volume (p. 1213).

Each event includes a start time that indicates the time at which the event occurred, and a duration that
indicates how long I/O for the volume was disabled. The end time is added to the event when I/O for the
volume is enabled.

Volume status events include one of the following descriptions:

Awaiting Action: Enable IO

Volume data is potentially inconsistent. I/O is disabled for the volume until you explicitly enable it.
The event description changes to IO Enabled after you explicitly enable I/O.
IO Enabled

I/O operations were explicitly enabled for this volume.

IO Auto-Enabled

I/O operations were automatically enabled on this volume after an event occurred. We recommend
that you check for data inconsistencies before continuing to use the data.
Normal

For io1, io2, and gp3 volumes only. Volume performance is as expected.
Degraded

For io1, io2, and gp3 volumes only. Volume performance is below expectations.
Severely Degraded

For io1, io2, and gp3 volumes only. Volume performance is well below expectations.
Stalled

For io1, io2, and gp3 volumes only. Volume performance is severely impacted.

You can view events for your volumes using the following methods.

Console

To view events for your volumes

1. Open the Amazon EC2 console at https://console.aws.amazon.com/ec2/.

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2. In the navigation pane, choose Events. All instances and volumes that have events are listed.
3. You can filter by volume to view only volume status. You can also filter on specific status types.
4. Select a volume to view its specific event.

AWS CLI

To view events for your volumes

Use one of the following commands.

• describe-volume-status (AWS CLI)

• Get-EC2VolumeStatus (AWS Tools for Windows PowerShell)

For more information about these command line interfaces, see Access Amazon EC2 (p. 3).

If you have a volume where I/O is disabled, see Work with an impaired volume (p. 1213). If you have a
volume where I/O performance is below normal, this might be a temporary condition due to an action
you have taken (for example, creating a snapshot of a volume during peak usage, running the volume on
an instance that cannot support the I/O bandwidth required, accessing data on the volume for the first
time, etc.).

Work with an impaired volume

Use the following options if a volume is impaired because the volume's data is potentially inconsistent.

Options
• Option 1: Perform a consistency check on the volume attached to its instance (p. 1213)
• Option 2: Perform a consistency check on the volume using another instance (p. 1214)
• Option 3: Delete the volume if you no longer need it (p. 1215)

Option 1: Perform a consistency check on the volume attached to its instance

The simplest option is to enable I/O and then perform a data consistency check on the volume while the
volume is still attached to its Amazon EC2 instance.

To perform a consistency check on an attached volume

1. Stop any applications from using the volume.

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2. Enable I/O on the volume. Use one of the following methods.

Console

1. Open the Amazon EC2 console at https://console.aws.amazon.com/ec2/.

2. In the navigation pane, choose Volumes.
3. Select the volume on which to enable I/O operations.
4. In the details pane, choose Enable Volume IO, and then choose Yes, Enable.

AWS CLI

To enable I/O for a volume with the command line

You can use one of the following commands to view event information for your Amazon EBS
volumes. For more information about these command line interfaces, see Access Amazon
EC2 (p. 3).

• enable-volume-io (AWS CLI)

• Enable-EC2VolumeIO (AWS Tools for Windows PowerShell)
3. Check the data on the volume.

a. Run the chkdsk command.

b. (Optional) Review any available application or system logs for relevant error messages.
c. If the volume has been impaired for more than 20 minutes, you can contact the AWS Support
Center. Choose Troubleshoot, and then in the Troubleshoot Status Checks dialog box, choose
Contact Support to submit a support case.

Option 2: Perform a consistency check on the volume using another instance

Use the following procedure to check the volume outside your production environment.
Important
This procedure may cause the loss of write I/Os that were suspended when volume I/O was
disabled.

To perform a consistency check on a volume in isolation

1. Stop any applications from using the volume.

2. Detach the volume from the instance. For more information, see Detach an Amazon EBS volume
from a Windows instance (p. 1217).
3. Enable I/O on the volume. Use one of the following methods.

Console

1. In the navigation pane, choose Volumes.

2. Select the volume that you detached in the previous step.
3. In the details pane, choose Enable Volume IO, and then choose Yes, Enable.

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AWS CLI

To enable I/O for a volume with the command line

You can use one of the following commands to view event information for your Amazon EBS
volumes. For more information about these command line interfaces, see Access Amazon
EC2 (p. 3).

• enable-volume-io (AWS CLI)

• Enable-EC2VolumeIO (AWS Tools for Windows PowerShell)
4. Attach the volume to another instance. For more information, see Launch your instance (p. 394) and
Attach an Amazon EBS volume to an instance (p. 1199).
5. Check the data on the volume.

a. Run the chkdsk command.

b. (Optional) Review any available application or system logs for relevant error messages.
c. If the volume has been impaired for more than 20 minutes, you can contact the AWS Support
Center. Choose Troubleshoot, and then in the troubleshooting dialog box, choose Contact
Support to submit a support case.

Option 3: Delete the volume if you no longer need it

If you want to remove the volume from your environment, simply delete it. For information about
deleting a volume, see Delete an Amazon EBS volume (p. 1219).

If you have a recent snapshot that backs up the data on the volume, you can create a new volume from
the snapshot. For more information, see Create a volume from a snapshot (p. 1197).

Work with the Auto-Enabled IO volume attribute

When Amazon EBS determines that a volume's data is potentially inconsistent, it disables I/O to the
volume from any attached EC2 instances by default. This causes the volume status check to fail, and
creates a volume status event that indicates the cause of the failure. If the consistency of a particular
volume is not a concern, and you prefer that the volume be made available immediately if it's impaired,
you can override the default behavior by configuring the volume to automatically enable I/O. If you
enable the Auto-Enabled IO volume attribute (autoEnableIO in the API), I/O between the volume and
the instance is automatically re-enabled and the volume's status check will pass. In addition, you'll see
an event that lets you know that the volume was in a potentially inconsistent state, but that its I/O was
automatically enabled. When this event occurs, you should check the volume's consistency and replace it
if necessary. For more information, see EBS volume events (p. 1212).

You can view and modify the Auto-Enabled IO attribute of a volume using the following methods.

Console

To view the Auto-Enabled IO attribute of a volume

1. Open the Amazon EC2 console at https://console.aws.amazon.com/ec2/.

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2. In the navigation pane, choose Volumes.

3. Select the volume and choose Status Checks. Auto-Enabled IO displays the current setting
(Enabled or Disabled) for your volume.

To modify the Auto-Enabled IO attribute of a volume

1. Open the Amazon EC2 console at https://console.aws.amazon.com/ec2/.

2. In the navigation pane, choose Volumes.
3. Select the volume and choose Actions, Change Auto-Enable IO Setting. Alternatively, choose
the Status Checks tab, and for Auto-Enabled IO, choose Edit.

4. Select the Auto-Enable Volume IO check box to automatically enable I/O for an impaired
volume. To disable the feature, clear the check box.

5. Choose Save.

AWS CLI

To view the autoEnableIO attribute of a volume

Use one of the following commands.

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• describe-volume-attribute (AWS CLI)

• Get-EC2VolumeAttribute (AWS Tools for Windows PowerShell)

To modify the autoEnableIO attribute of a volume

Use one of the following commands.

• modify-volume-attribute (AWS CLI)

• Edit-EC2VolumeAttribute (AWS Tools for Windows PowerShell)

For more information about these command line interfaces, see Access Amazon EC2 (p. 3)

Detach an Amazon EBS volume from a Windows instance

You need to detach an Amazon Elastic Block Store (Amazon EBS) volume from an instance before you
can attach it to a different instance or delete it. Detaching a volume does not affect the data on the
volume.

For information about detaching volumes from a Linux instance, see Detach a volume from a Linux
instance in the Amazon EC2 User Guide for Linux Instances.

Topics
• Considerations (p. 241)
• Unmount and detach a volume (p. 1217)
• Troubleshoot (p. 1219)

Considerations
• You can detach an Amazon EBS volume from an instance explicitly or by terminating the instance.
However, if the instance is running, you must first unmount the volume from the instance.
• If an EBS volume is the root device of an instance, you must stop the instance before you can detach
the volume.
• You can reattach a volume that you detached (without unmounting it), but it might not get the same
mount point. If there were writes to the volume in progress when it was detached, the data on the
volume might be out of sync.
• After you detach a volume, you are still charged for volume storage as long as the storage amount
exceeds the limit of the AWS Free Tier. You must delete a volume to avoid incurring further charges.
For more information, see Delete an Amazon EBS volume (p. 1219).

Unmount and detach a volume

Use the following procedures to unmount and detach a volume from an instance. This can be useful
when you need to attach the volume to a different instance or when you need to delete the volume.

Steps
• Step 1: Unmount the volume (p. 1218)
• Step 2: Detach the volume from the instance (p. 1218)
• Step 3: Uninstall the offline device locations (p. 1218)

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Step 1: Unmount the volume

From your Windows instance, unmount the volume as follows.

1. Start the Disk Management utility.

• (Windows Server 2012 and later) On the taskbar, right-click the Windows logo and choose Disk
Management.
• Windows Server 2008) Choose Start, Administrative Tools, Computer Management, Disk
Management.
2. Right-click the disk (for example, right-click Disk 1) and then choose Offline. Wait for the disk status
to change to Offline before opening the Amazon EC2 console.

Step 2: Detach the volume from the instance

To detach the volume from the instance, use one of the following methods:

Console

To detach an EBS volume using the console

1. Open the Amazon EC2 console at https://console.aws.amazon.com/ec2/.

2. In the navigation pane, choose Volumes.
3. Select a volume and choose Actions, Detach Volume.
4. When prompted for confirmation, choose Yes, Detach.

Command line

To detach an EBS volume from an instance using the command line

After unmounting the volume, you can use one of the following commands to detach it. For more
information about these command line interfaces, see Access Amazon EC2 (p. 3).

• detach-volume (AWS CLI)

• Dismount-EC2Volume (AWS Tools for Windows PowerShell)

Step 3: Uninstall the offline device locations

When you unmount and detach a volume from an instance, Windows flags the device location as offline.
The device location remains offline after rebooting, and stopping and restarting the instance. When you
restart the instance, Windows might mount one of the remaining volumes to the offline device location.
This causes the volume to be unavailable in Windows. To prevent this from happening and to ensure that
all volumes are attached to online device locations the next time Windows starts, perform the following
steps:

1. On the instance, open the Device Manager.

2. In the Device Manager, select View, Show hidden devices.
3. In the list of devices, expand the Storage controllers node.

The device locations to which the detached volumes were mounted should appear greyed out.
4. Right-click each greyed out device location, select Uninstall device and choose Uninstall.
Important
Do not select the Delete the driver software for this device check box.

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Troubleshoot
The following are common problems encountered when detaching volumes, and how to resolve them.
Note
To guard against the possibility of data loss, take a snapshot of your volume before attempting
to unmount it. Forced detachment of a stuck volume can cause damage to the file system or the
data it contains or an inability to attach a new volume using the same device name, unless you
reboot the instance.

• If you encounter problems while detaching a volume through the Amazon EC2 console, it can be
helpful to use the describe-volumes CLI command to diagnose the issue. For more information, see
describe-volumes.
• If your volume stays in the detaching state, you can force the detachment by choosing Force Detach.
Use this option only as a last resort to detach a volume from a failed instance, or if you are detaching
a volume with the intention of deleting it. The instance doesn't get an opportunity to flush file system
caches or file system metadata. If you use this option, you must perform the file system check and
repair procedures.
• If you've tried to force the volume to detach multiple times over several minutes and it stays in the
detaching state, you can post a request for help to the Amazon EC2 forum. To help expedite a
resolution, include the volume ID and describe the steps that you've already taken.
• When you attempt to detach a volume that is still mounted, the volume can become stuck in the busy
state while it is trying to detach. The following output from describe-volumes shows an example of
this condition:

"Volumes": [
{
"AvailabilityZone": "us-west-2b",
"Attachments": [
{
"AttachTime": "2016-07-21T23:44:52.000Z",
"InstanceId": "i-fedc9876",
"VolumeId": "vol-1234abcd",
"State": "busy",
"DeleteOnTermination": false,
"Device": "/dev/sdf"
}
...
}
]

When you encounter this state, detachment can be delayed indefinitely until you unmount the volume,
force detachment, reboot the instance, or all three.

Delete an Amazon EBS volume

After you no longer need an Amazon EBS volume, you can delete it. After deletion, its data is gone and
the volume can't be attached to any instance. However, before deletion, you can store a snapshot of the
volume, which you can use to re-create the volume later.
Note
You can't delete a volume if it's attached to an instance. To delete a volume, you must
first detach it. For more information, see Detach an Amazon EBS volume from a Windows
instance (p. 1217).
You can check if a volume is attached to an instance. In the console, on the Volumes page, you
can view the state of your volumes.

• If a volume is attached to an instance, it’s in the in-use state.

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• If a volume is detached from an instance, it’s in the available state. You can delete this
volume.

You can delete an EBS volume using one of the following methods.

Console

To delete an EBS volume using the console

1. Open the Amazon EC2 console at https://console.aws.amazon.com/ec2/.

2. In the navigation pane, choose Volumes.
3. Select a volume and choose Actions, Delete Volume. If Delete Volume is greyed out, the
volume is attached to an instance.
4. In the confirmation dialog box, choose Yes, Delete.

AWS CLI

To delete an EBS volume using the command line

You can use one of the following commands. For more information about these command line
interfaces, see Access Amazon EC2 (p. 3).

• delete-volume (AWS CLI)

• Remove-EC2Volume (AWS Tools for Windows PowerShell)

Amazon EBS snapshots

You can back up the data on your Amazon EBS volumes to Amazon S3 by taking point-in-time snapshots.
Snapshots are incremental backups, which means that only the blocks on the device that have changed
after your most recent snapshot are saved. This minimizes the time required to create the snapshot and
saves on storage costs by not duplicating data. Each snapshot contains all of the information that is
needed to restore your data (from the moment when the snapshot was taken) to a new EBS volume.

When you create an EBS volume based on a snapshot, the new volume begins as an exact replica of
the original volume that was used to create the snapshot. The replicated volume loads data in the
background so that you can begin using it immediately. If you access data that hasn't been loaded
yet, the volume immediately downloads the requested data from Amazon S3, and then continues
loading the rest of the volume's data in the background. For more information, see Create Amazon EBS
snapshots (p. 1224).

When you delete a snapshot, only the data unique to that snapshot is removed. For more information,
see Delete an Amazon EBS snapshot (p. 1239).

Snapshot events

You can track the status of your EBS snapshots through CloudWatch Events. For more information, see
EBS snapshot events (p. 1398).

Application-consistent snapshots

Using Systems Manager Run Command, you can take application-consistent snapshots of all EBS
volumes attached to your Amazon EC2 Windows instances. The snapshot process uses the Windows
Volume Shadow Copy Service (VSS) to take image-level backups of VSS-aware applications, including
data from pending transactions between these applications and the disk. You don't need to shut down

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your instances or disconnect them when you back up all attached volumes. For more information, see
Creating a VSS Application-Consistent Snapshot.

Multi-volume snapshots

Snapshots can be used to create a backup of critical workloads, such as a large database or a file system
that spans across multiple EBS volumes. Multi-volume snapshots allow you to take exact point-in-
time, data coordinated, and crash-consistent snapshots across multiple EBS volumes attached to an
EC2 instance. You are no longer required to stop your instance or to coordinate between volumes to
ensure crash consistency, because snapshots are automatically taken across multiple EBS volumes. For
more information, see the steps for creating a multi-volume EBS snapshot under Create Amazon EBS
snapshots (p. 1224) .

Snapshot pricing

Charges for your snapshots are based on the amount of data stored. Because snapshots are incremental,
deleting a snapshot might not reduce your data storage costs. Data referenced exclusively by a snapshot
is removed when that snapshot is deleted, but data referenced by other snapshots is preserved. For
more information, see Amazon Elastic Block Store Volumes and Snapshots in the AWS Billing and Cost
Management User Guide.

Contents
• How incremental snapshots work (p. 1221)
• Copy and share snapshots (p. 1223)
• Encryption support for snapshots (p. 1224)
• Create Amazon EBS snapshots (p. 1224)
• Create a VSS application-consistent snapshot (p. 1227)
• Delete an Amazon EBS snapshot (p. 1239)
• Copy an Amazon EBS snapshot (p. 1242)
• View Amazon EBS snapshot information (p. 1246)
• Share an Amazon EBS snapshot (p. 1247)
• Amazon EBS local snapshots on Outposts (p. 1251)
• Use EBS direct APIs to access the contents of an EBS snapshot (p. 1261)
• Automate the snapshot lifecycle (p. 1285)

How incremental snapshots work

This section shows how an EBS snapshot captures the state of a volume at a point in time, and how
successive snapshots of a changing volume create a history of those changes.

Relations among multiple snapshots of the same volume

The diagram in this section shows Volume 1 at three points in time. A snapshot is taken of each of these
three volume states. The diagram specifically shows the following:

• In State 1, the volume has 10 GiB of data. Because Snap A is the first snapshot taken of the volume,
the entire 10 GiB of data must be copied.
• In State 2, the volume still contains 10 GiB of data, but 4 GiB have changed. Snap B needs to copy
and store only the 4 GiB that changed after Snap A was taken. The other 6 GiB of unchanged data,
which are already copied and stored in Snap A, are referenced by Snap B rather than being copied
again. This is indicated by the dashed arrow.
• In State 3, 2 GiB of data have been added to the volume, for a total of 12 GiB. Snap C needs to
copy the 2 GiB that were added after Snap B was taken. As shown by the dashed arrows, Snap C also
references 4 GiB of data stored in Snap B, and 6 GiB of data stored in Snap A.

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• The total storage required for the three snapshots is 16 GiB.

Relations among incremental snapshots of different volumes

The diagram in this section shows how incremental snapshots can be taken from different volumes.
Important
The diagram assumes that you own Vol 1 and that you have created Snap A. If Vol 1 was owned
by another AWS account and that account took Snap A and shared it with you, then Snap B
would be a full snapshot.

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1. Vol 1 has 10 GiB of data. Because Snap A is the first snapshot taken of the volume, the entire 10
GiB of data is copied and stored.
2. Vol 2 is created from Snap A, so it is an exact replica of Vol 1 at the time the snapshot was taken.
3. Over time, 4 GiB of data is added to Vol 2 and its total size becomes 14 GiB.
4. Snap B is taken from Vol 2. For Snap B, only the 4 GiB of data that was added after the volume was
created from Snap A is copied and stored. The other 10 GiB of unchanged data, which is already
stored in Snap A, is referenced by Snap B instead of being copied and stored again.

Snap B is an incremental snapshot of Snap A, even though it was created from a different volume.

For more information about how data is managed when you delete a snapshot, see Delete an Amazon
EBS snapshot (p. 1239).

Copy and share snapshots

You can share a snapshot across AWS accounts by modifying its access permissions. You can make copies
of your own snapshots as well as snapshots that have been shared with you. For more information, see
Share an Amazon EBS snapshot (p. 1247).

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A snapshot is constrained to the AWS Region where it was created. After you create a snapshot of an EBS
volume, you can use it to create new volumes in the same Region. For more information, see Create a
volume from a snapshot (p. 1197). You can also copy snapshots across Regions, making it possible to use
multiple Regions for geographical expansion, data center migration, and disaster recovery. You can copy
any accessible snapshot that has a completed status. For more information, see Copy an Amazon EBS
snapshot (p. 1242).

Encryption support for snapshots

EBS snapshots fully support EBS encryption.

• Snapshots of encrypted volumes are automatically encrypted.

• Volumes that you create from encrypted snapshots are automatically encrypted.
• Volumes that you create from an unencrypted snapshot that you own or have access to can be
encrypted on-the-fly.
• When you copy an unencrypted snapshot that you own, you can encrypt it during the copy process.
• When you copy an encrypted snapshot that you own or have access to, you can reencrypt it with a
different key during the copy process.
• The first snapshot you take of an encrypted volume that has been created from an unencrypted
snapshot is always a full snapshot.
• The first snapshot you take of a reencrypted volume, which has a different CMK compared to the
source snapshot, is always a full snapshot.

Complete documentation of possible snapshot encryption scenarios is provided in Create Amazon EBS
snapshots (p. 1224) and in Copy an Amazon EBS snapshot (p. 1242).

For more information, see Amazon EBS encryption (p. 1340).

Create Amazon EBS snapshots

To create an application-consistent snapshot, see Create a VSS application-consistent
snapshot (p. 1227).

You can create a point-in-time snapshot of an EBS volume and use it as a baseline for new volumes or
for data backup. If you make periodic snapshots of a volume, the snapshots are incremental—the new
snapshot saves only the blocks that have changed since your last snapshot.

Snapshots occur asynchronously; the point-in-time snapshot is created immediately, but the status of
the snapshot is pending until the snapshot is complete (when all of the modified blocks have been
transferred to Amazon S3), which can take several hours for large initial snapshots or subsequent
snapshots where many blocks have changed. While it is completing, an in-progress snapshot is not
affected by ongoing reads and writes to the volume.

You can take a snapshot of an attached volume that is in use. However, snapshots only capture data
that has been written to your Amazon EBS volume at the time the snapshot command is issued. This
might exclude any data that has been cached by any applications or the operating system. If you can
pause any file writes to the volume long enough to take a snapshot, your snapshot should be complete.
However, if you can't pause all file writes to the volume, you should unmount the volume from within
the instance, issue the snapshot command, and then remount the volume to ensure a consistent and
complete snapshot. You can remount and use your volume while the snapshot status is pending.

To make snapshot management easier, you can tag your snapshots during creation or add tags
afterward. For example, you can apply tags describing the original volume from which the snapshot
was created, or the device name that was used to attach the original volume to an instance. For more
information, see Tag your Amazon EC2 resources (p. 1463).

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Snapshot encryption
Snapshots that are taken from encrypted volumes are automatically encrypted. Volumes that are created
from encrypted snapshots are also automatically encrypted. The data in your encrypted volumes and
any associated snapshots is protected both at rest and in motion. For more information, see Amazon EBS
encryption (p. 1340).

By default, only you can create volumes from snapshots that you own. However, you can share your
unencrypted snapshots with specific AWS accounts, or you can share them with the entire AWS
community by making them public. For more information, see Share an Amazon EBS snapshot (p. 1247).

You can share an encrypted snapshot only with specific AWS accounts. For others to use your shared,
encrypted snapshot, you must also share the CMK key that was used to encrypt it. Users with access to
your encrypted snapshot must create their own personal copy of it and then use that copy. Your copy of
a shared, encrypted snapshot can also be re-encrypted using a different key. For more information, see
Share an Amazon EBS snapshot (p. 1247).

Multi-volume snapshots
You can create multi-volume snapshots, which are point-in-time snapshots for all EBS volumes attached
to an EC2 instance. You can also create lifecycle policies to automate the creation and retention of multi-
volume snapshots. For more information, see Amazon Data Lifecycle Manager (p. 1285).

After the snapshots are created, each snapshot is treated as an individual snapshot. You can perform all
snapshot operations, such as restore, delete, and copy across Regions or accounts, just as you would with
a single volume snapshot. You can also tag your multi-volume snapshots as you would a single volume
snapshot. We recommend you tag your multiple volume snapshots to manage them collectively during
restore, copy, or retention.

Multi-volume, crash-consistent snapshots are typically restored as a set. It is helpful to identify

the snapshots that are in a crash-consistent set by tagging your set with the instance ID, name, or
other relevant details. You can also choose to automatically copy tags from the source volume to
the corresponding snapshots. This helps you to set the snapshot metadata, such as access policies,
attachment information, and cost allocation, to match the source volume.

After creating your snapshots, they appear in your EC2 console created at the exact point-in-time.

If any one snapshot for the multi-volume snapshot set fails, all of the other snapshots display an error
status and a createSnapshots CloudWatch event with a result of failed is sent to your AWS account.
For more information, see Create snapshots (createSnapshots) (p. 1398).

Amazon Data Lifecycle Manager

You can create, retain, and delete snapshots manually, or you can use Amazon Data Lifecycle Manager to
manage your snapshots for you. For more information, see Amazon Data Lifecycle Manager (p. 1285).

Considerations
The following considerations apply to creating snapshots:

• When you create a snapshot for an EBS volume that serves as a root device, you should stop the
instance before taking the snapshot.
• You cannot create snapshots from instances for which hibernation is enabled.
• You cannot create snapshots from hibernated instances.
• Although you can take a snapshot of a volume while a previous snapshot of that volume is in the
pending status, having multiple pending snapshots of a volume can result in reduced volume
performance until the snapshots complete.

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• There is a limit of one pending snapshot for a single st1 or sc1 volume, or five
pending snapshots for a single volume of the other volume types. If you receive a
ConcurrentSnapshotLimitExceeded error while trying to create multiple concurrent snapshots of
the same volume, wait for one or more of the pending snapshots to complete before creating another
snapshot of that volume.
• When a snapshot is created from a volume with an AWS Marketplace product code, the product code is
propagated to the snapshot.

Create a snapshot
To create a snapshot from the specified volume, use one of the following methods.

Console

To create a snapshot using the console

1. Open the Amazon EC2 console at https://console.aws.amazon.com/ec2/.

2. Choose Snapshots under Elastic Block Store in the navigation pane.
3. Choose Create Snapshot.
4. For Select resource type, choose Volume.
5. For Volume, select the volume.
6. (Optional) Enter a description for the snapshot.
7. (Optional) Choose Add Tag to add tags to your snapshot. For each tag, provide a tag key and a
tag value.
8. Choose Create Snapshot.

AWS CLI

To create a snapshot using the command line

You can use one of the following commands. For more information about these command line
interfaces, see Access Amazon EC2 (p. 3).

• create-snapshot (AWS CLI)

• New-EC2Snapshot (AWS Tools for Windows PowerShell)

Create a multi-volume snapshot

To create a snapshot from the volumes of an instance, use one of the following methods.

Console

To create multi-volume snapshots using the console

1. Open the Amazon EC2 console at https://console.aws.amazon.com/ec2/.

2. Choose Snapshots under Elastic Block Store in the navigation pane.
3. Choose Create Snapshot.
4. For Select resource type, choose Instance.
5. Select the instance ID for which you want to create simultaneous backups for all of the attached
EBS volumes. Multi-volume snapshots support up to 40 EBS volumes per instance.

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6. (Optional) Set Exclude root volume.

7. (Optional) Set Copy tags from volume flag to automatically copy tags from the source
volume to the corresponding snapshots. This sets snapshot metadata—such as access policies,
attachment information, and cost allocation—to match the source volume.
8. (Optional) Choose Add Tag to add tags to your snapshot. For each tag, provide a tag key and a
tag value.
9. Choose Create Snapshot.

AWS CLI

To create multi-volume snapshots using the command line

You can use one of the following commands. For more information about these command line
interfaces, see Access Amazon EC2 (p. 3).

• create-snapshots (AWS CLI)

• New-EC2SnapshotBatch (AWS Tools for Windows PowerShell)

To create application-consistent snapshots using Systems Manager Run Command

You can use Systems Manager Run Command to take application-consistent snapshots of all EBS
volumes attached to your Amazon EC2 Windows instances. The snapshot process uses the Windows
Volume Shadow Copy Service (VSS) to take image-level backups of VSS-aware applications,
including data from pending transactions between these applications and the disk. You don't need
to shut down your instances or disconnect them when you back up all attached volumes. For more
information, see Create a VSS application-consistent snapshot (p. 1227).

If all of the snapshots complete successfully, a createSnapshots CloudWatch event with a result
of succeeded is sent to your AWS account. If any one snapshot for the multi-volume snapshot set
fails, all of the other snapshots display an error status and a createSnapshots CloudWatch event
with a result of failed is sent to your AWS account. For more information, see Create snapshots
(createSnapshots) (p. 1398).

Work with EBS snapshots

You can copy snapshots, share snapshots, and create volumes from snapshots. For more information, see
the following:

• Copy an Amazon EBS snapshot (p. 1242)

• Share an Amazon EBS snapshot (p. 1247)
• Create a volume from a snapshot (p. 1197)

Create a VSS application-consistent snapshot

You can take application-consistent snapshots of all Amazon EBS volumes attached to your Windows
on Amazon EC2 instances using AWS Systems Manager Run Command. The snapshot process uses the
Windows Volume Shadow Copy Service (VSS) to take image-level backups of VSS-aware applications.
The snapshots include data from pending transactions between these applications and the disk. You
don't have to shut down your instances or disconnect them when you need to back up all attached
volumes.

There is no additional cost to use VSS-enabled EBS snapshots. You only pay for EBS snapshots created by
the backup process. For more information, see How is my EBS snapshot bill calculated?

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Contents
• How it works (p. 1228)
• Before you begin (p. 1228)
• Get started (p. 1229)
• Create a VSS application-consistent snapshot using the AWS CLI, AWS Tools for Windows PowerShell,
or the AWSEC2-ManageVssIO SSM document (p. 1233)
• Restore volumes from VSS-enabled EBS snapshots (p. 1238)
• AWS VSS component package version history (p. 1239)

How it works
The process for taking application-consistent, VSS-enabled EBS snapshots consists of the following
steps.

1. Complete Systems Manager prerequisites.

2. Enter parameters for the AWSEC2-CreateVssSnapshot SSM document and run this document by
using Run Command. You can't create a VSS-enabled EBS snapshot for a specific volume. You can,
however, specify a parameter to exclude the boot volume from the backup process.
3. The VSS agent on your instance coordinates all ongoing I/O operations for running applications.
4. The system flushes all I/O buffers and temporarily pauses all I/O operations. The pause lasts, at most,
ten seconds.
5. During the pause, the system creates snapshots of all volumes attached to the instance.
6. The pause is lifted and I/O resumes operation.
7. The system adds all newly-created snapshots to the list of EBS snapshots. The system tags all VSS-
enabled EBS snapshots successfully created by this process with AppConsistent:true. This tag
helps you identify snapshots created by this process, as opposed to other processes. If the system
encounters an error, the snapshot created by this process does not include the AppConsistent:true
tag.
8. If you need to restore from a snapshot, you can use the standard EBS process of creating a volume
from a snapshot, or you can restore all volumes to an instance by using a sample script, which is
described later in this section.

Before you begin

Before you create VSS-enabled EBS snapshots by using Run Command, review the following
requirements and limitations, and complete the required tasks.
Important
The AWSVssComponents package and the AWSEC2-CreateVssSnapshot and AWSEC2-
ManageVssIO SSM documents no longer receive updates for Windows Server 2008 R2.
The AWSVssComponents package supports Windows Server 2008 R2 up to version 1.3.1.0 and
no later.
You can query the latest version of Windows 2008 R2 supported by the AWSEC2-
CreateVssSnapshot and AWSEC2-ManageVssIO SSM documents by using the GetDocument
API and specifying 2008R2 for -VersionName. For example:
Get-SSMDocument -Name AWSEC2-CreateVssSnapshot -VersionName "2008R2"

Amazon EC2 Windows instance requirements

VSS-enabled EBS snapshots are supported for instances running Windows Server 2012 or later. Verify
that your instances meet all requirements for Amazon EC2 Windows. For more information, see Setting
Up AWS Systems Manager in the AWS Systems Manager User Guide.

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.NET Framework version

The AWSVssComponents package requires .NET Framework version 4.6 and later. If you are using
Windows 2012, or 2012 R2, the default .NET Framework version is earlier than 4.6 and you must install
version 4.6 or later using Windows Update.

SSM Agent version

Update your instances to use SSM Agent version 2.2.58.0 or later. If you are using an older version of
SSM Agent, you can update it by using Run Command. For more information, see Update SSM Agent by
using Run Command in the AWS Systems Manager User Guide.

AWS Tools for Windows PowerShell version

Ensure that your instance is running version 3.3.48.0 or later of the AWS Tools for Windows PowerShell.
To check your version number, run the following command on the instance:

Get-AWSPowerShellVersion

If you need to update the version of Tools for Windows PowerShell on your instance, see Setting up
the AWS Tools for Windows PowerShell on a Windows-based Computer in the AWS Tools for Windows
PowerShell User Guide.

Get started
These instructions describe how to install the VSS components and perform an application-consistent
snapshot of the EBS volumes attached to an EC2 Windows instance. For more information, see Getting
Started with Amazon EC2 Windows Instances.

Contents
• Create an IAM role for VSS-enabled snapshots (p. 1229)
• Download and install VSS components to the Windows on EC2 instance (p. 1231)
• Create a VSS application-consistent snapshot using the console (p. 1232)

Create an IAM role for VSS-enabled snapshots

The following procedures describes how to work with IAM policies and IAM roles. The policy enables
Systems Manager to create snapshots, tags snapshots, and attach metadata like a device ID to the
default snapshot tags that the system creates.

To create an IAM policy for VSS-enabled snapshots

1. Open the IAM console at https://console.aws.amazon.com/iam/.

2. In the navigation pane, choose Policies, and then choose Create policy.
3. On the Create policy page, choose the JSON tab, and then replace the default content with the
following JSON policy.

{
"Version": "2012-10-17",
"Statement": [
{
"Effect": "Allow",
"Action": "ec2:CreateTags",
"Resource": [
"arn:aws:ec2:*::snapshot/*",
"arn:aws:ec2:*::image/*"

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]
},
{
"Effect": "Allow",
"Action": [
"ec2:DescribeInstances",
"ec2:CreateSnapshot",
"ec2:CreateImage",
"ec2:DescribeImages"
],
"Resource": "*"
}
]
}

If you do not intend to set the CreateAmi parameter to True, then you can omit
arn:aws:ec2:*::image/* from the first policy statement and you can omit ec2:CreateImage
and ec2:DescribeImages from the second policy statement.

If you intend to always set the CreateAmi parameter to True, then you can omit
ec2:CreateSnapshot from the second policy statement.
4. Choose Review policy.
5. For Name, enter a name to identify the policy, such as VssSnapshotRole or another name that you
prefer.
6. (Optional) For Description, enter a description of the role's purpose.
7. Choose Create policy.

Use the following procedure to create an IAM role for VSS-enabled snapshots. This role includes policies
for Amazon EC2 and Systems Manager.

To create an IAM role for VSS-enabled EBS snapshots

1. Open the IAM console at https://console.aws.amazon.com/iam/.

2. In the navigation pane, choose Roles, and then choose Create role.
3. Under Select type of trusted entity, choose AWS Service.
4. Immediately under Choose the service that will use this role, choose EC2, and then choose Next:
Permissions.
5. Under Select your use case, choose EC2, and then choose Next: Permissions.
6. In the list of policies, choose the box next to AmazonSSMManagedInstanceCore. (Type SSM in the
search box if you need to narrow the list.)
7. Choose Next: Tags.
8. (Optional) Add one or more tag key-value pairs to organize, track, or control access for this role, and
then choose Next: Review.
9. For Role name, enter a name for the role, such as VssSnapshotRole or another name that you
prefer.
10. (Optional) For Role description, replace the default text with a description of this role's purpose.
11. Choose Create role. The system returns you to the Roles page.
12. Choose the role that you just created. The role Summary page opens.
13. Choose Attach policies.
14. Search for and choose the box next to the policy your created in the previous procedure, such as
VssSnapshotRole or another name that you chose.
15. Choose Attach policy.

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16. Attach this role to the instances for which you want to create VSS-enabled EBS snapshots. For more
information, see Attach an IAM role to an instance (p. 1134).

Download and install VSS components to the Windows on EC2 instance

Systems Manager requires VSS components to be installed on your instances. Use the following
procedure to install the components using the AWSVssComponents package. The package installs two
components: a VSS requester and a VSS provider. We recommend that you install the latest AWS VSS
component package to improve reliability and performance of application-consistent snapshots on
your EC2 Windows instances. To view the latest package version, see the AWS VSS component package
version history (p. 1239).

1. Open the AWS Systems Manager console at https://console.aws.amazon.com/systems-manager/.

2. In the navigation pane, choose Run Command.
3. Choose Run command.
4. For Command document, choose the button next to AWS-ConfigureAWSPackage.
5. For Command parameters, do the following:

a. Verify that Action is set to Install.

b. For Name, enter AwsVssComponents.
c. For Version, leave the field empty so that Systems Manager installs the latest version.
6. For Targets, identify the instances on which you want to run this operation by specifying tags or
selecting instances manually.
Note
If you choose to select instances manually, and an instance you expect to see is not included
in the list, see Where Are My Instances? in the AWS Systems Manager User Guide for
troubleshooting tips.
7. For Other parameters:

• (Optional) For Comment, type information about this command.

• For Timeout (seconds), specify the number of seconds for the system to wait before failing the
overall command execution.
8. (Optional) For Rate control:

• For Concurrency, specify either a number or a percentage of instances on which to run the
command at the same time.
Note
If you selected targets by choosing Amazon EC2 tags, and you are not certain how many
instances use the selected tags, then limit the number of instances that can run the
document at the same time by specifying a percentage.
• For Error threshold, specify when to stop running the command on other instances after it fails
on either a number or a percentage of instances. For example, if you specify three errors, then
Systems Manager stops sending the command when the fourth error is received. Instances still
processing the command might also send errors.
9. (Optional) For Output options section, if you want to save the command output to a file, select the
box next to Enable writing to an S3 bucket. Specify the bucket and (optional) prefix (folder) names.
Note
The S3 permissions that grant the ability to write the data to an S3 bucket are those of the
instance profile assigned to the instance, not those of the IAM user performing this task.
For more information, see Create an IAM Instance Profile for Systems Manager in the AWS
Systems Manager User Guide.
10. (Optional) Specify options for SNS notifications.

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For information about configuring Amazon SNS notifications for Run Command, see Configuring
Amazon SNS Notifications for AWS Systems Manager.
11. Choose Run.

Create a VSS application-consistent snapshot using the console

Use the following procedure to create a VSS-enabled EBS snapshot.

To create VSS-enabled EBS snapshots using the console

1. Open the AWS Systems Manager console at https://console.aws.amazon.com/systems-manager/.

2. In the navigation pane, choose Run Command.
3. Choose Run command.
4. For Command document, choose AWSEC2-CreateVssSnapshot for the Document name, then
choose Latest version at runtime as the Document version.
5. For Targets, identify the instances on which you want to run this operation by specifying tags or
selecting instances manually.
Note
If you choose to select instances manually, and an instance you expect to see is not included
in the list, see Where Are My Instances? for troubleshooting tips.
6. For Command parameters, do the following:

a. Choose an option from the Exclude Boot Volume list. Use this parameter to exclude boot
volumes from the backup process.
b. (Optional) For Description field, type a description. This description is applied to any snapshot
created by this process.
c. (Optional) For Tags, type keys and values for tags that you want to apply to any snapshot
created by this process. Tags can help you locate, manage, and restore volumes from a list
of snapshots. By default, the system populates the tag parameter with a Name key. For the
value of this key, specify a name that you want to apply to snapshots created by this process.
If you want to specify additional tags, separate tags by using a semicolon. For example,
Key=Environment,Value=Test;Key=User,Value=TestUser1.

We recommended that you tag snapshots. By default, the systems tags snapshots with the
device ID, and AppConsistent (for indicating successful, application-consistent VSS-enabled
EBS snapshots).
d. For Copy Only, choose True to perform a copy only backup operation. This option is set
to False by default so that the system performs a full backup operation. A full backup
operation prevents the system from breaking the differential backup chain in SQL Server when
performing a backup.
Note
This option requires that AWS VSS provider version 1.2.00 or later be installed.
e. For No Writers, choose True to exclude application VSS writers from the snapshot process. This
can help you resolve conflicts with third-party VSS backup components. This option is set to
False by default.
Note
This option requires that AWS VSS provider version 1.2.00 or later be installed.
f. For CreateAmi, choose True to create an Amazon Machine Image (AMI) backup that is VSS-
enabled, instead of an EBS snapshot. This option is set to False by default. For more information
about creating an AMI, see Create a Windows AMI from a running instance.
g. (Optional) For AmiName, specify a name for the created AMI. This option applies only if the
CreateAmi option is set to True.

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7. For Other parameters:

• For Comment, type information about this command.

• For Timeout (seconds), specify the number of seconds for the system to wait before failing the
overall command execution.
8. (Optional) For Rate control:

• For Concurrency, specify either a number or a percentage of instances on which to run the
command at the same time.
Note
If you selected targets by choosing Amazon EC2 tags, and you are not certain how many
instances use the selected tags, then limit the number of instances that can run the
document at the same time by specifying a percentage.
• For Error threshold, specify when to stop running the command on other instances after it fails
on either a number or a percentage of instances. For example, if you specify three errors, then
Systems Manager stops sending the command when the fourth error is received. Instances still
processing the command might also send errors.
9. (Optional) For Output options, to save the command output to a file, select the box next to Enable
writing to an S3 bucket. Specify the bucket and (optional) prefix (folder) names.
Note
The S3 permissions that grant the ability to write the data to an S3 bucket are those of the
instance profile assigned to the instance, not those of the IAM user performing this task. For
more information, see Setting Up Systems Manager.
10. (Optional) Specify options for SNS notifications.

For information about configuring Amazon SNS notifications for Run Command, see Configuring
Amazon SNS Notifications for AWS Systems Manager in the AWS Systems Manager User Guide.
11. Choose Run.

If successful, the command populates the list of EBS snapshots with the new snapshots. You can
locate these snapshots in the list of EBS snapshots by searching for the tags you specified, or
by searching for AppConsistent. If the command execution failed, view the Systems Manager
command output for details about why the execution failed. If the command successfully completed,
but a specific volume backup failed, you can troubleshoot the failure in the list of EBS volumes.

If the command failed and you are using Systems Manager with VPC endpoints, verify that you
configured the com.amazonaws.region.ec2 endpoint. Without the EC2 endpoint defined, the call
to enumerate attached EBS volumes fails, which causes the Systems Manager command to fail.
For more information about setting up VPC endpoints with Systems Manager, see Create a Virtual
Private Cloud Endpoint in the AWS Systems Manager User Guide.
Note
You can automate backups by creating a maintenance window task that uses the
AWSEC2-CreateVssSnapshot SSM document. For more information, see Working with
Maintenance Windows (Console).

Create a VSS application-consistent snapshot using the AWS CLI, AWS Tools for
Windows PowerShell, or the AWSEC2-ManageVssIO SSM document
This section includes procedures for creating VSS-enabled EBS snapshots by using the AWS CLI or AWS
Tools for Windows PowerShell. It also contains an advanced method for creating VSS-enabled snapshots
using the AWSEC2-ManageVssIO SSM document.

Contents
• Install the VSS package using the AWS CLI or Tools for Windows PowerShell (p. 1234)

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• Create VSS-enabled EBS snapshots using the AWS CLI, Tools for Windows PowerShell, or the
AWSEC2-ManageVssIO SSM document (p. 1235)
• Troubleshoot VSS-enabled EBS snapshots (p. 1237)

Install the VSS package using the AWS CLI or Tools for Windows PowerShell

Use one of the following command-line procedures to download and install the VSS components to the
Windows on EC2 instance.

Install the VSS package by using the AWS CLI

Use the following procedure to download and install the AwsVssComponents package on your instances
by using Run Command from the AWS CLI. The package installs two components: a VSS requestor and a
VSS provider. The system copies these components to a directory on the instance, and then registers the
provider DLL as a VSS provider.

To install the VSS package by using the AWS CLI

1. Install and configure the AWS CLI, if you have not already.

For information, see Install or Upgrade and then Configure the AWS CLI in the AWS Systems Manager
User Guide.
2. Run the following command to download and install the required VSS components for Systems
Manager.

aws ssm send-command --document-name "AWS-ConfigureAWSPackage" --instance-ids

"i-12345678" --parameters '{"action":["Install"],"name":["AwsVssComponents"]}'

Install the VSS package by using Tools for Windows PowerShell

Use the following procedure to download and install the AwsVssComponents package on your instances
by using Run Command from the Tools for Windows PowerShell. The package installs two components:
a VSS requestor and a VSS provider. The system copies these components to a directory on the instance,
and then registers the provider DLL as a VSS provider.

To install the VSS package by using AWS Tools for Windows PowerShell

1. Open AWS Tools for Windows PowerShell and run the following command to specify your
credentials. You must either have administrator privileges in Amazon EC2 or have been granted the
appropriate permission in IAM. For more information, see Setting Up AWS Systems Manager in the
AWS Systems Manager User Guide.

Set-AWSCredentials –AccessKey key_name –SecretKey key_name

2. Run the following command to set the Region for your PowerShell session. The example uses the us-
east-2 Region.

Set-DefaultAWSRegion -Region us-east-2

3. Run the following command to download and install the required VSS components for Systems
Manager.

Send-SSMCommand -DocumentName AWS-ConfigureAWSPackage -InstanceId "$instance"-Parameter

@{'action'='Install';'name'='AwsVssComponents'}

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Create VSS-enabled EBS snapshots using the AWS CLI, Tools for Windows PowerShell, or the
AWSEC2-ManageVssIO SSM document

Use one of the following command-line procedures to create VSS-enabled EBS snapshots.

Create VSS-enabled EBS snapshots using the AWS CLI

Use the following procedure to create VSS-enabled EBS snapshots by using the AWS CLI. When you run
the command, you can specify the following parameters:

• Instance (Required): Specify one or more Amazon EC2 Windows instances. You can either manually
specify instances, or you can specify tags.
• Description (Optional): Specify details about this backup.
• Tags (Optional): Specify key-value tag pairs that you want to assign to the snapshots. Tags can help
you locate, manage, and restore volumes from a list of snapshots. By default, the system populates
the tag parameter with a Name key. For the value of this key, specify a name that you want to apply
to snapshots created by this process. You can also add custom tags to this list by using the following
format: Key=Environment,Value=Test;Key=User,Value=TestUser1.

This parameter is optional, but we recommended that you tag snapshots. By default, the systems tags
snapshots with the device ID, and AppConsistent (for indicating successful, application-consistent
VSS-enabled EBS snapshots).
• Exclude Boot Volume (Optional): Use this parameter to exclude boot volumes from the backup process.

To create VSS-enabled EBS snapshots by using the AWS CLI

1. Install and configure the AWS CLI, if you have not already.

For information, see Install or Upgrade and then Configure the AWS CLI in the AWS Systems Manager
User Guide.
2. Run the following command to create VSS-enabled EBS snapshots.

aws ssm send-command --document-name "AWSEC2-CreateVssSnapshot" --instance-

ids "i-12345678" --parameters '{"ExcludeBootVolume":["False"],"description":
["Description"],"tags":["Key=key_name,Value=tag_value"]}'

If successful, the command populates the list of EBS snapshots with the new snapshots. You can locate
these snapshots in the list of EBS snapshots by searching for the tags you specified, or by searching for
AppConsistent. If the command execution failed, view the command output for details about why the
execution failed.

You can automate backups by creating a maintenance window task that uses the AWSEC2-
CreateVssSnapshot SSM document. For more information, see Working with Maintenance Windows
(Console) in the AWS Systems Manager User Guide.

Create VSS-enabled EBS snapshots using AWS Tools for Windows PowerShell

Use the following procedure to create VSS-enabled EBS snapshots by using the AWS Tools for Windows
PowerShell. When you run the command, you can specify the following parameters:

• Instance (Required): Specify one or more Amazon EC2 Windows instances. You can either manually
specify instances, or you can specify tags.
• Description (Optional): Specify details about this backup.
• Tags (Optional): Specify key-value tag pairs that you want to assign to the snapshots. Tags can help
you locate, manage, and restore volumes from a list of snapshots. By default, the system populates

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the tag parameter with a Name key. For the value of this key, specify a name that you want to apply
to snapshots created by this process. You can also add custom tags to this list by using the following
format: Key=Environment,Value=Test;Key=User,Value=TestUser1.

This parameter is optional, but we recommend that you tag snapshots. By default, the systems tags
snapshots with the device ID, and AppConsistent (for indicating successful, application-consistent
VSS-enabled EBS snapshots).
• Exclude Boot Volume (Optional): Use this parameter to exclude boot volumes from the backup process.

To create VSS-enabled EBS snapshots by using AWS Tools for Windows PowerShell

1. Open AWS Tools for Windows PowerShell and run the following command to specify your
credentials. You must either have administrator privileges in Amazon EC2, or you must have been
granted the appropriate permission in IAM. For more information, see Setting Up AWS Systems
Manager in the AWS Systems Manager User Guide.

Set-AWSCredentials –AccessKey key_name –SecretKey key_name

2. Execute the following command to set the Region for your PowerShell session. The example uses the
us-east-2 Region.

Set-DefaultAWSRegion -Region us-east-2

3. Execute the following command to create VSS-enabled EBS snapshots.

Send-SSMCommand -DocumentName AWSEC2-CreateVssSnapshot -InstanceId "$instance" -

Parameter @{'ExcludeBootVolume'='False';'description'='a_description'
;'tags'='Key=key_name,Value=tag_value'}

If successful, the command populates the list of EBS snapshots with the new snapshots. You can locate
these snapshots in the list of EBS snapshots by searching for the tags you specified, or by searching for
AppConsistent. If the command execution failed, view the command output for details about why the
execution failed. If the command successfully completed, but a specific volume backup failed, you can
troubleshoot the failure in the list of EBS snapshots.

You can automate backups by creating a maintenance window task that uses the AWSEC2-
CreateVssSnapshot SSM document. For more information, see Working with Maintenance Windows
(Console) in the AWS Systems Manager User Guide.

Create VSS-enabled EBS snapshots by using the AWSEC2-ManageVssIO SSM document

(advanced)

You can use the following script and the pre-defined AWSEC2-ManageVssIO SSM document to
temporarily pause I/O, create VSS-enabled EBS snapshots, and restart I/O. This process runs in the
context of the user who runs the command. If the user has sufficient permission to create and tag
snapshots, then AWS Systems Manager can create and tag VSS-enabled EBS snapshots without the need
for the additional IAM snapshot role on the instance.

In contrast, the AWSEC2-CreateVssSnapshot document requires that you assign the IAM snapshot role
to each instance for which you want to create EBS snapshots. If you don’t want to provide additional IAM
permissions to your instances for policy or compliance reasons, then you can use the following script.

Before you begin

Note the following important details about this process:

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• This process uses a PowerShell script (CreateVssSnapshotAdvancedScript.ps1) to take

snapshots of all volumes on the instances you specify, except root volumes. If you need to take
snapshots of root volumes, then you must use the AWSEC2-CreateVssSnapshot SSM document.
• The script calls the AWSEC2-ManageVssIO document twice. The first time with the Action parameter
set to Freeze, which pauses all I/O on the instances. The second time, the Action parameter is set to
Thaw, which forces I/O to resume.
• Don't attempt to use the AWSEC2-ManageVssIO document without using the
CreateVssSnapshotAdvancedScript.ps1 script. A limitation in VSS requires that the Freeze and Thaw
actions be called no more than ten seconds apart, and manually calling these actions without the
script could result in errors.

To create VSS-enabled EBS snapshots by using the AWSEC2-ManageVssIO SSM document

1. Open AWS Tools for Windows PowerShell and run the following command to specify your
credentials. You must either have administrator privileges in Amazon EC2 or have been granted the
appropriate permission in IAM. For more information, see Setting Up AWS Systems Manager in the
AWS Systems Manager User Guide.

Set-AWSCredentials –AccessKey key_name –SecretKey key_name

2. Execute the following command to set the Region for your PowerShell session. The example uses the
us-east-2 Region.

Set-DefaultAWSRegion -Region us-east-2

3. Download the CreateVssSnapshotAdvancedScript.zip file and extract the file contents.

4. Open CreateVssSnapshotAdvancedScript.ps1 in a text editor, edit the sample call at the
bottom of the script with a valid EC2 instance ID, snapshot description, and desired tag values, and
then run the script from PowerShell.

If successful, the command populates the list of EBS snapshots with the new snapshots. You can locate
these snapshots in the list of EBS snapshots by searching for the tags you specified, or by searching for
AppConsistent. If the command execution failed, view the command output for details about why the
execution failed. If the command was successfully completed, but a specific volume backup failed, you
can troubleshoot the failure in the list of EBS volumes.

Troubleshoot VSS-enabled EBS snapshots

General: Checking the log files

If you experience problems or receive error messages when creating VSS-enabled EBS snapshots, you can
view the command output in the Systems Manager console. You can also view the following logs:

• %ProgramData%\Amazon\SSM\InstanceData\InstanceID\document\orchestration
\SSMCommandID\awsrunPowerShellScript\runPowerShellScript\stdout
• %ProgramData%\Amazon\SSM\InstanceData\InstanceID\document\orchestration
\SSMCommandID\awsrunPowerShellScript\runPowerShellScript\stderr

You can also open the Event Viewer Windows application and choose Windows Logs, Application to
view additional logs. To see events specifically from the EC2 Windows VSS Provider and the Volume
Shadow Copy Service, filter by Source on the terms Ec2VssSoftwareProvider and VSS.

Error: Thaw pipe connection timed out, error on thaw, timeout waiting for VSS Freeze, or other
timeout errors

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The EC2 Windows VSS Provider might time out due to activity or services on the instance preventing
VSS-enabled snapshots from proceeding in a timely manner. The Windows VSS Framework provides a
non-configurable 10-second window during which communication to the file system is paused. During
this time, AWSEC2-CreateVssSnapshot snapshots your volumes.

The following items can cause the EC2 Windows VSS Provider to run into time limits during a snapshot:

• Excessive I/O to a volume

• Slow responsiveness of the EC2 API on the instance
• Fragmented volumes
• Incompatibility with some antivirus software
• Issues with a VSS Application writer
• When Module Logging is enabled for a large number of PowerShell modules, that can cause
PowerShell scripts to run slowly

Usually, when running into time limits with the AWSEC2-CreateVssSnapshot command, the cause is
related to the workload on the instance being too high at the time of backup. The following actions can
help you take a successful snapshot:

• Retry the AWSEC2-CreateVssSnapshot command to see if the snapshot attempt is successful. If

retrying succeeds in some cases, reducing the instance load might make snapshots more successful.
• Wait a while for the workload on the instance to decrease, and retry the AWSEC2-
CreateVssSnapshot command. Alternatively, you can attempt snapshots when the instance is
known to be under low stress.
• Attempt VSS snapshots when the antivirus software on the system is turned off. If this resolves the
issue, refer to the antivirus software instructions and configure it to allow VSS snapshots.
• If there are a lot of EC2 API calls being made at the time of the snapshot, API throttling might cause
the snapshots to take too long to start. Try taking snapshots again when there is less API activity in the
account.
• Run the command vssadmin list writers in a shell and see if it reports any errors in the Last
error field for any writers on the system. If any writers report a time out error, consider retrying
snapshots when the instance is under less load.
• If one or more PowerShell modules have Group Policies that enable PowerShell module logging, try
temporarily disabling the logging before you take a snapshot.

Restore volumes from VSS-enabled EBS snapshots

You can use the RestoreVssSnapshotSampleScript.ps1 script to restore volumes on an instance
from VSS-enabled EBS snapshots. This script performs the following tasks:

• Stops an instance
• Removes all existing drives from the instance (except the boot volume, if it was excluded)
• Creates new volumes from the snapshots
• Attaches the volumes to the instance by using the device ID tag on the snapshot
• Restarts the instance

Important
The following script detaches all volumes attached to an instance, and then creates new
volumes from a snapshot. Make sure that you have properly backed-up the instance. The old
volumes are not deleted. If you want, you can edit the script to delete the old volumes.

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To restore volumes from VSS-enabled EBS snapshots

1. Open AWS Tools for Windows PowerShell and run the following command to specify your
credentials. You must either have administrator privileges in Amazon EC2 or have been granted the
appropriate permission in IAM. For more information, see Setting Up AWS Systems Manager in the
AWS Systems Manager User Guide.

Set-AWSCredentials –AccessKey key_name –SecretKey key_name

2. Run the following command to set the Region for your PowerShell session. The example uses the us-
east-2 Region.

Set-DefaultAWSRegion -Region us-east-2

3. Download the RestoreVssSnapshotSampleScript.zip file and extract the file contents.

4. Open RestoreVssSnapshotSampleScript.zip in a text editor and edit the sample call at the bottom of
the script with a valid EC2 instance ID and EBS snapshot ID, and then run the script from PowerShell.

AWS VSS component package version history

The following table describes the released versions of the AWS VSS component package.

Version Details Release date

1.3.1.0 • Fixed snapshots failing on domain controllers in relation to an 6 February

NTDS VSS writer logging error. 2020
• Fixed VSS agent error when uninstalling version 1.0 VSS provider.

1.3.00 • Improved logging by reducing unwanted verbosity. 19 March 2019

• Fixed regionalization issues during installation.
• Fixed return codes for some provider registration error conditions.
• Fixed various installation issues.

1.2.00 • Added command line parameters -nw (no-writers) and -copy 15 November
(copy-only) to agent. 2018
• Fixed EventLog errors caused by improper memory allocation
calls.

1.1 Fixed AwsVssProvider.dll being used incorrectly as the default 12 December

Windows Backup and Restore provider. 2017

1.0 Initial release. 20 November

2017

Delete an Amazon EBS snapshot

After you no longer need an Amazon EBS snapshot of a volume, you can delete it. Deleting a snapshot
has no effect on the volume. Deleting a volume has no effect on the snapshots made from it.

Incremental snapshot deletion

If you make periodic snapshots of a volume, the snapshots are incremental. This means that only the
blocks on the device that have changed after your most recent snapshot are saved in the new snapshot.

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Even though snapshots are saved incrementally, the snapshot deletion process is designed so that you
need to retain only the most recent snapshot in order to create volumes.

If data was present on a volume held in an earlier snapshot or series of snapshots, and that data is
subsequently deleted from the volume later on, the data is still considered to be unique data of the
earlier snapshots. Unique data is only deleted from the sequence of snapshots if all snapshots that
reference the unique data are deleted.

When you delete a snapshot, only the data that is referenced exclusively by that snapshot is removed.
Unique data is only deleted if all of the snapshots that reference it are deleted. Deleting previous
snapshots of a volume does not affect your ability to create volumes from later snapshots of that
volume.

Deleting a snapshot might not reduce your organization's data storage costs. Other snapshots might
reference that snapshot's data, and referenced data is always preserved. If you delete a snapshot
containing data being used by a later snapshot, costs associated with the referenced data are allocated
to the later snapshot. For more information about how snapshots store data, see How incremental
snapshots work (p. 1221) and the following example.

In the following diagram, Volume 1 is shown at three points in time. A snapshot has captured each of the
first two states, and in the third, a snapshot has been deleted.

• In State 1, the volume has 10 GiB of data. Because Snap A is the first snapshot taken of the volume,
the entire 10 GiB of data must be copied.
• In State 2, the volume still contains 10 GiB of data, but 4 GiB have changed. Snap B needs to copy and
store only the 4 GiB that changed after Snap A was taken. The other 6 GiB of unchanged data, which
are already copied and stored in Snap A, are referenced by Snap B rather than (again) copied. This is
indicated by the dashed arrow.
• In state 3, the volume has not changed since State 2, but Snapshot A has been deleted. The 6 GiB of
data stored in Snapshot A that were referenced by Snapshot B have now been moved to Snapshot
B, as shown by the heavy arrow. As a result, you are still charged for storing 10 GiB of data; 6 GiB of
unchanged data preserved from Snap A and 4 GiB of changed data from Snap B.

Deleting a snapshot with some of its data referenced by another snapshot

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Considerations
The following considerations apply to deleting snapshots:

• You can't delete a snapshot of the root device of an EBS volume used by a registered AMI. You must
first deregister the AMI before you can delete the snapshot. For more information, see Deregister your
Windows AMI (p. 52).
• You can't delete a snapshot that is managed by the AWS Backup service using Amazon EC2. Instead,
use AWS Backup to delete the corresponding recovery points in the backup vault.
• You can create, retain, and delete snapshots manually, or you can use Amazon Data Lifecycle
Manager to manage your snapshots for you. For more information, see Amazon Data Lifecycle
Manager (p. 1285).
• Although you can delete a snapshot that is still in progress, the snapshot must complete before the
deletion takes effect. This might take a long time. If you are also at your concurrent snapshot limit, and
you attempt to take an additional snapshot, you might get a ConcurrentSnapshotLimitExceeded
error. For more information, see the Service Quotas for Amazon EBS in the Amazon Web Services
General Reference.

Delete a snapshot
To delete a snapshot, use one of the following methods.

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Console

To delete a snapshot using the console

1. Open the Amazon EC2 console at https://console.aws.amazon.com/ec2/.

2. Choose Snapshots in the navigation pane.
3. Select a snapshot and then choose Delete from the Actions list.
4. Choose Yes, Delete.

AWS CLI

To delete a snapshot using the command line

You can use one of the following commands. For more information about these command line
interfaces, see Access Amazon EC2 (p. 3).

• delete-snapshot (AWS CLI)

• Remove-EC2Snapshot (AWS Tools for Windows PowerShell)

Delete a multi-volume snapshot

To delete multi-volume snapshots, retrieve all of the snapshots for your multi-volume snapshot set using
the tag you applied to the set when you created the snapshots. Then, delete the snapshots individually.

You will not be prevented from deleting individual snapshots in the multi-volume snapshot set. If you
delete a snapshot while it is in the pending state, only that snapshot is deleted. The other snapshots
in the multi-volume snapshot set still complete successfully.

Copy an Amazon EBS snapshot

With Amazon EBS, you can create point-in-time snapshots of volumes, which we store for you in Amazon
S3. After you create a snapshot and it has finished copying to Amazon S3 (when the snapshot status is
completed), you can copy it from one AWS Region to another, or within the same Region. Amazon S3
server-side encryption (256-bit AES) protects a snapshot's data in transit during a copy operation. The
snapshot copy receives an ID that is different from the ID of the original snapshot.

To copy multi-volume snapshots to another AWS Region, retrieve the snapshots using the tag you
applied to the multi-volume snapshot set when you created it. Then individually copy the snapshots to
another Region.

If you would like another account to be able to copy your snapshot, you must either modify the snapshot
permissions to allow access to that account or make the snapshot public so that all AWS accounts can
copy it. For more information, see Share an Amazon EBS snapshot (p. 1247).

For information about copying an Amazon RDS snapshot, see Copying a DB Snapshot in the Amazon RDS
User Guide.

Use cases

• Geographic expansion: Launch your applications in a new AWS Region.

• Migration: Move an application to a new Region, to enable better availability and to minimize cost.
• Disaster recovery: Back up your data and logs across different geographical locations at regular
intervals. In case of disaster, you can restore your applications using point-in-time backups stored in
the secondary Region. This minimizes data loss and recovery time.
• Encryption: Encrypt a previously unencrypted snapshot, change the key with which the snapshot is
encrypted, or create a copy that you own in order to create a volume from it (for encrypted snapshots
that have been shared with you).

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• Data retention and auditing requirements: Copy your encrypted EBS snapshots from one AWS
account to another to preserve data logs or other files for auditing or data retention. Using a different
account helps prevent accidental snapshot deletions, and protects you if your main AWS account is
compromised.

Prerequisites

• You can copy any accessible snapshots that have a completed status, including shared snapshots and
snapshots that you have created.
• You can copy AWS Marketplace, VM Import/Export, and Storage Gateway snapshots, but you must
verify that the snapshot is supported in the destination Region.

Considerations

• Each account can have up to twenty concurrent snapshot copy requests to a single destination Region.
• User-defined tags are not copied from the source snapshot to the new snapshot. You can add user-
defined tags during or after the copy operation. For more information, see Tag your Amazon EC2
resources (p. 1463).
• Snapshots created by a snapshot copy operation have an arbitrary volume ID that should not be used
for any purpose.
• Resource-level permissions specified for the snapshot copy operation apply only to the new snapshot.
You cannot specify resource-level permissions for the source snapshot. For an example, see Example:
Copying snapshots (p. 1093).

Pricing

• For pricing information about copying snapshots across AWS Regions and accounts, see Amazon EBS
Pricing.
• Snapshot copy operations within a single account and Region do not copy any actual data and
therefore are cost-free as long as the encryption status of the snapshot copy does not change.
• If you copy a snapshot and encrypt it to a new KMS key, a complete (non-incremental) copy is created.
This results in additional storage costs.
• If you copy a snapshot to a new Region, a complete (non-incremental) copy is created. This results in
additional storage costs. Subsequent copies of the same snapshot are incremental.

Incremental snapshot copying

Whether a snapshot copy is incremental is determined by the most recently completed snapshot copy.
When you copy a snapshot across Regions or accounts, the copy is an incremental copy if the following
conditions are met:

• The snapshot was copied to the destination Region or account previously.

• The most recent snapshot copy still exists in the destination Region or account.
• All copies of the snapshot in the destination Region or account are either unencrypted or were
encrypted using the same KMS key.

If the most recent snapshot copy was deleted, the next copy is a full copy, not an incremental copy. If
a copy is still pending when you start a another copy, the second copy starts only after the first copy
finishes.

We recommend that you tag your snapshots with the volume ID and creation time so that you can keep
track of the most recent snapshot copy of a volume in the destination Region or account.

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To see whether your snapshot copies are incremental, check the copySnapshot (p. 1400) CloudWatch
event.

Encryption and snapshot copying

When you copy a snapshot, you can encrypt the copy or you can specify a KMS key that is different than
the original, and the resulting copied snapshot uses the new KMS key. However, changing the encryption
status of a snapshot during a copy operation results in a full (not incremental) copy, which might incur
greater data transfer and storage charges.

To copy an encrypted snapshot shared from another AWS account, you must have permissions to use
the snapshot and the customer master key (CMK) that was used to encrypt the snapshot. When using
an encrypted snapshot that was shared with you, we recommend that you re-encrypt the snapshot by
copying it using a KMS key that you own. This protects you if the original KMS key is compromised, or if
the owner revokes it, which could cause you to lose access to any encrypted volumes that you created
using the snapshot. For more information, see Share an Amazon EBS snapshot (p. 1247).

You apply encryption to EBS snapshot copies by setting the Encrypted parameter to true. (The
Encrypted parameter is optional if encryption by default (p. 1344) is enabled).

Optionally, you can use KmsKeyId to specify a custom key to use to encrypt the snapshot copy. (The
Encrypted parameter must also be set to true, even if encryption by default is enabled.) If KmsKeyId
is not specified, the key that is used for encryption depends on the encryption state of the source
snapshot and its ownership.

The following tables describe the encryption outcome for each possible combination of settings.

Topics
• Encryption outcomes: Copying snapshots that you own (p. 1244)
• Encryption outcomes: Copying snapshots that are shared with you (p. 1245)

Encryption outcomes: Copying snapshots that you own

Encryption by Is Encrypted Source snapshot Default (no KMS Custom (KMS key
default parameter set? encryption status key specified) specified)

Disabled No Unencrypted Unencrypted N/A

Encrypted Encrypted by AWS

managed key

Yes Unencrypted Encrypted by Encrypted by

default KMS key specified KMS
key**
Encrypted Encrypted by
default KMS key

Enabled No Unencrypted Encrypted by N/A

default KMS key

Encrypted Encrypted by
default KMS key

Yes Unencrypted Encrypted by Encrypted by

default KMS key specified KMS
key**
Encrypted Encrypted by
default KMS key

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** This is a customer managed key specified for the copy action. This customer managed key is used
instead of the default customer managed key for the AWS account and Region.

Encryption outcomes: Copying snapshots that are shared with you

Encryption by Is Encrypted Source snapshot Default (no Custom

default parameter set? encryption status KmsKeyId (KmsKeyId
specified) specified)

Disabled No Unencrypted Unencrypted N/A

Encrypted Encrypted by AWS

managed key

Yes Unencrypted Encrypted by Encrypted by

default KMS key specified KMS
key**
Encrypted Encrypted by
default KMS key

Enabled No Unencrypted Encrypted by N/A

default KMS key

Encrypted Encrypted by
default KMS key

Yes Unencrypted Encrypted by Encrypted by

default KMS key specified KMS
key**
Encrypted Encrypted by
default KMS key

** This is a customer managed key specified for the copy action. This customer managed key is used
instead of the default customer managed key for the AWS account and Region.

Copy a snapshot
To copy a snapshot, use one of the following methods.

Console

To copy a snapshot using the console

1. Open the Amazon EC2 console at https://console.aws.amazon.com/ec2/.

2. In the navigation pane, choose Snapshots.
3. Select the snapshot to copy, and then choose Copy from the Actions list.
4. In the Copy Snapshot dialog box, update the following as necessary:

• Destination region: Select the Region where you want to write the copy of the snapshot.
• Description: By default, the description includes information about the source snapshot so
that you can identify a copy from the original. You can change this description as necessary.
• Encryption: If the source snapshot is not encrypted, you can choose to encrypt the copy. If
you have enabled encryption by default (p. 1344), the Encryption option is set and cannot be
unset from the snapshot console. If the Encryption option is set, you can choose to encrypt it
to a customer managed CMK by selecting one in the field, described below.

You cannot strip encryption from an encrypted snapshot.

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• Master Key: The customer master key (CMK) to be used to encrypt this snapshot. The default
key for your account is displayed initially, but you can optionally select from the master keys
in your account or type/paste the ARN of a key from a different account. You can create new
master encryption keys in the AWS KMS console.
5. Choose Copy.
6. In the Copy Snapshot confirmation dialog box, choose Snapshots to go to the Snapshots page
in the Region specified, or choose Close.

To view the progress of the copy process, switch to the destination Region, and then refresh the
Snapshots page. Copies in progress are listed at the top of the page.

AWS CLI

To copy a snapshot using the command line

You can use one of the following commands. For more information about these command line
interfaces, see Access Amazon EC2 (p. 3).

• copy-snapshot (AWS CLI)

• Copy-EC2Snapshot (AWS Tools for Windows PowerShell)

To check for failure

If you attempt to copy an encrypted snapshot without having permissions to use the encryption key, the
operation fails silently. The error state is not displayed in the console until you refresh the page. You can
also check the state of the snapshot from the command line, as in the following example.

aws ec2 describe-snapshots --snapshot-id snap-0123abcd

If the copy failed because of insufficient key permissions, you see the following message:
"StateMessage": "Given key ID is not accessible".

When copying an encrypted snapshot, you must have DescribeKey permissions on the default CMK.
Explicitly denying these permissions results in copy failure. For information about managing CMK keys,
see Controlling Access to Customer Master Keys.

View Amazon EBS snapshot information

You can view detailed information about your snapshots using one of the following methods.

Console

To view snapshot information using the console

1. Open the Amazon EC2 console at https://console.aws.amazon.com/ec2/.

2. Choose Snapshots in the navigation pane.
3. To reduce the list, choose an option from the Filter list. For example, to view only your
snapshots, choose Owned By Me. You can also filter your snapshots using tags and snapshot
attributes. Choose the search bar to view the available tags and attributes.
4. To view more information about a snapshot, select it.

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AWS CLI

To view snapshot information using the command line

You can use one of the following commands. For more information about these command line
interfaces, see Access Amazon EC2 (p. 3).

• describe-snapshots (AWS CLI)

• Get-EC2Snapshot (AWS Tools for Windows PowerShell)

Example Example 1: Filter based on tags

The following command describes the snapshots with the tag Stack=production.

aws ec2 describe-snapshots --filters Name=tag:Stack,Values=production

Example Example 2: Filter based on volume

The following command describes the snapshots created from the specified volume.

aws ec2 describe-snapshots --filters Name=volume-id,Values=vol-049df61146c4d7901

Example Example 3: Filter based on snapshot age

With the AWS CLI, you can use JMESPath to filter results using expressions. For example, the
following command displays the IDs of all snapshots created by your AWS account (represented by
123456789012) before the specified date (represented by 2020-03-31). If you do not specify the
owner, the results include all public snapshots.

aws ec2 describe-snapshots --filters Name=owner-id,Values=123456789012 --query

"Snapshots[?(StartTime<=`2020-03-31`)].[SnapshotId]" --output text

The following command displays the IDs of all snapshots created in the specified date range.

aws ec2 describe-snapshots --filters Name=owner-id,Values=123456789012 --query

"Snapshots[?(StartTime>=`2019-01-01`) && (StartTime<=`2019-12-31`)].[SnapshotId]" --
output text

Share an Amazon EBS snapshot

You can modify the permissions of a snapshot if you want to share it with other AWS accounts. You can
share snapshots publicly with all other AWS accounts, or you can share them privately with individual
AWS accounts that you specify. Users that you have authorized can use the snapshots that you share to
create their own EBS volumes, while your original snapshot remains unaffected.
Important
When you share a snapshot, you are giving others access to all of the data on the snapshot.
Share snapshots only with people that you trust with all of your snapshot data.

Topics
• Before you share a snapshot (p. 1248)
• Share a snapshot (p. 1248)
• Share a KMS key (p. 1249)

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• View snapshots that are shared with you (p. 1250)

• Use snapshots that are shared with you (p. 1251)
• Determine the use of snapshots that you share (p. 1251)

Before you share a snapshot

The following considerations apply to sharing snapshots:

• Snapshots are constrained to the Region in which they were created. To share a snapshot with another
Region, copy the snapshot to that Region and then share the copy. For more information, see Copy an
Amazon EBS snapshot (p. 1242).
• You can't share snapshots that are encrypted with the default AWS managed key. You can only share
snapshots that are encrypted with a customer managed key. For more information, see Creating Keys
in the AWS Key Management Service Developer Guide.
• You can share only unencrypted snapshots publicly.
• When you share an encrypted snapshot, you must also share the customer managed key used to
encrypt the snapshot. For more information, see Share a KMS key (p. 1249).

Share a snapshot
You can share a snapshot using one of the methods described in the section.

Console

To share a snapshot

1. Open the Amazon EC2 console at https://console.aws.amazon.com/ec2/.

2. Choose Snapshots in the navigation pane.
3. Select the snapshot and then choose Actions, Modify Permissions.
4. Make the snapshot public or share it with specific AWS accounts as follows:
• To make the snapshot public, choose Public.
• To share the snapshot with one or more AWS accounts, choose Private, enter the AWS
account ID (without hyphens) in AWS Account Number, and choose Add Permission.
Repeat for any additional AWS accounts.
5. Choose Save.

AWS CLI

The permissions for a snapshot are specified using the createVolumePermission attribute of the
snapshot. To make a snapshot public, set the group to all. To share a snapshot with a specific AWS
account, set the user to the ID of the AWS account.

To share a snapshot publicly

Use one of the following commands.

• modify-snapshot-attribute (AWS CLI)

For --attribute, specify createVolumePermission. For --operation-type, specify add.

For --group-names, specify all.

$ aws ec2 modify-snapshot-attribute --snapshot-id 1234567890abcdef0 --attribute

createVolumePermission --operation-type add --group-names all

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• Edit-EC2SnapshotAttribute (AWS Tools for Windows PowerShell)

For -Attribute, specify CreateVolumePermission. For -OperationType, specify Add. For -

GroupName, specify all.

PS C:\> Edit-EC2SnapshotAttribute -SnapshotId 1234567890abcdef0 -Attribute

CreateVolumePermission -OperationType Add -GroupName all

To share a snapshot privately

Use one of the following commands.

• modify-snapshot-attribute (AWS CLI)

For --attribute, specify createVolumePermission. For --operation-type, specify add.

For --user-ids, specify the 12-digit IDs of the AWS accounts with which to share the snapshots.

$ aws ec2 modify-snapshot-attribute --snapshot-id 1234567890abcdef0 --attribute

createVolumePermission --operation-type add --user-ids 123456789012

• Edit-EC2SnapshotAttribute (AWS Tools for Windows PowerShell)

For -Attribute, specify CreateVolumePermission. For -OperationType, specify Add. For

UserId, specify the 12-digit IDs of the AWS accounts with which to share the snapshots.

PS C:\> Edit-EC2SnapshotAttribute -SnapshotId 1234567890abcdef0 -Attribute

CreateVolumePermission -OperationType Add -UserId 123456789012

Share a KMS key

When you share an encrypted snapshot, you must also share the customer managed key used to encrypt
the snapshot. You can apply cross-account permissions to a customer managed key either when it is
created or at a later time.

Users of your shared customer managed key who are accessing encrypted snapshots must be granted
permissions to perform the following actions on the key:

• kms:DescribeKey
• kms:CreateGrant
• kms:GenerateDataKey
• kms:ReEncrypt
• kms:Decrypt

For more information about controlling access to a customer managed key, see Using key policies in
AWS KMS in the AWS Key Management Service Developer Guide.

To share customer managed key using the AWS KMS console

1. Open the AWS KMS console at https://console.aws.amazon.com/kms.

2. To change the AWS Region, use the Region selector in the upper-right corner of the page.
3. Choose Customer managed keys in the navigation pane.
4. In the Alias column, choose the alias (text link) of the customer managed key that you used to
encrypt the snapshot. The key details open in a new page.

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5. In the Key policy section, you see either the policy view or the default view. The policy view displays
the key policy document. The default view displays sections for Key administrators, Key deletion,
Key Use, and Other AWS accounts. The default view displays if you created the policy in the console
and have not customized it. If the default view is not available, you'll need to manually edit the
policy in the policy view. For more information, see Viewing a Key Policy (Console) in the AWS Key
Management Service Developer Guide.

Use either the policy view or the default view, depending on which view you can access, to add one
or more AWS account IDs to the policy, as follows:
• (Policy view) Choose Edit. Add one or more AWS account IDs to the following statements:
"Allow use of the key" and "Allow attachment of persistent resources".
Choose Save changes. In the following example, the AWS account ID 444455556666 is added
to the policy.

{
"Sid": "Allow use of the key",
"Effect": "Allow",
"Principal": {"AWS": [
"arn:aws:iam::111122223333:user/KeyUser",
"arn:aws:iam::444455556666:root"
]},
"Action": [
"kms:Encrypt",
"kms:Decrypt",
"kms:ReEncrypt*",
"kms:GenerateDataKey*",
"kms:DescribeKey"
],
"Resource": "*"
},
{
"Sid": "Allow attachment of persistent resources",
"Effect": "Allow",
"Principal": {"AWS": [
"arn:aws:iam::111122223333:user/KeyUser",
"arn:aws:iam::444455556666:root"
]},
"Action": [
"kms:CreateGrant",
"kms:ListGrants",
"kms:RevokeGrant"
],
"Resource": "*",
"Condition": {"Bool": {"kms:GrantIsForAWSResource": true}}
}

• (Default view) Scroll down to Other AWS accounts. Choose Add other AWS accounts and enter
the AWS account ID as prompted. To add another account, choose Add another AWS account
and enter the AWS account ID. When you have added all AWS accounts, choose Save changes.

View snapshots that are shared with you

You can view snapshots that are shared with you using one of the following methods.

Console

To view shared snapshots using the console

1. Open the Amazon EC2 console at https://console.aws.amazon.com/ec2/.

2. In the navigation pane, choose Snapshots.

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3. Filter the listed snapshots. In the top-left corner of the screen, choose one of the following
options:

• Private snapshots — To view only snapshots that are shared with you privately.
• Public snapshots — To view only snapshots that are shared with you publicly.

AWS CLI

To view snapshot permissions using the command line

Use one of the following commands:

• describe-snapshot-attribute (AWS CLI)

• Get-EC2SnapshotAttribute (AWS Tools for Windows PowerShell)

Use snapshots that are shared with you

To use a shared unencrypted snapshot

Locate the shared snapshot by ID or description. For more information, see View snapshots that are
shared with you (p. 1250). You can use this snapshot as you would any other snapshot that you own in
your account. For example, you can create a volume from the snapshot or copy it to a different Region.

To use a shared encrypted snapshot

Locate the shared snapshot by ID or description. For more information, see View snapshots that are
shared with you (p. 1250). Create a copy of the shared snapshot in your account, and encrypt the copy
with a KMS key that you own. You can then use the copy to create volumes or you can copy it to different
Regions.

Determine the use of snapshots that you share

You can use AWS CloudTrail to monitor whether a snapshot that you have shared with others is copied or
used to create a volume. The following events are logged in CloudTrail:

• SharedSnapshotCopyInitiated — A shared snapshot is being copied.

• SharedSnapshotVolumeCreated — A shared snapshot is being used to create a volume.

For more information about using CloudTrail, see Log Amazon EC2 and Amazon EBS API calls with AWS
CloudTrail (p. 886).

Amazon EBS local snapshots on Outposts

Amazon EBS snapshots are a point-in-time copy of your EBS volumes.

By default, snapshots of EBS volumes on an Outpost are stored in Amazon S3 in the Region of the
Outpost. You can also use Amazon EBS local snapshots on Outposts to store snapshots of volumes on
an Outpost locally in Amazon S3 on the Outpost itself. This ensures that the snapshot data resides on
the Outpost, and on your premises. In addition, you can use AWS Identity and Access Management (IAM)
policies and permissions to set up data residency enforcement policies to ensue that snapshot data does
not leave the Outpost. This is especially useful if you reside in a country or region that is not yet served
by an AWS Region and that has data residency requirements.

This topic provides information about working with Amazon EBS local snapshots on Outposts. For more
information about Amazon EBS snapshots and about working with snapshots in an AWS Region, see
Amazon EBS snapshots (p. 1220).

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For more information about AWS Outposts, see AWS Outposts Features and the AWS Outposts User
Guide. For pricing information, see AWS Outposts pricing.

Topics
• Frequently asked questions (p. 1252)
• Prerequisites (p. 665)
• Considerations (p. 241)
• Controlling access with IAM (p. 1254)
• Working with local snapshots (p. 1255)

Frequently asked questions

1. What are local snapshots?

By default, Amazon EBS snapshots of volumes on an Outpost are stored in Amazon S3 in the Region
of the Outpost. If the Outpost is provisioned with Amazon S3 on Outposts, you can choose to store
the snapshots locally on the Outpost itself. Local snapshots are incremental, which means that only
the blocks of the volume that have changed after your most recent snapshot are saved. You can use
these snapshots to restore a volume on the same Outpost as the snapshot at any time. For more
information about Amazon EBS snapshots, see Amazon EBS snapshots (p. 1220).
2. Why should I use local snapshots?

Snapshots are a convenient way of backing up your data. With local snapshots, all of your snapshot
data is stored locally on the Outpost. This means that it does not leave your premises. This is
especially useful if you reside in a country or region that is not yet served by an AWS Region and that
has residency requirements.

Additionally, using local snapshots can help to reduce the bandwidth used for communication
between the Region and the Outpost in bandwidth constrained environments.
3. How do I enforce snapshot data residency on Outposts?

You can use AWS Identity and Access Management (IAM) policies to control the permissions that
principals (AWS accounts, IAM users, and IAM roles) have when working with local snapshots and
to enforce data residency. You can create a policy that prevents principals from creating snapshots
from Outpost volumes and instances and storing the snapshots in an AWS Region. Currently, copying
snapshots and images from an Outpost to a Region is not supported. For more information, see
Controlling access with IAM (p. 1254).
4. Are multi-volume, crash-consistent local snapshots supported?

Yes, you can create multi-volume, crash-consistent local snapshots from instances on an Outpost.
5. How do I create local snapshots?

You can create snapshots manually using the AWS Command Line Interface (AWS CLI) or the
Amazon EC2 console. For more information see, Working with local snapshots (p. 1255). You can
also automate the lifecycle of local snapshots using Amazon Data Lifecycle Manager. For more
information see, Automate snapshots on an Outpost (p. 1260).
6. Can I create, use, or delete local snapshots if my Outpost loses connectivity to its Region?

No. The Outpost must have connectivity with its Region as the Region provides the access,
authorization, logging, and monitoring services that are critical for your snapshots' health. If there
is no connectivity, you can't create new local snapshots, create volumes or launch instances from
existing local snapshots, or delete local snapshots.
7. How quickly is Amazon S3 storage capacity made available after deleting local snapshots?

Amazon S3 storage capacity becomes available within 72 hours after deleting local snapshots and
the volumes that reference them.

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8. How can I ensure that I do not run out of Amazon S3 capacity on my Outpost?

We recommend that you use Amazon CloudWatch alarms to monitor your Amazon S3 storage
capacity, and delete snapshots and volumes that you no longer need to avoid running out of
storage capacity. If you are using Amazon Data Lifecycle Manager to automate the lifecycle of local
snapshots, ensure that your snapshot retention policies do not retain snapshots for longer than is
needed.
9. Can I use local snapshots and AMIs backed by local snapshots with Spot Instances and Spot Fleet?

No, you can't use local snapshots or AMIs backed by local snapshots to launch Spot Instances or a
Spot Fleet.
10. Can I use local snapshots and AMIs backed by local snapshots with Amazon EC2 Auto Scaling?

Yes, you can use local snapshots and AMIs backed by local snapshots to launch Auto Scaling groups
in a subnet that is on the same Outpost as the snapshots. The Amazon EC2 Auto Scaling group
service-linked role must have permission to use the KMS key used to encrypt the snapshots.

You can't use local snapshots or AMIs backed by local snapshots to launch Auto Scaling groups in an
AWS Region.

Prerequisites
To store snapshots on an Outpost, you must have an Outpost that is provisioned with Amazon S3 on
Outposts. For more information about Amazon S3 on Outposts, see Using Amazon S3 on Outposts in the
Amazon Simple Storage Service Developer Guide.

Considerations
Keep the following in mind when working with local snapshots.

• Outposts must have connectivity to their AWS Region to use local snapshots.
• Snapshot metadata is stored in the AWS Region associated with the Outpost. This does not include any
snapshot data.
• Snapshots stored on Outposts are encrypted by default. Unencrypted snapshots are not supported.
Snapshots that are created on an Outpost and snapshots that are copied to an Outpost are encrypted
using the default KMS key for the Region or a different KMS key that you specify at the time of the
request.
• When you create a volume on an Outpost from a local snapshot, you cannot re-encrypt the volume
using a different KMS key. Volumes created from local snapshots must be encrypted using the same
KMS key as the source snapshot.
• After you delete local snapshots from an Outpost, the Amazon S3 storage capacity used by the
deleted snapshots becomes available within 72 hours. For more information, see Delete local
snapshots (p. 1260).
• You can't export local snapshots from an Outpost.
• You can't enable fast snapshot restore for local snapshots.
• EBS direct APIs are not supported with local snapshots.
• You can't copy local snapshots or AMIs from an Outpost to an AWS Region, from one Outpost to
another, or within an Outpost. However, you can copy snapshots from an AWS Region to an Outpost.
For more information, see Copy snapshots from an AWS Region to an Outpost (p. 1258).
• When copying a snapshot from an AWS region to an Outpost, the data is transferred over the service
link. Copying multiple snapshots simultaneously could impact other services running on the Outpost.
• You can't share local snapshots.
• You must use IAM policies to ensure that your data residency requirements are met. For more
information, see Controlling access with IAM (p. 1254).

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• Local snapshots are incremental backups. Only the blocks in the volume that have changed after your
most recent snapshot are saved. Each local snapshot contains all of the information that is needed to
restore your data (from the moment when the snapshot was taken) to a new EBS volume. For more
information, see How incremental snapshots work (p. 1221).
• You can’t use IAM policies to enforce data residency for CopySnapshot and CopyImage actions.

Controlling access with IAM

You can use AWS Identity and Access Management (IAM) policies to control the permissions that
principals (AWS accounts, IAM users, and IAM roles) have when working with local snapshots. The
following are example policies that you can use to grant or deny permission to perform specific actions
with local snapshots.
Important
Copying snapshots and images from an Outpost to a Region is currently not supported. As
result, you currently can’t use IAM policies to enforce data residency for CopySnapshot and
CopyImage actions.

Topics
• Enforce data residency for snapshots (p. 1254)
• Prevent principals from deleting local snapshots (p. 1255)

Enforce data residency for snapshots

The following example policy prevents all principals from creating snapshots from volumes
and instances on Outpost arn:aws:outposts:us-east-1:123456789012:outpost/
op-1234567890abcdef and storing the snapshot data in an AWS Region. Principals can still create local
snapshots. This policy ensures that all snapshots remain on the Outpost.

{
"Version": "2012-10-17",
"Statement": [
{
"Effect": "Deny",
"Action": [
"ec2:CreateSnapshot",
"ec2:CreateSnapshots"
],
"Resource": "arn:aws:ec2:us-east-1::snapshot/*",
"Condition": {
"StringEquals": {
"ec2:SourceOutpostArn": "arn:aws:outposts:us-
east-1:123456789012:outpost/op-1234567890abcdef0"
},
"Null": {
"ec2:OutpostArn": "true"
}
}
},
{
"Effect": "Allow",
"Action": [
"ec2:CreateSnapshot",
"ec2:CreateSnapshots"
],
"Resource": "*"
}
]
}

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Prevent principals from deleting local snapshots

The following example policy prevents all principals from deleting local snapshots that are stored on
Outpost arn:aws:outposts:us-east-1:123456789012:outpost/op-1234567890abcdef0.

{
"Version": "2012-10-17",
"Statement": [
{
"Effect": "Deny",
"Action": [
"ec2:DeleteSnapshot"
],
"Resource": "arn:aws:ec2:us-east-1::snapshot/*",
"Condition": {
"StringEquals": {
"ec2:OutpostArn": "arn:aws:outposts:us-east-1:123456789012:outpost/
op-1234567890abcdef0"
}
}
},
{
"Effect": "Allow",
"Action": [
"ec2:DeleteSnapshot"
],
"Resource": "*"
}
]
}

Working with local snapshots

The following sections explain how to use local snapshots.

Topics
• Rules for storing snapshots (p. 1255)
• Create local snapshots from volumes on an Outpost (p. 1256)
• Create multi-volume local snapshots from instances on an Outpost (p. 1257)
• Create AMIs from local snapshots (p. 1257)
• Copy snapshots from an AWS Region to an Outpost (p. 1258)
• Copy AMIs from an AWS Region to an Outpost (p. 1259)
• Create volumes from local snapshots (p. 1260)
• Launch instances from AMIs backed by local snapshots (p. 1260)
• Delete local snapshots (p. 1260)
• Automate snapshots on an Outpost (p. 1260)

Rules for storing snapshots

The following rules apply to snapshot storage:

• If the most recent snapshot of a volume is stored on an Outpost, then all successive snapshots must be
stored on the same Outpost.
• If the most recent snapshot of a volume is stored in an AWS Region, then all successive snapshots must
be stored in the same Region. To start creating local snapshots from that volume, do the following:

1. Create a snapshot of the volume in the AWS Region.

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2. Copy the snapshot to the Outpost from the AWS Region.

3. Create a new volume from the local snapshot.
4. Attach the volume to an instance on the Outpost.

For the new volume on the Outpost, the next snapshot can be stored on the Outpost or in the AWS
Region. All successive snapshots must then be stored in that same location.
• Local snapshots, including snapshots created on an Outpost and snapshots copied to an Outpost from
an AWS Region, can be used only to create volumes on the same Outpost.
• If you create a volume on an Outpost from a snapshot in a Region, then all successive snapshots of
that new volume must be in the same Region.
• If you create a volume on an Outpost from a local snapshot, then all successive snapshots of that new
volume must be on the same Outpost.

Create local snapshots from volumes on an Outpost

You can create local snapshots from volumes on your Outpost. You can choose to store the snapshots on
the same Outpost as the source volume, or in the Region for the Outpost.

Local snapshots can be used to create volumes on the same Outpost only.

You can create local snapshots from volumes on an Outpost using one of the following methods.

Console

To create local snapshots from volumes on an Outpost

Open the Amazon EC2 console at https://console.aws.amazon.com/ec2/.

1. In the navigation pane, choose Volumes.

2. Select the volume on the Outpost, and choose Actions, Create Snapshot.
3. (Optional) For Description, enter a brief description for the snapshot.
4. For Snapshot destination, choose AWS Outpost. The snapshot will be created on the same
Outpost as the source volume. The Outpost ARN field shows the Amazon Resource Name (ARN)
of the destination Outpost.
5. (Optional) Choose Add Tag to add tags to your snapshot. For each tag, provide a tag key and a
tag value.
6. Choose Create Snapshot.

Command line

To create local snapshots from volumes on an Outpost

Use the create-snapshot command. Specify the ID of the volume from which to create the snapshot,
and the ARN of the destination Outpost on which to store the snapshot. If you omit the Outpost
ARN, the snapshot is stored in the AWS Region for the Outpost.

For example, the following command creates a local snapshot of volume

vol-1234567890abcdef0, and stores the snapshot on Outpost arn:aws:outposts:us-
east-1:123456789012:outpost/op-1234567890abcdef0.

$ aws ec2 create-snapshot --volume-id vol-1234567890abcdef0 --outpost-arn

arn:aws:outposts:us-east-1:123456789012:outpost/op-1234567890abcdef0 --description
"single volume local snapshot"

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Create multi-volume local snapshots from instances on an Outpost

You can create crash-consistent multi-volume local snapshots from instances on your Outpost. You
can choose to store the snapshots on the same Outpost as the source instance, or in the Region for the
Outpost.

Multi-volume local snapshots can be used to create volumes on the same Outpost only.

You can create multi-volume local snapshots from instances on an Outpost using one of the following
methods.

Console

To create multi-volume local snapshots from instances on an Outpost

Open the Amazon EC2 console at https://console.aws.amazon.com/ec2/.

1. In the navigation pane, choose Snapshots.

2. Choose Create Snapshot.
3. For Select resource type, choose Instance.
4. For Instance ID, select the instance on the Outpost from which to create the snapshots.
5. (Optional) For Description, enter a brief description for the snapshots.
6. For Snapshot destination, choose AWS Outpost. The snapshots will be created on the same
Outpost as the source instance. The Outpost ARN shows the ARN of the destination Outpost.
7. (Optional) To exclude the root volume from being snapshotted, select Exclude root volume.
8. (Optional) To automatically copy tags from the source volume to the snapshots, select
Copy tags from volume. This sets snapshot metadata—such as access policies, attachment
information, and cost allocation—to match the source volume.
9. (Optional) Choose Add Tag to add tags to your snapshot. For each tag, provide a tag key and a
tag value.
10. Choose Create Snapshot.

During snapshot creation, the snapshots are managed together. If one of the snapshots in the
volume set fails, the other snapshots in the volume set are moved to error status.

Command line

To create multi-volume local snapshots from instances on an Outpost

Use the create-snapshots command. Specify the ID of the instance from which to create the
snapshots, and the ARN of the destination Outpost on which to store the snapshots. If you omit the
Outpost ARN, the snapshots are stored in the AWS Region for the Outpost.

For example, the following command creates snapshots of the volumes attached to instance
i-1234567890abcdef0 and stores the snapshots on Outpost arn:aws:outposts:us-
east-1:123456789012:outpost/op-1234567890abcdef0.

$ aws ec2 create-snapshots --instance-specification InstanceId=i-1234567890abcdef0 --

outpost-arn arn:aws:outposts:us-east-1:123456789012:outpost/op-1234567890abcdef0 --
description "multi-volume local snapshots"

Create AMIs from local snapshots

You can create Amazon Machine Images (AMIs) using a combination of local snapshots and snapshots
that are stored in the Region of the Outpost. For example, if you have an Outpost in us-east-1, you can

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create an AMI with data volumes that are backed by local snapshots on that Outpost, and a root volume
that is backed by a snapshot in the us-east-1 Region.
Note

• You can't create AMIs that include backing snapshots stored across multiple Outposts.
• You can’t currently create AMIs directly from instances on an Outposts using CreateImage API
or the Amazon EC2 console for Outposts that are enabled with Amazon S3 on Outposts.
• AMIs that are backed by local snapshots can be used to launch instances on the same Outpost
only.

To create an AMI on an Outpost from snapshots in a Region

1. Copy the snapshots from the Region to the Outpost. For more information, see Copy snapshots from
an AWS Region to an Outpost (p. 1258).
2. Use the Amazon EC2 console or the register-image command to create the AMI using the snapshot
copies on the Outpost. For more information, see Creating an AMI from a snapshot.

To create an AMI on an Outpost from an instance on an Outpost

1. Create snapshots from the instance on the Outpost and store the snapshots on the Outpost. For more
information, see Create multi-volume local snapshots from instances on an Outpost (p. 1257).
2. Use the Amazon EC2 console or the register-image command to create the AMI using the local
snapshots. For more information, see Creating an AMI from a snapshot.

To create an AMI in a Region from an instance on an Outpost

1. Create snapshots from the instance on the Outpost and store the snapshots in the Region. For more
information, see Create local snapshots from volumes on an Outpost (p. 1256) or Create multi-
volume local snapshots from instances on an Outpost (p. 1257).
2. Use the Amazon EC2 console or the register-image command to create the AMI using the snapshot
copies in the Region. For more information, see Creating an AMI from a snapshot.

Copy snapshots from an AWS Region to an Outpost

You can copy snapshots from an AWS Region to an Outpost. You can do this only if the snapshots are in
the Region for the Outpost. If the snapshots are in a different Region, you must first copy the snapshot
to the Region for the Outpost, and then copy it from that Region to the Outpost.
Note
You can't copy local snapshots from an Outpost to a Region, from one Outpost to another, or
within the same Outpost.

You can copy snapshots from a Region to an Outpost using one of the following methods.

Console

To copy a snapshot from an AWS Region to an Outpost

Open the Amazon EC2 console at https://console.aws.amazon.com/ec2/.

1. In the navigation pane, choose Snapshots.

2. Select the snapshot in the Region, and choose Actions, Copy.
3. For Destination Region, choose the Region for the destination Outpost.

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4. For Snapshot Destination, choose AWS Outpost.

The Snapshot Destination field only appears if you have Outposts in the selected destination
Region. If the field does not appear, you do not have any Outposts in the selected destination
Region.
5. For Destination Outpost ARN, enter the ARN of the Outpost to which to copy the snapshot.
6. (Optional) For Description, enter a brief description of the copied snapshot.
7. Encryption is enabled by default for the snapshot copy. Encryption cannot be disabled. For KMS
key, choose the KMS key to use.
8. Choose Copy.

Command line

To copy a snapshot from a Region to an Outpost

Use the copy-snapshot command. Specify the ID of the snapshot to copy, the Region from which to
copy the snapshot, and the ARN of the destination Outpost.

For example, the following command copies snapshot snap-1234567890abcdef0 from the
us-east-1 Region to Outpost arn:aws:outposts:us-east-1:123456789012:outpost/
op-1234567890abcdef0.

$ aws ec2 copy-snapshot --source-region us-east-1 --source-snapshot-

id snap-1234567890abcdef0 --destination-outpost-arn arn:aws:outposts:us-
east-1:123456789012:outpost/op-1234567890abcdef0 --description "Local snapshot copy"

Copy AMIs from an AWS Region to an Outpost

You can copy AMIs from an AWS Region to an Outpost. When you copy an AMI from a Region to an
Outpost, all of the snapshots associated with the AMI are copied from the Region to the Outpost.

You can copy an AMI from a Region to an Outpost only if the snapshots associated with the AMI are in
the Region for the Outpost. If the snapshots are in a different Region, you must first copy the AMI to the
Region for the Outpost, and then copy it from that Region to the Outpost.
Note
You can't copy an AMI from an Outpost to a Region, from one Outpost to another, or within an
Outpost.

You can copy AMIs from a Region to an Outpost using the AWS CLI only.

Command line

To copy an AMI from a Region to an Outpost

Use the copy-image command. Specify the ID of the AMI to copy, the source Region, and the ARN of
the destination Outpost.

For example, the following command copies AMI ami-1234567890abcdef0 from the us-
east-1 Region to Outpost arn:aws:outposts:us-east-1:123456789012:outpost/
op-1234567890abcdef0.

$ aws ec2 copy-image --source-region us-east-1 --source-image-id ami-1234567890abcdef0

--name "Local AMI copy" --destination-outpost-arn arn:aws:outposts:us-
east-1:123456789012:outpost/op-1234567890abcdef0

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Create volumes from local snapshots

You can create volumes on Outposts from local snapshots. Volumes must be created on the same
Outpost as the source snapshots. You cannot use local snapshots to create volumes in the Region for the
Outpost.

When you create a volume from a local snapshot, you cannot re-encrypt the volume using different KMS
key. Volumes created from local snapshots must be encrypted using the same KMS key as the source
snapshot.

For more information, see Create a volume from a snapshot (p. 1197).

Launch instances from AMIs backed by local snapshots

You can launch instances from AMIs that are backed by local snapshots. You must launch Instances on
the same Outpost as the source AMI. For more information, see Launch an instance on your Outpost in
the AWS Outposts User Guide.

Delete local snapshots

You can delete local snapshots from an Outpost. After you delete a snapshot from an Outpost, the
Amazon S3 storage capacity used by the deleted snapshot becomes available within 72 hours after
deleting the snapshot and the volumes that reference that snapshot.

Because Amazon S3 storage capacity does not become available immediately, we recommend that you
use Amazon CloudWatch alarms to monitor your Amazon S3 storage capacity. Delete snapshots and
volumes that you no longer need to avoid running out of storage capacity.

For more information about deleting snapshots, see Delete a snapshot (p. 1241).

Automate snapshots on an Outpost

You can create Amazon Data Lifecycle Manager snapshot lifecycle policies that automatically create,
copy, retain, and delete snapshots of your volumes and instances on an Outpost. You can choose
whether to store the snapshots in a Region or whether to store them locally on an Outpost. Additionally,
you can automatically copy snapshots that are created and stored in an AWS Region to an Outpost.

The following table shows provides and Overview of the supported features.

Resource Snapshot Cross-region copy Fast snapshot Cross-account

location destination restore sharing
To Region To Outpost

Region Region ✓ ✓ ✓ ✓

Outpost Region ✓ ✓ ✓ ✓

Outpost Outpost ✗ ✗ ✗ ✗

Considerations

• Only Amazon EBS snapshot lifecycle policies are currently supported. EBS-backed AMI policies and
Cross-account sharing event policies are not supported.
• If a policy manages snapshots for volumes or instances in a Region, then snapshots are created in the
same Region as the source resource.
• If a policy manages snapshots for volumes or instances on an Outpost, then snapshots can be created
on the source Outpost, or in the Region for that Outpost.
• A single policy can't manage both snapshots in a Region and snapshots on an Outpost. If you need to
automate snapshots in a Region and on an Outpost, you must create separate policies.

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• Fast snapshot restore is not supported for snapshots created on an Outpost, or for snapshots copied to
an Outpost.
• Cross-account sharing is not supported for snapshots created on an Outpost.

For more information about creating a snapshot lifecycle that manages local snapshots, see Automating
snapshot lifecycles (p. 1290).

Use EBS direct APIs to access the contents of an EBS snapshot

You can use the Amazon Elastic Block Store (Amazon EBS) direct APIs to create EBS snapshots, write
data directly to your snapshots, read data on your snapshots, and identify the differences or changes
between two snapshots. If you’re an independent software vendor (ISV) who offers backup services for
Amazon EBS, the EBS direct APIs make it more efficient and cost-effective to track incremental changes
on your EBS volumes through snapshots. This can be done without having to create new volumes
from snapshots, and then use Amazon Elastic Compute Cloud (Amazon EC2) instances to compare the
differences.

You can create incremental snapshots directly from data on-premises into EBS volumes and the cloud
to use for quick disaster recovery. With the ability to write and read snapshots, you can write your on-
premises data to an EBS snapshot during a disaster. Then after recovery, you can restore it back to AWS
or on-premises from the snapshot. You no longer need to build and maintain complex mechanisms to
copy data to and from Amazon EBS.

This user guide provides an overview of the elements that make up the EBS direct APIs, and examples of
how to use them effectively. For more information about the actions, data types, parameters, and errors
of the APIs, see the EBS direct APIs reference. For more information about the supported AWS Regions,
endpoints, and service quotas for the EBS direct APIs, see Amazon EBS Endpoints and Quotas in the AWS
General Reference.

Contents
• Understand the EBS direct APIs (p. 1261)
• Permissions for IAM users (p. 1264)
• Use encryption (p. 1268)
• Use Signature Version 4 signing (p. 1268)
• Use checksums (p. 1269)
• Work with the EBS direct APIs using the API or AWS SDKs (p. 1269)
• Work with the EBS direct APIs using the command line (p. 1274)
• Optimize performance (p. 1277)
• Frequently asked questions (p. 1277)
• Log API Calls for EBS direct APIs with AWS CloudTrail (p. 1278)
• EBS direct APIs and interface VPC endpoints (p. 1284)
• Idempotency for StartSnapshot API (p. 1284)

Understand the EBS direct APIs

The following are the key elements that you should understand before getting started with the EBS
direct APIs.

Pricing

The price that you pay to use the EBS direct APIs depends on the requests you make. For more
information, see Amazon EBS pricing.

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Snapshots

Snapshots are the primary means to back up data from your EBS volumes. With the EBS direct APIs,
you can also back up data from your on-premises disks to snapshots. To save storage costs, successive
snapshots are incremental, containing only the volume data that changed since the previous snapshot.
For more information, see Amazon EBS snapshots (p. 1220).
Note
Public snapshots are not supported by the EBS direct APIs.

Blocks

A block is a fragment of data within a snapshot. Each snapshot can contain thousands of blocks. All
blocks in a snapshot are of a fixed size.

Block indexes

A block index is the offset position of a block within a snapshot, and it is used to identify the block.
Multiply the BlockIndex value with the BlockSize value (BlockIndex * BlockSize) to identify the logical
offset of the data in the logical volume.

Block tokens

A block token is the identifying hash of a block within a snapshot, and it is used to locate the block data.
Block tokens returned by EBS direct APIs are temporary. They change on the expiry timestamp specified
for them, or if you run another ListSnapshotBlocks or ListChangedBlocks request for the same snapshot.

Checksum

A checksum is a small-sized datum derived from a block of data for the purpose of detecting errors that
were introduced during its transmission or storage. The EBS direct APIs use checksums to validate data
integrity. When you read data from an EBS snapshot, the service provides Base64-encoded SHA256
checksums for each block of data transmitted, which you can use for validation. When you write data
to an EBS snapshot, you must provide a Base64 encoded SHA256 checksum for each block of data
transmitted. The service validates the data received using the checksum provided. For more information,
see Use checksums (p. 1269) later in this guide.

Encryption

Encryption protects your data by converting it into unreadable code that can be deciphered only
by people who have access to the KMS key used to encrypt it. You can use the EBS direct APIs to
read and write encrypted snapshots, but there are some limitations. For more information, see Use
encryption (p. 1268) later in this guide.

API actions

The EBS direct APIs consists of six actions. There are three read actions and three write actions. The
read actions are ListSnapshotBlocks, ListChangedBlocks, and GetSnapshotBlock. The write actions are
StartSnapshot, PutSnapshotBlock, and CompleteSnapshot. These actions are described in the following
sections.

List snapshot blocks

The ListSnapshotBlocks action returns the block indexes and block tokens of blocks in the specified
snapshot.

List changed blocks

The ListChangedBlocks action returns the block indexes and block tokens of blocks that are different
between two specified snapshots of the same volume and snapshot lineage.

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EBS snapshots

Get snapshot block

The GetSnapshotBlock action returns the data in a block for the specified snapshot ID, block index, and
block token.

Start snapshot
The StartSnapshot action starts a snapshot, either as an incremental snapshot of an existing one or
as a new snapshot. The started snapshot remains in a pending state until it is completed using the
CompleteSnapshot action.

Put snapshot block

The PutSnapshotBlock action adds data to a started snapshot in the form of individual blocks. You must
specify a Base64-encoded SHA256 checksum for the block of data transmitted. The service validates the
checksum after the transmission is completed. The request fails if the checksum computed by the service
doesn’t match what you specified.

Complete snapshot
The CompleteSnapshot action completes a started snapshot that is in a pending state. The snapshot is
then changed to a completed state.

Use the EBS direct APIs to read snapshots

The following steps describe how to use the EBS direct APIs to read snapshots:

1. Use the ListSnapshotBlocks action to view all block indexes and block tokens of blocks in a snapshot.
Or use the ListChangedBlocks action to view only the block indexes and block tokens of blocks that
are different between two snapshots of the same volume and snapshot lineage. These actions help
you identify the block tokens and block indexes of blocks for which you might want to get data.
2. Use the GetSnapshotBlock action, and specify the block index and block token of the block for which
you want to get data.

For examples of how to run these actions, see the Work with the EBS direct APIs using the API or AWS
SDKs (p. 1269) and Work with the EBS direct APIs using the command line (p. 1274) sections later in this
guide.

Use the EBS direct APIs to write incremental snapshots

The following steps describe how to use the EBS direct APIs to write incremental snapshots:

1. Use the StartSnapshot action and specify a parent snapshot ID to start a snapshot as an incremental
snapshot of an existing one, or omit the parent snapshot ID to start a new snapshot. This action
returns the new snapshot ID, which is in a pending state.
2. Use the PutSnapshotBlock action and specify the ID of the pending snapshot to add data to it in the
form of individual blocks. You must specify a Base64-encoded SHA256 checksum for the block of
data transmitted. The service computes the checksum of the data received and validates it with the
checksum that you specified. The action fails if the checksums don't match.
3. When you're done adding data to the pending snapshot, use the CompleteSnapshot action to start an
asynchronous workflow that seals the snapshot and moves it to a completed state.

Repeat these steps to create a new, incremental snapshot using the previously created snapshot as the
parent.

For example, in the following diagram, snapshot A is the first new snapshot started. Snapshot A is used
as the parent snapshot to start snapshot B. Snapshot B is used as the parent snapshot to start and create
snapshot C. Snapshots A, B, and C are incremental snapshots. Snapshot A is used to create EBS volume

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1. Snapshot D is created from EBS volume 1. Snapshot D is an incremental snapshot of A; it is not an

incremental snapshot of B or C.

For examples of how to run these actions, see the Work with the EBS direct APIs using the API or AWS
SDKs (p. 1269) and Work with the EBS direct APIs using the command line (p. 1274) sections later in this
guide.

Permissions for IAM users

An AWS Identity and Access Management (IAM) user must have the following policies to use the EBS
direct APIs. For more information, see Changing Permissions for an IAM User.

Be cautious when assigning the following policies to IAM users. By assigning these policies, you might
give access to a user who is denied access to the same resource through the Amazon EC2 APIs, such as
the CopySnapshot or CreateVolume actions.

Permissions to read snapshots

The following policy allows the read EBS direct APIs to be used on all snapshots in a specific AWS Region.
In the policy, replace <Region> with the Region of the snapshot.

{
"Version": "2012-10-17",
"Statement": [
{
"Effect": "Allow",
"Action": [
"ebs:ListSnapshotBlocks",
"ebs:ListChangedBlocks",
"ebs:GetSnapshotBlock"
],
"Resource": "arn:aws:ec2:<Region>::snapshot/*"
}
]
}

The following policy allows the read EBS direct APIs to be used on snapshots with a specific key-value
tag. In the policy, replace <Key> with the key value of the tag, and <Value> with the value of the tag.

{
"Version": "2012-10-17",

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"Statement": [
{
"Effect": "Allow",
"Action": [
"ebs:ListSnapshotBlocks",
"ebs:ListChangedBlocks",
"ebs:GetSnapshotBlock"
],
"Resource": "arn:aws:ec2:*::snapshot/*",
"Condition": {
"StringEqualsIgnoreCase": {
"aws:ResourceTag/<Key>": "<Value>"
}
}
}
]
}

The following policy allows all of the read EBS direct APIs to be used on all snapshots in the account
only within a specific time range. This policy authorizes use of the EBS direct APIs based on the
aws:CurrentTime global condition key. In the policy, be sure to replace the date and time range shown
with the date and time range for your policy.

{
"Version": "2012-10-17",
"Statement": [
{
"Effect": "Allow",
"Action": [
"ebs:ListSnapshotBlocks",
"ebs:ListChangedBlocks",
"ebs:GetSnapshotBlock"
],
"Resource": "arn:aws:ec2:*::snapshot/*",
"Condition": {
"DateGreaterThan": {
"aws:CurrentTime": "2018-05-29T00:00:00Z"
},
"DateLessThan": {
"aws:CurrentTime": "2020-05-29T23:59:59Z"
}
}
}
]
}

The following policy grants access to decrypt an encrypted snapshot using a specific KMS key. It grants
access to encrypt new snapshots using the default KMS key ID for EBS snapshots. It also provides the
ability to determine if encrypt by default is enabled on the account. In the policy, replace <Region> with
the Region of the KMS key, <AccountId> with the ID of the AWS account of the KMS key, and <KeyId>
with the ID of the KMS key used to encrypt the snapshot that you want to read with the EBS direct APIs.

{
"Version": "2012-10-17",
"Statement": [
{
"Sid": "VisualEditor0",
"Effect": "Allow",
"Action": [
"kms:Encrypt",
"kms:Decrypt",
"kms:GenerateDataKey",
"kms:GenerateDataKeyWithoutPlaintext",

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"kms:ReEncrypt*",
"kms:CreateGrant",
"ec2:CreateTags",
"kms:DescribeKey",
"ec2:GetEbsDefaultKmsKeyId",
"ec2:GetEbsEncryptionByDefault"
],
"Resource": "arn:aws:kms:<Region>:<AccountId>:key/<KeyId>"
}
]
}

For more information, see Changing Permissions for an IAM User in the IAM User Guide.

Permissions to write snapshots

The following policy allows the write EBS direct APIs to be used on all snapshots in a specific AWS
Region. In the policy, replace <Region> with the Region of the snapshot.

{
"Version": "2012-10-17",
"Statement": [
{
"Effect": "Allow",
"Action": [
"ebs:StartSnapshot",
"ebs:PutSnapshotBlock",
"ebs:CompleteSnapshot"
],
"Resource": "arn:aws:ec2:<Region>::snapshot/*"
}
]
}

The following policy allows the write EBS direct APIs to be used on snapshots with a specific key-value
tag. In the policy, replace <Key> with the key value of the tag, and <Value> with the value of the tag.

{
"Version": "2012-10-17",
"Statement": [
{
"Effect": "Allow",
"Action": [
"ebs:StartSnapshot",
"ebs:PutSnapshotBlock",
"ebs:CompleteSnapshot"
],
"Resource": "arn:aws:ec2:*::snapshot/*",
"Condition": {
"StringEqualsIgnoreCase": {
"aws:ResourceTag/<Key>": "<Value>"
}
}
}
]
}

The following policy allows all of the EBS direct APIs to be used. It also allows the StartSnapshot
action only if a parent snapshot ID is specified. Therefore, this policy blocks the ability to start new
snapshots without using a parent snapshot.

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"Version": "2012-10-17",
"Statement": [
{
"Effect": "Allow",
"Action": "ebs:*",
"Resource": "*",
"Condition": {
"StringEquals": {
"ebs:ParentSnapshot": "arn:aws:ec2:*::snapshot/*"
}
}
}
]
}

The following policy allows all of the EBS direct APIs to be used. It also allows only the user tag key
to be created for a new snapshot. This policy also ensures that the user has access to create tags. The
StartSnapshot action is the only action that can specify tags.

{
"Version": "2012-10-17",
"Statement": [
{
"Effect": "Allow",
"Action": "ebs:*",
"Resource": "*",
"Condition": {
"ForAllValues:StringEquals": {
"aws:TagKeys": "user"
}
}
},
{
"Effect": "Allow",
"Action": "ec2:CreateTags",
"Resource": "*"
}
]
}

The following policy allows all of the write EBS direct APIs to be used on all snapshots in the account
only within a specific time range. This policy authorizes use of the EBS direct APIs based on the
aws:CurrentTime global condition key. In the policy, be sure to replace the date and time range shown
with the date and time range for your policy.

{
"Version": "2012-10-17",
"Statement": [
{
"Effect": "Allow",
"Action": [
"ebs:StartSnapshot",
"ebs:PutSnapshotBlock",
"ebs:CompleteSnapshot"
],
"Resource": "arn:aws:ec2:*::snapshot/*",
"Condition": {
"DateGreaterThan": {
"aws:CurrentTime": "2018-05-29T00:00:00Z"
},
"DateLessThan": {
"aws:CurrentTime": "2020-05-29T23:59:59Z"
}

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}
}
]
}

The following policy grants access to decrypt an encrypted snapshot using a specific KMS key. It grants
access to encrypt new snapshots using the default KMS key ID for EBS snapshots. It also provides the
ability to determine if encrypt by default is enabled on the account. In the policy, replace <Region> with
the Region of the KMS key, <AccountId> with the ID of the AWS account of the KMS key, and <KeyId>
with the ID of the KMS key used to encrypt the snapshot that you want to read with the EBS direct APIs.

{
"Version": "2012-10-17",
"Statement": [
{
"Sid": "VisualEditor0",
"Effect": "Allow",
"Action": [
"kms:Encrypt",
"kms:Decrypt",
"kms:GenerateDataKey",
"kms:GenerateDataKeyWithoutPlaintext",
"kms:ReEncrypt*",
"kms:CreateGrant",
"ec2:CreateTags",
"kms:DescribeKey",
"ec2:GetEbsDefaultKmsKeyId",
"ec2:GetEbsEncryptionByDefault"
],
"Resource": "arn:aws:kms:<Region>:<AccountId>:key/<KeyId>"
}
]
}

For more information, see Changing Permissions for an IAM User in the IAM User Guide.

Use encryption
If Amazon EBS encryption by default is enabled on your AWS account, you cannot start a new snapshot
using an un-encrypted parent snapshot. You must first encrypt the parent snapshot by copying it. For
more information, see Copy an Amazon EBS snapshot (p. 1242) and Encryption by default (p. 1344).

To start an encrypted snapshot, specify the Amazon Resource Name (ARN) of an KMS key, or specify
an encrypted parent snapshot in your StartSnapshot request. If neither are specified, and Amazon EBS
encryption by default is enabled on the account, then the default KMS key for the account is used. If no
default KMS key has been specified for the account, then the AWS managed key is used.
Important
By default, all principals in the account have access to the default AWS managed key, and they
can use it for EBS encryption and decryption operations. For more information, see Default KMS
key for EBS encryption (p. 1343).

You might need additional IAM permissions to use the EBS direct APIs with encryption. For more
information, see the Permissions for IAM users (p. 1264) section earlier in this guide.

Use Signature Version 4 signing

Signature Version 4 is the process to add authentication information to AWS requests sent by HTTP. For
security, most requests to AWS must be signed with an access key, which consists of an access key ID and
secret access key. These two keys are commonly referred to as your security credentials. For information
about how to obtain credentials for your account, see Understanding and getting your credentials.

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If you intend to manually create HTTP requests, you must learn how to sign them. When you use the
AWS Command Line Interface (AWS CLI) or one of the AWS SDKs to make requests to AWS, these tools
automatically sign the requests for you with the access key that you specify when you configure the
tools. When you use these tools, you don't need to learn how to sign requests yourself.

For more information, see Signing AWS requests with Signature Version 4 in the AWS General Reference.

Use checksums
The GetSnapshotBlock action returns data that is in a block of a snapshot, and the PutSnapshotBlock
action adds data to a block in a snapshot. The block data that is transmitted is not signed as part of the
Signature Version 4 signing process. As a result, checksums are used to validate the integrity of the data
as follows:

• When you use the GetSnapshotBlock action, the response provides a Base64-encoded SHA256
checksum for the block data using the x-amz-Checksum header, and the checksum algorithm using
the x-amz-Checksum-Algorithm header. Use the returned checksum to validate the integrity of
the data. If the checksum that you generate doesn't match what Amazon EBS provided, you should
consider the data not valid and retry your request.
• When you use the PutSnapshotBlock action, your request must provide a Base64-encoded SHA256
checksum for the block data using the x-amz-Checksum header, and the checksum algorithm using
the x-amz-Checksum-Algorithm header. The checksum that you provide is validated against a
checksum generated by Amazon EBS to validate the integrity of the data. If the checksums do not
correspond, the request fails.
• When you use the CompleteSnapshot action, your request can optionally provide an aggregate
Base64-encoded SHA256 checksum for the complete set of data added to the snapshot. Provide the
checksum using the x-amz-Checksum header, the checksum algorithm using the x-amz-Checksum-
Algorithm header, and the checksum aggregation method using the x-amz-Checksum-Aggregation-
Method header. To generate the aggregated checksum using the linear aggregation method, arrange
the checksums for each written block in ascending order of their block index, concatenate them to
form a single string, and then generate the checksum on the entire string using the SHA256 algorithm.

The checksums in these actions are part of the Signature Version 4 signing process.

Work with the EBS direct APIs using the API or AWS SDKs
The EBS direct APIs Reference provides descriptions and syntax for each of the service’s actions and
data types. You can also use one of the AWS SDKs to access an API that's tailored to the programming
language or platform that you're using. For more information, see AWS SDKs.

The EBS direct APIs require an AWS Signature Version 4 signature. For more information, see Use
Signature Version 4 signing (p. 1268).

Use the API to read snapshots

List blocks in a snapshot

The following ListChangedBlocks example request returns the block indexes and block tokens of blocks
that are in snapshot snap-0acEXAMPLEcf41648. The startingBlockIndex parameter limits the
results to block indexes greater than 1000, and the maxResults parameter limits the results to the first
100 blocks.

GET /snapshots/snap-0acEXAMPLEcf41648/blocks?maxResults=100&startingBlockIndex=1000
HTTP/1.1
Host: ebs.us-east-2.amazonaws.com
Accept-Encoding: identity
User-Agent: <User agent parameter>

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X-Amz-Date: 20200617T231953Z
Authorization: <Authentication parameter>

The following example response for the previous request lists the block indexes and block tokens in the
snapshot. Use the GetSnapshotBlock action and specify the block index and block token of the block for
which you want to get data. The block tokens are valid until the expiry time listed.

HTTP/1.1 200 OK
x-amzn-RequestId: d6e5017c-70a8-4539-8830-57f5557f3f27
Content-Type: application/json
Content-Length: 2472
Date: Wed, 17 Jun 2020 23:19:56 GMT
Connection: keep-alive

{
"BlockSize": 524288,
"Blocks": [
{
"BlockIndex": 0,
"BlockToken": "AAUBAcuWqOCnDNuKle11s7IIX6jp6FYcC/q8oT93913HhvLvA+3JRrSybp/0"
},
{
"BlockIndex": 1536,
"BlockToken": "AAUBAWudwfmofcrQhGVlLwuRKm2b8ZXPiyrgoykTRC6IU1NbxKWDY1pPjvnV"
},
{
"BlockIndex": 3072,
"BlockToken": "AAUBAV7p6pC5fKAC7TokoNCtAnZhqq27u6YEXZ3MwRevBkDjmMx6iuA6tsBt"
},
{
"BlockIndex": 3073,
"BlockToken": "AAUBAbqt9zpqBUEvtO2HINAfFaWToOwlPjbIsQOlx6JUN/0+iMQl0NtNbnX4"
},
...
],
"ExpiryTime": 1.59298379649E9,
"VolumeSize": 3
}

List blocks that are different between two snapshots

The following ListChangedBlocks example request returns the block indexes and block tokens of blocks
that are different between snapshots snap-0acEXAMPLEcf41648 and snap-0c9EXAMPLE1b30e2f.
The startingBlockIndex parameter limits the results to block indexes greater than 0, and the
maxResults parameter limits the results to the first 500 blocks.

GET /snapshots/snap-0c9EXAMPLE1b30e2f/changedblocks?
firstSnapshotId=snap-0acEXAMPLEcf41648&maxResults=500&startingBlockIndex=0 HTTP/1.1
Host: ebs.us-east-2.amazonaws.com
Accept-Encoding: identity
User-Agent: <User agent parameter>
X-Amz-Date: 20200617T232546Z
Authorization: <Authentication parameter>

The following example response for the previous request shows that block indexes 0, 3072, 6002, and
6003 are different between the two snapshots. Additionally, block indexes 6002, and 6003 exist only in
the first snapshot ID specified, and not in the second snapshot ID because there is no second block token
listed in the response.

Use the GetSnapshotBlock action and specify the block index and block token of the block for which
you want to get data. The block tokens are valid until the expiry time listed.

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HTTP/1.1 200 OK
x-amzn-RequestId: fb0f6743-6d81-4be8-afbe-db11a5bb8a1f
Content-Type: application/json
Content-Length: 1456
Date: Wed, 17 Jun 2020 23:25:47 GMT
Connection: keep-alive

{
"BlockSize": 524288,
"ChangedBlocks": [
{
"BlockIndex": 0,
"FirstBlockToken": "AAUBAVaWqOCnDNuKle11s7IIX6jp6FYcC/tJuVT1GgP23AuLntwiMdJ
+OJkL",
"SecondBlockToken": "AAUBASxzy0Y0b33JVRLoYm3NOresCxn5RO+HVFzXW3Y/
RwfFaPX2Edx8QHCh"
},
{
"BlockIndex": 3072,
"FirstBlockToken": "AAUBAcHp6pC5fKAC7TokoNCtAnZhqq27u6fxRfZOLEmeXLmHBf2R/
Yb24MaS",
"SecondBlockToken":
"AAUBARGCaufCqBRZC8tEkPYGGkSv3vqvOjJ2xKDi3ljDFiytUxBLXYgTmkid"
},
{
"BlockIndex": 6002,
"FirstBlockToken": "AAABASqX4/
NWjvNceoyMUljcRd0DnwbSwNnes1UkoP62CrQXvn47BY5435aw"
},
{
"BlockIndex": 6003,
"FirstBlockToken":
"AAABASmJ0O5JxAOce25rF4P1sdRtyIDsX12tFEDunnePYUKOf4PBROuICb2A"
},
...
],
"ExpiryTime": 1.592976647009E9,
"VolumeSize": 3
}

Get block data from a snapshot

The following GetSnapshotBlock example request returns the data in the block index 3072 with block
token AAUBARGCaufCqBRZC8tEkPYGGkSv3vqvOjJ2xKDi3ljDFiytUxBLXYgTmkid, in snapshot
snap-0c9EXAMPLE1b30e2f.

GET /snapshots/snap-0c9EXAMPLE1b30e2f/blocks/3072?
blockToken=AAUBARGCaufCqBRZC8tEkPYGGkSv3vqvOjJ2xKDi3ljDFiytUxBLXYgTmkid HTTP/1.1
Host: ebs.us-east-2.amazonaws.com
Accept-Encoding: identity
User-Agent: <User agent parameter>
X-Amz-Date: 20200617T232838Z
Authorization: <Authentication parameter>

The following example response for the previous request shows the size of the data returned, the
checksum to validate the data, and the algorithm used to generate the checksum. The binary data is
transmitted in the body of the response and is represented as BlockData in the following example.

HTTP/1.1 200 OK
x-amzn-RequestId: 2d0db2fb-bd88-474d-a137-81c4e57d7b9f
x-amz-Data-Length: 524288
x-amz-Checksum: Vc0yY2j3qg8bUL9I6GQuI2orTudrQRBDMIhcy7bdEsw=

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x-amz-Checksum-Algorithm: SHA256
Content-Type: application/octet-stream
Content-Length: 524288
Date: Wed, 17 Jun 2020 23:28:38 GMT
Connection: keep-alive

BlockData

Use the API to write incremental snapshots

Start a snapshot

The following StartSnapshot example request starts an 8 GiB snapshot, using snapshot
snap-123EXAMPLE1234567 as the parent snapshot. The new snapshot will be an incremental snapshot
of the parent snapshot. The snapshot moves to an error state if there are no put or complete requests
made for the snapshot within the specified 60 minute timeout period. The 550e8400-e29b-41d4-
a716-446655440000 client token ensures idempotency for the request. If the client token is omitted,
the AWS SDK automatically generates one for you. For more information about idempotency, see
Idempotency for StartSnapshot API (p. 1284).

POST /snapshots HTTP/1.1

Host: ebs.us-east-2.amazonaws.com
Accept-Encoding: identity
User-Agent: <User agent parameter>
X-Amz-Date: 20200618T040724Z
Authorization: <Authentication parameter>

{
"VolumeSize": 8,
"ParentSnapshot": snap-123EXAMPLE1234567,
"ClientToken": "550e8400-e29b-41d4-a716-446655440000",
"Timeout": 60
}

The following example response for the previous request shows the snapshot ID, AWS account ID, status,
volume size in GiB, and size of the blocks in the snapshot. The snapshot is started in a pending state.
Specify the snapshot ID in a subsequent PutSnapshotBlocks request to write data to the snapshot.

HTTP/1.1 201 Created

x-amzn-RequestId: 929e6eb9-7183-405a-9502-5b7da37c1b18
Content-Type: application/json
Content-Length: 181
Date: Thu, 18 Jun 2020 04:07:29 GMT
Connection: keep-alive

{
"BlockSize": 524288,
"Description": null,
"OwnerId": "138695307491",
"Progress": null,
"SnapshotId": "snap-052EXAMPLEc85d8dd",
"StartTime": null,
"Status": "pending",
"Tags": null,
"VolumeSize": 8
}

Put data into a snapshot

The following PutSnapshot example request writes 524288 Bytes of data to

block index 1000 on snapshot snap-052EXAMPLEc85d8dd. The Base64 encoded

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QOD3gmEQOXATfJx2Aa34W4FU2nZGyXfqtsUuktOw8DM= checksum was generated using the SHA256

algorithm. The data is transmitted in the body of the request and is represented as BlockData in the
following example.

PUT /snapshots/snap-052EXAMPLEc85d8dd/blocks/1000 HTTP/1.1

Host: ebs.us-east-2.amazonaws.com
Accept-Encoding: identity
x-amz-Data-Length: 524288
x-amz-Checksum: QOD3gmEQOXATfJx2Aa34W4FU2nZGyXfqtsUuktOw8DM=
x-amz-Checksum-Algorithm: SHA256
User-Agent: <User agent parameter>
X-Amz-Date: 20200618T042215Z
X-Amz-Content-SHA256: UNSIGNED-PAYLOAD
Authorization: <Authentication parameter>

BlockData

The following is example response for the previous request confirms the data length, checksum, and
checksum algorithm for the data received by the service.

HTTP/1.1 201 Created

x-amzn-RequestId: 643ac797-7e0c-4ad0-8417-97b77b43c57b
x-amz-Checksum: QOD3gmEQOXATfJx2Aa34W4FU2nZGyXfqtsUuktOw8DM=
x-amz-Checksum-Algorithm: SHA256
Content-Type: application/json
Content-Length: 2
Date: Thu, 18 Jun 2020 04:22:12 GMT
Connection: keep-alive

{}

Complete a snapshot

The following CompleteSnapshot example request completes snapshot snap-052EXAMPLEc85d8dd.

The command specifies that 5 blocks were written to the snapshot. The
6D3nmwi5f2F0wlh7xX8QprrJBFzDX8aacdOcA3KCM3c= checksum represents the checksum for the
complete set of data written to a snapshot.

POST /snapshots/completion/snap-052EXAMPLEc85d8dd HTTP/1.1

Host: ebs.us-east-2.amazonaws.com
Accept-Encoding: identity
x-amz-ChangedBlocksCount: 5
x-amz-Checksum: 6D3nmwi5f2F0wlh7xX8QprrJBFzDX8aacdOcA3KCM3c=
x-amz-Checksum-Algorithm: SHA256
x-amz-Checksum-Aggregation-Method: LINEAR
User-Agent: <User agent parameter>
X-Amz-Date: 20200618T043158Z
Authorization: <Authentication parameter>

The following is an example response for the previous request.

HTTP/1.1 202 Accepted

x-amzn-RequestId: 06cba5b5-b731-49de-af40-80333ac3a117
Content-Type: application/json
Content-Length: 20
Date: Thu, 18 Jun 2020 04:31:50 GMT
Connection: keep-alive

{"Status":"pending"}

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Work with the EBS direct APIs using the command line
The following examples show how to use the EBS direct APIs using the AWS Command Line Interface
(AWS CLI). For more information about installing and configuring the AWS CLI, see Installing the AWS CLI
and Quickly Configuring the AWS CLI.

Use the AWS CLI to read snapshots

List blocks in a snapshot

The following list-snapshot-blocks example command returns the block indexes and block tokens of
blocks that are in snapshot snap-0987654321. The --starting-block-index parameter limits the
results to block indexes greater than 1000, and the --max-results parameter limits the results to the
first 100 blocks.

aws ebs list-snapshot-blocks --snapshot-id snap-0987654321 --starting-block-index 1000 --

max-results 100

The following example response for the previous command lists the block indexes and block tokens in
the snapshot. Use the get-snapshot-block command and specify the block index and block token of
the block for which you want to get data. The block tokens are valid until the expiry time listed.

{
"Blocks": [
{
"BlockIndex": 1001,
"BlockToken": "AAABAV3/PNhXOynVdMYHUpPsetaSvjLB1dtIGfbJv5OJ0sX855EzGTWos4a4"
},
{
"BlockIndex": 1002,
"BlockToken": "AAABATGQIgwr0WwIuqIMjCA/Sy7e/YoQFZsHejzGNvjKauzNgzeI13YHBfQB"
},
{
"BlockIndex": 1007,
"BlockToken": "AAABAZ9CTuQtUvp/dXqRWw4d07eOgTZ3jvn6hiW30W9duM8MiMw6yQayzF2c"
},
{
"BlockIndex": 1012,
"BlockToken": "AAABAQdzxhw0rVV6PNmsfo/YRIxo9JPR85XxPf1BLjg0Hec6pygYr6laE1p0"
},
{
"BlockIndex": 1030,
"BlockToken": "AAABAaYvPax6mv+iGWLdTUjQtFWouQ7Dqz6nSD9L+CbXnvpkswA6iDID523d"
},
{
"BlockIndex": 1031,
"BlockToken": "AAABATgWZC0XcFwUKvTJbUXMiSPg59KVxJGL+BWBClkw6spzCxJVqDVaTskJ"
},
...
],
"ExpiryTime": 1576287332.806,
"VolumeSize": 32212254720,
"BlockSize": 524288
}

List blocks that are different between two snapshots

The following list-changed-blocks example command returns the block indexes and block tokens of
blocks that are different between snapshots snap-1234567890 and snap-0987654321. The --
starting-block-index parameter limits the results to block indexes greater than 0, and the --max-
results parameter limits the results to the first 500 blocks..

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aws ebs list-changed-blocks --first-snapshot-id snap-1234567890 --second-snapshot-

id snap-0987654321 --starting-block-index 0 --max-results 500

The following example response for the previous command shows that block indexes 0, 6000, 6001,
6002, and 6003 are different between the two snapshots. Additionally, block indexes 6001, 6002, and
6003 exist only in the first snapshot ID specified, and not in the second snapshot ID because there is no
second block token listed in the response.

Use the get-snapshot-block command and specify the block index and block token of the block for
which you want to get data. The block tokens are valid until the expiry time listed.

{
"ChangedBlocks": [
{
"BlockIndex": 0,
"FirstBlockToken": "AAABAVahm9SO60Dyi0ORySzn2ZjGjW/
KN3uygGlS0QOYWesbzBbDnX2dGpmC",
"SecondBlockToken":
"AAABAf8o0o6UFi1rDbSZGIRaCEdDyBu9TlvtCQxxoKV8qrUPQP7vcM6iWGSr"
},
{
"BlockIndex": 6000,
"FirstBlockToken": "AAABAbYSiZvJ0/
R9tz8suI8dSzecLjN4kkazK8inFXVintPkdaVFLfCMQsKe",
"SecondBlockToken":
"AAABAZnqTdzFmKRpsaMAsDxviVqEI/3jJzI2crq2eFDCgHmyNf777elD9oVR"
},
{
"BlockIndex": 6001,
"FirstBlockToken": "AAABASBpSJ2UAD3PLxJnCt6zun4/
T4sU25Bnb8jB5Q6FRXHFqAIAqE04hJoR"
},
{
"BlockIndex": 6002,
"FirstBlockToken": "AAABASqX4/
NWjvNceoyMUljcRd0DnwbSwNnes1UkoP62CrQXvn47BY5435aw"
},
{
"BlockIndex": 6003,
"FirstBlockToken":
"AAABASmJ0O5JxAOce25rF4P1sdRtyIDsX12tFEDunnePYUKOf4PBROuICb2A"
},
...
],
"ExpiryTime": 1576308931.973,
"VolumeSize": 32212254720,
"BlockSize": 524288,
"NextToken": "AAADARqElNng/sV98CYk/bJDCXeLJmLJHnNSkHvLzVaO0zsPH/QM3Bi3zF//O6Mdi/
BbJarBnp8h"
}

Get block data from a snapshot

The following get-snapshot-block example command returns the data in the block index 6001 with
block token AAABASBpSJ2UAD3PLxJnCt6zun4/T4sU25Bnb8jB5Q6FRXHFqAIAqE04hJoR, in snapshot
snap-1234567890. The binary data is output to the data file in the C:\Temp directory on a Windows
computer. If you run the command on a Linux or Unix computer, replace the output path with /tmp/
data to output the data to the data file in the /tmp directory.

aws ebs get-snapshot-block --snapshot-id snap-1234567890 --block-index 6001 --block-

token AAABASBpSJ2UAD3PLxJnCt6zun4/T4sU25Bnb8jB5Q6FRXHFqAIAqE04hJoR C:/Temp/data

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The following example response for the previous command shows the size of the data returned, the
checksum to validate the data, and the algorithm of the checksum. The binary data is automatically
saved to the directory and file you specified in the request command.

{
"DataLength": "524288",
"Checksum": "cf0Y6/Fn0oFa4VyjQPOa/iD0zhTflPTKzxGv2OKowXc=",
"ChecksumAlgorithm": "SHA256"
}

Use the AWS CLI to write incremental snapshots

Start a snapshot

The following start-snapshot example command starts an 8 GiB snapshot, using snapshot
snap-123EXAMPLE1234567 as the parent snapshot. The new snapshot will be an incremental snapshot
of the parent snapshot. The snapshot moves to an error state if there are no put or complete requests
made for the snapshot within the specified 60 minute timeout period. The 550e8400-e29b-41d4-
a716-446655440000 client token ensures idempotency for the request. If the client token is omitted,
the AWS SDK automatically generates one for you. For more information about idempotency, see
Idempotency for StartSnapshot API (p. 1284).

aws ebs start-snapshot --volume-size 8 --parent-snapshot snap-123EXAMPLE1234567 --

timeout 60 --client-token 550e8400-e29b-41d4-a716-446655440000

The following example response for the previous command shows the snapshot ID, AWS account ID,
status, volume size in GiB, and size of the blocks in the snapshot. The snapshot is started in a pending
state. Specify the snapshot ID in subsequent put-snapshot-block commands to write data to the
snapshot, then use the complete-snapshot command to complete the snapshot and change its status
to completed.

{
"SnapshotId": "snap-0aaEXAMPLEe306d62",
"OwnerId": "111122223333",
"Status": "pending",
"VolumeSize": 8,
"BlockSize": 524288
}

Put data into a snapshot

The following put-snapshot example command writes 524288 Bytes of data to

block index 1000 on snapshot snap-0aaEXAMPLEe306d62. The Base64 encoded
QOD3gmEQOXATfJx2Aa34W4FU2nZGyXfqtsUuktOw8DM= checksum was generated using the SHA256
algorithm. The data that is transmitted is in the /tmp/data file.

aws ebs put-snapshot-block --snapshot-id snap-0aaEXAMPLEe306d62

--block-index 1000 --data-length 524288 --block-data /tmp/data --
checksum QOD3gmEQOXATfJx2Aa34W4FU2nZGyXfqtsUuktOw8DM= --checksum-algorithm SHA256

The following example response for the previous command confirms the data length, checksum, and
checksum algorithm for the data received by the service.

{
"DataLength": "524288",
"Checksum": "QOD3gmEQOXATfJx2Aa34W4FU2nZGyXfqtsUuktOw8DM=",
"ChecksumAlgorithm": "SHA256"

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Complete a snapshot
The following complete-snapshot example command completes snapshot
snap-0aaEXAMPLEe306d62. The command specifies that 5 blocks were written to the snapshot.
The 6D3nmwi5f2F0wlh7xX8QprrJBFzDX8aacdOcA3KCM3c= checksum represents the checksum
for the complete set of data written to a snapshot. For more information about checksums, see Use
checksums (p. 1269) earlier in this guide.

aws ebs complete-snapshot --snapshot-id snap-0aaEXAMPLEe306d62 --changed-blocks-count 5

--checksum 6D3nmwi5f2F0wlh7xX8QprrJBFzDX8aacdOcA3KCM3c= --checksum-algorithm SHA256 --
checksum-aggregation-method LINEAR

The following is an example response for the previous command.

{
"Status": "pending"
}

Optimize performance
You can run API requests concurrently. Assuming PutSnapshotBlock latency is 100ms, then a thread
can process 10 requests in one second. Furthermore, assuming your client application creates multiple
threads and connections (for example, 100 connections), it can make 1000 (10 * 100) requests per
second in total. This will correspond to a throughput of around 500 MB per second.

The following list contains few things to look for in your application:

• Is each thread using a separate connection? If the connections are limited on the application then
multiple threads will wait for the connection to be available and you will notice lower throughput.
• Is there any wait time in the application between two put requests? This will reduce the effective
throughput of a thread.
• The bandwidth limit on the instance – If bandwidth on the instance is shared by other applications, it
could limit the available throughput for PutSnapshotBlock requests.

Be sure to take note of other workloads that might be running in the account to avoid bottlenecks. You
should also build retry mechanisms into your EBS direct APIs workflows to handle throttling, timeouts,
and service unavailability.

Review the EBS direct APIs service quotas to determine the maximum API requests that you can run per
second. For more information, see Amazon Elastic Block Store Endpoints and Quotas in the AWS General
Reference.

Frequently asked questions

Can a snapshot be accessed using the EBS direct APIs if it has a pending status?

No. The snapshot can be accessed only if it has a completed status.

Are the block indexes returned by the EBS direct APIs in numerical order?

Yes. The block indexes returned are unique, and in numerical order.
Can I submit a request with a MaxResults parameter value of under 100?

No. The minimum MaxResult parameter value you can use is 100. If you submit a request with a
MaxResult parameter value of under 100, and there are more than 100 blocks in the snapshot, then
the API will return at least 100 results.

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Can I run API requests concurrently?

You can run API requests concurrently. Be sure to take note of other workloads that might be
running in the account to avoid bottlenecks. You should also build retry mechanisms into your
EBS direct APIs workflows to handle throttling, timeouts, and service unavailability. For more
information, see Optimize performance (p. 1277).

Review the EBS direct APIs service quotas to determine the API requests that you can run per
second. For more information, see Amazon Elastic Block Store Endpoints and Quotas in the AWS
General Reference.
When running the ListChangedBlocks action, is it possible to get an empty response even though
there are blocks in the snapshot?

Yes. If the changed blocks are scarce in the snapshot, the response may be empty but the API will
return a next page token value. Use the next page token value to continue to the next page of
results. You can confirm that you have reached the last page of results when the API returns a next
page token value of null.
If the NextToken parameter is specified together with a StartingBlockIndex parameter, which of the
two is used?

The NextToken is used, and the StartingBlockIndex is ignored.

How long are the block tokens and next tokens valid?

Block tokens are valid for seven days, and next tokens are valid for 60 minutes.
Are encrypted snapshots supported?

Yes. Encrypted snapshots can be accessed using the EBS direct APIs.

To access an encrypted snapshot, the user must have access to the KMS key used to encrypt the
snapshot, and the AWS KMS decrypt action. See the Permissions for IAM users (p. 1264) section
earlier in this guide for the AWS KMS policy to assign to a user.
Are public snapshots supported?

Public snapshots are not supported.

Does list snapshot block return all block indexes and block tokens in a snapshot, or only those that
have data written to them?

It returns only block indexes and tokens that have data written to them.
Can I get a history of the API calls made by the EBS direct APIs on my account for security analysis
and operational troubleshooting purposes?

Yes. To receive a history of EBS direct APIs API calls made on your account, turn on AWS CloudTrail in
the AWS Management Console. For more information, see Log API Calls for EBS direct APIs with AWS
CloudTrail (p. 1278).

Log API Calls for EBS direct APIs with AWS CloudTrail
The EBS direct APIs service is integrated with AWS CloudTrail. CloudTrail is a service that provides a
record of actions taken by a user, role, or an AWS service. CloudTrail captures all API calls performed in
EBS direct APIs as events. If you create a trail, you can enable continuous delivery of CloudTrail events
to an Amazon Simple Storage Service (Amazon S3) bucket. If you don't configure a trail, you can still
view the most recent management events in the CloudTrail console in Event history. Data events are
not captured in Event history. You can use the information collected by CloudTrail to determine the
request that was made to EBS direct APIs, the IP address from which the request was made, who made
the request, when it was made, and additional details.

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For more information about CloudTrail, see the AWS CloudTrail User Guide.

EBS direct APIs Information in CloudTrail

CloudTrail is enabled on your AWS account when you create the account. When supported event activity
occurs in EBS direct APIs, that activity is recorded in a CloudTrail event along with other AWS service
events in Event history. You can view, search, and download recent events in your AWS account. For
more information, see Viewing Events with CloudTrail Event History.

For an ongoing record of events in your AWS account, including events for EBS direct APIs, create a
trail. A trail enables CloudTrail to deliver log files to an S3 bucket. By default, when you create a trail
in the console, the trail applies to all AWS Regions. The trail logs events from all Regions in the AWS
partition and delivers the log files to the S3 bucket that you specify. Additionally, you can configure
other AWS services to further analyze and act upon the event data collected in CloudTrail logs. For more
information, see the following:

• Overview for Creating a Trail

• CloudTrail Supported Services and Integrations
• Configuring Amazon SNS Notifications for CloudTrail
• Receiving CloudTrail Log Files from Multiple Regions and Receiving CloudTrail Log Files from Multiple
Accounts

Supported API actions

For EBS direct APIs, you can use CloudTrail to log two types of events:

• Management events — Management events provide visibility into management operations that are
performed on snapshots in your AWS account. The following API actions are logged by default as
management events in trails:
• StartSnapshot
• CompleteSnapshot

For more information about logging management events, see Logging management events for trails in
the CloudTrail User Guide.
• Data events — These events provide visibility into the snapshot operations performed on or within a
snapshot. The following API actions can optionally be logged as data events in trails:
• ListSnapshotBlocks
• ListChangedBlocks
• GetSnapshotBlock
• PutSnapshotBlock

Data events are not logged by default when you create a trail. You can use only advanced event
selectors to record data events on EBS direct API calls. For more information, see Logging data events
for trails in the CloudTrail User Guide.
Note
If you perform an action on a snapshot that is shared with you, data events are not sent to the
AWS account that owns the snapshot.

Identity information
Every event or log entry contains information about who generated the request. The identity
information helps you determine the following:

• Whether the request was made with root or AWS Identity and Access Management (IAM) user
credentials.

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• Whether the request was made with temporary security credentials for a role or federated user.
• Whether the request was made by another AWS service.

For more information, see the CloudTrail userIdentityElement.

Understand EBS direct APIs Log File Entries

A trail is a configuration that enables delivery of events as log files to an S3 bucket that you specify.
CloudTrail log files contain one or more log entries. An event represents a single request from any
source and includes information about the requested action, the date and time of the action, request
parameters, and so on. CloudTrail log files aren't an ordered stack trace of the public API calls, so they
don't appear in any specific order.

The following are example CloudTrail log entries.

StartSnapshot

{
"eventVersion": "1.05",
"userIdentity": {
"type": "IAMUser",
"principalId": "123456789012",
"arn": "arn:aws:iam::123456789012:root",
"accountId": "123456789012",
"accessKeyId": "AKIAIOSFODNN7EXAMPLE",
"userName": "user"
},
"eventTime": "2020-07-03T23:27:26Z",
"eventSource": "ebs.amazonaws.com",
"eventName": "StartSnapshot",
"awsRegion": "eu-west-1",
"sourceIPAddress": "192.0.2.0",
"userAgent": "PostmanRuntime/7.25.0",
"requestParameters": {
"volumeSize": 8,
"clientToken": "token",
"encrypted": true
},
"responseElements": {
"snapshotId": "snap-123456789012",
"ownerId": "123456789012",
"status": "pending",
"startTime": "Jul 3, 2020 11:27:26 PM",
"volumeSize": 8,
"blockSize": 524288,
"kmsKeyArn": "HIDDEN_DUE_TO_SECURITY_REASONS"
},
"requestID": "be112233-1ba5-4ae0-8e2b-1c302EXAMPLE",
"eventID": "6e12345-2a4e-417c-aa78-7594fEXAMPLE",
"eventType": "AwsApiCall",
"recipientAccountId": "123456789012"
}

CompleteSnapshot

{
"eventVersion": "1.05",
"userIdentity": {
"type": "IAMUser",
"principalId": "123456789012",
"arn": "arn:aws:iam::123456789012:root",
"accountId": "123456789012",

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"accessKeyId": "AKIAIOSFODNN7EXAMPLE",
"userName": "user"
},
"eventTime": "2020-07-03T23:28:24Z",
"eventSource": "ebs.amazonaws.com",
"eventName": "CompleteSnapshot",
"awsRegion": "eu-west-1",
"sourceIPAddress": "192.0.2.0",
"userAgent": "PostmanRuntime/7.25.0",
"requestParameters": {
"snapshotId": "snap-123456789012",
"changedBlocksCount": 5
},
"responseElements": {
"status": "completed"
},
"requestID": "be112233-1ba5-4ae0-8e2b-1c302EXAMPLE",
"eventID": "6e12345-2a4e-417c-aa78-7594fEXAMPLE",
"eventType": "AwsApiCall",
"recipientAccountId": "123456789012"
}

ListSnapshotBlocks

{
"eventVersion": "1.08",
"userIdentity": {
"type": "IAMUser",
"principalId": "AIDAT4HPB2AO3JEXAMPLE",
"arn": "arn:aws:iam::123456789012:user/user",
"accountId": "123456789012",
"accessKeyId": "AKIAIOSFODNN7EXAMPLE",
"userName": "user"
},
"eventTime": "2021-06-03T00:32:46Z",
"eventSource": "ebs.amazonaws.com",
"eventName": "ListSnapshotBlocks",
"awsRegion": "us-east-1",
"sourceIPAddress": "111.111.111.111",
"userAgent": "PostmanRuntime/7.28.0",
"requestParameters": {
"snapshotId": "snap-abcdef01234567890",
"maxResults": 100,
"startingBlockIndex": 0
},
"responseElements": null,
"requestID": "example6-0e12-4aa9-b923-1555eexample",
"eventID": "example4-218b-4f69-a9e0-2357dexample",
"readOnly": true,
"resources": [
{
"accountId": "123456789012",
"type": "AWS::EC2::Snapshot",
"ARN": "arn:aws:ec2:us-west-2::snapshot/snap-abcdef01234567890"
}
],
"eventType": "AwsApiCall",
"managementEvent": false,
"recipientAccountId": "123456789012",
"eventCategory": "Data",
"tlsDetails": {
"tlsVersion": "TLSv1.2",
"cipherSuite": "ECDHE-RSA-AES128-SHA",
"clientProvidedHostHeader": "ebs.us-west-2.amazonaws.com"
}

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ListChangedBlocks

{
"eventVersion": "1.08",
"userIdentity": {
"type": "IAMUser",
"principalId": "AIDAT4HPB2AO3JEXAMPLE",
"arn": "arn:aws:iam::123456789012:user/user",
"accountId": "123456789012",
"accessKeyId": "AKIAIOSFODNN7EXAMPLE",
"userName": "user"
},
"eventTime": "2021-06-02T21:11:46Z",
"eventSource": "ebs.amazonaws.com",
"eventName": "ListChangedBlocks",
"awsRegion": "us-east-1",
"sourceIPAddress": "111.111.111.111",
"userAgent": "PostmanRuntime/7.28.0",
"requestParameters": {
"firstSnapshotId": "snap-abcdef01234567890",
"secondSnapshotId": "snap-9876543210abcdef0",
"maxResults": 100,
"startingBlockIndex": 0
},
"responseElements": null,
"requestID": "example0-f4cb-4d64-8d84-72e1bexample",
"eventID": "example3-fac4-4a78-8ebb-3e9d3example",
"readOnly": true,
"resources": [
{
"accountId": "123456789012",
"type": "AWS::EC2::Snapshot",
"ARN": "arn:aws:ec2:us-west-2::snapshot/snap-abcdef01234567890"
},
{
"accountId": "123456789012",
"type": "AWS::EC2::Snapshot",
"ARN": "arn:aws:ec2:us-west-2::snapshot/snap-9876543210abcdef0"
}
],
"eventType": "AwsApiCall",
"managementEvent": false,
"recipientAccountId": "123456789012",
"eventCategory": "Data",
"tlsDetails": {
"tlsVersion": "TLSv1.2",
"cipherSuite": "ECDHE-RSA-AES128-SHA",
"clientProvidedHostHeader": "ebs.us-west-2.amazonaws.com"
}
}

GetSnapshotBlock

{
"eventVersion": "1.08",
"userIdentity": {
"type": "IAMUser",
"principalId": "AIDAT4HPB2AO3JEXAMPLE",
"arn": "arn:aws:iam::123456789012:user/user",
"accountId": "123456789012",
"accessKeyId": "AKIAIOSFODNN7EXAMPLE",
"userName": "user"

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},
"eventTime": "2021-06-02T20:43:05Z",
"eventSource": "ebs.amazonaws.com",
"eventName": "GetSnapshotBlock",
"awsRegion": "us-east-1",
"sourceIPAddress": "111.111.111.111",
"userAgent": "PostmanRuntime/7.28.0",
"requestParameters": {
"snapshotId": "snap-abcdef01234567890",
"blockIndex": 1,
"blockToken": "EXAMPLEiL5E3pMPFpaDWjExM2/mnSKh1mQfcbjwe2mM7EwhrgCdPAEXAMPLE"
},
"responseElements": null,
"requestID": "examplea-6eca-4964-abfd-fd9f0example",
"eventID": "example6-4048-4365-a275-42e94example",
"readOnly": true,
"resources": [
{
"accountId": "123456789012",
"type": "AWS::EC2::Snapshot",
"ARN": "arn:aws:ec2:us-west-2::snapshot/snap-abcdef01234567890"
}
],
"eventType": "AwsApiCall",
"managementEvent": false,
"recipientAccountId": "123456789012",
"eventCategory": "Data",
"tlsDetails": {
"tlsVersion": "TLSv1.2",
"cipherSuite": "ECDHE-RSA-AES128-SHA",
"clientProvidedHostHeader": "ebs.us-west-2.amazonaws.com"
}
}

PutSnapshotBlock

{
"eventVersion": "1.08",
"userIdentity": {
"type": "IAMUser",
"principalId": "AIDAT4HPB2AO3JEXAMPLE",
"arn": "arn:aws:iam::123456789012:user/user",
"accountId": "123456789012",
"accessKeyId": "AKIAIOSFODNN7EXAMPLE",
"userName": "user"
},
"eventTime": "2021-06-02T21:09:17Z",
"eventSource": "ebs.amazonaws.com",
"eventName": "PutSnapshotBlock",
"awsRegion": "us-east-1",
"sourceIPAddress": "111.111.111.111",
"userAgent": "PostmanRuntime/7.28.0",
"requestParameters": {
"snapshotId": "snap-abcdef01234567890",
"blockIndex": 1,
"dataLength": 524288,
"checksum": "exampleodSGvFSb1e3kxWUgbOQ4TbzPurnsfVexample",
"checksumAlgorithm": "SHA256"
},
"responseElements": {
"checksum": "exampleodSGvFSb1e3kxWUgbOQ4TbzPurnsfVexample",
"checksumAlgorithm": "SHA256"
},
"requestID": "example3-d5e0-4167-8ee8-50845example",
"eventID": "example8-4d9a-4aad-b71d-bb31fexample",

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"readOnly": false,
"resources": [
{
"accountId": "123456789012",
"type": "AWS::EC2::Snapshot",
"ARN": "arn:aws:ec2:us-west-2::snapshot/snap-abcdef01234567890"
}
],
"eventType": "AwsApiCall",
"managementEvent": false,
"recipientAccountId": "123456789012",
"eventCategory": "Data",
"tlsDetails": {
"tlsVersion": "TLSv1.2",
"cipherSuite": "ECDHE-RSA-AES128-SHA",
"clientProvidedHostHeader": "ebs.us-west-2.amazonaws.com"
}
}

EBS direct APIs and interface VPC endpoints

You can establish a private connection between your VPC and EBS direct APIs by creating an interface
VPC endpoint. Interface endpoints are powered by AWS PrivateLink, a technology that enables you to
privately access EBS direct APIs without an internet gateway, NAT device, VPN connection, or AWS Direct
Connect connection. Instances in your VPC don't need public IP addresses to communicate with EBS
direct APIs. Traffic between your VPC and EBS direct APIs does not leave the Amazon network.

Each interface endpoint is represented by one or more Elastic Network Interfaces in your subnets.

For more information, see Interface VPC endpoints (AWS PrivateLink) in the Amazon VPC User Guide.

Considerations for EBS direct APIs VPC endpoints

Before you set up an interface VPC endpoint for EBS direct APIs, ensure that you review Interface
endpoint properties and limitations in the Amazon VPC User Guide.

VPC endpoint policies are not supported for EBS direct APIs. By default, full access to EBS direct APIs is
allowed through the endpoint. However, you can control access to the interface endpoint using security
groups. For more information, see Controlling access to services with VPC endpoints in the Amazon VPC
User Guide.

Create an interface VPC endpoint for EBS direct APIs

You can create a VPC endpoint for EBS direct APIs using either the Amazon VPC console or the AWS
Command Line Interface (AWS CLI). For more information, see Creating an interface endpoint in the
Amazon VPC User Guide.

Create a VPC endpoint for EBS direct APIs using the following service name:

• com.amazonaws.region.ebs

If you enable private DNS for the endpoint, you can make API requests to EBS direct APIs using
its default DNS name for the Region, for example, ebs.us-east-1.amazonaws.com. For more
information, see Accessing a service through an interface endpoint in the Amazon VPC User Guide.

Idempotency for StartSnapshot API

Idempotency ensures that an API request completes only once. With an idempotent request, if the
original request completes successful, the subsequent retries return the result from the original
successful request and they have no additional effect.

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The StartSnapshot API supports idempotency using a client token. A client token is a unique string
that you specify when you make an API request. If you retry an API request with the same client token
and the same request parameters after it has completed successfully, the result of the original request
is returned. If you retry a request with the same client token, but change one or more of the request
parameters, the ConflictException error is returned.

If you do not specify your own client token, the AWS SDKs automatically generates a client token for the
request to ensure that it is idempotent.

A client token can be any string that includes up to up to 64 ASCII characters. You should not reuse the
same client tokens for different requests.

To make an idempotent StartSnapshot request with your own client token using the API

Specify the ClientToken request parameter.

POST /snapshots HTTP/1.1

Host: ebs.us-east-2.amazonaws.com
Accept-Encoding: identity
User-Agent: <User agent parameter>
X-Amz-Date: 20200618T040724Z
Authorization: <Authentication parameter>

{
"VolumeSize": 8,
"ParentSnapshot": snap-123EXAMPLE1234567,
"ClientToken": "550e8400-e29b-41d4-a716-446655440000",
"Timeout": 60
}

To make an idempotent StartSnapshot request with your own client token using the AWS CLI

Specify the client-token request parameter.

C:\> aws ebs start-snapshot --region us-east-2 --volume-size 8 --parent-snapshot

snap-123EXAMPLE1234567 --timeout 60 --client-token 550e8400-e29b-41d4-a716-446655440000

Automate the snapshot lifecycle

You can use Amazon Data Lifecycle Manager to automate the creation, retention, and deletion of
snapshots that you use to back up your Amazon EBS volumes.

For more information, see Amazon Data Lifecycle Manager (p. 1285).

Amazon Data Lifecycle Manager

You can use Amazon Data Lifecycle Manager to automate the creation, retention, and deletion of EBS
snapshots and EBS-backed AMIs. When you automate snapshot and AMI management, it helps you to:

• Protect valuable data by enforcing a regular backup schedule.

• Create standardized AMIs that can be refreshed at regular intervals.
• Retain backups as required by auditors or internal compliance.
• Reduce storage costs by deleting outdated backups.
• Create disaster recovery backup policies that back up data to isolated accounts.

When combined with the monitoring features of Amazon CloudWatch Events and AWS CloudTrail,
Amazon Data Lifecycle Manager provides a complete backup solution for Amazon EC2 instances and
individual EBS volumes at no additional cost.

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Important
Amazon Data Lifecycle Manager cannot be used to manage snapshots or AMIs that are created
by any other means.
Amazon Data Lifecycle Manager cannot be used to automate the creation, retention, and
deletion of instance store-backed AMIs.

Contents
• How Amazon Data Lifecycle Manager works (p. 1286)
• Considerations for Amazon Data Lifecycle Manager (p. 1288)
• Automate snapshot lifecycles (p. 1290)
• Automate AMI lifecycles (p. 1297)
• Automate cross-account snapshot copies (p. 1303)
• View, modify, and delete lifecycle policies (p. 1310)
• AWS Identity and Access Management (p. 1313)
• Monitor the lifecycle of snapshots and AMIs (p. 1320)

How Amazon Data Lifecycle Manager works

The following are the key elements of Amazon Data Lifecycle Manager.

Elements
• Snapshots (p. 1286)
• EBS-backed AMIs (p. 1286)
• Target resource tags (p. 1286)
• Amazon Data Lifecycle Manager tags (p. 1287)
• Lifecycle policies (p. 1287)
• Policy schedules (p. 1288)

Snapshots
Snapshots are the primary means to back up data from your EBS volumes. To save storage costs,
successive snapshots are incremental, containing only the volume data that changed since the previous
snapshot. When you delete one snapshot in a series of snapshots for a volume, only the data that's
unique to that snapshot is removed. The rest of the captured history of the volume is preserved.

For more information, see Amazon EBS snapshots (p. 1220).

EBS-backed AMIs
An Amazon Machine Image (AMI) provides the information that's required to launch an instance. You
can launch multiple instances from a single AMI when you need multiple instances with the same
configuration. Amazon Data Lifecycle Manager supports EBS-backed AMIs only. EBS-backed AMIs include
a snapshot for each EBS volume that's attached to the source instance.

For more information, see Amazon Machine Images (AMI) (p. 21).

Target resource tags

Amazon Data Lifecycle Manager uses resource tags to identify the resources to back up. Tags are
customizable metadata that you can assign to your AWS resources (including Amazon EC2 instances, EBS
volumes and snapshots). An Amazon Data Lifecycle Manager policy (described later) targets an instance
or volume for backup using a single tag. Multiple tags can be assigned to an instance or volume if you
want to run multiple policies on it.

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You can't use a '\' or '=' character in a tag key.

For more information, see Tag your Amazon EC2 resources (p. 1463).

Amazon Data Lifecycle Manager tags

Amazon Data Lifecycle Manager applies the following tags to all snapshots and AMIs created by a policy,
to distinguish them from snapshots and AMIs created by any other means:

• aws:dlm:lifecycle-policy-id
• aws:dlm:lifecycle-schedule-name
• aws:dlm:expirationTime
• dlm:managed

You can also specify custom tags to be applied to snapshots and AMIs on creation. You can't use a '\' or
'=' character in a tag key.

The target tags that Amazon Data Lifecycle Manager uses to associate volumes with a snapshot policy
can optionally be applied to snapshots created by the policy. Similarly, the target tags that are used to
associate instances with an AMI policy can optionally be applied to AMIs created by the policy.

Lifecycle policies
A lifecycle policy consists of these core settings:

• Policy type—Defines the type of resources that the policy can manage. Amazon Data Lifecycle
Manager supports the following types of lifecycle policies:
• Snapshot lifecycle policy—Used to automate the lifecycle of EBS snapshots. These policies can
target individual EBS volumes or all EBS volumes attached to an instance.
• EBS-backed AMI lifecycle policy—Used to automate the lifecycle of EBS-backed AMIs and their
backing snapshots. These policies can target instances only.
• Cross-account copy event policy—Used to automate snapshot copies across accounts. Use this policy
type in conjunction with an EBS snapshot policy that shares snapshots across accounts.
• Resource type—Defines the type of resources that are targeted by the policy. Snapshot lifecycle
policies can target instances or volumes. Use VOLUME to create snapshots of individual volumes, or use
INSTANCE to create multi-volume snapshots of all of the volumes that are attached to an instance. For
more information, see Multi-volume snapshots (p. 1225). AMI lifecycle policies can target instances
only. One AMI is created that includes snapshots of all of the volumes that are attached to the target
instance.
• Target tags—Specifies the tags that must be assigned to an EBS volume or an Amazon EC2 instance
for it to be targeted by the policy.
• Schedules—The start times and intervals for creating snapshots or AMIs. The first snapshot or AMI
creation operation starts within one hour after the specified start time. Subsequent snapshot or
AMI creation operations start within one hour of their scheduled time. A policy can have up to four
schedules: one mandatory schedule, and up to three optional schedules. For more information, see
Policy schedules (p. 1288).
• Retention—Specifies how snapshots or AMIs are to be retained. You can retain snapshots or AMIs
based either on their total count (count-based), or their age (age-based). For snapshot policies, when
the retention threshold is reached, the oldest snapshot is deleted. For AMI policies, when the retention
threshold is reached, the oldest AMI is deregistered and its backing snapshots are deleted.

For example, you could create a policy with settings similar to the following:

• Manages all EBS volumes that have a tag with a key of account and a value of finance.

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• Creates snapshots every 24 hours at 0900 UTC.

• Retains only the five most recent snapshots.
• Starts snapshot creation no later than 0959 UTC each day.

Policy schedules
Policy schedules define when snapshots or AMIs are created by the policy. Policies can have up to four
schedules—one mandatory schedule, and up to three optional schedules.

Adding multiple schedules to a single policy lets you create snapshots or AMIs at different frequencies
using the same policy. For example, you can create a single policy that creates daily, weekly, monthly,
and yearly snapshots. This eliminates the need to manage multiple policies.

For each schedule, you can define the frequency, fast snapshot restore settings (snapshot lifecycle
policies only), cross-Region copy rules, and tags. The tags that are assigned to a schedule are
automatically assigned to the snapshots or AMIs that are created when the schedule is initiated. In
addition, Amazon Data Lifecycle Manager automatically assigns a system-generated tag based on the
schedule's frequency to each snapshot or AMI.

Each schedule is initiated individually based on its frequency. If multiple schedules are initiated at the
same time, Amazon Data Lifecycle Manager creates only one snapshot or AMI and applies the retention
settings of the schedule that has the highest retention period. The tags of all of the initiated schedules
are applied to the snapshot or AMI.

• (Snapshot lifecycle policies only) If more than one of the initiated schedules is enabled for fast
snapshot restore, then the snapshot is enabled for fast snapshot restore in all of the Availability Zones
specified across all of the initiated schedules. The highest retention settings of the initiated schedules
is used for each Availability Zone.
• If more than one of the initiated schedules is enabled for cross-Region copy, the snapshot or AMI is
copied to all Regions specified across all of the initiated schedules. The highest retention period of the
initiated schedules is applied.

Considerations for Amazon Data Lifecycle Manager

Your AWS account has the following quotas related to Amazon Data Lifecycle Manager:

• You can create up to 100 lifecycle policies per Region.

• You can add up to 45 tags per resource.

The following considerations apply to lifecycle policies:

• A policy does not begin creating snapshots or AMIs until you set its activation status to enabled. You
can configure a policy to be enabled upon creation.
• The first snapshot or AMI creation operation starts within one hour after the specified start time.
Subsequent snapshot or AMI creation operations start within one hour of their scheduled time.
• If you modify a policy by removing or changing its target tags, the EBS volumes or instances with
those tags are no longer managed by the policy.
• If you modify a schedule name for a policy, the snapshots or AMIs created under the old schedule
name are no longer affected by the policy.
• If you modify a time-based retention schedule to use a new time interval, the new interval is used only
for new snapshots or AMIs created after the change. The new schedule does not affect the retention
schedule of snapshots or AMIs created before the change.
• You cannot change the retention schedule of a policy from count-based to time-based after creation.
To make this change, you must create a new policy.

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• If you disable a policy with an age-based retention schedule, the snapshots or AMIs that are set
to expire while the policy is disabled are retained indefinitely. You must delete the snapshots or
deregister the AMIs manually. When you enable the policy again, Amazon Data Lifecycle Manager
resumes deleting snapshots or deregistering AMIs as their retention periods expire.
• If you delete the resource to which a policy with count-based retention applies, the policy no longer
manages the previously created snapshots or AMIs. You must manually delete the snapshots or
deregister the AMIs if they are no longer needed.
• If you delete the resource to which a policy with age-based retention applies, the policy continues
to delete snapshots or deregister AMIs on the defined schedule, up to, but not including, the last
snapshot or AMI. You must manually delete the last snapshot or deregister the last AMI if it is no
longer needed.
• You can create multiple policies to back up an EBS volume or an Amazon EC2 instance. For example,
if an EBS volume has two tags, where tag A is the target for policy A to create a snapshot every 12
hours, and tag B is the target for policy B to create a snapshot every 24 hours, Amazon Data Lifecycle
Manager creates snapshots according to the schedules for both policies. Alternatively, you can achieve
the same result by creating a single policy that has multiple schedules. For example, you can create a
single policy that targets only tag A, and specify two schedules—one for every 12 hours and one for
every 24 hours.
• If you create a policy that targets instances, and new volumes are attached to the instance after the
policy has been created, the newly-added volumes are included in the backup at the next policy run.
All volumes attached to the instance at the time of the policy run are included.
• For AMI lifecycle policies, when the AMI retention threshold is reached, the oldest AMI is deregistered
and its backing snapshots are deleted.
• If a policy with a custom cron-based schedule and age-based or count-based retention rule is
configured to create only one snapshot or AMI, the policy will not automatically delete that snapshot
or AMI when the retention threshold is reached. You must manually delete the snapshot or deregister
the AMI if it is no longer needed.

The following considerations apply to snapshot lifecycle policies and fast snapshot restore (p. 1351):

• A snapshot that is enabled for fast snapshot restore remains enabled even if you delete or disable the
lifecycle policy, disable fast snapshot restore for the lifecycle policy, or disable fast snapshot restore
for the Availability Zone. You can disable fast snapshot restore for these snapshots manually.
• If you enable fast snapshot restore and you exceed the maximum number of snapshots that can be
enabled for fast snapshot restore, Amazon Data Lifecycle Manager creates snapshots as scheduled
but does not enable them for fast snapshot restore. After a snapshot that is enabled for fast snapshot
restore is deleted, the next snapshot that Amazon Data Lifecycle Manager creates is enabled for fast
snapshot restore.
• When you enable fast snapshot restore for a snapshot, it takes 60 minutes per TiB to optimize
the snapshot. We recommend that you create a schedule that ensures that each snapshot is fully
optimized before Amazon Data Lifecycle Manager creates the next snapshot.
• You are billed for each minute that fast snapshot restore is enabled for a snapshot in a particular
Availability Zone. Charges are pro-rated with a minimum of one hour. For more information, see
Pricing and Billing (p. 1355).
Note
Depending on the configuration of your lifecycle policies, you could have multiple snapshots
enabled for fast snapshot restore simultaneously.

The following considerations apply to sharing snapshots across accounts:

• You can only share snapshots that are unencrypted or that are encrypted using a customer managed
key.
• You can't share snapshots that are encrypted with the default EBS encryption KMS key.

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• If you share encrypted snapshots, then you must also share the KMS key that was used to encrypt the
source volume with the target accounts. For more information, see Allowing users in other accounts to
use a KMS key in the AWS Key Management Service Developer Guide.

The following considerations apply to cross-account copy event policies:

• You can only copy snapshots that are unencrypted or that are encrypted using a customer managed
key.
• You can create a cross-account copy event policy that copies snapshots that are shared outside of
Amazon Data Lifecycle Manager.
• If you want to encrypt snapshots in the target account, then the IAM role selected for the cross-
account copy event policy must have permission to use the required KMS key.

The following considerations apply to EBS-backed AMI policies and AMI deprecation:

• If you increase the AMI deprecation count for a schedule with count-based retention, the change is
applied to all AMIs (existing and new) created by the schedule.
• If you increase the AMI deprecation period for a schedule with age-based retention, the change is
applied to new AMIs only. Existing AMIs are not affected.
• If you remove the AMI deprecation rule from a schedule, Amazon Data Lifecycle Manager will not
cancel deprecation for AMIs that were previously deprecated by that schedule.
• If you decrease the AMI deprecation count or period for a schedule, Amazon Data Lifecycle Manager
will not cancel deprecation for AMIs that were previously deprecated by that schedule.
• If you manually deprecate an AMI that was created by an AMI policy, Amazon Data Lifecycle Manager
will not override the deprecation.
• If you manually cancel deprecation for an AMI that was previously deprecated by an AMI policy,
Amazon Data Lifecycle Manager will not override the cancellation.
• If an AMI is created by multiple conflicting schedules, and one or more of those schedules do not have
an AMI deprecation rule, Amazon Data Lifecycle Manager will not deprecate that AMI.
• If an AMI is created by multiple conflicting schedules, and all of those schedules have an AMI
deprecation rule, Amazon Data Lifecycle Manager will use the deprecation rule with the latest
deprecation date.

Automate snapshot lifecycles

The following procedure shows you how to use Amazon Data Lifecycle Manager to automate Amazon
EBS snapshot lifecycles.

Use one of the following procedures to create a snapshot lifecycle policy.

New console

To create a snapshot policy

1. Open the Amazon EC2 console at https://console.aws.amazon.com/ec2/.

2. In the navigation pane, choose Elastic Block Store, Lifecycle Manager, and then choose Create
lifecycle policy.
3. On the Select policy type screen, choose EBS snapshot policy and then choose Next.
4. In the Target resources section, do the following:

a. For Target resource types, choose the type of resource to back up. Choose Volume to
create snapshots of individual volumes, or choose Instance to create multi-volume
snapshots from the volumes attached to an instance.

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b. (For AWS Outpost customers only) For Target resource location, specify where the source
resources are located.

• If the source resources are located in an AWS Region, choose AWS Region. Amazon Data
Lifecycle Manager backs up all resources of the specified type that have matching target
tags in the current Region only. If the resource is located in a Region, snapshots created
by the policy will be stored in the same Region.
• If the source resources are located on an Outpost in your account, choose AWS Outpost.
Amazon Data Lifecycle Manager backs up all resources of the specified type that have
matching target tags across all of the Outposts in your account. If the resource is located
on an Outpost, snapshots created by the policy can be stored in the same Region or on
the same Outpost as the resource.
• If you do not have any Outposts in your account, this option is hidden and AWS Region is
selected for you.
c. For Target resource tags, choose the resource tags that identify the volumes or instances to
back up. Only resources that have the specified tag key and value pairs are backed up by the
policy.
5. For Description, enter a brief description for the policy.
6. For IAM role, choose the IAM role that has permissions to manage snapshots and to describe
volumes and instances. To use the default role provided by Amazon Data Lifecycle Manager.
choose Default role. Alternatively, to use a custom IAM role that you previously created, choose
Choose another role and then select the role to use.
7. For Policy tags, add the tags to apply to the lifecycle policy. You can use these tags to identify
and categorize your policies.
8. For Policy status after creation, choose Enable policy to start the policy runs at the next
scheduled time, or Disable policy to prevent the policy from running. If you do not enable the
policy now, it will not start creating snapshots until you manually enable it after creation.
9. Choose Next.
10. On the Configure schedule screen, configure the policy schedules. A policy can have up to 4
schedules. Schedule 1 is mandatory. Schedules 2, 3, and 4 are optional. For each policy schedule
that you add, do the following:

a. In the Schedule details section do the following:

i. For Schedule name, specify a descriptive name for the schedule.

ii. For Frequency and the related fields, configure the interval between policy runs. You
can configure policy runs on a daily, weekly, monthly, or yearly schedule. Alternatively,
choose Custom cron expression to specify an interval of up to one year. For more
information, see Cron expressions in the Amazon CloudWatch Events User Guide.
iii. For Starting at, specify the time at which the policy runs are scheduled to start. The
first policy run starts within an hour after the scheduled time. The time must be
entered in the hh:mm UTC format.
iv. For Retention type, specify the retention policy for snapshots created by the schedule.
You can retain snapshots based on either their total count or their age.

For count-based retention, the range is 1 to 1000. After the maximum count is reached,
the oldest snapshot is deleted when a new one is created.

For age-based retention, the range is 1 day to 100 years. After the retention period of
each snapshot expires, it is deleted.
Note
All schedules must have the same retention type. You can specify the retention
type for Schedule 1 only. Schedules 2, 3, and 4 inherit the retention type from
Schedule 1. Each schedule can have its own retention count or period.

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v. (For AWS Outposts customers only) For Snapshot destination, specify the destination
for snapshots created by the policy.

• If the policy targets resources in a Region, snapshots must be created in the same
Region. AWS Region is selected for you.
• If the policy targets resources on an Outpost, you can choose to create snapshots on
the same Outpost as the source resource, or in the Region that is associated with the
Outpost.
• If you do not have any Outposts in your account, this option is hidden and AWS
Region is selected for you.

b. In the Tagging section, do the following:

i. To copy all of the user-defined tags from the source volume to the snapshots created
by the schedule, select Copy tags from source.
ii. To specify additional tags to assign to snapshots created by this schedule, choose Add
tags.
c. To enable fast snapshot restore for snapshots created by the schedule, in the Fast snapshot
restore section, select Enable fast snapshot restore. If you enable fast snapshot restore,
you must choose the Availability Zones in which to enable it. If the schedule uses an age-
based retention schedule, you must specify the period for which to enable fast snapshot
restore for each snapshot. If the schedule uses count-based retention, you must specify the
maximum number of snapshots to enable for fast snapshot restore.

If the schedule creates snapshots on an Outpost, you can't enable fast snapshot restore.
Fast snapshot restore is not supported with local snapshots that are stored on an Outpost.
Note
You are billed for each minute that fast snapshot restore is enabled for a snapshot
in a particular Availability Zone. Charges are pro-rated with a minimum of one
hour.
d. To copy snapshots created by the schedule to an Outpost or to a different Region, in the
Cross-Region copy section, select Enable cross-Region copy.

If the schedule creates snapshots in a Region, you can copy the snapshots to up to three
additional Regions or Outposts in your account. You must specify a separate cross-Region
copy rule for each destination Region or Outpost.

For each Region or Outpost, you can choose different retention policies and you can choose
whether to copy all tags or no tags. If the source snapshot is encrypted, or if encryption
by default is enabled, the copied snapshots are encrypted. If the source snapshot is
unencrypted, you can enable encryption. If you do not specify a KMS key, the snapshots are
encrypted using the default KMS key for EBS encryption in each destination Region. If you
specify a KMS key for the destination Region, then the selected IAM role must have access
to the KMS key.
Note
You must ensure that you do not exceed the number of concurrent snapshot copies
per Region.

If the policy creates snapshots on an Outpost, then you can't copy the snapshots to a
Region or to another Outpost and the cross-Region copy settings are not available.
e. In the Cross-account sharing, configure the policy to automatically share the snapshots
created by the schedule with other AWS accounts. Do the following:

i. To enable sharing with other AWS accounts, select Enable cross-account sharing.

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ii. To add the accounts with which to share the snapshots, choose Add account, enter the
12-digit AWS account ID, and choose Add.
iii. To automatically unshare shared snapshots after a specific period, select Unshare
automatically. If you choose to automatically unshare shared snapshots, the period
after which to automatically unshare the snapshots cannot be longer than the period
for which the policy retains its snapshots. For example, if the policy's retention
configuration retains snapshots for a period of 5 days, you can configure the policy
to automatically unshare shared snapshots after periods up to 4 days. This applies to
policies with age-based and count-based snapshot retention configurations.

If you do not enable automatic unsharing, the snapshot is shared until it is deleted.
f. To add additional schedules, choose Add another schedule, which is located at the top of
the screen. For each additional schedule, complete the fields as described previously in this
topic.
g. After you have added the required schedules, choose Review policy.
11. Review the policy summary, and then choose Create policy.

Old console

To create a snapshot policy

1. Open the Amazon EC2 console at https://console.aws.amazon.com/ec2/.

2. In the navigation pane, choose Elastic Block Store, Lifecycle Manager, and then choose Create
lifecycle policy.
3. Provide the following information for your policy as needed:

• Description—A description of the policy.

• Policy type—The type of policy to create. Choose EBS snapshot policy.
• Resource type—The type of resource to back up. Choose Volume to create snapshots of
individual volumes, or choose Instance to create multi-volume snapshots from the volumes
attached to an instance.
• Resource location— The location of the resources to backup. If the source resources are
located in an AWS Region, choose AWS Region. If the source resources are located on an
Outpost in your account, choose AWS Outpost. If you choose AWS Outpost, Amazon Data
Lifecycle Manager backs up all resources of the specified type that have matching target tags
across all of the Outposts in your account.

If you do not have any Outposts in your account, then AWS Region is selected by default.
Note
If the resource is located in a Region, snapshots created by the policy will be stored in
the same Region. If the resource is located on an Outpost, snapshots created by the
policy can be stored in the same Region or on the same Outpost as the resource.
• Target with these tags—The resource tags that identify the volumes or instances to back up.
Only resources that have the specified tag key and value pairs are backed up by the policy.
• Policy tags—The tags to apply to the lifecycle policy.
4. For IAM role, choose the IAM role that has permissions to create, delete, and describe snapshots
and to describe volumes and instances. AWS provides a default role, or you can create a custom
IAM role.
5. Add the policy schedules. Schedule 1 is mandatory. Schedules 2, 3, and 4 are optional. For each
policy schedule that you add, specify the following information:

• Schedule name—A name for the schedule.

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• Frequency—The interval between policy runs. You can configure policy runs on a daily,
weekly, monthly, or yearly schedule. Alternatively, choose Custom cron expression to specify
an interval of up to one year. For more information, see Cron expressions in the Amazon
CloudWatch Events User Guide.
• Starting at hh:mm UTC—The time at which the policy runs are scheduled to start. The first
policy run starts within an hour after the scheduled time.
• Retention type—You can retain snapshots based on either their total count or their age. For
count-based retention, the range is 1 to 1000. After the maximum count is reached, the oldest
snapshot is deleted when a new one is created. For age-based retention, the range is 1 day
to 100 years. After the retention period of each snapshot expires, it is deleted. The retention
period should be greater than or equal to the interval.
Note
All schedules must have the same retention type. You can specify the retention type
for Schedule 1 only. Schedules 2, 3, and 4 inherit the retention type from Schedule 1.
Each schedule can have its own retention count or period.
• Snapshot destination—Specifies the destination for snapshots created by the policy. To
create snapshots in the same AWS Region as the source resource, choose AWS Region. To
create snapshots on an Outpost, choose AWS Outpost.

If the policy targets resources in a Region, snapshots are created in the same Region, and
cannot be created on an Outpost.

If the policy targets resources on an Outpost, snapshots can be created on the same Outpost
as the source resource, or in the Region that is associated with the Outpost.
• Copy tags from source—Choose whether to copy all of the user-defined tags from the source
volume to the snapshots created by the schedule.
• Variable tags—If the source resource is an instance, you can choose to automatically tag your
snapshots with the following variable tags:
• instance-id—The ID of the source instance.
• timestamp—The date and time of the policy run.
• Additional tags—Specify any additional tags to assign to the snapshots created by this
schedule.
• Fast snapshot restore—Choose whether to enable fast snapshot restore for all snapshots
that are created by the schedule. If you enable fast snapshot restore, you must choose the
Availability Zones in which to enable it. You are billed for each minute that fast snapshot
restore is enabled for a snapshot in a particular Availability Zone. Charges are pro-rated with
a minimum of one hour. You can also specify the maximum number of snapshots that can be
enabled for fast snapshot restore.

If the policy creates snapshots on an Outpost, you can't enable fast snapshot restore. Fast
snapshot restore is not supported with local snapshots that are stored on an Outpost.
• Cross region copy—If the policy creates snapshots in a Region, then you can copy the
snapshots to up to three additional Regions or Outposts in your account. You must specify a
separate cross-Region copy rule for each destination Region or Outpost.

For each Region or Outpost, you can choose different retention policies and you can choose
whether to copy all tags or no tags. If the source snapshot is encrypted, or if encryption by
default is enabled, the copied snapshots are encrypted. If the source snapshot is unencrypted,
you can enable encryption. If you do not specify a KMS key, the snapshots are encrypted using
the default KMS key for EBS encryption in each destination Region. If you specify a KMS key
for the destination Region, then the selected IAM role must have access to the KMS key.

You must ensure that you do not exceed the number of concurrent snapshot copies per
Region.

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If the policy creates snapshots on an Outpost, then you can't copy the snapshots to a Region
or to another Outpost and the cross-Region copy settings are not available.
6. For Policy status after creation, choose Enable policy to start the policy runs at the next
scheduled time, or Disable policy to prevent the policy from running.
7. Choose Create Policy.

Command line

Use the create-lifecycle-policy command to create a snapshot lifecycle policy. For PolicyType,
specify EBS_SNAPSHOT_MANAGEMENT.
Note
To simplify the syntax, the following examples use a JSON file, policyDetails.json, that
includes the policy details.

Example 1—Snapshot lifecycle policy

This example creates a snapshot lifecycle policy that creates snapshots of all volumes that have a
tag key of costcenter with a value of 115. The policy includes two schedules. The first schedule
creates a snapshot every day at 03:00 UTC. The second schedule creates a weekly snapshot every
Friday at 17:00 UTC.

aws dlm create-lifecycle-policy \

--description "My volume policy" \
--state ENABLED --execution-role-arn
arn:aws:iam::12345678910:role/AWSDataLifecycleManagerDefaultRole \
--policy-details file://policyDetails.json

The following is an example of the policyDetails.json file.

{
"PolicyType": "EBS_SNAPSHOT_MANAGEMENT",
"ResourceTypes": [
"VOLUME"
],
"TargetTags": [{
"Key": "costcenter",
"Value": "115"
}],
"Schedules": [{
"Name": "DailySnapshots",
"TagsToAdd": [{
"Key": "type",
"Value": "myDailySnapshot"
}],
"CreateRule": {
"Interval": 24,
"IntervalUnit": "HOURS",
"Times": [
"03:00"
]
},
"RetainRule": {
"Count": 5
},
"CopyTags": false
},
{
"Name": "WeeklySnapshots",

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"TagsToAdd": [{
"Key": "type",
"Value": "myWeeklySnapshot"
}],
"CreateRule": {
"CronExpression": "cron(0 17 ? * FRI *)"
},
"RetainRule": {
"Count": 5
},
"CopyTags": false
}
]}

Upon success, the command returns the ID of the newly created policy. The following is example
output.

{
"PolicyId": "policy-0123456789abcdef0"
}

Example 2—Snapshot lifecycle policy that automates local snapshots of Outpost resources

This example creates a snapshot lifecycle policy that creates snapshots of volumes tagged with
team=dev across all of your Outposts. The policy creates the snapshots on the same Outposts as the
source volumes. The policy creates snapshots every 12 hours starting at 00:00 UTC.

aws dlm create-lifecycle-policy \

--description "My local snapshot policy" \
--state ENABLED --execution-role-arn
arn:aws:iam::12345678910:role/AWSDataLifecycleManagerDefaultRole \
--policy-details file://policyDetails.json

The following is an example of the policyDetails.json file.

{
"PolicyType": "EBS_SNAPSHOT_MANAGEMENT",
"ResourceTypes": "VOLUME",
"ResourceLocations": "OUTPOST",
"TargetTags": [{
"Key": "team",
"Value": "dev"
}],
"Schedules": [{
"Name": "on-site backup",
"CreateRule": {
"Interval": 12,
"IntervalUnit": "HOURS",
"Times": [
"00:00"
],
"Location": [
"OUTPOST_LOCAL"
]
},
"RetainRule": {
"Count": 1
},
"CopyTags": false
}
]}

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Example 3—Snapshot lifecycle policy that creates snapshots in a Region and copies them to an
Outpost

The following example policy creates snapshots of volumes that are tagged with team=dev.
Snapshots are created in the same Region as the source volume. Snapshots are created every
12 hours starting at 00:00 UTC, and retains a maximum of 1 snapshot. The policy also copies
the snapshots to Outpost arn:aws:outposts:us-east-1:123456789012:outpost/
op-1234567890abcdef0, encrypts the copied snapshots using the default encryption KMS key, and
retains the copies for 1 month.

aws dlm create-lifecycle-policy \

--description "Copy snapshots to Outpost" \
--state ENABLED --execution-role-arn
arn:aws:iam::12345678910:role/AWSDataLifecycleManagerDefaultRole \
--policy-details file://policyDetails.json

The following is an example of the policyDetails.json file.

{
"PolicyType": "EBS_SNAPSHOT_MANAGEMENT",
"ResourceTypes": "VOLUME",
"ResourceLocations": "CLOUD",
"TargetTags": [{
"Key": "team",
"Value": "dev"
}],
"Schedules": [{
"Name": "on-site backup",
"CopyTags": false,
"CreateRule": {
"Interval": 12,
"IntervalUnit": "HOURS",
"Times": [
"00:00"
],
"Location": "CLOUD"
},
"RetainRule": {
"Count": 1
},
"CrossRegionCopyRules" : [
{
"Target": "arn:aws:outposts:us-east-1:123456789012:outpost/
op-1234567890abcdef0",
"Encrypted": true,
"CopyTags": true,
"RetainRule": {
"Interval": 1,
"IntervalUnit": "MONTHS"
}
}]
}
]}

Automate AMI lifecycles

The following procedure shows you how to use Amazon Data Lifecycle Manager to automate EBS-backed
AMI lifecycles.

Use one of the following procedures to create an AMI lifecycle policy.

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New console

To create an AMI policy

1. Open the Amazon EC2 console at https://console.aws.amazon.com/ec2/.

2. In the navigation pane, choose Elastic Block Store, Lifecycle Manager, and then choose Create
lifecycle policy.
3. On the Select policy type screen, choose EBS-backed AMI policy, and then choose Next.
4. In the Target resources section, for Target resource tags, choose the resource tags that identify
the volumes or instances to back up. The policy backs up only the resources that have the
specified tag key and value pairs.
5. For Description, enter a brief description for the policy.
6. For IAM role, choose the IAM role that has permissions to manage AMIs and snapshot and to
describe instances. To use the default role provided by Amazon Data Lifecycle Manager, choose
Default role. Alternatively, to use a custom IAM role that you previously created, choose Choose
another role, and then select the role to use.
7. For Policy tags, add the tags to apply to the lifecycle policy. You can use these tags to identify
and categorize your policies.
8. For Policy status after creation, choose Enable policy to start running the policy at the next
scheduled time, or Disable policy to prevent the policy from running. If you do not enable the
policy now, it will not start creating AMIs until you manually enable it after creation.
9. In the Instance reboot section, indicate whether instances should be rebooted before AMI
creation. To prevent the targeted instances from being rebooted, choose No. Choosing No
could cause data consistency issues. To reboot instances before AMI creation, choose Yes.
Choosing this ensures data consistency, but could result in multiple targeted instances rebooting
simultaneously.
10. Choose Next.
11. On the Configure schedule screen, configure the policy schedules. A policy can have up to four
schedules. Schedule 1 is mandatory. Schedules 2, 3, and 4 are optional. For each policy schedule
that you add, do the following:

a. In the Schedule details section do the following:

i. For Schedule name, specify a descriptive name for the schedule.

ii. For Frequency and the related fields, configure the interval between policy runs. You
can configure policy runs on a daily, weekly, monthly, or yearly schedule. Alternatively,
choose Custom cron expression to specify an interval of up to one year. For more
information, see Cron expressions in the Amazon CloudWatch Events User Guide.
iii. For Starting at, specify the time to start the policy runs. The first policy run starts
within an hour after the time that you schedule. You must enter the time in the hh:mm
UTC format.
iv. For Retention type, specify the retention policy for AMIs created by the schedule. You
can retain AMIs based on either their total count or their age.

For count-based retention, the range is 1 to 1000. After the maximum count is reached,
the oldest AMI is deregistered when a new one is created.

For age-based retention, the range is 1 day to 100 years. After the retention period of
each AMI expires, it is deregistered.
Note
All schedules must have the same retention type. You can specify the retention
type for Schedule 1 only. Schedules 2, 3, and 4 inherit the retention type from
Schedule 1. Each schedule can have its own retention count or period.
b. In the Tagging section, do the following:

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i. To copy all of the user-defined tags from the source instance to the AMIs created by the
schedule, select Copy tags from source.
ii. By default, AMIs created by the schedule are automatically tagged with the ID of the
source instance. To prevent this automatic tagging from happening, for Variable tags,
remove the instance-id:$(instance-id) tile.
iii. To specify additional tags to assign to AMIs created by this schedule, choose Add tags.
c. To deprecate AMIs when they should no longer be used, in the AMI deprecation section,
select Enable AMI deprecation for this schedule and then specify the AMI deprecation rule.
The AMI deprecation rule specifies when AMIs are to be deprecated.

If the schedule uses count-based AMI retention, you must specify the number of oldest
AMIs to deprecate. The deprecation count must be less than or equal to the schedule's
AMI retention count, and it can't be greater than 1000. For example, if the schedule is
configured to retain a maximum of 5 AMIs, then you can configure the scheduled to
deprecate up to old 5 oldest AMIs.

If the schedule uses age-based AMI retention, you must specify the period after which AMIs
are to be deprecated. The deprecation count must be less than or equal to the schedule's
AMI retention period, and it can't be greater than 10 years (120 months, 520 weeks, or
3650 days). For example, if the schedule is configured to retain AMIs for 10 days, then you
can configure the scheduled to deprecate AMIs after periods up to 10 days after creation.
d. To copy AMIs created by the schedule to different Regions, in the Cross-Region copy
section, select Enable cross-Region copy. You can copy AMIs to up to three additional
Regions in your account. You must specify a separate cross-Region copy rule for each
destination Region.

For each destination Region, you can specify the following:

• A retention policy for the AMI copy. When the retention period expires, the copy in the
destination Region is automatically deregistered.
• Encryption status for the AMI copy. If the source AMI is encrypted, or if encryption
by default is enabled, the copied AMIs are always encrypted. If the source AMI is
unencrypted and encryption by default is disabled, you can optionally enable encryption.
If you do not specify a KMS key, the AMIs are encrypted using the default KMS key for
EBS encryption in each destination Region. If you specify a KMS key for the destination
Region, then the selected IAM role must have access to the KMS key.
• A deprecation rule for the AMI copy. When the deprecation period expires, the AMI copy is
automatically deprecated. The deprecation period must be less than or equal to the copy
retention period, and it can't be greater than 10 years.
• Whether to copy all tags or no tags from the source AMI.

Note
Do not exceed the number of concurrent AMI copies per Region.
e. To add additional schedules, choose Add another schedule, which is located at the top of
the screen. For each additional schedule, complete the fields as described previously in this
topic.
f. After you have added the required schedules, choose Review policy.
12. Review the policy summary, and then choose Create policy.

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Console

To create an AMI lifecycle policy

1. Open the Amazon EC2 console at https://console.aws.amazon.com/ec2/.

2. In the navigation pane, choose Elastic Block Store, Lifecycle Manager, and then choose Create
lifecycle policy.
3. Provide the following information for your policy as needed:

• Description—A description of the policy.

• Policy type—The type of policy to create. Choose EBS-backed AMI policy.
• Target with these tags—The resource tags that identify the instances to back up. Only
instances that have the specified tag key and value pairs are backed up by the policy.
• Policy tags—The tags to apply to the lifecycle policy.
4. For IAM role, choose the IAM role that has permissions to manage images. AWS provides a
default roles, or you can create a custom IAM role.
5. Add the policy schedules. Schedule 1 is mandatory. Schedules 2, 3, and 4 are optional. For each
policy schedule that you add, specify the following information:

• Schedule name—A name for the schedule.

• Frequency—The interval between policy runs. You can configure policy runs on a daily,
weekly, monthly, or yearly schedule. Alternatively, choose Custom cron expression to specify
an interval of up to one year. For more information, see Cron expressions in the Amazon
CloudWatch Events User Guide.
• Starting at hh:mm UTC— The time at which the policy runs are scheduled to start. The first
policy run starts within an hour after the scheduled time.
• Retention type—You can retain AMIs based on either their total count or their age. For count-
based retention, the range is 1 to 1000. After the maximum count is reached, the oldest AMI
is deleted when a new one is created. For age-based retention, the range is 1 day to 100 years.
After the retention period of each AMI expires, it is deleted. The retention period should be
greater than or equal to the interval.
Note
All schedules must have the same retention type. You can specify the retention type
for Schedule 1 only. Schedules 2, 3, and 4 inherit the retention type from Schedule 1.
Each schedule can have its own retention count or period.
• Copy tags from source—Choose whether to copy all of the user-defined tags from the source
instance to the AMIs created by the schedule.
• Dynamic tags—You can choose to automatically tag your AMIs with the ID of the source
instance.
• Additional tags—Specify any additional tags to assign to the AMIs created by this schedule.
• Enable cross Region copy— You can copy AMIs to up to three additional Regions.

For each Region, you can choose different retention policies and you can choose whether to
copy all tags or no tags. If the source AMI is encrypted, or if encryption by default is enabled,
the copied AMIs are encrypted. If the AMI is unencrypted, you can enable encryption. If you do
not specify a KMS key, the AMIs are encrypted using the default KMS key for EBS encryption
in each destination Region. If you specify a KMS key for the destination Region, then the
selected IAM role must have access to the KMS key.

Do not exceed the number of concurrent AMI copies per Region.

6. Indicate whether instances should be rebooted before AMI creation. To prevent the targeted
instances from being rebooted, for Reboot Instance at policy run, choose No. Choosing this
option could cause data consistency issues. To reboot instances before AMI creation, for Reboot
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Instance at policy run, choose Yes. Choosing this ensures data consistency but could result in
multiple targeted instances rebooting simultaneously.
7. For Policy status after creation, choose Enable policy to start the policy runs at the next
scheduled time, or Disable policy to prevent the policy from running.
8. Choose Create Policy.

Command line

Use the create-lifecycle-policy command to create an AMI lifecycle policy. For PolicyType, specify
IMAGE_MANAGEMENT.
Note
To simplify the syntax, the following examples use a JSON file, policyDetails.json, that
includes the policy details.

Example 1: Age-based retention and AMI deprecation

This example creates an AMI lifecycle policy that creates AMIs of all instances that have a tag key of
purpose with a value of production without rebooting the targeted instances. The policy includes
one schedule that creates an AMI every day at 01:00 UTC. The policy retains AMIs for 2 days and
deprecates them after 1 day. It also copies the tags from the source instance to the AMIs that it
creates.

aws dlm create-lifecycle-policy \

--description "My AMI policy" \
--state ENABLED --execution-role-arn
arn:aws:iam::12345678910:role/AWSDataLifecycleManagerDefaultRoleForAMIManagement \
--policy-details file://policyDetails.json

The following is an example of the policyDetails.json file.

{
"PolicyType": "IMAGE_MANAGEMENT",
"ResourceTypes": [
"INSTANCE"
],
"TargetTags": [{
"Key": "purpose",
"Value": "production"
}],
"Schedules": [{
"Name": "DailyAMIs",
"TagsToAdd": [{
"Key": "type",
"Value": "myDailyAMI"
}],
"CreateRule": {
"Interval": 24,
"IntervalUnit": "HOURS",
"Times": [
"01:00"
]
},
RetainRule":{
"Interval" : 2,
"IntervalUnit" : "DAYS"
},
DeprecateRule": {
"Interval" : 1,
"IntervalUnit" : "DAYS"
},

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"CopyTags": true
}
],
"Parameters" : {
"NoReboot":true
}
}

Upon success, the command returns the ID of the newly created policy. The following is example
output.

{
"PolicyId": "policy-9876543210abcdef0"
}

Example 2: Count-based retention and AMI deprecation with cross-Region copy

This example creates an AMI lifecycle policy that creates AMIs of all instances that have a tag key
of purpose with a value of production and reboots the target instances. The policy includes one
schedule that creates an AMI every 6 hours starting at 17:30 UTC. The policy retains 3 AMIs and
automatically deprecates the 2 oldest AMIs. It also has a cross-Region copy rule that copies AMIs to
us-east-1, retains 2 AMI copies, and automatically deprecates the oldest AMI.

aws dlm create-lifecycle-policy \

--description "My AMI policy" \
--state ENABLED \
--execution-role-arn
arn:aws:iam::12345678910:role/AWSDataLifecycleManagerDefaultRoleForAMIManagement \
--policy-details file://policyDetails.json

The following is an example of the policyDetails.json file.

{
"PolicyType": "IMAGE_MANAGEMENT",
"ResourceTypes" : [
"INSTANCE"
],
"TargetTags": [{
"Key":"purpose",
"Value":"production"
}],
"Parameters" : {
"NoReboot": true
},
"Schedules" : [{
"Name" : "Schedule1",
"CopyTags": true,
"CreateRule" : {
"Interval": 6,
"IntervalUnit": "HOURS",
"Times" : ["17:30"]
},
"RetainRule":{
"Count" : 3
},
"DeprecateRule":{
"Count" : 2
},
"CrossRegionCopyRules": [{
"TargetRegion": "us-east-1",
"Encrypted": true,
"RetainRule":{

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"IntervalUnit": "DAYS",
"Interval": 2
},
"DeprecateRule":{
"IntervalUnit": "DAYS",
"Interval": 1
},
"CopyTags": true
}]
}]
}

Automate cross-account snapshot copies

Automating cross-account snapshot copies enables you to copy your Amazon EBS snapshots to specific
Regions in an isolated account and encrypt those snapshots with an encryption key. This enables you to
protect yourself against data loss in the event of your account being compromised.

Automating cross-account snapshot copies involves two accounts:

• Source account—The source account is the account that creates and shares the snapshots with the
target account. In this account, you must create an EBS snapshot policy that creates snapshots at set
intervals and then shares them with other AWS accounts.
• Target account—The target account is the account with destination account with which the snapshots
are shared, and it is the account that creates copies of the shared snapshots. In this account, you must
create a cross-account copy event policy that automatically copies snapshots that are shared with it by
one or more specified source accounts.

Topics
• Create cross-account snapshot copy policies (p. 1303)
• Specify snapshot description filters (p. 1310)

Create cross-account snapshot copy policies

To prepare the source and target accounts for cross-account snapshot copying, you need to perform the
following steps:

Topics
• Step 1: Create the EBS snapshot policy (Source account) (p. 1303)
• Step 2: Share the customer managed key (Source account) (p. 1304)
• Step 3: Create cross-account copy event policy (Target account) (p. 1305)
• Step 4: Allow IAM role to use the required KMS keys (Target account) (p. 1308)

Step 1: Create the EBS snapshot policy (Source account)

In the source account, create an EBS snapshot policy that will create the snapshots and share them with
the required target accounts.

When you create the policy, ensure that you enable cross-account sharing and that you specify the target
AWS accounts with which to share the snapshots. These are the accounts with which the snapshots are
to be shared. If you are sharing encrypted snapshots, then you must give the selected target accounts
permission to use the KMS key used to encrypt the source volume. For more information, see Step 2:
Share the customer managed key (Source account) (p. 1304).

For more information about creating an EBS snapshot policy, see Automate snapshot lifecycles (p. 1290).

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Use one of the following methods to create the EBS snapshot policy.

Step 2: Share the customer managed key (Source account)

If you are sharing encrypted snapshots, you must grant the IAM role and the target AWS accounts
(that you selected in the previous step) permissions to use the customer managed key that was used to
encrypt the source volume.
Note
Perform this step only if you are sharing encrypted snapshots. If you are sharing unencrypted
snapshots, skip this step.

Console

1. Open the AWS KMS console at https://console.aws.amazon.com/kms.

2. To change the AWS Region, use the Region selector in the upper-right corner of the page.
3. In the navigation pane, choose Customer managed key and then select the KMS key that you
need to share with the target accounts.

Make note of the KMS key ARN, you'll need this later.
4. On the Key policy tab, scroll down to the Key users section. Choose Add, enter the name of the
IAM role that you selected in the previous step, and then choose Add.
5. On the Key policy tab, scroll down to the Other AWS accounts section. Choose Add other AWS
accounts, and then add all of the target AWS accounts that you chose to share the snapshots
with in the previous step.
6. Choose Save changes.

Command line

Use the get-key-policy command to retrieve the key policy that is currently attached to the KMS key.

For example, the following command retrieves the key policy for a KMS key with an ID of
9d5e2b3d-e410-4a27-a958-19e220d83a1e and writes it to a file named snapshotKey.json.

$ aws kms get-key-policy \

--policy-name default --key-id 9d5e2b3d-e410-4a27-a958-19e220d83a1e \
--query Policy --output text > snapshotKey.json

Open the key policy using your preferred text editor. Add the ARN of the IAM role that you specified
when you created the snapshot policy and the ARNs of the target accounts with which to share the
KMS key.

For example, in the following policy, we added the ARN of the default IAM role, and the ARN of the
root account for target account 222222222222.

{
"Sid" : "Allow use of the key",
"Effect" : "Allow",
"Principal" : {
"AWS" : [
"arn:aws:iam::111111111111:role/service-role/
AWSDataLifecycleManagerDefaultRole",
"arn:aws:iam::222222222222:root"
]
},
"Action" : [
"kms:Encrypt",
"kms:Decrypt",

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"kms:ReEncrypt*",
"kms:GenerateDataKey*",
"kms:DescribeKey"
],
"Resource" : "*"
},
{
"Sid" : "Allow attachment of persistent resources",
"Effect" : "Allow",
"Principal" : {
"AWS" : [
"arn:aws:iam::111111111111:role/service-role/
AWSDataLifecycleManagerDefaultRole",
"arn:aws:iam::222222222222:root"
]
},
"Action" : [
"kms:CreateGrant",
"kms:ListGrants",
"kms:RevokeGrant"
],
"Resource" : "*",
"Condition" : {
"Bool" : {
"kms:GrantIsForAWSResource" : "true"
}
}
}

Save and close the file. Then use the put-key-policy command to attach the updated key policy to
the KMS key.

$ aws kms put-key-policy \

--policy-name default --key-id 9d5e2b3d-e410-4a27-a958-19e220d83a1e
--policy file://snapshotKey.json

Step 3: Create cross-account copy event policy (Target account)

In the target account, you must create a cross-account copy event policy that will automatically copy
snapshots that are shared by the required source accounts.

This policy runs in the target account only when one of the specified source accounts shares snapshot
with the account.

Use one of the following methods to create the cross-account copy event policy.

New console

1. Open the Amazon EC2 console at https://console.aws.amazon.com/ec2/.

2. In the navigation pane, choose Elastic Block Store, Lifecycle Manager, and then choose Create
lifecycle policy.
3. On the Select policy type screen, choose Cross-account copy event policy, and then choose
Next.
4. For Policy description, enter a brief description for the policy.
5. For Policy tags, add the tags to apply to the lifecycle policy. You can use these tags to identify
and categorize your policies.
6. In the Event settings section, define the snapshot sharing event that will cause the policy to
run. Do the following:

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a. For Sharing accounts, specify the source AWS accounts from which you want to copy
the shared snapshots. Choose Add account, enter the 12-digit AWS account ID, and then
choose Add.
b. For Filter by description, enter the required snapshot description using a regular
expression. Only snapshots that are shared by the specified source accounts and that have
descriptions that match the specified filter are copied by the policy. For more information,
see Specify snapshot description filters (p. 1310).
7. For IAM role, choose the IAM role that has permissions to perform snapshot copy actions. To use
the default role provided by Amazon Data Lifecycle Manager, choose Default role. Alternatively,
to use a custom IAM role that you previously created, choose Choose another role and then
select the role to use.

If you are copying encrypted snapshots, you must grant the selected IAM role permissions to
use the encryption KMS key used to encrypt the source volume. Similarly, if you are encrypting
the snapshot in the destination Region using a different KMS key, you must grant the IAM role
permission to use the destination KMS key. For more information, see Step 4: Allow IAM role to
use the required KMS keys (Target account) (p. 1308).
8. In the Copy action section, define the snapshot copy actions that the policy should perform
when it is activated. The policy can copy snapshots to up to three Regions. You must specify a
separate copy rule for each destination Region. For each rule that you add, do the following:

a. For Name, enter a descriptive name for the copy action.

b. For Target Region, select the Region to which to copy the snapshots.
c. For Expire, specify how long to retain the snapshot copies in the target Region after
creation.
d. To encrypt the snapshot copy, for Encryption, select Enable encryption. If the source
snapshot is encrypted, or if encryption by default is enabled for your account, the snapshot
copy is always encrypted, even if you do not enable encryption here. If the source snapshot
is unencrypted and encryption by default is not enabled for your account, you can choose
to enable or disable encryption. If you enable encryption, but do not specify a KMS key, the
snapshots are encrypted using the default encryption KMS key in each destination Region.
If you specify a KMS key for the destination Region, you must have access to the KMS key.
9. To add additional snapshot copy actions, choose Add new Regions.
10. For Policy status after creation, choose Enable policy to start the policy runs at the next
scheduled time, or Disable policy to prevent the policy from running. If you do not enable the
policy now, it will not start copying snapshots until you manually enable it after creation.
11. Choose Create policy.

Old console

1. Open the Amazon EC2 console at https://console.aws.amazon.com/ec2/.

2. In the navigation pane, choose Lifecycle Manager and then choose Create Lifecycle Policy.
3. For Policy Type, choose Cross-account copy event policy. For Description, enter a brief
description for the policy.
4. In the Cross-account copy event settings section, for Copy snapshots shared by, enter the
source AWS accounts from which you want to copy the shared snapshots.
5. For Snapshot description filter, enter the required snapshot description using a regular
expression. Only snapshots that are shared by the specified sources accounts and that have
descriptions that match the specified filter are copied by the policy. For more information, see
Specify snapshot description filters (p. 1310).
6. For IAM role, choose the IAM role that has permissions to perform the snapshot copy action.
AWS provides a default role, or you can create a custom IAM role.

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If you are copying encrypted snapshots, you must grant the selected IAM role permissions to
use the encryption KMS key used to encrypt the source volume. Similarly, if you are encrypting
the snapshot in the destination Region using a different KMS key, you must grant the IAM role
permission to use the destination KMS key. For more information, see Step 4: Allow IAM role to
use the required KMS keys (Target account) (p. 1308).
7. In the Copy settings section, you can configure the policy to copy snapshots to up to three
Regions in the target account. Do the following:

a. For Name, enter a descriptive name for the copy action.

b. For Target Region, select the Region to which to copy the snapshots.
c. For Retain copy for, specify how long to retain the snapshot copies in the target Region
after creation.
d. For Encryption, select Enable to encrypt the snapshot copy in the target Region. If the
source snapshot is encrypted, or if encryption by default is enabled for your account, the
snapshot copy is always encrypted, even if you do not enable encryption here. If the source
snapshot is unencrypted and encryption by default is not enabled for your account, you can
choose to enable or disable encryption. If you enable encryption, but do not specify a KMS
key, the snapshots are encrypted using the default encryption KMS key in each destination
Region. If you specify a KMS key for the destination Region, you must have access to the
KMS key.
e. (Optional) To copy the snapshot to additional Regions, choose Add additional region, and
then complete the required fields.
8. For Policy status after creation, choose Enable policy to start the policy runs at the next
scheduled time.
9. Choose Create Policy.

Command line

Use the create-lifecycle-policy command to create a policy. To create a cross-account copy event
policy, for PolicyType, specify EVENT_BASED_POLICY.

For example, the following command creates a cross-account copy event policy in target account
222222222222. The policy copies snapshots that are shared by source account 111111111111.
The policy copies snapshots to sa-east-1 and eu-west-2. Snapshots copied to sa-east-1 are
unencrypted and they are retained for 3 days. Snapshots copied to eu-west-2 are encrypted using
KMS key 8af79514-350d-4c52-bac8-8985e84171c7 and they are retained for 1 month. The
policy uses the default IAM role.

$ aws dlm create-lifecycle-policy \

--description "Copy policy" \
--state ENABLED --execution-role-arn arn:aws:iam::222222222222:role/service-role/
AWSDataLifecycleManagerDefaultRole \
--policy-details file://policyDetails.json

The following shows the contents of the policyDetails.json file.

{
"PolicyType" : "EVENT_BASED_POLICY",
"EventSource" : {
"Type" : "MANAGED_CWE",
"Parameters": {
"EventType" : "shareSnapshot",
"SnapshotOwner": ["111111111111"]
}
},
"Actions" : [{

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"Name" :"Copy Snapshot to Sao Paulo and London",

"CrossRegionCopy" : [{
"Target" : "sa-east-1",
"EncryptionConfiguration" : {
"Encrypted" : false
},
"RetainRule" : {
"Interval" : 3,
"IntervalUnit" : "DAYS"
}
},
{
"Target" : "eu-west-2",
"EncryptionConfiguration" : {
"Encrypted" : true,
"CmkArn" : "arn:aws:kms:eu-west-2:222222222222:key/8af79514-350d-4c52-
bac8-8985e84171c7"
},
"RetainRule" : {
"Interval" : 1,
"IntervalUnit" : "MONTHS"
}
}]
}]
}

Upon success, the command returns the ID of the newly created policy. The following is example
output.

{
"PolicyId": "policy-9876543210abcdef0"
}

Step 4: Allow IAM role to use the required KMS keys (Target account)

If you are copying encrypted snapshots, you must grant the IAM role (that you selected in the previous
step) permissions to use the customer managed key that was used to encrypt the source volume.
Note
Only perform this step if you are copying encrypted snapshots. If you are copying unencrypted
snapshots, skip this step.

Use one of the following methods to add the required policies to the IAM role.

Console

1. Open the IAM console at https://console.aws.amazon.com/iam/.

2. In the navigation pane, select Roles. Search for and select the IAM role that you selected when
you created the cross-account copy event policy in the previous step. If you chose to use the
default role, the role is named AWSDataLifecycleManagerDefaultRole.
3. Choose Add inline policy and then select the JSON tab.
4. Replace the existing policy with the following, and specify the ARNs of the KMS keys.

{
"Version": "2012-10-17",
"Statement": [
{
"Effect": "Allow",
"Action": [

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"kms:RevokeGrant",
"kms:CreateGrant",
"kms:ListGrants"
],
"Resource": [
"arn:aws:kms:region:source_account_id:key/shared_cmk_id",
"arn:aws:kms:region:source_account_id:key/shared_cmk_id"
],
"Condition": {
"Bool": {
"kms:GrantIsForAWSResource": "true"
}
}
},
{
"Effect": "Allow",
"Action": [
"kms:Encrypt",
"kms:Decrypt",
"kms:ReEncrypt*",
"kms:GenerateDataKey*",
"kms:DescribeKey"
],
"Resource": [
"arn:aws:kms:region:source_account_id:key/shared_cmk_id",
"arn:aws:kms:region:source_account_id:key/shared_cmk_id"
]
}
]
}

5. Choose Review policy

6. For Name, enter a descriptive name for the policy, and then choose Create policy.

Command line

Using your preferred text editor, create a new JSON file named policyDetails.json. Add
the following policy and specify the ARNs of the KMS keys that the role needs permissions
to use. In the following example, the policy grants the IAM role permission to use KMS
key 1234abcd-12ab-34cd-56ef-1234567890ab, which was shared by source account
111111111111, and KMS key 4567dcba-23ab-34cd-56ef-0987654321yz, which exists in target
account 222222222222.

{
"Version": "2012-10-17",
"Statement": [
{
"Effect": "Allow",
"Action": [
"kms:RevokeGrant",
"kms:CreateGrant",
"kms:ListGrants"
],
"Resource": [
"arn:aws:kms:sa-
east-1:111111111111:key/1234abcd-12ab-34cd-56ef-1234567890ab",
"arn:aws:kms:eu-
west-2:222222222222:key/4567dcba-23ab-34cd-56ef-0987654321yz"
],
"Condition": {
"Bool": {
"kms:GrantIsForAWSResource": "true"
}

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}
},
{
"Effect": "Allow",
"Action": [
"kms:Encrypt",
"kms:Decrypt",
"kms:ReEncrypt*",
"kms:GenerateDataKey*",
"kms:DescribeKey"
],
"Resource": [
"arn:aws:kms:sa-
east-1:111111111111:key/1234abcd-12ab-34cd-56ef-1234567890ab",
"arn:aws:kms:eu-
west-2:222222222222:key/4567dcba-23ab-34cd-56ef-0987654321yz"
]
}
]
}

Save and close the file. Then use the put-role-policy command to add the policy to the IAM role.

For example

$ aws iam put-role-policy \

--role-name AWSDataLifecycleManagerDefaultRole \
--policy-name CopyPolicy \
--policy-document file://AdminPolicy.json

Specify snapshot description filters

When you create the snapshot copy policy in the target account, you must specify a snapshot description
filter. The snapshot description filter enables you to specify an additional level of filtering that lets you
control which snapshots are copied by the policy. This means that a snapshot is only copied by the policy
if it is shared by one of the specified source accounts, and it has a snapshot description that matches the
specified filter. In other words, if a snapshot is shared by one of the specified course accounts, but it does
not have a description that matches the specified filter, it is not copied by the policy.

The snapshot filter description must be specified using a regular expression. It is a mandatory field when
creating cross-account copy event policies using the console and the command line. The following are
example regular expressions that can be used:

• .*—This filter matches all snapshot descriptions. If you use this expression the policy will copy all
snapshots that are shared by one of the specified source accounts.
• Created for policy: policy-0123456789abcdef0.*—This filter matches only snapshots that
are created by a policy with an ID of policy-0123456789abcdef0. If you use an expression like this,
only snapshots that are shared with your account by one of the specified source accounts, and that
have been created by a policy with the specified ID are copied by the policy.
• .*production.*—This filter matches any snapshot that has the word production anywhere in its
description. If you use this expression the policy will copy all snapshots that are shared by one of the
specified source accounts and that have the specified text in their description.

View, modify, and delete lifecycle policies

Use the following procedures to view, modify and delete existing lifecycle policies.

Topics

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• View lifecycle policies (p. 1311)

• Modify lifecycle policies (p. 1312)
• Delete lifecycle policies (p. 1313)

View lifecycle policies

Use one of the following procedures to view a lifecycle policy.

Console

To view a lifecycle policy

1. Open the Amazon EC2 console at https://console.aws.amazon.com/ec2/.

2. In the navigation pane, choose Elastic Block Store, Lifecycle Manager.
3. Select a lifecycle policy from the list. The Details tab displays information about the policy.

Command line

Use the get-lifecycle-policy command to display information about a lifecycle policy.

aws dlm get-lifecycle-policy --policy-id policy-0123456789abcdef0

The following is example output. It includes the information that you specified, plus metadata
inserted by AWS.

{
"Policy":{
"Description": "My first policy",
"DateCreated": "2018-05-15T00:16:21+0000",
"State": "ENABLED",
"ExecutionRoleArn":
"arn:aws:iam::210774411744:role/AWSDataLifecycleManagerDefaultRole",
"PolicyId": "policy-0123456789abcdef0",
"DateModified": "2018-05-15T00:16:22+0000",
"PolicyDetails": {
"PolicyType":"EBS_SNAPSHOT_MANAGEMENT",
"ResourceTypes": [
"VOLUME"
],
"TargetTags": [
{
"Value": "115",
"Key": "costcenter"
}
],
"Schedules": [
{
"TagsToAdd": [
{
"Value": "myDailySnapshot",
"Key": "type"
}
],
"RetainRule": {
"Count": 5
},
"CopyTags": false,
"CreateRule": {
"Interval": 24,
"IntervalUnit": "HOURS",

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"Times": [
"03:00"
]
},
"Name": "DailySnapshots"
}
]
}
}
}

Modify lifecycle policies

Use one of the following procedures to modify a lifecycle policy.

Console

To modify a lifecycle policy

1. Open the Amazon EC2 console at https://console.aws.amazon.com/ec2/.

2. In the navigation pane, choose Elastic Block Store, Lifecycle Manager.
3. Select a lifecycle policy from the list.
4. Choose Actions, Modify Lifecycle Policy.
5. Modify the policy settings as needed. For example, you can modify the schedule, add or remove
tags, or enable or disable the policy.
6. Choose Update policy.

Command line

Use the update-lifecycle-policy command to modify the information in a lifecycle policy. To simplify
the syntax, this example references a JSON file, policyDetailsUpdated.json, that includes the
policy details.

aws dlm update-lifecycle-policy --state DISABLED --execution-role-arn

arn:aws:iam::12345678910:role/AWSDataLifecycleManagerDefaultRole" --policy-details
file://policyDetailsUpdated.json

The following is an example of the policyDetailsUpdated.json file.

{
"ResourceTypes":[
"VOLUME"
],
"TargetTags":[
{
"Key": "costcenter",
"Value": "120"
}
],
"Schedules":[
{
"Name": "DailySnapshots",
"TagsToAdd": [
{
"Key": "type",
"Value": "myDailySnapshot"
}
],

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"CreateRule": {
"Interval": 12,
"IntervalUnit": "HOURS",
"Times": [
"15:00"
]
},
"RetainRule": {
"Count" :5
},
"CopyTags": false
}
]
}

To view the updated policy, use the get-lifecycle-policy command. You can see that the state,
the value of the tag, the snapshot interval, and the snapshot start time were changed.

Delete lifecycle policies

Use one of the following procedures to delete a lifecycle policy.
Note
When you delete a lifecycle policy, the snapshots or AMIs created by that policy are not
automatically deleted. If you no longer need the snapshots or AMIs, you must delete them
manually.

Old console

To delete a lifecycle policy

1. Open the Amazon EC2 console at https://console.aws.amazon.com/ec2/.

2. In the navigation pane, choose Elastic Block Store, Lifecycle Manager.
3. Select a lifecycle policy from the list.
4. Choose Actions, Delete Lifecycle Policy.
5. When prompted for confirmation, choose Delete Lifecycle Policy.

Command line

Use the delete-lifecycle-policy command to delete a lifecycle policy and free up the target tags
specified in the policy for reuse.
Note
You can delete snapshots created only by Amazon Data Lifecycle Manager.

aws dlm delete-lifecycle-policy --policy-id policy-0123456789abcdef0

The Amazon Data Lifecycle Manager API Reference provides descriptions and syntax for each of the
actions and data types for the Amazon Data Lifecycle Manager Query API.

Alternatively, you can use one of the AWS SDKs to access the API in a way that's tailored to the
programming language or platform that you're using. For more information, see AWS SDKs.

AWS Identity and Access Management

Access to Amazon Data Lifecycle Manager requires credentials. Those credentials must have permissions
to access AWS resources, such as instances, volumes, snapshots, and AMIs. The following sections provide

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details about how you can use AWS Identity and Access Management (IAM), and help secure access to
your resources.

Topics
• AWS managed policies (p. 1314)
• IAM service roles (p. 1316)
• Permissions for IAM users (p. 1319)
• Permissions for encryption (p. 1319)

AWS managed policies

An AWS managed policy is a standalone policy that is created and administered by AWS. AWS managed
policies are designed to provide permissions for many common use cases. AWS managed policies make
it more efficient for you to assign appropriate permissions to users, groups, and roles, than if you had to
write the policies yourself.

However, you can't change the permissions defined in AWS managed policies. AWS occasionally updates
the permissions defined in an AWS managed policy. When this occurs, the update affects all principal
entities (users, groups, and roles) that the policy is attached to.

Amazon Data Lifecycle Manager provides two AWS managed policies for common use cases. These
policies make it more efficient to define the appropriate permissions and control access to your
resources. The AWS managed policies provided by Amazon Data Lifecycle Manager are designed to be
attached to roles that you pass to Amazon Data Lifecycle Manager.

The following are the AWS managed policies that Amazon Data Lifecycle Manager provides. You can also
find these AWS managed policies in the Policies section of the IAM console.

AWSDataLifecycleManagerServiceRole

The AWSDataLifecycleManagerServiceRole policy provides appropriate permissions to Amazon

Data Lifecycle Manager to create and manage Amazon EBS snapshot policies and cross-account copy
event policies.

{
"Version": "2012-10-17",
"Statement": [
{
"Effect": "Allow",
"Action": [
"ec2:CreateSnapshot",
"ec2:CreateSnapshots",
"ec2:DeleteSnapshot",
"ec2:DescribeInstances",
"ec2:DescribeVolumes",
"ec2:DescribeSnapshots",
"ec2:EnableFastSnapshotRestores",
"ec2:DescribeFastSnapshotRestores",
"ec2:DisableFastSnapshotRestores",
"ec2:CopySnapshot",
"ec2:ModifySnapshotAttribute",
"ec2:DescribeSnapshotAttribute"
],
"Resource": "*"
},
{
"Effect": "Allow",
"Action": [
"ec2:CreateTags"
],

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"Resource": "arn:aws:ec2:*::snapshot/*"
},
{
"Effect": "Allow",
"Action": [
"events:PutRule",
"events:DeleteRule",
"events:DescribeRule",
"events:EnableRule",
"events:DisableRule",
"events:ListTargetsByRule",
"events:PutTargets",
"events:RemoveTargets"
],
"Resource": "arn:aws:events:*:*:rule/AwsDataLifecycleRule.managed-cwe.*"
}
]
}

AWSDataLifecycleManagerServiceRoleForAMIManagement

The AWSDataLifecycleManagerServiceRoleForAMIManagement policy provides appropriate

permissions to Amazon Data Lifecycle Manager to create and manage Amazon EBS-backed AMI
policies.

{
"Version": "2012-10-17",
"Statement": [
{
"Effect": "Allow",
"Action": "ec2:CreateTags",
"Resource": [
"arn:aws:ec2:*::snapshot/*",
"arn:aws:ec2:*::image/*"
]
},
{
"Effect": "Allow",
"Action": [
"ec2:DescribeImages",
"ec2:DescribeInstances",
"ec2:DescribeImageAttribute",
"ec2:DescribeVolumes",
"ec2:DescribeSnapshots",
"ec2:EnableImageDeprecation",
"ec2:DisableImageDeprecation"

],
"Resource": "*"
},
{
"Effect": "Allow",
"Action": "ec2:DeleteSnapshot",
"Resource": "arn:aws:ec2:*::snapshot/*"
},
{
"Effect": "Allow",
"Action": [
"ec2:ResetImageAttribute",
"ec2:DeregisterImage",
"ec2:CreateImage",
"ec2:CopyImage",
"ec2:ModifyImageAttribute"
],

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"Resource": "*"
}
]
}

AWS managed policy updates

AWS services maintain and update AWS managed policies. You can't change the permissions in AWS
managed policies. Services occasionally add additional permissions to an AWS managed policy to
support new features. This type of update affects all identities (users, groups, and roles) where the policy
is attached. Services are most likely to update an AWS managed policy when a new feature is launched
or when new operations become available. Services do not remove permissions from an AWS managed
policy, so policy updates won't break your existing permissions.

The following table provides details about updates to AWS managed policies for Amazon Data Lifecycle
Manager since this service began tracking these changes. For automatic alerts about changes to this
page, subscribe to the RSS feed on the Document history (p. 1605).

Change Description Date

AWSDataLifecycleManagerServiceRoleForAMIManagement
Amazon Data August 23, 2021
— Added Lifecycle Manager
permissions to added the
support AMI ec2:EnableImageDeprecation
deprecation. and
ec2:DisableImageDeprecation
actions to grant
EBS-backed AMI
policies permission
to enable and
disable AMI
deprecation.

Amazon Data Amazon Data August 23, 2021

Lifecycle Manager Lifecycle Manager
started tracking started tracking
changes changes for its
AWS managed
policies.

IAM service roles

An AWS Identity and Access Management (IAM) role is similar to a user, in that it is an AWS identity with
permissions policies that determine what the identity can and can't do in AWS. However, instead of
being uniquely associated with one person, a role is intended to be assumable by anyone who needs it.
A service role is a role that an AWS service assumes to perform actions on your behalf. As a service that
performs backup operations on your behalf, Amazon Data Lifecycle Manager requires that you pass it a
role to assume when performing policy operations on your behalf. For more information about IAM roles,
see IAM Roles in the IAM User Guide.

The role that you pass to Amazon Data Lifecycle Manager must have an IAM policy with the permissions
that enable Amazon Data Lifecycle Manager to perform actions associated with policy operations, such
as creating snapshots and AMIs, copying snapshots and AMIs, deleting snapshots, and deregistering
AMIs. Different permissions are required for each of the Amazon Data Lifecycle Manager policy types.
The role must also have Amazon Data Lifecycle Manager listed as a trusted entity, which enables Amazon
Data Lifecycle Manager to assume the role.

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Topics
• Default service roles for Amazon Data Lifecycle Manager (p. 1317)
• Custom service roles for Amazon Data Lifecycle Manager (p. 1317)

Default service roles for Amazon Data Lifecycle Manager

Amazon Data Lifecycle Manager uses the following default service roles:

• AWSDataLifecycleManagerDefaultRole—default role for managing snapshots. It trusts only the

dlm.amazonaws.com service to assume the role and it allows Amazon Data Lifecycle Manager to
perform the actions required by snapshot and cross-account snapshot copy policies on your behalf.
This role uses the AWSDataLifecycleManagerServiceRole AWS managed policy.
• AWSDataLifecycleManagerDefaultRoleForAMIManagement—default role for managing AMIs. It
trusts only the dlm.amazonaws.com service to assume the role and it allows Amazon Data Lifecycle
Manager to perform the actions required by EBS-backed AMI policies on your behalf. This role uses the
AWSDataLifecycleManagerServiceRoleForAMIManagement AWS managed policy.

If you are using the Amazon Data Lifecycle Manager console, Amazon Data Lifecycle Manager
automatically creates the AWSDataLifecycleManagerDefaultRole service role the first time
you create a snapshot or cross-account snapshot copy policy, and it automatically creates the
AWSDataLifecycleManagerDefaultRoleForAMIManagement service role the first time you create an
EBS-backed AMI policy.

If you are not using the console, you can manually create the service roles using the create-default-role
command. For --resource-type, specify snapshot to create AWSDataLifecycleManagerDefaultRole,
or image to create AWSDataLifecycleManagerDefaultRoleForAMIManagement.

$ aws dlm create-default-role --resource-type snapshot|image

If you delete the default service roles, and then need to create them again, you can use the same process
to recreate them in your account.

Custom service roles for Amazon Data Lifecycle Manager

As an alternative to using the default service roles, you can create custom IAM roles with the required
permissions and then select them when you create a lifecycle policy.

To create a custom IAM role

1. Create roles with the following permissions.

• Permissions required for managing snapshot lifecycle policies

{
"Version": "2012-10-17",
"Statement": [
{
"Effect": "Allow",
"Action": [
"ec2:CreateSnapshot",
"ec2:CreateSnapshots",
"ec2:DeleteSnapshot",
"ec2:DescribeInstances",
"ec2:DescribeVolumes",
"ec2:DescribeSnapshots",
"ec2:EnableFastSnapshotRestores",
"ec2:DescribeFastSnapshotRestores",
"ec2:DisableFastSnapshotRestores",

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"ec2:CopySnapshot",
"ec2:ModifySnapshotAttribute",
"ec2:DescribeSnapshotAttribute"
],
"Resource": "*"
},
{
"Effect": "Allow",
"Action": [
"ec2:CreateTags"
],
"Resource": "arn:aws:ec2:*::snapshot/*"
},
{
"Effect": "Allow",
"Action": [
"events:PutRule",
"events:DeleteRule",
"events:DescribeRule",
"events:EnableRule",
"events:DisableRule",
"events:ListTargetsByRule",
"events:PutTargets",
"events:RemoveTargets"
],
"Resource": "arn:aws:events:*:*:rule/AwsDataLifecycleRule.managed-cwe.*"
}
]
}

• Permissions required for managing AMI lifecycle policies

{
"Version": "2012-10-17",
"Statement": [
{
"Effect": "Allow",
"Action": "ec2:CreateTags",
"Resource": [
"arn:aws:ec2:*::snapshot/*",
"arn:aws:ec2:*::image/*"
]
},
{
"Effect": "Allow",
"Action": [
"ec2:DescribeImages",
"ec2:DescribeInstances",
"ec2:DescribeImageAttribute",
"ec2:DescribeVolumes",
"ec2:DescribeSnapshots"
],
"Resource": "*"
},
{
"Effect": "Allow",
"Action": "ec2:DeleteSnapshot",
"Resource": "arn:aws:ec2:*::snapshot/*"
},
{
"Effect": "Allow",
"Action": [
"ec2:ResetImageAttribute",
"ec2:DeregisterImage",
"ec2:CreateImage",

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"ec2:CopyImage",
"ec2:ModifyImageAttribute"
],
"Resource": "*"
}]
}

For more information, see Creating a Role in the IAM User Guide.
2. Add a trust relationship to the roles.

a. In the IAM console, choose Roles.

b. Select the roles that you created, and then choose Trust relationships.
c. Choose Edit Trust Relationship, add the following policy, and then choose Update Trust Policy.

{
"Version": "2012-10-17",
"Statement": [
{
"Effect": "Allow",
"Principal": {
"Service": "dlm.amazonaws.com"
},
"Action": "sts:AssumeRole"
} ]
}

Permissions for IAM users

An IAM user must have the following permissions to use Amazon Data Lifecycle Manager.

{
"Version": "2012-10-17",
"Statement": [
{
"Effect": "Allow",
"Action": ["iam:PassRole", "iam:ListRoles"],
"Resource": "arn:aws:iam::123456789012:role/AWSDataLifecycleManagerDefaultRole"
},
{
"Effect": "Allow",
"Action": "dlm:*",
"Resource": "*"
}]
}

For more information, see Changing Permissions for an IAM User in the IAM User Guide.

Permissions for encryption

If the source volume is encrypted, ensure that the Amazon Data Lifecycle
Manager default roles (AWSDataLifecycleManagerDefaultRole and
AWSDataLifecycleManagerDefaultRoleForAMIManagement) have permission to use the KMS keys used
to encrypt the volume.

If you enable Cross Region copy for unencrypted snapshots or AMIs backed by unencrypted snapshots,
and choose to enable encryption in the destination Region, ensure that the default roles have permission
to use the KMS key needed to perform the encryption in the destination Region.

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If you enable Cross Region copy for encrypted snapshots or AMIs backed by encrypted snapshots, ensure
that the default roles have permission to use both the source and destination KMS keys.

For more information, see Allowing users in other accounts to use a KMS key in the AWS Key
Management Service Developer Guide.

Monitor the lifecycle of snapshots and AMIs

You can use the following features to monitor the lifecycle of your snapshots and AMIs.

Features
• Console and AWS CLI (p. 1320)
• AWS CloudTrail (p. 1320)
• Monitor your policies using CloudWatch Events (p. 1320)
• Monitor your policies using Amazon CloudWatch (p. 1321)

Console and AWS CLI

You can view your lifecycle policies using the Amazon EC2 console or the AWS CLI. Each snapshot and
AMI created by a policy has a timestamp and policy-related tags. You can filter snapshots and AMIs using
these tags to verify that your backups are being created as you intend. For information about viewing
lifecycle policies using the console, see View lifecycle policies (p. 1311).

AWS CloudTrail
With AWS CloudTrail, you can track user activity and API usage to demonstrate compliance with internal
policies and regulatory standards. For more information, see the AWS CloudTrail User Guide.

Monitor your policies using CloudWatch Events

Amazon EBS and Amazon Data Lifecycle Manager emit events related to lifecycle policy actions. You
can use AWS Lambda and Amazon CloudWatch Events to handle event notifications programmatically.
Events are emitted on a best effort basis. For more information, see the Amazon CloudWatch Events User
Guide.

The following events are available:

Note
No events are emitted for AMI lifecycle policy actions.

• createSnapshot—An Amazon EBS event emitted when a CreateSnapshot action succeeds or fails.
For more information, see Amazon CloudWatch Events for Amazon EBS (p. 1394).
• DLM Policy State Change—An Amazon Data Lifecycle Manager event emitted when a lifecycle
policy enters an error state. The event contains a description of what caused the error. The following is
an example of an event when the permissions granted by the IAM role are insufficient.

{
"version": "0",
"id": "01234567-0123-0123-0123-0123456789ab",
"detail-type": "DLM Policy State Change",
source": "aws.dlm",
"account": "123456789012",
"time": "2018-05-25T13:12:22Z",
"region": "us-east-1",
"resources": [
"arn:aws:dlm:us-east-1:123456789012:policy/policy-0123456789abcdef"
],

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"detail": {
"state": "ERROR",
"cause": "Role provided does not have sufficient permissions",
"policy_id": "arn:aws:dlm:us-east-1:123456789012:policy/policy-0123456789abcdef"
}
}

The following is an example of an event when a limit is exceeded.

{
"version": "0",
"id": "01234567-0123-0123-0123-0123456789ab",
"detail-type": "DLM Policy State Change",
"source": "aws.dlm",
"account": "123456789012",
"time": "2018-05-25T13:12:22Z",
"region": "us-east-1",
"resources": [
"arn:aws:dlm:us-east-1:123456789012:policy/policy-0123456789abcdef"
],
"detail":{
"state": "ERROR",
"cause": "Maximum allowed active snapshot limit exceeded",
"policy_id": "arn:aws:dlm:us-east-1:123456789012:policy/policy-0123456789abcdef"
}
}

Monitor your policies using Amazon CloudWatch

You can monitor your Amazon Data Lifecycle Manager lifecycle policies using CloudWatch, which collects
raw data and processes it into readable, near real-time metrics. You can use these metrics to see exactly
how many Amazon EBS snapshots and EBS-backed AMIs are created, deleted, and copied by your policies
over time. You can also set alarms that watch for certain thresholds, and send notifications or take
actions when those thresholds are met.

Metrics are kept for a period of 15 months, so that you can access historical information and gain a
better understanding of how your lifecycle policies perform over an extended period.

For more information about Amazon CloudWatch, see the Amazon CloudWatch User Guide.

Topics
• Supported metrics (p. 1321)
• View CloudWatch metrics for your policies (p. 1324)
• Graph metrics for your policies (p. 1325)
• Create a CloudWatch alarm for a policy (p. 1326)
• Example use cases (p. 122)
• Managing policies that report failed actions (p. 1327)

Supported metrics

The Data Lifecycle Manager namespace includes the following metrics for Amazon Data Lifecycle
Manager lifecycle policies. The supported metrics differ by policy type.

All metrics can be measured on the DLMPolicyId dimension. The most useful statistics are sum and
average, and the unit of measure is count.

Choose a tab to view the metrics supported by that policy type.

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EBS snapshot policies

Metric Description

ResourcesTargeted The number of resources targeted by the tags specified in a snapshot or

EBS-backed AMI policy.

The number of snapshot create actions initiated by a snapshot policy.

SnapshotsCreateStarted
Each action is recorded only once, even if there are multiple subsequent
retries.

If a snapshot create action fails, Amazon Data Lifecycle Manager sends a

SnapshotsCreateFailed metric.

The number of snapshots created by a snapshot policy. This includes

SnapshotsCreateCompleted
successful retries within 60 minutes of the scheduled time.

The number of snapshots that could not be created by a snapshot policy.

SnapshotsCreateFailed
This includes unsuccessful retries within 60 minutes from the scheduled
time.

The number of snapshots shared across accounts by a snapshot policy.

SnapshotsSharedCompleted

The number of snapshots deleted by a snapshot or EBS-backed AMI

SnapshotsDeleteCompleted
policy. This metric applies only to snapshots created by the policy. It does
not apply to cross-Region snapshot copies created by the policy.

This metric includes snapshots that are deleted when an EBS-backed AMI
policy deregisters AMIs.

The number of snapshots that could not be deleted by a snapshot or

SnapshotsDeleteFailed
EBS-backed AMI policy. This metric applies only to snapshots created by
the policy. It does not apply to cross-Region snapshot copies created by
the policy.

This metric includes snapshots that are deleted when an EBS-backed AMI
policy deregisters AMIs.

The number of cross-Region snapshot copy actions initiated by a

SnapshotsCopiedRegionStarted
snapshot policy.

The number of cross-Region snapshot copies created by a snapshot

SnapshotsCopiedRegionCompleted
policy. This includes successful retries within 24 hours of the scheduled
time.

The number of cross-Region snapshot copies that could not be created

SnapshotsCopiedRegionFailed
by a snapshot policy. This includes unsuccessful retries within 24 hours
from the scheduled time.

The number of cross-Region snapshot copies deleted, as designated by

SnapshotsCopiedRegionDeleteCompleted
the retention rule, by a snapshot policy.

The number of cross-Region snapshot copies that could not be deleted,

SnapshotsCopiedRegionDeleteFailed
as designated by the retention rule, by a snapshot policy.

EBS-backed AMI policies

The following metrics can be used with EBS-backed AMI policies:

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Metric Description

ResourcesTargeted The number of resources targeted by the tags specified in a snapshot or

EBS-backed AMI policy.

The number of snapshots deleted by a snapshot or EBS-backed AMI

SnapshotsDeleteCompleted
policy. This metric applies only to snapshots created by the policy. It does
not apply to cross-Region snapshot copies created by the policy.

This metric includes snapshots that are deleted when an EBS-backed AMI
policy deregisters AMIs.

The number of snapshots that could not be deleted by a snapshot or

SnapshotsDeleteFailed
EBS-backed AMI policy. This metric applies only to snapshots created by
the policy. It does not apply to cross-Region snapshot copies created by
the policy.

This metric includes snapshots that are deleted when an EBS-backed AMI
policy deregisters AMIs.

The number of cross-Region snapshot copies deleted, as designated by

SnapshotsCopiedRegionDeleteCompleted
the retention rule, by a snapshot policy.

The number of cross-Region snapshot copies that could not be deleted,

SnapshotsCopiedRegionDeleteFailed
as designated by the retention rule, by a snapshot policy.

ImagesCreateStartedThe number of CreateImage actions initiated by an EBS-backed AMI

policy.

The number of AMIs created by an EBS-backed AMI policy.

ImagesCreateCompleted

ImagesCreateFailed The number of AMIs that could not be created by an EBS-backed AMI
policy.

The number of AMIs deregistered by an EBS-backed AMI policy.

ImagesDeregisterCompleted

The number of AMIs that could not be deregistered by an EBS-backed

ImagesDeregisterFailed
AMI policy.

The number of cross-Region copy actions initiated by an EBS-backed AMI

ImagesCopiedRegionStarted
policy.

The number of cross-Region AMI copies created by an EBS-backed AMI

ImagesCopiedRegionCompleted
policy.

The number of cross-Region AMI copies that could not be created by an

ImagesCopiedRegionFailed
EBS-backed AMI policy.

The number of cross-Region AMI copies deregistered, as designated by

ImagesCopiedRegionDeregisterCompleted
the retention rule, by an EBS-backed AMI policy.

The number of cross-Region AMI copies that could not be deregistered,

ImagesCopiedRegionDeregisteredFailed
as designated by the retention rule, by an EBS-backed AMI policy.

The number of AMIs that were marked for deprecation by an EBS-backed

EnableImageDeprecationCompleted
AMI policy.

The number of AMIs that could not be marked for deprecation by an EBS-
EnableImageDeprecationFailed
backed AMI policy.

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Metric Description

The number of cross-Region AMI copies that were marked for

EnableCopiedImageDeprecationCompleted
deprecation by an EBS-backed AMI policy.

The number of cross-Region AMI copies that could not be marked for
EnableCopiedImageDeprecationFailed
deprecation by an EBS-backed AMI policy.

Cross-account copy event policies

The following metrics can be used with cross-account copy event policies:

Metric Description

The number of cross-account snapshot copy actions initiated by a cross-

SnapshotsCopiedAccountStarted
account copy event policy.

The number of snapshots copied from another account by a cross-

SnapshotsCopiedAccountCompleted
account copy event policy. This includes successful retries within 24 hours
of the scheduled time.

The number of snapshots that could not be copied from another account
SnapshotsCopiedAccountFailed
by a cross-account copy event policy. This includes unsuccessful retries
within 24 hours of the scheduled time.

The number of cross-Region snapshot copies deleted, as designated by

SnapshotsCopiedAccountDeleteCompleted
the retention rule, by a cross-account copy event policy.

The number of cross-Region snapshot copies that could not be deleted,

SnapshotsCopiedAccountDeleteFailed
as designated by the retention rule, by a cross-account copy event policy.

View CloudWatch metrics for your policies

You can use the AWS Management Console or the command line tools to list the metrics that Amazon
Data Lifecycle Manager sends to Amazon CloudWatch.

Amazon EC2 console

To view metrics using the Amazon EC2 console

1. Open the Amazon EC2 console at https://console.aws.amazon.com/ec2/.

2. In the navigation pane, choose Lifecycle Manager.
3. Select a policy in the grid and then choose the Monitoring tab.

CloudWatch console

To view metrics using the Amazon CloudWatch console

1. Open the CloudWatch console at https://console.aws.amazon.com/cloudwatch/.

2. In the navigation pane, choose Metrics.
3. Select the EBS namespace and then select Data Lifecycle Manager metrics.

AWS CLI

To list all the available metrics for Amazon Data Lifecycle Manager

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Use the list-metrics command.

C:\> aws cloudwatch list-metrics --namespace AWS/EBS

To list all the metrics for a specific policy

Use the list-metrics command and specify the DLMPolicyId dimension.

C:\> aws cloudwatch list-metrics --namespace AWS/EBS --dimensions

Name=DLMPolicyId,Value=policy-abcdef01234567890

To list a single metric across all policies

Use the list-metrics command and specify the --metric-name option.

C:\> aws cloudwatch list-metrics --namespace AWS/EBS --metric-

name SnapshotsCreateCompleted

Graph metrics for your policies

After you create a policy, you can open the Amazon EC2 console and view the monitoring graphs for the
policy on the Monitoring tab. Each graph is based on one of the available Amazon EC2 metrics.

The following graphs metrics are available:

• Resources targeted (based on ResourcesTargeted)

• Snapshot creation started (based on SnapshotsCreateStarted)
• Snapshot creation completed (based on SnapshotsCreateCompleted)
• Snapshot creation failed (based on SnapshotsCreateFailed)
• Snapshot sharing completed (based on SnapshotsSharedCompleted)
• Snapshot deletion completed (based on SnapshotsDeleteCompleted)
• Snapshot deletion failed (based on SnapshotsDeleteFailed)
• Snapshot cross-Region copy started (based on SnapshotsCopiedRegionStarted)
• Snapshot cross-Region copy completed (based on SnapshotsCopiedRegionCompleted)
• Snapshot cross-Region copy failed (based on SnapshotsCopiedRegionFailed)
• Snapshot cross-Region copy deletion completed (based on
SnapshotsCopiedRegionDeleteCompleted)
• Snapshot cross-Region copy deletion failed (based on SnapshotsCopiedRegionDeleteFailed)
• Snapshot cross-account copy started (based on SnapshotsCopiedAccountStarted)
• Snapshot cross-account copy completed (based on SnapshotsCopiedAccountCompleted)
• Snapshot cross-account copy failed (based on SnapshotsCopiedAccountFailed)
• Snapshot cross-account copy deletion completed (based on
SnapshotsCopiedAccountDeleteCompleted)
• Snapshot cross-account copy deletion failed (based on SnapshotsCopiedAccountDeleteFailed)
• AMI creation started (based on ImagesCreateStarted)
• AMI creation completed (based on ImagesCreateCompleted)
• AMI creation failed (based on ImagesCreateFailed)
• AMI deregistration completed (based on ImagesDeregisterCompleted)
• AMI deregistration failed (based on ImagesDeregisterFailed)
• AMI cross-Region copy started (based on ImagesCopiedRegionStarted)

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• AMI cross-Region copy completed (based on ImagesCopiedRegionCompleted)

• AMI cross-Region copy failed (based on ImagesCopiedRegionFailed)
• AMI cross-Region copy deregistration completed (based on
ImagesCopiedRegionDeregisterCompleted)
• AMI cross-Region copy deregister failed (based on ImagesCopiedRegionDeregisteredFailed)
• AMI enable deprecation completed (based on EnableImageDeprecationCompleted)
• AMI enable deprecation failed (based on EnableImageDeprecationFailed)
• AMI cross-Region copy enable deprecation completed (based on
EnableCopiedImageDeprecationCompleted)
• AMI cross-Region copy enable deprecation failed (based on
EnableCopiedImageDeprecationFailed)

Create a CloudWatch alarm for a policy

You can create a CloudWatch alarm that monitors CloudWatch metrics for your policies. CloudWatch
will automatically send you a notification when the metric reaches a threshold that you specify. You can
create a CloudWatch alarm using the CloudWatch console.

For more information about creating alarms using the CloudWatch console, see the following topic in the
Amazon CloudWatch User Guide.

• Create a CloudWatch Alarm Based on a Static Threshold

• Create a CloudWatch Alarm Based on Anomaly Detection

Example use cases

The following are example use cases.

Topics
• Example 1: ResourcesTargeted metric (p. 1326)
• Example 2: SnapshotDeleteFailed metric (p. 1327)
• Example 3: SnapshotsCopiedRegionFailed metric (p. 1327)

Example 1: ResourcesTargeted metric

You can use the ResourcesTargeted metric to monitor the total number of resources that are targeted
by a specific policy each time it is run. This enables you to trigger an alarm when the number of targeted
resources is below or above an expected threshold.

For example, if you expect your daily policy to create backups of no more than 50 volumes, you can
create an alarm that sends an email notification when the sum for ResourcesTargeted is greater than
50 over a 1 hour period. In this way, you can ensure that no snapshots have been unexpectedly created
from volumes that have been incorrectly tagged.

You can use the following command to create this alarm:

C:\> aws cloudwatch put-metric-alarm \

--alarm-name resource-targeted-monitor \
--alarm-description "Alarm when policy targets more than 50 resources" \
--metric-name ResourcesTargeted \
--namespace AWS/EBS \
--statistic Sum \
--period 3600 \
--threshold 50 \
--comparison-operator GreaterThanThreshold \

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--dimensions "Name=DLMPolicyId,Value=policy_id" \
--evaluation-periods 1 \
--alarm-actions sns_topic_arn

Example 2: SnapshotDeleteFailed metric

You can use the SnapshotDeleteFailed metric to monitor for failures to delete snapshots as per the
policy's snapshot retention rule.

For example, if you've created a policy that should automatically delete snapshots every
twelve hours, you can create an alarm that notifies your engineering team when the sum of
SnapshotDeletionFailed is greater than 0 over a 1 hour period. This could help to investigate
improper snapshot retention and to ensure that your storage costs are not increased by unnecessary
snapshots.

You can use the following command to create this alarm:

C:\> aws cloudwatch put-metric-alarm \

--alarm-name snapshot-deletion-failed-monitor \
--alarm-description "Alarm when snapshot deletions fail" \
--metric-name SnapshotsDeleteFailed \
--namespace AWS/EBS \
--statistic Sum \
--period 3600 \
--threshold 0 \
--comparison-operator GreaterThanThreshold \
--dimensions "Name=DLMPolicyId,Value=policy_id" \
--evaluation-periods 1 \
--alarm-actions sns_topic_arn

Example 3: SnapshotsCopiedRegionFailed metric

Use the SnapshotsCopiedRegionFailed metric to identify when your policies fail to copy snapshots
to other Regions.

For example, if your policy copies snapshots across Regions daily, you can create an alarm that sends an
SMS to your engineering team when the sum of SnapshotCrossRegionCopyFailed is greater than
0 over a 1 hour period. This can useful for verifying whether subsequent snapshots in the lineage were
successfully copied by the policy.

You can use the following command to create this alarm:

C:\> aws cloudwatch put-metric-alarm \

--alarm-name snapshot-copy-region-failed-monitor \
--alarm-description "Alarm when snapshot copy fails" \
--metric-name SnapshotsCopiedRegionFailed \
--namespace AWS/EBS \
--statistic Sum \
--period 3600 \
--threshold 0 \
--comparison-operator GreaterThanThreshold \
--dimensions "Name=DLMPolicyId,Value=policy_id" \
--evaluation-periods 1 \
--alarm-actions sns_topic_arn

Managing policies that report failed actions

For more information about what to do when one of your policies reports an unexpected non-zero value
for a failed action metric, see the What should I do if Amazon Data Lifecycle Manager reports failed
actions in CloudWatch metrics? AWS Knowledge Center article.

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Amazon EBS data services

Amazon EBS provides the following data services.

Data services
• Amazon EBS Elastic Volumes (p. 1328)
• Amazon EBS encryption (p. 1340)
• Amazon EBS fast snapshot restore (p. 1351)

Amazon EBS Elastic Volumes

With Amazon EBS Elastic Volumes, you can increase the volume size, change the volume type, or adjust
the performance of your EBS volumes. If your instance supports Elastic Volumes, you can do so without
detaching the volume or restarting the instance. This enables you to continue using your application
while the changes take effect.

There is no charge to modify the configuration of a volume. You are charged for the new volume
configuration after volume modification starts. For more information, see the Amazon EBS Pricing page.

Contents
• Requirements when modifying volumes (p. 1328)
• Request modifications to your EBS volumes (p. 1330)
• Monitor the progress of volume modifications (p. 1333)
• Extend a Windows file system after resizing a volume (p. 1336)

Requirements when modifying volumes

The following requirements and limitations apply when you modify an Amazon EBS volume. To learn
more about the general requirements for EBS volumes, see Constraints on the size and configuration of
an EBS volume (p. 1193).

Topics
• Supported instance types (p. 1328)
• Requirements for Windows volumes (p. 1328)
• Limitations (p. 1329)

Supported instance types

Elastic Volumes are supported on the following instances:

• All current-generation instances (p. 143)

• The following previous-generation instances: C1, C3, CC2, CR1, G2, I2, M1, M3, and R3

If your instance type does not support Elastic Volumes, see Modify an EBS volume if Elastic Volumes is
not supported (p. 1333).

Requirements for Windows volumes

By default, Windows initializes volumes with a master boot record (MBR) partition table. Because
MBR supports only volumes smaller than 2 TiB (2,048 GiB), Windows prevents you from resizing MBR

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volumes beyond this limit. In such a case, the Extend Volume option is disabled in the Windows Disk
Management utility. If you use the AWS Management Console or AWS CLI to create an MBR-partitioned
volume that exceeds the size limit, Windows cannot detect or use the additional space. For requirements
affecting Linux volumes, see Requirements for Linux volumes in the Amazon EC2 User Guide for Linux
Instances.

To overcome this limitation, you can create a new, larger volume with a GUID partition table (GPT) and
copy over the data from the original MBR volume.

To create a GPT volume

1. Create a new, empty volume of the desired size in the Availability Zone of the EC2 instance and
attach it to your instance.
Note
The new volume must not be a volume restored from a snapshot.
2. Log in to your Windows system and open Disk Management (diskmgmt.exe).
3. Open the context (right-click) menu for the new disk and choose Online.
4. In the Initialize Disk window, select the new disk and choose GPT (GUID Partition Table), OK.
5. When initialization is complete, copy the data from the original volume to the new volume, using a
tool such as robocopy or teracopy.
6. In Disk Management, change the drive letters to appropriate values and take the old volume offline.
7. In the Amazon EC2 console, detach the old volume from the instance, reboot the instance to verify
that it functions properly, and delete the old volume.

Limitations

• There are limits to the maximum aggregated storage that can be requested across volume
modifications. For more information, see Amazon EBS service quotas in the Amazon Web Services
General Reference.
• After modifying a volume, you must wait at least six hours and ensure that the volume is in the in-
use or available state before you can modify the same volume. This is sometimes referred to as a
cooldown period.
• If the volume was attached before November 3, 2016 23:40 UTC, you must initialize Elastic Volumes
support. For more information, see Initializing Elastic Volumes Support (p. 1331).
• If you encounter an error message while attempting to modify an EBS volume, or if you are modifying
an EBS volume attached to a previous-generation instance type, take one of the following steps:
• For a non-root volume, detach the volume from the instance, apply the modifications, and then re-
attach the volume.
• For a root volume, stop the instance, apply the modifications, and then restart the instance.
• Modification time is increased for volumes that are not fully initialized. For more information see
Initialize Amazon EBS volumes (p. 1379).
• The new volume size can't exceed the supported capacity of its file system and partitioning scheme.
For more information, see Constraints on the size and configuration of an EBS volume (p. 1193).
• If you modify the volume type of a volume, the size and performance must be within the limits of the
target volume type. For more information, see Amazon EBS volume types (p. 1177)
• You can't decrease the size of an EBS volume. However, you can create a smaller volume and then
migrate your data to it using an application-level tool such as robocopy.
• After provisioning over 32,000 IOPS on an existing io1 or io2 volume, you might need to detach and
re-attach the volume, or restart the instance to see the full performance improvements.
• For io2 volumes, you can't increase the size beyond 16 TiB or the IOPS beyond 64,000 while the
volume is attached to an instance type that does not support io2 Block Express volumes. Currently,

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only R5b instances support io2 Block Express volumes volumes. For more information, see io2 Block
Express volumes (p. 1185)
• You can't modify the size or provisioned IOPS of an io2 volume that is attached to an R5B instance.
• You can't modify the volume type of Multi-Attach enabled io2 volumes.
• You can't modify the volume type, size, or Provisioned IOPS of Multi-Attach enabled io1 volumes.
• A gp2 volume that is attached to an instance as a root volume can't be modified to an st1 or sc1
volume. If detached and modified to st1 or sc1, it can't be re-attached to an instance as the root
volume.
• While m3.medium instances fully support volume modification, m3.large, m3.xlarge, and
m3.2xlarge instances might not support all volume modification features.

Request modifications to your EBS volumes

With Elastic Volumes, you can dynamically increase the size, increase or decrease the performance, and
change the volume type of your Amazon EBS volumes without detaching them.

Use the following process when modifying a volume:

1. (Optional) Before modifying a volume that contains valuable data, it is a best practice to create a
snapshot of the volume in case you need to roll back your changes. For more information, see Create
Amazon EBS snapshots (p. 1224).
2. Request the volume modification.
3. Monitor the progress of the volume modification. For more information, see Monitor the progress of
volume modifications (p. 1333).
4. If the size of the volume was modified, extend the volume's file system to take advantage of the
increased storage capacity. For more information, see Extend a Windows file system after resizing a
volume (p. 1336).

Contents
• Modify an EBS volume using Elastic Volumes (p. 1330)
• Initialize Elastic Volumes support (if needed) (p. 1331)
• Modify an EBS volume if Elastic Volumes is not supported (p. 1333)

Modify an EBS volume using Elastic Volumes

You can only increase volume size. You can increase or decrease volume performance. If you are not
changing the volume type, then volume size and performance modifications must be within the limits
of the current volume type. If you are changing the volume type, then volume size and performance
modifications must be within the limits of the target volume type.

To modify an EBS volume, use one of the following methods.

Console

To modify an EBS volume using the console

1. Open the Amazon EC2 console at https://console.aws.amazon.com/ec2/.

2. Choose Volumes, select the volume to modify, and then choose Actions, Modify Volume.
3. The Modify Volume window displays the volume ID and the volume's current configuration,
including type, size, IOPS, and throughput. Set new configuration values as follows:

• To modify the type, choose a value for Volume Type.

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• To modify the size, enter a new value for Size.

• To modify the IOPS, if the volume type is gp3, io1, or io2, enter a new value for IOPS.
• To modify the throughput, if the volume type is gp3, enter a new value for Throughput.
4. After you have finished changing the volume settings, choose Modify. When prompted for
confirmation, choose Yes.
5. Modifying volume size has no practical effect until you also extend the volume's file system to
make use of the new storage capacity. For more information, see Extend a Windows file system
after resizing a volume (p. 1336).
6. If you increase the size of an NVMe volume on an instance that does not have the AWS NVMe
drivers, you must reboot the instance to enable Windows to see the new volume size. For
more information about installing the AWS NVMe drivers, see AWS NVMe drivers for Windows
instances (p. 547).

AWS CLI

To modify an EBS volume using the AWS CLI

Use the modify-volume command to modify one or more configuration settings for a volume. For
example, if you have a volume of type gp2 with a size of 100 GiB, the following command changes
its configuration to a volume of type io1 with 10,000 IOPS and a size of 200 GiB.

aws ec2 modify-volume --volume-type io1 --iops 10000 --size 200 --volume-
id vol-11111111111111111

The following is example output:

{
"VolumeModification": {
"TargetSize": 200,
"TargetVolumeType": "io1",
"ModificationState": "modifying",
"VolumeId": "vol-11111111111111111",
"TargetIops": 10000,
"StartTime": "2017-01-19T22:21:02.959Z",
"Progress": 0,
"OriginalVolumeType": "gp2",
"OriginalIops": 300,
"OriginalSize": 100
}
}

Modifying volume size has no practical effect until you also extend the volume's file system to make
use of the new storage capacity. For more information, see Extend a Windows file system after
resizing a volume (p. 1336).

Initialize Elastic Volumes support (if needed)

Before you can modify a volume that was attached to an instance before November 3, 2016 23:40 UTC,
you must initialize volume modification support using one of the following actions:

• Detach and attach the volume

• Stop and start the instance

Use one of the following procedures to determine whether your instances are ready for volume
modification.

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New console

To determine whether your instances are ready using the console

1. Open the Amazon EC2 console at https://console.aws.amazon.com/ec2/.

2. On the navigation pane, choose Instances.
3. Choose the Show/Hide Columns icon (the gear). Select the Launch time attribute column and
then choose Confirm.
4. Sort the list of instances by the Launch Time column. For each instance that was started before
the cutoff date, choose the Storage tab and check the Attachment time column to see when its
volumes were attached.

Old console

To determine whether your instances are ready using the console

1. Open the Amazon EC2 console at https://console.aws.amazon.com/ec2/.

2. On the navigation pane, choose Instances.
3. Choose the Show/Hide Columns icon (the gear). Select the Launch Time and Block Devices
attributes and then choose Close.
4. Sort the list of instances by the Launch Time column. For instances that were started before the
cutoff date, check when the devices were attached. In the following example, you must initialize
volume modification for the first instance because it was started before the cutoff date and its
root volume was attached before the cutoff date. The other instances are ready because they
were started after the cutoff date.

AWS CLI

To determine whether your instances are ready using the CLI

Use the following describe-instances command to determine whether the volume was attached
before November 3, 2016 23:40 UTC.

aws ec2 describe-instances --query "Reservations[*].Instances[*].

[InstanceId,LaunchTime<='2016-11-01',BlockDeviceMappings[*]
[Ebs.AttachTime<='2016-11-01']]" --output text

The first line of the output for each instance shows its ID and whether it was started before the
cutoff date (True or False). The first line is followed by one or more lines that show whether each
EBS volume was attached before the cutoff date (True or False). In the following example output,
you must initialize volume modification for the first instance because it was started before the cutoff
date and its root volume was attached before the cutoff date. The other instances are ready because
they were started after the cutoff date.

i-e905622e True
True
i-719f99a8 False
True
i-006b02c1b78381e57 False
False
False

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i-e3d172ed False
True

Modify an EBS volume if Elastic Volumes is not supported

If you are using a supported instance type, you can use Elastic Volumes to dynamically modify the size,
performance, and volume type of your Amazon EBS volumes without detaching them.

If you cannot use Elastic Volumes but you need to modify the root (boot) volume, you must stop the
instance, modify the volume, and then restart the instance.

After the instance has started, you can check the file system size to see if your instance recognizes the
larger volume space.

If the size does not reflect your newly expanded volume, you must extend the file system of your device
so that your instance can use the new space. For more information, see Extend a Windows file system
after resizing a volume (p. 1336).

You may have to bring the volume online in order to use it. For more information, see Make an Amazon
EBS volume available for use on Windows (p. 1200). You do not need to reformat the volume.

Monitor the progress of volume modifications

When you modify an EBS volume, it goes through a sequence of states. The volume enters the
modifying state, the optimizing state, and finally the completed state. At this point, the volume is
ready to be further modified.
Note
Rarely, a transient AWS fault can result in a failed state. This is not an indication of volume
health; it merely indicates that the modification to the volume failed. If this occurs, retry the
volume modification.

While the volume is in the optimizing state, your volume performance is in between the source and
target configuration specifications. Transitional volume performance will be no less than the source
volume performance. If you are downgrading IOPS, transitional volume performance is no less than the
target volume performance.

Volume modification changes take effect as follows:

• Size changes usually take a few seconds to complete and take effect after the volume has transitioned
to the Optimizing state.
• Performance (IOPS) changes can take from a few minutes to a few hours to complete and are
dependent on the configuration change being made.
• It might take up to 24 hours for a new configuration to take effect, and in some cases more, such as
when the volume has not been fully initialized. Typically, a fully used 1-TiB volume takes about 6 hours
to migrate to a new performance configuration.

To monitor the progress of a volume modification, use one of the following methods.

Amazon EC2 console

To monitor progress of a modification using the Amazon EC2 console

1. Open the Amazon EC2 console at https://console.aws.amazon.com/ec2/.

2. In the navigation pane, choose Volumes.
3. Select the volume.
4. The State column and the State field in the details pane contain information in the following
format: volume-state - modification-state (progress%). The possible volume states are creating,

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available, in-use, deleting, deleted, and error. The possible modification states are modifying,
optimizing, and completed. Shortly after the volume modification is completed, we remove the
modification state and progress, leaving only the volume state.

In this example, the modification state of the selected volume is optimizing. The modification
state of the next volume is modifying.

5. Choose the text in the State field in the details pane to display information about the most
recent modification action, as shown in the previous step.

AWS CLI

To monitor progress of a modification using the AWS CLI

Use the describe-volumes-modifications command to view the progress of one or more volume
modifications. The following example describes the volume modifications for two volumes.

aws ec2 describe-volumes-modifications --volume-

ids vol-11111111111111111 vol-22222222222222222

In the following example output, the volume modifications are still in the modifying state.
Progress is reported as a percentage.

{
"VolumesModifications": [
{
"TargetSize": 200,
"TargetVolumeType": "io1",
"ModificationState": "modifying",
"VolumeId": "vol-11111111111111111",
"TargetIops": 10000,
"StartTime": "2017-01-19T22:21:02.959Z",
"Progress": 0,
"OriginalVolumeType": "gp2",
"OriginalIops": 300,
"OriginalSize": 100
},
{
"TargetSize": 2000,
"TargetVolumeType": "sc1",
"ModificationState": "modifying",
"VolumeId": "vol-22222222222222222",

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"StartTime": "2017-01-19T22:23:22.158Z",
"Progress": 0,
"OriginalVolumeType": "gp2",
"OriginalIops": 300,
"OriginalSize": 1000
}
]
}

The next example describes all volumes with a modification state of either optimizing or
completed, and then filters and formats the results to show only modifications that were initiated
on or after February 1, 2017:

aws ec2 describe-volumes-modifications --filters Name=modification-

state,Values="optimizing","completed" --query "VolumesModifications[?
StartTime>='2017-02-01'].{ID:VolumeId,STATE:ModificationState}"

The following is example output with information about two volumes:

[
{
"STATE": "optimizing",
"ID": "vol-06397e7a0eEXAMPLE"
},
{
"STATE": "completed",
"ID": "vol-ba74e18c2aEXAMPLE"
}
]

CloudWatch Events console

With CloudWatch Events, you can create a notification rule for volume modification events. You can
use your rule to generate a notification message using Amazon SNS or to invoke a Lambda function
in response to matching events. Events are emitted on a best effort basis.

To monitor progress of a modification using CloudWatch Events

1. Open the CloudWatch console at https://console.aws.amazon.com/cloudwatch/.

2. Choose Events, Create rule.
3. For Build event pattern to match events by service, choose Custom event pattern.
4. For Build custom event pattern, replace the contents with the following and choose Save.

{
"source": [
"aws.ec2"
],
"detail-type": [
"EBS Volume Notification"
],
"detail": {
"event": [
"modifyVolume"
]
}
}

The following is example event data:

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{
"version": "0",
"id": "01234567-0123-0123-0123-012345678901",
"detail-type": "EBS Volume Notification",
"source": "aws.ec2",
"account": "012345678901",
"time": "2017-01-12T21:09:07Z",
"region": "us-east-1",
"resources": [
"arn:aws:ec2:us-east-1:012345678901:volume/vol-03a55cf56513fa1b6"
],
"detail": {
"result": "optimizing",
"cause": "",
"event": "modifyVolume",
"request-id": "01234567-0123-0123-0123-0123456789ab"
}
}

Extend a Windows file system after resizing a volume

After you increase the size of an EBS volume, use the Windows Disk Management utility or PowerShell to
extend the disk size to the new size of the volume. You can begin resizing the file system as soon as the
volume enters the optimizing state. For more information about this utility, see Extend a basic volume
on the Microsoft Docs website.

For more information about extending a file system on Linux, see Extend a Linux file system after
resizing a volume in the Amazon EC2 User Guide for Linux Instances.

Contents
• Extend a Windows file system using the Disk Management utility (p. 1336)
• Extend a Windows file system using PowerShell (p. 1339)

Extend a Windows file system using the Disk Management utility

Use the following procedure to extend a Windows file system using Disk Management.

To extend a file system using Disk Management

1. Before extending a file system that contains valuable data, it is a best practice to create a snapshot
of the volume that contains it in case you need to roll back your changes. For more information, see
Create Amazon EBS snapshots (p. 1224).
2. Log in to your Windows instance using Remote Desktop.
3. In the Run dialog, enter diskmgmt.msc and press Enter. The Disk Management utility opens.

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4. On the Disk Management menu, choose Action, Rescan Disks.

5. Open the context (right-click) menu for the expanded drive and choose Extend Volume.
Note
Extend Volume might be disabled (grayed out) if:

• The unallocated space is not adjacent to the drive. The unallocated space must be
adjacent to the right side of the drive you want to extend.
• The volume uses the Master Boot Record (MBR) partition style and it is already 2TB in
size. Volumes that use MBR cannot exceed 2TB in size.

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6. In the Extend Volume wizard, choose Next. For Select the amount of space in MB, enter the
number of megabytes by which to extend the volume. Generally, you specify the maximum available
space. The highlighted text under Selected is the amount of space that is added, not the final size
the volume will have. Complete the wizard.

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7. If you increase the size of an NVMe volume on an instance that does not have the AWS NVMe driver,
you must reboot the instance to enable Windows to see the new volume size. For more information
about installing the AWS NVMe driver, see AWS NVMe drivers for Windows instances (p. 547).

Extend a Windows file system using PowerShell

Use the following procedure to extend a Windows file system using PowerShell.

To extend a file system using PowerShell

1. Before extending a file system that contains valuable data, it is a best practice to create a snapshot
of the volume that contains it in case you need to roll back your changes. For more information, see
Create Amazon EBS snapshots (p. 1224).
2. Log in to your Windows instance using Remote Desktop.
3. Run PowerShell as an administrator.
4. Run the Get-Partition command. PowerShell returns the corresponding partition number for
each partition, the drive letter, offset, size, and type. Note the drive letter of the partition to extend.
5. Run the following command to rescan the disk.

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"rescan" | diskpart

6. Run the following command, using the drive letter you noted in step 4 in place of <drive-
letter>. PowerShell returns the minimum and maximum size of the partition allowed, in bytes.

Get-PartitionSupportedSize -DriveLetter <drive-letter>

7. To extend the partition, run the following command, entering the new size of the volume in place of
<size>. You can enter the size in KB, MB, and GB; for example, 24GB.

Resize-Partition -DriveLetter <drive-letter> -Size <size>

The following shows the complete command and response flow for extending a file system using
PowerShell.

Amazon EBS encryption

Use Amazon EBS encryption as a straight-forward encryption solution for your EBS resources associated
with your EC2 instances. With Amazon EBS encryption, you aren't required to build, maintain, and secure
your own key management infrastructure. Amazon EBS encryption uses AWS KMS keys when creating
encrypted volumes and snapshots.

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Encryption operations occur on the servers that host EC2 instances, ensuring the security of both data-
at-rest and data-in-transit between an instance and its attached EBS storage.

You can attach both encrypted and unencrypted volumes to an instance simultaneously.

Contents
• How EBS encryption works (p. 1341)
• Requirements (p. 1342)
• Default KMS key for EBS encryption (p. 1343)
• Encryption by default (p. 1344)
• Encrypt EBS resources (p. 1345)
• Encryption scenarios (p. 1346)
• Set encryption defaults using the API and CLI (p. 1351)

How EBS encryption works

You can encrypt both the boot and data volumes of an EC2 instance.

When you create an encrypted EBS volume and attach it to a supported instance type, the following
types of data are encrypted:

• Data at rest inside the volume

• All data moving between the volume and the instance
• All snapshots created from the volume
• All volumes created from those snapshots

EBS encrypts your volume with a data key using the industry-standard AES-256 algorithm. Your data key
is stored on disk with your encrypted data, but not before EBS encrypts it with your KMS key. Your data
key never appears on disk in plaintext. The same data key is shared by snapshots of the volume and any
subsequent volumes created from those snapshots. For more information, see Data keys in the AWS Key
Management Service Developer Guide.

Amazon EC2 works with AWS KMS to encrypt and decrypt your EBS volumes in slightly different ways
depending on whether the snapshot from which you create an encrypted volume is encrypted or
unencrypted.

How EBS encryption works when the snapshot is encrypted

When you create an encrypted volume from an encrypted snapshot that you own, Amazon EC2 works
with AWS KMS to encrypt and decrypt your EBS volumes as follows:

1. Amazon EC2 sends a GenerateDataKeyWithoutPlaintext request to AWS KMS, specifying the KMS key
that you chose for volume encryption.
2. AWS KMS generates a new data key, encrypts it under the KMS key that you chose for volume
encryption, and sends the encrypted data key to Amazon EBS to be stored with the volume metadata.
3. When you attach the encrypted volume to an instance, Amazon EC2 sends a CreateGrant request to
AWS KMS so that it can decrypt the data key.
4. AWS KMS decrypts the encrypted data key and sends the decrypted data key to Amazon EC2.
5. Amazon EC2 uses the plaintext data key in hypervisor memory to encrypt disk I/O to the volume. The
plaintext data key persists in memory as long as the volume is attached to the instance.

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How EBS encryption works when the snapshot is unencrypted

When you create an encrypted volume from unencrypted snapshot, Amazon EC2 works with AWS KMS to
encrypt and decrypt your EBS volumes as follows:

1. Amazon EC2 sends a CreateGrant request to AWS KMS, so that it can encrypt the volume that is
created from the snapshot.
2. Amazon EC2 sends a GenerateDataKeyWithoutPlaintext request to AWS KMS, specifying the KMS key
that you chose for volume encryption.
3. AWS KMS generates a new data key, encrypts it under the KMS key that you chose for volume
encryption, and sends the encrypted data key to Amazon EBS to be stored with the volume metadata.
4. Amazon EC2 sends a Decrypt request to AWS KMS to get the encryption key to encrypt the volume
data.
5. When you attach the encrypted volume to an instance, Amazon EC2 sends a CreateGrant request to
AWS KMS, so that it can decrypt the data key.
6. When you attach the encrypted volume to an instance, Amazon EC2 sends a Decrypt request to AWS
KMS, specifying the encrypted data key.
7. AWS KMS decrypts the encrypted data key and sends the decrypted data key to Amazon EC2.
8. Amazon EC2 uses the plaintext data key in hypervisor memory to encrypt disk I/O to the volume. The
plaintext data key persists in memory as long as the volume is attached to the instance.

For more information, see How Amazon Elastic Block Store (Amazon EBS) uses AWS KMS and Amazon
EC2 example two in the AWS Key Management Service Developer Guide.

Requirements
Before you begin, verify that the following requirements are met.

Supported volume types

Encryption is supported by all EBS volume types. You can expect the same IOPS performance on
encrypted volumes as on unencrypted volumes, with a minimal effect on latency. You can access
encrypted volumes the same way that you access unencrypted volumes. Encryption and decryption are
handled transparently, and they require no additional action from you or your applications.

Supported instance types

Amazon EBS encryption is available on all current generation (p. 143) instance types and the following
previous generation (p. 146) instance types: A1, C3, cr1.8xlarge, G2, I2, M3, and R3.

Permissions for IAM users

When you configure a KMS key as the default key for EBS encryption, the default KMS key policy
allows any IAM user with access to the required KMS actions to use this KMS key to encrypt or decrypt
EBS resources. You must grant IAM users permission to call the following actions in order to use EBS
encryption:

• kms:CreateGrant
• kms:Decrypt
• kms:DescribeKey
• kms:GenerateDataKeyWithoutPlainText
• kms:ReEncrypt

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To follow the principle of least privilege, do not allow full access to kms:CreateGrant. Instead, allow
the user to create grants on the KMS key only when the grant is created on the user's behalf by an AWS
service, as shown in the following example.

{
"Version": "2012-10-17",
"Statement": [
{
"Effect": "Allow",
"Action": "kms:CreateGrant",
"Resource": [
"arn:aws:kms:us-east-2:123456789012:key/abcd1234-a123-456d-a12b-
a123b4cd56ef"
],
"Condition": {
"Bool": {
"kms:GrantIsForAWSResource": true
}
}
}
]
}

For more information, see Allows access to the AWS account and enables IAM policies in the Default key
policy section in the AWS Key Management Service Developer Guide.

Default KMS key for EBS encryption

Amazon EBS automatically creates a unique AWS managed key in each Region where you store AWS
resources. This KMS key has the alias alias/aws/ebs. By default, Amazon EBS uses this KMS key for
encryption. Alternatively, you can specify a symmetric customer managed key that you created as the
default KMS key for EBS encryption. Using your own KMS key gives you more flexibility, including the
ability to create, rotate, and disable KMS keys.
Important
Amazon EBS does not support asymmetric KMS keys. For more information, see Using
symmetric and asymmetric KMS keys in the AWS Key Management Service Developer Guide.

New console

To configure the default KMS key for EBS encryption for a Region

1. Open the Amazon EC2 console at https://console.aws.amazon.com/ec2/.

2. From the navigation bar, select the Region.
3. From the navigation pane, select EC2 Dashboard.
4. In the upper-right corner of the page, choose Account Attributes, EBS encryption.
5. Choose Manage.
6. For Default encryption key, choose a symmetric customer managed key.
7. Choose Update EBS encryption.

Old console

To configure the default KMS key for EBS encryption for a Region

1. Open the Amazon EC2 console at https://console.aws.amazon.com/ec2/.

2. From the navigation bar, select the Region.

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3. From the navigation pane, select EC2 Dashboard.

4. In the upper-right corner of the page, choose Account Attributes, Settings.
5. Choose Change the default key and then choose an available KMS key.
6. Choose Save settings.

Encryption by default
You can configure your AWS account to enforce the encryption of the new EBS volumes and snapshot
copies that you create. For example, Amazon EBS encrypts the EBS volumes created when you launch an
instance and the snapshots that you copy from an unencrypted snapshot. For examples of transitioning
from unencrypted to encrypted EBS resources, see Encrypt unencrypted resources (p. 1345).

Encryption by default has no effect on existing EBS volumes or snapshots.

Considerations

• Encryption by default is a Region-specific setting. If you enable it for a Region, you cannot disable it
for individual volumes or snapshots in that Region.
• When you enable encryption by default, you can launch an instance only if the instance type supports
EBS encryption. For more information, see Supported instance types (p. 1342).
• If you copy a snapshot and encrypt it to a new KMS key, a complete (non-incremental) copy is created.
This results in additional storage costs.
• When migrating servers using AWS Server Migration Service (SMS), do not turn on encryption by
default. If encryption by default is already on and you are experiencing delta replication failures, turn
off encryption by default. Instead, enable AMI encryption when you create the replication job.

New console

To enable encryption by default for a Region

1. Open the Amazon EC2 console at https://console.aws.amazon.com/ec2/.

2. From the navigation bar, select the Region.
3. From the navigation pane, select EC2 Dashboard.
4. In the upper-right corner of the page, choose Account Attributes, EBS encryption.
5. Choose Manage.
6. Select Enable. You keep the AWS managed key with the alias alias/aws/ebs created on your
behalf as the default encryption key, or choose a symmetric customer managed key.
7. Choose Update EBS encryption.

Old console

To enable encryption by default for a Region

1. Open the Amazon EC2 console at https://console.aws.amazon.com/ec2/.

2. From the navigation bar, select the Region.
3. From the navigation pane, select EC2 Dashboard.
4. In the upper-right corner of the page, choose Account Attributes, Settings.
5. Under EBS Storage, select Always encrypt new EBS volumes.
6. Choose Save settings.

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You cannot change the KMS key that is associated with an existing snapshot or encrypted volume.
However, you can associate a different KMS key during a snapshot copy operation so that the resulting
copied snapshot is encrypted by the new KMS key.

Encrypt EBS resources

You encrypt EBS volumes by enabling encryption, either using encryption by default (p. 1344) or by
enabling encryption when you create a volume that you want to encrypt.

When you encrypt a volume, you can specify the symmetric KMS key to use to encrypt the volume. If you
do not specify a KMS key, the KMS key that is used for encryption depends on the encryption state of the
source snapshot and its ownership. For more information, see the encryption outcomes table (p. 1349).
Note
If you are using the API or AWS CLI to specify a KMS key, be aware that AWS authenticates the
KMS key asynchronously. If you specify a KMS key ID, an alias, or an ARN that is not valid, the
action can appear to complete, but it eventually fails.

You cannot change the KMS key that is associated with an existing snapshot or volume. However, you can
associate a different KMS key during a snapshot copy operation so that the resulting copied snapshot is
encrypted by the new KMS key.

Encrypt an empty volume on creation

When you create a new, empty EBS volume, you can encrypt it by enabling encryption for the specific
volume creation operation. If you enabled EBS encryption by default, the volume is automatically
encrypted using your default KMS key for EBS encryption. Alternatively, you can specify a different
symmetric KMS key for the specific volume creation operation. The volume is encrypted by the time
it is first available, so your data is always secured. For detailed procedures, see Create an Amazon EBS
volume (p. 1196).

By default, the KMS key that you selected when creating a volume encrypts the snapshots that you
make from the volume and the volumes that you restore from those encrypted snapshots. You cannot
remove encryption from an encrypted volume or snapshot, which means that a volume restored from an
encrypted snapshot, or a copy of an encrypted snapshot, is always encrypted.

Public snapshots of encrypted volumes are not supported, but you can share an encrypted snapshot with
specific accounts. For detailed directions, see Share an Amazon EBS snapshot (p. 1247).

Encrypt unencrypted resources

You cannot directly encrypt existing unencrypted volumes or snapshots. However, you can create
encrypted volumes or snapshots from unencrypted volumes or snapshots. If you enable encryption
by default, Amazon EBS automatically encrypts new volumes and snapshots using your default KMS
key for EBS encryption. Otherwise, you can enable encryption when you create an individual volume
or snapshot, using either the default KMS key for EBS encryption or a symmetric customer managed
key. For more information, see Create an Amazon EBS volume (p. 1196) and Copy an Amazon EBS
snapshot (p. 1242).

To encrypt the snapshot copy to a customer managed key, you must both enable encryption and specify
the KMS key, as shown in Copy an unencrypted snapshot (encryption by default not enabled) (p. 1347).
Important
Amazon EBS does not support asymmetric KMS keys. For more information, see Using
Symmetric and Asymmetric KMS keys in the AWS Key Management Service Developer Guide.

You can also apply new encryption states when launching an instance from an EBS-backed AMI. This is
because EBS-backed AMIs include snapshots of EBS volumes that can be encrypted as described. For
more information, see Use encryption with EBS-backed AMIs (p. 130).

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Encryption scenarios
When you create an encrypted EBS resource, it is encrypted by your account's default KMS key for EBS
encryption unless you specify a different customer managed key in the volume creation parameters or
the block device mapping for the AMI or instance. For more information, see Default KMS key for EBS
encryption (p. 1343).

The following examples illustrate how you can manage the encryption state of your volumes and
snapshots. For a full list of encryption cases, see the encryption outcomes table (p. 1349).

Examples
• Restore an unencrypted volume (encryption by default not enabled) (p. 1346)
• Restore an unencrypted volume (encryption by default enabled) (p. 1346)
• Copy an unencrypted snapshot (encryption by default not enabled) (p. 1347)
• Copy an unencrypted snapshot (encryption by default enabled) (p. 1347)
• Re-encrypt an encrypted volume (p. 1348)
• Re-encrypt an encrypted snapshot (p. 1348)
• Migrate data between encrypted and unencrypted volumes (p. 1349)
• Encryption outcomes (p. 1349)

Restore an unencrypted volume (encryption by default not enabled)

Without encryption by default enabled, a volume restored from an unencrypted snapshot is unencrypted
by default. However, you can encrypt the resulting volume by setting the Encrypted parameter and,
optionally, the KmsKeyId parameter. The following diagram illustrates the process.

If you leave out the KmsKeyId parameter, the resulting volume is encrypted using your default KMS key
for EBS encryption. You must specify a KMS key ID to encrypt the volume to a different KMS key.

For more information, see Create a volume from a snapshot (p. 1197).

Restore an unencrypted volume (encryption by default enabled)

When you have enabled encryption by default, encryption is mandatory for volumes restored from
unencrypted snapshots, and no encryption parameters are required for your default KMS key to be used.
The following diagram shows this simple default case:

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If you want to encrypt the restored volume to a symmetric customer managed key, you must supply both
the Encrypted and KmsKeyId parameters as shown in Restore an unencrypted volume (encryption by
default not enabled) (p. 1346).

Copy an unencrypted snapshot (encryption by default not enabled)

Without encryption by default enabled, a copy of an unencrypted snapshot is unencrypted by default.

However, you can encrypt the resulting snapshot by setting the Encrypted parameter and, optionally,
the KmsKeyId parameter. If you omit KmsKeyId, the resulting snapshot is encrypted by your default
KMS key. You must specify a KMS key ID to encrypt the volume to a different symmetric KMS key.

The following diagram illustrates the process.

You can encrypt an EBS volume by copying an unencrypted snapshot to an encrypted snapshot and
then creating a volume from the encrypted snapshot. For more information, see Copy an Amazon EBS
snapshot (p. 1242).

Copy an unencrypted snapshot (encryption by default enabled)

When you have enabled encryption by default, encryption is mandatory for copies of unencrypted
snapshots, and no encryption parameters are required if your default KMS key is used. The following
diagram illustrates this default case:

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Re-encrypt an encrypted volume

When the CreateVolume action operates on an encrypted snapshot, you have the option of re-
encrypting it with a different KMS key. The following diagram illustrates the process. In this example,
you own two KMS keys, KMS key A and KMS key B. The source snapshot is encrypted by KMS key A.
During volume creation, with the KMS key ID of KMS key B specified as a parameter, the source data is
automatically decrypted, then re-encrypted by KMS key B.

For more information, see Create a volume from a snapshot (p. 1197).

Re-encrypt an encrypted snapshot

The ability to encrypt a snapshot during copying allows you to apply a new symmetric KMS key to an
already-encrypted snapshot that you own. Volumes restored from the resulting copy are only accessible
using the new KMS key. The following diagram illustrates the process. In this example, you own two KMS
keys, KMS key A and KMS key B. The source snapshot is encrypted by KMS key A. During copy, with the
KMS key ID of KMS key B specified as a parameter, the source data is automatically re-encrypted by KMS
key B.

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In a related scenario, you can choose to apply new encryption parameters to a copy of a snapshot that
has been shared with you. By default, the copy is encrypted with a KMS key shared by the snapshot's
owner. However, we recommend that you create a copy of the shared snapshot using a different KMS
key that you control. This protects your access to the volume if the original KMS key is compromised, or
if the owner revokes the KMS key for any reason. For more information, see Encryption and snapshot
copying (p. 1244).

Migrate data between encrypted and unencrypted volumes

When you have access to both an encrypted and unencrypted volume, you can freely transfer data
between them. EC2 carries out the encryption and decryption operations transparently.

For example, use the robocopy command to copy the data. In the following command, the source data is
located in D:\ and the destination volume is mounted at E:\.

PS C:\> robocopy D:\sourcefolder E:\destinationfolder /e /copyall /eta

We recommend using folders rather than copying an entire volume, as this avoids potential problems
with hidden folders.

Encryption outcomes

The following table describes the encryption outcome for each possible combination of settings.

Is Is encryption Source of volume Default (no Custom (customer

encryption by default customer managed managed key
enabled? enabled? key specified) specified)

No No New (empty) volume Unencrypted N/A

No No Unencrypted snapshot Unencrypted

that you own

No No Encrypted snapshot that Encrypted by same

you own key

No No Unencrypted snapshot Unencrypted

that is shared with you

No No Encrypted snapshot that is Encrypted by

shared with you default customer
managed key*

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Is Is encryption Source of volume Default (no Custom (customer

encryption by default customer managed managed key
enabled? enabled? key specified) specified)

Yes No New volume Encrypted by Encrypted by a

default customer specified customer
managed key managed key**

Yes No Unencrypted snapshot Encrypted by

that you own default customer
managed key

Yes No Encrypted snapshot that Encrypted by same

you own key

Yes No Unencrypted snapshot Encrypted by

that is shared with you default customer
managed key

Yes No Encrypted snapshot that is Encrypted by

shared with you default customer
managed key

No Yes New (empty) volume Encrypted by N/A

default customer
managed key

No Yes Unencrypted snapshot Encrypted by

that you own default customer
managed key

No Yes Encrypted snapshot that Encrypted by same

you own key

No Yes Unencrypted snapshot Encrypted by

that is shared with you default customer
managed key

No Yes Encrypted snapshot that is Encrypted by

shared with you default customer
managed key

Yes Yes New volume Encrypted by Encrypted by a

default customer specified customer
managed key managed key

Yes Yes Unencrypted snapshot Encrypted by

that you own default customer
managed key

Yes Yes Encrypted snapshot that Encrypted by same

you own key

Yes Yes Unencrypted snapshot Encrypted by

that is shared with you default customer
managed key

Yes Yes Encrypted snapshot that is Encrypted by

shared with you default customer
managed key

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* This is the default customer managed key used for EBS encryption for the AWS account and Region. By
default this is a unique AWS managed key for EBS, or you can specify a customer managed key. For more
information, see Default KMS key for EBS encryption (p. 1343).

** This is a customer managed key specified for the volume at launch time. This customer managed key is
used instead of the default customer managed key for the AWS account and Region.

Set encryption defaults using the API and CLI

You can manage encryption by default and the default KMS key using the following API actions and CLI
commands.

API action CLI command Description

DisableEbsEncryptionByDefault disable-ebs-encryption-by-default Disables encryption by

default.

EnableEbsEncryptionByDefault enable-ebs-encryption-by-default Enables encryption by

default.

GetEbsDefaultKmsKeyId get-ebs-default-kms-key-id Describes the default

KMS key.

GetEbsEncryptionByDefault get-ebs-encryption-by-default Indicates whether

encryption by default is
enabled.

ModifyEbsDefaultKmsKeyId modify-ebs-default-kms-key-id Changes the default

KMS key used to
encrypt EBS volumes.

ResetEbsDefaultKmsKeyId reset-ebs-default-kms-key-id Resets the AWS

managed key as the
default KMS key used to
encrypt EBS volumes.

Amazon EBS fast snapshot restore

Amazon EBS fast snapshot restore enables you to create a volume from a snapshot that is fully initialized
at creation. This eliminates the latency of I/O operations on a block when it is accessed for the first
time. Volumes that are created using fast snapshot restore instantly deliver all of their provisioned
performance.

To get started, enable fast snapshot restore for specific snapshots in specific Availability Zones. Each
snapshot and Availability Zone pair refers to one fast snapshot restore. When you create a volume
from one of these snapshots in one of its enabled Availability Zones, the volume is restored using fast
snapshot restore.

Fast snapshot restore must be explicitly enabled on a per-snapshot basis. If you create a new snapshot
from a volume that was restored from a fast snapshot restore-enabled snapshot, the new snapshot is not
automatically enabled for fast snapshot restore. You must explicitly enable it for the new snapshot.

You can enable fast snapshot restore for snapshots that you own and for public and private snapshots
that are shared with you.

Contents
• Fast snapshot restore quotas (p. 1352)

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• Fast snapshot restore states (p. 1352)

• Volume creation credits (p. 1352)
• Manage fast snapshot restore (p. 1353)
• View snapshots with fast snapshot restore enabled (p. 1354)
• View volumes restored using fast snapshot restore (p. 1354)
• Monitor fast snapshot restore (p. 1355)
• Pricing and Billing (p. 1355)

Fast snapshot restore quotas

You can enable up to 50 snapshots for fast snapshot restore per Region. The quota applies to snapshots
that you own and snapshots that are shared with you. If you enable fast snapshot restore for a snapshot
that is shared with you, it counts towards your fast snapshot restore quota. It does not count towards the
snapshot owner's fast snapshot restore quota.

Fast snapshot restore states

After you enable fast snapshot restore for a snapshot, it can be in one of the following states.

• enabling — A request was made to enable fast snapshot restore.

• optimizing — Fast snapshot restore is being enabled. It takes 60 minutes per TiB to optimize a
snapshot. Snapshots in this state offer some performance benefit when restoring volumes.
• enabled — Fast snapshot restore is enabled. Snapshots in this state offer the full performance benefit
when restoring volumes.
• disabling — A request was made to disable fast snapshot restore, or a request to enable fast
snapshot restore failed.
• disabled — Fast snapshot restore is disabled. You can enable fast snapshot restore again as needed.

Volume creation credits

The number of volumes that receive the full performance benefit of fast snapshot restore is determined
by the volume creation credits for the snapshot. There is one credit bucket per snapshot per Availability
Zone. Each volume that you create from a snapshot with fast snapshot restore enabled consumes one
credit from the credit bucket. If you create a volume but there is less than one credit in the bucket, the
volume is created without benefit of fast snapshot restore.

When you enable fast snapshot restore for a snapshot that is shared with you, you get a separate credit
bucket for the shared snapshot in your account. If you create volumes from the shared snapshot, the
credits are consumed from your credit bucket; they are not consumed from the snapshot owner's credit
bucket.

The size of a credit bucket depends on the size of the snapshot, not the size of the volumes created from
the snapshot. The size of the credit bucket for each snapshot is calculated as follows:

MAX (1, MIN (10, FLOOR(1024/snapshot_size_gib)))

As you consume credits, the credit bucket is refilled over time. The refill rate for each credit bucket is
calculated as follows:

MIN (10, 1024/snapshot_size_gib)

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For example, if you enable fast snapshot restore for a snapshot with a size of 100 GiB, the maximum size
of its credit bucket is 10 credits and the refill rate is 10 credits per hour. When the credit bucket is full,
you can create 10 initialized volumes from this snapshot simultaneously.

You can use Cloudwatch metrics to monitor the size of your credit buckets and the number of credits
available in each bucket. For more information, see Fast snapshot restore metrics (p. 1393).

After you create a volume from a snapshot with fast snapshot restore enabled, you can describe the
volume using describe-volumes and check the fastRestored field in the output to determine whether
the volume was created as an initialized volume using fast snapshot restore.

Manage fast snapshot restore

Fast snapshot restore is disabled for a snapshot by default. You can enable or disable fast snapshot
restore for snapshots that you own and for snapshots that are shared with you. When you enable or
disable fast snapshot restore for a snapshot, the changes apply to your account only.
Note
When you enable fast snapshot restore for a snapshot, your account is billed for each minute
that fast snapshot restore is enabled in a particular Availability Zone. Charges are pro-rated and
have a minimum of one hour.

When you delete a snapshot that you own, fast snapshot restore is automatically disabled for that
snapshot in your account. If you enabled fast snapshot restore for a snapshot that is shared with you,
and the snapshot owner deletes or unshares it, fast snapshot restore is automatically disabled for the
shared snapshot in your account.

If you enabled fast snapshot restore for a snapshot that is shared with you, and it's encrypted using a
custom CMK, fast snapshot restore is not automatically disabled for the snapshot when the snapshot
owner revokes your access to the custom CMK. You must manually disable fast snapshot restore for that
snapshot.

Use the following procedure to enable or disable fast snapshot restore for a snapshot that you own or
for a snapshot that is shared with you.

To enable or disable fast snapshot restore

1. Open the Amazon EC2 console at https://console.aws.amazon.com/ec2/.

2. In the navigation pane, choose Snapshots.
3. Select the snapshot.
4. Choose Actions, Manage Fast Snapshot Restore.
5. Select or deselect Availability Zones, and then choose Save.
6. To track the state of fast snapshot restore as it is enabled, see Fast Snapshot Restore on the
Description tab.

Note
After you enable fast snapshot restore for a snapshot, it enters the optimizing state.
Snapshots that are in the optimizing state provide some performance benefits when using
them to restore volumes. They start to provide the full performance benefits of fast snapshot
restore only after they enter the enabled state.

To manage fast snapshot restore using the AWS CLI

• enable-fast-snapshot-restores
• disable-fast-snapshot-restores

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• describe-fast-snapshot-restores

View snapshots with fast snapshot restore enabled

Use the following procedure to view the state of fast snapshot restore for a snapshot that you own or for
a snapshot that is shared with you.

To view the state of fast snapshot restore using the console

1. Open the Amazon EC2 console at https://console.aws.amazon.com/ec2/.

2. In the navigation pane, choose Snapshots.
3. Select the snapshot.
4. On the Description tab, see Fast Snapshot Restore, which indicates the state of fast snapshot
restore. For example, it might show a state of "2 Availability Zones optimizing" or "2 Availability
Zones enabled".

To view snapshots with fast snapshot restore enabled using the AWS CLI

Use the describe-fast-snapshot-restores command to describe the snapshots that are enabled for fast
snapshot restore.

aws ec2 describe-fast-snapshot-restores --filters Name=state,Values=enabled

The following is example output.

{
"FastSnapshotRestores": [
{
"SnapshotId": "snap-0e946653493cb0447",
"AvailabilityZone": "us-east-2a",
"State": "enabled",
"StateTransitionReason": "Client.UserInitiated - Lifecycle state transition",
"OwnerId": "123456789012",
"EnablingTime": "2020-01-25T23:57:49.596Z",
"OptimizingTime": "2020-01-25T23:58:25.573Z",
"EnabledTime": "2020-01-25T23:59:29.852Z"
},
{
"SnapshotId": "snap-0e946653493cb0447",
"AvailabilityZone": "us-east-2b",
"State": "enabled",
"StateTransitionReason": "Client.UserInitiated - Lifecycle state transition",
"OwnerId": "123456789012",
"EnablingTime": "2020-01-25T23:57:49.596Z",
"OptimizingTime": "2020-01-25T23:58:25.573Z",
"EnabledTime": "2020-01-25T23:59:29.852Z"
}
]
}

View volumes restored using fast snapshot restore

When you create a volume from a snapshot that is enabled for fast snapshot restore in the Availability
Zone for the volume, it is restored using fast snapshot restore.

Use the describe-volumes command to view volumes that were created from a snapshot that is enabled
for fast snapshot restore.

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aws ec2 describe-volumes --filters Name=fast-restored,Values=true

The following is example output.

{
"Volumes": [
{
"Attachments": [],
"AvailabilityZone": "us-east-2a",
"CreateTime": "2020-01-26T00:34:11.093Z",
"Encrypted": true,
"KmsKeyId": "arn:aws:kms:us-west-2:123456789012:key/8c5b2c63-b9bc-45a3-
a87a-5513e232e843",
"Size": 20,
"SnapshotId": "snap-0e946653493cb0447",
"State": "available",
"VolumeId": "vol-0d371921d4ca797b0",
"Iops": 100,
"VolumeType": "gp2",
"FastRestored": true
}
]
}

Monitor fast snapshot restore

Amazon EBS emits Amazon CloudWatch events when the fast snapshot restore state for a snapshot
changes. For more information, see EBS fast snapshot restore events (p. 1402).

Pricing and Billing

You are billed for each minute that fast snapshot restore is enabled for a snapshot in a particular
Availability Zone. Charges are pro-rated with a minimum of one hour.

For example, if you enable fast snapshot restore for one snapshot in US-East-1a for one month (30
days), you are billed $540 (1 snapshot x 1 AZ x 720 hours x $0.75 per hour). If you enable fast snapshot
restore for two snapshots in us-east-1a, us-east-1b, and us-east-1c for the same period, you are
billed $3240 (2 snapshots x 3 AZs x 720 hours x $0.75 per hour).

If you enable fast snapshot restore for a public or private snapshot that is shared with you, your account
is billed; the snapshot owner is not billed. When a snapshot that is shared with you is deleted or
unshared by the snapshot owner, fast snapshot restore is disabled for the snapshot in your account and
billing is stopped.

For more information, see Amazon EBS pricing.

Amazon EBS and NVMe on Windows instances

EBS volumes are exposed as NVMe block devices on instances built on the Nitro System (p. 147). When
you attach a volume to your instance, you include a device name for the volume. This device name is
used by Amazon EC2. The block device driver for the instance assigns the actual volume name when
mounting the volume, and the name assigned can be different from the name that Amazon EC2 uses.

The EBS performance guarantees stated in Amazon EBS Product Details are valid regardless of the block-
device interface.

Contents
• Install or upgrade the NVMe driver (p. 1356)

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• Identify the EBS device (p. 1356)

• Work with NVMe EBS volumes (p. 1357)
• I/O operation timeout (p. 1357)

Install or upgrade the NVMe driver

The AWS Windows AMIs for Windows Server 2008 R2 and later include the AWS NVMe driver. If you
are not using the latest AWS Windows AMIs provided by Amazon, see Install or upgrade AWS NVMe
drivers (p. 547).

Identify the EBS device

EBS uses single-root I/O virtualization (SR-IOV) to provide volume attachments on Nitro-based instances
using the NVMe specification. These devices rely on standard NVMe drivers on the operating system.
These drivers typically discover attached devices by scanning the PCI bus during instance boot, and
create device nodes based on the order in which the devices respond, not on how the devices are
specified in the block device mapping. Additionally, the device name assigned by the block device driver
can be different from the name specified in the block device mapping.

The following example shows the command and output for a volume attached during instance launch.
Note that the NVMe device name does not include the /dev/ prefix.

The following example shows the command and output for a volume attached after instance launch.
Note that the NVMe device name includes the /dev/ prefix.

Windows Server 2008 R2 and later

You can also run the ebsnvme-id command to map the NVMe device disk number to an EBS volume
ID and device name. By default, all EBS NVMe devices are enumerated. You can pass a disk number to
enumerate information for a specific device. Ebsnvme-id is included in the latest AWS provided Windows
Server AMIs located in C:\PROGRAMDATA\AMAZON\Tools.

You can also download ebsnvme-id.zip and extract the contents to your Amazon EC2 instance to get
access to ebsnvme-id.exe.

PS C:\Users\Administrator\Desktop> ebsnvme-id.exe
Disk Number: 0
Volume ID: vol-0d6d7ee9f6e471a7f
Device Name: sda1

Disk Number: 1
Volume ID: vol-03a26248ff39b57cf
Device Name: xvdd

Disk Number: 2
Volume ID: vol-038bd1c629aa125e6
Device Name: xvde

Disk Number: 3
Volume ID: vol-034f9d29ec0b64c89
Device Name: xvdb

Disk Number: 4
Volume ID: vol-03e2dbe464b66f0a1
Device Name: xvdc
PS C:\Users\Administrator\Desktop> ebsnvme-id.exe 4
Disk Number: 4
Volume ID: vol-03e2dbe464b66f0a1

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Device Name: xvdc

Work with NVMe EBS volumes

The latest AWS Windows AMIs contain the AWS NVMe driver that is required by instance types that
expose EBS volumes as NVMe block devices. However, if you resize your root volume on a Windows
system, you must rescan the volume in order for this change to be reflected in the instance. If you
launched your instance from a different AMI, it might not contain the required AWS NVMe driver. If your
instance does not have the latest AWS NVMe driver, you must install it. For more information, see AWS
NVMe drivers for Windows instances (p. 547).

I/O operation timeout

Most operating systems specify a timeout for I/O operations submitted to NVMe devices. On Windows
systems, the default timeout is 60 seconds and the maximum is 255 seconds. You can modify the
TimeoutValue disk class registry setting using the procedure described in Registry Entries for SCSI
Miniport Drivers.

Amazon EBS–optimized instances

An Amazon EBS–optimized instance uses an optimized configuration stack and provides additional,
dedicated capacity for Amazon EBS I/O. This optimization provides the best performance for your EBS
volumes by minimizing contention between Amazon EBS I/O and other traffic from your instance.

EBS–optimized instances deliver dedicated bandwidth to Amazon EBS. When attached to an EBS–
optimized instance, General Purpose SSD (gp2 and gp3) volumes are designed to deliver their baseline
and burst performance 99% of the time, and Provisioned IOPS SSD (io1 and io2) volumes are designed
to deliver their provisioned performance 99.9% of the time. Both Throughput Optimized HDD (st1) and
Cold HDD (sc1) guarantee performance consistency of 90% of burst throughput 99% of the time. Non-
compliant periods are approximately uniformly distributed, targeting 99% of expected total throughput
each hour. For more information, see Amazon EBS volume types (p. 1177).

Contents
• Supported instance types (p. 1357)
• Get maximum performance (p. 1371)
• View instances types that support EBS optimization (p. 1372)
• Enable EBS optimization at launch (p. 1373)
• Enable EBS optimization for an existing instance (p. 1373)

Supported instance types

The following tables show which instance types support EBS optimization. They include the dedicated
bandwidth to Amazon EBS, the typical maximum aggregate throughput that can be achieved on that
connection with a streaming read workload and 128 KiB I/O size, and the maximum IOPS the instance
can support if you are using a 16 KiB I/O size. Choose an EBS–optimized instance that provides more
dedicated Amazon EBS throughput than your application needs; otherwise, the connection between
Amazon EBS and Amazon EC2 can become a performance bottleneck.

EBS optimized by default

The following table lists the instance types that support EBS optimization and EBS optimization is
enabled by default. There is no need to enable EBS optimization and no effect if you disable EBS
optimization.

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Note
You can also view this information programatically using the AWS CLI. For more information, see
View instances types that support EBS optimization (p. 1372).

Instance size Maximum bandwidth Maximum throughput Maximum IOPS (16 KiB
(Mbps) (MB/s, 128 KiB I/O) I/O)

c4.large 500 62.5 4,000

c4.xlarge 750 93.75 6,000

c4.2xlarge 1,000 125 8,000

c4.4xlarge 2,000 250 16,000

c4.8xlarge 4,000 500 32,000

c5.large * 4,750 593.75 20,000

c5.xlarge * 4,750 593.75 20,000

c5.2xlarge * 4,750 593.75 20,000

c5.4xlarge 4,750 593.75 20,000

c5.9xlarge 9,500 1,187.5 40,000

c5.12xlarge 9,500 1,187.5 40,000

c5.18xlarge 19,000 2,375 80,000

c5.24xlarge 19,000 2,375 80,000

c5.metal 19,000 2,375 80,000

c5a.large * 3,170 396 13,300

c5a.xlarge * 3,170 396 13,300

c5a.2xlarge * 3,170 396 13,300

c5a.4xlarge * 3,170 396 13,300

c5a.8xlarge 3,170 396 13,300

c5a.12xlarge 4,750 594 20,000

c5a.16xlarge 6,300 788 26,700

c5a.24xlarge 9,500 1,188 40,000

c5ad.large * 3,170 396 13,300

c5ad.xlarge * 3,170 396 13,300

c5ad.2xlarge * 3,170 396 13,300

c5ad.4xlarge * 3,170 396 13,300

c5ad.8xlarge 3,170 396 13,300

c5ad.12xlarge 4,750 594 20,000

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Instance size Maximum bandwidth Maximum throughput Maximum IOPS (16 KiB
(Mbps) (MB/s, 128 KiB I/O) I/O)

c5ad.16xlarge 6,300 788 26,700

c5ad.24xlarge 9,500 1,188 40,000

c5d.large * 4,750 593.75 20,000

c5d.xlarge * 4,750 593.75 20,000

c5d.2xlarge * 4,750 593.75 20,000

c5d.4xlarge 4,750 593.75 20,000

c5d.9xlarge 9,500 1,187.5 40,000

c5d.12xlarge 9,500 1,187.5 40,000

c5d.18xlarge 19,000 2,375 80,000

c5d.24xlarge 19,000 2,375 80,000

c5d.metal 19,000 2,375 80,000

c5n.large * 4,750 593.75 20,000

c5n.xlarge * 4,750 593.75 20,000

c5n.2xlarge * 4,750 593.75 20,000

c5n.4xlarge 4,750 593.75 20,000

c5n.9xlarge 9,500 1,187.5 40,000

c5n.18xlarge 19,000 2,375 80,000

c5n.metal 19,000 2,375 80,000

d2.xlarge 750 93.75 6,000

d2.2xlarge 1,000 125 8,000

d2.4xlarge 2,000 250 16,000

d2.8xlarge 4,000 500 32,000

d3.xlarge * 2,800 350 15,000

d3.2xlarge * 2,800 350 15,000

d3.4xlarge 2,800 350 15,000

d3.8xlarge 5,000 625 30,000

d3en.xlarge * 2,800 350 15,000

d3en.2xlarge * 2,800 350 15,000

d3en.4xlarge 2,800 350 15,000

d3en.8xlarge 5,000 625 30,000

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Instance size Maximum bandwidth Maximum throughput Maximum IOPS (16 KiB
(Mbps) (MB/s, 128 KiB I/O) I/O)

d3en.12xlarge 7,000 875 40,000

f1.2xlarge 1,700 212.5 12,000

f1.4xlarge 3,500 437.5 44,000

f1.16xlarge 14,000 1,750 75,000

g3s.xlarge 850 106.25 5,000

g3.4xlarge 3,500 437.5 20,000

g3.8xlarge 7,000 875 40,000

g3.16xlarge 14,000 1,750 80,000

g4ad.xlarge * 3,170 396.25 13,333

g4ad.2xlarge * 3,170 396.25 13,333

g4ad.4xlarge * 3,170 396.25 13,333

g4ad.8xlarge 3,170 396.25 13,333

g4ad.16xlarge 6,300 787.5 26,667

g4dn.xlarge * 3,500 437.5 20,000

g4dn.2xlarge * 3,500 437.5 20,000

g4dn.4xlarge 4,750 593.75 20,000

g4dn.8xlarge 9,500 1,187.5 40,000

g4dn.12xlarge 9,500 1,187.5 40,000

g4dn.16xlarge 9,500 1,187.5 40,000

g4dn.metal 19,000 2,375 80,000

h1.2xlarge 1,750 218.75 12,000

h1.4xlarge 3,500 437.5 20,000

h1.8xlarge 7,000 875 40,000

h1.16xlarge 14,000 1,750 80,000

i3.large 425 53.13 3000

i3.xlarge 850 106.25 6000

i3.2xlarge 1,700 212.5 12,000

i3.4xlarge 3,500 437.5 16,000

i3.8xlarge 7,000 875 32,500

i3.16xlarge 14,000 1,750 65,000

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Instance size Maximum bandwidth Maximum throughput Maximum IOPS (16 KiB
(Mbps) (MB/s, 128 KiB I/O) I/O)

i3.metal 19,000 2,375 80,000

i3en.large * 4,750 593.75 20,000

i3en.xlarge * 4,750 593.75 20,000

i3en.2xlarge * 4,750 593.75 20,000

i3en.3xlarge * 4,750 593.75 20,000

i3en.6xlarge 4,750 593.75 20,000

i3en.12xlarge 9,500 1,187.5 40,000

i3en.24xlarge 19,000 2,375 80,000

i3en.metal 19,000 2,375 80,000

m4.large 450 56.25 3,600

m4.xlarge 750 93.75 6,000

m4.2xlarge 1,000 125 8,000

m4.4xlarge 2,000 250 16,000

m4.10xlarge 8,000 500 32,000

m4.16xlarge 10,000 1,250 65,000

m5.large * 4,750 593.75 18,750

m5.xlarge * 4,750 593.75 18,750

m5.2xlarge * 4,750 593.75 18,750

m5.4xlarge 4,750 593.75 18,750

m5.8xlarge 6,800 850 30,000

m5.12xlarge 9,500 1,187.5 40,000

m5.16xlarge 13,600 1,700 60,000

m5.24xlarge 19,000 2,375 80,000

m5.metal 19,000 2,375 80,000

m5a.large * 2,880 360 16,000

m5a.xlarge * 2,880 360 16,000

m5a.2xlarge * 2,880 360 16,000

m5a.4xlarge 2,880 360 16,000

m5a.8xlarge 4,750 593.75 20,000

m5a.12xlarge 6,780 847.5 30,000

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Instance size Maximum bandwidth Maximum throughput Maximum IOPS (16 KiB
(Mbps) (MB/s, 128 KiB I/O) I/O)

m5a.16xlarge 9,500 1,187.50 40,000

m5a.24xlarge 13,570 1,696.25 60,000

m5ad.large * 2,880 360 16,000

m5ad.xlarge * 2,880 360 16,000

m5ad.2xlarge * 2,880 360 16,000

m5ad.4xlarge 2,880 360 16,000

m5ad.8xlarge 4,750 593.75 20,000

m5ad.12xlarge 6,780 847.5 30,000

m5ad.16xlarge 9,500 1,187.5 40,000

m5ad.24xlarge 13,570 1,696.25 60,000

m5d.large * 4,750 593.75 18,750

m5d.xlarge * 4,750 593.75 18,750

m5d.2xlarge * 4,750 593.75 18,750

m5d.4xlarge 4,750 593.75 18,750

m5d.8xlarge 6,800 850 30,000

m5d.12xlarge 9,500 1,187.5 40,000

m5d.16xlarge 13,600 1,700 60,000

m5d.24xlarge 19,000 2,375 80,000

m5d.metal 19,000 2,375 80,000

m5dn.large * 4,750 593.75 18,750

m5dn.xlarge * 4,750 593.75 18,750

m5dn.2xlarge * 4,750 593.75 18,750

m5dn.4xlarge 4,750 593.75 18,750

m5dn.8xlarge 6,800 850 30,000

m5dn.12xlarge 9,500 1,187.5 40,000

m5dn.16xlarge 13,600 1,700 60,000

m5dn.24xlarge 19,000 2,375 80,000

m5dn.metal 19,000 2,375 80,000

m5n.large * 4,750 593.75 18,750

m5n.xlarge * 4,750 593.75 18,750

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Instance size Maximum bandwidth Maximum throughput Maximum IOPS (16 KiB
(Mbps) (MB/s, 128 KiB I/O) I/O)

m5n.2xlarge * 4,750 593.75 18,750

m5n.4xlarge 4,750 593.75 18,750

m5n.8xlarge 6,800 850 30,000

m5n.12xlarge 9,500 1,187.5 40,000

m5n.16xlarge 13,600 1,700 60,000

m5n.24xlarge 19,000 2,375 80,000

m5n.metal 19,000 2,375 80,000

m5zn.large * 3,170 396.25 13,333

m5zn.xlarge * 3,170 396.25 13,333

m5zn.2xlarge 3,170 396.25 13,333

m5zn.3xlarge 4,750 593.75 20,000

m5zn.6xlarge 9,500 1187.5 40,000

m5zn.12xlarge 19,000 2,375 80,000

m5zn.metal 19,000 2,375 80,000

m6i.large * 10,000 1,250 40,000

m6i.xlarge * 10,000 1,250 40,000

m6i.2xlarge * 10,000 1,250 40,000

m6i.4xlarge * 10,000 1,250 40,000

m6i.8xlarge 10,000 1,250 40,000

m6i.12xlarge 15,000 1,875 60,000

m6i.16xlarge 20,000 2,500 80,000

m6i.24xlarge 30,000 3,750 120,000

m6i.32xlarge 40,000 5,000 160,000

p2.xlarge 750 93.75 6,000

p2.8xlarge 5,000 625 32,500

p2.16xlarge 10,000 1,250 65,000

p3.2xlarge 1,750 218.75 10,000

p3.8xlarge 7,000 875 40,000

p3.16xlarge 14,000 1,750 80,000

p3dn.24xlarge 19,000 2,375 80,000

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Instance size Maximum bandwidth Maximum throughput Maximum IOPS (16 KiB
(Mbps) (MB/s, 128 KiB I/O) I/O)

r4.large 425 53.13 3,000

r4.xlarge 850 106.25 6,000

r4.2xlarge 1,700 212.5 12,000

r4.4xlarge 3,500 437.5 18,750

r4.8xlarge 7,000 875 37,500

r4.16xlarge 14,000 1,750 75,000

r5.large * 4,750 593.75 18,750

r5.xlarge * 4,750 593.75 18,750

r5.2xlarge * 4,750 593.75 18,750

r5.4xlarge 4,750 593.75 18,750

r5.8xlarge 6,800 850 30,000

r5.12xlarge 9,500 1,187.5 40,000

r5.16xlarge 13,600 1,700 60,000

r5.24xlarge 19,000 2,375 80,000

r5.metal 19,000 2,375 80,000

r5a.large * 2,880 360 16,000

r5a.xlarge * 2,880 360 16,000

r5a.2xlarge * 2,880 360 16,000

r5a.4xlarge 2,880 360 16,000

r5a.8xlarge 4,750 593.75 20,000

r5a.12xlarge 6,780 847.5 30,000

r5a.16xlarge 9,500 1,187.5 40,000

r5a.24xlarge 13,570 1,696.25 60,000

r5ad.large * 2,880 360 16,000

r5ad.xlarge * 2,880 360 16,000

r5ad.2xlarge * 2,880 360 16,000

r5ad.4xlarge 2,880 360 16,000

r5ad.8xlarge 4,750 593.75 20,000

r5ad.12xlarge 6,780 847.5 30,000

r5ad.16xlarge 9,500 1,187.5 40,000

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Instance size Maximum bandwidth Maximum throughput Maximum IOPS (16 KiB
(Mbps) (MB/s, 128 KiB I/O) I/O)

r5ad.24xlarge 13,570 1,696.25 60,000

r5b.large * 10,000 1,250 43,333

r5b.xlarge * 10,000 1,250 43,333

r5b.2xlarge * 10,000 1,250 43,333

r5b.4xlarge 10,000 1,250 43,333

r5b.8xlarge 20,000 2,500 86,667

r5b.12xlarge 30,000 3,750 130,000

r5b.16xlarge 40,000 5,000 173,333

r5b.24xlarge 60,000 7,500 260,000

r5b.metal 60,000 7,500 260,000

r5d.large * 4,750 593.75 18,750

r5d.xlarge * 4,750 593.75 18,750

r5d.2xlarge * 4,750 593.75 18,750

r5d.4xlarge 4,750 593.75 18,750

r5d.8xlarge 6,800 850 30,000

r5d.12xlarge 9,500 1,187.5 40,000

r5d.16xlarge 13,600 1,700 60,000

r5d.24xlarge 19,000 2,375 80,000

r5d.metal 19,000 2,375 80,000

r5dn.large * 4,750 593.75 18,750

r5dn.xlarge * 4,750 593.75 18,750

r5dn.2xlarge * 4,750 593.75 18,750

r5dn.4xlarge 4,750 593.75 18,750

r5dn.8xlarge 6,800 850 30,000

r5dn.12xlarge 9,500 1,187.5 40,000

r5dn.16xlarge 13,600 1,700 60,000

r5dn.24xlarge 19,000 2,375 80,000

r5dn.metal 19,000 2,375 80,000

r5n.large * 4,750 593.75 18,750

r5n.xlarge * 4,750 593.75 18,750

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Instance size Maximum bandwidth Maximum throughput Maximum IOPS (16 KiB
(Mbps) (MB/s, 128 KiB I/O) I/O)

r5n.2xlarge * 4,750 593.75 18,750

r5n.4xlarge 4,750 593.75 18,750

r5n.8xlarge 6,800 850 30,000

r5n.12xlarge 9,500 1,187.5 40,000

r5n.16xlarge 13,600 1,700 60,000

r5n.24xlarge 19,000 2,375 80,000

r5n.metal 19,000 2,375 80,000

t3.nano * 2,085 260.57 11,800

t3.micro * 2,085 260.57 11,800

t3.small * 2,085 260.57 11,800

t3.medium * 2,085 260.57 11,800

t3.large * 2,780 347.5 15,700

t3.xlarge * 2,780 347.5 15,700

t3.2xlarge * 2,780 347.5 15,700

t3a.nano * 2,085 260.57 11,800

t3a.micro * 2,085 260.57 11,800

t3a.small * 2,085 260.57 11,800

t3a.medium * 2,085 260.57 11,800

t3a.large * 2,780 347.5 15,700

t3a.xlarge * 2,780 347.5 15,700

t3a.2xlarge * 2,780 347.5 15,700

u-6tb1.56xlarge 38,000 4,750 160,000

u-6tb1.112xlarge 38,000 4,750 160,000

u-6tb1.metal 38,000 4,750 160,000

u-9tb1.112xlarge 38,000 4,750 160,000

u-9tb1.metal 38,000 4,750 160,000

u-12tb1.112xlarge 38,000 4,750 160,000

u-12tb1.metal 38,000 4,750 160,000

u-18tb1.metal 38,000 4,750 160,000

u-24tb1.metal 38,000 4,750 160,000

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Instance size Maximum bandwidth Maximum throughput Maximum IOPS (16 KiB
(Mbps) (MB/s, 128 KiB I/O) I/O)

x1.16xlarge 7,000 875 40,000

x1.32xlarge 14,000 1,750 80,000

x1e.xlarge 500 62.5 3,700

x1e.2xlarge 1,000 125 7,400

x1e.4xlarge 1,750 218.75 10,000

x1e.8xlarge 3,500 437.5 20,000

x1e.16xlarge 7,000 875 40,000

x1e.32xlarge 14,000 1,750 80,000

z1d.large * 3,170 396.25 13,333

z1d.xlarge * 3,170 396.25 13,333

z1d.2xlarge 3,170 396.25 13,333

z1d.3xlarge 4,750 593.75 20,000

z1d.6xlarge 9,500 1,187.5 40,000

z1d.12xlarge 19,000 2,375 80,000

z1d.metal 19,000 2,375 80,000

* These instance types can support maximum performance for 30 minutes at least once every 24 hours.
If you have a workload that requires sustained maximum performance for longer than 30 minutes, select
an instance type according to baseline performance as shown in the following table.

Instance size Baseline bandwidth Baseline throughput Baseline IOPS (16 KiB
(Mbps) (MB/s, 128 KiB I/O) I/O)

c5.large 650 81.25 4,000

c5.xlarge 1,150 143.75 6,000

c5.2xlarge 2,300 287.5 10,000

c5a.large 200 25 800

c5a.xlarge 400 50 1,600

c5a.2xlarge 800 100 3,200

c5a.4xlarge 1,580 198 6,600

c5ad.large 200 25 800

c5ad.xlarge 400 50 1,600

c5ad.2xlarge 800 100 3,200

c5ad.4xlarge 1,580 198 6,600

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Instance size Baseline bandwidth Baseline throughput Baseline IOPS (16 KiB
(Mbps) (MB/s, 128 KiB I/O) I/O)

c5d.large 650 81.25 4,000

c5d.xlarge 1,150 143.75 6,000

c5d.2xlarge 2,300 287.5 10,000

c5n.large 650 81.25 4,000

c5n.xlarge 1,150 143.75 6,000

c5n.2xlarge 2,300 287.5 10,000

d3.xlarge 850 106.25 5,000

d3.2xlarge 1,700 212.5 10,000

d3en.large 425 53.125 2,500

d3en.xlarge 850 106.25 5,000

d3en.2xlarge 1,700 212.5 10,000

g4ad.xlarge 400 50 1,700

g4ad.2xlarge 800 100 3,400

g4ad.4xlarge 1,580 197.5 6,700

g4dn.xlarge 950 118.75 3,000

g4dn.2xlarge 1,150 143.75 6,000

i3en.large 577 72.1 3,000

i3en.xlarge 1,154 144.2 6,000

i3en.2xlarge 2,307 288.39 12,000

i3en.3xlarge 3,800 475 15,000

m5.large 650 81.25 3,600

m5.xlarge 1,150 143.75 6,000

m5.2xlarge 2,300 287.5 12,000

m5a.large 650 81.25 3,600

m5a.xlarge 1,085 135.63 6,000

m5a.2xlarge 1,580 197.5 8,333

m5ad.large 650 81.25 3,600

m5ad.xlarge 1,085 135.63 6,000

m5ad.2xlarge 1,580 197.5 8,333

m5d.large 650 81.25 3,600

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Instance size Baseline bandwidth Baseline throughput Baseline IOPS (16 KiB
(Mbps) (MB/s, 128 KiB I/O) I/O)

m5d.xlarge 1,150 143.75 6,000

m5d.2xlarge 2,300 287.5 12,000

m5dn.large 650 81.25 3,600

m5dn.xlarge 1,150 143.75 6,000

m5dn.2xlarge 2,300 287.5 12,000

m5n.large 650 81.25 3,600

m5n.xlarge 1,150 143.75 6,000

m5n.2xlarge 2,300 287.5 12,000

m5zn.large 800 100 3,333

m5zn.xlarge 1,580 195.5 6,667

m6i.large 650 81.25 3,600

m6i.xlarge 1,250 156.25 6,000

m6i.2xlarge 2,500 312.5 12,000

m6i.4xlarge 5,000 625 20,000

r5.large 650 81.25 3,600

r5.xlarge 1,150 143.75 6,000

r5.2xlarge 2,300 287.5 12,000

r5a.large 650 81.25 3,600

r5a.xlarge 1,085 135.63 6,000

r5a.2xlarge 1,580 197.5 8,333

r5ad.large 650 81.25 3,600

r5ad.xlarge 1,085 135.63 6,000

r5ad.2xlarge 1,580 197.5 8,333

r5b.large 1,250 156.25 5,417

r5b.xlarge 2,500 312.5 10,833

r5b.2xlarge 5,000 625 21,667

r5d.large 650 81.25 3,600

r5d.xlarge 1,150 143.75 6,000

r5d.2xlarge 2,300 287.5 12,000

r5dn.large 650 81.25 3,600

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Instance size Baseline bandwidth Baseline throughput Baseline IOPS (16 KiB
(Mbps) (MB/s, 128 KiB I/O) I/O)

r5dn.xlarge 1,150 143.75 6,000

r5dn.2xlarge 2,300 287.5 12,000

r5n.large 650 81.25 3,600

r5n.xlarge 1,150 143.75 6,000

r5n.2xlarge 2,300 287.5 12,000

t3.nano 43 5.43 250

t3.micro 87 10.86 500

t3.small 174 21.71 1,000

t3.medium 347 43.43 2,000

t3.large 695 86.86 4,000

t3.xlarge 695 86.86 4,000

t3.2xlarge 695 86.86 4,000

t3a.nano 45 5.63 250

t3a.micro 90 11.25 500

t3a.small 175 21.88 1,000

t3a.medium 350 43.75 2,000

t3a.large 695 86.86 4,000

t3a.xlarge 695 86.86 4,000

t3a.2xlarge 695 86.86 4,000

z1d.large 800 100 3,333

z1d.xlarge 1,580 197.5 6,667

EBS optimization supported

The following table lists the instance types that support EBS optimization but EBS optimization is
not enabled by default. You can enable EBS optimization when you launch these instances or after
they are running. Instances must have EBS optimization enabled to achieve the level of performance
described. When you enable EBS optimization for an instance that is not EBS-optimized by default, you
pay an additional low, hourly fee for the dedicated capacity. For pricing information, see EBS-Optimized
Instances on the Amazon EC2 Pricing, On-Demand Pricing page.
Note
You can also view this information programatically using the AWS CLI. For more information, see
View instances types that support EBS optimization (p. 1372).

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Instance size Maximum bandwidth Maximum throughput Maximum IOPS (16 KiB
(Mbps) (MB/s, 128 KiB I/O) I/O)

c1.xlarge 1,000 125 8,000

c3.xlarge 500 62.5 4,000

c3.2xlarge 1,000 125 8,000

c3.4xlarge 2,000 250 16,000

g2.2xlarge 1,000 125 8,000

i2.xlarge 500 62.5 4,000

i2.2xlarge 1,000 125 8,000

i2.4xlarge 2,000 250 16,000

m1.large 500 62.5 4,000

m1.xlarge 1,000 125 8,000

m2.2xlarge 500 62.5 4,000

m2.4xlarge 1,000 125 8,000

m3.xlarge 500 62.5 4,000

m3.2xlarge 1,000 125 8,000

r3.xlarge 500 62.5 4,000

r3.2xlarge 1,000 125 8,000

r3.4xlarge 2,000 250 16,000

The i2.8xlarge, c3.8xlarge, and r3.8xlarge instances do not have dedicated EBS bandwidth and
therefore do not offer EBS optimization. On these instances, network traffic and Amazon EBS traffic
share the same 10-gigabit network interface.

Get maximum performance

You can use the EBSIOBalance% and EBSByteBalance% metrics to help you determine whether your
instances are sized correctly. You can view these metrics in the CloudWatch console and set an alarm that
is triggered based on a threshold you specify. These metrics are expressed as a percentage. Instances
with a consistently low balance percentage are candidates to size up. Instances where the balance
percentage never drops below 100% are candidates for downsizing. For more information, see Monitor
your instances using CloudWatch (p. 851).

The high memory instances are designed to run large in-memory databases, including production
deployments of the SAP HANA in-memory database, in the cloud. To maximize EBS performance,
use high memory instances with an even number of io1 or io2 volumes with identical provisioned
performance. For example, for IOPS heavy workloads, use four io1 or io2 volumes with 40,000
provisioned IOPS to get the maximum 160,000 instance IOPS. Similarly, for throughput heavy workloads,
use six io1 or io2 volumes with 48,000 provisioned IOPS to get the maximum 4,750 MB/s throughput.
For additional recommendations, see Storage Configuration for SAP HANA.

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Considerations

• G4dn, I3en, M5a, M5ad, R5a, R5ad, T3, T3a, and Z1d instances launched after February 26, 2020
provide the maximum performance listed in the table above. To get the maximum performance from
an instance launched before February 26, 2020, stop and start it.
• C5, C5d, C5n, M5, M5d, M5n, M5dn, R5, R5d, R5n, R5dn, and P3dn instances launched after
December 3, 2019 provide the maximum performance listed in the table above. To get the maximum
performance from an instance launched before December 3, 2019, stop and start it.
• u-6tb1.metal, u-9tb1.metal, and u-12tb1.metal instances launched after March 12, 2020
provide the performance in the table above. Instances of these types launched before March 12, 2020
might provide lower performance. To get the maximum performance from an instance launched
before March 12, 2020, contact your account team to upgrade the instance at no additional cost.

View instances types that support EBS optimization

You can use the AWS CLI to view the instances types in the current Region that support EBS
optimization.

To view the instance types that support EBS optimization and that have it enabled by default

Use the following describe-instance-types command.

C:\> aws ec2 describe-instance-types \

--query 'InstanceTypes[].{InstanceType:InstanceType,"MaxBandwidth(Mb/
s)":EbsInfo.EbsOptimizedInfo.MaximumBandwidthInMbps,MaxIOPS:EbsInfo.EbsOptimizedInfo.MaximumIops,"MaxTh
s)":EbsInfo.EbsOptimizedInfo.MaximumThroughputInMBps}' \
--filters Name=ebs-info.ebs-optimized-support,Values=default --output=table

Example output for eu-west-1:

-----------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------
| DescribeInstanceTypes
|
+--------------+--------------------+---------------------+-----------
+-----------------------+
| EBSOptimized | InstanceType | MaxBandwidth(Mb/s) | MaxIOPS | MaxThroughput(MB/
s) |
+--------------+--------------------+---------------------+-----------
+-----------------------+
| default | m5dn.8xlarge | 6800 | 30000 | 850.0
|
| default | m6gd.xlarge | 4750 | 20000 | 593.75
|
| default | c4.4xlarge | 2000 | 16000 | 250.0
|
| default | r4.16xlarge | 14000 | 75000 | 1750.0
|
| default | m5ad.large | 2880 | 16000 | 360.0
|
...

To view the instance types that support EBS optimization but do not have it enabled by default

Use the following describe-instance-types command.

C:\> aws ec2 describe-instance-types \

--query 'InstanceTypes[].{InstanceType:InstanceType,"MaxBandwidth(Mb/
s)":EbsInfo.EbsOptimizedInfo.MaximumBandwidthInMbps,MaxIOPS:EbsInfo.EbsOptimizedInfo.MaximumIops,"MaxTh
s)":EbsInfo.EbsOptimizedInfo.MaximumThroughputInMBps}' \

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--filters Name=ebs-info.ebs-optimized-support,Values=supported --output=table

Example output for eu-west-1:

------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------
| DescribeInstanceTypes |
+--------------+---------------+----------------------+----------+-----------------------+
| EBSOptimized | InstanceType | MaxBandwidth(Mb/s) | MaxIOPS | MaxThroughput(MB/s) |
+--------------+---------------+----------------------+----------+-----------------------+
| supported | m2.4xlarge | 1000 | 8000 | 125.0 |
| supported | i2.2xlarge | 1000 | 8000 | 125.0 |
| supported | r3.4xlarge | 2000 | 16000 | 250.0 |
| supported | m3.xlarge | 500 | 4000 | 62.5 |
| supported | r3.2xlarge | 1000 | 8000 | 125.0 |
...

Enable EBS optimization at launch

You can enable optimization for an instance by setting its attribute for EBS optimization.

To enable Amazon EBS optimization when launching an instance using the console

1. Open the Amazon EC2 console at https://console.aws.amazon.com/ec2/.

2. Choose Launch Instance.
3. In Step 1: Choose an Amazon Machine Image (AMI), select an AMI.
4. In Step 2: Choose an Instance Type, select an instance type that is listed as supporting Amazon EBS
optimization.
5. In Step 3: Configure Instance Details, complete the fields that you need and choose Launch as
EBS-optimized instance. If the instance type that you selected in the previous step doesn't support
Amazon EBS optimization, this option is not present. If the instance type that you selected is
Amazon EBS–optimized by default, this option is selected and you can't deselect it.
6. Follow the directions to complete the wizard and launch your instance.

To enable EBS optimization when launching an instance using the command line

You can use one of the following commands with the corresponding option. For more information about
these command line interfaces, see Access Amazon EC2 (p. 3).

• run-instances with --ebs-optimized (AWS CLI)

• New-EC2Instance with -EbsOptimized (AWS Tools for Windows PowerShell)

Enable EBS optimization for an existing instance

You can enable or disable optimization for an existing instance by modifying its Amazon EBS–optimized
instance attribute. If the instance is running, you must stop it first.
Warning
When you stop an instance, the data on any instance store volumes is erased. To keep data from
instance store volumes, be sure to back it up to persistent storage.

To enable EBS optimization for an existing instance using the console

1. Open the Amazon EC2 console at https://console.aws.amazon.com/ec2/.

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2. In the navigation pane, choose Instances, and select the instance.

3. To stop the instance, choose Actions, Instance state, Stop instance. It can take a few minutes for
the instance to stop.
4. With the instance still selected, choose Actions, Instance settings, Change instance type.
5. For Change Instance Type, do one of the following:

• If the instance type of your instance is Amazon EBS–optimized by default, EBS-optimized is

selected and you can't change it. You can choose Cancel, because Amazon EBS optimization is
already enabled for the instance.
• If the instance type of your instance supports Amazon EBS optimization, choose EBS-optimized
and then choose Apply.
• If the instance type of your instance does not support Amazon EBS optimization, you can't choose
EBS-optimized. You can select an instance type from Instance type that supports Amazon EBS
optimization, choose EBS-optimized, and then choose Apply.
6. Choose Instance state, Start instance.

To enable EBS optimization for an existing instance using the command line

1. If the instance is running, use one of the following commands to stop it:

• stop-instances (AWS CLI)

• Stop-EC2Instance (AWS Tools for Windows PowerShell)
2. To enable EBS optimization, use one of the following commands with the corresponding option:

• modify-instance-attribute with --ebs-optimized (AWS CLI)

• Edit-EC2InstanceAttribute with -EbsOptimized (AWS Tools for Windows PowerShell)

Amazon EBS volume performance on Windows

instances
Several factors, including I/O characteristics and the configuration of your instances and volumes,
can affect the performance of Amazon EBS. Customers who follow the guidance on our Amazon EBS
and Amazon EC2 product detail pages typically achieve good performance out of the box. However,
there are some cases where you may need to do some tuning in order to achieve peak performance on
the platform. This topic discusses general best practices as well as performance tuning that is specific
to certain use cases. We recommend that you tune performance with information from your actual
workload, in addition to benchmarking, to determine your optimal configuration. After you learn the
basics of working with EBS volumes, it's a good idea to look at the I/O performance you require and at
your options for increasing Amazon EBS performance to meet those requirements.

AWS updates to the performance of EBS volume types might not immediately take effect on your
existing volumes. To see full performance on an older volume, you might first need to perform a
ModifyVolume action on it. For more information, see Modifying the Size, IOPS, or Type of an EBS
Volume on Windows.

Contents
• Amazon EBS performance tips (p. 1375)
• I/O characteristics and monitoring (p. 1376)
• Initialize Amazon EBS volumes (p. 1379)
• RAID configuration on Windows (p. 1381)
• Benchmark EBS volumes (p. 1385)

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Amazon EBS performance tips

These tips represent best practices for getting optimal performance from your EBS volumes in a variety
of user scenarios.

Use EBS-optimized instances

On instances without support for EBS-optimized throughput, network traffic can contend with traffic
between your instance and your EBS volumes; on EBS-optimized instances, the two types of traffic are
kept separate. Some EBS-optimized instance configurations incur an extra cost (such as C3, R3, and
M3), while others are always EBS-optimized at no extra cost (such as M4, C4, C5, and D2). For more
information, see Amazon EBS–optimized instances (p. 1357).

Understand how performance is calculated

When you measure the performance of your EBS volumes, it is important to understand the units of
measure involved and how performance is calculated. For more information, see I/O characteristics and
monitoring (p. 1376).

Understand your workload

There is a relationship between the maximum performance of your EBS volumes, the size and number of
I/O operations, and the time it takes for each action to complete. Each of these factors (performance, I/
O, and latency) affects the others, and different applications are more sensitive to one factor or another.

Be aware of the performance penalty When initializing volumes from snapshots

There is a significant increase in latency when you first access each block of data on a new EBS volume
that was created from a snapshot. You can avoid this performance hit using one of the following options:

• Access each block prior to putting the volume into production. This process is called initialization
(formerly known as pre-warming). For more information, see Initialize Amazon EBS volumes (p. 1379).
• Enable fast snapshot restore on a snapshot to ensure that the EBS volumes created from it are fully-
initialized at creation and instantly deliver all of their provisioned performance. For more information,
see Amazon EBS fast snapshot restore (p. 1351).

Factors that can degrade HDD performance

When you create a snapshot of a Throughput Optimized HDD (st1) or Cold HDD (sc1) volume,
performance may drop as far as the volume's baseline value while the snapshot is in progress. This
behavior is specific to these volume types. Other factors that can limit performance include driving
more throughput than the instance can support, the performance penalty encountered while initializing
volumes created from a snapshot, and excessive amounts of small, random I/O on the volume. For more
information about calculating throughput for HDD volumes, see Amazon EBS volume types (p. 1177).

Your performance can also be impacted if your application isn’t sending enough I/O requests. This can
be monitored by looking at your volume’s queue length and I/O size. The queue length is the number
of pending I/O requests from your application to your volume. For maximum consistency, HDD-backed
volumes must maintain a queue length (rounded to the nearest whole number) of 4 or more when
performing 1 MiB sequential I/O. For more information about ensuring consistent performance of your
volumes, see I/O characteristics and monitoring (p. 1376)

Use RAID 0 to maximize utilization of instance resources

Some instance types can drive more I/O throughput than what you can provision for a single EBS
volume. You can join multiple volumes together in a RAID 0 configuration to use the available bandwidth
for these instances. For more information, see RAID configuration on Windows (p. 1381).

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Track performance using Amazon CloudWatch

Amazon Web Services provides performance metrics for Amazon EBS that you can analyze and view with
Amazon CloudWatch and status checks that you can use to monitor the health of your volumes. For more
information, see Monitor the status of your volumes (p. 1210).

I/O characteristics and monitoring

On a given volume configuration, certain I/O characteristics drive the performance behavior for your EBS
volumes. SSD-backed volumes—General Purpose SSD (gp2 and gp3) and Provisioned IOPS SSD (io1 and
io2)—deliver consistent performance whether an I/O operation is random or sequential. HDD-backed
volumes—Throughput Optimized HDD (st1) and Cold HDD (sc1)—deliver optimal performance only
when I/O operations are large and sequential. To understand how SSD and HDD volumes will perform in
your application, it is important to know the connection between demand on the volume, the quantity
of IOPS available to it, the time it takes for an I/O operation to complete, and the volume's throughput
limits.

Topics
• IOPS (p. 1376)
• Volume queue length and latency (p. 1377)
• I/O size and volume throughput limits (p. 1377)
• Monitor I/O characteristics using CloudWatch (p. 1378)
• Related resources (p. 1379)

IOPS
IOPS are a unit of measure representing input/output operations per second. The operations are
measured in KiB, and the underlying drive technology determines the maximum amount of data that a
volume type counts as a single I/O. I/O size is capped at 256 KiB for SSD volumes and 1,024 KiB for HDD
volumes because SSD volumes handle small or random I/O much more efficiently than HDD volumes.

When small I/O operations are physically sequential, Amazon EBS attempts to merge them into a single
I/O operation up to the maximum I/O size. Similarly, when I/O operations are larger than the maximum
I/O size, Amazon EBS attempts to split them into smaller I/O operations. The following table shows
some examples.

Volume Maximum I/O size I/O operations from Number of IOPS Notes

type your application

SSD 256 KiB 1 x 1024 KiB I/O 4 (1,024÷256=4) Amazon EBS splits
operation the 1,024 I/O
operation into four
smaller 256 KiB
operations.

8 x sequential 32 KiB 1 (8x32=256) Amazon EBS

I/O operations merges the eight
sequential 32 KiB I/
O operations into
a single 256 KiB
operation.

8 random 32 KiB I/O 8 Amazon EBS

operations counts random

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Volume Maximum I/O size I/O operations from Number of IOPS Notes

type your application
I/O operations
separately.

HDD 1,024 KiB 1 x 1024 KiB I/O 1 The I/O operation is

operation already equal to the
maximum I/O size.
It is not merged or
split.

8 x sequential 128 1 (8x128=1,024) Amazon EBS

KiB I/O operations merges the eight
sequential 128 KiB I/
O operations into a
single 1,024 KiB I/O
operation.

8 random 32 KiB I/O 8 Amazon EBS

operations counts random
I/O operations
separately.

Consequently, when you create an SSD-backed volume supporting 3,000 IOPS (either by provisioning a
Provisioned IOPS SSD volume at 3,000 IOPS or by sizing a General Purpose SSD volume at 1,000 GiB),
and you attach it to an EBS-optimized instance that can provide sufficient bandwidth, you can transfer
up to 3,000 I/Os of data per second, with throughput determined by I/O size.

Volume queue length and latency

The volume queue length is the number of pending I/O requests for a device. Latency is the true end-to-
end client time of an I/O operation, in other words, the time elapsed between sending an I/O to EBS and
receiving an acknowledgement from EBS that the I/O read or write is complete. Queue length must be
correctly calibrated with I/O size and latency to avoid creating bottlenecks either on the guest operating
system or on the network link to EBS.

Optimal queue length varies for each workload, depending on your particular application's sensitivity to
IOPS and latency. If your workload is not delivering enough I/O requests to fully use the performance
available to your EBS volume, then your volume might not deliver the IOPS or throughput that you have
provisioned.

Transaction-intensive applications are sensitive to increased I/O latency and are well-suited for SSD-
backed volumes. You can maintain high IOPS while keeping latency down by maintaining a low queue
length and a high number of IOPS available to the volume. Consistently driving more IOPS to a volume
than it has available can cause increased I/O latency.

Throughput-intensive applications are less sensitive to increased I/O latency, and are well-suited for
HDD-backed volumes. You can maintain high throughput to HDD-backed volumes by maintaining a high
queue length when performing large, sequential I/O.

I/O size and volume throughput limits

For SSD-backed volumes, if your I/O size is very large, you may experience a smaller number of IOPS
than you provisioned because you are hitting the throughput limit of the volume. For example, a gp2
volume under 1,000 GiB with burst credits available has an IOPS limit of 3,000 and a volume throughput
limit of 250 MiB/s. If you are using a 256 KiB I/O size, your volume reaches its throughput limit at 1000
IOPS (1000 x 256 KiB = 250 MiB). For smaller I/O sizes (such as 16 KiB), this same volume can sustain

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3,000 IOPS because the throughput is well below 250 MiB/s. (These examples assume that your volume's
I/O is not hitting the throughput limits of the instance.) For more information about the throughput
limits for each EBS volume type, see Amazon EBS volume types (p. 1177).

For smaller I/O operations, you may see a higher-than-provisioned IOPS value as measured from inside
your instance. This happens when the instance operating system merges small I/O operations into a
larger operation before passing them to Amazon EBS.

If your workload uses sequential I/Os on HDD-backed st1 and sc1 volumes, you may experience a
higher than expected number of IOPS as measured from inside your instance. This happens when the
instance operating system merges sequential I/Os and counts them in 1,024 KiB-sized units. If your
workload uses small or random I/Os, you may experience a lower throughput than you expect. This is
because we count each random, non-sequential I/O toward the total IOPS count, which can cause you to
hit the volume's IOPS limit sooner than expected.

Whatever your EBS volume type, if you are not experiencing the IOPS or throughput you expect in your
configuration, ensure that your EC2 instance bandwidth is not the limiting factor. You should always use
a current-generation, EBS-optimized instance (or one that includes 10 Gb/s network connectivity) for
optimal performance. For more information, see Amazon EBS–optimized instances (p. 1357). Another
possible cause for not experiencing the expected IOPS is that you are not driving enough I/O to the EBS
volumes.

Monitor I/O characteristics using CloudWatch

You can monitor these I/O characteristics with each volume's CloudWatch volume metrics (p. 1389).
Important metrics to consider include the following:

• BurstBalance
• VolumeReadBytes
• VolumeWriteBytes
• VolumeReadOps
• VolumeWriteOps
• VolumeQueueLength

BurstBalance displays the burst bucket balance for gp2, st1, and sc1 volumes as a percentage of
the remaining balance. When your burst bucket is depleted, volume I/O (for gp2 volumes) or volume
throughput (for st1 and sc1 volumes) is throttled to the baseline. Check the BurstBalance value to
determine whether your volume is being throttled for this reason. For a complete list of the available
Amazon EBS metrics, see Amazon EBS metrics (p. 1388) and Amazon EBS metrics for Nitro-based
instances (p. 858).

HDD-backed st1 and sc1 volumes are designed to perform best with workloads that take
advantage of the 1,024 KiB maximum I/O size. To determine your volume's average I/O size, divide
VolumeWriteBytes by VolumeWriteOps. The same calculation applies to read operations. If average
I/O size is below 64 KiB, increasing the size of the I/O operations sent to an st1 or sc1 volume should
improve performance.
Note
If average I/O size is at or near 44 KiB, you might be using an instance or kernel without support
for indirect descriptors. Any Linux kernel 3.8 and above has this support, as well as any current-
generation instance.

If your I/O latency is higher than you require, check VolumeQueueLength to make sure your application
is not trying to drive more IOPS than you have provisioned. If your application requires a greater number
of IOPS than your volume can provide, you should consider using a larger gp2 volume with a higher base
performance level or an io1 or io2 volume with more provisioned IOPS to achieve faster latencies.

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Related resources
For more information about Amazon EBS I/O characteristics, see the following re:Invent presentation:
Amazon EBS: Designing for Performance.

Initialize Amazon EBS volumes

Empty EBS volumes receive their maximum performance the moment that they are created and do not
require initialization (formerly known as pre-warming).

For volumes that were created from snapshots, the storage blocks must be pulled down from Amazon
S3 and written to the volume before you can access them. This preliminary action takes time and can
cause a significant increase in the latency of I/O operations the first time each block is accessed. Volume
performance is achieved after all blocks have been downloaded and written to the volume.
Important
While initializing Provisioned IOPS SSD volumes that were created from snapshots, the
performance of the volume may drop below 50 percent of its expected level, which causes the
volume to display a warning state in the I/O Performance status check. This is expected, and
you can ignore the warning state on Provisioned IOPS SSD volumes while you are initializing
them. For more information, see EBS volume status checks (p. 1210).

For most applications, amortizing the initialization cost over the lifetime of the volume is acceptable. To
avoid this initial performance hit in a production environment, you can use one of the following options:

• Force the immediate initialization of the entire volume. For more information, see Initialize Amazon
EBS volumes on Windows (p. 1379).
• Enable fast snapshot restore on a snapshot to ensure that the EBS volumes created from it are fully-
initialized at creation and instantly deliver all of their provisioned performance. For more information,
see Amazon EBS fast snapshot restore (p. 1351).

Initialize Amazon EBS volumes on Windows

New EBS volumes receive their maximum performance the moment that they are available and do
not require initialization (formerly known as pre-warming). For volumes that have been created from
snapshots, use dd or fio for Windows to read from all of the blocks on a volume. All existing data on the
volume will be preserved.

For information about initializing Amazon EBS volumes on Linux, see Initializing Amazon EBS volumes on
Linux.

Before using either tool, gather information about the disks on your system as follows:

To gather information about the system disks

1. Use the wmic command to list the available disks on your system:

wmic diskdrive get size,deviceid

The following is example output:

DeviceID Size
\\.\PHYSICALDRIVE2 80517265920
\\.\PHYSICALDRIVE1 80517265920
\\.\PHYSICALDRIVE0 128849011200
\\.\PHYSICALDRIVE3 107372805120

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2. Identify the disk to initialize using dd or fio. The C: drive is on \\.\PHYSICALDRIVE0. You can use
the diskmgmt.msc utility to compare drive letters to disk drive numbers if you are not sure which
drive number to use.

Use dd

Complete the following procedures to install and use dd to initialize a volume.

Important considerations

• Initializing a volume takes from several minutes up to several hours, depending on your EC2 instance
bandwidth, the IOPS provisioned for the volume, and the size of the volume.
• Incorrect use of dd can easily destroy a volume's data. Be sure to follow this procedure precisely.

To install dd for Windows

The dd for Windows program provides a similar experience to the dd program that is commonly
available for Linux and Unix systems, and it enables you to initialize Amazon EBS volumes that have been
created from snapshots. The most recent beta versions support the /dev/null virtual device. If you
install an earlier version, you can use the nul virtual device instead. Full documentation is available at
http://www.chrysocome.net/dd.

1. Download the most recent binary version of dd for Windows from http://www.chrysocome.net/dd.
2. (Optional) Create a folder for command line utilities that is easy to locate and remember, such as
C:\bin. If you already have a designated folder for command line utilities, you can use that folder
instead in the following step.
3. Unzip the binary package and copy the dd.exe file to your command line utilities folder (for
example, C:\bin).
4. Add the command line utilities folder to your Path environment variable so you can run the
programs in that folder from anywhere.

a. Choose Start, open the context (right-click) menu for Computer, and then choose Properties.
b. Choose Advanced system settings, Environment Variables.
c. For System Variables, select the variable Path and choose Edit.
d. For Variable value, append a semicolon and the location of your command line utility folder
(;C:\bin\) to the end of the existing value.
e. Choose OK to close the Edit System Variable window.
5. Open a new command prompt window. The previous step doesn't update the environment variables
in your current command prompt windows. The command prompt windows that you open now that
you completed the previous step are updated.

To initialize a volume using dd for Windows

Run the following command to read all blocks on the specified device (and send the output to the /dev/
null virtual device). This command safely initializes your existing data.

dd if=\\.\PHYSICALDRIVEn of=/dev/null bs=1M --progress --size

You might get an error if dd attempts to read beyond the end of the volume. You can safely ignore this
error.

If you used an earlier version of the dd command, it does not support the /dev/null device. Instead,
you can use the nul device as follows.

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dd if=\\.\PHYSICALDRIVEn of=nul bs=1M --progress --size

Use fio
Complete the following procedures to install and use fio to initialize a volume.

To install fio for Windows

The fio for Windows program provides a similar experience to the fio program that is commonly
available for Linux and Unix systems, and it allows you to initialize Amazon EBS volumes created from
snapshots. For more information, see https://github.com/axboe/fio.

1. Download the fio MSI installer (select the latest x86 or x64 build, then select Artifacts).
2. Install fio.

To initialize a volume using fio for Windows

1. Run a command similar to the following to initialize a volume:

fio --filename=\\.\PHYSICALDRIVEn --rw=read --bs=128k --iodepth=32 --direct=1 --

name=volume-initialize

2. When the operation completes, you are ready to use your new volume. For more information, see
Make an Amazon EBS volume available for use on Windows (p. 1200).

RAID configuration on Windows

With Amazon EBS, you can use any of the standard RAID configurations that you can use with a
traditional bare metal server, as long as that particular RAID configuration is supported by the operating
system for your instance. This is because all RAID is accomplished at the software level.

Amazon EBS volume data is replicated across multiple servers in an Availability Zone to prevent the loss
of data from the failure of any single component. This replication makes Amazon EBS volumes ten times
more reliable than typical commodity disk drives. For more information, see Amazon EBS Availability and
Durability in the Amazon EBS product detail pages.
Note
You should avoid booting from a RAID volume. If one of the devices fails, you may be unable to
boot the operating system.

If you need to create a RAID array on a Linux instance, see RAID configuration on Linux in the Amazon
EC2 User Guide for Linux Instances.

Contents
• RAID configuration options (p. 1381)
• Create a RAID 0 array on Windows (p. 1382)
• Create snapshots of volumes in a RAID array (p. 1385)

RAID configuration options

Creating a RAID 0 array allows you to achieve a higher level of performance for a file system than you
can provision on a single Amazon EBS volume. Use RAID 0 when I/O performance is of the utmost
importance. With RAID 0, I/O is distributed across the volumes in a stripe. If you add a volume, you get
the straight addition of throughput and IOPS. However, keep in mind that performance of the stripe is
limited to the worst performing volume in the set, and that the loss of a single volume in the set results
in a complete data loss for the array.

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The resulting size of a RAID 0 array is the sum of the sizes of the volumes within it, and the bandwidth
is the sum of the available bandwidth of the volumes within it. For example, two 500 GiB io1 volumes
with 4,000 provisioned IOPS each create a 1000 GiB RAID 0 array with an available bandwidth of 8,000
IOPS and 1,000 MiB/s of throughput.
Important
RAID 5 and RAID 6 are not recommended for Amazon EBS because the parity write operations
of these RAID modes consume some of the IOPS available to your volumes. Depending on the
configuration of your RAID array, these RAID modes provide 20-30% fewer usable IOPS than
a RAID 0 configuration. Increased cost is a factor with these RAID modes as well; when using
identical volume sizes and speeds, a 2-volume RAID 0 array can outperform a 4-volume RAID 6
array that costs twice as much.
RAID 1 is also not recommended for use with Amazon EBS. RAID 1 requires more Amazon
EC2 to Amazon EBS bandwidth than non-RAID configurations because the data is written to
multiple volumes simultaneously. In addition, RAID 1 does not provide any write performance
improvement.

Create a RAID 0 array on Windows

This documentation provides a basic RAID 0 setup example.

Before you perform this procedure, you need to decide how large your RAID 0 array should be and how
many IOPS you want to provision.

Use the following procedure to create the RAID 0 array. Note that you can get directions for Linux
instances from Create a RAID 0 array on Linux in the Amazon EC2 User Guide for Linux Instances.

To create a RAID 0 array on Windows

1. Create the Amazon EBS volumes for your array. For more information, see Create an Amazon EBS
volume (p. 1196).
Important
Create volumes with identical size and IOPS performance values for your array. Make sure
you do not create an array that exceeds the available bandwidth of your EC2 instance.
2. Attach the Amazon EBS volumes to the instance that you want to host the array. For more
information, see Attach an Amazon EBS volume to an instance (p. 1199).
3. Connect to your Windows instance. For more information, see Connect to your Windows
instance (p. 417).
4. Open a command prompt and type the diskpart command.

diskpart

Microsoft DiskPart version 6.1.7601

Copyright (C) 1999-2008 Microsoft Corporation.
On computer: WIN-BM6QPPL51CO

5. At the DISKPART prompt, list the available disks with the following command.

DISKPART> list disk

Disk ### Status Size Free Dyn Gpt

-------- ------------- ------- ------- --- ---
Disk 0 Online 30 GB 0 B
Disk 1 Online 8 GB 0 B
Disk 2 Online 8 GB 0 B

Identify the disks you want to use in your array and take note of their disk numbers.

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6. Each disk you want to use in your array must be an online dynamic disk that does not contain any
existing volumes. Use the following steps to convert basic disks to dynamic disks and to delete any
existing volumes.

a. Select a disk you want to use in your array with the following command, substituting n with
your disk number.

DISKPART> select disk n

Disk n is now the selected disk.

b. If the selected disk is listed as Offline, bring it online by running the online disk command.
c. If the selected disk does not have an asterisk in the Dyn column in the previous list disk
command output, you need to convert it to a dynamic disk.

DISKPART> convert dynamic

Note
If you receive an error that the disk is write protected, you can clear the read-only flag
with the ATTRIBUTE DISK CLEAR READONLY command and then try the dynamic disk
conversion again.
d. Use the detail disk command to check for existing volumes on the selected disk.

DISKPART> detail disk

XENSRC PVDISK SCSI Disk Device

Disk ID: 2D8BF659
Type : SCSI
Status : Online
Path : 0
Target : 1
LUN ID : 0
Location Path : PCIROOT(0)#PCI(0300)#SCSI(P00T01L00)
Current Read-only State : No
Read-only : No
Boot Disk : No
Pagefile Disk : No
Hibernation File Disk : No
Crashdump Disk : No
Clustered Disk : No

Volume ### Ltr Label Fs Type Size Status Info

---------- --- ----------- ----- ---------- ------- --------- --------
Volume 2 D NEW VOLUME FAT32 Simple 8189 MB Healthy

Note any volume numbers on the disk. In this example, the volume number is 2. If there are no
volumes, you can skip the next step.
e. (Only required if volumes were identified in the previous step) Select and delete any existing
volumes on the disk that you identified in the previous step.
Warning
This destroys any existing data on the volume.

i. Select the volume, substituting n with your volume number.

DISKPART> select volume n

Volume n is the selected volume.

ii. Delete the volume.

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DISKPART> delete volume

DiskPart successfully deleted the volume.

iii. Repeat these substeps for each volume you need to delete on the selected disk.
f. Repeat Step 6 (p. 1383) for each disk you want to use in your array.
7. Verify that the disks you want to use are now dynamic. In this case, we're using disks 1 and 2 for the
RAID volume.

DISKPART> list disk

Disk ### Status Size Free Dyn Gpt

-------- ------------- ------- ------- --- ---
Disk 0 Online 30 GB 0 B
Disk 1 Online 8 GB 0 B *
Disk 2 Online 8 GB 0 B *

8. Create your raid array. On Windows, a RAID 0 volume is referred to as a striped volume.

To create a striped volume array on disks 1 and 2, use the following command (note the stripe
option to stripe the array):

DISKPART> create volume stripe disk=1,2

DiskPart successfully created the volume.

9. Verify your new volume.

DISKPART> list volume

DISKPART> list volume

Volume ### Ltr Label Fs Type Size Status Info

---------- --- ----------- ----- ---------- ------- --------- --------
Volume 0 C NTFS Partition 29 GB Healthy System
Volume 1 RAW Stripe 15 GB Healthy

Note that the Type column now indicates that Volume 1 is a stripe volume.
10. Select and format your volume so that you can begin using it.

a. Select the volume you want to format, substituting n with your volume number.

DISKPART> select volume n

Volume n is the selected volume.

b. Format the volume.

Note
To perform a full format, omit the quick option.

DISKPART> format quick recommended label="My new volume"

100 percent completed

DiskPart successfully formatted the volume.

c. Assign an available drive letter to your volume.

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DISKPART> assign letter f

DiskPart successfully assigned the drive letter or mount point.

Your new volume is now ready to use.

Create snapshots of volumes in a RAID array

If you want to back up the data on the EBS volumes in a RAID array using snapshots, you must
ensure that the snapshots are consistent. This is because the snapshots of these volumes are created
independently. To restore EBS volumes in a RAID array from snapshots that are out of sync would
degrade the integrity of the array.

To create a consistent set of snapshots for your RAID array, use EBS multi-volume snapshots. Multi-
volume snapshots allow you to take point-in-time, data coordinated, and crash-consistent snapshots
across multiple EBS volumes attached to an EC2 instance. You do not have to stop your instance to
coordinate between volumes to ensure consistency because snapshots are automatically taken across
multiple EBS volumes. For more information, see the steps for creating multi-volume snapshots under
Creating Amazon EBS snapshots.

Benchmark EBS volumes

You can test the performance of Amazon EBS volumes by simulating I/O workloads. The process is as
follows:

1. Launch an EBS-optimized instance.

2. Create new EBS volumes.
3. Attach the volumes to your EBS-optimized instance.
4. Configure and mount the block device.
5. Install a tool to benchmark I/O performance.
6. Benchmark the I/O performance of your volumes.
7. Delete your volumes and terminate your instance so that you don't continue to incur charges.

Important
Some of the procedures result in the destruction of existing data on the EBS volumes you
benchmark. The benchmarking procedures are intended for use on volumes specially created for
testing purposes, not production volumes.

Set up your instance

To get optimal performance from EBS volumes, we recommend that you use an EBS-optimized instance.
EBS-optimized instances deliver dedicated throughput between Amazon EC2 and Amazon EBS, with
instance. EBS-optimized instances deliver dedicated bandwidth between Amazon EC2 and Amazon EBS,
with specifications depending on the instance type. For more information, see Amazon EBS–optimized
instances (p. 1357).

To create an EBS-optimized instance, choose Launch as an EBS-Optimized instance when launching the
instance using the Amazon EC2 console, or specify --ebs-optimized when using the command line. Be
sure that you launch a current-generation instance that supports this option. For more information, see
Amazon EBS–optimized instances (p. 1357).

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Set up Provisioned IOPS SSD or General Purpose SSD volumes

To create Provisioned IOPS SSD (io1 and io2) or General Purpose SSD (gp2 and gp3) volumes using the
Amazon EC2 console, for Volume type, choose Provisioned IOPS SSD (io1), Provisioned IOPS SSD (io2),
General Purpose SSD (gp2), or General Purpose SSD (gp3). At the command line, specify io1, io2,
gp2, or gp3 for the --volume-type parameter. For io1, io2, and gp3 volumes, specify the number of I/
O operations per second (IOPS) for the --iops parameter. For more information, see Amazon EBS volume
types (p. 1177) and Create an Amazon EBS volume (p. 1196).

Set up Throughput Optimized HDD (st1) or Cold HDD (sc1) volumes

To create an st1 volume, choose Throughput Optimized HDD when creating the volume using the
Amazon EC2 console, or specify --type st1 when using the command line. To create an sc1 volume,
choose Cold HDD when creating the volume using the Amazon EC2 console, or specify --type sc1
when using the command line. For information about creating EBS volumes, see Create an Amazon
EBS volume (p. 1196). For information about attaching these volumes to your instance, see Attach an
Amazon EBS volume to an instance (p. 1199).

Install benchmark tools

The following table lists some of the possible tools you can use to benchmark the performance of EBS
volumes.

Tool Description

DiskSpd DiskSpd is a storage performance tool from the Windows, Windows Server, and
Cloud Server Infrastructure engineering teams at Microsoft. It is available for
download at https://github.com/Microsoft/diskspd/releases.

After you download the diskspd.exe executable file, open a command prompt
with administrative rights (by choosing "Run as Administrator"), and then
navigate to the directory where you copied the diskspd.exe file.

Copy the desired diskspd.exe executable file from the appropriate executable
folder (amd64fre, armfre or x86fre) to a short, simple path like C:\DiskSpd.
In most cases you will want the 64-bit version of DiskSpd from the amd64fre
folder.

The source code for DiskSpd is hosted on GitHub at: https://github.com/

Microsoft/diskspd.

CrystalDiskMark CrystalDiskMark is a simple disk benchmark software. It is available for download

at https://crystalmark.info/en/software/crystaldiskmark/.

These benchmarking tools support a wide variety of test parameters. You should use commands that
approximate the workloads your volumes will support. These commands provided below are intended as
examples to help you get started.

Choose the volume queue length

Choosing the best volume queue length based on your workload and volume type.

Queue length on SSD-backed volumes

To determine the optimal queue length for your workload on SSD-backed volumes, we recommend that
you target a queue length of 1 for every 1000 IOPS available (baseline for General Purpose SSD volumes

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and the provisioned amount for Provisioned IOPS SSD volumes). Then you can monitor your application
performance and tune that value based on your application requirements.

Increasing the queue length is beneficial until you achieve the provisioned IOPS, throughput or optimal
system queue length value, which is currently set to 32. For example, a volume with 3,000 provisioned
IOPS should target a queue length of 3. You should experiment with tuning these values up or down to
see what performs best for your application.

Queue length on HDD-backed volumes

To determine the optimal queue length for your workload on HDD-backed volumes, we recommend that
you target a queue length of at least 4 while performing 1MiB sequential I/Os. Then you can monitor
your application performance and tune that value based on your application requirements. For example,
a 2 TiB st1 volume with burst throughput of 500 MiB/s and IOPS of 500 should target a queue length
of 4, 8, or 16 while performing 1,024 KiB, 512 KiB, or 256 KiB sequential I/Os respectively. You should
experiment with tuning these values value up or down to see what performs best for your application.

Disable C-states
Before you run benchmarking, you should disable processor C-states. Temporarily idle cores in a
supported CPU can enter a C-state to save power. When the core is called on to resume processing, a
certain amount of time passes until the core is again fully operational. This latency can interfere with
processor benchmarking routines. For more information about C-states and which EC2 instance types
support them, see Processor state control for your EC2 instance.

Disable C-states on Windows

You can disable C-states on Windows as follows:

1. In PowerShell, get the current active power scheme.

$current_scheme = powercfg /getactivescheme

2. Get the power scheme GUID.

(Get-WmiObject -class Win32_PowerPlan -Namespace "root\cimv2\power" -Filter

"ElementName='High performance'").InstanceID

3. Get the power setting GUID.

(Get-WmiObject -class Win32_PowerSetting -Namespace "root\cimv2\power" -Filter

"ElementName='Processor idle disable'").InstanceID

4. Get the power setting subgroup GUID.

(Get-WmiObject -class Win32_PowerSettingSubgroup -Namespace "root\cimv2\power" -Filter

"ElementName='Processor power management'").InstanceID

5. Disable C-states by setting the value of the index to 1. A value of 0 indicates that C-states are
disabled.

powercfg /
setacvalueindex <power_scheme_guid> <power_setting_subgroup_guid> <power_setting_guid>
1

6. Set active scheme to ensure the settings are saved.

powercfg /setactive <power_scheme_guid>

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Perform benchmarking
The following procedures describe benchmarking commands for various EBS volume types.

Run the following commands on an EBS-optimized instance with attached EBS volumes. If the EBS
volumes were created from snapshots, be sure to initialize them before benchmarking. For more
information, see Initialize Amazon EBS volumes (p. 1379).

When you are finished testing your volumes, see the following topics for help cleaning up: Delete an
Amazon EBS volume (p. 1219) and Terminate your instance (p. 446).

Benchmark Provisioned IOPS SSD and General Purpose SSD volumes

Run DiskSpd on the volume that you created.

The following command will run a 30 second random I/O test using a 20GB test file located on the C:
drive, with a 25% write and 75% read ratio, and an 8K block size. It will use eight worker threads, each
with four outstanding I/Os, and a write entropy value seed of 1GB. The results of the test will be saved to
a text file called DiskSpeedResults.txt. These parameters simulate a SQL Server OLTP workload.

diskspd -b8K -d30 -o4 -t8 -h -r -w25 -L -Z1G -c20G C:\iotest.dat > DiskSpeedResults.txt

For more information about interpreting the results, see this tutorial: Inspecting disk IO performance
with DiskSPd.

Amazon CloudWatch metrics for Amazon EBS

Amazon CloudWatch metrics are statistical data that you can use to view, analyze, and set alarms on the
operational behavior of your volumes.

Data is available automatically in 1-minute periods at no charge.

When you get data from CloudWatch, you can include a Period request parameter to specify the
granularity of the returned data. This is different than the period that we use when we collect the data
(1-minute periods). We recommend that you specify a period in your request that is equal to or greater
than the collection period to ensure that the returned data is valid.

You can get the data using either the CloudWatch API or the Amazon EC2 console. The console takes the
raw data from the CloudWatch API and displays a series of graphs based on the data. Depending on your
needs, you might prefer to use either the data from the API or the graphs in the console.

Topics
• Amazon EBS metrics (p. 1388)
• Dimensions for Amazon EBS metrics (p. 1393)
• Graphs in the Amazon EC2 console (p. 1393)

Amazon EBS metrics

Amazon Elastic Block Store (Amazon EBS) sends data points to CloudWatch for several metrics. All
Amazon EBS volume types automatically send 1-minute metrics to CloudWatch, but only when the
volume is attached to an instance.

Metrics

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• Volume metrics for volumes attached to all instance types (p. 1389)
• Volume metrics for volumes attached to Nitro-based instance types (p. 1392)
• Fast snapshot restore metrics (p. 1393)

Volume metrics for volumes attached to all instance types

The AWS/EBS namespace includes the following metrics for EBS volumes that are attached to all
instance types. To get information about the available disk space from the operating system on an
instance, see View free disk space (p. 1205).
Note

• Some metrics have differences on instances that are built on the Nitro System. For a list of
these instance types, see Instances built on the Nitro System (p. 147).
• The AWS/EC2 namespace includes additional Amazon EBS metrics for volumes that are
attached to Nitro-based instances that are not bare metal instances. For more information
about these metrics see, Amazon EBS metrics for Nitro-based instances (p. 858).

Metric Description

VolumeReadBytes Provides information on the read operations in a specified period

of time. The Sum statistic reports the total number of bytes
transferred during the period. The Average statistic reports
the average size of each read operation during the period,
except on volumes attached to a Nitro-based instance, where
the average represents the average over the specified period.
The SampleCount statistic reports the total number of read
operations during the period, except on volumes attached to a
Nitro-based instance, where the sample count represents the
number of data points used in the statistical calculation. For Xen
instances, data is reported only when there is read activity on the
volume.

The Minimum and Maximum statistics on this metric are

supported only by volumes attached to Nitro-based instances.

Units: Bytes

VolumeWriteBytes Provides information on the write operations in a specified

period of time. The Sum statistic reports the total number of
bytes transferred during the period. The Average statistic
reports the average size of each write operation during the
period, except on volumes attached to a Nitro-based instance,
where the average represents the average over the specified
period. The SampleCount statistic reports the total number of
write operations during the period, except on volumes attached
to a Nitro-based instance, where the sample count represents the
number of data points used in the statistical calculation. For Xen
instances, data is reported only when there is write activity on
the volume.

The Minimum and Maximum statistics on this metric are

supported only by volumes attached to Nitro-based instances.

Units: Bytes

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Metric Description

VolumeReadOps The total number of read operations in a specified period of time.

Note: read operations are counted on completion.

To calculate the average read operations per second (read IOPS)

for the period, divide the total read operations in the period by
the number of seconds in that period.

The Minimum and Maximum statistics on this metric are

supported only by volumes attached to Nitro-based instances.

Units: Count

VolumeWriteOps The total number of write operations in a specified period of

time. Note: write operations are counted on completion.

To calculate the average write operations per second (write IOPS)

for the period, divide the total write operations in the period by
the number of seconds in that period.

The Minimum and Maximum statistics on this metric are

supported only by volumes attached to Nitro-based instances.

Units: Count

VolumeTotalReadTime Note
This metric is not supported with Multi-Attach enabled
volumes.

The total number of seconds spent by all read operations that

completed in a specified period of time. If multiple requests are
submitted at the same time, this total could be greater than the
length of the period. For example, for a period of 1 minutes (60
seconds): if 150 operations completed during that period, and
each operation took 1 second, the value would be 150 seconds.
For Xen instances, data is reported only when there is read
activity on the volume.

The Average statistic on this metric is not relevant for volumes

attached to Nitro-based instances.

The Minimum and Maximum statistics on this metric are

supported only by volumes attached to Nitro-based instances.

Units: Seconds

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Metric Description

VolumeTotalWriteTime Note
This metric is not supported with Multi-Attach enabled
volumes.

The total number of seconds spent by all write operations that

completed in a specified period of time. If multiple requests are
submitted at the same time, this total could be greater than the
length of the period. For example, for a period of 1 minute (60
seconds): if 150 operations completed during that period, and
each operation took 1 second, the value would be 150 seconds.
For Xen instances, data is reported only when there is write
activity on the volume.

The Average statistic on this metric is not relevant for volumes

attached to Nitro-based instances.

The Minimum and Maximum statistics on this metric are

supported only by volumes attached to Nitro-based instances.

Units: Seconds

VolumeIdleTime Note
This metric is not supported with Multi-Attach enabled
volumes.

The total number of seconds in a specified period of time when

no read or write operations were submitted.

The Average statistic on this metric is not relevant for volumes

attached to Nitro-based instances.

The Minimum and Maximum statistics on this metric are

supported only by volumes attached to Nitro-based instances.

Units: Seconds

VolumeQueueLength The number of read and write operation requests waiting to be

completed in a specified period of time.

The Sum statistic on this metric is not relevant for volumes

attached to Nitro-based instances.

The Minimum and Maximum statistics on this metric are

supported only by volumes attached to Nitro-based instances.

Units: Count

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Metric Description

VolumeThroughputPercentage Note
This metric is not supported with Multi-Attach enabled
volumes.

Used with Provisioned IOPS SSD volumes only. The percentage

of I/O operations per second (IOPS) delivered of the total IOPS
provisioned for an Amazon EBS volume. Provisioned IOPS SSD
volumes deliver their provisioned performance 99.9 percent of
the time.

During a write, if there are no other pending I/O requests in a

minute, the metric value will be 100 percent. Also, a volume's I/O
performance may become degraded temporarily due to an action
you have taken (for example, creating a snapshot of a volume
during peak usage, running the volume on a non-EBS-optimized
instance, or accessing data on the volume for the first time).

Units: Percent

VolumeConsumedReadWriteOps Used with Provisioned IOPS SSD volumes only. The total amount
of read and write operations (normalized to 256K capacity units)
consumed in a specified period of time.

I/O operations that are smaller than 256K each count as 1

consumed IOPS. I/O operations that are larger than 256K are
counted in 256K capacity units. For example, a 1024K I/O would
count as 4 consumed IOPS.

Units: Count

BurstBalance Used with General Purpose SSD (gp2), Throughput Optimized

HDD (st1), and Cold HDD (sc1) volumes only. Provides
information about the percentage of I/O credits (for gp2) or
throughput credits (for st1 and sc1) remaining in the burst
bucket. Data is reported to CloudWatch only when the volume is
active. If the volume is not attached, no data is reported.

The Sum statistic on this metric is not relevant for volumes

attached to instances built on the Nitro System.

If the baseline performance of the volume exceeds the maximum

burst performance, credits are never spent. If the volume is
attached to an instance built on the Nitro System, the burst
balance is not reported. For other instances, the reported burst
balance is 100%. For more information, see I/O Credits and burst
performance (p. 1180).

Units: Percent

Volume metrics for volumes attached to Nitro-based instance types

The AWS/EC2 namespace includes additional Amazon EBS metrics for volumes that are attached to
Nitro-based instances that are not bare metal instances. For more information about these metrics see,
Amazon EBS metrics for Nitro-based instances (p. 858).

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Fast snapshot restore metrics

AWS/EBS namespace includes the following metrics for fast snapshot restore (p. 1351).

Metric Description

The maximum number of volume create credits that can be

FastSnapshotRestoreCreditsBucketSize
accumulated. This metric is reported per snapshot per Availability
Zone.

The most meaningful statistic is Average. The results for the

Minimum and Maximum statistics are the same as for Average
and could be used instead.

The number of volume create credits available. This metric is

FastSnapshotRestoreCreditsBalance
reported per snapshot per Availability Zone.

The most meaningful statistic is Average. The results for the

Minimum and Maximum statistics are the same as for Average
and could be used instead.

Dimensions for Amazon EBS metrics

The supported dimension is the volume ID (VolumeId). All available statistics are filtered by volume ID.

For the volume metrics (p. 1389), the supported dimension is the volume ID (VolumeId). All available
statistics are filtered by volume ID.

For the fast snapshot restore metrics (p. 1393), the supported dimensions are the snapshot ID
(SnapshotId) and the Availability Zone (AvailabilityZone).

Graphs in the Amazon EC2 console

After you create a volume, you can view the volume's monitoring graphs in the Amazon EC2 console.
Select a volume on the Volumes page in the console and choose Monitoring. The following table lists
the graphs that are displayed. The column on the right describes how the raw data metrics from the
CloudWatch API are used to produce each graph. The period for all the graphs is 5 minutes.

Graph Description using raw metrics

Read Bandwidth (KiB/s) Sum(VolumeReadBytes) / Period / 1024

Write Bandwidth (KiB/s) Sum(VolumeWriteBytes) / Period / 1024

Read Throughput (IOPS) Sum(VolumeReadOps) / Period

Write Throughput (IOPS) Sum(VolumeWriteOps) / Period

Avg Queue Length (Operations) Avg(VolumeQueueLength)

% Time Spent Idle Sum(VolumeIdleTime) / Period × 100

Avg Read Size (KiB/Operation) Avg(VolumeReadBytes) / 1024

For Nitro-based instances, the following formula derives

Average Read Size using CloudWatch Metric Math:

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Graph Description using raw metrics

(Sum(VolumeReadBytes) / Sum(VolumeReadOps)) /
1024

The VolumeReadBytes and VolumeReadOps metrics are

available in the EBS CloudWatch console.

Avg Write Size (KiB/Operation) Avg(VolumeWriteBytes) / 1024

For Nitro-based instances, the following formula derives

Average Write Size using CloudWatch Metric Math:

(Sum(VolumeWriteBytes) / Sum(VolumeWriteOps)) /
1024

The VolumeWriteBytes and VolumeWriteOps metrics are

available in the EBS CloudWatch console.

Avg Read Latency (ms/Operation) Avg(VolumeTotalReadTime) × 1000

For Nitro-based instances, the following formula derives

Average Read Latency using CloudWatch Metric Math:

(Sum(VolumeTotalReadTime) / Sum(VolumeReadOps))
× 1000

The VolumeTotalReadTime and VolumeReadOps metrics are

available in the EBS CloudWatch console.

Avg Write Latency (ms/Operation) Avg(VolumeTotalWriteTime) × 1000

For Nitro-based instances, the following formula derives

Average Write Latency using CloudWatch Metric Math:

(Sum(VolumeTotalWriteTime) /
Sum(VolumeWriteOps)) * 1000

The VolumeTotalWriteTime and VolumeWriteOps metrics

are available in the EBS CloudWatch console.

For the average latency graphs and average size graphs, the average is calculated over the total number
of operations (read or write, whichever is applicable to the graph) that completed during the period.

Amazon CloudWatch Events for Amazon EBS

Amazon EBS emits notifications based on Amazon CloudWatch Events for a variety of volume,
snapshot, and encryption status changes. With CloudWatch Events, you can establish rules that trigger
programmatic actions in response to a change in volume, snapshot, or encryption key state. For example,
when a snapshot is created, you can trigger an AWS Lambda function to share the completed snapshot
with another account or copy it to another Region for disaster-recovery purposes.

Events in CloudWatch are represented as JSON objects. The fields that are unique to the event are
contained in the "detail" section of the JSON object. The "event" field contains the event name. The
"result" field contains the completed status of the action that triggered the event. For more information,
see Event Patterns in CloudWatch Events in the Amazon CloudWatch Events User Guide.

For more information, see Using Events in the Amazon CloudWatch User Guide.

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Contents
• EBS volume events (p. 1395)
• EBS snapshot events (p. 1398)
• EBS volume modification events (p. 1401)
• EBS fast snapshot restore events (p. 1402)
• Using AWS Lambda to handle CloudWatch events (p. 1403)

EBS volume events

Amazon EBS sends events to CloudWatch Events when the following volume events occur.

Events
• Create volume (createVolume) (p. 1395)
• Delete volume (deleteVolume) (p. 1396)
• Volume attach or reattach (attachVolume, reattachVolume) (p. 1397)

Create volume (createVolume)

The createVolume event is sent to your AWS account when an action to create a volume completes.
However it is not saved, logged, or archived. This event can have a result of either available or
failed. Creation will fail if an invalid AWS KMS key was provided, as shown in the examples below.

Event data

The listing below is an example of a JSON object emitted by EBS for a successful createVolume event.

{
"version": "0",
"id": "01234567-0123-0123-0123-012345678901",
"detail-type": "EBS Volume Notification",
"source": "aws.ec2",
"account": "012345678901",
"time": "yyyy-mm-ddThh:mm:ssZ",
"region": "us-east-1",
"resources": [
"arn:aws:ec2:us-east-1:012345678901:volume/vol-01234567"
],
"detail": {
"result": "available",
"cause": "",
"event": "createVolume",
"request-id": "01234567-0123-0123-0123-0123456789ab"
}
}

The listing below is an example of a JSON object emitted by EBS after a failed createVolume event.
The cause for the failure was a disabled KMS key.

{
"version": "0",
"id": "01234567-0123-0123-0123-0123456789ab",
"detail-type": "EBS Volume Notification",
"source": "aws.ec2",
"account": "012345678901",

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"time": "yyyy-mm-ddThh:mm:ssZ",
"region": "sa-east-1",
"resources": [
"arn:aws:ec2:sa-east-1:0123456789ab:volume/vol-01234567",
],
"detail": {
"event": "createVolume",
"result": "failed",
"cause": "arn:aws:kms:sa-east-1:0123456789ab:key/01234567-0123-0123-0123-0123456789ab
is disabled.",
"request-id": "01234567-0123-0123-0123-0123456789ab",
}
}

The following is an example of a JSON object that is emitted by EBS after a failed createVolume event.
The cause for the failure was a KMS key pending import.

{
"version": "0",
"id": "01234567-0123-0123-0123-0123456789ab",
"detail-type": "EBS Volume Notification",
"source": "aws.ec2",
"account": "012345678901",
"time": "yyyy-mm-ddThh:mm:ssZ",
"region": "sa-east-1",
"resources": [
"arn:aws:ec2:sa-east-1:0123456789ab:volume/vol-01234567",
],
"detail": {
"event": "createVolume",
"result": "failed",
"cause": "arn:aws:kms:sa-east-1:0123456789ab:key/01234567-0123-0123-0123-0123456789ab
is pending import.",
"request-id": "01234567-0123-0123-0123-0123456789ab",
}
}

Delete volume (deleteVolume)

The deleteVolume event is sent to your AWS account when an action to delete a volume completes.
However it is not saved, logged, or archived. This event has the result deleted. If the deletion does not
complete, the event is never sent.

Event data

The listing below is an example of a JSON object emitted by EBS for a successful deleteVolume event.

{
"version": "0",
"id": "01234567-0123-0123-0123-012345678901",
"detail-type": "EBS Volume Notification",
"source": "aws.ec2",
"account": "012345678901",
"time": "yyyy-mm-ddThh:mm:ssZ",
"region": "us-east-1",
"resources": [
"arn:aws:ec2:us-east-1:012345678901:volume/vol-01234567"
],
"detail": {
"result": "deleted",
"cause": "",
"event": "deleteVolume",

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"request-id": "01234567-0123-0123-0123-0123456789ab"
}
}

Volume attach or reattach (attachVolume, reattachVolume)

The attachVolume or reattachVolume event is sent to your AWS account if a volume fails to attach
or reattach to an instance. However it is not saved, logged, or archived. If you use a KMS key to encrypt
an EBS volume and the KMS key becomes invalid, EBS will emit an event if that KMS key is later used to
attach or reattach to an instance, as shown in the examples below.

Event data

The listing below is an example of a JSON object emitted by EBS after a failed attachVolume event.
The cause for the failure was a KMS key pending deletion.
Note
AWS may attempt to reattach to a volume following routine server maintenance.

{
"version": "0",
"id": "01234567-0123-0123-0123-0123456789ab",
"detail-type": "EBS Volume Notification",
"source": "aws.ec2",
"account": "012345678901",
"time": "yyyy-mm-ddThh:mm:ssZ",
"region": "us-east-1",
"resources": [
"arn:aws:ec2:us-east-1:0123456789ab:volume/vol-01234567",
"arn:aws:kms:us-east-1:0123456789ab:key/01234567-0123-0123-0123-0123456789ab"
],
"detail": {
"event": "attachVolume",
"result": "failed",
"cause": "arn:aws:kms:us-east-1:0123456789ab:key/01234567-0123-0123-0123-0123456789ab
is pending deletion.",
"request-id": ""
}
}

The listing below is an example of a JSON object emitted by EBS after a failed reattachVolume event.
The cause for the failure was a KMS key pending deletion.

{
"version": "0",
"id": "01234567-0123-0123-0123-0123456789ab",
"detail-type": "EBS Volume Notification",
"source": "aws.ec2",
"account": "012345678901",
"time": "yyyy-mm-ddThh:mm:ssZ",
"region": "us-east-1",
"resources": [
"arn:aws:ec2:us-east-1:0123456789ab:volume/vol-01234567",
"arn:aws:kms:us-east-1:0123456789ab:key/01234567-0123-0123-0123-0123456789ab"
],
"detail": {
"event": "reattachVolume",
"result": "failed",
"cause": "arn:aws:kms:us-east-1:0123456789ab:key/01234567-0123-0123-0123-0123456789ab
is pending deletion.",
"request-id": ""

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}
}

EBS snapshot events

Amazon EBS sends events to CloudWatch Events when the following volume events occur.

Events
• Create snapshot (createSnapshot) (p. 1398)
• Create snapshots (createSnapshots) (p. 1398)
• Copy snapshot (copySnapshot) (p. 1400)
• Share snapshot (shareSnapshot) (p. 1401)

Create snapshot (createSnapshot)

The createSnapshot event is sent to your AWS account when an action to create a snapshot
completes. However it is not saved, logged, or archived. This event can have a result of either
succeeded or failed.

Event data

The listing below is an example of a JSON object emitted by EBS for a successful createSnapshot
event. In the detail section, the source field contains the ARN of the source volume. The startTime
and endTime fields indicate when creation of the snapshot started and completed.

{
"version": "0",
"id": "01234567-0123-0123-0123-012345678901",
"detail-type": "EBS Snapshot Notification",
"source": "aws.ec2",
"account": "012345678901",
"time": "yyyy-mm-ddThh:mm:ssZ",
"region": "us-east-1",
"resources": [
"arn:aws:ec2:us-west-2::snapshot/snap-01234567"
],
"detail": {
"event": "createSnapshot",
"result": "succeeded",
"cause": "",
"request-id": "",
"snapshot_id": "arn:aws:ec2:us-west-2::snapshot/snap-01234567",
"source": "arn:aws:ec2:us-west-2::volume/vol-01234567",
"startTime": "yyyy-mm-ddThh:mm:ssZ",
"endTime": "yyyy-mm-ddThh:mm:ssZ" }
}

Create snapshots (createSnapshots)

The createSnapshots event is sent to your AWS account when an action to create a multi-volume
snapshot completes. This event can have a result of either succeeded or failed.

Event data

The listing below is an example of a JSON object emitted by EBS for a successful createSnapshots
event. In the detail section, the source field contains the ARNs of the source volumes of the multi-

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volume snapshot set. The startTime and endTime fields indicate when creation of the snapshot
started and completed.

{
"version": "0",
"id": "01234567-0123-0123-0123-012345678901",
"detail-type": "EBS Multi-Volume Snapshots Completion Status",
"source": "aws.ec2",
"account": "012345678901",
"time": "yyyy-mm-ddThh:mm:ssZ",
"region": "us-east-1",
"resources": [
"arn:aws:ec2::us-east-1:snapshot/snap-01234567",
"arn:aws:ec2::us-east-1:snapshot/snap-012345678"
],
"detail": {
"event": "createSnapshots",
"result": "succeeded",
"cause": "",
"request-id": "",
"startTime": "yyyy-mm-ddThh:mm:ssZ",
"endTime": "yyyy-mm-ddThh:mm:ssZ",
"snapshots": [
{
"snapshot_id": "arn:aws:ec2::us-east-1:snapshot/snap-01234567",
"source": "arn:aws:ec2::us-east-1:volume/vol-01234567",
"status": "completed"
},
{
"snapshot_id": "arn:aws:ec2::us-east-1:snapshot/snap-012345678",
"source": "arn:aws:ec2::us-east-1:volume/vol-012345678",
"status": "completed"
}
]
}
}

The listing below is an example of a JSON object emitted by EBS after a failed createSnapshots
event. The cause for the failure was one or more snapshots for the multi-volume snapshot set failed to
complete. The values of snapshot_id are the ARNs of the failed snapshots. startTime and endTime
represent when the create-snapshots action started and ended.

{
"version": "0",
"id": "01234567-0123-0123-0123-012345678901",
"detail-type": "EBS Multi-Volume Snapshots Completion Status",
"source": "aws.ec2",
"account": "012345678901",
"time": "yyyy-mm-ddThh:mm:ssZ",
"region": "us-east-1",
"resources": [
"arn:aws:ec2::us-east-1:snapshot/snap-01234567",
"arn:aws:ec2::us-east-1:snapshot/snap-012345678"
],
"detail": {
"event": "createSnapshots",
"result": "failed",
"cause": "Snapshot snap-01234567 is in status error",
"request-id": "",
"startTime": "yyyy-mm-ddThh:mm:ssZ",
"endTime": "yyyy-mm-ddThh:mm:ssZ",
"snapshots": [
{

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"snapshot_id": "arn:aws:ec2::us-east-1:snapshot/snap-01234567",
"source": "arn:aws:ec2::us-east-1:volume/vol-01234567",
"status": "error"
},
{
"snapshot_id": "arn:aws:ec2::us-east-1:snapshot/snap-012345678",
"source": "arn:aws:ec2::us-east-1:volume/vol-012345678",
"status": "error"
}
]
}
}

Copy snapshot (copySnapshot)

The copySnapshot event is sent to your AWS account when an action to copy a snapshot completes.
However it is not saved, logged, or archived. This event can have a result of either succeeded or
failed.

Event data

The listing below is an example of a JSON object emitted by EBS after a successful copySnapshot
event. The value of snapshot_id is the ARN of the newly created snapshot. In the detail section, the
value of source is the ARN of the source snapshot. startTime and endTime represent when the copy-
snapshot action started and ended.

{
"version": "0",
"id": "01234567-0123-0123-0123-012345678901",
"detail-type": "EBS Snapshot Notification",
"source": "aws.ec2",
"account": "123456789012",
"time": "yyyy-mm-ddThh:mm:ssZ",
"region": "us-east-1",
"resources": [
"arn:aws:ec2:us-west-2::snapshot/snap-01234567"
],
"detail": {
"event": "copySnapshot",
"result": "succeeded",
"cause": "",
"request-id": "",
"snapshot_id": "arn:aws:ec2:us-west-2::snapshot/snap-01234567",
"source": "arn:aws:ec2:eu-west-1::snapshot/snap-76543210",
"startTime": "yyyy-mm-ddThh:mm:ssZ",
"endTime": "yyyy-mm-ddThh:mm:ssZ",
"Incremental": "True"
}
}

The listing below is an example of a JSON object emitted by EBS after a failed copySnapshot event.
The cause for the failure was an invalid source snapshot ID. The value of snapshot_id is the ARN of
the failed snapshot. In the detail section, the value of source is the ARN of the source snapshot.
startTime and endTime represent when the copy-snapshot action started and ended.

{
"version": "0",
"id": "01234567-0123-0123-0123-012345678901",
"detail-type": "EBS Snapshot Notification",
"source": "aws.ec2",
"account": "123456789012",
"time": "yyyy-mm-ddThh:mm:ssZ",

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"region": "us-east-1",
"resources": [
"arn:aws:ec2:us-west-2::snapshot/snap-01234567"
],
"detail": {
"event": "copySnapshot",
"result": "failed",
"cause": "Source snapshot ID is not valid",
"request-id": "",
"snapshot_id": "arn:aws:ec2:us-west-2::snapshot/snap-01234567",
"source": "arn:aws:ec2:eu-west-1::snapshot/snap-76543210",
"startTime": "yyyy-mm-ddThh:mm:ssZ",
"endTime": "yyyy-mm-ddThh:mm:ssZ"
}
}

Share snapshot (shareSnapshot)

The shareSnapshot event is sent to your AWS account when another account shares a snapshot with it.
However it is not saved, logged, or archived. The result is always succeeded.

Event data

The following is an example of a JSON object emitted by EBS after a completed shareSnapshot event.
In the detail section, the value of source is the AWS account number of the user that shared the
snapshot with you. startTime and endTime represent when the share-snapshot action started and
ended. The shareSnapshot event is emitted only when a private snapshot is shared with another user.
Sharing a public snapshot does not trigger the event.

{
"version": "0",
"id": "01234567-01234-0123-0123-012345678901",
"detail-type": "EBS Snapshot Notification",
"source": "aws.ec2",
"account": "012345678901",
"time": "yyyy-mm-ddThh:mm:ssZ",
"region": "us-east-1",
"resources": [
"arn:aws:ec2:us-west-2::snapshot/snap-01234567"
],
"detail": {
"event": "shareSnapshot",
"result": "succeeded",
"cause": "",
"request-id": "",
"snapshot_id": "arn:aws:ec2:us-west-2::snapshot/snap-01234567",
"source": 012345678901,
"startTime": "yyyy-mm-ddThh:mm:ssZ",
"endTime": "yyyy-mm-ddThh:mm:ssZ"
}
}

EBS volume modification events

Amazon EBS sends modifyVolume events to CloudWatch Events when a volume is modified. However it
is not saved, logged, or archived.

{
"version": "0",
"id": "01234567-0123-0123-0123-012345678901",
"detail-type": "EBS Volume Notification",

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"source": "aws.ec2",
"account": "012345678901",
"time": "yyyy-mm-ddThh:mm:ssZ",
"region": "us-east-1",
"resources": [
"arn:aws:ec2:us-east-1:012345678901:volume/vol-03a55cf56513fa1b6"
],
"detail": {
"result": "optimizing",
"cause": "",
"event": "modifyVolume",
"request-id": "01234567-0123-0123-0123-0123456789ab"
}
}

EBS fast snapshot restore events

Amazon EBS sends events to CloudWatch Events when the state of fast snapshot restore for a snapshot
changes. Events are emitted on a best effort basis.

The following is example data for this event.

{
"version": "0",
"id": "01234567-0123-0123-0123-012345678901",
"detail-type": "EBS Fast Snapshot Restore State-change Notification",
"source": "aws.ec2",
"account": "123456789012",
"time": "yyyy-mm-ddThh:mm:ssZ",
"region": "us-east-1",
"resources": [
"arn:aws:ec2:us-east-1::snapshot/snap-03a55cf56513fa1b6"
],
"detail": {
"snapshot-id": "snap-1234567890abcdef0",
"state": "optimizing",
"zone": "us-east-1a",
"message": "Client.UserInitiated - Lifecycle state transition",
}
}

The possible values for state are enabling, optimizing, enabled, disabling, and disabled.

The possible values for message are as follows:

Client.InvalidSnapshot.InvalidState - The requested snapshot transitioned to an

invalid state (Error)

A request to enable fast snapshot restore failed and the state transitioned to disabling or
disabled. Fast snapshot restore cannot be enabled for this snapshot.
Client.UserInitiated

The state successfully transitioned to enabling or disabling.

Client.UserInitiated - Lifecycle state transition

The state successfully transitioned to optimizing, enabled, or disabled.

Server.InsufficientCapacity - There was insufficient capacity available to
satisfy the request

A request to enable fast snapshot restore failed due to insufficient capacity, and the state
transitioned to disabling or disabled. Wait and then try again.

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EBS CloudWatch events

Server.InternalError - An internal error caused the operation to fail

A request to enable fast snapshot restore failed due to an internal error, and the state transitioned
to disabling or disabled. Wait and then try again.
Client.InvalidSnapshot.InvalidState - The requested snapshot was deleted or
access permissions were revoked

The fast snapshot restore state for the snapshot has transitioned to disabling or disabled
because the snapshot was deleted or unshared by the snapshot owner. Fast snapshot restore cannot
be enabled for a snapshot that has been deleted or is no longer shared with you.

Using AWS Lambda to handle CloudWatch events

You can use Amazon EBS and CloudWatch Events to automate your data-backup workflow. This requires
you to create an IAM policy, a AWS Lambda function to handle the event, and an Amazon CloudWatch
Events rule that matches incoming events and routes them to the Lambda function.

The following procedure uses the createSnapshot event to automatically copy a completed snapshot
to another Region for disaster recovery.

To copy a completed snapshot to another Region

1. Create an IAM policy, such as the one shown in the following example, to provide permissions to use
the CopySnapshot action and write to the CloudWatch Events log. Assign the policy to the IAM user
that will handle the CloudWatch event.

{
"Version": "2012-10-17",
"Statement": [
{
"Effect": "Allow",
"Action": [
"logs:CreateLogGroup",
"logs:CreateLogStream",
"logs:PutLogEvents"
],
"Resource": "arn:aws:logs:*:*:*"
},
{
"Effect": "Allow",
"Action": [
"ec2:CopySnapshot"
],
"Resource": "*"
}
]
}

2. Define a function in Lambda that will be available from the CloudWatch console. The sample
Lambda function below, written in Node.js, is invoked by CloudWatch when a matching
createSnapshot event is emitted by Amazon EBS (signifying that a snapshot was completed).
When invoked, the function copies the snapshot from us-east-2 to us-east-1.

// Sample Lambda function to copy an EBS snapshot to a different Region

var AWS = require('aws-sdk');

var ec2 = new AWS.EC2();

// define variables
var destinationRegion = 'us-east-1';

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var sourceRegion = 'us-east-2';

console.log ('Loading function');

//main function
exports.handler = (event, context, callback) => {

// Get the EBS snapshot ID from the CloudWatch event details

var snapshotArn = event.detail.snapshot_id.split('/');
const snapshotId = snapshotArn[1];
const description = `Snapshot copy from ${snapshotId} in ${sourceRegion}.`;
console.log ("snapshotId:", snapshotId);

// Load EC2 class and update the configuration to use destination Region to
initiate the snapshot.
AWS.config.update({region: destinationRegion});
var ec2 = new AWS.EC2();

// Prepare variables for ec2.modifySnapshotAttribute call

const copySnapshotParams = {
Description: description,
DestinationRegion: destinationRegion,
SourceRegion: sourceRegion,
SourceSnapshotId: snapshotId
};

// Execute the copy snapshot and log any errors

ec2.copySnapshot(copySnapshotParams, (err, data) => {
if (err) {
const errorMessage = `Error copying snapshot ${snapshotId} to Region
${destinationRegion}.`;
console.log(errorMessage);
console.log(err);
callback(errorMessage);
} else {
const successMessage = `Successfully started copy of snapshot ${snapshotId}
to Region ${destinationRegion}.`;
console.log(successMessage);
console.log(data);
callback(null, successMessage);
}
});
};

To ensure that your Lambda function is available from the CloudWatch console, create it in the
Region where the CloudWatch event will occur. For more information, see the AWS Lambda
Developer Guide.
3. Open the CloudWatch console at https://console.aws.amazon.com/cloudwatch/.
4. Choose Events, Create rule, Select event source, and Amazon EBS Snapshots.
5. For Specific Event(s), choose createSnapshot and for Specific Result(s), choose succeeded.
6. For Rule target, find and choose the sample function that you previously created.
7. Choose Target, Add Target.
8. For Lambda function, select the Lambda function that you previously created and choose Configure
details.
9. On the Configure rule details page, type values for Name and Description. Select the State check
box to activate the function (setting it to Enabled).
10. Choose Create rule.

Your rule should now appear on the Rules tab. In the example shown, the event that you configured
should be emitted by EBS the next time you copy a snapshot.

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EBS quotas

Amazon EBS quotas

To view the quotas for your Amazon EBS resources, open the Service Quotas console at https://
console.aws.amazon.com/servicequotas/. In the navigation pane, choose AWS services, and select
Amazon Elastic Block Store (Amazon EBS).

For a list of Amazon EBS service quotas, see Amazon Elastic Block Store endpoints and quotas in the AWS
General Reference.

Amazon EC2 instance store

An instance store provides temporary block-level storage for your instance. This storage is located on
disks that are physically attached to the host computer. Instance store is ideal for temporary storage of
information that changes frequently, such as buffers, caches, scratch data, and other temporary content,
or for data that is replicated across a fleet of instances, such as a load-balanced pool of web servers.

An instance store consists of one or more instance store volumes exposed as block devices. The size of an
instance store as well as the number of devices available varies by instance type.

The virtual devices for instance store volumes are ephemeral[0-23]. Instance types that support one
instance store volume have ephemeral0. Instance types that support two instance store volumes have
ephemeral0 and ephemeral1, and so on.

Contents
• Instance store lifetime (p. 1406)
• Instance store volumes (p. 1406)
• Add instance store volumes to your EC2 instance (p. 1413)
• SSD instance store volumes (p. 1416)

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Instance store lifetime

Instance store lifetime

You can specify instance store volumes for an instance only when you launch it. You can't detach an
instance store volume from one instance and attach it to a different instance.

The data in an instance store persists only during the lifetime of its associated instance. If an instance
reboots (intentionally or unintentionally), data in the instance store persists. However, data in the
instance store is lost under any of the following circumstances:

• The underlying disk drive fails

• The instance stops
• The instance hibernates
• The instance terminates

Therefore, do not rely on instance store for valuable, long-term data. Instead, use more durable data
storage, such as Amazon S3, Amazon EBS, or Amazon EFS.

When you stop, hibernate, or terminate an instance, every block of storage in the instance store is reset.
Therefore, your data cannot be accessed through the instance store of another instance.

If you create an AMI from an instance, the data on its instance store volumes isn't preserved and isn't
present on the instance store volumes of the instances that you launch from the AMI.

If you change the instance type, an instance store will not be attached to the new instance type. For
more information, see Change the instance type (p. 233).

Instance store volumes

The instance type determines the size of the instance store available and the type of hardware used for
the instance store volumes. Instance store volumes are included as part of the instance's usage cost.
You must specify the instance store volumes that you'd like to use when you launch the instance (except
for NVMe instance store volumes, which are available by default). Then format and mount the instance
store volumes before using them. You can't make an instance store volume available after you launch the
instance. For more information, see Add instance store volumes to your EC2 instance (p. 1413).

Some instance types use NVMe or SATA-based solid state drives (SSD) to deliver high random I/O
performance. This is a good option when you need storage with very low latency, but you don't need the
data to persist when the instance terminates or you can take advantage of fault-tolerant architectures.
For more information, see SSD instance store volumes (p. 1416).

The data on NVMe instance store volumes and some HDD instance store volumes is encrypted at rest. For
more information, see Data protection in Amazon EC2 (p. 1069).

The following table provides the quantity, size, type, and performance optimizations of instance store
volumes available on each supported instance type. For a complete list of instance types, including EBS-
only types, see Amazon EC2 Instance Types.

Instance type Instance store volumes Type Needs TRIM support**

initialization*

c1.medium 1 x 350 GB HDD ✔  

c1.xlarge 4 x 420 GB (1.6 TB) HDD ✔  

c3.large 2 x 16 GB (32 GB) SSD ✔  

c3.xlarge 2 x 40 GB (80 GB) SSD ✔  

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Instance type Instance store volumes Type Needs TRIM support**

initialization*

c3.2xlarge 2 x 80 GB (160 GB) SSD ✔  

c3.4xlarge 2 x 160 GB (320 GB) SSD ✔  

c3.8xlarge 2 x 320 GB (640 GB) SSD ✔  

c5ad.large 1 x 75 GB NVMe SSD   ✔

c5ad.xlarge 1 x 150 GB NVMe SSD   ✔

c5ad.2xlarge 1 x 300 GB NVMe SSD   ✔

c5ad.4xlarge 2 x 300 GB (600 GB) NVMe SSD   ✔

c5ad.8xlarge 2 x 600 GB (1.2 TB) NVMe SSD   ✔

c5ad.12xlarge 2 x 900 GB (1.8 TB) NVMe SSD   ✔

c5ad.16xlarge 2 x 1,200 GB (2.4 TB) NVMe SSD   ✔

c5ad.24xlarge 2 x 1,900 GB (3.8 TB) NVMe SSD   ✔

c5d.large 1 x 50 GB NVMe SSD   ✔

c5d.xlarge 1 x 100 GB NVMe SSD   ✔

c5d.2xlarge 1 x 200 GB NVMe SSD   ✔

c5d.4xlarge 1 x 400 GB NVMe SSD   ✔

c5d.9xlarge 1 x 900 GB NVMe SSD   ✔

c5d.12xlarge 2 x 900 GB (1.8 TB) NVMe SSD   ✔

c5d.18xlarge 2 x 900 GB (1.8 TB) NVMe SSD   ✔

c5d.24xlarge 4 x 900 GB (3.6 TB) NVMe SSD   ✔

c5d.metal 4 x 900 GB (3.6 TB) NVMe SSD   ✔

cc2.8xlarge 4 x 840 GB (3.36 TB) HDD ✔  

cr1.8xlarge 2 x 120 GB (240 GB) SSD ✔  

d2.xlarge 3 x 2,000 GB (6 TB) HDD    

d2.2xlarge 6 x 2,000 GB (12 TB) HDD    

d2.4xlarge 12 x 2,000 GB (24 TB) HDD    

d2.8xlarge 24 x 2,000 GB (48 TB) HDD    

d3.xlarge 3 x 1,980 GB HDD    

d3.2xlarge 6 x 1,980 GB HDD    

d3.4xlarge 12 x 1,980 GB HDD    

d3.8xlarge 24 x 1,980 GB HDD    

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Instance store volumes

Instance type Instance store volumes Type Needs TRIM support**

initialization*

d3en.large 1 x 13,980 GB HDD    

d3en.xlarge 2 x 13,980 GB HDD    

d3en.2xlarge 4 x 13,980 GB HDD    

d3en.4xlarge 8 x 13,980 GB HDD    

d3en.6xlarge 12 x 13,980 GB HDD    

d3en.8xlarge 16 x 13,980 GB HDD    

d3en.12xlarge 24 x 13,980 GB HDD    

f1.2xlarge 1 x 470 GB NVMe SSD   ✔

f1.4xlarge 1 x 940 GB NVMe SSD   ✔

f1.16xlarge 4 x 940 GB (3.76 TB) NVMe SSD   ✔

g2.2xlarge 1 x 60 GB SSD ✔  

g2.8xlarge 2 x 120 GB (240 GB) SSD ✔  

g4ad.xlarge 1 x 150 GB NVMe SSD   ✔

g4ad.2xlarge 1 x 300 GB NVMe SSD   ✔

g4ad.4xlarge 1 x 600 GB NVMe SSD   ✔

g4ad.8xlarge 1 x 1,200 GB NVMe SSD   ✔

g4ad.16xlarge 2 x 1,200 GB (2.4 TB) NVMe SSD   ✔

g4dn.xlarge 1 x 125 GB NVMe SSD   ✔

g4dn.2xlarge 1 x 225 GB NVMe SSD   ✔

g4dn.4xlarge 1 x 225 GB NVMe SSD   ✔

g4dn.8xlarge 1 x 900 GB NVMe SSD   ✔

g4dn.12xlarge 1 x 900 GB NVMe SSD   ✔

g4dn.16xlarge 1 x 900 GB NVMe SSD   ✔

g4dn.metal 2 x 900 GB (1.8 TB) NVMe SSD   ✔

h1.2xlarge 1 x 2,000 GB (2 TB) HDD    

h1.4xlarge 2 x 2,000 GB (4 TB) HDD    

h1.8xlarge 4 x 2,000 GB (8 TB) HDD    

h1.16xlarge 8 x 2,000 GB (16 TB) HDD    

hs1.8xlarge 24 x 2,000 GB (48 TB) HDD ✔  

i2.xlarge 1 x 800 GB SSD   ✔

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Instance store volumes

Instance type Instance store volumes Type Needs TRIM support**

initialization*

i2.2xlarge 2 x 800 GB (1.6 TB) SSD   ✔

i2.4xlarge 4 x 800 GB (3.2 TB) SSD   ✔

i2.8xlarge 8 x 800 GB (6.4 TB) SSD   ✔

i3.large 1 x 475 GB NVMe SSD   ✔

i3.xlarge 1 x 950 GB NVMe SSD   ✔

i3.2xlarge 1 x 1,900 GB NVMe SSD   ✔

i3.4xlarge 2 x 1,900 GB (3.8 TB) NVMe SSD   ✔

i3.8xlarge 4 x 1,900 GB (7.6 TB) NVMe SSD   ✔

i3.16xlarge 8 x 1,900 GB (15.2 TB) NVMe SSD   ✔

i3.metal 8 x 1,900 GB (15.2 TB) NVMe SSD   ✔

i3en.large 1 x 1,250 GB NVMe SSD   ✔

i3en.xlarge 1 x 2,500 GB NVMe SSD   ✔

i3en.2xlarge 2 x 2,500 GB (5 TB) NVMe SSD   ✔

i3en.3xlarge 1 x 7,500 GB NVMe SSD   ✔

i3en.6xlarge 2 x 7,500 GB (15 TB) NVMe SSD   ✔

i3en.12xlarge 4 x 7,500 GB (30 TB) NVMe SSD   ✔

i3en.24xlarge 8 x 7,500 GB (60 TB) NVMe SSD   ✔

i3en.metal 8 x 7,500 GB (60 TB) NVMe SSD   ✔

m1.small 1 x 160 GB HDD ✔  

m1.medium 1 x 410 GB HDD ✔  

m1.large 2 x 420 GB (840 GB) HDD ✔  

m1.xlarge 4 x 420 GB (1.6 TB) HDD ✔  

m2.xlarge 1 x 420 GB HDD ✔  

m2.2xlarge 1 x 850 GB HDD ✔  

m2.4xlarge 2 x 840 GB (1.68 TB) HDD ✔  

m3.medium 1 x 4 GB SSD ✔  

m3.large 1 x 32 GB SSD ✔  

m3.xlarge 2 x 40 GB (80 GB) SSD ✔  

m3.2xlarge 2 x 80 GB (160 GB) SSD ✔  

m5ad.large 1 x 75 GB NVMe SSD   ✔

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Instance store volumes

Instance type Instance store volumes Type Needs TRIM support**

initialization*

m5ad.xlarge 1 x 150 GB NVMe SSD   ✔

m5ad.2xlarge 1 x 300 GB NVMe SSD   ✔

m5ad.4xlarge 2 x 300 GB (600 GB) NVMe SSD   ✔

m5ad.8xlarge 2 x 600 GB (1.2 TB) NVMe SSD   ✔

m5ad.12xlarge 2 x 900 GB (1.8 TB) NVMe SSD   ✔

m5ad.16xlarge 4 x 600 GB (2.4 TB) NVMe SSD   ✔

m5ad.24xlarge 4 x 900 GB (3.6 TB) NVMe SSD   ✔

m5d.large 1 x 75 GB NVMe SSD   ✔

m5d.xlarge 1 x 150 GB NVMe SSD   ✔

m5d.2xlarge 1 x 300 GB NVMe SSD   ✔

m5d.4xlarge 2 x 300 GB (600 GB) NVMe SSD   ✔

m5d.8xlarge 2 x 600 GB (1.2 TB) NVMe SSD   ✔

m5d.12xlarge 2 x 900 GB (1.8 TB) NVMe SSD   ✔

m5d.16xlarge 4 x 600 GB (2.4 TB) NVMe SSD   ✔

m5d.24xlarge 4 x 900 GB (3.6 TB) NVMe SSD   ✔

m5d.metal 4 x 900 GB (3.6 TB) NVMe SSD   ✔

m5dn.large 1 x 75 GB NVMe SSD   ✔

m5dn.xlarge 1 x 150 GB NVMe SSD   ✔

m5dn.2xlarge 1 x 300 GB NVMe SSD   ✔

m5dn.4xlarge 2 x 300 GB (600 GB) NVMe SSD   ✔

m5dn.8xlarge 2 x 600 GB (1.2 TB) NVMe SSD   ✔

m5dn.12xlarge 2 x 900 GB (1.8 TB) NVMe SSD   ✔

m5dn.16xlarge 4 x 600 GB (2.4 TB) NVMe SSD   ✔

m5dn.24xlarge 4 x 900 GB (3.6 TB) NVMe SSD   ✔

m5dn.metal 4 x 900 GB (3.6 TB) NVMe SSD   ✔

p3dn.24xlarge 2 x 900 GB (1.8 TB) NVMe SSD   ✔

r3.large 1 x 32 GB SSD   ✔

r3.xlarge 1 x 80 GB SSD   ✔

r3.2xlarge 1 x 160 GB SSD   ✔

r3.4xlarge 1 x 320 GB SSD   ✔

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Instance store volumes

Instance type Instance store volumes Type Needs TRIM support**

initialization*

r3.8xlarge 2 x 320 GB (640 GB) SSD   ✔

r5ad.large 1 x 75 GB NVMe SSD   ✔

r5ad.xlarge 1 x 150 GB NVMe SSD   ✔

r5ad.2xlarge 1 x 300 GB NVMe SSD   ✔

r5ad.4xlarge 2 x 300 GB (600 GB) NVMe SSD   ✔

r5ad.8xlarge 2 x 600 GB (1.2 TB) NVMe SSD   ✔

r5ad.12xlarge 2 x 900 GB (1.8 TB) NVMe SSD   ✔

r5ad.16xlarge 4 x 600 GB (2.4 TB) NVMe SSD   ✔

r5ad.24xlarge 4 x 900 GB (3.6 TB) NVMe SSD   ✔

r5d.large 1 x 75 GB NVMe SSD   ✔

r5d.xlarge 1 x 150 GB NVMe SSD   ✔

r5d.2xlarge 1 x 300 GB NVMe SSD   ✔

r5d.4xlarge 2 x 300 GB (600 GB) NVMe SSD   ✔

r5d.8xlarge 2 x 600 GB (1.2 TB) NVMe SSD   ✔

r5d.12xlarge 2 x 900 GB (1.8 TB) NVMe SSD   ✔

r5d.16xlarge 4 x 600 GB (2.4 TB) NVMe SSD   ✔

r5d.24xlarge 4 x 900 GB (3.6 TB) NVMe SSD   ✔

r5d.metal 4 x 900 GB (3.6 TB) NVMe SSD   ✔

r5dn.large 1 x 75 GB NVMe SSD   ✔

r5dn.xlarge 1 x 150 GB NVMe SSD   ✔

r5dn.2xlarge 1 x 300 GB NVMe SSD   ✔

r5dn.4xlarge 2 x 300 GB (600 GB) NVMe SSD   ✔

r5dn.8xlarge 2 x 600 GB (1.2 TB) NVMe SSD   ✔

r5dn.12xlarge 2 x 900 GB (1.8 TB) NVMe SSD   ✔

r5dn.16xlarge 4 x 600 GB (2.4 TB) NVMe SSD   ✔

r5dn.24xlarge 4 x 900 GB (3.6 TB) NVMe SSD   ✔

r5dn.metal 4 x 900 GB (3.6 TB) NVMe SSD   ✔

x1.16xlarge 1 x 1,920 GB SSD    

x1.32xlarge 2 x 1,920 GB (3.84 TB) SSD    

x1e.xlarge 1 x 120 GB SSD    

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Instance store volumes

Instance type Instance store volumes Type Needs TRIM support**

initialization*

x1e.2xlarge 1 x 240 GB SSD    

x1e.4xlarge 1 x 480 GB SSD    

x1e.8xlarge 1 x 960 GB SSD    

x1e.16xlarge 1 x 1,920 GB SSD    

x1e.32xlarge 2 x 1,920 GB (3.84 TB) SSD    

z1d.large 1 x 75 GB NVMe SSD   ✔

z1d.xlarge 1 x 150 GB NVMe SSD   ✔

z1d.2xlarge 1 x 300 GB NVMe SSD   ✔

z1d.3xlarge 1 x 450 GB NVMe SSD   ✔

z1d.6xlarge 1 x 900 GB NVMe SSD   ✔

z1d.12xlarge 2 x 900 GB (1.8 TB) NVMe SSD   ✔

z1d.metal 2 x 900 GB (1.8 TB) NVMe SSD   ✔

* Volumes attached to certain instances suffer a first-write penalty unless initialized.

** For more information, see Instance store volume TRIM support (p. 1417).

To query instance store volume information using the AWS CLI

You can use the describe-instance-types AWS CLI command to display information about an instance
type, such as its instance store volumes. The following example displays the total size of instance storage
for all R5 instances with instance store volumes.

aws ec2 describe-instance-types --filters "Name=instance-type,Values=r5*"

"Name=instance-storage-supported,Values=true" --query "InstanceTypes[].[InstanceType,
InstanceStorageInfo.TotalSizeInGB]" --output table
---------------------------
| DescribeInstanceTypes |
+----------------+--------+
| r5ad.24xlarge | 3600 |
| r5ad.12xlarge | 1800 |
| r5dn.8xlarge | 1200 |
| r5ad.8xlarge | 1200 |
| r5ad.large | 75 |
| r5d.4xlarge | 600 |
. . .
| r5dn.2xlarge | 300 |
| r5d.12xlarge | 1800 |
+----------------+--------+

The following example displays the complete instance storage details for the specified instance type.

aws ec2 describe-instance-types --filters "Name=instance-type,Values=r5d.4xlarge" --query

"InstanceTypes[].InstanceStorageInfo"

The example output shows that this instance type has two 300 GB NVMe SSD volumes, for a total of 600
GB of instance storage.

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Add instance store volumes

[
{
"TotalSizeInGB": 600,
"Disks": [
{
"SizeInGB": 300,
"Count": 2,
"Type": "ssd"
}
],
"NvmeSupport": "required"
}
]

Add instance store volumes to your EC2 instance

You specify the EBS volumes and instance store volumes for your instance using a block device mapping.
Each entry in a block device mapping includes a device name and the volume that it maps to. The default
block device mapping is specified by the AMI you use. Alternatively, you can specify a block device
mapping for the instance when you launch it.

All the NVMe instance store volumes supported by an instance type are automatically enumerated and
assigned a device name on instance launch; including them in the block device mapping for the AMI or
the instance has no effect. For more information, see Block device mappings (p. 1426).

A block device mapping always specifies the root volume for the instance. The root volume is mounted
automatically. For Windows instances, the root volume must be an Amazon EBS volume; instance store is
not supported for the root volume.

You can use a block device mapping to specify additional EBS volumes when you launch your instance, or
you can attach additional EBS volumes after your instance is running. For more information, see Amazon
EBS volumes (p. 1174).

You can specify the instance store volumes for your instance only when you launch it. You can't attach
instance store volumes to an instance after you've launched it.

If you change the instance type, an instance store will not be attached to the new instance type. For
more information, see Change the instance type (p. 233).

The number and size of available instance store volumes for your instance varies by instance type. Some
instance types do not support instance store volumes. If the number of instance store volumes in a block
device mapping exceeds the number of instance store volumes available to an instance, the additional
volumes are ignored. For more information about the instance store volumes supported by each instance
type, see Instance store volumes (p. 1406).

If the instance type you choose for your instance supports non-NVMe instance store volumes, you must
add them to the block device mapping for the instance when you launch it. NVMe instance store volumes
are available by default. After you launch an instance, you must ensure that the instance store volumes
for your instance are formatted and mounted before you can use them. The root volume of an instance
store-backed instance is mounted automatically.

Contents
• Add instance store volumes to an AMI (p. 1414)
• Add instance store volumes to an instance (p. 1415)
• Make instance store volumes available on your instance (p. 1415)

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Add instance store volumes

Add instance store volumes to an AMI

You can create an AMI with a block device mapping that includes instance store volumes. If you launch
an instance with an instance type that supports instance store volumes and an AMI that specifies
instance store volumes in its block device mapping, the instance includes these instance store volumes. If
the number of instance store volumes in the block device mapping exceeds the number of instance store
volumes available to the instance, the additional instance store volumes are ignored.

Considerations

• For M3 instances, specify instance store volumes in the block device mapping of the instance, not
the AMI. Amazon EC2 might ignore instance store volumes that are specified only in the block device
mapping of the AMI.
• When you launch an instance, you can omit non-NVMe instance store volumes specified in the AMI
block device mapping or add instance store volumes.

New console

To add instance store volumes to an Amazon EBS-backed AMI using the console

1. Open the Amazon EC2 console at https://console.aws.amazon.com/ec2/.

2. In the navigation pane, choose Instances and select the instance.
3. Choose Actions, Image and templates, Create image.
4. On the Create image page, enter a meaningful name and description for your image.
5. For each instance store volume to add, choose Add volume, from Volume type select an
instance store volume, and from Device select a device name. (For more information, see Device
names on Windows instances (p. 1425).) The number of available instance store volumes
depends on the instance type. For instances with NVMe instance store volumes, the device
mapping of these volumes depends on the order in which the operating system enumerates the
volumes.
6. Choose Create image.

Old console

To add instance store volumes to an Amazon EBS-backed AMI using the console

1. Open the Amazon EC2 console at https://console.aws.amazon.com/ec2/.

2. In the navigation pane, choose Instances and select the instance.
3. Choose Actions, Image, Create Image.
4. In the Create Image dialog box, type a meaningful name and description for your image.
5. For each instance store volume to add, choose Add New Volume, from Volume Type select
an instance store volume, and from Device select a device name. (For more information, see
Device names on Windows instances (p. 1425).) The number of available instance store volumes
depends on the instance type. For instances with NVMe instance store volumes, the device
mapping of these volumes depends on the order in which the operating system enumerates the
volumes.
6. Choose Create Image.

To add instance store volumes to an AMI using the command line

You can use one of the following commands. For more information about these command line interfaces,
see Access Amazon EC2 (p. 3).

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Add instance store volumes

• create-image or register-image (AWS CLI)

• New-EC2Image and Register-EC2Image (AWS Tools for Windows PowerShell)

Add instance store volumes to an instance

When you launch an instance, the default block device mapping is provided by the specified AMI. If you
need additional instance store volumes, you must add them to the instance as you launch it. You can also
omit devices specified in the AMI block device mapping.

Considerations

• For M3 instances, you might receive instance store volumes even if you do not specify them in the
block device mapping for the instance.
• For HS1 instances, no matter how many instance store volumes you specify in the block device
mapping of an AMI, the block device mapping for an instance launched from the AMI automatically
includes the maximum number of supported instance store volumes. You must explicitly remove the
instance store volumes that you don't want from the block device mapping for the instance before you
launch it.

To update the block device mapping for an instance using the console

1. Open the Amazon EC2 console.

2. From the dashboard, choose Launch instance.
3. In Step 1: Choose an Amazon Machine Image (AMI), select the AMI to use and choose Select.
4. Follow the wizard to complete Step 1: Choose an Amazon Machine Image (AMI), Step 2: Choose an
Instance Type, and Step 3: Configure Instance Details.
5. In Step 4: Add Storage, modify the existing entries as needed. For each instance store volume to
add, choose Add New Volume, from Volume Type select an instance store volume, and from Device
select a device name. The number of available instance store volumes depends on the instance type.
6. Complete the wizard and launch the instance.
7. (Optional) To view the instance store volumes available on your instance, open Windows Disk
Management.

To update the block device mapping for an instance using the command line

You can use one of the following options commands with the corresponding command. For more
information about these command line interfaces, see Access Amazon EC2 (p. 3).

• --block-device-mappings with run-instances (AWS CLI)

• -BlockDeviceMapping with New-EC2Instance (AWS Tools for Windows PowerShell)

Make instance store volumes available on your instance

After you launch an instance, the instance store volumes are available to the instance, but you can't
access them until they are mounted. For Linux instances, the instance type determines which instance
store volumes are mounted for you and which are available for you to mount yourself. For Windows
instances, the EC2Config service mounts the instance store volumes for an instance. The block device
driver for the instance assigns the actual volume name when mounting the volume, and the name
assigned can be different than the name that Amazon EC2 recommends.

Many instance store volumes are pre-formatted with the ext3 file system. SSD-based instance store
volumes that support TRIM instruction are not pre-formatted with any file system. However, you can

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SSD instance store volumes

format volumes with the file system of your choice after you launch your instance. For more information,
see Instance store volume TRIM support (p. 1417). For Windows instances, the EC2Config service
reformats the instance store volumes with the NTFS file system.

You can confirm that the instance store devices are available from within the instance itself using
instance metadata. For more information, see View the instance block device mapping for instance store
volumes (p. 1434).

For Windows instances, you can also view the instance store volumes using Windows Disk Management.
For more information, see List disks using Disk Management (p. 1440).

To manually mount an instance store volume

1. Choose Start, enter Computer Management, and then press Enter.

2. In left-hand panel, choose Disk Management.
3. If you are prompted to initialize the volume, choose the volume to initialize, select the required
partition type depending on your use case, and then choose OK.
4. In the list of volumes, right-click the volume to mount, and then choose New Simple Volume.
5. On the wizard, choose Next.
6. On the Specify Volume Size screen, choose Next to use the maximum volume size. Alternatively,
choose a volume size that is between the minimum and maximum disk space.
7. On the Assign a Drive Letter or Path screen, do one of the following, and choose Next.

• To mount the volume with a drive letter, choose Assign the following drive letter and then
choose the drive letter to use.
• To mount the volume as a folder, choose Mount in the following empty NTFS folder and then
choose Browse to create or select the folder to use.
• To mount the volume without a drive letter or path, choose Do not assign a drive letter or drive
path.
8. On the Format Partition screen, specify whether or not to format the volume. If you choose to
format the volume, choose the required file system and unit size, and specify a volume label.
9. Choose Next, Finish.

SSD instance store volumes

Like other instance store volumes, you must map the SSD instance store volumes for your instance when
you launch it. The data on an SSD instance volume persists only for the life of its associated instance. For
more information, see Add instance store volumes to your EC2 instance (p. 1413).

NVMe SSD volumes

Some instances offer non-volatile memory express (NVMe) solid state drives (SSD) instance store
volumes. For more information about the type of instance store volume supported by each instance
type, see Instance store volumes (p. 1406).

The latest AWS Windows AMIs for the following operating systems contain the AWS NVMe drivers
used to interact with SSD instance store volumes that are exposed as NVMe block devices for better
performance:

• Windows Server 2019

• Windows Server 2016
• Windows Server 2012 R2
• Windows Server 2012
• Windows Server 2008 R2

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File storage

After you connect to your instance, you can verify that you see the NVMe volumes in Disk Manager. On
the taskbar, open the context (right-click) menu for the Windows logo and choose Disk Management.
On Windows Server 2008 R2, choose Start, Administrative Tools, Computer Management, Disk
Management.

The AWS Windows AMIs provided by Amazon include the AWS NVMe driver. If you are not using the
latest AWS Windows AMIs, you can install the current AWS NVMe driver (p. 547).

The data on NVMe instance storage is encrypted using an XTS-AES-256 block cipher implemented in a
hardware module on the instance. The encryption keys are generated using the hardware module and
are unique to each NVMe instance storage device. All encryption keys are destroyed when the instance
is stopped or terminated and cannot be recovered. You cannot disable this encryption and you cannot
provide your own encryption key.

Non-NVMe SSD volumes

The following instances support instance store volumes that use non-NVMe SSDs to deliver high random
I/O performance: C3, G2, I2, M3, R3, and X1. For more information about the instance store volumes
supported by each instance type, see Instance store volumes (p. 1406).

Instance store volume TRIM support

Some instance types support SSD volumes with TRIM. For more information, see Instance store
volumes (p. 1406).

Instances running Windows Server 2012 R2 support TRIM as of AWS PV Driver version 7.3.0. Instances
running earlier versions of Windows Server do not support TRIM.

Instance store volumes that support TRIM are fully trimmed before they are allocated to your instance.
These volumes are not formatted with a file system when an instance launches, so you must format
them before they can be mounted and used. For faster access to these volumes, you should skip the
TRIM operation when you format them. On Windows, to temporarily disable TRIM support during initial
formatting, use the fsutil behavior set DisableDeleteNotify 1 command. After formatting is
complete, re-enable TRIM support by using fsutil behavior set DisableDeleteNotify 0.

With instance store volumes that support TRIM, you can use the TRIM command to notify the SSD
controller when you no longer need data that you've written. This provides the controller with more
free space, which can reduce write amplification and increase performance. On Windows, use the the
fsutil behavior set DisableDeleteNotify 0 command to ensure TRIM support is enabled
during normal operation.

File storage
Cloud file storage is a method for storing data in the cloud that provides servers and applications access
to data through shared file systems. This compatibility makes cloud file storage ideal for workloads that
rely on shared file systems and provides simple integration without code changes.

There are many file storage solutions that exist, ranging from a single node file server on a compute
instance using block storage as the underpinnings with no scalability or few redundancies to protect
the data, to a do-it-yourself clustered solution, to a fully-managed solution. The following content
introduces some of the storage services provided by AWS for use with Windows.

Contents
• Use Amazon S3 with Amazon EC2 (p. 1418)
• Use Amazon EFS with Amazon EC2 (p. 1419)
• Use FSx for Windows File Server with Amazon EC2 (p. 1419)

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Amazon S3

Use Amazon S3 with Amazon EC2

Amazon S3 is a repository for internet data. Amazon S3 provides access to reliable, fast, and inexpensive
data storage infrastructure. It is designed to make web-scale computing easier by enabling you to store
and retrieve any amount of data, at any time, from within Amazon EC2 or anywhere on the web. Amazon
S3 stores data objects redundantly on multiple devices across multiple facilities and allows concurrent
read or write access to these data objects by many separate clients or application threads. You can use
the redundant data stored in Amazon S3 to recover quickly and reliably from instance or application
failures.

Amazon EC2 uses Amazon S3 for storing Amazon Machine Images (AMIs). You use AMIs for launching
EC2 instances. In case of instance failure, you can use the stored AMI to immediately launch another
instance, thereby allowing for fast recovery and business continuity.

Amazon EC2 also uses Amazon S3 to store snapshots (backup copies) of the data volumes. You can use
snapshots for recovering data quickly and reliably in case of application or system failures. You can
also use snapshots as a baseline to create multiple new data volumes, expand the size of an existing
data volume, or move data volumes across multiple Availability Zones, thereby making your data usage
highly scalable. For more information about using data volumes and snapshots, see Amazon Elastic Block
Store (p. 1173).

Objects are the fundamental entities stored in Amazon S3. Every object stored in Amazon S3 is
contained in a bucket. Buckets organize the Amazon S3 namespace at the highest level and identify
the account responsible for that storage. Amazon S3 buckets are similar to internet domain names.
Objects stored in the buckets have a unique key value and are retrieved using a URL. For example, if an
object with a key value /photos/mygarden.jpg is stored in the DOC-EXAMPLE-BUCKET1 bucket, then
it is addressable using the URL https://DOC-EXAMPLE-BUCKET1.s3.amazonaws.com/photos/
mygarden.jpg.

For more information about the features of Amazon S3, see the Amazon S3 product page.

Usage examples
Given the benefits of Amazon S3 for storage, you might decide to use this service to store files and data
sets for use with EC2 instances. There are several ways to move data to and from Amazon S3 to your
instances. In addition to the examples discussed below, there are a variety of tools that people have
written that you can use to access your data in Amazon S3 from your computer or your instance. Some of
the common ones are discussed in the AWS forums.

If you have permission, you can copy a file to or from Amazon S3 and your instance using one of the
following methods.

AWS Tools for Windows PowerShell

Windows instances have the benefit of a graphical browser that you can use to access the Amazon S3
console directly; however, for scripting purposes, Windows users can also use the AWS Tools for Windows
PowerShell to move objects to and from Amazon S3.

Use the following command to copy an Amazon S3 object to your Windows instance.

PS C:\> Copy-S3Object -BucketName my_bucket -Key path-to-file -LocalFile my_copied_file.ext

AWS Command Line Interface

The AWS Command Line Interface (AWS CLI) is a unified tool to manage your AWS services. The AWS
CLI enables users to authenticate themselves and download restricted items from Amazon S3 and also
to upload items. For more information, such as how to install and configure the tools, see the AWS
Command Line Interface detail page.

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Amazon EFS

The aws s3 cp command is similar to the Unix cp command. You can copy files from Amazon S3 to your
instance, copy files from your instance to Amazon S3, and copy files from one Amazon S3 location to
another.

Use the following command to copy an object from Amazon S3 to your instance.

aws s3 cp s3://my_bucket/my_folder/my_file.ext my_copied_file.ext

Use the following command to copy an object from your instance back into Amazon S3.

aws s3 cp my_copied_file.ext s3://my_bucket/my_folder/my_file.ext

The aws s3 sync command can synchronize an entire Amazon S3 bucket to a local directory location. This
can be helpful for downloading a data set and keeping the local copy up-to-date with the remote set. If
you have the proper permissions on the Amazon S3 bucket, you can push your local directory back up to
the cloud when you are finished by reversing the source and destination locations in the command.

Use the following command to download an entire Amazon S3 bucket to a local directory on your
instance.

aws s3 sync s3://remote_S3_bucket local_directory

Amazon S3 API

If you are a developer, you can use an API to access data in Amazon S3. For more information, see the
Amazon Simple Storage Service Developer Guide. You can use this API and its examples to help develop
your application and integrate it with other APIs and SDKs, such as the boto Python interface.

Use Amazon EFS with Amazon EC2

Amazon EFS provides scalable file storage for use with Amazon EC2. You can use an EFS file system
as a common data source for workloads and applications running on multiple instances. For more
information, see the Amazon Elastic File System product page.
Important
Amazon EFS is not supported on Windows instances.

To use Amazon EFS with a Linux instance, see Amazon Elastic File System (Amazon EFS) in the Amazon
EC2 User Guide for Linux Instances.

Use FSx for Windows File Server with Amazon EC2

FSx for Windows File Server provides fully managed Windows file servers, backed by a fully–native
Windows file system with the features, performance, and compatibility to easily lift and shift enterprise
applications to AWS.

Amazon FSx supports a broad set of enterprise Windows workloads with fully managed file storage
built on Microsoft Windows Server. Amazon FSx has native support for Windows file system features
and for the industry-standard Server Message Block (SMB) protocol to access file storage over a
network. Amazon FSx is optimized for enterprise applications in the AWS Cloud, with native Windows
compatibility, enterprise performance and features, and consistent sub-millisecond latencies.

With file storage on Amazon FSx, the code, applications, and tools that Windows developers and
administrators use today can continue to work unchanged. The Windows applications and workloads
that are ideal for Amazon FSx include business applications, home directories, web serving, content
management, data analytics, software build setups, and media processing workloads.

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Instance volume limits

As a fully managed service, FSx for Windows File Server eliminates the administrative overhead of
setting up and provisioning file servers and storage volumes. Additionally, it keeps Windows software up
to date, detects and addresses hardware failures, and performs backups. It also provides rich integration
with other AWS services, including AWS Directory Service for Microsoft Active Directory, Amazon
WorkSpaces, AWS Key Management Service, and AWS CloudTrail.

For more information, see the FSx for Windows File Server User Guide. For pricing information, see FSx
for Windows File Server Pricing.

Instance volume limits

The maximum number of volumes that your instance can have depends on the operating system and
instance type. When considering how many volumes to add to your instance, you should consider
whether you need increased I/O bandwidth or increased storage capacity.

Contents
• Nitro System volume limits (p. 1420)
• Windows-specific volume limits (p. 1420)
• Bandwidth versus capacity (p. 1421)

Nitro System volume limits

Instances built on the Nitro System (p. 147) support a maximum number of attachments, which are
shared between network interfaces, EBS volumes, and NVMe instance store volumes. Every instance has
at least one network interface attachment. NVMe instance store volumes are automatically attached. For
more information, see Elastic network interfaces (p. 948) and Instance store volumes (p. 1406).

Most of these instances support a maximum of 28 attachments. For example, if you have no additional
network interface attachments on an EBS-only instance, you can attach up to 27 EBS volumes to it. If
you have one additional network interface on an instance with 2 NVMe instance store volumes, you can
attach 24 EBS volumes to it.

For other instances, the following limits apply:

• d3.8xlarge and d3en.12xlarge instances support a maximum of 3 EBS volumes.

• Most bare metal instances support a maximum of 31 EBS volumes.
• High memory virtualized instances support a maximum of 27 EBS volumes.
• High memory bare metal instances support a maximum of 19 EBS volumes.

If you launched a u-6tb1.metal, u-9tb1.metal, or u-12tb1.metal high memory bare metal

instance before March 12, 2020, it supports a maximum of 14 EBS volumes. To attach up to 19 EBS
volumes to these instances, contact your account team to upgrade the instance at no additional cost.

Windows-specific volume limits

The following table shows the volume limits for Windows instances based on the driver used. Note that
these numbers include the root volume, plus any attached instance store volumes and EBS volumes.
Important
Attaching more than the following volumes to a Windows instance is supported on a best effort
basis only and is not guaranteed.

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Bandwidth versus capacity

Driver Volume Limit

AWS PV 26

Citrix PV 26

Red Hat PV 17

We do not recommend that you give a Windows instance more than 26 volumes with AWS PV or Citrix
PV drivers, as it is likely to cause performance issues.

To determine which PV drivers your instance is using, or to upgrade your Windows instance from Red Hat
to Citrix PV drivers, see Upgrade PV drivers on Windows instances (p. 533).

For more information about how device names related to volumes, see Map disks to volumes on your
Windows instance (p. 1435).

Bandwidth versus capacity

For consistent and predictable bandwidth use cases, use EBS-optimized or 10 Gigabit network
connectivity instances and General Purpose SSD or Provisioned IOPS SSD volumes. Follow the guidance
in Amazon EBS–optimized instances (p. 1357) to match the IOPS you have provisioned for your volumes
to the bandwidth available from your instances for maximum performance. For RAID configurations,
many administrators find that arrays larger than 8 volumes have diminished performance returns due to
increased I/O overhead. Test your individual application performance and tune it as required.

Amazon EC2 instance root device volume

When you launch an instance, the root device volume contains the image used to boot the instance. When
you launch a Windows instance, a root EBS volume is created from an EBS snapshot and attached to the
instance.

Topics
• Configure the root volume to persist (p. 1421)
• Confirm that a root volume is configured to persist (p. 1423)
• Change the initial size of the root volume (p. 1424)

Configure the root volume to persist

By default, the root volume is deleted when the instance terminates (the DeleteOnTermination
attribute is true). Using the console, you can change DeleteOnTermination when you launch an
instance. To change this attribute for an existing instance, you must use the command line.

Topics
• Configure the root volume to persist during instance launch (p. 1421)
• Configure the root volume to persist for an existing instance (p. 1422)

Configure the root volume to persist during instance launch

You can configure the root volume to persist when you launch an instance using the Amazon EC2 console
or the command line tools.

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Configure the root volume to persist

Console

To configure the root volume to persist when you launch an instance using the console

1. Open the Amazon EC2 console at https://console.aws.amazon.com/ec2/.

2. In the navigation pane, choose Instances and then choose Launch instances.
3. On the Choose an Amazon Machine Image (AMI) page, select the AMI to use and choose
Select.
4. Follow the wizard to complete the Choose an Instance Type and Configure Instance Details
pages.
5. On the Add Storage page, deselect Delete On Termination for the root volume.
6. Complete the remaining wizard pages, and then choose Launch.

AWS CLI

To configure the root volume to persist when you launch an instance using the AWS CLI

Use the run-instances command and include a block device mapping that sets the
DeleteOnTermination attribute to false.

C:\> aws ec2 run-instances --block-device-mappings file://mapping.json ...other

parameters...

Specify the following in mapping.json.

[
{
"DeviceName": "/dev/sda1",
"Ebs": {
"DeleteOnTermination": false
}
}
]

Tools for Windows PowerShell

To configure the root volume to persist when you launch an instance using the Tools for
Windows PowerShell

Use the New-EC2Instance command and include a block device mapping that sets the
DeleteOnTermination attribute to false.

C:\> $ebs = New-Object Amazon.EC2.Model.EbsBlockDevice

C:\> $ebs.DeleteOnTermination = $false
C:\> $bdm = New-Object Amazon.EC2.Model.BlockDeviceMapping
C:\> $bdm.DeviceName = "dev/xvda"
C:\> $bdm.Ebs = $ebs
C:\> New-EC2Instance -ImageId ami-0abcdef1234567890 -BlockDeviceMapping $bdm ...other
parameters...

Configure the root volume to persist for an existing instance

You can configure the root volume to persist for a running instance using the command line tools only.

AWS CLI

To configure the root volume to persist for an existing instance using the AWS CLI

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Confirm that a root volume is configured to persist

Use the modify-instance-attribute command with a block device mapping that sets the
DeleteOnTermination attribute to false.

aws ec2 modify-instance-attribute --instance-id i-1234567890abcdef0 --block-device-

mappings file://mapping.json

Specify the following in mapping.json.

[
{
"DeviceName": "/dev/xvda",
"Ebs": {
"DeleteOnTermination": false
}
}
]

Tools for Windows PowerShell

To configure the root volume to persist for an existing instance using the AWS Tools for Windows
PowerShell

Use the Edit-EC2InstanceAttribute command with a block device mapping that sets the
DeleteOnTermination attribute to false.

C:\> $ebs = New-Object Amazon.EC2.Model.EbsInstanceBlockDeviceSpecification

C:\> $ebs.DeleteOnTermination = $false
C:\> $bdm = New-Object Amazon.EC2.Model.InstanceBlockDeviceMappingSpecification
C:\> $bdm.DeviceName = "/dev/xvda"
C:\> $bdm.Ebs = $ebs
C:\> Edit-EC2InstanceAttribute -InstanceId i-1234567890abcdef0 -BlockDeviceMapping $bdm

Confirm that a root volume is configured to persist

You can confirm that a root volume is configured to persist using the Amazon EC2 console or the
command line tools.

New console

To confirm that a root volume is configured to persist using the Amazon EC2 console

1. Open the Amazon EC2 console at https://console.aws.amazon.com/ec2/.

2. In the navigation pane, choose Instances and then select the instance.
3. In the Storage tab, under Block devices, locate the entry for the root volume. If Delete on
termination is No, the volume is configured to persist.

Old console

To confirm that a root volume is configured to persist using the Amazon EC2 console

1. Open the Amazon EC2 console at https://console.aws.amazon.com/ec2/.

2. In the navigation pane, choose Instances and then select the instance.
3. In the Description tab, choose the entry for Root device. If Delete on termination is False, the
volume is configured to persist.

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Change the initial size of the root volume

AWS CLI

To confirm that a root volume is configured to persist using the AWS CLI

Use the describe-instances command and verify that the DeleteOnTermination attribute in the
BlockDeviceMappings response element is set to false.

C:\> aws ec2 describe-instances --instance-id i-1234567890abcdef0

...
"BlockDeviceMappings": [
{
"DeviceName": "/dev/sda1",
"Ebs": {
"Status": "attached",
"DeleteOnTermination": false,
"VolumeId": "vol-1234567890abcdef0",
"AttachTime": "2013-07-19T02:42:39.000Z"
}
}
...

Tools for Windows PowerShell

To confirm that a root volume is configured to persist using the AWS Tools for Windows
PowerShell

Use the Get-EC2Instance and verify that the DeleteOnTermination attribute in the
BlockDeviceMappings response element is set to false.

C:\> (Get-EC2Instance -InstanceId i-

i-1234567890abcdef0).Instances.BlockDeviceMappings.Ebs

Change the initial size of the root volume

By default, the size of the root volume is determined by the size of the snapshot. You can increase the
initial size of the root volume using the block device mapping of the instance as follows.

1. Determine the device name of the root volume specified in the AMI, as described in View the EBS
volumes in an AMI block device mapping (p. 1431).
2. Confirm the size of the snapshot specified in the AMI block device mapping, as described in View
Amazon EBS snapshot information (p. 1246).
3. Override the size of the root volume using the instance block device mapping, as described in Update
the block device mapping when launching an instance (p. 1431), specifying a volume size that is
larger than the snapshot size.

For example, the following entry for the instance block device mapping increases the size of the root
volume, /dev/xvda, to 100 GiB. You can omit the snapshot ID in the instance block device mapping
because the snapshot ID is already specified in the AMI block device mapping.

{
"DeviceName": "/dev/xvda",
"Ebs": {
"VolumeSize": 100
}

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Device names

For more information, see Block device mappings (p. 1426).

Device names on Windows instances

When you attach a volume to your instance, you include a device name for the volume. This device name
is used by Amazon EC2. The block device driver for the instance assigns the actual volume name when
mounting the volume, and the name assigned can be different from the name that Amazon EC2 uses.

The number of volumes that your instance can support is determined by the operating system. For more
information, see Instance volume limits (p. 1420).

Contents
• Available device names (p. 1425)
• Device name considerations (p. 1426)

For information about device names on Linux instances, see Device naming on Linux instances in the
Amazon EC2 User Guide for Linux Instances.

Available device names

Windows AMIs use one of the following sets of drivers to permit access to virtualized hardware: AWS PV,
Citrix PV, and RedHat PV. For more information, see Paravirtual drivers for Windows instances (p. 528).

The following table lists the available device names that you can specify in a block device mapping or
when attaching an EBS volume.

Driver type Available Reserved for root Recommended Instance store

for EBS volumes volumes

AWS PV, Citrix PV xvd[b-z] /dev/sda1 xvd[f-z] * xvdc[a-x]

xvd[b-c][a-z] xvd[a-e]

/dev/sda1 **

/dev/sd[b-e]

Red Hat PV xvd[a-z] /dev/sda1 xvd[f-p] xvdc[a-x]

xvd[b-c][a-z] xvd[a-e]

/dev/sda1

/dev/sd[b-e]

* For Citrix PV and Red Hat PV, if you map an EBS volume with the name xvda, Windows does not
recognize the volume (the volume is visible for AWS PV or AWS NVMe).

** NVMe instance store volumes are automatically enumerated and assigned a Windows drive letter.

For more information about instance store volumes, see Amazon EC2 instance store (p. 1405). For more
information about NVMe EBS volumes (Nitro-based instances), including how to identify the EBS device,
see Amazon EBS and NVMe on Windows instances (p. 1355).

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Device name considerations

Device name considerations

Keep the following in mind when selecting a device name:

• Although you can attach your EBS volumes using the device names used to attach instance store
volumes, we strongly recommend that you don't because the behavior can be unpredictable.
• The number of NVMe instance store volumes for an instance depends on the size of the instance.
NVMe instance store volumes are automatically enumerated and assigned a Windows drive letter.
• AWS Windows AMIs come with additional software that prepares an instance when it first boots up.
This is either the EC2Config service (Windows AMIs prior to Windows Server 2016) or EC2Launch
(Windows Server 2016 and later). After the devices have been mapped to drives, they are initialized
and mounted. The root drive is initialized and mounted as C:\. By default, when an EBS volume is
attached to a Windows instance, it can show up as any drive letter on the instance. You can change the
settings to set the drive letters of the volumes per your specifications. For instance store volumes, the
default depends on the driver. AWS PV drivers and Citrix PV drivers assign instance store volumes drive
letters going from Z: to A:. Red Hat drivers assign instance store volumes drive letters going from D:
to Z:. For more information, see Configure a Windows instance using the EC2Config service (p. 502),
Configure a Windows instance using EC2Launch (p. 494), and Map disks to volumes on your Windows
instance (p. 1435).

Block device mappings

Each instance that you launch has an associated root device volume, which is either an Amazon
EBS volume or an instance store volume. You can use block device mapping to specify additional
EBS volumes or instance store volumes to attach to an instance when it's launched. You can also
attach additional EBS volumes to a running instance; see Attach an Amazon EBS volume to an
instance (p. 1199). However, the only way to attach instance store volumes to an instance is to use block
device mapping to attach the volumes as the instance is launched.

For more information about root device volumes, see Amazon EC2 instance root device
volume (p. 1421).

Contents
• Block device mapping concepts (p. 1426)
• AMI block device mapping (p. 1429)
• Instance block device mapping (p. 1431)

Block device mapping concepts

A block device is a storage device that moves data in sequences of bytes or bits (blocks). These devices
support random access and generally use buffered I/O. Examples include hard disks, CD-ROM drives, and
flash drives. A block device can be physically attached to a computer or accessed remotely as if it were
physically attached to the computer.

Amazon EC2 supports two types of block devices:

• Instance store volumes (virtual devices whose underlying hardware is physically attached to the host
computer for the instance)
• EBS volumes (remote storage devices)

A block device mapping defines the block devices (instance store volumes and EBS volumes) to attach
to an instance. You can specify a block device mapping as part of creating an AMI so that the mapping

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Block device mapping concepts

is used by all instances launched from the AMI. Alternatively, you can specify a block device mapping
when you launch an instance, so this mapping overrides the one specified in the AMI from which you
launched the instance. Note that all NVMe instance store volumes supported by an instance type are
automatically enumerated and assigned a device name on instance launch; including them in your block
device mapping has no effect.

Contents
• Block device mapping entries (p. 1427)
• Block device mapping instance store caveats (p. 1427)
• Example block device mapping (p. 1428)
• How devices are made available in the operating system (p. 1429)

Block device mapping entries

When you create a block device mapping, you specify the following information for each block device
that you need to attach to the instance:

• The device name used within Amazon EC2. The block device driver for the instance assigns the actual
volume name when mounting the volume. The name assigned can be different from the name that
Amazon EC2 recommends. For more information, see Device names on Windows instances (p. 1425).

For Instance store volumes, you also specify the following information:

• The virtual device: ephemeral[0-23]. Note that the number and size of available instance store
volumes for your instance varies by instance type.

For NVMe instance store volumes, the following information also applies:

• These volumes are automatically enumerated and assigned a device name; including them in your
block device mapping has no effect.

For EBS volumes, you also specify the following information:

• The ID of the snapshot to use to create the block device (snap-xxxxxxxx). This value is optional as long
as you specify a volume size.
• The size of the volume, in GiB. The specified size must be greater than or equal to the size of the
specified snapshot.
• Whether to delete the volume on instance termination (true or false). The default value is true
for the root device volume and false for attached volumes. When you create an AMI, its block device
mapping inherits this setting from the instance. When you launch an instance, it inherits this setting
from the AMI.
• The volume type, which can be gp2 and gp3 for General Purpose SSD, io1 and io2 for Provisioned
IOPS SSD, st1 for Throughput Optimized HDD, sc1 for Cold HDD, or standard for Magnetic. The
default value is gp2.
• The number of input/output operations per second (IOPS) that the volume supports. (Used only with
io1 and io2 volumes.)

Block device mapping instance store caveats

There are several caveats to consider when launching instances with AMIs that have instance store
volumes in their block device mappings.

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Block device mapping concepts

• Some instance types include more instance store volumes than others, and some instance types
contain no instance store volumes at all. If your instance type supports one instance store volume, and
your AMI has mappings for two instance store volumes, then the instance launches with one instance
store volume.
• Instance store volumes can only be mapped at launch time. You cannot stop an instance without
instance store volumes (such as the t2.micro), change the instance to a type that supports instance
store volumes, and then restart the instance with instance store volumes. However, you can create an
AMI from the instance and launch it on an instance type that supports instance store volumes, and
map those instance store volumes to the instance.
• If you launch an instance with instance store volumes mapped, and then stop the instance and change
it to an instance type with fewer instance store volumes and restart it, the instance store volume
mappings from the initial launch still show up in the instance metadata. However, only the maximum
number of supported instance store volumes for that instance type are available to the instance.
Note
When an instance is stopped, all data on the instance store volumes is lost.
• Depending on instance store capacity at launch time, M3 instances may ignore AMI instance store
block device mappings at launch unless they are specified at launch. You should specify instance
store block device mappings at launch time, even if the AMI you are launching has the instance store
volumes mapped in the AMI, to ensure that the instance store volumes are available when the instance
launches.

Example block device mapping

This figure shows an example block device mapping for an EBS-backed instance. It maps /dev/sdb to
ephemeral0 and maps two EBS volumes, one to /dev/sdh and the other to /dev/sdj. It also shows
the EBS volume that is the root device volume, /dev/sda1.

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AMI block device mapping

Note that this example block device mapping is used in the example commands and APIs in this
topic. You can find example commands and APIs that create block device mappings in Specify a
block device mapping for an AMI (p. 1429) and Update the block device mapping when launching an
instance (p. 1431).

How devices are made available in the operating system

Device names like /dev/sdh and xvdh are used by Amazon EC2 to describe block devices. The block
device mapping is used by Amazon EC2 to specify the block devices to attach to an EC2 instance. After
a block device is attached to an instance, it must be mounted by the operating system before you can
access the storage device. When a block device is detached from an instance, it is unmounted by the
operating system and you can no longer access the storage device.

With a Windows instance, the device names specified in the block device mapping are mapped to their
corresponding block devices when the instance first boots, and then the Ec2Config service initializes and
mounts the drives. The root device volume is mounted as C:\. The instance store volumes are mounted
as Z:\, Y:\, and so on. When an EBS volume is mounted, it can be mounted using any available drive
letter. However, you can configure how the Ec2Config Service assigns drive letters to EBS volumes; for
more information, see Configure a Windows instance using the EC2Config service (p. 502).

AMI block device mapping

Each AMI has a block device mapping that specifies the block devices to attach to an instance when it
is launched from the AMI. An AMI that Amazon provides includes a root device only. To add more block
devices to an AMI, you must create your own AMI.

Contents
• Specify a block device mapping for an AMI (p. 1429)
• View the EBS volumes in an AMI block device mapping (p. 1431)

Specify a block device mapping for an AMI

There are two ways to specify volumes in addition to the root volume when you create an AMI. If you've
already attached volumes to a running instance before you create an AMI from the instance, the block
device mapping for the AMI includes those same volumes. For EBS volumes, the existing data is saved
to a new snapshot, and it's this new snapshot that's specified in the block device mapping. For instance
store volumes, the data is not preserved.

For an EBS-backed AMI, you can add EBS volumes and instance store volumes using a block device
mapping. For an instance store-backed AMI, you can add instance store volumes only by modifying the
block device mapping entries in the image manifest file when registering the image.
Note
For M3 instances, you must specify instance store volumes in the block device mapping for the
instance when you launch it. When you launch an M3 instance, instance store volumes specified
in the block device mapping for the AMI may be ignored if they are not specified as part of the
instance block device mapping.

To add volumes to an AMI using the console

1. Open the Amazon EC2 console.

2. In the navigation pane, choose Instances.
3. Select an instance and choose Actions, Image and templates, Create image.
4. Enter a name and a description for the image.

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AMI block device mapping

5. The instance volumes appear under Instance volumes. To add another volume, choose Add volume.
6. For Volume type, choose the volume type. For Device choose the device name. For an EBS volume,
you can specify additional details, such as a snapshot, volume size, volume type, IOPS, and
encryption state.
7. Choose Create image.

To add volumes to an AMI using the command line

Use the create-image AWS CLI command to specify a block device mapping for an EBS-backed AMI. Use
the register-image AWS CLI command to specify a block device mapping for an instance store-backed
AMI.

Specify the block device mapping using the --block-device-mappings parameter. Arguments
encoded in JSON can be supplied either directly on the command line or by reference to a file:

--block-device-mappings [mapping, ...]

--block-device-mappings [file://mapping.json]

To add an instance store volume, use the following mapping.

{
"DeviceName": "xvdb",
"VirtualName": "ephemeral0"
}

To add an empty 100 GiB gp2 volume, use the following mapping.

{
"DeviceName": "xvdg",
"Ebs": {
"VolumeSize": 100
}
}

To add an EBS volume based on a snapshot, use the following mapping.

{
"DeviceName": "xvdh",
"Ebs": {
"SnapshotId": "snap-xxxxxxxx"
}
}

To omit a mapping for a device, use the following mapping.

{
"DeviceName": "xvdj",
"NoDevice": ""
}

Alternatively, you can use the -BlockDeviceMapping parameter with the following commands (AWS
Tools for Windows PowerShell):

• New-EC2Image
• Register-EC2Image

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Instance block device mapping

View the EBS volumes in an AMI block device mapping

You can easily enumerate the EBS volumes in the block device mapping for an AMI.

To view the EBS volumes for an AMI using the console

1. Open the Amazon EC2 console.

2. In the navigation pane, choose AMIs.
3. Choose EBS images from the Filter list to get a list of EBS-backed AMIs.
4. Select the desired AMI, and look at the Details tab. At a minimum, the following information is
available for the root device:

• Root Device Type (ebs)

• Root Device Name (for example, /dev/sda1)
• Block Devices (for example, /dev/sda1=snap-1234567890abcdef0:8:true)

If the AMI was created with additional EBS volumes using a block device mapping, the Block Devices
field displays the mapping for those additional volumes as well. (This screen doesn't display instance
store volumes.)

To view the EBS volumes for an AMI using the command line

Use the describe-images (AWS CLI) command or Get-EC2Image (AWS Tools for Windows PowerShell)
command to enumerate the EBS volumes in the block device mapping for an AMI.

Instance block device mapping

By default, an instance that you launch includes any storage devices specified in the block device
mapping of the AMI from which you launched the instance. You can specify changes to the block device
mapping for an instance when you launch it, and these updates overwrite or merge with the block device
mapping of the AMI.

Limitations

• For the root volume, you can only modify the following: volume size, volume type, and the Delete on
Termination flag.
• When you modify an EBS volume, you can't decrease its size. Therefore, you must specify a snapshot
whose size is equal to or greater than the size of the snapshot specified in the block device mapping of
the AMI.

Contents
• Update the block device mapping when launching an instance (p. 1431)
• Update the block device mapping of a running instance (p. 1433)
• View the EBS volumes in an instance block device mapping (p. 1433)
• View the instance block device mapping for instance store volumes (p. 1434)

Update the block device mapping when launching an instance

You can add EBS volumes and instance store volumes to an instance when you launch it. Note that
updating the block device mapping for an instance doesn't make a permanent change to the block
device mapping of the AMI from which it was launched.

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Instance block device mapping

To add volumes to an instance using the console

1. Open the Amazon EC2 console.

2. From the dashboard, choose Launch Instance.
3. On the Choose an Amazon Machine Image (AMI) page, select the AMI to use and choose Select.
4. Follow the wizard to complete the Choose an Instance Type and Configure Instance Details pages.
5. On the Add Storage page, you can modify the root volume, EBS volumes, and instance store
volumes as follows:

• To change the size of the root volume, locate the Root volume under the Type column, and
change its Size field.
• To suppress an EBS volume specified by the block device mapping of the AMI used to launch the
instance, locate the volume and click its Delete icon.
• To add an EBS volume, choose Add New Volume, choose EBS from the Type list, and fill in the
fields (Device, Snapshot, and so on).
• To suppress an instance store volume specified by the block device mapping of the AMI used to
launch the instance, locate the volume, and choose its Delete icon.
• To add an instance store volume, choose Add New Volume, select Instance Store from the Type
list, and select a device name from Device.
6. Complete the remaining wizard pages, and choose Launch.

To add volumes to an instance using the AWS CLI

Use the run-instances AWS CLI command with the --block-device-mappings option to specify a
block device mapping for an instance at launch.

For example, suppose that an EBS-backed AMI specifies the following block device mapping:

• xvdb=ephemeral0
• xvdh=snap-1234567890abcdef0
• xvdj=:100

To prevent xvdj from attaching to an instance launched from this AMI, use the following mapping.

{
"DeviceName": "xvdj",
"NoDevice": ""
}

To increase the size of xvdh to 300 GiB, specify the following mapping. Notice that you don't need to
specify the snapshot ID for xvdh, because specifying the device name is enough to identify the volume.

{
"DeviceName": "xvdh",
"Ebs": {
"VolumeSize": 300
}
}

To increase the size of the root volume at instance launch, first call describe-images with the ID of the
AMI to verify the device name of the root volume. For example, "RootDeviceName": "/dev/xvda".
To override the size of the root volume, specify the device name of the root device used by the AMI and
the new volume size.

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Instance block device mapping

{
"DeviceName": "/dev/xvda",
"Ebs": {
"VolumeSize": 100
}
}

To attach an additional instance store volume, xvdc, specify the following mapping. If the instance type
doesn't support multiple instance store volumes, this mapping has no effect. If the instance supports
NVMe instance store volumes, they are automatically enumerated and assigned an NVMe device name.

{
"DeviceName": "xvdc",
"VirtualName": "ephemeral1"
}

To add volumes to an instance using the AWS Tools for Windows PowerShell

Use the -BlockDeviceMapping parameter with the New-EC2Instance command (AWS Tools for
Windows PowerShell).

Update the block device mapping of a running instance

You can use the modify-instance-attribute AWS CLI command to update the block device mapping of a
running instance. You do not need to stop the instance before changing this attribute.

aws ec2 modify-instance-attribute --instance-id i-1a2b3c4d --block-device-mappings file://

mapping.json

For example, to preserve the root volume at instance termination, specify the following in
mapping.json.

[
{
"DeviceName": "/dev/sda1",
"Ebs": {
"DeleteOnTermination": false
}
}
]

Alternatively, you can use the -BlockDeviceMapping parameter with the Edit-EC2InstanceAttribute
command (AWS Tools for Windows PowerShell).

View the EBS volumes in an instance block device mapping

You can easily enumerate the EBS volumes mapped to an instance.
Note
For instances launched before the release of the 2009-10-31 API, AWS can't display the block
device mapping. You must detach and reattach the volumes so that AWS can display the block
device mapping.

To view the EBS volumes for an instance using the console

1. Open the Amazon EC2 console.

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Instance block device mapping

2. In the navigation pane, choose Instances.

3. In the search box, enter Root device type, and then choose EBS. This displays a list of EBS-backed
instances.
4. Select the desired instance and look at the details displayed in the Storage tab. At a minimum, the
following information is available for the root device:

• Root device type (for example, EBS)

• Root device name (for example, /dev/xvda)
• Block devices (for example, /dev/xvda, xvdf, and xvdj)

If the instance was launched with additional EBS volumes using a block device mapping, they appear
under Block devices. Any instance store volumes do not appear on this tab.
5. To display additional information about an EBS volume, choose its volume ID to go to the volume
page. For more information, see View information about an Amazon EBS volume (p. 1204).

To view the EBS volumes for an instance using the command line

Use the describe-instances (AWS CLI) command or Get-EC2Instance (AWS Tools for Windows PowerShell)
command to enumerate the EBS volumes in the block device mapping for an instance.

View the instance block device mapping for instance store

volumes
When you view the block device mapping for your instance, you can see only the EBS volumes, not
the instance store volumes. The method you use to view the instance store volumes for your instance
depends on the volume type.

NVMe instance store volumes

You can use the NVMe command line package, nvme-cli, to query the NVMe instance store volumes
in the block device mapping. Download and install the package on your instance, and then run the
following command.

[ec2-user ~]$ sudo nvme list

The following is example output for an instance. The text in the Model column indicates whether the
volume is an EBS volume or an instance store volume. In this example, both /dev/nvme1n1 and /dev/
nvme2n1 are instance store volumes.

Node SN Model Namespace

---------------- -------------------- ---------------------------------------- ---------
/dev/nvme0n1 vol06afc3f8715b7a597 Amazon Elastic Block Store 1
/dev/nvme1n1 AWS2C1436F5159EB6614 Amazon EC2 NVMe Instance Storage 1
/dev/nvme2n1 AWSB1F4FF0C0A6C281EA Amazon EC2 NVMe Instance Storage 1
...

HDD or SSD instance store volumes

You can use instance metadata to query the HDD or SSD instance store volumes in the block device
mapping. NVMe instance store volumes are not included.

The base URI for all requests for instance metadata is http://169.254.169.254/latest/. For more
information, see Instance metadata and user data (p. 588).

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Map disks to volumes

First, connect to your running instance. From the instance, use this query to get its block device mapping.

PS C:\> Invoke-RestMethod -uri http://169.254.169.254/latest/meta-data/block-device-

mapping/

The response includes the names of the block devices for the instance. For example, the output for an
instance store–backed m1.small instance looks like this.

ami
ephemeral0
root
swap

The ami device is the root device as seen by the instance. The instance store volumes are named
ephemeral[0-23]. The swap device is for the page file. If you've also mapped EBS volumes, they
appear as ebs1, ebs2, and so on.

To get details about an individual block device in the block device mapping, append its name to the
previous query, as shown here.

IMDSv2

[ec2-user ~]$ TOKEN=`curl -X PUT "http://169.254.169.254/latest/api/token" -H "X-aws-

ec2-metadata-token-ttl-seconds: 21600"` \
&& curl -H "X-aws-ec2-metadata-token: $TOKEN" –v http://169.254.169.254/latest/meta-
data/block-device-mapping/ephemeral0

IMDSv1

[ec2-user ~]$ curl http://169.254.169.254/latest/meta-data/block-device-mapping/

ephemeral0

PS C:\> Invoke-RestMethod -uri http://169.254.169.254/latest/meta-data/block-device-

mapping/ephemeral0

The instance type determines the number of instance store volumes that are available to the instance. If
the number of instance store volumes in a block device mapping exceeds the number of instance store
volumes available to an instance, the additional volumes are ignored. To view the instance store volumes
for your instance, open Windows Disk Management. To learn how many instance store volumes are
supported by each instance type, see Instance store volumes (p. 1406).

Map disks to volumes on your Windows instance

Your Windows instance comes with an EBS volume that serves as the root volume. If your Windows
instance uses AWS PV or Citrix PV drivers, you can optionally add up to 25 volumes, making a total of 26
volumes. For more information, see Instance volume limits (p. 1420).

Depending on the instance type of your instance, you'll have from 0 to 24 possible instance store
volumes available to the instance. To use any of the instance store volumes that are available to
your instance, you must specify them when you create your AMI or launch your instance. You can
also add EBS volumes when you create your AMI or launch your instance, or attach them while your

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List NVMe volumes

instance is running. For more information, see Make an Amazon EBS volume available for use on
Windows (p. 1200).

When you add a volume to your instance, you specify the device name that Amazon EC2 uses. For
more information, see Device names on Windows instances (p. 1425). AWS Windows Amazon Machine
Images (AMIs) contain a set of drivers that are used by Amazon EC2 to map instance store and EBS
volumes to Windows disks and drive letters. If you launch an instance from a Windows AMI that uses
AWS PV or Citrix PV drivers, you can use the relationships described on this page to map your Windows
disks to your instance store and EBS volumes. If your Windows AMI uses Red Hat PV drivers, you can
update your instance to use the Citrix drivers. For more information, see Upgrade PV drivers on Windows
instances (p. 533).

Contents
• List NVMe volumes (p. 1436)
• List NVMe disks using Disk Management (p. 1436)
• List NVMe disks using PowerShell (p. 1437)
• Map NVMe EBS volumes (p. 1439)
• List volumes (p. 1440)
• List disks using Disk Management (p. 1440)
• Map disk devices to device names (p. 1441)
• Instance store volumes (p. 1441)
• EBS volumes (p. 1442)
• List disks using PowerShell (p. 1443)

List NVMe volumes

You can find the disks on your Windows instance using Disk Management or Powershell.

List NVMe disks using Disk Management

You can find the disks on your Windows instance using Disk Management.

To find the disks on your Windows instance

1. Log in to your Windows instance using Remote Desktop. For more information, see Connect to your
Windows instance (p. 417).
2. Start the Disk Management utility.
3. Review the disks. The root volume is an EBS volume mounted as C:\. If there are no other disks
shown, then you didn't specify additional volumes when you created the AMI or launched the
instance.

The following is an example that shows the disks that are available if you launch an r5d.4xlarge
instance with two additional EBS volumes.

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List NVMe volumes

List NVMe disks using PowerShell

The following PowerShell script lists each disk and its corresponding device name and volume. It is
intended for use with instances build on the Nitro System (p. 147), which use NVMe EBS and instance
store volumes.

Connect to your Windows instance and run the following command to enable PowerShell script
execution.

Set-ExecutionPolicy RemoteSigned

Copy the following script and save it as mapping.ps1 on your Windows instance.

# List the disks for NVMe volumes

function Get-EC2InstanceMetadata {
param([string]$Path)
(Invoke-WebRequest -Uri "http://169.254.169.254/latest/$Path").Content
}

function GetEBSVolumeId {
param($Path)
$SerialNumber = (Get-Disk -Path $Path).SerialNumber
if($SerialNumber -clike 'vol*'){

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$EbsVolumeId = $SerialNumber.Substring(0,20).Replace("vol","vol-")
}
else {
$EbsVolumeId = $SerialNumber.Substring(0,20).Replace("AWS","AWS-")
}
return $EbsVolumeId
}

function GetDeviceName{
param($EbsVolumeId)
if($EbsVolumeId -clike 'vol*'){

$Device = ((Get-EC2Volume -VolumeId $EbsVolumeId ).Attachment).Device

$VolumeName = ""
}
else {
$Device = "Ephemeral"
$VolumeName = "Temporary Storage"
}
Return $Device,$VolumeName
}

function GetDriveLetter{
param($Path)
$DiskNumber = (Get-Disk -Path $Path).Number
if($DiskNumber -eq 0){
$VirtualDevice = "root"
$DriveLetter = "C"
$PartitionNumber = (Get-Partition -DriveLetter C).PartitionNumber
}
else
{
$VirtualDevice = "N/A"
$DriveLetter = (Get-Partition -DiskNumber $DiskNumber).DriveLetter
if(!$DriveLetter)
{
$DriveLetter = ((Get-Partition -DiskId $Path).AccessPaths).Split(",")[0]
}
$PartitionNumber = (Get-Partition -DiskId $Path).PartitionNumber
}

return $DriveLetter,$VirtualDevice,$PartitionNumber

$Report = @()
foreach($Path in (Get-Disk).Path)
{
$Disk_ID = ( Get-Partition -DiskId $Path).DiskId
$Disk = ( Get-Disk -Path $Path).Number
$EbsVolumeId = GetEBSVolumeId($Path)
$Size =(Get-Disk -Path $Path).Size
$DriveLetter,$VirtualDevice, $Partition = (GetDriveLetter($Path))
$Device,$VolumeName = GetDeviceName($EbsVolumeId)
$Disk = New-Object PSObject -Property @{
Disk = $Disk
Partitions = $Partition
DriveLetter = $DriveLetter
EbsVolumeId = $EbsVolumeId
Device = $Device
VirtualDevice = $VirtualDevice
VolumeName= $VolumeName
}
$Report += $Disk
}

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List NVMe volumes

$Report | Sort-Object Disk | Format-Table -AutoSize -Property Disk, Partitions,

DriveLetter, EbsVolumeId, Device, VirtualDevice, VolumeName

Run the script as follows:

PS C:\> .\mapping.ps1

The following is example output for an instance with a root volume, two EBS volumes, and two instance
store volumes.

Disk Partitions DriveLetter EbsVolumeId Device VirtualDevice VolumeName

---- ---------- ----------- ----------- ------ ------------- ----------
0 1 C vol-03683f1d861744bc7 /dev/sda1 root
1 1 D vol-082b07051043174b9 xvdb N/A
2 1 E vol-0a4064b39e5f534a2 xvdc N/A
3 1 F AWS-6AAD8C2AEEE1193F0 Ephemeral N/A Temporary Storage
4 1 G AWS-13E7299C2BD031A28 Ephemeral N/A Temporary Storage

If you did not provide your credentials on the Windows instance, the script cannot get the EBS volume ID
and uses N/A in the EbsVolumeId column.

Map NVMe EBS volumes

With instances built on the Nitro System (p. 147), EBS volumes are exposed as NVMe devices. You can
use the Get-Disk command to map Windows disk numbers to EBS volume IDs. For more information, see
Identify the EBS device (p. 1356).

PS C:\> Get-Disk
Number Friendly Name Serial Number HealthStatus
OperationalStatus Total Size Partition

Style
------ ------------- ------------- ------------
----------------- ---------- ----------
3 NVMe Amazo... AWS6AAD8C2AEEE1193F0_00000001. Healthy Online
279.4 GB MBR
4 NVMe Amazo... AWS13E7299C2BD031A28_00000001. Healthy Online
279.4 GB MBR
2 NVMe Amazo... vol0a4064b39e5f534a2_00000001. Healthy Online
8 GB MBR
0 NVMe Amazo... vol03683f1d861744bc7_00000001. Healthy Online
30 GB MBR
1 NVMe Amazo... vol082b07051043174b9_00000001. Healthy Online
8 GB MBR

You can also run the ebsnvme-id command to map NVMe disk numbers to EBS volume IDs and device
names.

PS C:\> C:\PROGRAMDATA\Amazon\Tools\ebsnvme-id.exe
Disk Number: 0
Volume ID: vol-03683f1d861744bc7
Device Name: sda1

Disk Number: 1
Volume ID: vol-082b07051043174b9
Device Name: xvdb

Disk Number: 2
Volume ID: vol-0a4064b39e5f534a2
Device Name: xvdc

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List volumes

List volumes
You can find the disks on your Windows instance using Disk Management or Powershell.

List disks using Disk Management

You can find the disks on your Windows instance using Disk Management.

To find the disks on your Windows instance

1. Log in to your Windows instance using Remote Desktop. For more information, see Connect to your
Windows instance (p. 417).
2. Start the Disk Management utility.

On Windows Server 2012 and later, on the taskbar, right-click the Windows logo, and then choose
Disk Management. On Windows Server 2008, choose Start, Administrative Tools, Computer
Management, Disk Management.
3. Review the disks. The root volume is an EBS volume mounted as C:\. If there are no other disks
shown, then you didn't specify additional volumes when you created the AMI or launched the
instance.

The following is an example that shows the disks that are available if you launch an m3.medium
instance with an instance store volume (Disk 2) and an additional EBS volume (Disk 1).

4. Right-click the gray pane labeled Disk 1, and then select Properties. Note the value of Location and
look it up in the tables in Map disk devices to device names (p. 1441). For example, the following

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List volumes

disk has the location Bus Number 0, Target Id 9, LUN 0. According to the table for EBS volumes, the
device name for this location is xvdj.

Map disk devices to device names

The block device driver for the instance assigns the actual volume names when mounting volumes.

Mappings
• Instance store volumes (p. 1441)
• EBS volumes (p. 1442)

Instance store volumes

The following table describes how the Citrix PV and AWS PV drivers map non-NVMe instance store
volumes to Windows volumes. The number of available instance store volumes is determined by the
instance type. For more information, see Instance store volumes (p. 1406).

Location Device name

Bus Number 0, Target ID 78, LUN 0 xvdca

Bus Number 0, Target ID 79, LUN 0 xvdcb

Bus Number 0, Target ID 80, LUN 0 xvdcc

Bus Number 0, Target ID 81, LUN 0 xvdcd

Bus Number 0, Target ID 82, LUN 0 xvdce

Bus Number 0, Target ID 83, LUN 0 xvdcf

Bus Number 0, Target ID 84, LUN 0 xvdcg

Bus Number 0, Target ID 85, LUN 0 xvdch

Bus Number 0, Target ID 86, LUN 0 xvdci

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Location Device name

Bus Number 0, Target ID 87, LUN 0 xvdcj

Bus Number 0, Target ID 88, LUN 0 xvdck

Bus Number 0, Target ID 89, LUN 0 xvdcl

EBS volumes
The following table describes how the Citrix PV and AWS PV drivers map non-NVME EBS volumes to
Windows volumes.

Location Device name

Bus Number 0, Target ID 0, LUN 0 /dev/sda1

Bus Number 0, Target ID 1, LUN 0 xvdb

Bus Number 0, Target ID 2, LUN 0 xvdc

Bus Number 0, Target ID 3, LUN 0 xvdd

Bus Number 0, Target ID 4, LUN 0 xvde

Bus Number 0, Target ID 5, LUN 0 xvdf

Bus Number 0, Target ID 6, LUN 0 xvdg

Bus Number 0, Target ID 7, LUN 0 xvdh

Bus Number 0, Target ID 8, LUN 0 xvdi

Bus Number 0, Target ID 9, LUN 0 xvdj

Bus Number 0, Target ID 10, LUN 0 xvdk

Bus Number 0, Target ID 11, LUN 0 xvdl

Bus Number 0, Target ID 12, LUN 0 xvdm

Bus Number 0, Target ID 13, LUN 0 xvdn

Bus Number 0, Target ID 14, LUN 0 xvdo

Bus Number 0, Target ID 15, LUN 0 xvdp

Bus Number 0, Target ID 16, LUN 0 xvdq

Bus Number 0, Target ID 17, LUN 0 xvdr

Bus Number 0, Target ID 18, LUN 0 xvds

Bus Number 0, Target ID 19, LUN 0 xvdt

Bus Number 0, Target ID 20, LUN 0 xvdu

Bus Number 0, Target ID 21, LUN 0 xvdv

Bus Number 0, Target ID 22, LUN 0 xvdw

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Location Device name

Bus Number 0, Target ID 23, LUN 0 xvdx

Bus Number 0, Target ID 24, LUN 0 xvdy

Bus Number 0, Target ID 25, LUN 0 xvdz

List disks using PowerShell

The following PowerShell script lists each disk and its corresponding device name and volume.

Requirements and limitations

• Requires Windows Server 2012 or later.

• Requires credentials to get the EBS volume ID. You can configure a profile using the Tools for
PowerShell, or attach an IAM role to the instance.
• Does not support NVMe volumes.
• Does not support dynamic disks.

Connect to your Windows instance and run the following command to enable PowerShell script
execution.

Set-ExecutionPolicy RemoteSigned

Copy the following script and save it as mapping.ps1 on your Windows instance.

# List the disks

function Get-EC2InstanceMetadata {
param([string]$Path)
(Invoke-WebRequest -Uri "http://169.254.169.254/latest/$Path").Content
}

function Convert-SCSITargetIdToDeviceName {
param([int]$SCSITargetId)
If ($SCSITargetId -eq 0) {
return "sda1"
}
$deviceName = "xvd"
If ($SCSITargetId -gt 25) {
$deviceName += [char](0x60 + [int]($SCSITargetId / 26))
}
$deviceName += [char](0x61 + $SCSITargetId % 26)
return $deviceName
}

Try {
$InstanceId = Get-EC2InstanceMetadata "meta-data/instance-id"
$AZ = Get-EC2InstanceMetadata "meta-data/placement/availability-zone"
$Region = $AZ.Remove($AZ.Length - 1)
$BlockDeviceMappings = (Get-EC2Instance -Region $Region -Instance
$InstanceId).Instances.BlockDeviceMappings
$VirtualDeviceMap = @{}
(Get-EC2InstanceMetadata "meta-data/block-device-mapping").Split("`n") | ForEach-Object {
$VirtualDevice = $_
$BlockDeviceName = Get-EC2InstanceMetadata "meta-data/block-device-mapping/
$VirtualDevice"

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$VirtualDeviceMap[$BlockDeviceName] = $VirtualDevice
$VirtualDeviceMap[$VirtualDevice] = $BlockDeviceName
}
}
Catch {
Write-Host "Could not access the AWS API, therefore, VolumeId is not available.
Verify that you provided your access keys." -ForegroundColor Yellow
}

Get-disk | ForEach-Object {
$DriveLetter = $null
$VolumeName = $null

$DiskDrive = $_
$Disk = $_.Number
$Partitions = $_.NumberOfPartitions
$EbsVolumeID = $_.SerialNumber -replace "_[^ ]*$" -replace "vol", "vol-"
Get-Partition -DiskId $_.Path | ForEach-Object {
if ($_.DriveLetter -ne "") {
$DriveLetter = $_.DriveLetter
$VolumeName = (Get-PSDrive | Where-Object {$_.Name -eq $DriveLetter}).Description
}
}

If ($DiskDrive.path -like "*PROD_PVDISK*") {

$BlockDeviceName = Convert-SCSITargetIdToDeviceName((Get-WmiObject -
Class Win32_Diskdrive | Where-Object {$_.DeviceID -eq ("\\.\PHYSICALDRIVE" +
$DiskDrive.Number) }).SCSITargetId)
$BlockDeviceName = "/dev/" + $BlockDeviceName
$BlockDevice = $BlockDeviceMappings | Where-Object { $BlockDeviceName -like "*"+
$_.DeviceName+"*" }
$EbsVolumeID = $BlockDevice.Ebs.VolumeId
$VirtualDevice = If ($VirtualDeviceMap.ContainsKey($BlockDeviceName))
{ $VirtualDeviceMap[$BlockDeviceName] } Else { $null }
}
ElseIf ($DiskDrive.path -like "*PROD_AMAZON_EC2_NVME*") {
$BlockDeviceName = Get-EC2InstanceMetadata "meta-data/block-device-mapping/
ephemeral$((Get-WmiObject -Class Win32_Diskdrive | Where-Object {$_.DeviceID -eq ("\\.
\PHYSICALDRIVE"+$DiskDrive.Number) }).SCSIPort - 2)"
$BlockDevice = $null
$VirtualDevice = If ($VirtualDeviceMap.ContainsKey($BlockDeviceName))
{ $VirtualDeviceMap[$BlockDeviceName] } Else { $null }
}
ElseIf ($DiskDrive.path -like "*PROD_AMAZON*") {
$BlockDevice = ""
$BlockDeviceName = ($BlockDeviceMappings | Where-Object {$_.ebs.VolumeId -eq
$EbsVolumeID}).DeviceName
$VirtualDevice = $null
}
Else {
$BlockDeviceName = $null
$BlockDevice = $null
$VirtualDevice = $null
}
New-Object PSObject -Property @{
Disk = $Disk;
Partitions = $Partitions;
DriveLetter = If ($DriveLetter -eq $null) { "N/A" } Else { $DriveLetter };
EbsVolumeId = If ($EbsVolumeID -eq $null) { "N/A" } Else { $EbsVolumeID };
Device = If ($BlockDeviceName -eq $null) { "N/A" } Else { $BlockDeviceName };
VirtualDevice = If ($VirtualDevice -eq $null) { "N/A" } Else { $VirtualDevice };
VolumeName = If ($VolumeName -eq $null) { "N/A" } Else { $VolumeName };
}
} | Sort-Object Disk | Format-Table -AutoSize -Property Disk, Partitions, DriveLetter,
EbsVolumeId, Device, VirtualDevice, VolumeName

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Deploy Storage Spaces Direct

Run the script as follows:

PS C:\> .\mapping.ps1

The following is example output.

Disk Partitions DriveLetter EbsVolumeId Device VirtualDevice VolumeName

---- ---------- ----------- ----------- ------ ------------- ----------
0 1 Z N/A xvdca ephemeral0 N/A
1 1 Y N/A xvdcb ephemeral1 N/A
2 2 C vol-0064aexamplec838a /dev/sda1 root Windows
3 1 D vol-02256example8a4a3 xvdf ebs2 N/A

If you did not provide your credentials on the Windows instance, the script cannot get the EBS volume ID
and uses N/A in the EbsVolumeId column.

Tutorial: Deploy Storage Spaces Direct (S2D) on

Amazon EC2
Storage Spaces Direct (S2D) is a highly-scalable, software-defined storage architecture that enables users
to cluster local storage with features in Windows Server 2016. S2D is an alternative to traditional SAN
or NAS arrays. It uses built-in Windows features and tools to configure highly-available storage that
crosses multiple nodes in a cluster. For more information, see Storage Spaces Direct in the Microsoft
documentation.

The following diagram shows the architecture of S2D on Amazon EC2 Windows.

Skill Level

A basic understanding of Windows Server computing as well as how to create and manage domain-
joined Amazon EC2 Windows instances in a VPC is required. Knowledge of the AWS Tools for Windows
PowerShell and Windows Failover Clustering is helpful, but not required.

What you will accomplish in this tutorial

• Provision a highly-available storage cluster using Storage Spaces Direct (S2D).

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• Provision a fault-tolerant, cluster-shared volume (CSV) on your cluster.

Before you begin

• If you haven't done so already, open https://aws.amazon.com/ and create an AWS account.
• Create a virtual private cloud (VPC) with a public subnet and two private subnets for your instances. A
third, private, subnet should be configured for AWS Directory Service.
• Select one of the latest Amazon Machine Images (AMIs) for Windows Server 2016. You can use this
AMI as is, or use it as the basis for your own custom AMI. AWS recommends using the latest public EC2
Windows Server 2016 AMI.
• Create an AWS Directory Service directory. This is no longer a requirement for enabling the Failover
Clustering feature in Windows Server 2016. However, this tutorial assumes that your instances
will be joined to an Active Directory domain, either on EC2 or AWS Managed Active Directory. For
more information, see Getting Started with AWS Directory Service in the AWS Directory Service
Administration Guide.
• Install and configure the AWS Tools for Windows PowerShell on your computer. For more information,
see the AWS Tools for Windows PowerShell User Guide.

Important considerations

• Stopping instances with instance store volumes (p. 1405) can cause data loss if the data is not backed
up or replicated. The data in an instance store persists only during the lifetime of its associated
instance. If an instance reboots (intentionally or unintentionally), data in the instance store persists.
However, data in the instance store is lost under the following circumstances:
• The underlying disk drive fails.
• The instance stops.
• The instance terminates.

• Stopping too many instances in a cluster can cause data loss if the data is not backed up or replicated.
When you use S2D on AWS, as with any cluster, losing more nodes than your fault tolerance allows
will result in loss of data. One of the biggest risks to any cluster is losing all nodes. Cluster redundancy
protects against failures on a single instance (or more, if your fault tolerance supports it). However,
you can lose data if the number of instances with failed disk drives in a cluster exceeds the fault
tolerance. You can also lose data if the number of stopped or terminated instances exceeds the
fault tolerance. To reduce risk, limit the number of people or systems that can stop or terminate
instances in the cluster. To mitigate the risk of terminating cluster node instances, enable termination
protection (p. 449) on these instances. You can also configure IAM policies to allow users to only
restart nodes from the AWS Management Console but not stop them.
• S2D does not protect against networking or data center failures that affect the entire cluster. To
reduce risk, consider using Dedicated Hosts to ensure that instances are not placed in the same rack.

Tasks
• Step 1: Launch and Domain Join Instances (p. 1447)
• Step 2: Install and Configure Instance Prerequisites (p. 1449)
• Step 3: Create Failover Cluster (p. 1450)
• Step 4: Enable S2D (p. 1451)
• Step 5: Provision Storage (p. 1451)
• Step 6: Review the S2D Resources (p. 1452)
• Step 7: Clean Up (p. 1453)
• Additional Resources (p. 1453)

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Step 1: Launch and Domain Join Instances

The following diagram shows the architecture of a two node EC2 Windows S2D Cluster using a file share
witness hosted on an existing bastion machine on AWS.

Step 1: Launch and Domain Join Instances

All Nitro instances support Storage Spaces Direct using EBS and/or NVMe. All current generation Xen-
based instances support Storage Spaces Direct with installation of AWS PV driver 8.2.3 and later. The
best performance for storage can be achieved using I3 instances because they provide local instance
store with NVMe and high network performance. Configuring S2D on Amazon EC2 requires a cluster of
at least two, but no more than 16 instances. These instances must each have at least two NVMe devices
with high performance network connections between nodes, and run Windows Server 2016. For more
information, see Storage Spaces Direct hardware requirements in the Microsoft documentation.

We recommend the I3 instance size because it satisfies the S2D hardware requirements and includes
the largest and fastest instance store devices available. It also includes enhanced networking, which
maximizes the available resources for S2D per instance. You can use M5D and R5D instance types, which
have at least 2 NVMe disks, but local instance store disks will be used as cache disks for the storage
spaces direct cluster and at least 2 EBS volumes will have to be added to each instance to provide
capacity storage.

We recommend that you launch three instances to take advantage of three-way mirroring S2D fault
tolerance, which enables you to conduct maintenance on a single node while maintaining fault tolerance
in your cluster if a witness such as a file share witness is configured. You can also use two-way mirroring
with two instances as a less expensive solution, but a witness will be necessary and high availability will
not be maintained during maintenance on a cluster node.

We will deploy a two node cluster architecture using a file share witness hosted on an existing bastion
machine that acts as our administration workstation. Each cluster node must be deployed in a different
subnet. This architecture will be deployed into a single availability zone because Microsoft does not
currently support stretch cluster with Storage Spaces Direct. However, the performance of a single
availability zone and multi-availability zones are exactly the same as a result of our very low-latency and
high-bandwidth design for availability zones.

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Step 1: Launch and Domain Join Instances

To launch instances for your cluster

1. Using the Amazon EC2 console or the New-EC2Instance cmdlet, launch two i3.8xlarge instances
to create the cluster and a t2.medium instance as an administration workstation and to host
the file share witness. Use a different subnet for each instance. If you wish to follow a logic for IP
assignment, then define the primary private IP address at creation time. In this case, you will need
to define a secondary private IP address for each cluster node because the secondary IP will be
assigned to the cluster VIP later.

To create each instance with PowerShell, use the New-EC2Instance command.

New-EC2Instance -ImageId ami-c49c0dac -MinCount 1 -MaxCount 1 -KeyName myPSKeyPair -

SecurityGroupId mySGID -InstanceType i3.8xlarge -SubnetId mysubnetID

To create an AWS AD directory with PowerShell, use the New-DSMicrosoftAD command (or, refer to
Create Your AWS Managed Microsoft AD Directory in AWS ).

New-DSMicrosoftAD -Name corp.example.com –ShortName corp –Password P@ssw0rd –

Description “AWS DS Managed” - VpcSettings_VpcId vpc-xxxxxxxx -VpcSettings_SubnetId
subnet-xxxxxxxx, subnet-xxxxxxxx

We use the following S2D-node1 network interface configuration:

Note
Each role deployed on this cluster, such as a SQL Failover Cluster instance or file server, will
require additional secondary IP addresses on each node. The exception is the Scale-Out File
Server role, which does not require an access point.

We use the following configuration:

Server NetBIOS Name IP Address Subnets

                                        AZ1 (e.g., eu-west-1a)

S2D-Node1 172.16.1.199 (Primary) – private subnet 1

               
172.16.1.200 (secondary which
will used for the cluster VIP)

172.16.1.201 (secondary which

will be used later for a role
such as SQL FCI)
               

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Step 2: Install and Configure Instance Prerequisites

Server NetBIOS Name IP Address Subnets

                                        AZ1 (e.g., eu-west-1a)

S2D-Node2 172.16.3.199 (Primary) – private subnet 2

               
172.16.3.200 (secondary which
will be used for the cluster VIP)

172.16.3.201 (secondary which

will be used later for a role
such as SQL FCI)
               

ADM01 Not specified AZ1 (e.g.,eu-west-1a)

– public subnet

2. You can use seamless domain join at creation time to join instances to the domain. If you want to
join them to the domain after they are launched, use the Add-Computer command. We recommend
using AWS Systems Manager and AWS Directory Service to seamlessly join EC2 instances to a
domain.

The steps in the remainder of this tutorial require execution with a domain account with local
administrative privileges on each instance. Rename the instances as you want them before moving
to the configuration. Ensure that your security groups and Windows firewalls are properly configured
to allow remote PowerShell connection and cluster communications on these nodes.

Step 2: Install and Configure Instance Prerequisites

S2D requires File Services and Failover Clustering Window features, and at least one ten Gbps network
interface. We recommend that you configure SMB to use SMB Multichannel, with RSS client connection
counts that match the RSS queue count of the enhanced network adapter.

The following steps will be accomplished from the bastion instance ADM01.

To install required Windows features

• Install the File Services and Failover-Clustering Windows features with the management tools on
cluster nodes. Install only failover management tools on ADM01.
Note
Change "S2D-Node1" and "S2D-Node2" to reflect the computer names that you set for the
two instances; otherwise, the values will not change.

$nodes = "S2D-Node1", "S2D-Node2"

foreach ($node in $nodes) {
Install-WindowsFeature -ComputerName $node -Name File-Services, Failover-Clustering
-IncludeManagementTools
}
Install-WindowsFeature -Name RSAT-Clustering

To configure networking

1. Enable multichannel and set the RSS Connection Count.

foreach ($node in $nodes) {

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Step 3: Create Failover Cluster

Invoke-Command -ComputerName $node -ScriptBlock {

[int]$RssQCount = (Get-NetAdapterAdvancedProperty | Where DisplayName -
like "Maximum Number of RSS Queues").RegistryValue | Select -First 1
$Params = @{
EnableMultiChannel = $true;
ConnectionCountPerRssNetworkInterface = $RssQCount;
Confirm = $false;
}
Set-SmbClientConfiguration @Params
}
}

2. Configure RSS.

foreach ($node in $nodes) {

Invoke-Command -ComputerName $node -ScriptBlock {
Get-WmiObject –class Win32_processor | ft systemname, Name, DeviceID,
NumberOfCores, NumberOfLogicalProcessors
$maxvcpu = (Get-WmiObject –class Win32_processor).NumberOfLogicalProcessors
Get-NetAdapter | Set-NetAdapterRss -BaseProcessorNumber 2 -MaxProcessors
$maxvcpu
}
}

Note
You will see a disconnection message when executing this command because the network
adapter restarts after setting the RSS configuration.

Receive Side Scaling (RSS) is a very important technology in networking on Windows. RSS ensures
that incoming network traffic is spread among the available processors in the server for processing.
If RSS is not used, network processing is bound to one processor, which is limited to approximately
4GBps. Currently, every NIC, by default, enables RSS, but the configuration is not optimized. Every
NIC is configured, by default, with “Base Processor” 0, which means it will start processing on
processor 0 together with the others NICs . To optimally configure RSS, start at processor 1 so we
don't interfere with processes landing default on processor 0.
3. Increase storage space I/O timeout value to 30 seconds (recommended when configured into a guest
cluster).

foreach ($node in $nodes) {

Invoke-Command -ComputerName $node -ScriptBlock {
Set-ItemProperty -Path HKLM:\SYSTEM\CurrentControlSet\Services\spaceport
\Parameters -Name HwTimeout -Value 0x00007530 -Verbose
}
}

4. Reboot all nodes to apply all of the changes.

Restart-Computer -ComputerName $nodes -Wait -For Wmi -Force

Step 3: Create Failover Cluster

S2D is a feature that is enabled on an existing failover cluster. After you enable S2D on a failover cluster,
it takes control of the local storage of each node in the cluster. For this reason, we recommend that you
install a cluster with no storage at creation time, and then enable S2D.

When you create a cluster on AWS, you must assign static IP addresses from each subnet from which a
node is deployed. From the console, they must be set as secondary private IP addresses on each node.
For this tutorial, we configured 172.16.1.200 and 172.16.3.200 upon deployment of each node.

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Step 4: Enable S2D

You can verify and review the cluster configuration with the built-in Test-Cluster command.

Test and verify your cluster configuration

1. Run the Test-Cluster command with the Storage Spaces Direct, Inventory, Network,and
System Configuration tests.

$report = Test-Cluster -Node $nodes -Include 'Storage Spaces

Direct', 'Inventory', 'Network', 'System Configuration'

2. Review the test results.

$reportFilePath = $report.FullName
Start-Process $reportFilePath

3. Create the cluster using New-Cluster. Virtual IPs must be assigned a secondary private IP address
from the AWS Management Console to each respective node.

$vips = "172.16.1.200", "172.16.3.200"

New-Cluster -Name S2D -Node $nodes -StaticAddress $vips -NoStorage

4. Configure a file share witness.

New-Item -ItemType Directory -Path c:\Share\Witness

[string]$DomainName = (Get-WmiObject win32_computersystem).domain
New-SmbShare -Name fsw -Path c:\Share\Witness -FullAccess ($DomainName + "\Domain
Computers")
Set-ClusterQuorum -Cluster S2D -FileShareWitness \\$env:COMPUTERNAME\fsw

Step 4: Enable S2D

When the cluster is ready, enable S2D on one of the nodes using Enable-ClusterS2D as follows. Because
we have only one type of disk in our setup (local NVMe), we won't use any disks as a cache disk.

1. Enable S2D on i3 instance types using the Enable-ClusterS2D command.

Enable-ClusterS2D -PoolFriendlyName S2DPool -Confirm:$false -SkipEligibilityChecks:

$true -CimSession $nodes[0]

2. If you are using m5d or r5d instance types with NVMe and EBS, use NVMe disks as cache disks. The
command would look like this:

Enable-ClusterS2D -PoolFriendlyName S2DPool -CacheDeviceModel "Amazon EC2 NVMe" -

Confirm:$false -SkipEligibilityChecks:$true -CimSession $nodes[0]

Step 5: Provision Storage

To provision storage, create a storage pool and then create volumes in that pool. To keep things simple,
by default, the Enable-ClusterS2D command creates a pool using all of the disks available in the cluster.
With this command we configured the storage pool name as "S2D Pool."

After volumes are created, they become accessible to every node in the cluster. The volumes can then
be assigned to a specific role in the cluster, such as a file server role; or, they can be assigned as cluster
shared volumes (CSV). A CSV is accessible to the entire cluster, which means that every node in this
cluster can write-read to this volume.

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Step 6: Review the S2D Resources

To improve performance, we recommend you use fixed provisioning and a ReFS file system for CSV.
Sector size depends on what type of workloads will be deployed on the cluster. For more information on
sector size, see Cluster Size Recommendations for ReFS and NTFS. For improved local read performance,
we recommend that you align the CSV with the node hosting your application or workload. You can have
multiple CSV and multiple applications spread across nodes.

Create a cluster shared volume (CSV)

• Use the New-Volume command to create a new 1TB CSV.

$Params = @{
FriendlyName = 'CSV1';
FileSystem = 'CSVFS_ReFS';
StoragePoolFriendlyName = 'S2DPool';
Size = 1TB;
AllocationUnitSize = 65536;
ProvisioningType = 'Fixed';
CimSession = $nodes[0];
}
New-Volume @Params

Step 6: Review the S2D Resources

The S2D resources that you configured are displayed in the Failover Cluster Manager.

To view your CSV

1. Open Server Manager.

2. Choose Tools, Failover Cluster Manager.
3. Expand the name of the cluster, expand Storage, and choose Disks.

The friendly name, capacity, node hosting the CSV, and other data will be listed. For more
information on managing CSVs, see Use Cluster Shared Volumes in a Failover Cluster.

To synthesize a load on your CSV

Use a tool such as Diskspd Utility. Connect to one of the cluster nodes with RDP and run the following
with the Diskspd tool.

$mycsv = (gci C:\ClusterStorage\ | select -First 1).Fullname

.\diskspd.exe -d60 -b4k -o1024 -t32 -L -Sh -r -w50 -W60 -c100G $mycsv\test.dat

To view the S2D storage performance of the cluster

Use the Get-StorageHealthReport command to view the cluster performance on one of the cluster
nodes.

1. Open a new PowerShell windows and start your synthesized workload.

2. In your original PowerShell windows, run Get-StorageSubSystem *cluster* | Get-
StorageHealthReport to see the performance results of the storage subsystem while the workload is
running.

PS C:\> Get-StorageSubSystem *cluster* | Get-StorageHealthReport

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Step 7: Clean Up

CPUUsageAverage : 60.44 %

CapacityPhysicalPooledAvailable : 9.82 GB

CapacityPhysicalPooledTotal : 13.82 TB

CapacityPhysicalTotal : 13.82 TB

CapacityPhysicalUnpooled : 0 B

CapacityVolumesAvailable : 1.89 TB

CapacityVolumesTotal : 2 TB

IOLatencyAverage : 257.56 ms

IOLatencyRead : 255.87 ms

IOLatencyWrite : 259.25 ms

IOPSRead : 64327.37 /S

IOPSTotal :128582.85 /S

IOPSWrite : 64255.49 /S

IOThroughputRead : 251.28 MB/S

IOThroughputTotal : 502.28 MB/S

IOThroughputWrite : 251 MB/S

MemoryAvailable : 477.77 GB

MemoryTotal : 488 GB

Step 7: Clean Up
If you followed the tutorial to create a highly available storage cluster using S2D in EC2 Windows, you
created a Storage Spaces Direct cluster of two instances from a bastion server, which also serves as a file
share witness to the cluster. You are charged for each hour or partial hour that you keep your instances
running. When you no longer need your cluster, use the EC2 Console or the AWS Tools for Windows to
delete the resources you created for this project. Do this by deleting the cluster from the failover cluster
management mmc, terminating the instances, and deleting the computer objects for the cluster and its
respective nodes from your Active Directory.

Additional Resources
Storage Spaces Direct Calculator (Preview)

Planning Storage Spaces Direct

Storage Spaces Direct Overview

Fault Tolerance and Storage Efficiency in Storage Spaces Direct

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Resource locations

Resources and tags

Amazon EC2 provides different resources that you can create and use. Some of these resources include
images, instances, volumes, and snapshots. When you create a resource, we assign the resource a unique
resource ID.

Some resources can be tagged with values that you define, to help you organize and identify them.

The following topics describe resources and tags, and how you can work with them.

Contents
• Resource locations (p. 1454)
• Resource IDs (p. 1455)
• List and filter your resources (p. 1456)
• Tag your Amazon EC2 resources (p. 1463)
• Amazon EC2 service quotas (p. 1475)
• Amazon EC2 usage reports (p. 1477)

Resource locations
Amazon EC2 resources are specific to the AWS Region or Availability Zone in which they reside.

Resource Type Description

Amazon EC2 resource Regional Each resource identifier, such as an AMI ID, instance ID,
identifiers EBS volume ID, or EBS snapshot ID, is tied to its Region
and can be used only in the Region where you created
the resource.

User-supplied resource Regional Each resource name, such as a security group name
names or key pair name, is tied to its Region and can be used
only in the Region where you created the resource.
Although you can create resources with the same name
in multiple Regions, they aren't related to each other.

AMIs Regional An AMI is tied to the Region where its files are located
within Amazon S3. You can copy an AMI from one
Region to another. For more information, see Copy an
AMI (p. 116).

EBS snapshots Regional An EBS snapshot is tied to its Region and can only
be used to create volumes in the same Region. You
can copy a snapshot from one Region to another.
For more information, see Copy an Amazon EBS
snapshot (p. 1242).

EBS volumes Availability Zone An Amazon EBS volume is tied to its Availability Zone
and can be attached only to instances in the same
Availability Zone.

Elastic IP addresses Regional An Elastic IP address is tied to a Region and can be

associated only with an instance in the same Region.

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Resource IDs

Resource Type Description

Instances Availability Zone An instance is tied to the Availability Zones in which

you launched it. However, its instance ID is tied to the
Region.

Key pairs Global or The key pairs that you create using Amazon EC2 are
Regional tied to the Region where you created them. You can
create your own RSA key pair and upload it to the
Region in which you want to use it; therefore, you can
make your key pair globally available by uploading it
to each Region.

For more information, see Amazon EC2 key pairs and

Windows instances (p. 1140).

Security groups Regional A security group is tied to a Region and can be

assigned only to instances in the same Region. You
can't enable an instance to communicate with an
instance outside its Region using security group rules.
Traffic from an instance in another Region is seen as
WAN bandwidth.

Resource IDs
When resources are created, we assign each resource a unique resource ID. A resource ID takes the form
of a resource identifier (such as snap for a snapshot) followed by a hyphen and a unique combination of
letters and numbers.

Each resource identifier, such as an AMI ID, instance ID, EBS volume ID, or EBS snapshot ID, is tied to its
Region and can be used only in the Region where you created the resource.

You can use resource IDs to find your resources in the Amazon EC2 console. If you are using a command
line tool or the Amazon EC2 API to work with Amazon EC2, resource IDs are required for certain
commands. For example, if you are using the stop-instances AWS CLI command to stop an instance, you
must specify the instance ID in the command.

Resource ID length

Prior to January 2016, the IDs assigned to newly created resources of certain resource types used
8 characters after the hyphen (for example, i-1a2b3c4d). From January 2016 to June 2018, we
changed the IDs of these resource types to use 17 characters after the hyphen (for example,
i-1234567890abcdef0). Depending on when your account was created, you might have resources of
the following resource types with short IDs, though any new resources of these types receive the longer
IDs:

• bundle
• conversion-task
• customer-gateway
• dhcp-options
• elastic-ip-allocation
• elastic-ip-association
• export-task
• flow-log

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List and filter your resources

• image
• import-task
• instance
• internet-gateway
• network-acl
• network-acl-association
• network-interface
• network-interface-attachment
• prefix-list
• route-table
• route-table-association
• security-group
• snapshot
• subnet
• subnet-cidr-block-association
• reservation
• volume
• vpc
• vpc-cidr-block-association
• vpc-endpoint
• vpc-peering-connection
• vpn-connection
• vpn-gateway

List and filter your resources

You can get a list of some types of resources using the Amazon EC2 console. You can get a list of each
type of resource using its corresponding command or API action. If you have many resources, you can
filter the results to include, or exclude, only the resources that match certain criteria.

Contents
• List and filter resources using the console (p. 1456)
• List and filter using the CLI and API (p. 1460)
• List and filter resources across Regions using Amazon EC2 Global View (p. 1462)

List and filter resources using the console

Contents
• List resources using the console (p. 1456)
• Filter resources using the console (p. 1457)

List resources using the console

You can view the most common Amazon EC2 resource types using the console. To view additional
resources, use the command line interface or the API actions.

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List and filter resources using the console

To list EC2 resources using the console

1. Open the Amazon EC2 console at https://console.aws.amazon.com/ec2/.

2. In the navigation pane, choose the option that corresponds to the resource type. For example, to list
your instances, choose Instances.

The page displays all resources of the selected resource type.

Filter resources using the console

To filter a list of resources

1. In the navigation pane, select a resource type (for example, Instances).

2. Choose the search field.
3. Choose the filter from the list.
4. Choose a filter value.
5. When you are finished, remove the filter.

The search and filter functionality differs slightly between the old and new Amazon EC2 console.

New console

The new console supports two types of filtering.

• API filtering happens on the server side. The filtering is applied on the API call, which reduces the
number of resources returned by the server. It allows for quick filtering across large sets of resources,
and it can reduce data transfer time and cost between the server and the browser.
• Client filtering happens on the client side. It enables you to filter down on data that is already available
in the browser (in other words, data that has already been returned by the API). Client filtering works
well in conjunction with an API filter to filter down to smaller data sets in the browser.

The new Amazon EC2 console supports the following types of searches:

Search by keyword

Searching by keyword is a free text search that lets you search for a value across all of your
resources' attributes, without specifying an attribute to search.
Note
All keyword searches use client filtering.

To search by keyword, enter or paste what you’re looking for in the search field, and then choose
Enter. For example, searching for 123 matches all instances that have 123 in any of their attributes,
such as an IP address, instance ID, VPC ID, or AMI ID. If your free text search returns unexpected
matches, apply additional filters.
Search by attributes

Searching by an attribute lets you search a specific attribute across all of your resources.
Note
Attribute searches use either API filtering or client filtering, depending on the selected
attribute. When performing an attribute search, the attributes are grouped accordingly.

For example, you can search the Instance state attribute for all of your instances to return only
instances that are in the stopped state. To do this:

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List and filter resources using the console

1. In the search field on the Instances screen, start entering Instance state. As you enter the
characters, the two types of filters appear for Instance state: API filters and Client filters.
2. To search on the server side, choose Instance state under API filters. To search on the client side,
choose Instance state (client) under Client filters.

A list of possible values for the selected attribute appears.

3. Choose stopped from the list.

You can use the following techniques to enhance or refine your searches:

Inverse search

Inverse searches let you search for resources that do not match a specified value. Inverse searches
are performed by prefixing the search keyword with the exclamation mark (!) character.
Note
Inverse search is supported with keyword searches and attribute searches on client filters
only. It is not supported with attribute searches on API filters.

For example, you can search the Instance state attribute for all of your instances to exclude all
instances that are in the terminated state. To do this:
1. In the search field on the Instances screen, start entering Instance state. As you enter the
characters, the two types of filters appear for Instance state: API filters and Client filters.
2. Choose Instance state (client). Inverse search is only supported on client filters.

A list of possible values for the selected attribute appears.

3. Enter ! (exclamation mark) to display the inverse filters.
4. Choose !terminated from the list.

To filter instances based on an instance state attribute, you can also use the search icons (

) in the Instance state column. The search icon with a plus sign ( + ) displays all the instances that
match that attribute. The search icon with a minus sign ( - ) excludes all instances that match that
attribute.

Here is another example of using the inverse search: To list all instances that are not assigned the
security group named launch-wizard-1, search by the Security group name attribute, and for the
keyword, enter !launch-wizard-1.
Partial search

With partial searches, you can search for partial string values. To perform a partial search, enter
only a part of the keyword that you want to search for. For example, to search for all t2.micro,
t2.small, and t2.medium instances, search by the Instance Type attribute, and for the keyword,
enter t2.
Note
Partial search is supported with keyword searches and attribute searches on client filters
only. It is not supported with attribute searches on API filters.
Regular expression search

To use regular expression searches, you must enable Use regular expression matching in the
Preferences.

Regular expressions are useful when you need to match the values in a field with a specific pattern.
For example, to search for a value that starts with s, search for ^s. To search for a value that ends
with xyz, search for xyz$. Or to search for a value that starts with a number that is followed by one
or more characters, search for [0-9]+.*. Regular expression searches are not case-sensitive.

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List and filter resources using the console

Note
Regular expression search is supported with keyword searches and attribute searches on
client filters only. It is not supported with attribute searches on API filters.
Wildcard search

Use the * wildcard to match zero or more characters. Use the ? wildcard to match zero or one
character. For example, if you have a data set with the following values: prod, prods, and production;
"prod*" matches all values, whereas "prod?" matches only prod and prods. To use the literals
values, escape them with a backslash (\). For example, "prod\*" would match prod*.
Note
Wildcard search is supported with attribute searches on API filters only. It is not supported
with keyword searches and attribute searches on client filters only.
Combining searches

In general, multiple filters with the same attribute are automatically joined with OR. For example,
searching for Instance State : Running and Instance State : Stopped returns all
instances that are either running OR stopped. To join search with AND, search across different
attributes. For example, searching for Instance State : Running and Instance Type :
c4.large returns only instances that are of type c4.large AND that are in the stopped state.

Old console

The old Amazon EC2 console supports the following types of searches:

Search by keyword

Searching by keyword is a free text search that lets you search for a value across all of your
resources' attributes. To search by keyword, enter or paste what you’re looking for in the search field,
and then choose Enter. For example, searching for 123 matches all instances that have 123 in any of
their attributes, such as an IP address, instance ID, VPC ID, or AMI ID. If your free text search returns
unexpected matches, apply additional filters.
Search by attributes

Searching by an attribute lets you search a specific attribute across all of your resources. For
example, you can search the State attribute for all of your instances to return only instances that are
in the stopped state. To do this:
1. In the search field on the Instances screen, start entering Instance State. As you enter
characters, a list of matching attributes appears.
2. Select Instance State from the list. A list of possible values for the selected attribute appears.
3. Select Stopped from the list.

You can use the following techniques to enhance or refine your searches:

Inverse search

Inverse searches let you search for resources that do not match a specified value. Inverse searches
are performed by prefixing the search keyword with the exclamation mark (!) character. For example,
to list all instances that are not terminated, search by the Instance State attribute, and for the
keyword, enter !Terminated.
Partial search

With partial searches, you can search for partial string values. To perform a partial search, enter only
a part of the keyword you want to search for. For example, to search for all t2.micro, t2.small,
and t2.medium instances, search by the Instance Type attribute, and for the keyword, enter t2.

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List and filter using the CLI and API

Regular expression search

Regular expressions are useful when you need to match the values in a field with a specific pattern.
For example, to search for all instances that have an attribute value that starts with s, search for
^s. Or to search for all instances that have an attribute value that ends with xyz, search for xyz$.
Regular expression searches are not case-sensitive.
Combining searches

In general, multiple filters with the same attribute are automatically joined with OR. For example,
searching for Instance State : Running and Instance State : Stopped returns all
instances that are either running OR stopped. To join search with AND, search across different
attributes. For example, searching for Instance State : Running and Instance Type :
c4.large returns only instances that are of type c4.large AND that are in the stopped state.

List and filter using the CLI and API

Each resource type has a corresponding CLI command and API action that you use to list resources of
that type. The resulting lists of resources can be long, so it can be faster and more useful to filter the
results to include only the resources that match specific criteria.

Filtering considerations

• You can specify multiple filters and multiple filter values in a single request.
• You can use wildcards with the filter values. An asterisk (*) matches zero or more characters, and a
question mark (?) matches zero or one character.
• Filter values are case sensitive.
• Your search can include the literal values of the wildcard characters; you just need to escape them with
a backslash before the character. For example, a value of \*amazon\?\\ searches for the literal string
*amazon?\.

Supported filters

To see the supported filters for each Amazon EC2 resource, see the following documentation:

• AWS CLI: The describe commands in the AWS CLI Command Reference-Amazon EC2.
• Tools for Windows PowerShell: The Get commands in the AWS Tools for PowerShell Cmdlet
Reference-Amazon EC2.
• Query API: The Describe API actions in the Amazon EC2 API Reference.

Example Example: Specify a single filter

You can list your Amazon EC2 instances using describe-instances. Without filters, the response contains
information for all of your resources. You can use the following command to include only the running
instances in your output.

aws ec2 describe-instances --filters Name=instance-state-name,Values=running

To list only the instance IDs for your running instances, add the --query parameter as follows.

aws ec2 describe-instances --filters Name=instance-state-name,Values=running --query

"Reservations[*].Instances[*].InstanceId" --output text

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List and filter using the CLI and API

The following is example output.

i-0ef1f57f78d4775a4
i-0626d4edd54f1286d
i-04a636d18e83cfacb

Example Example: Specify multiple filters or filter values

If you specify multiple filters or multiple filter values, the resource must match all filters to be included
in the results.

You can use the following command to list all instances whose type is either m5.large or m5d.large.

aws ec2 describe-instances --filters Name=instance-type,Values=m5.large,m5d.large

You can use the following command to list all stopped instances whose type is t2.micro.

aws ec2 describe-instances --filters Name=instance-state-name,Values=stopped Name=instance-

type,Values=t2.micro

Example Example: Use wildcards in a filter value

If you specify database as the filter value for the description filter when describing EBS snapshots
using describe-snapshots, the command returns only the snapshots whose description is "database".

aws ec2 describe-snapshots --filters Name=description,Values=database

The * wildcard matches zero or more characters. If you specify *database* as the filter value, the
command returns only snapshots whose description includes the word database.

aws ec2 describe-snapshots --filters Name=description,Values=*database*

The ? wildcard matches exactly 1 character. If you specify database? as the filter value, the command
returns only snapshots whose description is "database" or "database" followed by one character.

aws ec2 describe-snapshots --filters Name=description,Values=database?

If you specify database????, the command returns only snapshots whose description is "database"
followed by up to four characters. It excludes descriptions with "database" followed by five or more
characters.

aws ec2 describe-snapshots --filters Name=description,Values=database????

Example Example: Filter based on date

With the AWS CLI, you can use JMESPath to filter results using expressions. For example, the
following describe-snapshots command displays the IDs of all snapshots created by your AWS account
(represented by 123456789012) before the specified date (represented by 2020-03-31). If you do not
specify the owner, the results include all public snapshots.

aws ec2 describe-snapshots --filters Name=owner-id,Values=123456789012 --query "Snapshots[?

(StartTime<='2020-03-31')].[SnapshotId]" --output text

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List and filter resources across Regions
using Amazon EC2 Global View
The following command displays the IDs of all snapshots created in the specified date range.

aws ec2 describe-snapshots --filters Name=owner-id,Values=123456789012 --query "Snapshots[?

(StartTime>='2019-01-01') && (StartTime<='2019-12-31')].[SnapshotId]" --output text

Filter based on tags

For examples of how to filter a list of resources according to their tags, see Work with tags using the
command line (p. 1472).

List and filter resources across Regions using Amazon

EC2 Global View
Amazon EC2 Global View enables you to view some of your Amazon EC2 and Amazon VPC resources
across a single AWS Region, or across multiple Regions in a single console. Using Amazon EC2 Global
View, you can view a summary of all of your VPCs, subnets, instances, security groups, and volumes
across all of the Regions for which your AWS account is enabled. Amazon EC2 Global View also provides
global search functionality that lets you search for specific resources or specific resource types across
multiple Regions simultaneously.

Amazon EC2 Global View does not let you modify resources in any way.

Required permissions

An IAM user must have the following permissions to use Amazon EC2 Global View.

{
"Version": "2012-10-17",
"Statement": [
{
"Effect": "Allow",
"Action": [
"ec2:DescribeInstances",
"ec2:DescribeVpcs",
"ec2:DescribeRegions",
"ec2:DescribeVolumes",
"ec2:DescribeSubnets",
"ec2:DescribeSecurityGroups"
],
"Resource": "*"
}]
}

To use Amazon EC2 Global View

Open the Amazon EC2 Global View console at https://console.aws.amazon.com/ec2globalview/home.

The console consists of two tabs:

• Region explorer—This tab includes the following sections:

• Resource summary—Provides a high-level overview of your resources across all Regions.

Enabled Regions indicates the number of Regions for which your AWS account is enabled. The
remaining fields indicate the number of resources that you currently have in those Regions. Choose
any of the links to view the resources of that type across all Regions. For example, if the link below
the Instances label is 29 in 10 Regions, it indicates that you currently have 29 instances across 10
Regions. Choose the link to view a list of all 29 instances.

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Tag your resources

• Resource counts per Region—Lists all of the AWS Regions (including those for which your account is
not enabled) and provides totals for each resource type for each Region.

Choose a Region name to view all resources of all types for that specific Region. For example, choose
Africa (Cape Town) af-south-1 to view all VPCs, subnets, instances, security groups, and volumes in
that Region. Alternatively, select a Region and choose View resources for selected Region.

Choose the value for a specific resource type in a specific Region to view only resources of that type
in that Region. For example, choose the value for Instances for Africa (Cape Town) af-south-1 to
view only the instances in that Region.
• Global search—This tab enables you to search for specific resources or specific resource types across a
single Region or across multiple Regions. It also enables you to view details for a specific resource.

To search for resources, enter the search criteria in the field preceding the grid. You can search by
Region, by resource type, and by the tags assigned to resources.

To view the details for a specific resource, select it in the grid. You can also choose the resource ID of a
resource to open it in its respective console. For example, choose an instance ID to open the instance in
the Amazon EC2 console, or choose a subnet ID to open the subnet in the Amazon VPC console.

Tag your Amazon EC2 resources

To help you manage your instances, images, and other Amazon EC2 resources, you can assign your own
metadata to each resource in the form of tags. Tags enable you to categorize your AWS resources in
different ways, for example, by purpose, owner, or environment. This is useful when you have many
resources of the same type—you can quickly identify a specific resource based on the tags that you've
assigned to it. This topic describes tags and shows you how to create them.
Warning
Tag keys and their values are returned by many different API calls. Denying access to
DescribeTags doesn’t automatically deny access to tags returned by other APIs. As a best
practice, we recommend that you do not include sensitive data in your tags.

Contents
• Tag basics (p. 1463)
• Tag your resources (p. 1464)
• Tag restrictions (p. 1467)
• Tags and access management (p. 1468)
• Tag your resources for billing (p. 1468)
• Work with tags using the console (p. 1468)
• Work with tags using the command line (p. 1472)
• Add tags to a resource using CloudFormation (p. 1475)

Tag basics
A tag is a label that you assign to an AWS resource. Each tag consists of a key and an optional value, both
of which you define.

Tags enable you to categorize your AWS resources in different ways, for example, by purpose, owner, or
environment. For example, you could define a set of tags for your account's Amazon EC2 instances that
helps you track each instance's owner and stack level.

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The following diagram illustrates how tagging works. In this example, you've assigned two tags to each
of your instances—one tag with the key Owner and another with the key Stack. Each tag also has an
associated value.

We recommend that you devise a set of tag keys that meets your needs for each resource type. Using
a consistent set of tag keys makes it easier for you to manage your resources. You can search and filter
the resources based on the tags you add. For more information about how to implement an effective
resource tagging strategy, see the AWS whitepaper Tagging Best Practices.

Tags don't have any semantic meaning to Amazon EC2 and are interpreted strictly as a string of
characters. Also, tags are not automatically assigned to your resources. You can edit tag keys and values,
and you can remove tags from a resource at any time. You can set the value of a tag to an empty string,
but you can't set the value of a tag to null. If you add a tag that has the same key as an existing tag on
that resource, the new value overwrites the old value. If you delete a resource, any tags for the resource
are also deleted.
Note
After you delete a resource, its tags might remain visible in the console, API, and CLI output for
a short period. These tags will be gradually disassociated from the resource and be permanently
deleted.

Tag your resources

You can tag most Amazon EC2 resources that already exist in your account. The table (p. 1465) below
lists the resources that support tagging.

If you're using the Amazon EC2 console, you can apply tags to resources by using the Tags tab on the
relevant resource screen, or you can use the Tags screen. Some resource screens enable you to specify
tags for a resource when you create the resource; for example, a tag with a key of Name and a value that
you specify. In most cases, the console applies the tags immediately after the resource is created (rather

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than during resource creation). The console may organize resources according to the Name tag, but this
tag doesn't have any semantic meaning to the Amazon EC2 service.

If you're using the Amazon EC2 API, the AWS CLI, or an AWS SDK, you can use the CreateTags EC2
API action to apply tags to existing resources. Additionally, some resource-creating actions enable you
to specify tags for a resource when the resource is created. If tags cannot be applied during resource
creation, we roll back the resource creation process. This ensures that resources are either created with
tags or not created at all, and that no resources are left untagged at any time. By tagging resources at
the time of creation, you can eliminate the need to run custom tagging scripts after resource creation.
For more information about enabling users to tag resources on creation, see Grant permission to tag
resources during creation (p. 1078).

The following table describes the Amazon EC2 resources that can be tagged, and the resources that can
be tagged on creation using the Amazon EC2 API, the AWS CLI, or an AWS SDK.

Tagging support for Amazon EC2 resources

Resource Supports tags Supports tagging on creation

AFI Yes Yes

AMI Yes Yes

Bundle task No No

Capacity Reservation Yes Yes

Carrier gateway Yes Yes

Client VPN endpoint Yes Yes

Client VPN route No No

Customer gateway Yes Yes

Dedicated Host Yes Yes

Dedicated Host Reservation Yes Yes

DHCP options Yes Yes

EBS snapshot Yes Yes

EBS volume Yes Yes

EC2 Fleet Yes Yes

Egress-only internet gateway Yes Yes

Elastic IP address Yes Yes

Elastic Graphics accelerator Yes No

Instance Yes Yes

Instance event window Yes Yes

Instance store volume N/A N/A

Internet gateway Yes Yes

IP address pool (BYOIP) Yes Yes

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Resource Supports tags Supports tagging on creation

Key pair Yes Yes

Launch template Yes Yes

Launch template version No No

Local gateway Yes No

Local gateway route table Yes No

Local gateway virtual interface Yes No

Local gateway virtual interface Yes No

group

Local gateway route table VPC Yes Yes

association

Local gateway route table virtual Yes No

interface group association

NAT gateway Yes Yes

Network ACL Yes Yes

Network interface Yes Yes

Placement group Yes Yes

Prefix list Yes Yes

Reserved Instance Yes No

Reserved Instance listing No No

Route table Yes Yes

Spot Fleet request Yes Yes

Spot Instance request Yes Yes

Security group Yes Yes

Security group rule Yes No

Subnet Yes Yes

Traffic Mirror filter Yes Yes

Traffic Mirror session Yes Yes

Traffic Mirror target Yes Yes

Transit gateway Yes Yes

Transit gateway multicast Yes Yes

domain

Transit gateway route table Yes Yes

Transit gateway VPC attachment Yes Yes

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Resource Supports tags Supports tagging on creation

Virtual private gateway Yes Yes

VPC Yes Yes

VPC endpoint Yes Yes

VPC endpoint service Yes Yes

VPC endpoint service Yes Yes

configuration

VPC flow log Yes Yes

VPC peering connection Yes Yes

VPN connection Yes Yes

You can tag instances and volumes on creation using the Amazon EC2 Launch Instances wizard in the
Amazon EC2 console. You can tag your EBS volumes on creation using the Volumes screen, or EBS
snapshots using the Snapshots screen. Alternatively, use the resource-creating Amazon EC2 APIs (for
example, RunInstances) to apply tags when creating your resource.

You can apply tag-based resource-level permissions in your IAM policies to the Amazon EC2 API actions
that support tagging on creation to implement granular control over the users and groups that can tag
resources on creation. Your resources are properly secured from creation—tags are applied immediately
to your resources, therefore any tag-based resource-level permissions controlling the use of resources are
immediately effective. Your resources can be tracked and reported on more accurately. You can enforce
the use of tagging on new resources, and control which tag keys and values are set on your resources.

You can also apply resource-level permissions to the CreateTags and DeleteTags Amazon EC2 API
actions in your IAM policies to control which tag keys and values are set on your existing resources. For
more information, see Example: Tag resources (p. 1111).

For more information about tagging your resources for billing, see Using cost allocation tags in the AWS
Billing and Cost Management User Guide.

Tag restrictions
The following basic restrictions apply to tags:

• Maximum number of tags per resource – 50

• For each resource, each tag key must be unique, and each tag key can have only one value.
• Maximum key length – 128 Unicode characters in UTF-8
• Maximum value length – 256 Unicode characters in UTF-8
• Although EC2 allows for any character in its tags, other services are more restrictive. The allowed
characters across services are: letters, numbers, and spaces representable in UTF-8, and the following
characters: + - = . _ : / @.
• Tag keys and values are case-sensitive.
• The aws: prefix is reserved for AWS use. If a tag has a tag key with this prefix, then you can't edit or
delete the tag's key or value. Tags with the aws: prefix do not count against your tags per resource
limit.

You can't terminate, stop, or delete a resource based solely on its tags; you must specify the resource
identifier. For example, to delete snapshots that you tagged with a tag key called DeleteMe, you

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Tags and access management

must use the DeleteSnapshots action with the resource identifiers of the snapshots, such as
snap-1234567890abcdef0.

When you tag public or shared resources, the tags you assign are available only to your AWS account; no
other AWS account will have access to those tags. For tag-based access control to shared resources, each
AWS account must assign its own set of tags to control access to the resource.

You can't tag all resources. For more information, see Tagging support for Amazon EC2
resources (p. 1465).

Tags and access management

If you're using AWS Identity and Access Management (IAM), you can control which users in your AWS
account have permission to create, edit, or delete tags. For more information, see Grant permission to
tag resources during creation (p. 1078).

You can also use resource tags to implement attribute-based control (ABAC). You can create IAM policies
that allow operations based on the tags for the resource. For more information, see Control access to
EC2 resources using resource tags (p. 1081).

Tag your resources for billing

You can use tags to organize your AWS bill to reflect your own cost structure. To do this, sign up to
get your AWS account bill with tag key values included. For more information about setting up a cost
allocation report with tags, see Monthly cost allocation report in the AWS Billing and Cost Management
User Guide. To see the cost of your combined resources, you can organize your billing information
based on resources that have the same tag key values. For example, you can tag several resources with
a specific application name, and then organize your billing information to see the total cost of that
application across several services. For more information, see Using cost allocation tags in the AWS
Billing and Cost Management User Guide.
Note
If you've just enabled reporting, data for the current month is available for viewing after 24
hours.

Cost allocation tags can indicate which resources are contributing to costs, but deleting or deactivating
resources doesn't always reduce costs. For example, snapshot data that is referenced by another
snapshot is preserved, even if the snapshot that contains the original data is deleted. For more
information, see Amazon Elastic Block Store volumes and snapshots in the AWS Billing and Cost
Management User Guide.
Note
Elastic IP addresses that are tagged do not appear on your cost allocation report.

Work with tags using the console

Using the Amazon EC2 console, you can see which tags are in use across all of your Amazon EC2
resources in the same Region. You can view tags by resource and by resource type, and you can also view
how many items of each resource type are associated with a specified tag. You can also use the Amazon
EC2 console to apply or remove tags from one or more resources at a time.

For more information about using filters when listing your resources, see List and filter your
resources (p. 1456).

For ease of use and best results, use Tag Editor in the AWS Management Console, which provides a
central, unified way to create and manage your tags. For more information, see Tag Editor in Getting
Started with the AWS Management Console.

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Tasks
• Display tags (p. 1469)
• Add and delete tags on an individual resource (p. 1470)
• Add and delete tags to a group of resources (p. 1470)
• Add a tag when you launch an instance (p. 1471)
• Filter a list of resources by tag (p. 1471)

Display tags
You can display tags in two different ways in the Amazon EC2 console. You can display the tags for an
individual resource or for all resources.

Display tags for individual resources

When you select a resource-specific page in the Amazon EC2 console, it displays a list of those resources.
For example, if you select Instances from the navigation pane, the console displays your Amazon EC2
instances. When you select a resource from one of these lists (for example, an instance), if the resource
supports tags, you can view and manage its tags. On most resource pages, you can view the tags by
choosing the Tags tab.

You can add a column to the resource list that displays all values for tags with the same key. You can use
this column sort and filter the resource list by the tag.

New console

• Choose the Preferences gear-shaped icon in the top right corner of the screen. In the Preferences
dialog box, under Tag columns, select one of more tag keys, and then choose Confirm.

Old console

There are two ways to add a new column to the resource list to display your tags:

• On the Tags tab, select Show Column. A new column is added to the console.
• Choose the Show/Hide Columns gear-shaped icon, and in the Show/Hide Columns dialog box,
select the tag key under Your Tag Keys.

Display tags for all resources

You can display tags across all resources by selecting Tags from the navigation pane in the Amazon EC2
console. The following image shows the Tags pane, which lists all tags in use by resource type.

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Add and delete tags on an individual resource

You can manage tags for an individual resource directly from the resource's page.

To add a tag to an individual resource

1. Open the Amazon EC2 console at https://console.aws.amazon.com/ec2/.

2. From the navigation bar, select the Region that meets your needs. This choice is important
because some Amazon EC2 resources can be shared between Regions, while others can't. For more
information, see Resource locations (p. 1454).
3. In the navigation pane, select a resource type (for example, Instances).
4. Select the resource from the resource list and choose the Tags tab.
5. Choose Manage tags, Add tag. Enter the key and value for the tag. When you are finished adding
tags, choose Save.

To delete a tag from an individual resource

1. Open the Amazon EC2 console at https://console.aws.amazon.com/ec2/.

2. From the navigation bar, select the Region that meets your needs. This choice is important
because some Amazon EC2 resources can be shared between Regions, while others can't. For more
information, see Resource locations (p. 1454).
3. In the navigation pane, choose a resource type (for example, Instances).
4. Select the resource from the resource list and choose the Tags tab.
5. Choose Manage tags. For each tag, choose Remove. When you are finished removing tags, choose
Save.

Add and delete tags to a group of resources

To add a tag to a group of resources

1. Open the Amazon EC2 console at https://console.aws.amazon.com/ec2/.

2. From the navigation bar, select the Region that meets your needs. This choice is important
because some Amazon EC2 resources can be shared between Regions, while others can't. For more
information, see Resource locations (p. 1454).

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3. In the navigation pane, choose Tags.

4. At the top of the content pane, choose Manage Tags.
5. For Filter, select the type of resource (for example, instances).
6. In the resources list, select the check box next to each resource.
7. Under Add Tag, enter the tag key and value and choose Add Tag.
Note
If you add a new tag with the same tag key as an existing tag, the new tag overwrites the
existing tag.

To remove a tag from a group of resources

1. Open the Amazon EC2 console at https://console.aws.amazon.com/ec2/.

2. From the navigation bar, select the Region that meets your needs. This choice is important
because some Amazon EC2 resources can be shared between Regions, while others can't. For more
information, see Resource locations (p. 1454).
3. In the navigation pane, choose Tags, Manage Tags.
4. To view the tags in use, select the Show/Hide Columns gear-shaped icon, and in the Show/Hide
Columns dialog box, select the tag keys to view and choose Close.
5. For Filter, select the type of resource (for example, instances).
6. In the resource list, select the check box next to each resource.
7. Under Remove Tag, enter the tag key and choose Remove Tag.

Add a tag when you launch an instance

To add a tag using the Launch Wizard

1. From the navigation bar, select the Region for the instance. This choice is important because some
Amazon EC2 resources can be shared between Regions, while others can't. Select the Region that
meets your needs. For more information, see Resource locations (p. 1454).
2. Choose Launch Instance.
3. The Choose an Amazon Machine Image (AMI) page displays a list of basic configurations called
Amazon Machine Images (AMIs). Select the AMI to use and choose Select. For more information, see
Find a Windows AMI (p. 100).
4. On the Configure Instance Details page, configure the instance settings as necessary, and then
choose Next: Add Storage.
5. On the Add Storage page, you can specify additional storage volumes for your instance. Choose
Next: Add Tags when done.
6. On the Add Tags page, specify tags for the instance, the volumes, or both. Choose Add another tag
to add more than one tag to your instance. Choose Next: Configure Security Group when you are
done.
7. On the Configure Security Group page, you can choose from an existing security group that you
own, or let the wizard create a new security group for you. Choose Review and Launch when you are
done.
8. Review your settings. When you're satisfied with your selections, choose Launch. Select an existing
key pair or create a new one, select the acknowledgment check box, and then choose Launch
Instances.

Filter a list of resources by tag

You can filter your list of resources based on one or more tag keys and tag values.

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To filter a list of resources by tag

1. In the navigation pane, select a resource type (for example, Instances).

2. Choose the search field.
3. Choose the tag key from in the list.
4. Choose the corresponding tag value from the list.
5. When you are finished, remove the filter.

For more information about filters, see List and filter your resources (p. 1456).

Work with tags using the command line

You can add tags to many EC2 resource when you create them, using the tag specifications parameter for
the create command. You can view the tags for a resource using the describe command for the resource.
You can also add, update, or delete tags for your existing resources using the following commands.

Task AWS CLI AWS Tools for Windows

PowerShell

Add or overwrite one or more tags create-tags New-EC2Tag

Delete one or more tags delete-tags Remove-EC2Tag

Describe one or more tags describe-tags Get-EC2Tag

Tasks
• Add tags on resource creation (p. 1472)
• Add tags to an existing resource (p. 1473)
• Describe tagged resources (p. 1474)

Add tags on resource creation

The following examples demonstrate how to apply tags when you create resources.

The way you enter JSON-formatted parameters on the command line differs depending on your
operating system. Linux, macOS, or Unix and Windows PowerShell use single quotes (') to enclose the
JSON data structure. Omit the single quotes when using the commands with the Windows command
line. For more information, see Specifying parameter values for the AWS CLI.

Example Example: Launch an instance and apply tags to the instance and volume

The following run-instances command launches an instance and applies a tag with the key webserver
and the value production to the instance. The command also applies a tag with the key cost-center
and the value cc123 to any EBS volume that's created (in this case, the root volume).

aws ec2 run-instances \

--image-id ami-abc12345 \
--count 1 \
--instance-type t2.micro \
--key-name MyKeyPair \
--subnet-id subnet-6e7f829e \
--tag-specifications 'ResourceType=instance,Tags=[{Key=webserver,Value=production}]'
'ResourceType=volume,Tags=[{Key=cost-center,Value=cc123}]'

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You can apply the same tag keys and values to both instances and volumes during launch. The following
command launches an instance and applies a tag with a key of cost-center and a value of cc123 to
both the instance and any EBS volume that's created.

aws ec2 run-instances \

--image-id ami-abc12345 \
--count 1 \
--instance-type t2.micro \
--key-name MyKeyPair \
--subnet-id subnet-6e7f829e \
--tag-specifications 'ResourceType=instance,Tags=[{Key=cost-center,Value=cc123}]'
'ResourceType=volume,Tags=[{Key=cost-center,Value=cc123}]'

Example Example: Create a volume and apply a tag

The following create-volume command creates a volume and applies two tags: purpose=production
and cost-center=cc123.

aws ec2 create-volume \

--availability-zone us-east-1a \
--volume-type gp2 \
--size 80 \
--tag-specifications 'ResourceType=volume,Tags=[{Key=purpose,Value=production},
{Key=cost-center,Value=cc123}]'

Add tags to an existing resource

The following examples demonstrate how to add tags to an existing resource using the create-tags
command.

Example Example: Add a tag to a resource

The following command adds the tag Stack=production to the specified image, or overwrites an
existing tag for the AMI where the tag key is Stack. If the command succeeds, no output is returned.

aws ec2 create-tags \

--resources ami-78a54011 \
--tags Key=Stack,Value=production

Example Example: Add tags to multiple resources

This example adds (or overwrites) two tags for an AMI and an instance. One of the tags contains just a
key (webserver), with no value (we set the value to an empty string). The other tag consists of a key
(stack) and value (Production). If the command succeeds, no output is returned.

aws ec2 create-tags \

--resources ami-1a2b3c4d i-1234567890abcdef0 \
--tags Key=webserver,Value= Key=stack,Value=Production

Example Example: Add tags with special characters

This example adds the tag [Group]=test to an instance. The square brackets ([ and ]) are special
characters, which must be escaped.

If you are using Linux or OS X, to escape the special characters, enclose the element with the special
character with double quotes ("), and then enclose the entire key and value structure with single quotes
(').

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aws ec2 create-tags \

--resources i-1234567890abcdef0 \
--tags 'Key="[Group]",Value=test'

If you are using Windows, to escape the special characters, enclose the element that has special
characters with double quotes ("), and then precede each double quote character with a backslash (\) as
follows:

aws ec2 create-tags ^

--resources i-1234567890abcdef0 ^
--tags Key=\"[Group]\",Value=test

If you are using Windows PowerShell, to escape the special characters, enclose the value that has special
characters with double quotes ("), precede each double quote character with a backslash (\), and then
enclose the entire key and value structure with single quotes (') as follows:

aws ec2 create-tags `

--resources i-1234567890abcdef0 `
--tags 'Key=\"[Group]\",Value=test'

Describe tagged resources

The following examples show you how to use filters with the describe-instances to view instances with
specific tags. All EC2 describe commands use this syntax to filter by tag across a single resource type.
Alternatively, you can use the describe-tags command to filter by tag across EC2 resource types.

Example Example: Describe instances with the specified tag key

The following command describes the instances with a Stack tag, regardless of the value of the tag.

aws ec2 describe-instances \

--filters Name=tag-key,Values=Stack

Example Example: Describe instances with the specified tag

The following command describes the instances with the tag Stack=production.

aws ec2 describe-instances \

--filters Name=tag:Stack,Values=production

Example Example: Describe instances with the specified tag value

The following command describes the instances with a tag with the value production, regardless of the
tag key.

aws ec2 describe-instances \

--filters Name=tag-value,Values=production

Example Example: Describe all EC2 resources with the specified tag

The following command describes all EC2 resources with the tag Stack=Test.

aws ec2 describe-tags \

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Add tags to a resource using CloudFormation

--filters Name=key,Values=Stack Name=value,Values=Test

Add tags to a resource using CloudFormation

With Amazon EC2 resource types, you specify tags using either a Tags or TagSpecifications
property.

The following examples add the tag Stack=Production to AWS::EC2::Instance using its Tags property.

Example Example: Tags in YAML

Tags:
- Key: "Stack"
Value: "Production"

Example Example: Tags in JSON

"Tags": [
{
"Key": "Stack",
"Value": "Production"
}
]

The following examples add the tag Stack=Production to AWS::EC2::LaunchTemplate

LaunchTemplateData using its TagSpecifications property.

Example Example: TagSpecifications in YAML

TagSpecifications:
- ResourceType: "instance"
Tags:
- Key: "Stack"
Value: "Production"

Example Example: TagSpecifications in JSON

"TagSpecifications": [
{
"ResourceType": "instance",
"Tags": [
{
"Key": "Stack",
"Value": "Production"
}
]
}
]

Amazon EC2 service quotas

Amazon EC2 provides different resources that you can use. These resources include images, instances,
volumes, and snapshots. When you create your AWS account, we set default quotas (also referred to as
limits) on these resources on a per-Region basis. For example, there is a maximum number of instances
that you can launch in a Region. So if you were to launch an instance in the US West (Oregon) Region, for

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example, the request must not cause your usage to exceed your maximum number of instances in that
Region.

The Amazon EC2 console provides limit information for the resources managed by the Amazon EC2 and
Amazon VPC consoles. You can request an increase for many of these limits. Use the limit information
that we provide to manage your AWS infrastructure. Plan to request any limit increases in advance of the
time that you'll need them.

For more information, see Amazon EC2 endpoints and quotas in the Amazon Web Services General
Reference. For information about Amazon EBS quotas, see Amazon EBS quotas (p. 1405).

View your current limits

Use the Limits page in the Amazon EC2 console to view the current limits for resources provided by
Amazon EC2 and Amazon VPC, on a per-Region basis.

To view your current limits

1. Open the Amazon EC2 console at https://console.aws.amazon.com/ec2/.

2. From the navigation bar, select a Region.

3. From the navigation pane, choose Limits.

4. Locate the resource in the list. You can use the search fields to filter the list by resource name or
resource group. The Current limit column displays the current maximum for the resource for your
account.

Request an increase
Use the Limits page in the Amazon EC2 console to request an increase in your Amazon EC2 or Amazon
VPC resources, on a per-Region basis.

Alternatively, request an increase using Service Quotas. For more information, see Requesting a quota
increase in the Service Quotas User Guide.

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Restriction on email sent using port 25

To request an increase using the Amazon EC2 console

1. Open the Amazon EC2 console at https://console.aws.amazon.com/ec2/.

2. From the navigation bar, select a Region.
3. From the navigation pane, choose Limits.
4. Select the resource in the list, and choose Request limit increase.
5. Complete the required fields on the limit increase form and choose Submit. We'll respond to you
using the contact method that you specified.

Restriction on email sent using port 25

On all instances, Amazon EC2 restricts traffic on port 25 by default. You can request that this restriction
be removed. For more information, see How do I remove the restriction on port 25 from my EC2
instance? in the AWS Knowledge Center.

Amazon EC2 usage reports

AWS provides a free reporting tool called AWS Cost Explorer that enables you to analyze the cost and
usage of your EC2 instances and the usage of your Reserved Instances. You can view data up to the last
13 months, and forecast how much you are likely to spend for the next three months. You can use Cost
Explorer to see patterns in how much you spend on AWS resources over time, identify areas that need
further inquiry, and see trends that you can use to understand your costs. You also can specify time
ranges for the data, and view time data by day or by month.

Here's an example of some of the questions that you can answer when using Cost Explorer:

• How much am I spending on instances of each instance type?

• How many instance hours are being used by a particular department?
• How is my instance usage distributed across Availability Zones?
• How is my instance usage distributed across AWS accounts?
• How well am I using my Reserved Instances?
• Are my Reserved Instances helping me save money?

For more information about working with reports in Cost Explorer, including saving reports, see
Analyzing your costs with Cost Explorer.

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Troubleshoot launch issues

Troubleshoot EC2 Windows

instances
The following procedures and tips can help you troubleshoot problems with your Amazon EC2 Windows
instances.

Contents
• Troubleshoot instance launch issues (p. 1478)
• Troubleshoot connecting to your Windows instance (p. 1481)
• Troubleshoot an unreachable instance (p. 1488)
• Reset a lost or expired Windows administrator password (p. 1497)
• Troubleshoot stopping your instance (p. 1508)
• Troubleshoot instance termination (shutting down) (p. 1510)
• Troubleshoot Sysprep (p. 1511)
• Use EC2Rescue for Windows Server (p. 1512)
• EC2 Serial Console for Windows instances (p. 1524)
• Send a diagnostic interrupt (for advanced users) (p. 1538)
• Common issues with Windows instances (p. 1539)
• Common messages troubleshooting Windows instances (p. 1543)

To get additional information for troubleshooting problems with your instance, use Use EC2Rescue
for Windows Server (p. 1512). For information about troubleshooting issues with PV drivers, see
Troubleshoot PV drivers (p. 539).

Troubleshoot instance launch issues

The following issues prevent you from launching an instance.

Launch Issues
• Instance limit exceeded (p. 1478)
• Insufficient instance capacity (p. 1479)
• The requested configuration is currently not supported. Please check the documentation for
supported configurations. (p. 1479)
• Instance terminates immediately (p. 1480)
• High CPU usage shortly after Windows starts (p. 1481)

Instance limit exceeded

Description
You get the InstanceLimitExceeded error when you try to launch a new instance or restart a stopped
instance.

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Insufficient instance capacity

Cause
If you get an InstanceLimitExceeded error when you try to launch a new instance or restart a
stopped instance, you have reached the limit on the number of instances that you can launch in a Region.
When you create your AWS account, we set default limits on the number of instances you can run on a
per-Region basis.

Solution
You can request an instance limit increase on a per-region basis. For more information, see Amazon EC2
service quotas (p. 1475).

Insufficient instance capacity

Description
You get the InsufficientInstanceCapacity error when you try to launch a new instance or restart
a stopped instance.

Cause
If you get this error when you try to launch an instance or restart a stopped instance, AWS does not
currently have enough available On-Demand capacity to fulfill your request.

Solution
To resolve the issue, try the following:

• Wait a few minutes and then submit your request again; capacity can shift frequently.
• Submit a new request with a reduced number of instances. For example, if you're making a single
request to launch 15 instances, try making 3 requests for 5 instances, or 15 requests for 1 instance
instead.
• If you're launching an instance, submit a new request without specifying an Availability Zone.
• If you're launching an instance, submit a new request using a different instance type (which you can
resize at a later stage). For more information, see Change the instance type (p. 233).
• If you are launching instances into a cluster placement group, you can get an insufficient capacity
error. For more information, see Placement group rules and limitations (p. 991).

The requested configuration is currently not

supported. Please check the documentation for
supported configurations.
Description
You get the Unsupported error when you try to launch a new instance because the instance
configuration is not supported.

Cause
The error message provides additional details. For example, an instance type or instance purchasing
option might not be supported in the specified Region or Availability Zone.

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Instance terminates immediately

Solution
Try a different instance configuration. To search for an instance type that meets your requirements, see
Find an Amazon EC2 instance type (p. 232).

Instance terminates immediately

Description
Your instance goes from the pending state to the terminated state.

Cause
The following are a few reasons why an instance might immediately terminate:

• You've exceeded your EBS volume limits. For more information, see Instance volume limits (p. 1420).
• An EBS snapshot is corrupted.
• The root EBS volume is encrypted and you do not have permissions to access the KMS key for
decryption.
• A snapshot specified in the block device mapping for the AMI is encrypted and you do not have
permissions to access the KMS key for decryption or you do not have access to the KMS key to encrypt
the restored volumes.
• The instance store-backed AMI that you used to launch the instance is missing a required part (an
image.part.xx file).

For more information, get the termination reason using one of the following methods.

To get the termination reason using the Amazon EC2 console

1. Open the Amazon EC2 console at https://console.aws.amazon.com/ec2/.

2. In the navigation pane, choose Instances, and select the instance.
3. On the first tab, find the reason next to State transition reason.

To get the termination reason using the AWS Command Line Interface

1. Use the describe-instances command and specify the instance ID.

aws ec2 describe-instances --instance-id instance_id

2. Review the JSON response returned by the command and note the values in the StateReason
response element.

The following code block shows an example of a StateReason response element.

"StateReason": {
"Message": "Client.VolumeLimitExceeded: Volume limit exceeded",
"Code": "Server.InternalError"
},

To get the termination reason using AWS CloudTrail

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High CPU usage shortly after Windows starts

For more information, see Viewing events with CloudTrail event history in the AWS CloudTrail User Guide.

Solution
Depending on the termination reason, take one of the following actions:

• Client.VolumeLimitExceeded: Volume limit exceeded — Delete unused volumes. You can

submit a request to increase your volume limit.
• Client.InternalError: Client error on launch — Ensure that you have the permissions
required to access the AWS KMS keys used to decrypt and encrypt volumes. For more information, see
Using key policies in AWS KMS in the AWS Key Management Service Developer Guide.

High CPU usage shortly after Windows starts

If Windows Update is set to Check for updates but let me choose whether to download and install
them (the default instance setting) this check can consume anywhere from 50 - 99% of the CPU on
the instance. If this CPU consumption causes problems for your applications, you can manually change
Windows Update settings in Control Panel or you can use the following script in the Amazon EC2 user
data field:

reg add "HKLM\SOFTWARE\Microsoft\Windows\CurrentVersion\WindowsUpdate\Auto Update" /v

AUOptions /t REG_DWORD /d 3 /f net stop wuauserv net start wuauserv

When you run this script, specify a value for /d. The default value is 3. Possible values include the
following:

1. Never check for updates

2. Check for updates but let me choose whether to download and install them
3. Download updates but let me choose whether to install them
4. Install updates automatically

After you modify the user data for your instance, you can run it. For more information, see View and
update the instance user data (p. 585) and User data execution (p. 583).

Troubleshoot connecting to your Windows

instance
The following are possible problems you may have and error messages you may see while trying to
connect to your Windows instance.

Contents
• Remote Desktop can't connect to the remote computer (p. 1482)
• Error using the macOS RDP client (p. 1484)
• RDP displays a black screen instead of the desktop (p. 1484)
• Unable to remotely log on to an instance with a user account that is not an administrator (p. 1485)
• Troubleshooting Remote Desktop issues using AWS Systems Manager (p. 1485)
• Enable Remote Desktop on an EC2 Instance With Remote Registry (p. 1487)

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Remote Desktop can't connect to the remote computer

Remote Desktop can't connect to the remote

computer
Try the following to resolve issues related to connecting to your instance:

• Verify that you're using the correct public DNS hostname. (In the Amazon EC2 console, select the
instance and check Public DNS (IPv4) in the details pane.) If your instance is in a VPC and you do not
see a public DNS name, you must enable DNS hostnames. For more information, see Using DNS with
Your VPC in the Amazon VPC User Guide.
• Verify that your instance has a public IPv4 address. If not, you can associate an Elastic IP address with
your instance. For more information, see Elastic IP addresses (p. 939).
• To connect to your instance using an IPv6 address, check that your local computer has an IPv6 address
and is configured to use IPv6. If you launched an instance from a Windows Server 2008 SP2 AMI or
earlier, your instance is not automatically configured to recognize an IPv6 address assigned to the
instance. For more information, see Configure IPv6 on Your Instances in the Amazon VPC User Guide.
• Verify that your security group has a rule that allows RDP access. For more information, see Create a
security group (p. 6).
• If you copied the password but get the error Your credentials did not work, try typing them
manually when prompted. It's possible that you missed a character or got an extra white space
character when you copied the password.
• Verify that the instance has passed status checks. For more information, see Status checks for your
instances (p. 821) and Troubleshoot instances with failed status checks (Amazon EC2 User Guide for
Linux Instances).
• Verify that the route table for the subnet has a route that sends all traffic destined outside the VPC to
the internet gateway for the VPC. For more information, see Creating a custom route table (Internet
Gateways) in the Amazon VPC User Guide.
• Verify that Windows Firewall, or other firewall software, is not blocking RDP traffic to the instance.
We recommend that you disable Windows Firewall and control access to your instance using security
group rules. You can use AWSSupport-TroubleshootRDP (p. 1485) to disable the Windows Firewall
profiles using SSM Agent . To disable Windows Firewall on a Windows instance that is not configured
for AWS Systems Manager, use AWSSupport-ExecuteEC2Rescue (p. 1487), or use the following manual
steps:

Manual steps

1. Stop the affected instance and detach its root volume.

2. Launch a temporary instance in the same Availability Zone as the affected instance.
Warning
If your temporary instance is based on the same AMI that the original instance is based
on, you must complete additional steps or you won't be able to boot the original instance
after you restore its root volume because of a disk signature collision. Alternatively, select a
different AMI for the temporary instance. For example, if the original instance uses the AWS
Windows AMI for Windows Server 2008 R2, launch the temporary instance using the AWS
Windows AMI for Windows Server 2012.
3. Attach the root volume from the affected instance to this temporary instance. Connect to the
temporary instance, open the Disk Management utility, and bring the drive online.
4. Open Regedit and select HKEY_LOCAL_MACHINE. From the File menu, choose Load Hive. Select
the drive, open the file Windows\System32\config\SYSTEM, and specify a key name when
prompted (you can use any name).
5. Select the key you just loaded and navigate to ControlSet001\Services\SharedAccess
\Parameters\FirewallPolicy. For each key with a name of the form xxxxProfile, select the key

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Remote Desktop can't connect to the remote computer

and change EnableFirewall from 1 to 0. Select the key again, and from the File menu, choose
Unload Hive.
6. (Optional) If your temporary instance is based on the same AMI that the original instance is based
on, you must complete the following steps or you won't be able to boot the original instance after
you restore its root volume because of a disk signature collision.
Warning
The following procedure describes how to edit the Windows Registry using Registry Editor.
If you are not familiar with the Windows Registry or how to safely make changes using
Registry Editor, see Configure the Registry.

a. Open a command prompt, type regedit.exe, and press Enter.

b. In the Registry Editor, choose HKEY_LOCAL_MACHINE from the context menu (right-click), and
then choose Find.
c. Type Windows Boot Manager and then choose Find Next.
d. Choose the key named 11000001. This key is a sibling of the key you found in the previous step.
e. In the right pane, choose Element and then choose Modify from the context menu (right-click).
f. Locate the four-byte disk signature at offset 0x38 in the data. Reverse the bytes to create the
disk signature, and write it down. For example, the disk signature represented by the following
data is E9EB3AA5:

...
0030 00 00 00 00 01 00 00 00
0038 A5 3A EB E9 00 00 00 00
0040 00 00 00 00 00 00 00 00
...

g. In a Command Prompt window, run the following command to start Microsoft DiskPart.

diskpart

h. Run the following DiskPart command to select the volume. (You can verify that the disk number
is 1 using the Disk Management utility.)

DISKPART> select disk 1

Disk 1 is now the selected disk.

i. Run the following DiskPart command to get the disk signature.

DISKPART> uniqueid disk

Disk ID: 0C764FA8

j. If the disk signature shown in the previous step doesn't match the disk signature from BCD that
you wrote down earlier, use the following DiskPart command to change the disk signature so
that it matches:

DISKPART> uniqueid disk id=E9EB3AA5

7. Using the Disk Management utility, bring the drive offline.

Note
The drive is automatically offline if the temporary instance is running the same operating
system as the affected instance, so you won't need to bring it offline manually.
8. Detach the volume from the temporary instance. You can terminate the temporary instance if you
have no further use for it.
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Error using the macOS RDP client

9. Restore the root volume of the affected instance by attaching it as /dev/sda1.

10. Start the instance.

• Verify that Network Level Authentication is disabled on instances that are not part of an Active
Directory domain (use AWSSupport-TroubleshootRDP (p. 1485) to disable NLA).
• Verify that the Remote Desktop Service (TermService) Startup Type is Automatic and the service is
started (use AWSSupport-TroubleshootRDP (p. 1485) to enable and start the RDP service).
• Verify that you are connecting to the correct Remote Desktop Protocol port, which by default is 3389
(use AWSSupport-TroubleshootRDP (p. 1485) to read the current RDP port and change it back to
3389).
• Verify that Remote Desktop connections are allowed on your instance (use AWSSupport-
TroubleshootRDP (p. 1485) to enable Remote Desktop connections).
• Verify that the password has not expired. If the password has expired, you can reset it. For more
information, see Reset a lost or expired Windows administrator password (p. 1497).
• If you attempt to connect using a user account that you created on the instance and receive the error
The user cannot connect to the server due to insufficient access privileges,
verify that you granted the user the right to log on locally. For more information, see Grant a Member
the Right to Log On Locally.
• If you attempt more than the maximum allowed concurrent RDP sessions, your session is terminated
with the message Your Remote Desktop Services session has ended. Another user
connected to the remote computer, so your connection was lost. By default, you are
allowed two concurrent RDP sessions to your instance.

Error using the macOS RDP client

If you are connecting to a Windows Server 2012 R2 instance using the Remote Desktop Connection client
from the Microsoft website, you may get the following error:

Remote Desktop Connection cannot verify the identity of the computer that you want to
connect to.

Download the Microsoft Remote Desktop app from the Mac App Store and use the app to connect to
your instance.

RDP displays a black screen instead of the desktop

Try the following to resolve this issue:

• Check the console output for additional information. To get the console output for your instance using
the Amazon EC2 console, select the instance, and then choose Actions, Monitor and troubleshoot,
Get system log.
• Verify that you are running the latest version of your RDP client.
• Try the default settings for the RDP client. For more information, see Remote Session Environment.
• If you are using Remote Desktop Connection, try starting it with the /admin option as follows.

mstsc /v:instance /admin

• If the server is running a full-screen application, it might have stopped responding. Use Ctrl+Shift+Esc
to start Windows Task Manager, and then close the application.
• If the server is over-utilized, it might have stopped responding. To monitor the instance using the
Amazon EC2 console, select the instance and then select the Monitoring tab. If you need to change
the instance type to a larger size, see Change the instance type (p. 233).

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Unable to remotely log on to an instance with
a user account that is not an administrator

Unable to remotely log on to an instance with a user

account that is not an administrator
If you are not able to remotely log on to a Windows instance with a user account that is not an
administrator account, ensure that you have granted the user the right to log on locally. See Grant a user
or group the right to log on locally to the domain controllers in the domain.

Troubleshooting Remote Desktop issues using AWS

Systems Manager
You can use AWS Systems Manager to troubleshoot issues connecting to your Windows instance using
RDP.

AWSSupport-TroubleshootRDP
The AWSSupport-TroubleshootRDP automation document allows the user to check or modify common
settings on the target instance that can impact Remote Desktop Protocol (RDP) connections, such as
the RDP Port, Network Layer Authentication (NLA), and Windows Firewall profiles. By default, the
document reads and outputs the values of these settings.

The AWSSupport-TroubleshootRDP automation document can be used with EC2 instances, on-premises
instances, and virtual machines (VMs) that are enabled for use with AWS Systems Manager (managed
instances). In addition, it can also be used with EC2 instances for Windows Server that are not enabled
for use with Systems Manager. For information about enabling instances for use with AWS Systems
Manager, see AWS Systems Manager Managed Instances in the AWS Systems Manager User Guide.

To troubleshoot using the AWSSupport-TroubleshootRDP document

1. Log in to the Systems Manager Console.

2. Verify that you are in the same Region as the impaired instance.
3. Open the AWSSupport-TroubleshootRDP document.
4. For Execution Mode, choose Simple execution.
5. For Input parameters, InstanceId, enable Show interactive instance picker.
6. Choose your Amazon EC2 instance.
7. Review the examples (p. 1485), then choose Execute.
8. To monitor the execution progress, for Execution status, wait for the status to change from Pending
to Success. Expand Outputs to view the results. To view the output of individual steps, in Executed
Steps, choose an item from Step ID.

AWSSupport-TroubleshootRDP examples
The following examples show you how to accomplish common troubleshooting tasks using AWSSupport-
TroubleshootRDP. You can use either the example AWS CLI start-automation-execution command or the
provided link to the AWS Management Console.

Example Example: Check the current RDP status

AWS CLI:

aws ssm start-automation-execution --document-name "AWSSupport-TroubleshootRDP" --

parameters "InstanceId=instance_id" --region region_code

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Troubleshooting Remote Desktop
issues using AWS Systems Manager
AWS Systems Manager console:

https://console.aws.amazon.com/systems-manager/automation/execute/AWSSupport-
TroubleshootRDP?region=region#documentVersion=$LATEST

Example Example: Disable the Windows Firewall

AWS CLI:

aws ssm start-automation-execution --document-name "AWSSupport-TroubleshootRDP" --

parameters "InstanceId=instance_id,Firewall=Disable" --region region_code

AWS Systems Manager console:

https://console.aws.amazon.com/systems-manager/automation/execute/AWSSupport-
TroubleshootRDP?region=region_code#documentVersion=$LATEST&Firewall=Disable

Example Example: Disable Network Level Authentication

AWS CLI:

aws ssm start-automation-execution --document-name "AWSSupport-TroubleshootRDP" --

parameters "InstanceId=instance_id,NLASettingAction=Disable" --region region_code

AWS Systems Manager console:

https://console.aws.amazon.com/systems-manager/automation/execute/AWSSupport-
TroubleshootRDP?region=region_code#documentVersion

Example Example: Set RDP Service Startup Type to Automatic and start the RDP service

AWS CLI:

aws ssm start-automation-execution --document-name "AWSSupport-TroubleshootRDP" --

parameters "InstanceId=instance_id,RDPServiceStartupType=Auto, RDPServiceAction=Start" --
region region_code

AWS Systems Manager console:

https://console.aws.amazon.com/systems-manager/automation/execute/
AWSSupport-TroubleshootRDP?region=region_code#documentVersion=
$LATEST&RDPServiceStartupType=Auto&RDPServiceAction=Start

Example Example: Restore the default RDP Port (3389)

AWS CLI:

aws ssm start-automation-execution --document-name "AWSSupport-TroubleshootRDP" --

parameters "InstanceId=instance_id,RDPPortAction=Modify" --region region_code

AWS Systems Manager console:

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Enable Remote Desktop on an EC2
Instance With Remote Registry
https://console.aws.amazon.com/systems-manager/automation/execute/AWSSupport-
TroubleshootRDP?region=region_code#documentVersion=$LATEST&RDPPortAction=Modify

Example Example: Allow remote connections

AWS CLI:

aws ssm start-automation-execution --document-name "AWSSupport-TroubleshootRDP" --

parameters "InstanceId=instance_id,RemoteConnections=Enable" --region region_code

AWS Systems Manager console:

https://console.aws.amazon.com/systems-manager/automation/execute/AWSSupport-
TroubleshootRDP?region=region_code#documentVersion=$LATEST&RemoteConnections=Enable

AWSSupport-ExecuteEC2Rescue
The AWSSupport-ExecuteEC2Rescue automation document uses Use EC2Rescue for Windows
Server (p. 1512) to automatically troubleshoot and restore EC2 instance connectivity and RDP issues. For
more information, see Run the EC2Rescue Tool on Unreachable Instances.

The AWSSupport-ExecuteEC2Rescue automation document requires a stop and restart of the instance.
Systems Manager Automation stops the instance and creates an Amazon Machine Image (AMI). Data
stored in instance store volumes is lost. The public IP address changes if you are not using an Elastic
IP address. For more information, see Run the EC2Rescue Tool on Unreachable Instances in the AWS
Systems Manager User Guide.

To troubleshoot using the AWSSupport-ExecuteEC2Rescue document

1. Open the Systems Manager console.

2. Verify that you are in the same Region as the impaired Amazon EC2 instance.
3. Open the AWSSupport-ExecuteEC2Rescue document.
4. In Execution Mode, choose Simple execution.
5. In the Input parameters section, for UnreachableInstanceId, enter the Amazon EC2 instance ID of
the unreachable instance.
6. (Optional) For LogDestination, enter the Amazon Simple Storage Service (Amazon S3) bucket name
if you want to collect operating system logs for troubleshooting your Amazon EC2 instance. Logs are
automatically uploaded to the specified bucket.
7. Choose Execute.
8. To monitor the execution progress, in Execution status, wait for the status to change from Pending
to Success. Expand Outputs to view the results. To view the output of individual steps, in Executed
Steps, choose the Step ID.

Enable Remote Desktop on an EC2 Instance With

Remote Registry
If your unreachable instance is not managed by AWS Systems Manager Session Manager, then you can
use remote registry to enable Remote Desktop.

1. From the EC2 console, stop the unreachable instance.

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Troubleshoot an unreachable instance

2. Attach the root volume of the unreachable instance to another instance in the same Availability
Zone.
3. On the instance to which you attached the root volume, open Disk Management. To open Disk
Management, run

diskmgmt.msc

4. Right click on the root volume of the affected instance and choose Online.
5. Open the Windows Registry Editor by running the following command:

regedit

6. In the Registry Editor console tree, choose HKEY_LOCAL_MACHINE, then select File>Load Hive.
7. Select the drive of the attached volume, navigate to \Windows\System32\config\, select
SYSTEM, and then choose Open.
8. For Key Name, enter a unique name for the hive and choose OK.
9. Back up the registry hive before making any changes to the registry.

a. In the Registry Editor console tree, select the hive that you loaded: HKEY_LOCAL_MACHINE
\your key name.
b. Choose File>Export.
c. In the Export Registry File dialog box, choose the location to which you want to save the backup
copy, and then type a name for the backup file in the File name field.
d. Choose Save.
10. In the Registry Editor console tree, navigate to HKEY_LOCAL_MACHINE\your key
name\ControlSet001\Control\Terminal Server, and then, in the details pane, double-click
on fDenyTSConnections.
11. In the Edit DWORD value box, enter 0 in the Value data field.
12. Choose OK.
Note
If the value in the Value data field is 1, then the instance will deny remote desktop
connections. A value of 0 allows remote desktop connections.
13. Close the Registry Editor and the Disk Management consoles.
14. From the EC2 console, detach the root volume from the instance to which you attached it and
reattach it to the unreachable instance. When attaching the volume to the unreachable instance,
enter /dev/sda1 in the device field.
15. Restart the unreachable instance.

Troubleshoot an unreachable instance

If you are unable to reach your Windows instance through SSH or RDP, you can capture a screenshot of
your instance and view it as an image. This provides visibility into the status of the instance, and allows
for quicker troubleshooting. You can also use EC2 Rescue (p. 1512) on instances running Windows Server
2008 or later to gather and analyze date from offline instances.

• Get a screenshot of an unreachable instance (p. 1489)

• Common screenshots (p. 1490)

For information about troubleshooting an unreachable Linux instance, see Troubleshoot an unreachable
instance.

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Get a screenshot of an unreachable instance

Get a screenshot of an unreachable instance

You can get screenshots of an instance while it is running or after it has crashed. There is no data
transfer cost for the screenshot. The image is generated in JPG format and is no larger than 100 kb. This
feature is not supported when the instance is using an NVIDIA GRID driver, is on bare metal instances
(instances of type *.metal), or is powered by Arm-based Graviton or Graviton 2 processors. This feature
is available in the following Regions:

• Asia Pacific (Hong Kong) Region

• Asia Pacific (Tokyo) Region
• Asia Pacific (Seoul) Region
• Asia Pacific (Singapore) Region
• Asia Pacific (Sydney) Region
• Asia Pacific (Mumbai) Region
• US East (N. Virginia) Region
• US East (Ohio) Region
• US West (Oregon) Region
• US West (N. California) Region
• Europe (Ireland) Region
• Europe (Frankfurt) Region
• Europe (Milan) Region
• Europe (London) Region
• Europe (Paris) Region
• Europe (Stockholm) Region
• Europe (Paris) Region
• South America (São Paulo) Region
• Canada (Central) Region
• Middle East (Bahrain) Region
• Africa (Capetown) Region
• China (Beijing) Region
• China (Ningxia) Region

To get a screenshot of a running instance using the console

1. Open the Amazon EC2 console at https://console.aws.amazon.com/ec2/.

2. In the left navigation pane, choose Instances.
3. Select the instance to capture.
4. Choose Actions, Monitor and troubleshoot, Get instance screenshot.
5. Choose Download, or right-click the image to download and save it.

To get a screenshot of a running instance using the command line

You can use one of the following commands. The returned output is base64-encoded. For more
information about these command line interfaces, see Access Amazon EC2 (p. 3).

• get-console-screenshot (AWS CLI)

• GetConsoleScreenshot (Amazon EC2 Query API)

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Common screenshots

For API calls, the returned content is base64-encoded. For command line tools, the decoding is
performed for you.

Common screenshots
You can use the following information to help you troubleshoot an unreachable instance based on
screenshots returned by the service.

• Log on screen (Ctrl+Alt+Delete) (p. 1490)

• Recovery console screen (p. 1492)
• Windows boot manager screen (p. 1494)
• Sysprep screen (p. 1494)
• Getting ready screen (p. 1495)
• Windows Update screen (p. 1496)
• Chkdsk (p. 1497)

Log on screen (Ctrl+Alt+Delete)

Console Screenshot Service returned the following.

If an instance becomes unreachable during logon, there could be a problem with your network
configuration or Windows Remote Desktop Services. An instance can also be unresponsive if a process is
using large amounts of CPU.

Network configuration
Use the following information, to verify that your AWS, Microsoft Windows, and local (or on-premises)
network configurations aren't blocking access to the instance.

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Common screenshots

AWS network configuration

Configuration Verify

Security group configuration Verify that port 3389 is open for your security
group. Verify you are connecting to the right
public IP address. If the instance was not
associated with an Elastic IP, the public IP
changes after the instance stops/starts. For more
information, see Remote Desktop can't connect to
the remote computer (p. 1482).

VPC configuration (Network ACLs) Verify that the access control list (ACL) for
your Amazon VPC is not blocking access. For
information, see Network ACLs in the Amazon VPC
User Guide.

VPN configuration If you are connecting to your VPC using a

virtual private network (VPN), verify VPN tunnel
connectivity. For more information, see How do
I troubleshoot VPN tunnel connectivity to an
Amazon VPC?

Windows network configuration

Configuration Verify

Windows Firewall Verify that Windows Firewall isn't blocking

connections to your instance. Disable Windows
Firewall as described in bullet 7 of the remote
desktop troubleshooting section, Remote Desktop
can't connect to the remote computer (p. 1482).

Advanced TCP/IP configuration (Use of static IP) The instance may be unresponsive because you
configured a static IP address. For a VPC, create
a network interface (p. 961) and attach it to the
instance (p. 963). For EC2 Classic, enable DHCP.

Local or On-Premises Network Configuration

Verify that a local network configuration isn't blocking access. Try to connect to another instance in
the same VPC as your unreachable instance. If you can't access another instance, work with your local
network administrator to determine whether a local policy is restricting access.

Remote Desktop Services issues

If the instance can't be reached during logon, there could a problem with Remote Desktop Services (RDS)
on the instance.

Remote Desktop Services configuration

Configuration Verify

RDS is running Verify that RDS is running on the instance. Connect to the instance
using the Microsoft Management Console (MMC) Services snap-
in (services.msc). In the list of services, verify that Remote

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Common screenshots

Configuration Verify
Desktop Services is Running. If it isn't, start it and then set the
startup type to Automatic. If you can't connect to the instance
by using the Services snap-in, detach the root volume from the
instance, take a snapshot of the volume or create an AMI from
it, attach the original volume to another instance in the same
Availability Zone as a secondary volume, and modify the Start
registry key. When you are finished, reattach the root volume
to the original instance. For more information about detaching
volumes, see Detach an Amazon EBS volume from a Windows
instance (p. 1217).

RDS is enabled Even if the service is started, it might be disabled. Detach the
root volume from the instance, take a snapshot of the volume
or create an AMI from it, attach the original volume to another
instance in the same Availability Zone as a secondary volume, and
enable the service by modifying the Terminal Server registry key
as described in Enable Remote Desktop on an EC2 Instance With
Remote Registry (p. 1487).

When you are finished, reattach the root volume to the original
instance. For more information, see Detach an Amazon EBS volume
from a Windows instance (p. 1217).

High CPU usage

Check the CPUUtilization (Maximum) metric on your instance by using Amazon CloudWatch. If
CPUUtilization (Maximum) is a high number, wait for the CPU to go down and try connecting again.
High CPU usage can be caused by:

• Windows Update
• Security Software Scan
• Custom Startup Script
• Task Scheduler

For more information, see Get Statistics for a Specific Resource in the Amazon CloudWatch User Guide.
For additional troubleshooting tips, see High CPU usage shortly after Windows starts (p. 1481).

Recovery console screen

Console Screenshot Service returned the following.

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Common screenshots

The operating system may boot into the Recovery console and get stuck in this state if the
bootstatuspolicy is not set to ignoreallfailures. Use the following procedure to change the
bootstatuspolicy configuration to ignoreallfailures.

By default, the policy configuration for AWS-provided public Windows AMIs is set to
ignoreallfailures.

1. Stop the unreachable instance.

2. Create a snapshot of the root volume. The root volume is attached to the instance as /dev/sda1.

Detach the root volume from the unreachable instance, take a snapshot of the volume or create an
AMI from it, and attach it to another instance in the same Availability Zone as a secondary volume.
For more information, see Detach an Amazon EBS volume from a Windows instance (p. 1217).
Warning
If your temporary instance is based on the same AMI that the original instance is based
on, you must complete additional steps or you won't be able to boot the original instance
after you restore its root volume because of a disk signature collision. Alternatively, select
a different AMI for the temporary instance. For example, if the original instance uses an
AMI for Windows Server 2008 R2, launch the temporary instance using an AMI for Windows
Server 2012. If you must create a temporary instance based on the same AMI, see Step 6 in
Remote Desktop can't connect to the remote computer (p. 1482) to avoid a disk signature
collision.
3. Log in to the instance and run the following command from a command prompt to change the
bootstatuspolicy configuration to ignoreallfailures:

bcdedit /store Drive Letter:\boot\bcd /set {default} bootstatuspolicy ignoreallfailures

4. Reattach the volume to the unreachable instance and start the instance again.

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Common screenshots

Windows boot manager screen

Console Screenshot Service returned the following.

The operating system experienced a fatal corruption in the system file and/or the registry. When the
instance is stuck in this state, you should recover the instance from a recent backup AMI or launch a
replacement instance. If you need to access data on the instance, detach any root volumes from the
unreachable instance, take a snapshot of those volume or create an AMI from them, and attach them to
another instance in the same Availability Zone as a secondary volume. For more information, see Detach
an Amazon EBS volume from a Windows instance (p. 1217).

Sysprep screen
Console Screenshot Service returned the following.

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You may see this screen if you did not use the EC2Config Service to call Sysprep or if the operating
system failed while running Sysprep. You can reset the password using EC2Rescue (p. 1512). Otherwise,
Create a standardized Amazon Machine Image (AMI) using Sysprep (p. 40).

Getting ready screen

Console Screenshot Service returned the following.

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Refresh the Instance Console Screenshot Service repeatedly to verify that the progress ring is spinning.
If the ring is spinning, wait for the operating system to start up. You can also check the CPUUtilization
(Maximum) metric on your instance by using Amazon CloudWatch to see if the operating system is
active. If the progress ring is not spinning, the instance may be stuck at the boot process. Reboot the
instance. If rebooting does not solve the problem, recover the instance from a recent backup AMI or
launch a replacement instance. If you need to access data on the instance, detach the root volume from
the unreachable instance, take a snapshot of the volume or create an AMI from it. Then attach it to
another instance in the same Availability Zone as a secondary volume.

Windows Update screen

Console Screenshot Service returned the following.

The Windows Update process is updating the registry. Wait for the update to finish. Do not reboot or
stop the instance as this may cause data corruption during the update.

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Reset a lost or expired Windows administrator password

Note
The Windows Update process can consume resources on the server during the update. If you
experience this problem often, consider using faster instance types and faster EBS volumes.

Chkdsk
Console Screenshot Service returned the following.

Windows is running the chkdsk system tool on the drive to verify file system integrity and fix logical file
system errors. Wait for process to complete.

Reset a lost or expired Windows administrator

password
If you are no longer able to access your Windows Amazon EC2 instance because the Windows
administrator password is lost or expired, you can reset the password.
Note
There is an AWS Systems Manager Automation document that automatically applies the manual
steps necessary to reset the local administrator password. For more information, see Reset
Passwords and SSH Keys on Amazon EC2 Instances in the AWS Systems Manager User Guide.

The manual methods to reset the administrator password use EC2Launch v2, EC2Config, or EC2Launch.

• For all supported Windows AMIs that include the EC2Launch v2 service, use EC2Launch v2.
• For Windows AMIs before Windows Server 2016, use the EC2Config service.
• For Windows Server 2016 and later AMIs, use the EC2Launch service.

These procedures also describe how to connect to an instance if you lost the key pair that was used to
create the instance. Amazon EC2 uses a public key to encrypt a piece of data, such as a password, and
a private key to decrypt the data. The public and private keys are known as a key pair. With Windows
instances, you use a key pair to obtain the administrator password and then log in using RDP.
Note
If you have disabled the local administrator account on the instance and your instance is
configured for Systems Manager, you can also re-enable and reset your local administrator
password by using EC2Rescue and Run Command. For more information, see Using EC2Rescue
for Windows Server with Systems Manager Run Command.

Contents

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Reset using EC2Launch v2

• Reset the Windows administrator password using EC2Launch v2 (p. 1498)

• Reset the Windows administrator password using EC2Config (p. 1501)
• Reset the Windows administrator password using EC2Launch (p. 1505)

Reset the Windows administrator password using

EC2Launch v2
If you have lost your Windows administrator password and are using a supported Windows AMI that
includes the EC2Launch v2 service, you can use EC2Launch v2 to generate a new password.

If you are using a Windows Server 2016 or later AMI that does not include the EC2Launch v2 service, see
Reset the Windows administrator password using EC2Launch (p. 1505).

If you are using a Windows Server AMI earlier than Windows Server 2016 that does not include the
EC2Launch v2 service, see Reset the Windows administrator password using EC2Config (p. 1501).
Note
If you have disabled the local administrator account on the instance and your instance is
configured for Systems Manager, you can also re-enable and reset your local administrator
password by using EC2Rescue and Run Command. For more information, see Using EC2Rescue
for Windows Server with Systems Manager Run Command.
Note
There is an AWS Systems Manager Automation document that automatically applies the manual
steps necessary to reset the local administrator password. For more information, see Reset
Passwords and SSH Keys on Amazon EC2 Instances in the AWS Systems Manager User Guide.

To reset your Windows administrator password using EC2Launch v2, you need to do the following:

• Step 1: Verify that the EC2Launch v2 service is running (p. 1498)

• Step 2: Detach the root volume from the instance (p. 1499)
• Step 3: Attach the volume to a temporary instance (p. 1499)
• Step 4: Delete the .run-once file (p. 1500)
• Step 5: Restart the original instance (p. 1500)

Step 1: Verify that the EC2Launch v2 service is running

Before you attempt to reset the administrator password, verify that the EC2Launch v2 service is installed
and running. You use the EC2Launch v2 service to reset the administrator password later in this section.

To verify that the EC2Launch v2 service is running

1. Open the Amazon EC2 console at https://console.aws.amazon.com/ec2/.

2. In the navigation pane, choose Instances and then select the instance that requires a password reset.
This instance is referred to as the original instance in this procedure.
3. Choose Actions, Monitor and troubleshoot, Get system log.
4. Locate the EC2 Launch entry, for example, Launch: EC2Launch v2 service v2.0.124. If you see this
entry, the EC2Launch v2 service is running.

If the system log output is empty, or if the EC2Launch v2 service is not running, troubleshoot the
instance using the Instance Console Screenshot service. For more information, see Troubleshoot an
unreachable instance (p. 1488).

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Step 2: Detach the root volume from the instance

You can't use EC2Launch v2 to reset an administrator password if the volume on which the password
is stored is attached to an instance as the root volume. You must detach the volume from the original
instance before you can attach it to a temporary instance as a secondary volume.

To detach the root volume from the instance

1. Open the Amazon EC2 console at https://console.aws.amazon.com/ec2/.

2. In the navigation pane, choose Instances.
3. Select the instance that requires a password reset and choose Actions, Instance state, Stop
instance. After the status of the instance changes to Stopped, continue with the next step.
4. (Optional) If you have the private key that you specified when you launched this instance, continue
with the next step. Otherwise, use the following steps to replace the instance with a new instance
that you launch with a new key pair.

a. Create a new key pair using the Amazon EC2 console. To give your new key pair the same name
as the one for which you lost the private key, you must first delete the existing key pair.
b. Select the instance to replace. Note the instance type, VPC, subnet, security group, and IAM role
of the instance.
c. Choose Actions, Image and templates, Create image. Type a name and a description for the
image and choose Create image. In the navigation pane, choose AMIs. After the image status
changes to available, continue to the next step.
d. Select the image and choose Actions, and then Launch.
e. Complete the wizard, selecting the same instance type, VPC, subnet, security group, and IAM
role as the instance to replace, and then choose Launch.
f. When prompted, choose the key pair that you created for the new instance, select the
acknowledgement check box, and then choose Launch Instances.
g. (Optional) If the original instance has an associated Elastic IP address, transfer it to the new
instance. If the original instance has EBS volumes in addition to the root volume, transfer them
to the new instance.
h. Terminate the stopped instance, as it is no longer needed. For the remainder of this procedure,
all references to the original instance apply to this instance that you just created.
5. Detach the root volume from the original instance as follows:

a. In the Description pane of the original instance, note the ID of the EBS volume listed as the
Root device.
b. In the navigation pane, choose Volumes.
c. In the list of volumes, select the volume noted in the previous step, and choose Actions, Detach
Volume. After the volume status changes to available, continue with the next step.

Step 3: Attach the volume to a temporary instance

Next, launch a temporary instance and attach the volume to it as a secondary volume. This is the
instance you use to modify the configuration file.

To launch a temporary instance and attach the volume

1. Launch the temporary instance as follows:

a. In the navigation pane, choose Instances, choose Launch instances, and then select an AMI.

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Important
To avoid disk signature collisions, you must select an AMI for a different version of
Windows. For example, if the original instance runs Windows Server 2019, launch the
temporary instance using the base AMI for Windows Server 2016.
b. Leave the default instance type and choose Next: Configure Instance Details.
c. On the Configure Instance Details page, for Subnet, select the same Availability Zone as the
original instance and choose Review and Launch.
Important
The temporary instance must be in the same Availability Zone as the original instance.
If your temporary instance is in a different Availability Zone, you can't attach the
original instance's root volume to it.
d. On the Review Instance Launch page, choose Launch.
e. When prompted, create a new key pair, download it to a safe location on your computer, and
then choose Launch Instances.
2. Attach the volume to the temporary instance as a secondary volume as follows:

a. In the navigation pane, choose Volumes, select the volume that you detached from the original
instance, and then choose Actions, Attach Volume.
b. In the Attach Volume dialog box, for Instances, start typing the name or ID of your temporary
instance and select the instance from the list.
c. For Device, type xvdf (if it isn't already there), and choose Attach.

Step 4: Delete the .run-once file

After you have attached the volume to the temporary instance as a secondary volume, delete the .run-
once file from the instance, located at %ProgramData%/Amazon/EC2Launch/state/.run-once. This
directs EC2Launch v2 to run all tasks with a frequency of once, which includes setting the administrator
password.
Important
Any scripts set to run once will be triggered by this action.

Step 5: Restart the original instance

After you have deleted the .run-once file, reattach the volume to the original instance as the root
volume and connect to the instance using its key pair to retrieve the administrator password.

1. Reattach the volume to the original instance as follows:

a. In the navigation pane, choose Volumes, select the volume that you detached from the
temporary instance, and then choose Actions, Attach Volume.
b. In the Attach Volume dialog box, for Instances, start typing the name or ID of your original
instance and then select the instance.
c. For Device, type /dev/sda1.
d. Choose Attach. After the volume status changes to in-use, continue to the next step.
2. In the navigation pane, choose Instances. Select the original instance and choose Instance state,
Start instance. After the instance state changes to Running, continue to the next step.
3. Retrieve your new Windows administrator password using the private key for the new key pair and
connect to the instance. For more information, see Connect to your Windows instance (p. 417).
Important
The instance gets a new public IP address after you stop and start it. Make sure to connect
to the instance using its current public DNS name. For more information, see Instance
lifecycle (p. 390).

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Reset Using EC2Config

4. (Optional) If you have no further use for the temporary instance, you can terminate it. Select the
temporary instance, and choose Instance State, Terminate instance.

Reset the Windows administrator password using

EC2Config
If you have lost your Windows administrator password and are using a Windows AMI before Windows
Server 2016, you can use the EC2Config service to generate a new password.

If you are using a Windows Server 2016 or later AMI, see Reset the Windows administrator password
using EC2Launch (p. 1505).
Note
If you have disabled the local administrator account on the instance and your instance is
configured for Systems Manager, you can also re-enable and reset your local administrator
password by using EC2Rescue and Run Command. For more information, see Using EC2Rescue
for Windows Server with Systems Manager Run Command.
Note
There is an AWS Systems Manager Automation document that automatically applies the manual
steps necessary to reset the local administrator password. For more information, see Reset
Passwords and SSH Keys on Amazon EC2 Instances in the AWS Systems Manager User Guide.

To reset your Windows administrator password using EC2Config, you need to do the following:

• Step 1: Verify that the EC2Config service is running (p. 1501)

• Step 2: Detach the root volume from the instance (p. 1501)
• Step 3: Attach the volume to a temporary instance (p. 1502)
• Step 4: Modify the configuration file (p. 1503)
• Step 5: Restart the original instance (p. 1504)

Step 1: Verify that the EC2Config service is running

Before you attempt to reset the administrator password, verify that the EC2Config service is installed
and running. You use the EC2Config service to reset the administrator password later in this section.

To verify that the EC2Config service is running

1. Open the Amazon EC2 console at https://console.aws.amazon.com/ec2/.

2. In the navigation pane, choose Instances and then select the instance that requires a password reset.
This instance is referred to as the original instance in this procedure.
3. Choose Actions, Monitor and troubleshoot, Get system log.
4. Locate the EC2 Agent entry, for example, EC2 Agent: Ec2Config service v3.18.1118. If you see this
entry, the EC2Config service is running.

If the system log output is empty, or if the EC2Config service is not running, troubleshoot the
instance using the Instance Console Screenshot service. For more information, see Troubleshoot an
unreachable instance (p. 1488).

Step 2: Detach the root volume from the instance

You can't use EC2Config to reset an administrator password if the volume on which the password is
stored is attached to an instance as the root volume. You must detach the volume from the original
instance before you can attach it to a temporary instance as a secondary volume.

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To detach the root volume from the instance

1. Open the Amazon EC2 console at https://console.aws.amazon.com/ec2/.

2. In the navigation pane, choose Instances.
3. Select the instance that requires a password reset and choose Actions, Instance state, Stop
instance. After the status of the instance changes to Stopped, continue with the next step.
4. (Optional) If you have the private key that you specified when you launched this instance, continue
with the next step. Otherwise, use the following steps to replace the instance with a new instance
that you launch with a new key pair.

a. Create a new key pair using the Amazon EC2 console. To give your new key pair the same name
as the one for which you lost the private key, you must first delete the existing key pair.
b. Select the instance to replace. Note the instance type, VPC, subnet, security group, and IAM role
of the instance.
c. Choose Actions, Image and templates, Create image. Type a name and a description for the
image and choose Create image. In the navigation pane, choose AMIs. After the image status
changes to available, continue to the next step.
d. Select the image and choose Actions, and then Launch.
e. Complete the wizard, selecting the same instance type, VPC, subnet, security group, and IAM
role as the instance to replace, and then choose Launch.
f. When prompted, choose the key pair that you created for the new instance, select the
acknowledgement check box, and then choose Launch Instances.
g. (Optional) If the original instance has an associated Elastic IP address, transfer it to the new
instance. If the original instance has EBS volumes in addition to the root volume, transfer them
to the new instance.
h. Terminate the stopped instance, as it is no longer needed. For the remainder of this procedure,
all references to the original instance apply to this instance that you just created.
5. Detach the root volume from the original instance as follows:

a. In the Description pane of the original instance, note the ID of the EBS volume listed as the
Root device.
b. In the navigation pane, choose Volumes.
c. In the list of volumes, select the volume noted in the previous step, and choose Actions, Detach
Volume. After the volume status changes to available, continue with the next step.

Step 3: Attach the volume to a temporary instance

Next, launch a temporary instance and attach the volume to it as a secondary volume. This is the
instance you use to modify the configuration file.

To launch a temporary instance and attach the volume

1. Launch the temporary instance as follows:

a. In the navigation pane, choose Instances, choose Launch instances, and then select an AMI.
Important
To avoid disk signature collisions, you must select an AMI for a different version of
Windows. For example, if the original instance runs Windows Server 2019, launch the
temporary instance using the base AMI for Windows Server 2016.
b. Leave the default instance type and choose Next: Configure Instance Details.
c. On the Configure Instance Details page, for Subnet, select the same Availability Zone as the
original instance and choose Review and Launch.

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Important
The temporary instance must be in the same Availability Zone as the original instance.
If your temporary instance is in a different Availability Zone, you can't attach the
original instance's root volume to it.
d. On the Review Instance Launch page, choose Launch.
e. When prompted, create a new key pair, download it to a safe location on your computer, and
then choose Launch Instances.
2. Attach the volume to the temporary instance as a secondary volume as follows:

a. In the navigation pane, choose Volumes, select the volume that you detached from the original
instance, and then choose Actions, Attach Volume.
b. In the Attach Volume dialog box, for Instances, start typing the name or ID of your temporary
instance and select the instance from the list.
c. For Device, type xvdf (if it isn't already there), and choose Attach.

Step 4: Modify the configuration file

After you have attached the volume to the temporary instance as a secondary volume, modify the
Ec2SetPassword plugin in the configuration file.

To modify the configuration file

1. From the temporary instance, modify the configuration file on the secondary volume as follows:

a. Launch and connect to the temporary instance.

b. Open the Disk Management utility, and bring the drive online using these instructions: Making
an Amazon EBS volume available for use.
c. Navigate to the secondary volume, and open \Program Files\Amazon\Ec2ConfigService
\Settings\config.xml using a text editor, such as Notepad.
d. At the top of the file, find the plugin with the name Ec2SetPassword, as shown in the
screenshot. Change the state from Disabled to Enabled and save the file.

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2. After you have modified the configuration file, detach the secondary volume from the temporary
instance as follows:

a. Using the Disk Management utility, bring the volume offline.

b. Disconnect from the temporary instance and return to the Amazon EC2 console.
c. In the navigation pane, choose Volumes, select the volume, and then choose Actions, Detach
Volume. After the volume's status changes to available, continue with the next step.

Step 5: Restart the original instance

After you have modified the configuration file, reattach the volume to the original instance as the root
volume and connect to the instance using its key pair to retrieve the administrator password.

1. Reattach the volume to the original instance as follows:

a. In the navigation pane, choose Volumes, select the volume that you detached from the
temporary instance, and then choose Actions, Attach Volume.
b. In the Attach Volume dialog box, for Instances, start typing the name or ID of your original
instance and then select the instance.
c. For Device, type /dev/sda1.
d. Choose Attach. After the volume status changes to in-use, continue to the next step.
2. In the navigation pane, choose Instances. Select the original instance and choose Instance state,
Start instance. After the instance state changes to Running, continue to the next step.
3. Retrieve your new Windows administrator password using the private key for the new key pair and
connect to the instance. For more information, see Connect to your Windows instance (p. 417).

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Important
The instance gets a new public IP address after you stop and start it. Make sure to connect
to the instance using its current public DNS name. For more information, see Instance
lifecycle (p. 390).
4. (Optional) If you have no further use for the temporary instance, you can terminate it. Select the
temporary instance, and choose Instance State, Terminate instance.

Reset the Windows administrator password using

EC2Launch
If you have lost your Windows administrator password and are using a Windows Server 2016 or later
AMI, you can use the EC2Rescue tool, which uses the EC2Launch service to generate a new password.

If you are using a Windows Server AMI earlier than Windows Server 2016, see Reset the Windows
administrator password using EC2Config (p. 1501).
Warning
When you stop an instance, the data on any instance store volumes is erased. To keep data from
instance store volumes, be sure to back it up to persistent storage.
Note
If you have disabled the local administrator account on the instance and your instance is
configured for Systems Manager, you can also re-enable and reset your local administrator
password by using EC2Rescue and Run Command. For more information, see Using EC2Rescue
for Windows Server with Systems Manager Run Command.
Note
There is an AWS Systems Manager Automation document that automatically applies the manual
steps necessary to reset the local administrator password. For more information, see Reset
Passwords and SSH Keys on Amazon EC2 Instances in the AWS Systems Manager User Guide.

To reset your Windows administrator password using EC2Launch, you need to do the following:

• Step 1: Detach the root volume from the instance (p. 1505)
• Step 2: Attach the volume to a temporary instance (p. 1506)
• Step 3: Reset the administrator password (p. 1507)
• Step 4: Restart the original instance (p. 1507)

Step 1: Detach the root volume from the instance

You can't use EC2Launch to reset an administrator password if the volume on which the password is
stored is attached to an instance as the root volume. You must detach the volume from the original
instance before you can attach it to a temporary instance as a secondary volume.

To detach the root volume from the instance

1. Open the Amazon EC2 console at https://console.aws.amazon.com/ec2/.

2. In the navigation pane, choose Instances.
3. Select the instance that requires a password reset and choose Actions, Instance state, Stop
instance. After the status of the instance changes to Stopped, continue with the next step.
4. (Optional) If you have the private key that you specified when you launched this instance, continue
with the next step. Otherwise, use the following steps to replace the instance with a new instance
that you launch with a new key pair.

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a. Create a new key pair using the Amazon EC2 console. To give your new key pair the same name
as the one for which you lost the private key, you must first delete the existing key pair.
b. Select the instance to replace. Note the instance type, VPC, subnet, security group, and IAM role
of the instance.
c. Choose Actions, Image and templates, Create image. Type a name and a description for the
image and choose Create image. In the navigation pane, choose AMIs. After the image status
changes to available, continue to the next step.
d. Select the image and choose Actions, and then Launch.
e. Complete the wizard, selecting the same instance type, VPC, subnet, security group, and IAM
role as the instance to replace, and then choose Launch.
f. When prompted, choose the key pair that you created for the new instance, select the
acknowledgement check box, and then choose Launch Instances.
g. (Optional) If the original instance has an associated Elastic IP address, transfer it to the new
instance. If the original instance has EBS volumes in addition to the root volume, transfer them
to the new instance.
h. Terminate the stopped instance, as it is no longer needed. For the remainder of this procedure,
all references to the original instance apply to this instance that you just created.
5. Detach the root volume from the original instance as follows:

a. In the Description pane of the original instance, note the ID of the EBS volume listed as the
Root device.
b. In the navigation pane, choose Volumes.
c. In the list of volumes, select the volume noted in the previous step, and choose Actions, Detach
Volume. After the volume status changes to available, continue with the next step.

Step 2: Attach the volume to a temporary instance

Next, launch a temporary instance and attach the volume to it as a secondary volume. This is the
instance you use to run EC2Launch.

To launch a temporary instance and attach the volume

1. Launch the temporary instance as follows:

a. In the navigation pane, choose Instances, choose Launch instances, and then select an AMI.
Important
To avoid disk signature collisions, you must select an AMI for a different version of
Windows. For example, if the original instance runs Windows Server 2019, launch the
temporary instance using the base AMI for Windows Server 2016.
b. Leave the default instance type and choose Next: Configure Instance Details.
c. On the Configure Instance Details page, for Subnet, select the same Availability Zone as the
original instance and choose Review and Launch.
Important
The temporary instance must be in the same Availability Zone as the original instance.
If your temporary instance is in a different Availability Zone, you can't attach the
original instance's root volume to it.
d. On the Review Instance Launch page, choose Launch.
e. When prompted, create a new key pair, download it to a safe location on your computer, and
then choose Launch Instances.
2. Attach the volume to the temporary instance as a secondary volume as follows:

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a. In the navigation pane, choose Volumes, select the volume that you detached from the original
instance, and then choose Actions, Attach Volume.
b. In the Attach Volume dialog box, for Instances, start typing the name or ID of your temporary
instance and select the instance from the list.
c. For Device, type xvdf (if it isn't already there), and choose Attach.

Step 3: Reset the administrator password

Next, connect to the temporary instance and use EC2Launch to reset the administrator password.

To reset the administrator password

1. Connect to the temporary instance and use the EC2Rescue for Windows Server tool on the instance
to reset the administrator password as follows:

a. Download the EC2Rescue for Windows Server zip file, extract the contents, and run
EC2Rescue.exe.
b. On the License Agreement screen, read the license agreement, and, if you accept the terms,
choose I Agree.
c. On the Welcome to EC2Rescue for Windows Server screen, choose Next.
d. On the Select mode screen, choose Offline instance.
e. On the Select a disk screen, select the xvdf device and choose Next.
f. Confirm the disk selection and choose Yes.
g. After the volume has loaded, choose OK.
h. On the Select Offline Instance Option screen, choose Diagnose and Rescue.
i. On the Summary screen, review the information and choose Next.
j. On the Detected possible issues screen, select Reset Administrator Password and choose Next.
k. On the Confirm screen, choose Rescue, OK.
l. On the Done screen, choose Finish.
m. Close the EC2Rescue for Windows Server tool, disconnect from the temporary instance, and
then return to the Amazon EC2 console.
2. Detach the secondary (xvdf) volume from the temporary instance as follows:

a. In the navigation pane, choose Instances and select the temporary instance.
b. On the Storage tab for the temporary instance, note the ID of the EBS volume listed as xvdf.
c. In the navigation pane, choose Volumes.
d. In the list of volumes, select the volume noted in the previous step, and choose Actions, Detach
Volume. After the volume status changes to available, continue with the next step.

Step 4: Restart the original instance

After you have reset the administrator password using EC2Launch, reattach the volume to the original
instance as the root volume and connect to the instance using its key pair to retrieve the administrator
password.

To restart the original instance

1. Reattach the volume to the original instance as follows:

a. In the navigation pane, choose Volumes, select the volume that you detached from the
temporary instance, and then choose Actions, Attach Volume.

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Stop your instance

b. In the Attach Volume dialog box, for Instances, start typing the name or ID of your original
instance and then select the instance.
c. For Device, type /dev/sda1.
d. Choose Attach. After the volume status changes to in-use, continue to the next step.
2. In the navigation pane, choose Instances. Select the original instance and choose Instance state,
Start instance. After the instance state changes to Running, continue to the next step.
3. Retrieve your new Windows administrator password using the private key for the new key pair and
connect to the instance. For more information, see Connect to your Windows instance (p. 417).
4. (Optional) If you have no further use for the temporary instance, you can terminate it. Select the
temporary instance, and choose Instance State, Terminate instance.

Troubleshoot stopping your instance

If you have stopped your Amazon EBS-backed instance and it appears stuck in the stopping state, there
may be an issue with the underlying host computer.

There is no cost for instance usage while an instance is in the stopping state or in any other state
except running. You are only charged for instance usage when an instance is in the running state.

Force stop the instance

Force the instance to stop using either the console or the AWS CLI.

New console

To force stop the instance using the console

1. Open the Amazon EC2 console at https://console.aws.amazon.com/ec2/.

2. In the navigation pane, choose Instances and select the stuck instance.
3. Choose Instance state, Force stop instance, Stop.

Old console

To force stop the instance using the console

1. Open the Amazon EC2 console at https://console.aws.amazon.com/ec2/.

2. In the navigation pane, choose Instances and select the stuck instance.
3. Choose Instance State, Stop, Yes, Forcefully Stop.

AWS CLI

To force stop the instance using the AWS CLI

Use the stop-instances command and the --force option as follows:

aws ec2 stop-instances --instance-ids i-0123ab456c789d01e --force

If, after 10 minutes, the instance has not stopped, post a request for help in the Amazon EC2 forum.
To help expedite a resolution, include the instance ID, and describe the steps that you've already taken.
Alternatively, if you have a support plan, create a technical support case in the Support Center.

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Create a replacement instance

Create a replacement instance

To attempt to resolve the problem while you are waiting for assistance from the Amazon EC2 forum or
the Support Center, create a replacement instance. Create an AMI of the stuck instance, and launch a
new instance using the new AMI.

New console

To create a replacement instance using the console

1. Open the Amazon EC2 console at https://console.aws.amazon.com/ec2/.

2. In the navigation pane, choose Instances and select the stuck instance.
3. Choose Actions, Image and templates, Create image.
4. On the Create image page, do the following:

a. Enter a name and description for the AMI.

b. Choose No reboot.
c. Choose Create image.

For more information, see Create a Windows AMI from a running instance (p. 38).
5. Launch a new instance from the AMI and verify that the new instance is working.
6. Select the stuck instance, and choose Actions, Instance state, Terminate instance. If the
instance also gets stuck terminating, Amazon EC2 automatically forces it to terminate within a
few hours.

Old console

To create a replacement instance using the console

1. Open the Amazon EC2 console at https://console.aws.amazon.com/ec2/.

2. In the navigation pane, choose Instances and select the stuck instance.
3. Choose Actions, Image, Create Image.
4. In the Create Image dialog box, fill in the following fields, and then choose Create Image:

a. Specify a name and description for the AMI.

b. Choose No reboot.

For more information, see Create a Windows AMI from a running instance (p. 38).
5. Launch a new instance from the AMI and verify that the new instance is working.
6. Select the stuck instance, and choose Actions, Instance State, Terminate. If the instance also
gets stuck terminating, Amazon EC2 automatically forces it to terminate within a few hours.

AWS CLI

To create a replacement instance using the CLI

1. Create an AMI from the stuck instance using the create-image (AWS CLI) command and the --
no-reboot option as follows:.

aws ec2 create-image --instance-id i-0123ab456c789d01e --name "AMI" --

description "AMI for replacement instance" --no-reboot

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Terminate your instance

2. Launch a new instance from the AMI using the run-instances (AWS CLI) command as follows:

aws ec2 run-instances --image-id ami-1a2b3c4d --count 1 --instance-type c3.large --

key-name MyKeyPair --security-groups MySecurityGroup

3. Verify that the new instance is working.

4. Terminate the stuck instance using the terminate-instances (AWS CLI) command as follows:

aws ec2 terminate-instances --instance-ids i-1234567890abcdef0

If you are unable to create an AMI from the instance as described in the previous procedure, you can set
up a replacement instance as follows:

(Alternate) To create a replacement instance using the console

1. Select the instance and choose Description, Block devices. Select each volume and make note of its
volume ID. Be sure to note which volume is the root volume.
2. In the navigation pane, choose Volumes. Select each volume for the instance, and choose Actions,
Create Snapshot.
3. In the navigation pane, choose Snapshots. Select the snapshot that you just created, and choose
Actions, Create Volume.
4. Launch an instance with the same operating system as the stuck instance. Note the volume ID and
device name of its root volume.
5. In the navigation pane, choose Instances, select the instance that you just launched, and choose
Instance state, Stop instance.
6. In the navigation pane, choose Volumes, select the root volume of the stopped instance, and choose
Actions, Detach Volume.
7. Select the root volume that you created from the stuck instance, choose Actions, Attach Volume,
and attach it to the new instance as its root volume (using the device name that you made note of).
Attach any additional non-root volumes to the instance.
8. In the navigation pane, choose Instances and select the replacement instance. Choose Instance
state, Start instance. Verify that the instance is working.
9. Select the stuck instance, choose Instance state, Terminate instance. If the instance also gets stuck
terminating, Amazon EC2 automatically forces it to terminate within a few hours.

Troubleshoot instance termination (shutting down)

You are not billed for any instance usage while an instance is not in the running state. In other words,
when you terminate an instance, you stop incurring charges for that instance as soon as its state changes
to shutting-down.

Instance terminates immediately

Several issues can cause your instance to terminate immediately on start-up. See Instance terminates
immediately (p. 1480) for more information.

Delayed instance termination

If your instance remains in the shutting-down state longer than a few minutes, it might be delayed
due to shutdown scripts being run by the instance.

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Terminated instance still displayed

Another possible cause is a problem with the underlying host computer. If your instance remains in the
shutting-down state for several hours, Amazon EC2 treats it as a stuck instance and forcibly terminates
it.

If it appears that your instance is stuck terminating and it has been longer than several hours, post a
request for help to the Amazon EC2 forum. To help expedite a resolution, include the instance ID and
describe the steps that you've already taken. Alternatively, if you have a support plan, create a technical
support case in the Support Center.

Terminated instance still displayed

After you terminate an instance, it remains visible for a short while before being deleted. The state
shows as terminated. If the entry is not deleted after several hours, contact Support.

Instances automatically launched or terminated

Generally, the following behaviors mean that you've used Amazon EC2 Auto Scaling, EC2 Fleet, or Spot
Fleet to scale your computing resources automatically based on criteria that you've defined:

• You terminate an instance and a new instance launches automatically.

• You launch an instance and one of your instances terminates automatically.
• You stop an instance and it terminates and a new instance launches automatically.

To stop automatic scaling, see the Amazon EC2 Auto Scaling User Guide, EC2 Fleet (p. 673), or Create a
Spot Fleet request (p. 734).

Troubleshoot Sysprep
If you experience problems or receive error messages during image preparations, review the following
logs. Log location varies depending on whether you are running EC2Config or EC2Launch with Sysprep.

• %WINDIR%\Panther\Unattendgc (EC2Config and EC2Launch)

• %WINDIR%\System32\Sysprep\Panther (EC2Config and EC2Launch)
• C:\Program Files\Amazon\Ec2ConfigService\Logs\Ec2ConfigLog.txt (EC2Config only)
• C:\ProgramData\Amazon\Ec2Config\Logs (EC2Config only)
• C:\ProgramData\Amazon\EC2-Windows\Launch\Log\EC2Launch.log (EC2Launch only)

If you receive an error message during image preparation with Sysprep, the OS might not be reachable.
To review the log files, you must stop the instance, attach its root volume to another healthy instance
as a secondary volume, and then review the logs mentioned earlier on the secondary volume. For more
information about the purpose of the log files by name, see Windows Setup-Related Log Files in the
Microsoft documentation.

If you locate errors in the Unattendgc log file, use the Microsoft Error Lookup Tool to get more details
about the error. The following issue reported in the Unattendgc log file is typically the result of one or
more corrupted user profiles on the instance:

Error [Shell Unattend] _FindLatestProfile failed (0x80070003) [gle=0x00000003]

Error [Shell Unattend] CopyProfile failed (0x80070003) [gle=0x00000003]

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EC2Rescue for Windows Server

There are two options for resolving this issue:

Option 1: Use Regedit on the instance to search for the following key. Verify that there are no profile
registry keys for a deleted user:

[HKEY_LOCAL_MACHINE\Software\Microsoft\Windows NT\CurrentVersion\ProfileList\

Option 2: Edit the EC2Config answer file (C:\Program Files\Amazon\Ec2ConfigService

\sysprep2008.xml) and change <CopyProfile>true</CopyProfile> to <CopyProfile>false</
CopyProfile>. Run Sysprep again. Note that this configuration change will delete the built-in
administrator user profile after Sysprep completes.

Use EC2Rescue for Windows Server

EC2Rescue for Windows Server is an easy-to-use tool that you run on an Amazon EC2 Windows Server
instance to diagnose and troubleshoot possible problems. It is valuable for collecting log files and
troubleshooting issues and also proactively searching for possible areas of concern. It can even examine
Amazon EBS root volumes from other instances and collect relevant logs for troubleshooting Windows
Server instances using that volume.

EC2Rescue for Windows Server has two different modules: a data collector module that collects data
from all different sources, and an analyzer module that parses the data collected against a series of
predefined rules to identify issues and provide suggestions.

The EC2Rescue for Windows Server tool only runs on Amazon EC2 instances running Windows Server
2008 R2 and later. When the tool starts, it checks whether it is running on an Amazon EC2 instance.

The AWSSupport-ExecuteEC2Rescue runbook uses the EC2Rescue tool to troubleshoot and, where
possible, fix common connectivity issues with the specified EC2 instance. For more information, and to
run this automation, see AWSSupport-ExecuteEC2Rescue.
Note
If you are using a Linux instance, see EC2Rescue for Linux.

Contents

• Use EC2Rescue for Windows Server GUI (p. 1512)

• Use EC2Rescue for Windows Server with the command line (p. 1516)
• Use EC2Rescue for Windows Server with Systems Manager Run Command (p. 1521)

Use EC2Rescue for Windows Server GUI

EC2Rescue for Windows Server can perform the following analysis on offline instances:

Option Description

Diagnose and Rescue EC2Rescue for Windows Server can detect and
address issues with the following service settings:

• System Time
• RealTimeisUniversal ‐ Detects whether
the RealTimeisUniversal registry key is
enabled. If disabled, Windows system time
drifts when the timezone is set to a value
other than UTC.

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Use the GUI

Option Description
• Windows Firewall
• Domain networks ‐ Detects whether this
Windows Firewall profile is enabled or
disabled.
• Private networks ‐ Detects whether this
Windows Firewall profile is enabled or
disabled.
• Guest or public networks ‐ Detects whether
this Windows Firewall profile is enabled or
disabled.

• Remote Desktop
• Service Start ‐ Detects whether the Remote
Desktop service is enabled.
• Remote Desktop Connections ‐ Detects
whether this is enabled.
• TCP Port ‐ Detects which port the Remote
Desktop service is listening on.

• EC2Config (Windows Server 2012 R2 and

earlier)
• Installation ‐ Detects which EC2Config
version is installed.
• Service Start ‐ Detects whether the
EC2Config service is enabled.
• Ec2SetPassword ‐ Generates a new
administrator password.
• Ec2HandleUserData ‐ Allows you to run
a user data script on the next boot of the
instance.

• EC2Launch (Windows Server 2016 and later)

• Installation ‐ Detects which EC2Launch
version is installed.
• Ec2SetPassword ‐ Generates a new
administrator password.

• Network Interface
• DHCP Service Startup ‐ Detects whether the
DHCP service is enabled.
• Ethernet detail ‐ Displays information about
the network driver version, if detected.
• DHCP on Ethernet ‐ Detects whether DHCP is
enabled.

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Use the GUI

Option Description

Restore Perform one of the following actions:

• Last Known Good Configuration ‐ Attempts to

boot the instance into the last known bootable
state.
• Restore registry from backup ‐ Restores the
registry from \Windows\System32\config
\RegBack.

Capture Logs Allows you to capture logs on the instance for

analysis.

EC2Rescue for Windows Server can collect the following data from active and offline instances:

Item Description

Event Log Collects application, system, and EC2Config event

logs.

Registry Collects SYSTEM and SOFTWARE hives.

Windows Update Log Collects log files generated by Windows Update.

Note
In Windows Server 2016 and later, the
log is collected in Event Tracing for
Windows (ETW) format.

Sysprep Log Collects log files generated by the Windows

System Preparation tool.

Driver Setup Log Collects Windows SetupAPI

logs (setupapi.dev.log and
setupapi.setup.log).

Boot Configuration Collects HKEY_LOCAL_MACHINE\BCD00000000

hive.

Memory Dump Collects any memory dump files that exist on the
instance.

EC2Config File Collects log files generated by the EC2Config

service.

EC2Launch File Collects log files generated by the EC2Launch

scripts.

SSM Agent File Collects log files generated by SSM Agent and
Patch Manager logs.

EC2 ElasticGPUs File Collects event logs related to elastic GPUs.

ECS Collects logs related to Amazon ECS.

CloudEndure Collects log files related to CloudEndure Agent.

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Use the GUI

EC2Rescue for Windows Server can collect the following additional data from active instances:

Item Description

System Information Collects MSInfo32.

Group Policy Result Collects a Group Policy report.

Video walkthrough
Brandon shows you how to use the Diagnose and Rescue feature of EC2Rescue for Windows Server:

AWS Knowledge Center Videos: How do I use the Diagnose and Rescue feature of EC2Rescue?

Analyze an offline instance

The Offline Instance option is useful for debugging boot issues with Windows instances.

To perform an action on an offline instance

1. From a working Windows Server instance, download the EC2Rescue for Windows Server tool and
extract the files.

You can run the following PowerShell command to download EC2Rescue without changing your
Internet Explorer Enhanced Security Configuration (ESC):

PS C:\> Invoke-WebRequest https://s3.amazonaws.com/ec2rescue/windows/

EC2Rescue_latest.zip -OutFile $env:USERPROFILE\Desktop\EC2Rescue_latest.zip

This command will download the EC2Rescue .zip file to the desktop of the currently logged in user.
2. Stop the faulty instance, if it is not stopped already.
3. Detach the EBS root volume from the faulty instance and attach the volume to a working Windows
instance that has EC2Rescue for Windows Server installed.
4. Run the EC2Rescue for Windows Server tool on the working instance and choose Offline Instance.
5. Select the disk of the newly mounted volume and choose Next.
6. Confirm the disk selection and choose Yes.
7. Choose the offline instance option to perform and choose Next.

The EC2Rescue for Windows Server tool scans the volume and collects troubleshooting information
based on the selected log files.

Collect data from an active instance

You can collect logs and other data from an active instance.

To collect data from an active instance

1. Connect to your Windows instance.

2. Download the EC2Rescue for Windows Server tool to your Windows instance and extract the files.

You can run the following PowerShell command to download EC2Rescue without changing your
Internet Explorer Enhanced Security Configuration (ESC):

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User Guide for Windows Instances
Use the command line

PS C:\> Invoke-WebRequest https://s3.amazonaws.com/ec2rescue/windows/

EC2Rescue_latest.zip -OutFile $env:USERPROFILE\Desktop\EC2Rescue_latest.zip

This command will download the EC2Rescue .zip file to the desktop of the currently logged in user.
3. Open the EC2Rescue for Windows Server application and accept the license agreement.
4. Choose Next, Current instance, Capture logs.
5. Select the data items to collect and choose Collect.... Read the warning and choose Yes to continue.
6. Choose a file name and location for the ZIP file and choose Save.
7. After EC2Rescue for Windows Server completes, choose Open Containing Folder to view the ZIP
file.
8. Choose Finish.

Use EC2Rescue for Windows Server with the

command line
The EC2Rescue for Windows Server command line interface (CLI) allows you to run an EC2Rescue for
Windows Server plugin (referred as an "action") programmatically.

The EC2Rescue for Windows Server tool has two execution modes:

• /online—This allows you to take action on the instance that EC2Rescue for Windows Server is installed
on, such as collect log files.
• /offline:<device_id>—This allows you to take action on the offline root volume that is attached to a
separate Amazon EC2 Windows instance, on which you have installed EC2Rescue for Windows Server.

Download the EC2Rescue for Windows Server tool to your Windows instance and extract the files. You
can view the help file using the following command:

EC2RescueCmd.exe /help

EC2Rescue for Windows Server can perform the following actions on an Amazon EC2 Windows instance:

• Collect action (p. 1516)

• Rescue action (p. 1518)
• Restore action (p. 1520)

Collect action
Note
You can collect all logs, an entire log group, or an individual log within a group.

EC2Rescue for Windows Server can collect the following data from active and offline instances.

Log group Available logs Description

all   Collects all available logs.

eventlog • 'Application' Collects application, system, and

EC2Config event logs.

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Use the command line

Log group Available logs Description

• 'System'
• 'EC2ConfigService'

memory-dump • 'Memory Dump File' Collects any memory dump files

• 'Mini Dump Files' that exist on the instance.

ec2config • 'Log Files' Collects log files generated by

• 'Configuration Files' the EC2Config service.

ec2launch • 'Logs' Collects log files generated by

• 'Config' the EC2Launch scripts.

ssm-agent • 'Log Files' Collects log files generated by

• 'Patch Baseline Logs' SSM Agent and Patch Manager
logs.
• 'InstanceData'

sysprep 'Log Files' Collects log files generated

by the Windows System
Preparation tool.

driver-setup • 'SetupAPI Log Files' Collects Windows SetupAPI

• 'DPInst Log File' logs (setupapi.dev.log and
setupapi.setup.log).
• 'AWS PV Setup Log File'

registry • 'SYSTEM' Collects SYSTEM and SOFTWARE

• 'SOFTWARE' hives.
• 'BCD'

egpu • 'Event Log' Collects event logs related to

• 'System Files' elastic GPUs.

boot-config 'BCDEDIT Output' Collects HKEY_LOCAL_MACHINE

\BCD00000000 hive.

windows-update 'Log Files' Collects log files generated by

Windows Update.
Note
In Windows Server
2016 and later, the log
is collected in Event
Tracing for Windows
(ETW) format.

cloudendure • 'Migrate Script Logs' Collects log files related to

• 'Driver Logs' CloudEndure Agent.
• 'CloudEndure File List'

EC2Rescue for Windows Server can collect the following additional data from active instances.

Log group Available logs Description

system-info 'MSInfo32 Output' Collects MSInfo32.

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Use the command line

Log group Available logs Description

gpresult 'GPResult Output' Collects a Group Policy report.

The following are the available options:

• /output:<outputFilePath> ‐ Required destination file path location to save collected log files in zip
format.
• /no-offline ‐ Optional attribute used in offline mode. Does not set the volume offline after completing
the action.
• /no-fix-signature ‐ Optional attribute used in offline mode. Does not fix a possible disk signature
collision after completing the action.

Examples
The following are examples using the EC2Rescue for Windows Server CLI.

Online mode examples

Collect all available logs:

EC2RescueCmd /accepteula /online /collect:all /output:<outputFilePath>

Collect only a specific log group:

EC2RescueCmd /accepteula /online /collect:ec2config /output:<outputFilePath>

Collect individual logs within a log group:

EC2RescueCmd /accepteula /online /collect:'ec2config.Log Files,driver-setup.SetupAPI Log

Files' /output:<outputFilePath>

Offline mode examples

Collect all available logs from an EBS volume. The volume is specified by the device_id value.

EC2RescueCmd /accepteula /offline:xvdf /collect:all /output:<outputFilePath>

Collect only a specific log group:

EC2RescueCmd /accepteula /offline:xvdf /collect:ec2config /output:<outputFilePath>

Rescue action
EC2Rescue for Windows Server can detect and address issues with the following service settings:

Service group Available actions Description

all    

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Use the command line

Service group Available actions Description

system-time 'RealTimeIsUniversal' System Time

• RealTimeisUniversal
‐ Detects whether the
RealTimeisUniversal
registry key is enabled. If
disabled, Windows system
time drifts when the timezone
is set to a value other than
UTC.

firewall • 'Domain networks' Windows Firewall

• 'Private networks'
• Domain networks ‐ Detects
• 'Guest or public whether this Windows Firewall
networks' profile is enabled or disabled.
• Private networks ‐ Detects
whether this Windows Firewall
profile is enabled or disabled.
• Guest or public networks ‐
Detects whether this Windows
Firewall profile is enabled or
disabled.

rdp • 'Service Start' Remote Desktop

• 'Remote Desktop
Connections' • Service Start ‐ Detects
whether the Remote Desktop
• 'TCP Port' service is enabled.
• Remote Desktop Connections
‐ Detects whether this is
enabled.
• TCP Port ‐ Detects which port
the Remote Desktop service is
listening on.

ec2config • 'Service Start' EC2Config

• 'Ec2SetPassword'
• Service Start ‐ Detects
• 'Ec2HandleUserData' whether the EC2Config service
is enabled.
• Ec2SetPassword ‐ Generates a
new administrator password.
• Ec2HandleUserData ‐ Allows
you to run a user data script
on the next boot of the
instance.

ec2launch 'Reset Administrator Generates a new Windows

Password' administrator password.

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Use the command line

Service group Available actions Description

network 'DHCP Service Startup' Network Interface

• DHCP Service Startup ‐

Detects whether the DHCP
service is enabled.

The following are the available options:

• /level:<level> ‐ Optional attribute for the check level that the action should trigger. Allowed values
are: information, warning, error, all. By default, it is set to error.
• /check-only ‐ Optional attribute that generates a report but makes no modifications to the offline
volume.
• /no-offline ‐ Optional attribute that prevents the volume from being set offline after completing the
action.
• /no-fix-signature ‐ Optional attribute that does not fix a possible disk signature collision after
completing the action.

Rescue examples
The following are examples using the EC2Rescue for Windows Server CLI. The volume is specified using
the device_id value.

Attempt to fix all identified issues on a volume:

EC2RescueCmd /accepteula /offline:xvdf /rescue:all

Attempt to fix all issues within a service group on a volume:

EC2RescueCmd /accepteula /offline:xvdf /rescue:firewall

Attempt to fix a specific item within a service group on a volume:

EC2RescueCmd /accepteula /offline:xvdf /rescue:rdp.'Service Start'

Specify multiple issues to attempt to fix on a volume:

EC2RescueCmd /accepteula /offline:xvdf /rescue:'system-

time.RealTimeIsUniversal,ec2config.Service Start'

Restore action
EC2Rescue for Windows Server can detect and address issues with the following service settings:

Service Group Available Actions Description

Restore Last Known Good lkgc Last Known Good

Configuration Configuration ‐ Attempts to
boot the instance into the last
known bootable state.

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Use Systems Manager

Service Group Available Actions Description

Restore Windows registry from regback Restore registry from backup

latest backup ‐ Restores the registry from
\Windows\System32\config
\RegBack.

The following are the available options:

• /no-offline—Optional attribute that prevents the volume from being set offline after completing the
action.
• /no-fix-signature—Optional attribute that does not fix a possible disk signature collision after
completing the action.

Restore examples
The following are examples using the EC2Rescue for Windows Server CLI. The volume is specified using
the device_id value.

Restore last known good configuration on a volume:

EC2RescueCmd /accepteula /offline:xvdf /restore:lkgc

Restore the last Windows registry backup on a volume:

EC2RescueCmd /accepteula /offline:xvdf /restore:regback

Use EC2Rescue for Windows Server with Systems

Manager Run Command
AWS Support provides you with a Systems Manager Run Command document to interface with your
Systems Manager-enabled instance to run EC2Rescue for Windows Server. The Run Command document
is called AWSSupport-RunEC2RescueForWindowsTool.

This Systems Manager Run Command document performs the following tasks:

• Downloads and verifies EC2Rescue for Windows Server.

• Imports a PowerShell module to ease your interaction with the tool.
• Runs EC2RescueCmd with the provided command and parameters.

The Systems Manager Run Command document accepts three parameters:

• Command—The EC2Rescue for Windows Server action. The current allowed values are:
• ResetAccess—Resets the local Administrator password. The local Administrator password of the
current instance will be reset and the randomly generated password will be securely stored in
Parameter Store as /EC2Rescue/Password/<INSTANCE_ID>. If you select this action and provide
no parameters, passwords are encrypted automatically with the default KMS key. Optionally, you
can specify a KMS key ID in Parameters to encrypt the password with your own key.
• CollectLogs—Runs EC2Rescue for Windows Server with the /collect:all action. If you select this
action, Parameters must include an Amazon S3 bucket name to upload the logs to.

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• FixAll—Runs EC2Rescue for Windows Server with the /rescue:all action. If you select this action,
Parameters must include the block device name to rescue.
• Parameters—The PowerShell parameters to pass for the specified command.

Note
In order for the ResetAccess action to work, your Amazon EC2 instance needs to have the
following policy attached in order to write the encrypted password to Parameter Store. Please
wait a few minutes before attempting to reset the password of an instance after you have
attached this policy to the related IAM role.
Using the default KMS key:

{
"Version": "2012-10-17",
"Statement": [
{
"Effect": "Allow",
"Action": [
"ssm:PutParameter"
],
"Resource": [
"arn:aws:ssm:region:account_id:parameter/EC2Rescue/Passwords/<instanceid>"
]
}
]
}

Using a custom KMS key:

{
"Version": "2012-10-17",
"Statement": [
{
"Effect": "Allow",
"Action": [
"ssm:PutParameter"
],
"Resource": [
"arn:aws:ssm:region:account_id:parameter/EC2Rescue/Passwords/<instanceid>"
]
},
{
"Effect": "Allow",
"Action": [
"kms:Encrypt"
],
"Resource": [
"arn:aws:kms:region:account_id:key/<kmskeyid>"
]
}
]
}

The following procedure describes how to view the JSON for this document in the Amazon EC2 console.

To view the JSON for the Systems Manager Run Command document

1. Open the Systems Manager console at https://console.aws.amazon.com/systems-manager/home.

2. In the navigation pane, expand Shared Services and choose Documents.
3. In the search bar, set Owner as Owned by Me or Amazon and set the Document name prefix to
AWSSupport-RunEC2RescueForWindowsTool.

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4. Select the AWSSupport-RunEC2RescueForWindowsTool document, choose Contents, and then

view the JSON.

Examples
Here are some examples on how to use the Systems Manager Run Command document to run
EC2Rescue for Windows Server, using the AWS CLI. For more information about sending commands with
the AWS CLI, see the AWS CLI Command Reference.

Attempt to fix all identified issues on an offline root volume

Attempt to fix all identified issues on an offline root volume attached to an Amazon EC2 Windows
instance:

aws ssm send-command --instance-ids "i-0cb2b964d3e14fd9f" --document-name "AWSSupport-

RunEC2RescueForWindowsTool" --comment "EC2Rescue offline volume xvdf" --parameters
"Command=FixAll, Parameters='xvdf'" --output text

Collect logs from the current Amazon EC2 Windows instance

Collect all logs from the current online Amazon EC2 Windows instance and upload them to an Amazon
S3 bucket:

aws ssm send-command --instance-ids "i-0cb2b964d3e14fd9f" --document-name "AWSSupport-

RunEC2RescueForWindowsTool" --comment "EC2Rescue online log collection to S3" --parameters
"Command=CollectLogs, Parameters='YOURS3BUCKETNAME'" --output text

Collect logs from an offline Amazon EC2 Windows instance volume

Collect all logs from an offline volume attached to an Amazon EC2 Windows instance and upload them
to Amazon S3 with a presigned URL:

aws ssm send-command --instance-ids "i-0cb2b964d3e14fd9f" --document-name "AWSSupport-

RunEC2RescueForWindowsTool" --comment "EC2Rescue offline log collection to S3" --parameters
"Command=CollectLogs, Parameters=\"-Offline -BlockDeviceName xvdf -S3PreSignedUrl
'YOURS3PRESIGNEDURL'\"" --output text

Reset the local Administrator password

The following examples show methods you can use to reset the local Administrator password. The
output provides a link to Parameter Store, where you can find the randomly generated secure password
you can then use to RDP to your Amazon EC2 Windows instance as the local Administrator.

Reset the local Administrator password of an online instance using the default AWS KMS key alias/aws/
ssm:

aws ssm send-command --instance-ids "i-0cb2b964d3e14fd9f" --document-name "AWSSupport-

RunEC2RescueForWindowsTool" --comment "EC2Rescue online password reset" --parameters
"Command=ResetAccess" --output text

Reset the local Administrator password of an online instance using a KMS key:

aws ssm send-command --instance-ids "i-0cb2b964d3e14fd9f" --document-name "AWSSupport-

RunEC2RescueForWindowsTool" --comment "EC2Rescue online password reset" --parameters
"Command=ResetAccess, Parameters=a133dc3c-a2g4-4fc6-a873-6c0720104bf0" --output text

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EC2 Serial Console

Note
In this example, the KMS key is a133dc3c-a2g4-4fc6-a873-6c0720104bf0.

EC2 Serial Console for Windows instances

With the EC2 serial console, you have access to your Amazon EC2 instance's serial port, which you can
use to troubleshoot boot, network configuration, and other issues. The serial console does not require
your instance to have any networking capabilities. With the serial console, you can enter commands
to an instance as if your keyboard and monitor are directly attached to the instance's serial port. The
serial console session lasts during instance reboot and stop. During reboot, you can view all of the boot
messages from the start.

Access to the serial console is not available by default. Your organization must grant account access
to the serial console and configure IAM policies to grant your users access to the serial console. Serial
console access can be controlled at a granular level by using instance IDs, resource tags, and other IAM
levers. For more information, see Configure access to the EC2 Serial Console (p. 1524).

The serial console can be accessed by using the EC2 console or the AWS CLI.

The serial console is available at no additional cost.

If you are using a Linux instance, see EC2 Serial Console for Linux instances in the Amazon EC2 User Guide
for Linux Instances.

Topics
• Configure access to the EC2 Serial Console (p. 1524)
• Connect to the EC2 Serial Console (p. 1529)
• Terminate an EC2 Serial Console session (p. 1533)
• Troubleshoot your Windows instance using the EC2 Serial Console (p. 1534)

Configure access to the EC2 Serial Console

To configure access to the serial console, you must grant serial console access at the account level and
then configure IAM policies to grant access to your IAM users.

Topics
• Levels of access to the EC2 Serial Console (p. 1524)
• Manage account access to the EC2 Serial Console (p. 1525)
• Configure IAM policies for EC2 Serial Console access (p. 1527)

Levels of access to the EC2 Serial Console

By default, there is no access to the serial console at the account level. You need to explicitly grant access
to the serial console at the account level. For more information, see Manage account access to the EC2
Serial Console (p. 1525).

You can use a service control policy (SCP) to allow access to the serial console within your organization.
You can then have granular access control at the IAM user level by using an IAM policy to control access.
By using a combination of SCP and IAM policies, you have different levels of access control to the serial
console.

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Organization level

You can use a service control policy (SCP) to allow access to the serial console for member accounts
within your organization. For more information about SCPs, see Service control policies in the AWS
Organizations User Guide.
Instance level

You can configure the serial console access policies by using IAM PrincipalTag and ResourceTag
constructions and by specifying instances by their ID. For more information, see Configure IAM
policies for EC2 Serial Console access (p. 1527).
IAM user level

You can configure access at the user level by configuring an IAM policy to allow or deny a specified
user the permission to push the SSH public key to the serial console service of a particular instance.
For more information, see Configure IAM policies for EC2 Serial Console access (p. 1527).

Manage account access to the EC2 Serial Console

By default, there is no access to the serial console at the account level. You need to explicitly grant access
to the serial console at the account level.

Topics
• Grant permission to IAM users to manage account access (p. 1525)
• View account access status to the serial console (p. 1525)
• Grant account access to the serial console (p. 1526)
• Deny account access to the serial console (p. 1527)

Grant permission to IAM users to manage account access

To allow your IAM users to manage account access to the EC2 serial console, you need to grant them the
required IAM permissions.

The following policy grants permissions to view the account status, and to allow and prevent account
access to the EC2 serial console.

{
"Version": "2012-10-17",
"Statement": [
{
"Effect": "Allow",
"Action": [
"ec2:GetSerialConsoleAccessStatus",
"ec2:EnableSerialConsoleAccess",
"ec2:DisableSerialConsoleAccess"
],
"Resource": "*"
}
]
}

For more information, see Creating IAM policies in the IAM User Guide.

View account access status to the serial console

To view account access status to the serial console (console)

1. Open the Amazon EC2 console at https://console.aws.amazon.com/ec2/.

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2. On the left navigation pane, choose EC2 Dashboard.

3. From Account attributes, choose EC2 Serial Console.

The EC2 Serial Console access field indicates whether account access is Allowed or Prevented.

The following screenshot shows that the account is prevented from using the EC2 serial console.

To view account access status to the serial console (AWS CLI)

Use the get-serial-console-access-status command to view account access status to the serial console.

aws ec2 get-serial-console-access-status --region us-east-1

In the following output, true indicates that the account is allowed access to the serial console.

{
"SerialConsoleAccessEnabled": true
}

Grant account access to the serial console

To grant account access to the serial console (console)

1. Open the Amazon EC2 console at https://console.aws.amazon.com/ec2/.

2. On the left navigation pane, choose EC2 Dashboard.
3. From Account attributes, choose EC2 Serial Console.
4. Choose Manage.
5. To allow access to the EC2 serial console of all instances in the account, select the Allow check box.
6. Choose Update.

To grant account access to the serial console (AWS CLI)

Use the enable-serial-console-access command to allow account access to the serial console.

aws ec2 enable-serial-console-access --region us-east-1

In the following output, true indicates that the account is allowed access to the serial console.

{
"SerialConsoleAccessEnabled": true
}

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Deny account access to the serial console

To deny account access to the serial console (console)

1. Open the Amazon EC2 console at https://console.aws.amazon.com/ec2/.

2. On the left navigation pane, choose EC2 Dashboard.
3. From Account attributes, choose EC2 Serial Console.
4. Choose Manage.
5. To prevent access to the EC2 serial console of all instances in the account, clear the Allow check box.
6. Choose Update.

To deny account access to the serial console (AWS CLI)

Use the disable-serial-console-access command to prevent account access to the serial console.

aws ec2 disable-serial-console-access --region us-east-1

In the following output, false indicates that the account is denied access to the serial console.

{
"SerialConsoleAccessEnabled": false
}

Configure IAM policies for EC2 Serial Console access

By default, your IAM users do not have access to the serial console. Your organization must configure IAM
policies to grant your IAM users the required access. For more information, see Creating IAM policies in
the IAM User Guide.

For serial console access, create a JSON policy document that includes the ec2-instance-
connect:SendSerialConsoleSSHPublicKey action. This action grants an IAM user permission to
push the public key to the serial console service, which starts a serial console session. We recommend
restricting access to specific EC2 instances. Otherwise, all IAM users with this permission can connect to
the serial console of all EC2 instances.

Example IAM policies

• Explicitly allow access to the serial console (p. 1527)
• Explicitly deny access to the serial console (p. 1528)
• Use resource tags to control access to the serial console (p. 1528)

Explicitly allow access to the serial console

By default, no one has access to the serial console. To grant access to the serial console, you need to
configure a policy to explicitly allow access. We recommend configuring a policy that restricts access to
specific instances.

The following policy allows access to the serial console of a specific instance, identified by its instance ID.

{
"Version": "2012-10-17",
"Statement": [

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{
"Sid": "AllowSerialConsoleAccess",
"Effect": "Allow",
"Action": [
"ec2-instance-connect:SendSerialConsoleSSHPublicKey"
],
"Resource": "arn:aws:ec2:region:account-id:instance/i-0598c7d356eba48d7"
}
]
}

Explicitly deny access to the serial console

The following IAM policy allows access to the serial console of all instances, denoted by the * (asterisk),
and explicitly denies access to the serial console of a specific instance, identified by its ID.

{
"Version": "2012-10-17",
"Statement": [
{
"Sid": "AllowSerialConsoleAccess",
"Effect": "Allow",
"Action": [
"ec2-instance-connect:SendSerialConsoleSSHPublicKey"
],
"Resource": "*"
},
{
"Sid": "DenySerialConsoleAccess",
"Effect": "Deny",
"Action": [
"ec2-instance-connect:SendSerialConsoleSSHPublicKey"
],
"Resource": "arn:aws:ec2:region:account-id:instance/i-0598c7d356eba48d7"
}
]
}

Use resource tags to control access to the serial console

You can use resource tags to control access to the serial console of an instance.

Attribute-based access control is an authorization strategy that defines permissions based on tags that
can be attached to users and AWS resources. For example, the following policy allows an IAM user to
initiate a serial console connection for an instance only if that instance's resource tag and the principal's
tag have the same SerialConsole value for the tag key.

For more information about using tags to control access to your AWS resources, see Controlling access to
AWS resources in the IAM User Guide.

{
"Version": "2012-10-17",
"Statement": [
{
"Sid": "AllowTagBasedSerialConsoleAccess",
"Effect": "Allow",
"Action": [
"ec2-instance-connect:SendSerialConsoleSSHPublicKey"
],
"Resource": "*",
"Condition": {

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"StringEquals": {
"aws:ResourceTag/SerialConsole": "${aws:PrincipalTag/SerialConsole}"
}
}
}
]
}

Connect to the EC2 Serial Console

You can connect to the serial console of your EC2 instance by using the Amazon EC2 console or via SSH.
After connecting to the serial console, you can use it for troubleshooting boot, network configuration,
and other issues. For more information about troubleshooting, see Troubleshoot your Windows instance
using the EC2 Serial Console (p. 1534).

Topics
• Considerations (p. 1529)
• Prerequisites (p. 1529)
• Connect to the EC2 Serial Console (p. 1530)
• EC2 Serial Console fingerprints (p. 1532)

Considerations
• Only one active serial console connection is supported per instance.
• The serial console connection typically lasts for one hour unless you terminate it. However, during
system maintenance, Amazon EC2 will terminate the serial console session.
• It takes 30 seconds to tear down a session after you've disconnected from the serial console in order to
allow a new session.
• Supported serial console port for Windows: COM1
• When you connect to the serial console, you might observe a slight drop in your instance’s throughput.

Prerequisites
• Supported in all AWS Regions except Africa (Cape Town), Asia Pacific (Hong Kong), Asia Pacific (Osaka),
China (Beijing), China (Ningxia), Europe (Milan), and Middle East (Bahrain).
• Supported instance families:
• A1
• C5, C5a, C5ad, C5d, C5n, C6g, C6gd
• M5, M5a, M5ad, M5d, M5dn, M5n, M5zn, M6g, M6gd
• R5, R5a, R5ad, R5d, R5dn, R5n, R6, R6gd
• T3, T3a, T4g
• Z1d
• Configure access to the EC2 Serial Console, as follows:
• Manage account access to the EC2 Serial Console (p. 1525).
• Configure IAM policies for EC2 Serial Console access (p. 1527). All IAM users who will use the serial
console must have the required permissions.
• To connect to the serial console using the browser-based client (p. 1530), your browser must support
WebSocket. If your browser does not support WebSocket, connect to the serial console using your own
key and an SSH client. (p. 1530)

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• The instance must be in the pending, running, stopping, or shutting-down state. If the instance
is terminated or stopped, you can't connect to the serial console. For more information about the
instance states, see Instance lifecycle (p. 390).
• If the instance uses Amazon EC2 Systems Manager, then SSM Agent version 3.0.854.0 or later must be
installed on the instance. For information about SSM Agent, see Working with SSM Agent in the AWS
Systems Manager User Guide.

You do not need an sshd server installed or running on your instance.

Connect to the EC2 Serial Console

Connection options
• Connect using the browser-based client (p. 1530)
• Connect using your own key and SSH client (p. 1530)

Connect using the browser-based client

You can connect to your EC2 instance's serial console by using the browser-based client. You do this by
selecting the instance in the Amazon EC2 console and choosing to connect to the serial console. The
browser-based client handles the permissions and provides a successful connection.

EC2 serial console works from most browsers, and supports keyboard and mouse input.

To connect to your instance's serial port using the browser-based client (Amazon EC2
console)

1. Open the Amazon EC2 console at https://console.aws.amazon.com/ec2/.

2. In the navigation pane, choose Instances.
3. Select the instance and choose Connect, EC2 Serial Console, Connect.

Alternatively, you can select the instance and choose Actions, Monitor and troubleshoot, EC2 Serial
Console, Connect.

An in-browser terminal window opens.

4. Press Enter. If a login prompt returns, you are connected to the serial console.

If the screen remains black, you can use the following information to help resolve issues with
connecting to the serial console:

• Check that you have configured access to the serial console. For more information, see
Configure access to the EC2 Serial Console (p. 1524).
• Reboot your instance. You can reboot your instance by using the EC2 console or the AWS CLI. For
more information, see Reboot your instance (p. 443).

Connect using your own key and SSH client

You can use your own SSH key and connect to your instance from the SSH client of your choice while
using the serial console API. This enables you to benefit from the serial console capability to push a
public key to the instance.

To connect to an instance's serial console using SSH

1. Push your SSH public key to the instance to start a serial console session

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Use the send-serial-console-ssh-public-key command to push your SSH public key to the instance.
This starts a serial console session.

If a serial console session has already been started for this instance, the command fails because you
can only have one session open at a time. It takes 30 seconds to tear down a session after you've
disconnected from the serial console in order to allow a new session.

C:\> aws ec2-instance-connect send-serial-console-ssh-public-key \

--instance-id i-001234a4bf70dec41EXAMPLE \
--serial-port 0 \
--ssh-public-key file://my_rsa_key.pub \
--region us-east-1

2. Connect to the serial console using your private key

Use the ssh command to connect to the serial console before the public key is removed from the
serial console service. You have 60 seconds before it is removed.

Use the private key that corresponds to the public key.

The user name format is instance-id.port0, which comprises the instance ID and port 0. In the
following example, the user name is i-001234a4bf70dec41EXAMPLE.port0.

For all supported AWS Regions, except AWS GovCloud (US) Regions:

The format of the public DNS name of the serial console service is serial-console.ec2-
instance-connect.region.aws. In the following example, the serial console service is in the us-
east-1 Region.

C:\> ssh -i my_rsa_key [email protected]

connect.us-east-1.aws

For AWS GovCloud (US) Regions only:

The format of the public DNS name of the serial console service in the AWS GovCloud (US) Regions
is serial-console.ec2-instance-connect.GovCloud-region.amazonaws.com. In the
following example, the serial console service is in the us-gov-east-1 Region.

C:\> ssh -i my_rsa_key [email protected]

connect.us-gov-east-1.amazonaws.com

3. (Optional) Verify the fingerprint

When you connect for the first time to the serial console, you are prompted to verify the fingerprint.
You can compare the serial console fingerprint with the fingerprint that's displayed for verification. If
these fingerprints don't match, someone might be attempting a "man-in-the-middle" attack. If they
match, you can confidently connect to the serial console.

The following fingerprint is for the serial console service in the us-east-1 Region. For the fingerprints
for each Region, see EC2 Serial Console fingerprints (p. 1532).

SHA256:dXwn5ma/xadVMeBZGEru5l2gx+yI5LDiJaLUcz0FMmw

Note
The fingerprint only appears the first time you connect to the serial console.
4. Press Enter. If a prompt returns, you are connected to the serial console.

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If the screen remains black, you can use the following information to help resolve issues with
connecting to the serial console:

• Check that you have configured access to the serial console. For more information, see
Configure access to the EC2 Serial Console (p. 1524).
• Reboot your instance. You can reboot your instance by using the EC2 console or the AWS CLI. For
more information, see Reboot your instance (p. 443).

EC2 Serial Console fingerprints

The EC2 Serial Console fingerprint is unique for each AWS Region.

• us-east-1 – US East (N. Virginia)

SHA256:dXwn5ma/xadVMeBZGEru5l2gx+yI5LDiJaLUcz0FMmw

• us-east-2 – US East (Ohio)

SHA256:EhwPkTzRtTY7TRSzz26XbB0/HvV9jRM7mCZN0xw/d/0

• us-west-1 – US West (N. California)

SHA256:OHldlcMET8u7QLSX3jmRTRAPFHVtqbyoLZBMUCqiH3Y

• us-west-2 – US West (Oregon)

SHA256:EMCIe23TqKaBI6yGHainqZcMwqNkDhhAVHa1O2JxVUc

• ap-south-1 – Asia Pacific (Mumbai)

SHA256:oBLXcYmklqHHEbliARxEgH8IsO51rezTPiSM35BsU40

• ap-northeast-2 – Asia Pacific (Seoul)

SHA256:FoqWXNX+DZ++GuNTztg9PK49WYMqBX+FrcZM2dSrqrI

• ap-southeast-1 – Asia Pacific (Singapore)

SHA256:PLFNn7WnCQDHx3qmwLu1Gy/O8TUX7LQgZuaC6L45CoY

• ap-southeast-2 – Asia Pacific (Sydney)

SHA256:yFvMwUK9lEUQjQTRoXXzuN+cW9/VSe9W984Cf5Tgzo4

• ap-northeast-1 – Asia Pacific (Tokyo)

SHA256:RQfsDCZTOfQawewTRDV1t9Em/HMrFQe+CRlIOT5um4k

• ca-central-1 – Canada (Central)

SHA256:P2O2jOZwmpMwkpO6YW738FIOTHdUTyEv2gczYMMO7s4

• eu-central-1 – Europe (Frankfurt)

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SHA256:aCMFS/yIcOdOlkXvOl8AmZ1Toe+bBnrJJ3Fy0k0De2c

• eu-west-1 – Europe (Ireland)

SHA256:h2AaGAWO4Hathhtm6ezs3Bj7udgUxi2qTrHjZAwCW6E

• eu-west-2 – Europe (London)

SHA256:a69rd5CE/AEG4Amm53I6lkD1ZPvS/BCV3tTPW2RnJg8

• eu-west-3 – Europe (Paris)

SHA256:q8ldnAf9pymeNe8BnFVngY3RPAr/kxswJUzfrlxeEWs

• eu-north-1 – Europe (Stockholm)

SHA256:tkGFFUVUDvocDiGSS3Cu8Gdl6w2uI32EPNpKFKLwX84

• sa-east-1 – South America (São Paulo)

SHA256:rd2+/32Ognjew1yVIemENaQzC+Botbih62OqAPDq1dI

• us-gov-east-1 – AWS GovCloud (US-East)

SHA256:tIwe19GWsoyLClrtvu38YEEh+DHIkqnDcZnmtebvF28

• us-gov-west-1 – AWS GovCloud (US-West)

SHA256:kfOFRWLaOZfB+utbd3bRf8OlPf8nGO2YZLqXZiIw5DQ

Terminate an EC2 Serial Console session

The way to terminate a serial console session depends on the client.

Browser-based client

To terminate the serial console session, close the serial console in-browser terminal window.

Standard OpenSSH client

To terminate the serial console session, use the following command to close the SSH connection. This
command must be run immediately following a new line.

C:\> ~.

Note
The command that you use for closing an SSH connection might be different depending on the
SSH client that you're using.

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Troubleshoot your instance using the EC2 Serial Console

Troubleshoot your Windows instance using the EC2

Serial Console
By using EC2 Serial Console, you can troubleshoot boot, network configuration, and other issues by
connecting to your instance's serial port.

Topics
• Use SAC to troubleshoot your Windows instance (p. 1534)

For information about troubleshooting your Linux instance, see Troubleshoot your Linux instance using
the EC2 Serial Console in the Amazon EC2 User Guide for Linux Instances.

Use SAC to troubleshoot your Windows instance

The Special Admin Console (SAC) capability of Windows provides a way to troubleshoot a Windows
instance. By connecting to the instance's serial console and using SAC, you can interrupt the boot process
and boot Windows in safe mode.

Topics
• Limitations (p. 1534)
• Prerequisites (p. 1534)
• Use SAC (p. 1535)
• Use the boot menu (p. 1537)

Limitations
If you launch an instance with an AMI that comes preconfigured with SAC, the EC2 services that rely on
password retrieval will not work from the console.

Prerequisites

To use SAC for troubleshooting a Windows instance, you must first complete the following
prerequisites:

1. Grant access to the serial console. For more information, see Configure access to the EC2 Serial
Console (p. 1524).
2. Enable SAC and the boot menu. For more information, see Enable SAC and the boot menu (p. 1534).
3. Connect to the serial console. For more information, see Connect to the EC2 Serial Console (p. 1529).

Enable SAC and the boot menu

Use one of the following methods to enable SAC and the boot menu on an instance.

PowerShell

To enable SAC and the boot menu on a Windows instance

1. Connect (p. 417) to your instance and perform the following steps from an elevated PowerShell
command line.
2. Enable SAC.

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Troubleshoot your instance using the EC2 Serial Console

bcdedit /ems '{current}' on

bcdedit /emssettings EMSPORT:1 EMSBAUDRATE:115200

3. Enable the boot menu.

bcdedit /set '{bootmgr}' displaybootmenu yes

bcdedit /set '{bootmgr}' timeout 15
bcdedit /set '{bootmgr}' bootems yes

4. Apply the updated configuration by rebooting the instance.

shutdown -r -t 0

Command prompt

To enable SAC and the boot menu on a Windows instance

1. Connect (p. 417) to your instance and perform the following steps from the command prompt.
2. Enable SAC.

bcdedit /ems {current} on

bcdedit /emssettings EMSPORT:1 EMSBAUDRATE:115200

3. Enable the boot menu.

bcdedit /set {bootmgr} displaybootmenu yes

bcdedit /set {bootmgr} timeout 15
bcdedit /set {bootmgr} bootems yes

4. Apply the updated configuration by rebooting the instance.

shutdown -r -t 0

Use SAC

To use SAC

1. Connect to the serial console. (p. 1529)

If SAC is enabled on the instance, the serial console displays the SAC> prompt.

2. To display the SAC commands, enter ?, and then press Enter.

Expected output

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Troubleshoot your instance using the EC2 Serial Console

3. To create a command prompt channel (such as cmd0001 or cmd0002), enter cmd, and then press
Enter.
4. To view the command prompt channel, press ESC, and then press TAB.

Expected output

5. To switch channels, press ESC+TAB+channel number together. For example, to switch to the
cmd0002 channel (if it has been created), press ESC+TAB+2.
6. Enter the credentials required by the command prompt channel.

The command prompt is the same full-featured command shell that you get on a desktop, but with
the exception that it does not allow the reading of characters that were already output.

PowerShell can also be used from the command prompt.

Note that you might need to set the progress preference to silent mode.

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Troubleshoot your instance using the EC2 Serial Console

Use the boot menu

If the instance has the boot menu enabled and is restarted after connecting via SSH, you should see the
boot menu, as follows.

Boot menu commands

ENTER

Starts the selected entry of the operating system.

TAB

Switches to the Tools menu.

ESC

Cancels and restarts the instance.

ESC followed by 8

Equivalent to pressing F8. Shows advanced options for the selected item.
ESC key + left arrow

Goes back to the initial boot menu.

Note
The ESC key alone does not take you back to the main menu because Windows is waiting to
see if an escape sequence is in progress.

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Send a diagnostic interrupt

Send a diagnostic interrupt (for advanced users)

Warning
Diagnostic interrupts are intended for use by advanced users. Incorrect usage could negatively
impact your instance. Sending a diagnostic interrupt to an instance could trigger an instance to
crash and reboot, which could lead to the loss of data.

You can send a diagnostic interrupt to an unreachable or unresponsive Windows instance to manually
trigger a stop error. Stop errors are commonly referred to as blue screen errors.

In general, Windows operating systems crash and reboot when a stop error occurs, but the specific
behavior depends on its configuration. A stop error can also cause the operating system to write
debugging information, such as a kernel memory dump, to a file. You can then use this information to
conduct root cause analysis to debug the instance.

The memory dump data is generated locally by the operating system on the instance itself.

Before sending a diagnostic interrupt to your instance, we recommend that you consult the
documentation for your operating system and then make the necessary configuration changes.

Contents
• Supported instance types (p. 1538)
• Prerequisites (p. 1538)
• Send a diagnostic interrupt (p. 1539)

Supported instance types

Diagnostic interrupt is supported on all Nitro-based instance types, except A1. For more information, see
Instances built on the Nitro System (p. 147).

Prerequisites
Before using a diagnostic interrupt, you should configure your instance's operating system to perform
the actions you need when a stop error occurs.

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Send a diagnostic interrupt

To configure Windows to generate a memory dump when a stop error occurs

1. Connect to your instance.

2. Open the Control Panel and choose System, Advanced system settings.
3. In the System Properties dialog box, choose the Advanced tab.
4. In the Startup and Recovery section, choose Settings....
5. In the System failure section, configure the settings as needed, and then choose OK.

For more information about configuring Windows stop errors, see Overview of memory dump file
options for Windows.

Send a diagnostic interrupt

After you have completed the necessary configuration changes, you can send a diagnostic interrupt to
your instance using the AWS CLI or Amazon EC2 API.

To send a diagnostic interrupt to your instance (AWS CLI)

Use the send-diagnostic-interrupt command and specify the instance ID.

aws ec2 send-diagnostic-interrupt --instance-id i-1234567890abcdef0

To send a diagnostic interrupt to your instance (AWS Tools for Windows PowerShell)

Use the Send-EC2DiagnosticInterrupt cmdlt and specify the instance ID.

PS C:\> Send-EC2DiagnosticInterrupt-InstanceId i-1234567890abcdef0

Common issues with Windows instances

The following are troubleshooting tips to help you solve common issues with EC2 instance running
Windows Server.

Issues
• EBS volumes don't initialize on Windows Server 2016 and later (p. 1539)
• Boot an EC2 Windows instance into Directory Services Restore Mode (DSRM) (p. 1540)
• Instance loses network connectivity or scheduled tasks don't run when expected (p. 1542)
• Unable to get console output (p. 1542)
• Windows Server 2012 R2 not available on the network (p. 1543)

EBS volumes don't initialize on Windows Server 2016

and later
Instances created from Amazon Machine Images (AMIs) for Windows Server 2016 and later use
the EC2Launch service for a variety of startup tasks, including initializing EBS volumes. By default,
EC2Launch does not initialize secondary volumes. You can configure EC2Launch to initialize these disks
automatically.

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Boot an EC2 Windows instance into
Directory Services Restore Mode (DSRM)
To map drive letters to volumes

1. Connect to the instance to configure and open the C:\ProgramData\Amazon\EC2-Windows

\Launch\Config\DriveLetterMappingConfig.json file in a text editor.
2. Specify the volume settings using the following format:

{
"driveLetterMapping": [
{
"volumeName": "sample volume",
"driveLetter": "H"
}
]
}

3. Save your changes and close the file.

4. Open Windows PowerShell and use the following command to run the EC2Launch script that
initializes the disks:

PS C:\> C:\ProgramData\Amazon\EC2-Windows\Launch\Scripts\InitializeDisks.ps1

To initialize the disks each time the instance boots, add the -Schedule flag as follows:

PS C:\> C:\ProgramData\Amazon\EC2-Windows\Launch\Scripts\InitializeDisks.ps1 -Schedule

Boot an EC2 Windows instance into Directory

Services Restore Mode (DSRM)
If an instance running Microsoft Active Directory experiences a system failure or other critical issues you
can troubleshoot the instance by booting into a special version of Safe Mode called Directory Services
Restore Mode (DSRM). In DSRM you can repair or recover Active Directory.

Driver support for DSRM

How you enable DSRM and boot into the instance depends on the drivers the instance is running. In the
EC2 console you can view driver version details for an instance from the System Log. The following table
shows which drivers are supported for DSRM.

Driver Versions DSRM Supported? Next Steps

Citrix PV 5.9 No Restore the instance from a backup. You cannot enable
DSRM.

AWS PV 7.2.0 No Though DSRM is not supported for this driver, you can
still detach the root volume from the instance, take a
snapshot of the volume or create an AMI from it, and attach
it to another instance in the same Availability Zone as a
secondary volume. You can then enable DSRM (as described
in this section).

AWS PV 7.2.2 and Yes Detach the root volume, attach it to another instance, and
later enable DSRM (as described in this section).

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Boot an EC2 Windows instance into
Directory Services Restore Mode (DSRM)
Driver Versions DSRM Supported? Next Steps

Enhanced Yes Detach the root volume, attach it to another instance, and
Networking enable DSRM (as described in this section).

For information about how to enable Enhanced Networking, see Enabling Enhanced Networking on
Windows Instances in a VPC. For more information about upgrading AWS PV drivers, see Upgrade PV
drivers on Windows instances (p. 533).

Configure an instance to boot into DSRM

EC2 Windows instances do not have network connectivity before the operating system is running. For
this reason, you cannot press the F8 button on your keyboard to select a boot option. You must use one
of the following procedures to boot an EC2 Windows Server instance into DSRM.

If you suspect that Active Directory has been corrupted and the instance is still running, you can
configure the instance to boot into DSRM using either the System Configuration dialog box or the
command prompt.

To boot an online instance into DSRM using the System Configuration dialog box

1. In the Run dialog box, type msconfig and press Enter.

2. Choose the Boot tab.
3. Under Boot options choose Safe boot.
4. Choose Active Directory repair and then choose OK. The system prompts you to reboot the server.

To boot an online instance into DSRM using the command line

From a Command Prompt window, run the following command:

bcdedit /set safeboot dsrepair

If an instance is offline and unreachable, you must detach the root volume and attach it to another
instance to enable DSRM mode.

To boot an offline instance into DSRM

1. Open the Amazon EC2 console at https://console.aws.amazon.com/ec2/.

2. In the navigation pane, choose Instances.
3. Locate and select the affected instance. Choose Instance state, Stop instance.
4. Choose Launch instances and create a temporary instance in the same Availability Zone as the
affected instance. Choose an instance type that uses a different version of Windows. For example, if
your instance is Windows Server 2008, then choose a Windows Server 2008 R2 instance.
Important
If you do not create the instance in the same Availability Zone as the affected instance you
will not be able to attach the root volume of the affected instance to the new instance.
5. In the navigation pane, choose Volumes.
6. Locate the root volume of the affected instance. Detach the volume and attach it to the temporary
instance you created earlier. Attach it with the default device name (xvdf).
7. Use Remote Desktop to connect to the temporary instance, and then use the Disk Management
utility to make the volume available for use.
8. Open a command prompt and run the following command. Replace D with the actual drive letter of
the secondary volume you just attached:

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Instance loses network connectivity or
scheduled tasks don't run when expected
bcdedit /store D:\Boot\BCD /set {default} safeboot dsrepair

9. In the Disk Management Utility, choose the drive you attached earlier, open the context (right-click)
menu, and choose Offline.
10. In the EC2 console, detach the affected volume from the temporary instance and reattach it to your
original instance with the device name /dev/sda1. You must specify this device name to designate
the volume as a root volume.
11. Start the instance.
12. After the instance passes the health checks in the EC2 console, connect to the instance using Remote
Desktop and verify that it boots into DSRM mode.
13. (Optional) Delete or stop the temporary instance you created in this procedure.

Instance loses network connectivity or scheduled

tasks don't run when expected
If you restart your instance and it loses network connectivity, it's possible that the instance has the
wrong time.

By default, Windows instances use Coordinated Universal Time (UTC). If you set the time for your
instance to a different time zone and then restart it, the time becomes offset and the instance
temporarily loses its IP address. The instance regains network connectivity eventually, but this can take
several hours. The amount of time that it takes for the instance to regain network connectivity depends
on the difference between UTC and the other time zone.

This same time issue can also result in scheduled tasks not running when you expect them to. In this
case, the scheduled tasks do not run when expected because the instance has the incorrect time.

To use a time zone other than UTC persistently, you must set the RealTimeIsUniversal registry key.
Without this key, an instance uses UTC after you restart it.

To resolve time issues that cause a loss of network connectivity

1. Ensure that you are running the recommended PV drivers. For more information, see Upgrade PV
drivers on Windows instances (p. 533).
2. Verify that the following registry key exists and is set to 1: HKEY_LOCAL_MACHINE\SYSTEM
\CurrentControlSet\Control\TimeZoneInformation\RealTimeIsUniversal

Unable to get console output

For Windows instances, the instance console displays the output from tasks performed during the
Windows boot process. If Windows boots successfully, the last message logged is Windows is Ready
to use. Note that you can also display event log messages in the console, but this feature is not enabled
by default. For more information, see EC2 service properties (p. 506).

To get the console output for your instance using the Amazon EC2 console, select the instance,
and then choose Actions, Monitor and troubleshoot, Get system log. To get the console output
using the command line, use one of the following commands: get-console-output (AWS CLI) or Get-
EC2ConsoleOutput (AWS Tools for Windows PowerShell).

For instances running Windows Server 2012 R2 and earlier, if the console output is empty, it could
indicate an issue with the EC2Config service, such as a misconfigured configuration file, or that Windows
failed to boot properly. To fix the issue, download and install the latest version of EC2Config. For more
information, see Install the latest version of EC2Config (p. 503).

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Windows Server 2012 R2 not available on the network

Windows Server 2012 R2 not available on the

network
For information about troubleshooting a Windows Server 2012 R2 instance that is not available on
the network, see Windows Server 2012 R2 loses network and storage connectivity after an instance
reboot (p. 539).

Common messages troubleshooting Windows

instances
This section includes tips to help you troubleshoot issues based on common messages.

Topics
• "Password is not available" (p. 1543)
• "Password not available yet" (p. 1544)
• "Cannot retrieve Windows password" (p. 1544)
• "Waiting for the metadata service" (p. 1544)
• "Unable to activate Windows" (p. 1547)
• "Windows is not genuine (0x80070005)" (p. 1548)
• "No Terminal Server License Servers available to provide a license" (p. 1548)
• "Some settings are managed by your organization" (p. 1549)

"Password is not available"

To connect to a Windows instance using Remote Desktop, you must specify an account and password.
The accounts and passwords provided are based on the AMI that you used to launch the instance. You
can either retrieve the auto-generated password for the Administrator account, or use the account and
password that were in use in the original instance from which the AMI was created.

If your Windows instance isn't configured to generate a random password, you'll receive the following
message when you retrieve the auto-generated password using the console:

Password is not available.

The instance was launched from a custom AMI, or the default password has changed. A
password cannot be retrieved for this instance. If you have forgotten your password, you
can
reset it using the Amazon EC2 configuration service. For more information, see Passwords
for a
Windows Server instance.

Check the console output for the instance to see whether the AMI that you used to launch it was created
with password generation disabled. If password generation is disabled, the console output contains the
following:

Ec2SetPassword: Disabled

If password generation is disabled and you don't remember the password for the original instance, you
can reset the password for this instance. For more information, see Reset a lost or expired Windows
administrator password (p. 1497).

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User Guide for Windows Instances
"Password not available yet"

"Password not available yet"

To connect to a Windows instance using Remote Desktop, you must specify an account and password.
The accounts and passwords provided are based on the AMI that you used to launch the instance. You
can either retrieve the auto-generated password for the Administrator account, or use the account and
password that were in use in the original instance from which the AMI was created.

Your password should be available within a few minutes. If the password isn't available, you'll receive the
following message when you retrieve the auto-generated password using the console:

Password not available yet.

Please wait at least 4 minutes after launching an instance before trying to retrieve the
auto-generated password.

If it's been longer than four minutes and you still can't get the password, it's possible that EC2Config is
disabled. Verify by checking whether the console output is empty. For more information, see Unable to
get console output (p. 1542).

Also verify that the AWS Identity and Access Management (IAM) account being used to access the
Management Portal has the ec2:GetPasswordData action allowed. For more information about IAM
permissions, see What is IAM?.

"Cannot retrieve Windows password"

To retrieve the auto-generated password for the Administrator account, you must use the private key for
the key pair that you specified when you launched the instance. If you didn't specify a key pair when you
launched the instance, you'll receive the following message.

Cannot retrieve Windows password

You can terminate this instance and launch a new instance using the same AMI, making sure to specify a
key pair.

"Waiting for the metadata service"

A Windows instance must obtain information from its instance metadata before it can activate itself.
By default, the WaitForMetaDataAvailable setting ensures that the EC2Config service waits for the
instance metadata to be accessible before continuing with the boot process. For more information, see
Instance metadata and user data (p. 588).

If the instance is failing the instance reachability test, try the following to resolve this issue.

• Check the CIDR block for your VPC. A Windows instance cannot boot correctly if it's launched into
a VPC that has an IP address range from 224.0.0.0 to 255.255.255.255 (Class D and Class E IP
address ranges). These IP address ranges are reserved, and should not be assigned to host devices.
We recommend that you create a VPC with a CIDR block from the private (non-publicly routable) IP
address ranges as specified in RFC 1918.
• It's possible that the system has been configured with a static IP address. Try creating a network
interface (p. 961) and attaching it to the instance (p. 963).
• To enable DHCP on a Windows instance that you can't connect to

1. Stop the affected instance and detach its root volume.

2. Launch a temporary instance in the same Availability Zone as the affected instance.

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"Waiting for the metadata service"

Warning
If your temporary instance is based on the same AMI that the original instance is based
on, you must complete additional steps or you won't be able to boot the original instance
after you restore its root volume because of a disk signature collision. Alternatively, select
a different AMI for the temporary instance. For example, if the original instance uses the
AWS Windows AMI for Windows Server 2008 R2, launch the temporary instance using the
AWS Windows AMI for Windows Server 2012.
3. Attach the root volume from the affected instance to this temporary instance. Connect to the
temporary instance, open the Disk Management utility, and bring the drive online.
4. From the temporary instance, open Regedit and select HKEY_LOCAL_MACHINE. From the File
menu, choose Load Hive. Select the drive, open the file Windows\System32\config\SYSTEM,
and specify a key name when prompted (you can use any name).
5. Select the key that you just loaded and navigate to ControlSet001\Services\Tcpip
\Parameters\Interfaces. Each network interface is listed by a GUID. Select the correct
network interface. If DHCP is disabled and a static IP address assigned, EnableDHCP is set to 0.
To enable DHCP, set EnableDHCP to 1, and delete the following keys if they exist: NameServer,
SubnetMask, IPAddress, and DefaultGateway. Select the key again, and from the File menu,
choose Unload Hive.
Note
If you have multiple network interfaces, you'll need to identify the correct interface to
enable DHCP. To identify the correct network interface, review the following key values
NameServer, SubnetMask, IPAddress, and DefaultGateway. These values display
the static configuration of the previous instance.
6. (Optional) If DHCP is already enabled, it's possible that you don't have a route to the metadata
service. Updating EC2Config can resolve this issue.

a. Download and install the latest version of the EC2Config service. For more information about
installing this service, see Install the latest version of EC2Config (p. 503).
b. Extract the files from the .zip file to the Temp directory on the drive you attached.
c. Open Regedit and select HKEY_LOCAL_MACHINE. From the File menu, choose Load Hive.
Select the drive, open the file Windows\System32\config\SOFTWARE, and specify a key
name when prompted (you can use any name).
d. Select the key that you just loaded and navigate to Microsoft\Windows
\CurrentVersion. Select the RunOnce key. (If this key doesn't exist, right-click
CurrentVersion, point to New, select Key, and name the key RunOnce.) Right-click,
point to New, and select String Value. Enter Ec2Install as the name and C:\Temp
\Ec2Install.exe -q as the data.
e. Select the key again, and from the File menu, choose Unload Hive.
7. (Optional) If your temporary instance is based on the same AMI that the original instance is based
on, you must complete the following steps or you won't be able to boot the original instance after
you restore its root volume because of a disk signature collision.
Warning
The following procedure describes how to edit the Windows Registry using Registry
Editor. If you are not familiar with the Windows Registry or how to safely make changes
using Registry Editor, see Configure the Registry.

a. Open a command prompt, type regedit.exe, and press Enter.

b. In the Registry Editor, choose HKEY_LOCAL_MACHINE from the context menu (right-click),
and then choose Find.
c. Type Windows Boot Manager and then choose Find Next.
d. Choose the key named 11000001. This key is a sibling of the key you found in the previous
step.

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"Waiting for the metadata service"

e. In the right pane, choose Element and then choose Modify from the context menu (right-
click).
f. Locate the four-byte disk signature at offset 0x38 in the data. Reverse the bytes to create
the disk signature, and write it down. For example, the disk signature represented by the
following data is E9EB3AA5:

...
0030 00 00 00 00 01 00 00 00
0038 A5 3A EB E9 00 00 00 00
0040 00 00 00 00 00 00 00 00
...

g. In a Command Prompt window, run the following command to start Microsoft DiskPart.

diskpart

h. Run the following DiskPart command to select the volume. (You can verify that the disk
number is 1 using the Disk Management utility.)

DISKPART> select disk 1

Disk 1 is now the selected disk.

i. Run the following DiskPart command to get the disk signature.

DISKPART> uniqueid disk

Disk ID: 0C764FA8

j. If the disk signature shown in the previous step doesn't match the disk signature from
BCD that you wrote down earlier, use the following DiskPart command to change the disk
signature so that it matches:

DISKPART> uniqueid disk id=E9EB3AA5

8. Using the Disk Management utility, bring the drive offline.

Note
The drive is automatically offline if the temporary instance is running the same operating
system as the affected instance, so you won't need to bring it offline manually.
9. Detach the volume from the temporary instance. You can terminate the temporary instance if you
have no further use for it.
10. Restore the root volume of the affected instance by attaching the volume as /dev/sda1.
11. Start the affected instance.

If you are connected to the instance, open an Internet browser from the instance and enter the following
URL for the metadata server:

http://169.254.169.254/latest/meta-data/

If you can't contact the metadata server, try the following to resolve the issue:

• Download and install the latest version of the EC2Config service. For more information about installing
this service, see Install the latest version of EC2Config (p. 503).
• Check whether the Windows instance is running RedHat PV drivers. If so, update to Citrix PV drivers.
For more information, see Upgrade PV drivers on Windows instances (p. 533).

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"Unable to activate Windows"

• Verify that the firewall, IPSec, and proxy settings do not block outgoing traffic to the
metadata service (169.254.169.254) or the AWS KMS servers (the addresses are specified in
TargetKMSServer elements in C:\Program Files\Amazon\Ec2ConfigService\Settings
\ActivationSettings.xml).
• Verify that you have a route to the metadata service (169.254.169.254) using the following
command.

route print

• Check for network issues that might affect the Availability Zone for your instance. Go to http://
status.aws.amazon.com/.

"Unable to activate Windows"

Windows instances use Windows AWS KMS activation. You can receive this message: A problem
occurred when Windows tried to activate. Error Code 0xC004F074, if your instance can't
reach the AWS KMS server. Windows must be activated every 180 days. EC2Config attempts to contact
the AWS KMS server before the activation period expires to ensure that Windows remains activated.

If you encounter a Windows activation issue, use the following procedure to resolve the issue.

For EC2Config (Windows Server 2012 R2 AMIs and earlier)

1. Download and install the latest version of the EC2Config service. For more information about
installing this service, see Install the latest version of EC2Config (p. 503).
2. Log onto the instance and open the following file: C:\Program Files\Amazon
\Ec2ConfigService\Settings\config.xml.
3. Locate the Ec2WindowsActivate plugin in the config.xml file. Change the state to Enabled and
save your changes.
4. In the Windows Services snap-in, restart the EC2Config service or reboot the instance.

If this does not resolve the activation issue, follow these additional steps.

1. Set the AWS KMS target: C:\> slmgr.vbs /skms 169.254.169.250:1688

2. Activate Windows: C:\> slmgr.vbs /ato

For EC2Launch (Windows Server 2016 AMIs and later)

1. From a PowerShell prompt with administrative rights, import the EC2Launch module:

PS C:\> Import-Module "C:\ProgramData\Amazon\EC2-Windows\Launch\Module\Ec2Launch.psd1"

2. Call the Add-Routes function to see the list of new routes:

PS C:\> Add-Routes

3. Call the Set-ActivationSettings function:

PS C:\> Set-Activationsettings

4. Then, run the following script to activate Windows:

PS C:\> cscript "${env:SYSTEMROOT}\system32\slmgr.vbs" /ato

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 Amazon Elastic Compute Cloud
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"Windows is not genuine (0x80070005)"

For both EC2Config and EC2Launch, if you are still receiving an activation error, verify the following
information.

• Verify that you have routes to the AWS KMS servers. Open C:\Program Files\Amazon
\Ec2ConfigService\Settings\ActivationSettings.xml and locate the TargetKMSServer
elements. Run the following command and check whether the addresses for these AWS KMS servers
are listed.

route print

• Verify that the AWS KMS client key is set. Run the following command and check the output.

C:\Windows\System32\slmgr.vbs /dlv

If the output contains Error: product key not found, the AWS KMS client key isn't set. If the AWS KMS
client key isn't set, look up the client key as described in this Microsoft article: AWS KMS Client Setup
Keys, and then run the following command to set the AWS KMS client key.

C:\Windows\System32\slmgr.vbs /ipk client_key

• Verify that the system has the correct time and time zone. If you are using Windows Server 2008
or later and a time zone other than UTC, add the following registry key and set it to 1 to ensure
that the time is correct: HKEY_LOCAL_MACHINE\SYSTEM\CurrentControlSet\Control
\TimeZoneInformation\RealTimeIsUniversal.
• If Windows Firewall is enabled, temporarily disable it using the following command.

netsh advfirewall set allprofiles state off

"Windows is not genuine (0x80070005)"

Windows instances use Windows AWS KMS activation. If an instance is unable to complete the activation
process, it reports that the copy of Windows is not genuine.

Try the suggestions for "Unable to activate Windows" (p. 1547).

"No Terminal Server License Servers available to

provide a license"
By default, Windows Server is licensed for two simultaneous users through Remote Desktop. If you need
to provide more than two users with simultaneous access to your Windows instance through Remote
Desktop, you can purchase a Remote Desktop Services client access license (CAL) and install the Remote
Desktop Session Host and Remote Desktop Licensing Server roles.

Check for the following issues:

• You've exceeded the maximum number of concurrent RDP sessions.

• You've installed the Windows Remote Desktop Services role.
• Licensing has expired. If the licensing has expired, you can't connect to your Windows instance as a
user. You can try the following:
• Connect to the instance from the command line using an /admin parameter, for example:

mstsc /v:instance /admin

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 Amazon Elastic Compute Cloud
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"Some settings are managed by your organization"

For more information, see the following Microsoft article: Access Remote Desktop Via Command
Line.
• Stop the instance, detach its Amazon EBS volumes, and attach them to another instance in the same
Availability Zone to recover your data.

"Some settings are managed by your organization"

Instances launched from the latest Windows Server AMIs might show a Windows Update dialog message
stating "Some settings are managed by your organization." This message appears as a result of changes
in Windows Server and does not impact the behavior of Windows Update or your ability to manage
update settings.

To remove the warning

1. Open gpedit.msc and navigate to Computer Configuration, Administrative Templates, Windows

Components, Windows updates. Edit Configure Automatic Update, and set it to enabled.
2. In a command prompt, update group policy using gpupdate /force.
3. Close and reopen the Windows Update Settings. You will see the above message about your settings
being managed by your organization, followed by "We'll automatically download updates, except on
metered connections (where charges may apply). In that case, we'll automatically download those
updates required to keep Windows running smoothly."
4. Return to gpedit.msc and set the group policy back to not configured. Run gpupdate /force
again.
5. Close the command prompt and wait a few minutes.
6. Reopen the Windows Update Settings. You should not see the message "Some settings are managed
by your organization."

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Features

AWS Systems Manager for Microsoft

System Center VMM
AWS Systems Manager for Microsoft System Center Virtual Machine Manager (SCVMM) provides a
simple, easy-to-use interface for managing AWS resources, such as EC2 instances, from Microsoft
SCVMM. It is implemented as an add-in for the VMM console. For more information, see AWS Add-ins for
Microsoft System Center.

Features
• Administrators can grant permissions to users so that they can manage EC2 instances from SCVMM.
• Users can launch, view, reboot, stop, start, and terminate instances, if they have the required
permissions.
• Users can get the passwords for their Windows instances and connect to them using RDP.
• Users can get the public DNS names for their Linux instances and connect to them using SSH.
• Users can import their Hyper-V Windows virtual machines from SCVMM to Amazon EC2.

Limitations
• Users must have an account that they can use to log in to SCVMM.
• You can't import Linux virtual machines from SCVMM to Amazon EC2.

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Requirements

• This is not a comprehensive tool for creating and managing AWS resources. The add-in enables
SCVMM users to get started quickly with the basic tasks for managing their EC2 instances. Future
releases might support managing additional AWS resources.

Requirements
• An AWS account
• Microsoft System Center VMM 2012 R2 or System Center VMM 2012 SP1 with the latest update roll-
up

Get started
To get started, see the following documentation:

• Setting Up (p. 1551)

• Managing EC2 Instances (p. 1555)
• Troubleshooting (p. 1561)

Set up AWS Systems Manager for Microsoft

SCVMM
When you set up AWS Systems Manager, users in your organization can access your AWS resources. The
process involves creating accounts, deploying the add-in, and providing your credentials.

Tasks
• Sign up for AWS (p. 1551)
• Set up access for users (p. 1552)
• Deploy the add-in (p. 1554)
• Provide your AWS credentials (p. 1554)

Sign up for AWS

When you sign up for Amazon Web Services, your AWS account is automatically signed up for all services
in AWS. You are charged only for the services that you use.

If you have an AWS account already, skip to the next task. If you don't have an AWS account, use the
following procedure to create one.

To sign up for an AWS account

1. Open https://portal.aws.amazon.com/billing/signup.
2. Follow the online instructions.

Part of the sign-up procedure involves receiving a phone call and entering a verification code on the
phone keypad.

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Set up access for users

Set up access for users

The first time that you use Systems Manager, you must provide AWS credentials. To enable multiple
users to access the same AWS account using unique credentials and permissions, create an IAM user for
each user. You can create one or more groups with policies that grant permissions to perform limited
tasks. Then you can create one or more IAM users, and add each user to the appropriate group.

To create an Administrators group

1. Open the IAM console at https://console.aws.amazon.com/iam/.

2. In the navigation pane, choose Groups and then choose Create New Group.
3. In the Group Name box, specify Administrators and then choose Next Step.
4. On the Attach Policy page, select the AdministratorAccess AWS managed policy.
5. Choose Next Step and then choose Create Group.

To create a group with limited access to Amazon EC2

1. Open the IAM console at https://console.aws.amazon.com/iam/.

2. In the navigation pane, choose Groups and then choose Create New Group.
3. In the Group Name box, specify a meaningful name for the group and then choose Next Step.
4. On the Attach Policy page, do not select an AWS managed policy — choose Next Step, and then
choose Create Group.
5. Choose the name of the group you've just created. On the Permissions tab, choose Inline Policies,
and then click here.
6. Select the Custom Policy radio button and then choose Select.
7. Enter a name for the policy and a policy document that grants limited access to Amazon EC2, and
then choose Apply Policy. For example, you can specify one of the following custom policies.

Grant users in this group permission to view information about EC2 instances only

{
"Version": "2012-10-17",
"Statement": [
{
"Effect": "Allow",
"Action": [
"ec2:Describe*",
"iam:ListInstanceProfiles"
],
"Resource": "*"
}
]
}

Grant users in this group permission to perform all operations on EC2 instances that are
supported by the add-in

{
"Version": "2012-10-17",
"Statement": [
{
"Effect": "Allow",
"Action": [
"iam:ListInstanceProfiles",
"ec2:Describe*", "ec2:CreateKeyPair",

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 Amazon Elastic Compute Cloud
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Set up access for users

"ec2:CreateTags", "ec2:DeleteTags",
"ec2:RunInstances", "ec2:GetPasswordData",
"ec2:RebootInstances", "ec2:StartInstances",
"ec2:StopInstances", "ec2:TerminateInstances"
],
"Resource": "*"
}
]
}

Grant users in this group permission to import a VM to Amazon EC2

{
"Version": "2012-10-17",
"Statement": [
{
"Effect": "Allow",
"Action": [
"s3:ListAllMyBuckets", "s3:CreateBucket",
"s3:DeleteBucket", "s3:DeleteObject",
"s3:GetBucketLocation", "s3:GetObject",
"s3:ListBucket", "s3:PutObject",
"ec2:DescribeTags", "ec2:CancelConversionTask",
"ec2:DescribeConversionTasks", "ec2:DescribeInstanceAttribute",
"ec2:CreateImage", "ec2:AttachVolume",
"ec2:ImportInstance", "ec2:ImportVolume",
"dynamodb:DescribeTable", "dynamodb:CreateTable",
"dynamodb:Scan", "dynamodb:PutItem", "dynamodb:UpdateItem"
],
"Resource": "*"
}
]
}

To create an IAM user, get the user's AWS credentials, and grant the user permissions

1. In the navigation pane, choose Users and then choose Add user.
2. Enter a user name.
3. Select the type of access this set of users will have. Select Programmatic access and AWS
Management Console access if this user must also access the AWS Management Console.
4. For Console password type, choose one of the following:

• Autogenerated password. Each user gets a randomly generated password that meets the current
password policy in effect (if any). You can view or download the passwords when you get to the
Final page.
• Custom password. Each user is assigned the password that you type in the box.
5. Choose Next: Permissions .
6. On the Set permissions page, choose Add user to group. Select the appropriate group.
7. Choose Next: Review, then Create user.
8. To view the users' access keys (access key IDs and secret access keys), choose Show next to each
password and secret access key that you want to see. To save the access keys, choose Download .csv
and then save the file to a safe location.
Note
You cannot retrieve the secret access key after you complete this step; if you misplace it you
must create a new one.
9. Choose Close.

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Deploy the add-in

Deploy the add-in

Add-ins for System Center VMM are distributed as .zip files. To deploy the add-in, use the following
procedure.

To deploy the add-in

1. From your instance, go to AWS Systems Manager for Microsoft System Center Virtual Machine
Manager and click SCVMM. Save the aws-systems-manager-1.5.zip file to your instance.
2. Open the VMM console.
3. In the navigation pane, click Settings and then click Console Add-Ins.
4. On the ribbon, click Import Console Add-in.
5. On the Select an Add-in page, click Browse and select the aws-systems-manager-1.5.zip file
for the add-in that you downloaded.
6. Ignore any warnings that there are assemblies in the add-in that are not signed by a trusted
authority. Select Continue installing this add-in anyway and then click Next.
7. On the Summary page, click Finish.
8. When the add-in is imported, the status of the job is Completed. You can close the Jobs window.

Provide your AWS credentials

When you use the Systems Manager for the first time, you must provide your AWS credentials. Your
access keys identify you to AWS. There are two types of access keys: access key IDs (for example,
AKIAIOSFODNN7EXAMPLE) and secret access keys (for example, wJalrXUtnFEMI/K7MDENG/
bPxRfiCYEXAMPLEKEY). You should have stored your access keys in a safe place when you received them.

To provide your AWS credentials

1. Open the VMM console.

2. In the navigation pane, click VMs and Services.
3. On the ribbon, click Amazon EC2.
4. On the Credentials tab, specify your AWS credentials, select a default region, and then click Save.

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Manage EC2 Instances

To change these credentials at any time, click Configuration.

Manage EC2 instances using AWS Systems

Manager for Microsoft SCVMM
After you log in to the Systems Manager console using your AWS credentials, you can manage your EC2
instances.

Tasks
• Create an EC2 Instance (p. 1555)
• View your instances (p. 1557)
• Connect to your instance (p. 1557)
• Reboot your instance (p. 1558)
• Stop your instance (p. 1558)
• Start your instance (p. 1558)
• Terminate your instance (p. 1559)

Create an EC2 Instance

The permissions that you've been granted by your administrator determine whether you can create
instances.

Prerequisites

• A virtual private cloud (VPC) with a subnet in the Availability Zone where you'll launch the instance.
For more information about creating a VPC, see the Amazon VPC Getting Started Guide.

To create an EC2 instance

1. Open SCVMM.
2. On the ribbon, click Create Amazon EC2 Instance.
3. Complete the Create Amazon EC2 Instance dialog box as follows:

a. Select a Region for your instance. By default, we select the Region that you configured as your
default Region.
b. Select a template (known as an AMI) for your instance. To use an AMI provided by Amazon,
select Windows or Linux and then select an AMI from Image. To use an AMI that you created,
select My images and then select the AMI from Image.
c. Select an instance type for the instance. First, select one of the latest instance families from
Family, and then select an instance type from Instance type. To include previous generation
instance families in the list, select Show previous generations. For more information, see
Amazon EC2 Instances and Previous Generation Instances.
d. Create or select a key pair. To create a key pair, select Create a new key pair from Key pair
name and enter a name for the key pair in the highlighted field (for example, my-key-pair).
e. (Optional) Under Advanced settings, specify a display name for the instance.
f. (Optional) Under Advanced settings, select a VPC from Network (VPC). Note that this list
includes all VPCs for the region, including VPCs created using the Amazon VPC console and the
default VPC (if it exists). If you have a default VPC in this region, we select it by default. If the

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Create an EC2 Instance

text is "There is no VPC available for launch or import operations in this region", then you must
create a VPC in this Region using the Amazon VPC console.
g. (Optional) Under Advanced settings, select a subnet from Subnet. Note that this list includes
all subnets for the selected VPC, including any default subnets. If this list is empty, you must
add a subnet to the VPC using the Amazon VPC console, or select a different VPC. Otherwise, we
select a subnet for you.
h. (Optional) Under Advanced settings, create a security group or select one or more security
groups. If you select Create default security group, we create a security group that
grants RDP and SSH access to everyone, which you can modify using the Amazon EC2 or
Amazon VPC console. You can enter a name for this security group in the Group name box.
i. (Optional) Under Advanced settings, select an IAM role. If this list is empty, you can create a
role using the IAM console.

4. Click Create. If you are creating a key pair, you are prompted to save the .pem file. Save this file in
a secure place; you'll need it to log in to your instance. You'll receive confirmation that the instance
has launched. Click Close.

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View your instances

After you've created your instance, it appears in the list of instances for the Region in which you
launched it. Initially, the status of the instance is pending. After the status changes to running, your
instance is ready for use.

You can manage the lifecycle of your instance using Systems Manager, as described on this page. To
perform other tasks, such as the following, you must use the AWS Management Console:

• Attach an Amazon EBS volume to your instance (p. 1199)

• Associate an Elastic IP address with your instance (p. 943)
• Enable termination protection (p. 449)

View your instances

The permissions that your administrator grants you determine whether you can view instances and get
detailed information about them.

To view your instances and get detailed information

1. Open the AWS Systems Manager console.

2. From the list of Regions, select a Region.
3. From the list of instances, select one or more instances.
4. In the lower pane, click the down arrow next to each instance to view detailed information about the
instance.

Connect to your instance

You can log in to an EC2 instance if you have the private key (.pem file) for the key pair that was
specified when launching the instance. The tool that you'll use to connect to your instance depends on
whether the instance is a Windows instance or a Linux instance.

To connect to a Windows EC2 instance

1. Open AWS Systems Manager.

2. From the list of instances, select the instance, right-click, and then click Retrieve Windows
Password.
3. In the Retrieve Default Windows Administrator Password dialog box, click Browse. Select the
private key file for the key pair and then click Open.
4. Click Decrypt Password. Save the password or copy it to the clipboard.
5. Select the instance, right-click, and then click Connect via RDP. When prompted for credentials, use
the name of the administrator account and the password that you saved in the previous step.

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 Amazon Elastic Compute Cloud
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Reboot your instance

6. Because the certificate is self-signed, you might get a warning that the security certificate is not
from a trusted certifying authority. Click Yes to continue.

If the connection fails, see Troubleshoot Windows instances in the Amazon EC2 User Guide for
Windows Instances.

To connect to a Linux EC2 instance

1. Open AWS Systems Manager.

2. From the list of instances, select the instance.
3. In the lower pane, click the down arrow next to the instance ID to view detailed information about
the instance.
4. Locate the public DNS name. You'll need this information to connect to your instance.
5. Connect to the instance using PuTTY. For step-by-step instructions, see Connect to your Linux
instance from Windows using PuTTY in the Amazon EC2 User Guide for Linux Instances.

Reboot your instance

The permissions that you've been granted by your administrator determine whether you can reboot
instances.

To reboot your instance

1. Open AWS Systems Manager.

2. From the list of instances, select the instance.
3. Right-click the instance, and then click Reset (Reboot).
4. When prompted for confirmation, click Yes.

Stop your instance

The permissions that you've been granted by your administrator determine whether you can stop
instances.

To stop your instance

1. Open AWS Systems Manager.

2. From the list of instances, select the instance.
3. Right-click the instance, and then click Shut Down (Stop).
4. When prompted for confirmation, click Yes.

Start your instance

The permissions that you've been granted by your administrator determine whether you can start
instances.

To start your instance

1. Open AWS Systems Manager.

2. From the list of instances, select the instance.

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Terminate your instance

3. Right-click the instance, and then click Power On (Start).

4. When prompted for confirmation, click Yes.

If you get a quota error when you try to start an instance, you have reached your concurrent running
instance limit. The default limit for your AWS account is 20. If you need additional running instances,
complete the form at Request to Increase Amazon EC2 Instance Limit.

Terminate your instance

The permissions that you've been granted by your administrator determine whether you can terminate
instances.

To terminate your instance

1. Open AWS Systems Manager.

2. From the list of instances, select the instance.
3. Right-click the instance, and then click Delete (Terminate).
4. When prompted for confirmation, click Yes.

Import your virtual machine using AWS Systems

Manager for Microsoft SCVMM
You can launch an EC2 instance from a virtual machine that you import from SCVMM to Amazon EC2.
Important
You can't import Linux virtual machines from SCVMM to Amazon EC2.

Contents
• Prerequisites (p. 1559)
• Import your virtual machine (p. 1560)
• Check the import task status (p. 1561)
• Back up your imported instance (p. 1561)

Prerequisites
• Ensure that your VM is ready. For more information, see Prepare Your VM in the VM Import/Export User
Guide.
• In AWS Systems Manager, click Configuration, select the VM Import tab, and review the following
settings:
• S3 bucket prefix: We create a bucket for disk images to be uploaded before they are imported. The
name of the bucket starts with the prefix listed here and includes the Region (for example, us-
east-2). To delete the disk images after they are imported, select Clean up S3 bucket after import.
• VM image export path: A location for the disk images exported from the VM. To delete the disk
images after they are imported, select Clean up export path after import.
• Alternate Hyper-V PowerShell module path: The location of the Hyper-V PowerShell module, if it's
not installed in the standard location. For more information, see Installing the Hyper-V Management
Tools in the Microsoft TechNet Library.

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Import your virtual machine

Import your virtual machine

The permissions that you've been granted by your administrator determine whether you can import
HyperV Windows virtual machines from SCVMM to AWS.

To import your virtual machine

1. Open SCVMM.
2. On the ribbon, click VMs. Select your virtual machine from the list.
3. On the ribbon, click Import VM to Amazon EC2.
4. Complete the Import Virtual Machine dialog box as follows:

a. Select a Region for the instance. By default, we select the Region that you configured as your
default Region.
b. Select an instance type for the instance. First, select one of the latest instance families from
Family, and then select an instance type from Instance type. To include previous generation
instance families in the list, select Show previous generations. For more information, see
Amazon EC2 Instances and Previous Generation Instances.
c. Select a VPC from Network (VPC). Note that this list includes all VPCs for the region, including
VPCs created using the Amazon VPC console and the default VPC (if it exists). If you have a
default VPC in this region, we select it by default. If the text is "There is no VPC available for
launch or import operations in this region", then you must create a VPC in this region using the
Amazon VPC console.
d. Select a subnet from Subnet. Note that this list includes all subnets for the selected VPC,
including any default subnets. If this list is empty, you must add a subnet to the VPC using the
Amazon VPC console, or select a different VPC. Otherwise, we select a subnet for you.

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Check the import task status

5. Click Import. If you haven't specified the required information in the VM Import tab, you'll receive
an error asking you to provide the required information. Otherwise, you'll receive confirmation that
the import task has started. Click Close.

Check the import task status

The import task can take several hours to complete. To view the current status, open AWS Systems
Manager and click Notifications.

You'll receive the following notifications as the import task progresses:

• Import VM: Created Import VM Task

• Import VM: Export VM Disk Image Done
• Import VM: Upload to S3
• Import VM: Image Conversion Starting
• Import VM: Image Conversion Done
• Import VM: Import Complete

Note that you'll receive the Import VM: Upload to S3, Import VM: Image Conversion
Starting, and Import VM: Image Conversion Done notifications for each disk image converted.

If the import task fails, you'll receive the notification Import VM: Import Failed. For more
information about troubleshooting issues with import tasks, see Errors importing a virtual
machine (p. 1562).

Back up your imported instance

After the import operation completes, the instance runs until it is terminated. If your instance is
terminated, you can't connect to or recover the instance. To ensure that you can start a new instance
with the same software as an imported instance if needed, create an Amazon Machine Image (AMI) from
the imported instance. For more information, see Create a custom Windows AMI (p. 37).

Troubleshoot AWS Systems Manager for Microsoft

SCVMM
The following are common errors and troubleshooting steps.

Contents
• Error: Add-in cannot be installed (p. 1561)
• Installation errors (p. 1562)
• Check the log file (p. 1562)
• Errors importing a virtual machine (p. 1562)
• Uninstall the add-in (p. 1563)

Error: Add-in cannot be installed

If you receive the following error, try installing KB2918659 on the computer running the VMM console.
For more information, see Description of System Center 2012 SP1 Update Rollup 5. Note that you don't
need to install all the updates listed in this article to address this issue, just KB2918659.

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Installation errors

Add-in cannot be installed

The assembly "Amazon.Scvmm.Addin" referenced to by add-in component "AWS Systems Manager
for
Microsoft SCVMM" could not be found in the add-in package. This could be due to the
following
reasons:
1. The assembly was not included with the add-in package.
2. The AssemblyName attribute for the add-in does not match the name of the add-in
assembly.
3. The assembly file is corrupt and cannot be loaded.

Installation errors
If you receive one of the following errors during installation, it is likely due to an issue with SCVMM:

Could not update managed code add-in pipeline due to the following error:
Access to the path 'C:\Program Files\Microsoft System Center 2012\Virtual Machine Manager
\Bin\AddInPipeline\PipelineSegments.store' is denied.

Could not update managed code add-in pipeline due to the following error:
The required folder 'C:\Program Files\Microsoft System Center 2012\Virtual Machine Manager
\Bin\AddInPipeline\HostSideAdapters' does not exist.

Add-in cannot be installed

The assembly "Microsoft.SystemCenter.VirtualMachineManager.UIAddIns.dll" referenced by the
add-in assembly "Amazon.Scvmm.AddIn" could not be found in the add-in package. Make sure
that this assembly was included with the add-in package.

Try one of the following steps to work around this issue:

• Grant authenticated users permission to read and run the C:\Program Files\Microsoft System
Center 2012\Virtual Machine Manager\Bin\AddInPipeline folder. In Windows Explorer,
right-click the folder, select Properties, and then select the Security tab.
• Close the SCVMM console and start it one time as an administrator. From the Start menu, locate
SCVMM, right-click, and then select Run as administrator.

Check the log file

If you have a problem using the add-in, check the generated log file, %APPDATA%\Amazon\SCVMM
\ec2addin.log, for useful information.

Errors importing a virtual machine

The log file, %APPDATA%\Amazon\SCVMM\ec2addin.log, contains detailed information about the
status of an import task. The following are common errors that you might see in the log file when you
import your VM from SCVMM to Amazon EC2.

Error: Unable to extract Hyper-V VirtualMachine object

Solution: Configure the path to the Hyper-V PowerShell module.

Error: You do not have permission to perform the operation

This error usually occurs when Hyper-V can't save the VM image into the configured path. To resolve this
issue, do the following.

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Uninstall the add-in

1. Create a directory on the Hyper-V server. For example: C:\vmimages.

2. Share the directory you just created in Hyper-V. Any user running SCVMM should be given access to
the directory.
3. In the plugin, set the export path to \\hyperv\vmimages.
4. Perform the export.

The image will be exported to a local directory on the Hyper-V server. The SCVMM plugin will pull it from
Hyper-V, and upload into Amazon S3.

Uninstall the add-in

If you need to uninstall the add-in, use the following procedure.

To uninstall the add-in

1. Open the VMM console.

2. Select the Settings workspace, and then click Console Add-Ins.
3. Select AWS Systems Manager for Microsoft SCVMM.
4. On the ribbon, click Remove.
5. When prompted for confirmation, click Yes.

If you reinstall the add-in after uninstalling it and receive the following error, delete the path as
suggested by the error message.

Error (27301)
There was an error while installing the add-in. Please ensure that the following path does
not
exist and then try the installation again.

C:\Program Files\Microsoft System Center 2012\Virtual Machine Manager\Bin\AddInPipeline\

AddIns\EC2WINDOWS...

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Overview of AWS Management
Pack for System Center 2012

AWS Management Pack for

Microsoft System Center
AWS offers a complete set of infrastructure and application services for running almost anything in
the cloud—from enterprise applications and big data projects to social games and mobile apps. The
AWS Management Pack for Microsoft System Center provides availability and performance monitoring
capabilities for your applications running in AWS.

The AWS Management Pack allows Microsoft System Center Operations Manager to access your AWS
resources (such as instances and volumes), so that it can collect performance data and monitor your AWS
resources. The AWS Management Pack is an extension to System Center Operations Manager. There are
two versions of the AWS Management Pack: one for System Center 2012 — Operations Manager and
another for System Center Operations Manager 2007 R2.

The AWS Management Pack uses Amazon CloudWatch metrics and alarms to monitor your AWS
resources. Amazon CloudWatch metrics appear in Microsoft System Center as performance counters and
Amazon CloudWatch alarms appear as alerts.

You can monitor the following resources:

• EC2 instances
• EBS volumes
• ELB load balancers
• Amazon EC2 Auto Scaling groups and Availability Zones
• Elastic Beanstalk applications
• CloudFormation stacks
• CloudWatch Alarms
• CloudWatch Custom Metrics

Contents
• Overview of AWS Management Pack for System Center 2012 (p. 1564)
• Overview of AWS Management Pack for System Center 2007 R2 (p. 1566)
• Download the AWS Management Pack (p. 1567)
• Deploy the AWS Management Pack (p. 1568)
• Use the AWS Management Pack (p. 1578)
• Upgrade the AWS Management Pack (p. 1598)
• Uninstall the AWS Management Pack (p. 1599)
• Troubleshoot the AWS Management Pack (p. 1600)

Overview of AWS Management Pack for System

Center 2012
The AWS Management Pack for System Center 2012 — Operations Manager uses a resource pool that
contains one or more management servers to discover and monitor your AWS resources. You can add
management servers to the pool as you increase the number of AWS resources that you use.

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 Amazon Elastic Compute Cloud
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Overview of AWS Management
Pack for System Center 2012
The following diagram shows the main components of AWS Management Pack.

Item Component Description

Operations Manager One or more management servers and their dependencies,

infrastructure such as Microsoft SQL Server and a Microsoft Active
Directory domain. These servers can either be deployed on-
premises or in the AWS cloud; both scenarios are supported.

Resource pool One or more management servers used for communicating

with AWS using the AWS SDK for .NET. These servers must
have Internet connectivity.

AWS credentials An access key ID and a secret access key used by the
management servers to make AWS API calls. You must
specify these credentials while you configure the AWS
Management Pack. We recommend that you create an IAM
user with read-only privileges and use those credentials. For
more information about creating an IAM user, see Adding a
New User to Your AWS Account in the IAM User Guide.

EC2 instances Virtual computers running in the AWS Cloud. Some instances
might have the Operations Manager Agent installed, others
might not. When you install Operations Manager Agent you
can see the operating system and application health apart
from the instance health.

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 Amazon Elastic Compute Cloud
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Overview of AWS Management
Pack for System Center 2007 R2

Overview of AWS Management Pack for System

Center 2007 R2
The AWS Management Pack for System Center Operations Manager 2007 R2 uses a designated computer
that connects to your System Center environment and has Internet access, called a watcher node, to call
AWS APIs to remotely discover and collect information about your AWS resources.

The following diagram shows the main components of AWS Management Pack.

Item Component Description

Operations Manager One or more management servers and their dependencies,

infrastructure such as Microsoft SQL Server and a Microsoft Active
Directory domain. These servers can either be deployed on-
premises or in the AWS Cloud; both scenarios are supported.

Watcher node A designated agent-managed computer used for

communicating with AWS using the AWS SDK for .NET. It can
either be deployed on-premises or in the AWS Cloud, but
it must be an agent-managed computer, and it must have
Internet connectivity. You can use exactly one watcher node
to monitor an AWS account. However, one watcher node can
monitor multiple AWS accounts. For more information about
setting up a watcher node, see Deploying Windows Agents in
the Microsoft System Center documentation.

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Download

Item Component Description

AWS credentials An access key ID and a secret access key used by the watcher
node to make AWS API calls. You must specify these
credentials while you configure the AWS Management Pack.
We recommend that you create an IAM user with read-only
privileges and use those credentials. For more information
about creating an IAM user, see Adding a New User to Your
AWS Account in the IAM User Guide.

EC2 instances Virtual computers running in the AWS Cloud. Some instances
might have the Operations Manager Agent installed, others
might not. When you install the Operations Manager Agent
you can see the operating system and application health
apart from the instance health.

Download the AWS Management Pack

To get started, download the AWS Management Pack. The AWS Management Pack is free. You might
incur charges for Amazon CloudWatch, depending on how you configure monitoring or how many AWS
resources you monitor.

System Center 2012

Before you download the AWS Management Pack, ensure that your systems meet the following system
requirements and prerequisites.

System Requirements

• System Center Operations Manager 2012 R2 or System Center Operations Manager 2012 SP1
• Cumulative Update 1 or later. You must deploy the update to the management servers monitoring
AWS resources, as well as agents running the watcher nodes and agents to be monitored by the AWS
Management Pack. We recommend that you deploy the latest available Operations Manager updates
on all computers monitoring AWS resources.
• Microsoft.Unix.Library MP version 7.3.2026.0 or later

Prerequisites

• Your data center must have at least one management server configured with Internet connectivity. The
management servers must have the Microsoft .NET Framework version 4.5 or later and PowerShell 2.0
or later installed.
• The action account for the management server must have local administrator privileges on the
management server.

To download the AWS Management Pack

1. On the AWS Add-Ins for Microsoft System Center website, click SCOM 2012.
2. Save AWS-SCOM-MP-2.5.zip to your computer and unzip it.

Continue with Deploy the AWS Management Pack (p. 1568).

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System Center 2007 R2

System Center 2007 R2

Before you download the AWS Management Pack, ensure that your systems meet the following system
requirements and prerequisites.

System Requirements

• System Center Operations Manager 2007 R2

• Microsoft.Unix.Library MP version 6.1.7000.256 or later

Prerequisites

• Your data center must have an agent-managed computer with Internet connectivity that you designate
as the watcher node. The watcher node must have the following Agent Proxy option enabled: Allow
this agent to act as a proxy and discover managed objects on other computers. The watcher node
must have the Microsoft .NET Framework version 3.5.1 or later and PowerShell 2.0 or later installed.
• The action account for the watcher node must have local administrator privileges on the watcher node.
• You must ensure that your watcher node has the agent installed, has Internet access, and can
communicate with the management servers in your data center. For more information, see Deploying
Windows Agents in the Microsoft System Center documentation.

To download the AWS Management Pack

1. On the AWS Add-Ins for Microsoft System Center website, click SCOM 2007.
2. Save AWS-MP-Setup-2.5.msi to your computer.

Continue with Deploy the AWS Management Pack (p. 1568).

Deploy the AWS Management Pack

Before you can deploy the AWS Management Pack, you must download it. For more information, see
Download the AWS Management Pack (p. 1567).

Tasks
• Step 1: Install the AWS Management Pack (p. 1568)
• Step 2: Configure the watcher node (p. 1570)
• Step 3: Create an AWS Run As account (p. 1570)
• Step 4: Run the Add Monitoring wizard (p. 1574)
• Step 5: Configure ports and endpoints (p. 1578)

Step 1: Install the AWS Management Pack

After you download the AWS Management Pack, you must configure it to monitor one or more AWS
accounts.

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Step 1: Install the AWS Management Pack

System Center 2012

To install the AWS Management Pack

1. In the Operations console, on the Go menu, click Administration, and then click Management
Packs.
2. In the Actions pane, click Import Management Packs.
3. On the Select Management Packs page, click Add, and then click Add from disk.
4. In the Select Management Packs to import dialog box, select the
Amazon.AmazonWebServices.mpb file from the location where you downloaded it, and then click
Open.
5. On the Select Management Packs page, under Import list, select the Amazon Web Services
management pack, and then click Install.
Note
System Center Operations Manager doesn't import any management packs in the Import
list that display an Error icon.
6. The Import Management Packs page shows the progress for the import process. If a problem
occurs, select the management pack in the list to view the status details. Click Close.

System Center 2007 R2

To install the AWS Management Pack

The management pack is distributed as a Microsoft System Installer file, AWS-MP-Setup.msi. It contains
the required DLLs for the watcher node, root management server, and Operations console, as well as the
Amazon.AmazonWebServices.mp file.

1. Run AWS-MP-Setup.msi.
Note
If your root management server, Operations console, and watcher node are on different
computers, you must run the installer on each computer.
2. On the Welcome to the Amazon Web Services Management Pack Setup Wizard screen, click Next.
3. On the End-User License Agreement screen, read the license agreement, and, if you accept the
terms, select the I accept the terms in the License Agreement check box, and then click Next.
4. On the Custom Setup screen, select the features you want to install, and then click Next.

Operations Console

Installs Amazon.AmazonWebServices.UI.Pages.dll and registers it in the Global Assembly

Cache (GAC), and then installs Amazon.AmazonWebServices.mp.
Root Management Server

Installs Amazon.AmazonWebServices.Modules.dll,
Amazon.AmazonWebServices.SCOM.SDK.dll and the AWS SDK for .NET (AWSSDK.dll), and
then registers them in the GAC.
AWS Watcher Node

Installs Amazon.AmazonWebServices.Modules.dll and

Amazon.AmazonWebServices.SCOM.SDK.dll, and then installs the AWS SDK for .NET
(AWSSDK.dll) and registers it in the GAC.
5. On the Ready to install Amazon Web Services Management Pack screen, click Install.

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Step 2: Configure the watcher node

6. On the Completed the Amazon Web Services Management Pack Setup Wizard screen, click Finish.
Note
The required DLLs are copied and registered in the GAC, and the management pack file
(*.mp) is copied to the Program Files (x86)/Amazon Web Services Management
Pack folder on the computer running the Operations console. Next, you must import the
management pack into System Center.
7. In the Operations console, on the Go menu, click Administration, and then click Management
Packs.
8. In the Actions pane, click Import Management Packs.
9. On the Select Management Packs page, click Add, and then click Add from disk.
10. In the Select Management Packs to import dialog box, change the directory to C:
\Program Files (x86)\Amazon Web Services Management Pack, select the
Amazon.AmazonWebServices.mp file, and then click Open.
11. On the Select Management Packs page, under Import list, select the Amazon Web Services
management pack, and then click Install.
Note
System Center Operations Manager doesn't import any management packs in the Import
list that display an Error icon.
12. The Import Management Packs page shows the progress for the import process. If a problem
occurs, select the management pack in the list to view the status details. Click Close.

Step 2: Configure the watcher node

On System Center Operations Manager 2007 R2, the watcher node runs discoveries that go beyond the
watcher node computer, so you must enable the proxy agent option on the watcher node. The proxy
agent allows those discoveries to access the objects on other computers.
Note
If your system is configured with a large number of resources, we recommend that you configure
one management server as a Watcher Node. Having a separate Watcher Node management
server can improve performance.

If you're using System Center 2012 — Operations Manager, you can skip this step.

To enable the proxy agent on System Center Operations Manager 2007 R2

1. In the Operations console, on the Go menu, click Administration.

2. In the Administration workspace, under Device Management, click Agent Managed.
3. In the Agent Managed list, right-click the watcher node, and then click Properties.
4. In the Agent Properties dialog box, click the Security tab, select Allow this agent to act as proxy
and discover managed objects on other computers, and then click OK.

Step 3: Create an AWS Run As account

You must set up credentials that grant AWS Management Pack access to your AWS resources.

To create an AWS Run As account

1. We recommend that you create an IAM user with the minimum access rights required (for example,
the ReadOnlyAccess AWS managed policy works in most cases). You'll need the access keys (access

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Step 3: Create an AWS Run As account

key ID and secret access key) for this user to complete this procedure. For more information, see
Administering Access Keys for IAM Users in the IAM User Guide.
2. In the Operations console, on the Go menu, click Administration.
3. In the Administration workspace, expand the Run As Configuration node, and then select Accounts.
4. Right-click the Accounts pane, and then click Create Run As Account.
5. In the Create Run As Account Wizard, on the General Properties page, in the Run As account type
list, select Basic Authentication.
6. Enter a display name (for example, "My IAM Account") and a description, and then click Next.

7. On the Credentials page, enter the access key ID in the Account name box and the secret access key
in the Password box, and then click Next.

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Step 3: Create an AWS Run As account

8. On the Distribution Security page, select More secure - I want to manually select the computers
to which the credentials will be distributed, and then click Create.

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Step 3: Create an AWS Run As account

9. Click Close.
10. In the list of accounts, select the account that you just created.
11. In the Actions pane, click Properties.
12. In the Properties dialog box, verify that the More Secure option is selected and that all
management servers to be used to monitor your AWS resources are listed.

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Step 4: Run the Add Monitoring wizard

Step 4: Run the Add Monitoring wizard

You can configure the AWS Management Pack to monitor a particular AWS account by using the Add
Monitoring Wizard, which is available in the Authoring workspace of the Operations console. This wizard
creates a management pack that contains the settings for the AWS account to monitor. You must run this
wizard to monitor each AWS account. For example, if you want to monitor two AWS accounts, you must
run the wizard twice.

System Center 2012

To run the Add Monitoring Wizard on System Center 2012 — Operations Manager

1. In the Operations console, on the Go menu, click Authoring.

2. In the Authoring workspace, expand the Management Pack Templates node, right-click Amazon
Web Services, and then click Add Monitoring Wizard.
3. In the Add Monitoring Wizard, in the Select the monitoring type list, select Amazon Web Services,
and then click Next.
4. On the General Properties page, in the Name box, enter a name (for example, "My AWS Resources").
In the Description box, enter a description.
5. In the Select destination management pack list, select an existing management pack (or click New
to create one) where you want to save the settings. Click Next.

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Step 4: Run the Add Monitoring wizard

By default, when you create a management pack object, disable a rule or monitor, or create an
override, Operations Manager saves the setting to the default management pack. As a best practice,
you should create a separate management pack for each sealed management pack that you want to
customize, instead of saving your customized settings to the default management pack.
6. The AWS Management Pack automatically creates a resource pool and adds the management
servers to it. To control server membership, make the following changes:

a. Click Administration on the Go menu.

b. Click the Resource Pools node.
c. Right-click the AWS Resource Pool in the Resource Pools pane and select Manual Membership.

d. Right-click the AWS Resource Pool in the Resource Pools pane and select Properties.
e. On the Pool Membership page, remove the management servers that should not monitor AWS
resources.

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Step 4: Run the Add Monitoring wizard

7. After the AWS Management Pack is configured, it shows up as a sub-folder of the Amazon Web
Services folder in the Monitoring workspace of the Operations console.

System Center 2007 R2

To run the Add Monitoring Wizard on System Center Operations Manager 2007

1. In the Operations console, on the Go menu, click Authoring.

2. In the Authoring workspace, expand the Management Pack Templates node, right-click Amazon
Web Services, and then click Add Monitoring Wizard.
3. In the Add Monitoring Wizard, in the Select the monitoring type list, select Amazon Web Services,
and then click Next.
4. On the General Properties page, in the Name box, enter a name (for example, "My AWS Resources").
In the Description box, enter a description.
5. In the Select destination management pack drop-down list, select an existing management pack
(or click New to create a new one) where you want to save the settings. Click Next.

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Step 4: Run the Add Monitoring wizard

By default, when you create a management pack object, disable a rule or monitor, or create an
override, Operations Manager saves the setting to the default management pack. As a best practice,
you should create a separate management pack for each sealed management pack that you want to
customize, instead of saving your customized settings to the default management pack.
6. On the Watcher Node Configuration page, in the Watcher Node list, select an agent-managed
computer to act as the watcher node.
7. In the Select AWS Run As account drop-down list, select the Run As account that you created
earlier, and then click Create.
8. After the AWS Management Pack is configured, it first discovers the watcher node. To verify
that the watcher node was discovered successfully, navigate to the Monitoring workspace in the
Operations console. You should see a new Amazon Web Services folder and an Amazon Watcher
Nodes subfolder under it. This subfolder displays the watcher nodes. The AWS Management Pack
automatically checks and monitors the watcher node connectivity to AWS. When the watcher node
is discovered, it shows up in this list. When the watcher node is ready, its state changes to Healthy.
Note
To establish connectivity with AWS, the AWS Management Pack requires that you
deploy the AWS SDK for .NET, modules, and scripts to the watcher node. This can take

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Step 5: Configure ports and endpoints

about ten minutes. If the watcher node doesn't appear, or if you see the state as Not
Monitored, verify your Internet connectivity and IAM permissions. For more information,
see Troubleshoot the AWS Management Pack (p. 1600).
9. After the watcher node is discovered, dependent discoveries are triggered, and the AWS resources
are added to the Monitoring workspace of the Operations console.

The discovery of AWS resources should finish within twenty minutes. This process can take more
time, based on your Operations Manager environment, your AWS environment, the load on the
management server, and the load on the watcher node. For more information, see Troubleshoot the
AWS Management Pack (p. 1600).

Step 5: Configure ports and endpoints

The AWS Management Pack for Microsoft System Center must be able to communicate with AWS
services to monitor the performance of those services and provide alerts in System Center. For
monitoring to succeed, you must configure the firewall on the Management Pack servers to allow
outbound HTTP calls on ports 80 and 443 to the AWS endpoints for the following services.

This enables monitoring for the following AWS services:

• Amazon Elastic Compute Cloud (EC2)

• Elastic Load Balancing
• Amazon EC2 Auto Scaling
• AWS Elastic Beanstalk
• Amazon CloudWatch
• AWS CloudFormation

The AWS Management Pack uses the public APIs in the AWS SDK for .NET to retrieve information from
these services over ports 80 and 443. Log on to each server and enable outbound firewall rules for ports
80 and 443.

If your firewall application supports more detailed settings you can configure specific endpoints for
each service. An endpoint is a URL that is the entry point for a web service. For example, ec2.us-
west-2.amazonaws.com is an entry point for the Amazon EC2 service. To configure endpoints on your
firewall, locate the specific endpoint URLs for the AWS services you are running and specify those
endpoints in your firewall application.

Use the AWS Management Pack

You can use the AWS Management Pack to monitor the health of your AWS resources.

Contents
• Views (p. 1579)
• Discoveries (p. 1593)
• Monitors (p. 1594)
• Rules (p. 1595)
• Events (p. 1595)
• Health model (p. 1596)
• Customize the AWS Management Pack (p. 1598)

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Views

Views
The AWS Management Pack provides the following views, which are displayed in the Monitoring
workspace of the Operations console.

Views
• EC2 Instances (p. 1579)
• Amazon EBS Volumes (p. 1581)
• Elastic Load Balancers (p. 1583)
• AWS Elastic Beanstalk applications (p. 1585)
• AWS CloudFormation stacks (p. 1587)
• Amazon performance views (p. 1589)
• Amazon CloudWatch metric alarms (p. 1590)
• AWS alerts (p. 1591)
• Watcher nodes (System Center Operations Manager 2007 R2) (p. 1592)

EC2 Instances
View the health state of the EC2 instances for a particular AWS account, from all Availability Zones
and regions. The view also includes EC2 instances running in a virtual private cloud (VPC). The AWS
Management Pack retrieves tags, so you can search and filter the list using those tags.

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Views

When you select an EC2 instance, you can perform instance health tasks:

• Open Amazon Console: Launches the AWS Management Console in a web browser.
• Open RDP to Amazon EC2 Instance: Opens an RDP connection to the selected Windows instance.
• Reboot Amazon EC2 Instance: Reboots the selected EC2 instance.
• Start Amazon EC2 Instance: Starts the selected EC2 instance.
• Stop Amazon EC2 Instance: Stops the selected EC2 instance.

EC2 Instances Diagram View

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Views

Shows the relationship of an instance with other components.

Amazon EBS Volumes

Shows the health state of all the Amazon EBS volumes for a particular AWS account from all Availability
Zones and regions.

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Views

Amazon EBS Volumes Diagram View

Shows an Amazon EBS volume and any associated alarms. The following illustration shows an example:

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Views

Elastic Load Balancers

Shows the health state of all the load balancers for a particular AWS account from all regions.

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Views

Elastic Load Balancing Diagram View

Shows the Elastic Load Balancing relationship with other components. The following illustration shows
an example:

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Views

AWS Elastic Beanstalk applications

Shows the state of all discovered AWS Elastic Beanstalk applications.

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Views

AWS Elastic Beanstalk Applications Diagram View

Shows the AWS Elastic Beanstalk application, application environment, application configuration, and
application resources objects.

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Views

AWS CloudFormation stacks

Shows the health state of all the AWS CloudFormation stacks for a particular AWS account from all
regions.

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Views

AWS CloudFormation stacks diagram view

Shows the AWS CloudFormation stack relationship with other components. An AWS CloudFormation
stack might contain Amazon EC2 or Elastic Load Balancing resources. The following illustration shows an
example:

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Views

Amazon performance views

Shows the Amazon CloudWatch metrics for Amazon EC2, Amazon EBS, and Elastic Load Balancing,
custom metrics, and metrics created from CloudWatch alarms. In addition, there are separate
performance views for each resource. The Other Metrics performance view contains custom metrics, and
metrics created from CloudWatch alarms. For more information about these metrics, see AWS Services
That Publish CloudWatch Metrics in the Amazon CloudWatch User Guide. The following illustration shows
an example.

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Views

Amazon CloudWatch metric alarms

Shows Amazon CloudWatch alarms related to the discovered AWS resources.

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Views

AWS alerts
Shows the alerts that the AWS management pack produces when the health of an object is in a critical
state.

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Views

Watcher nodes (System Center Operations Manager 2007 R2)

View the health state of the watcher nodes across all of the AWS accounts that are being monitored. A
Healthy state means that the watcher node is configured correctly and can communicate with AWS.

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Discoveries

Discoveries
Discoveries are the AWS resources that are monitored by the AWS Management Pack. The AWS
Management Pack discovers the following objects:

• Amazon EC2 instances

• EBS volumes
• ELB load balancers
• AWS CloudFormation stacks
• Amazon CloudWatch alarms
• AWS Elastic Beanstalk applications
• Amazon EC2 Auto Scaling groups and Availability Zones

Amazon CloudWatch metrics are generated for the following resources:

• Amazon EC2 instance

• EBS volume
• Elastic Load Balancing
• Custom Amazon CloudWatch metrics
• Metrics from existing Amazon CloudWatch alarms

For Amazon CloudWatch metrics discovery, the following guidelines apply:

• AWS CloudFormation stacks do not have any default Amazon CloudWatch metrics.
• Stopped Amazon EC2 instances or unused Amazon EBS volumes do not generate data for their default
Amazon CloudWatch metrics.
• After starting an Amazon EC2 instance, it can take up to 30 minutes for the Amazon CloudWatch
metrics to appear in Operations Manager.

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Monitors

• Amazon CloudWatch retains the monitoring data for two weeks, even if your AWS resources have been
terminated. This data appears in Operations Manager.
• An existing Amazon CloudWatch alarm for a resource that is not supported will create a metric and
be associated with the Amazon CloudWatch alarm. These metric can be viewed in the Other Metrics
performance view.

The AWS Management Pack also discovers the following relationships:

• AWS CloudFormation stack and its Elastic Load Balancing or Amazon EC2 resources
• Elastic Load Balancing load balancer and its EC2 instances
• Amazon EC2 instance and its EBS volumes
• Amazon EC2 instance and its operating system
• AWS Elastic Beanstalk application and its environment, configuration, and resources

The AWS Management Pack automatically discovers the relationship between an EC2 instance and the
operating system running on it. To discover this relationship, the Operations Manager Agent must be
installed and configured on the instance and the corresponding operating system management pack
must be imported in Operations Manager.

Discoveries run on the management servers in the resource pool (System Center 2012) or the watcher
node (System Center 2007 R2).

Discovery Interval (seconds)

Amazon Resources Discovery (SCOM 2012) 14400

Discovers EC2 instances, Amazon EBS volumes, load balancers, and

CloudFront stacks.

AWS Elastic Beanstalk Discovery 14400

Discovers AWS Elastic Beanstalk and its relationship with

environment, resources, and configuration.

CloudWatch Alarms Discovery 900

Discovers alarms generated using CloudWatch metrics.

Custom CloudWatch Metric Discovery 14400

Discovers custom CloudWatch metrics.

Watcher Node Discovery (SCOM 2007 R2) 14400

Targets the root management server and creates the watcher node
objects.

Monitors
Monitors are used to measure the health of your AWS resources. Monitors run on the management
servers in the resource pool (System Center 2012) or the watcher node (System Center 2007 R2).

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Rules

Monitor Interval (seconds)

AWS CloudFormation Stack Status 900

Amazon CloudWatch Metric Alarm 300

Amazon EBS Volume Status 900

Amazon EC2 Instance Status 900

Amazon EC2 Instance System Status 900

AWS Elastic Beanstalk Status 900

Watcher Node to Amazon Cloud Connectivity (SCOM 2007 R2) 900

Rules
Rules create alerts (based on Amazon CloudWatch metrics) and collect data for analysis and reporting.

Rule Interval (seconds)

AWS Resource Discovery Rule (SCOM 2007 R2) 14400

Targets the watcher node and uses the AWS API to discover objects for
the following AWS resources: EC2 instances, EBS volumes, load balancers,
and AWS CloudFormation stacks. (CloudWatch metrics or alarms are
not discovered). After discovery is complete, view the objects in the Not
Monitored state.

Amazon Elastic Block Store Volume Performance Metrics Data Collection 900
Rule

Amazon EC2 Instance Performance Metrics Data Collection Rule 900

Elastic Load Balancing Balancing Performance Metrics Data Collection Rule 900

Custom CloudWatch Metric Data Collection Rule 900

Events
Events report on activities that involve the monitored resources. Events are written to the Operations
Manager event log.

Event ID Description

4101 Amazon EC2 Instance Discovery (General Discovery) finished

4102 Elastic Load Balancing Metrics Discovery,

Amazon EBS Volume Metrics Discovery,

Amazon EC2 Instance Metrics Discovery finished

4103 Amazon CloudWatch Metric Alarms Discovery finished

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Health model

Event ID Description

4104 Amazon Windows Computer Discovery finished

4105 Collecting Amazon Metrics Alarm finished

4106 EC2 Instance Computer Relation Discovery finished

4107 Collecting AWS CloudFormation Stack State finished

4108 Collecting Watcher Node Availability State finished

4109 Amazon Metrics Collection Rule finished

4110 Task to change Amazon Instance State finished

4111 EC2 Instance Status Monitor State finished

4112 Amazon EBS Volume Status Monitor State finished

4113 Amazon EC2 Instance Scheduled Events Monitor State calculated

4114 Amazon EBS Scheduled Events Monitor State calculated

4115 Elastic Beanstalk Discovery finished

4116 Elastic Beanstalk Environment Status State calculated

4117 Elastic Beanstalk Environment Operational State calculated

4118 Elastic Beanstalk Environment Configuration State calculated

Health model
The following illustration shows the health model defined by the AWS Management Pack.

The health state for a CloudWatch alarm is rolled up to its corresponding CloudWatch metric. The health
state for a CloudWatch metric for Amazon EC2 is rolled up to the EC2 instance. Similarly, the health state
for the CloudWatch metrics for Amazon EBS is rolled up to the Amazon EBS volume. The health states
for the Amazon EBS volumes used by an EC2 instance are rolled up to the EC2 instance.

When the relationship between an EC2 instance and its operating system has been discovered, the
operating system health state is rolled up to the EC2 instance.

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Health model

The health state of an AWS CloudFormation stack depends on the status of the AWS CloudFormation
stack itself and the health states of its resources, namely the load balancers and EC2 instances.

The following table illustrates how the status of the AWS CloudFormation stack corresponds to its health
state.

Health State AWS CloudFormation Stack Status Notes

Error CREATE_FAILED Most likely usable

DELETE_IN_PROGRESS

DELETE_FAILED

UPDATE_ROLLBACK_FAILED

Warning UPDATE_ROLLBACK_IN_PROGRESS Recovering after some

problem
UPDATE_ROLLBACK_COMPLETE_CLEANUP_IN_PROGRESS

UPDATE_ROLLBACK_COMPLETE

Healthy CREATE_COMPLETE Usable

UPDATE_IN_PROGRESS

UPDATE_COMPLETE_CLEANUP_IN_PROGRESS

UPDATE_COMPLETE

The full health model for an AWS CloudFormation stack is as follows:

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Customize the AWS Management Pack

Customize the AWS Management Pack

To change the frequency of discoveries, rules, and monitors, you can override the interval time (in
seconds).

To change frequency

1. In the Operations Manager toolbar, click Go, and then click Authoring.
2. In the Authoring pane, expand Management Pack Objects and then click the object to change (for
example, Object Discoveries, Rules, or Monitors).
3. In the toolbar, click Scope.
4. In the Scope Management Pack Objects dialog box, click View all targets.
5. To limit the scope to Amazon objects, type Amazon in the Look for field.
6. Select the object want to configure and click OK.
7. In the Operations Manager center pane, right-click the object to configure, click Overrides, and
then click the type of override you want to configure.
8. Use the Override Properties dialog box to configure different values and settings for objects.

Tip
To disable a discovery, rule, or monitoring object right-click the object to disable in the
Operations Manager center pane, click Overrides, and then click Disable the Rule. You might
disable rules if, for example, you do not run AWS Elastic Beanstalk applications or use custom
Amazon CloudWatch metrics.

For information about creating overrides, see Tuning Monitoring by Using Targeting and Overrides on the
Microsoft TechNet website.

For information about creating custom rules and monitors, see Authoring for System Center 2012 -
Operations Manager or System Center Operations Manager 2007 R2 Management Pack Authoring Guide
on the Microsoft TechNet website.

Upgrade the AWS Management Pack

The procedure that you'll use to update AWS Management Pack depends on the version of System
Center.

System Center 2012

To upgrade the AWS Management Pack

1. On the AWS Add-Ins for Microsoft System Center website, click SCOM 2012. Download
AWS-SCOM-MP-2.0-2.5.zip to your computer and unzip it. The .zip file includes
Amazon.AmazonWebServices.mpb.
2. In the Operations console, on the Go menu, click Administration, and then click Management
Packs.
3. In the Tasks pane, click Import Management Packs.
4. On the Select Management Packs page, click Add, and then click Add from disk.
5. In the Select Management Packs to import dialog box, select the
Amazon.AmazonWebServices.mpb file from the location where you downloaded it, and then click
Open.

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System Center 2007 R2

6. On the Select Management Packs page, under Import list, select the Amazon Web Services
management pack, and then click Install.

If the Install button is disabled, upgrading to the current version is not supported and you
must uninstall the AWS Management Pack before you can install the current version. For more
information, see Uninstall the AWS Management Pack (p. 1599).

System Center 2007 R2

To upgrade the AWS Management Pack

1. On the Management Server, go to the AWS Add-Ins for Microsoft System Center website and click
SCOM 2007. Save AWS-MP-Setup-2.5.msi, and then run it.
2. Click Next and follow the directions to upgrade the components that you installed previously.
3. If your root management server, Operations console, and watcher node are on different computers,
you must download and run the setup program on each computer.
4. On the watcher node, open a Command Prompt window as an administrator and run the following
commands.

C:\> net stop HealthService

The System Center Management service is stopping.
The System Center Management service was stopped successfully.

C:\> net start HealthService

The System Center Management service is starting.
The System Center Management service was started successfully.

5. In the Operations console, on the Go menu, click Administration, and then click Management
Packs.
6. In the Actions pane, click Import Management Packs.
7. On the Select Management Packs page, click Add, and then click Add from disk.
8. In the Select Management Packs to import dialog box, change the directory to C:
\Program Files (x86)\Amazon Web Services Management Pack, select the
Amazon.AmazonWebServices.mp file, and then click Open.
9. On the Select Management Packs page, under Import list, select the Amazon Web Services
management pack, and then click Install.

If the Install button is disabled, upgrading to the current version is not supported and you must
uninstall AWS Management Pack first. For more information, see Uninstall the AWS Management
Pack (p. 1599).

Uninstall the AWS Management Pack

If you need to uninstall the AWS Management Pack, use the following procedure.

System Center 2012

To uninstall the AWS Management Pack

1. In the Operations console, on the Go menu, click Administration, and then click Management
Packs.
2. Right-click Amazon Web Services and select Delete.

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System Center 2007 R2

3. In the Dependent Management Packs dialog box, note the dependent management packs, and then
click Close.
4. Right-click the dependent management pack and select Delete.
5. Right-click Amazon Web Services and select Delete.

System Center 2007 R2

To uninstall the AWS Management Pack

1. Complete steps 1 through 5 described for System Center 2012 in the previous section.
2. From Control Panel, open Programs and Features. Select Amazon Web Services Management Pack
and then click Uninstall.
3. If your root management server, Operations console, and watcher node are on different computers,
you must repeat this process on each computer.

Troubleshoot the AWS Management Pack

The following are common errors, events, and troubleshooting steps.

Contents
• Errors 4101 and 4105 (p. 1600)
• Error 4513 (p. 1600)
• Event 623 (p. 1601)
• Events 2023 and 2120 (p. 1601)
• Event 6024 (p. 1601)
• General troubleshooting for System Center 2012 — Operations Manager (p. 1601)
• General troubleshooting for System Center 2007 R2 (p. 1602)

Errors 4101 and 4105

If you receive one of the following errors, you must upgrade the AWS Management Pack. For more
information, see Upgrade the AWS Management Pack (p. 1598).

Error 4101
Exception calling "DescribeVolumes" with "1" argument(s): "AWS was not able to validate
the
provided access credentials"

Error 4105
Exception calling "DescribeApplications" with "0" argument(s): "The security token
included
in the request is invalid"

Error 4513
If you receive one of the following error, you must upgrade the AWS Management Pack. For more
information, see Upgrade the AWS Management Pack (p. 1598).

Error 4513

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Event 623

The callback method DeliverDataToModule failed with exception "Resolution of the

dependency
failed, type = "Amazon.SCOM.SDK.Interfaces.IMonitorSdk", name = "(none)".
Exception occurred while: Calling constructor Amazon.SCOM.SDK.CloudWatch.AwsMonitorSdk
(System.String awsAccessKey, System.String awsSecretKey).
Exception is: InvalidOperationException - Collection was modified; enumeration operation
may not run.

Event 623
If you find the following event in the Windows event log, follow the solution described in KB975057.

Event ID: 623

HealthService (process_id) The version store for instance instance ("name") has reached
its maximum size of size MB. It is likely that a long-running transaction is preventing
cleanup of the version store and causing it to build up in size. Updates will be rejected
until the long-running transaction has been completely committed or rolled back.
Possible long-running transaction:
SessionId: id
Session-context: value
Session-context ThreadId: id
Cleanup: value

Events 2023 and 2120

If you find the following events in the Windows event log, see Event ID 2023 and 2120 for more
information.

Event ID: 2023

The Health Service has removed some items from the send queue for management group
"Servers"
since it exceeded the maximum allowed size of size megabytes.

Event ID: 2120

The Health Service has deleted one or more items for management group "Servers" which
could
not be sent in 1440 minutes.

Event 6024
If you find the following event in the Windows event log, see SCOM 2012 - Event ID 6024 for more
information.

Event ID: 6024

LaunchRestartHealthService.js : Launching Restart Health Service. Health Service exceeded
Process\Handle Count or Private Bytes threshold.

General troubleshooting for System Center 2012 —

Operations Manager
Try the following to resolve any issues.

• Verify that you have installed the latest Update Rollup for System Center 2012 — Operations Manager.
The AWS Management Pack requires at least Update Rollup 1.

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General troubleshooting for System Center 2007 R2

• Ensure that you have configured the AWS Management Pack after importing it by running the Add
Monitoring Wizard. For more information, see Step 1: Install the AWS Management Pack (p. 1568).
• Verify that you have waited long enough for the AWS resources to be discovered (10–20 minutes).
• Verify that the management servers are configured properly.
• Management servers must have Internet connectivity.
• The action account for a management server must have local administrator privileges on the
management server.
• The management server must have the .NET Framework 4.5. or later.
• Verify that the AWS Run As account is valid.
• The values for the access key ID and secret access key are correct.
• The access keys are active: In the AWS Management Console, click your name in the navigation bar
and then click Security Credentials.
• The IAM user has at least read-only access permission. Note that read-only access allows the user
actions that do not change the state of a resource, such as monitoring, but do not allow the user
actions like launching or stopping an instance.
• If an Amazon CloudWatch metric shows as Not Monitored, check whether at least one Amazon
CloudWatch alarm has been defined for that Amazon CloudWatch metric.
• For further troubleshooting, use the information in the event logs.
• Check the Operations Manager event log on the management server. For more information, see
Events (p. 1595) for a list of the events that the AWS Management Pack writes to the Operations
Manager event log.

General troubleshooting for System Center 2007 R2

Try the following to resolve any issues.

• Ensure that you have configured the AWS Management Pack after importing it by running the Add
Monitoring Wizard. For more information, see Step 1: Install the AWS Management Pack (p. 1568).
• Verify that you have waited long enough for the AWS resources to be discovered (10–20 minutes).
• Verify that the watcher node is configured properly.
• The proxy agent is enabled. For more information, see Step 2: Configure the watcher node (p. 1570).
• The watcher node has Internet connectivity.
• The action account for the watcher node has local administrator privileges.
• The watcher node must have the .NET Framework 3.5.1 or later.
• Verify that the watcher node is healthy and resolve all alerts. For more information, see
Views (p. 1579).
• Verify that the AWS Run As account is valid.
• The values for the access key ID and secret access key are correct.
• The access keys are active: In the AWS Management Console, click your name in the navigation bar
and then click Security Credentials.
• The IAM user has at least read-only access permission. Note that read-only access allows the user
actions that do not change the state of a resource, such as monitoring, but do not allow the user
actions like launching or stopping an instance.
• If an Amazon CloudWatch metric shows as Not Monitored, check whether at least one Amazon
CloudWatch alarm has been defined for that Amazon CloudWatch metric.
• For further troubleshooting, use the information in the event logs.
• Check the Operations Manager event log on the management server as well as the watcher node.
For more information, see Events (p. 1595) for a list of the events that the AWS Management Pack
writes to the Operations Manager event log.

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Related information
The following related resources can help you as you work with this service.

Windows on AWS

• Windows on AWS – Overview of Windows on AWS workloads and services.

• Amazon Web Services and Microsoft: Frequently Asked Questions – Frequently asked questions
specific to running Microsoft software on AWS.
• Microsoft Licensing on AWS: Options for using Microsoft software licenses on the AWS Cloud –
Options for using Microsoft software licenses on the AWS Cloud.
• AWS Migration Acceleration Program for Windows – AWS services, best practices, and tools to help
you save costs and accelerate migrations of Windows workloads to AWS.
• AWS Optimization and Licensing Assessment – Evaluate your Windows environment to reduce costs
and optimize compute.

• EC2 Image Builder – automate the creation, management, and deployment of customized, secure,
and up-to-date server images that are pre-installed and pre-configured with software settings to meet
specific IT standards.
• AWS Launch Wizard – AWS Launch Wizard guides you through the sizing, configuration, and
deployment of applications on AWS following the AWS Well-Architected Framework.
• Microsoft SQL Server on AWS – Overview of Microsoft SQL Server on AWS workloads and services.

Forum

Amazon EC2 forum – AWS Discussion forum for Amazon EC2 to post questions and feedback.

Pricing

Amazon EC2 pricing – ; Pricing information for Amazon EC2.

Tutorials

Hands-on tutorials – Get started with step-by-step tutorials to launch your first application.

General AWS resources

The following related resources can help you as you work with AWS.

• Classes & Workshops – Links to role-based and specialty courses, in addition to self-paced labs to help
sharpen your AWS skills and gain practical experience.
• AWS Developer Tools – Links to developer tools, SDKs, IDE toolkits, and command line tools for
developing and managing AWS applications.
• AWS Whitepapers – Links to a comprehensive list of technical AWS whitepapers, covering topics such
as architecture, security, and economics and authored by AWS Solutions Architects or other technical
experts.
• AWS Support Center – The hub for creating and managing your AWS Support cases. Also includes
links to other helpful resources, such as forums, technical FAQs, service health status, and AWS Trusted
Advisor.
• AWS Support – The primary webpage for information about AWS Support, a one-on-one, fast-
response support channel to help you build and run applications in the cloud.

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• Contact Us – A central contact point for inquiries concerning AWS billing, account, events, abuse, and
other issues.
• AWS Site Terms – Detailed information about our copyright and trademark; your account, license, and
site access; and other topics.

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Document history
The following table describes important additions to the Amazon EC2 documentation starting in 2019.
We also update the documentation frequently to address the feedback that you send us.

update-history-change update-history-description update-history-date

EC2 Fleet and targeted On- EC2 Fleet can launch September 22, 2021
Demand Capacity Reservations On-Demand Instances
into targeted Capacity
Reservations.

T3 instances on Dedicated Hosts Support for T3 instances on September 14, 2021

Amazon EC2 Dedicated Host.

Hibernation support for RHEL, Hibernate your newly-launched September 9, 2021

Fedora, and CentOS instances that were launched
from RHEL, Fedora, and CentOS
AMIs.

New Local Zones added Add Local Zones in Chicago, September 8, 2021
Minneapolis, and Kansas City.

Amazon EC2 Global View Amazon EC2 Global View September 1, 2021
enables you to view VPCs,
subnets, instances, security
groups, and volumes across
multiple AWS Regions in a single
console.

AMI deprecation support for Amazon Data Lifecycle Manager August 23, 2021
Amazon Data Lifecycle Manager EBS-backed AMI policies
can deprecate AMIs. The
AWSDataLifecycleManagerServiceRoleForAMIManagement
AWS managed policy has been
updated to support this feature.

Hibernation support for C5d, Hibernate your newly-launched August 19, 2021
M5d, and R5d instances running on C5d, M5d,
and R5d instance types.

Amazon EC2 key pairs Amazon EC2 now supports August 17, 2021
ED25519 keys on Linux and Mac
instances.

M6i instances (p. 1605) New general purpose instances August 16, 2021
featuring third generation Intel
Xeon Scalable processors (Ice
Lake).

CloudWatch metrics for Amazon You can monitor your Amazon July 28, 2021
Data Lifecycle Manager Data Lifecycle Manager policies
using Amazon CloudWatch.

New Local Zone added Add Local Zone in Denver. July 27, 2021

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CloudTrail data events for EBS The ListSnapshotBlocks, July 27, 2021
direct APIs ListChangedBlocks,
GetSnapshotBlock, and
PutSnapshotBlock APIs can be
logged data events in CloudTrail.

Prefixes for network interfaces You can assign a private IPv4 July 22, 2021
or IPv6 CIDR range, either
automatically or manually, to
your network interfaces.

io2 Block Express volumes io2 Block Express volumes are July 19, 2021
now generally available in all
Regions and Availability Zones
that support R5b instances.

Event windows You can define custom, weekly- July 15, 2021
recurring event windows for
scheduled events that reboot,
stop, or terminate your Amazon
EC2 instances.

Resource IDs and tagging You can refer to security group July 7, 2021
support for security group rules by resource ID. You can also
rules (p. 1605) add tags to your security group
rules.

New Local Zones added Add Local Zones in Dallas and July 7, 2021
Philadelphia.

Deprecate an AMI You can now specify when an June 11, 2021
AMI is deprecated.

Windows per-second Amazon EC2 charges for June 10, 2021

billing (p. 1605) Windows- and SQL Server-based
usage by the second, with a one-
minute minimum charge.

Capacity Reservations on AWS You can now use Capacity May 24, 2021
Outposts Reservations on AWS Outposts.

Capacity Reservation sharing You can now share Capacity May 24, 2021
Reservations created in Local
Zones and Wavelength Zones.

High memory virtualized Virtualized high memory May 11, 2021

instances (p. 1605) instances purpose-built to run
large in-memory databases. The
new types are u-6tb1.56xlarge,
u-6tb1.112xlarge,
u-9tb1.112xlarge, and
u-12tb1.112xlarge.

Root volume replacement You can now use root volume April 22, 2021
replacement tasks to replace
the root EBS volume for running
instances.

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Store and restore an AMI using Store EBS-backed AMIs in S3 and April 6, 2021
S3 restore them from S3 to enable
cross-partition copying of AMIs.

EC2 Serial Console Troubleshoot boot and March 30, 2021

network connectivity issues by
establishing a connection to the
serial port of an instance.

Boot modes Amazon EC2 now supports UEFI March 22, 2021
boot on selected AMD- and
Intel-based EC2 instances.

Amazon EBS local snapshots on You can now use Amazon February 4, 2021
Outposts Amazon EBS local snapshots on
Outposts to store snapshots of
volumes on an Outpost locally
in Amazon S3 on the Outpost
itself.

Create a reverse DNS record You can now set up reverse February 3, 2021
DNS lookup for your Elastic IP
addresses.

Amazon Data Lifecycle Manager Use Amazon Data Lifecycle December 17, 2020
Manager to automate the
process of sharing snapshots
and copying them across AWS
accounts.

G4ad instances (p. 1605) New instances powered by AMD December 9, 2020
Radeon Pro V520 GPUs and AMD
2nd Generation EPYC processors.

Tag AMIs and snapshots on AMI When you create an AMI, December 4, 2020
creation you can tag the AMI and the
snapshots with the same tags, or
you can tag them with different
tags.

io2 Block Express preview You can opt in to the io2 Block December 1, 2020
Express volumes preview. io2
Block Express volumes provide
sub-millisecond latency, and
support higher IOPS, higher
throughput, and larger capacity
than io2 volumes.

gp3 volumes (p. 1605) A new Amazon EBS General December 1, 2020
Purpose SSD volume type. You
can specify provisioned IOPS and
throughput when you create or
modify the volume.

D3, D3en, M5zn, and R5b New instance types built on the December 1, 2020
instances (p. 1605) Nitro System.

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Throughput Optimized HDD and Throughput Optimized HDD November 30, 2020
Cold HDD volume sizes (st1) and Cold HDD (sc1)
volumes can range in size from
125 GiB to 16 TiB.

Use Amazon EventBridge to Create EventBridge rules that November 20, 2020
monitor Spot Fleet events trigger programmatic actions
in response to Spot Fleet state
changes and errors.

Use Amazon EventBridge to Create EventBridge rules that November 20, 2020
monitor EC2 Fleet events trigger programmatic actions
in response to EC2 Fleet state
changes and errors.

Delete instant fleets Delete an EC2 Fleet of type November 18, 2020
instant and terminate all the
instances in the fleet in a single
API call.

Hibernation support for T3 and Hibernate your newly-launched November 17, 2020
T3a instances running on T3 and T3a
instance types.

Amazon Data Lifecycle Manager You can use Amazon Data November 9, 2020
Lifecycle Manager to automate
the creation, retention, and
deletion of EBS-backed AMIs.

Instance metadata category: The approximate time, in UTC, November 4, 2020

events/recommendations/ when the EC2 instance rebalance
rebalance recommendation notification is
emitted for the instance.

EC2 instance rebalance A signal that notifies you when a November 4, 2020
recommendation Spot Instance is at elevated risk
of interruption.

Capacity Reservations in Capacity Reservations can November 4, 2020

Wavelength Zones now be created and used in
Wavelength Zones.

Capacity Rebalancing Configure Spot Fleet or EC2 November 4, 2020

Fleet to launch a replacement
Spot Instance when Amazon
EC2 emits a rebalance
recommendation.

Hibernation support for I3, Hibernate your newly-launched October 21, 2020
M5ad, and R5ad instances running on I3, M5ad,
and R5ad instance types.

Spot Instance vCPU limits Spot Instance limits are now October 1, 2020
managed in terms of the number
of vCPUs that your running Spot
Instances are either using or will
use pending the fulfillment of
open requests.

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Capacity Reservations in Local Capacity Reservations can now September 30, 2020
Zones be created and used in Local
Zones.

Amazon Data Lifecycle Manager Amazon Data Lifecycle Manager September 17, 2020
policies can be configured with
up to four schedules.

Hibernation support for M5a Hibernate your newly-launched August 28, 2020
and R5a instances running on M5a and
R5a instance types.

Provisioned IOPS SSD (io2) Provisioned IOPS SSD (io2) August 24, 2020
volumes for Amazon EBS volumes are designed to
provide 99.999 percent volume
durability with an AFR no higher
than 0.001 percent.

Instance metadata provides New instance metadata fields August 24, 2020
instance location and placement under the placement category:
information Region, placement group name,
partition number, host ID, and
Availability Zone ID.

C5ad instances (p. 1605) New compute optimized August 13, 2020
instances featuring second-
generation AMD EYPC
processors.

Wavelength Zones A Wavelength Zone is an August 6, 2020

isolated zone in the carrier
location where the Wavelength
infrastructure is deployed.

Capacity Reservation groups You can use AWS Resource July 29, 2020
Groups to create logical
collections of Capacity
Reservations, and then target
instance launches into those
groups.

Fast snapshot restore You can enable fast snapshot July 21, 2020
restore for snaphots that are
shared with you.

EC2Launch v2 (p. 454) You can use EC2Launch v2 to June 30, 2020
perform tasks during instance
startup, if an instance is stopped
and later started, if an instance
is restarted, and on demand.
EC2Launch v2 supports all
versions of Windows Server
and replaces EC2Launch and
EC2Config.

Bare metal instances for New instances that provide your June 5, 2020
G4dn (p. 1605) applications with direct access
to the physical resources of the
host server.

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C5a instances (p. 1605) New compute optimized June 4, 2020

instances featuring second-
generation AMD EYPC
processors.

Bring your own IPv6 addresses You can bring part or all of your May 21, 2020
IPv6 address range from your
on-premises network to your
AWS account.

Launch instances using a You can specify a AWS Systems May 5, 2020
Systems Manager parameter Manager parameter instead
of an AMI when you launch an
instance.

Customize scheduled event You can customize scheduled May 4, 2020

notifications event notifications to include
tags in the email notification.

Windows Server on Dedicated You can use Windows Server April 7, 2020
Hosts AMIs provided by Amazon to run
the latest versions of Windows
Server on Dedicated Hosts.

Stop and start a Spot Instance Stop your Spot Instances backed January 13, 2020
by Amazon EBS and start them
at will, instead of relying on the
stop interruption behavior.

Resource tagging (p. 1605) You can tag egress-only internet January 10, 2020
gateways, local gateways, local
gateway route tables, local
gateway virtual interfaces, local
gateway virtual interface groups,
local gateway route table VPC
associations, and local gateway
route table virtual interface
group associations.

Connect to your instance using You can start a Session Manager December 18, 2019
Session Manager session with an instance from
the Amazon EC2 console.

Dedicated Hosts and host Dedicated Hosts can now be December 2, 2019
resource groups used with host resource groups.

Dedicated Host sharing You can now share your December 2, 2019
Dedicated Hosts across AWS
accounts.

Default credit specification at You can set the default credit November 25, 2019
the account level specification per burstable
performance instance family
at the account level per AWS
Region.

Instance type discovery You can find an instance type November 22, 2019
that meets your needs.

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Dedicated Hosts (p. 1605) You can now configure a November 21, 2019
Dedicated Host to support
multiple instance types in an
instance family.

Amazon EBS fast snapshot You can enable fast snapshot November 20, 2019
restores restores on an EBS snapshot
to ensure that EBS volumes
created from the snapshot are
fully-initialized at creation and
instantly deliver all of their
provisioned performance.

Instance Metadata Service You can use Instance Metadata November 19, 2019
Version 2 Service Version 2, which is a
session-oriented method for
requesting instance metadata.

Hibernation support for On- You can hibernate On-Demand October 14, 2019
Demand Windows instances Windows instances.

Queued purchases of Reserved You can queue the purchase of October 4, 2019
Instances a Reserved Instance up to three
years in advance.

G4dn instances (p. 1605) New instances featuring NVIDIA September 19, 2019
Tesla GPUs.

Diagnostic interrupt You can send a diagnostic August 14, 2019

interrupt to an unreachable or
unresponsive instance to trigger
a blue screen/stop error.

Capacity optimized allocation Using EC2 Fleet or Spot Fleet, August 12, 2019
strategy you can launch Spot Instances
from Spot pools with optimal
capacity for the number of
instances that are launching.

On-Demand Capacity You can now share your Capacity July 29, 2019
Reservation sharing Reservations across AWS
accounts.

Resource tagging (p. 1605) Launch templates on creation. July 24, 2019

Host recovery Automatically restart your June 5, 2019

instances on a new host in
the event of an unexpected
hardware failure on a Dedicated
Host.

Amazon EBS multi-volume You can take exact point-in-time, May 29, 2019
snapshots data coordinated, and crash-
consistent snapshots across
multiple EBS volumes attached
to an EC2 instance.

Resource tagging (p. 1605) You can tag Dedicated Host May 27, 2019
Reservations.

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History for previous years

Amazon EBS encryption by After you enable encryption May 23, 2019
default by default in a Region, all new
EBS volumes you create in the
Region are encrypted using
the default KMS key for EBS
encryption.

VSS application-consistent Take application-consistent May 13, 2019

snapshots snapshots of all Amazon EBS
volumes attached to your
Windows instances using
AWS Systems Manager Run
Command.

Resource tagging (p. 1605) You can tag VPC endpoints, May 13, 2019
endpoint services, and endpoint
service configurations.

Windows to Linux Replatforming Move existing Microsoft SQL May 8, 2019

Assistant for Microsoft SQL Server workloads from a
Server Databases Windows to a Linux operating
system.

I3en instances (p. 1605) New I3en instances can utilize May 8, 2019
up to 100 Gbps of network
bandwidth.

Windows Automated Upgrade Perform automated upgrades May 6, 2019

of EC2 Windows instances using
AWS Systems Manager.

T3a instances (p. 1605) New instances featuring AMD April 24, 2019
EYPC processors.

M5ad and R5ad New instances featuring AMD March 27, 2019
instances (p. 1605) EYPC processors.

Resource tagging (p. 1605) You can assign custom tags March 14, 2019
to your Dedicated Host
Reservations to categorize them
in different ways.

Bare metal instances for M5, New instances that provide your February 13, 2019
M5d, R5, R5d, and z1d (p. 1605) applications with direct access
to the physical resources of the
host server.

History for previous years

The following table describes important additions to the Amazon EC2 documentation in 2018 and earlier
years.

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History for previous years

Feature API Description Release

version date

Partition placement 2016-11-15 Partition placement groups spread instances 20

groups across logical partitions, ensuring that instances December
in one partition do not share underlying 2018
hardware with instances in other partitions.
For more information, see Partition placement
groups (p. 989).

p3dn.24xlarge 2016-11-15 New p3dn.24xlarge instances provide 100 Gbps of 7

instances network bandwidth. December
2018

Instances featuring 2016-11-15 New C5n instances can utilize up to 100 Gbps of 26
100 Gbps of network network bandwidth. November
bandwidth 2018

Spot console 2016-11-15 The Spot console recommends a fleet of 20

recommends a fleet of instances based on Spot best practice (instance November
instances diversification) to meet the minimum hardware 2018
specifications (vCPUs, memory, and storage) for
your application need. For more information, see
Create a Spot Fleet request (p. 734).

New EC2 Fleet request 2016-11-15 EC2 Fleet now supports a new request type, 14
type: instant instant, that you can use to synchronously November
provision capacity across instance types and 2018
purchase models. The instant request returns
the launched instances in the API response, and
takes no further action, enabling you to control
if and when instances are launched. For more
information, see EC2 Fleet request types (p. 675).

Instances featuring 2016-11-15 New general purpose (M5a) and memory 6

AMD EYPC processors optimized instances (R5a) offer lower-priced November
options for microservices, small to medium 2018
databases, virtual desktops, development and test
environments, business applications, and more.

Spot savings 2016-11-15 You can view the savings made from using Spot 5
information Instances for a single Spot Fleet or for all Spot November
Instances. For more information, see Savings from 2018
purchasing Spot Instances (p. 292).

Console support for 2016-11-15 When you launch an instance, you can optimize 31
optimizing CPU options the CPU options to suit specific workloads or October
business needs using the Amazon EC2 console. 2018
For more information, see Optimize CPU
options (p. 549).

Console support for 2016-11-15 You can create a launch template using 30
creating a launch an instance as the basis for a new launch October
template from an template using the Amazon EC2 console. 2018
instance For more information, see Create a launch
template (p. 403).

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History for previous years

Feature API Description Release

version date

On-Demand Capacity 2016-11-15 You can reserve capacity for your Amazon EC2 25
Reservations instances in a specific Availability Zone for any October
duration. This allows you to create and manage 2018
capacity reservations independently from the
billing discounts offered by Reserved Instances
(RI). For more information, see On-Demand
Capacity Reservations (p. 370).

Bring Your Own IP 2016-11-15 You can bring part or all of your public IPv4 23
Addresses (BYOIP) address range from your on-premises network to October
your AWS account. After you bring the address 2018
range to AWS, it appears in your account as an
address pool. You can create an Elastic IP address
from your address pool and use it with your AWS
resources. For more information, see Bring your
own IP addresses (BYOIP) in Amazon EC2 (p. 919).

g3s.xlarge instances 2016-11-15 Expands the range of the accelerated-computing 11

G3 instance family with the introduction of October
g3s.xlarge instances. 2018

Dedicated Host tag 2016-11-15 You can tag your Dedicated Hosts on creation, and 08
on create and console you can manage your Dedicated Host tags using October
support the Amazon EC2 console. For more information, 2018
see Allocate Dedicated Hosts (p. 336).

High memory instances 2016-11-15 These instances are purpose-built to run large 27
in-memory databases. They offer bare metal September
performance with direct access to host hardware. 2018
For more information, see Memory optimized
instances (p. 201).

f1.4xlarge instances 2016-11-15 Expands the range of the accelerated-computing 25

F1 instance family with the introduction of September
f1.4xlarge instances. 2018

Console support for 2016-11-15 Increase or decrease the current capacity of 20

scheduled scaling for the fleet based on the date and time. For more September
Spot Fleet information, see Scale Spot Fleet using scheduled 2018
scaling (p. 753).

T3 instances 2016-11-15 T3 instances are burstable general-purpose 21 August

instance type that provide a baseline level of 2018
CPU performance with the ability to burst CPU
usage at any time for as long as required. For
more information, see Burstable performance
instances (p. 161).

Allocation strategies for 2016-11-15 You can specify whether On-Demand capacity 26 July
EC2 Fleets is fulfilled by price (lowest price first) or priority 2018
(highest priority first). You can specify the number
of Spot pools across which to allocate your
target Spot capacity. For more information, see
Allocation strategies for Spot Instances (p. 694).

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Feature API Description Release

version date

Allocation strategies for 2016-11-15 You can specify whether On-Demand capacity 26 July
Spot Fleets is fulfilled by price (lowest price first) or priority 2018
(highest priority first). You can specify the number
of Spot pools across which to allocate your
target Spot capacity. For more information, see
Allocation strategy for Spot Instances (p. 721).

R5 and R5d instances 2016-11-15 R5 and R5d instances are ideally suited for high- 25 July
performance databases, distributed in-memory 2018
caches, and in-memory analytics. R5d instances
come with NVMe instance store volumes. For
more information, see Memory optimized
instances (p. 201).

z1d instances 2016-11-15 These instances are designed for applications 25 July
that require high per-core performance with 2018
a large amount of memory, such as electronic
design automation (EDA) and relational databases.
These instances come with NVME instance store
volumes. For more information, see Memory
optimized instances (p. 201).

Automate snapshot 2016-11-15 You can use Amazon Data Lifecycle Manager to 12 July
lifecycle automate creation and deletion of snapshots for 2018
your EBS volumes. For more information, see
Amazon Data Lifecycle Manager (p. 1285).

Launch template CPU 2016-11-15 When you create a launch template using the 11 July
options command line tools, you can optimize the CPU 2018
options to suit specific workloads or business
needs. For more information, see Create a launch
template (p. 403).

Tag Dedicated Hosts 2016-11-15 You can tag your Dedicated Hosts. For more 3 July
information, see Tag Dedicated Hosts (p. 347). 2018

i3.metal instances 2016-11-15 i3.metal instances provide your applications 17 May

with direct access to the physical resources of 2018
the host server, such as processors and memory.
For more information, see Storage optimized
instances (p. 212).

Get latest console 2016-11-15 You can retrieve the latest console output for 9 May
output some instance types when you use the get- 2018
console-output AWS CLI command.

Optimize CPU options 2016-11-15 When you launch an instance, you can optimize 8 May
the CPU options to suit specific workloads or 2018
business needs. For more information, see
Optimize CPU options (p. 549).

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History for previous years

Feature API Description Release

version date

EC2 Fleet 2016-11-15 You can use EC2 Fleet to launch a group of 2 May
instances across different EC2 instance types 2018
and Availability Zones, and across On-Demand
Instance, Reserved Instance, and Spot Instance
purchasing models. For more information, see EC2
Fleet (p. 673).

On-Demand Instances 2016-11-15 You can include a request for On-Demand 2 May
in Spot Fleets capacity in your Spot Fleet request to ensure 2018
that you always have instance capacity. For more
information, see Spot Fleet (p. 720).

Tag EBS snapshots on 2016-11-15 You can apply tags to snapshots during creation. 2 April
creation For more information, see Create Amazon EBS 2018
snapshots (p. 1224).

Change placement 2016-11-15 You can move an instance in or out of a placement 1 March
groups group, or change its placement group. For more 2018
information, see Change the placement group for
an instance (p. 998).

Longer resource IDs 2016-11-15 You can enable the longer ID format for more 9 February
resource types. For more information, see 2018
Resource IDs (p. 1455).

Network performance 2016-11-15 Instances outside of a cluster placement group 24 January

improvements can now benefit from increased bandwidth 2018
when sending or receiving network traffic
between other instances or Amazon S3. For
more information, see Networking and storage
features (p. 148).

Tag Elastic IP addresses 2016-11-15 You can tag your Elastic IP addresses. For more 21
information, see Tag an Elastic IP address (p. 942). December
2017

Amazon Time Sync 2016-11-15 You can use the Amazon Time Sync Service to 29
Service keep accurate time on your instance. For more November
information, see Set the time for a Windows 2017
instance (p. 568).

T2 Unlimited 2016-11-15 T2 Unlimited instances can burst above the 29

baseline for as long as required. For more November
information, see Burstable performance 2017
instances (p. 161).

Launch templates 2016-11-15 A launch template can contain all or some of the 29
parameters to launch an instance, so that you November
don't have to specify them every time you launch 2017
an instance. For more information, see Launch an
instance from a launch template (p. 401).

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User Guide for Windows Instances
History for previous years

Feature API Description Release

version date

Spread placement 2016-11-15 Spread placement groups are recommended for 29

applications that have a small number of critical November
instances that should be kept separate from 2017
each other. For more information, see Spread
placement groups (p. 990).

H1 instances 2016-11-15 H1 instances are designed for high-performance 28

big data workloads. For more information, see November
Storage optimized instances (p. 212). 2017

M5 instances 2016-11-15 M5 instances are general purpose compute 28

instances. They provide a balance of compute, November
memory, storage, and network resources. 2017

Spot Instance 2016-11-15 The Spot service can hibernate Spot Instances 28
hibernation in the event of an interruption. For more November
information, see Hibernate interrupted Spot 2017
Instances (p. 321).

Spot Fleet target 2016-11-15 You can set up target tracking scaling policies for 17
tracking your Spot Fleet. For more information, see Scale November
Spot Fleet using a target tracking policy (p. 751). 2017

Spot Fleet integrates 2016-11-15 You can attach one or more load balancers to a 10
with Elastic Load Spot Fleet. November
Balancing 2017

X1e instances 2016-11-15 X1e instances are ideally suited for high- 28
performance databases, in-memory databases, November
and other memory-intensive enterprise 2017
applications. For more information, see Memory
optimized instances (p. 201).

C5 instances 2016-11-15 C5 instances are designed for compute-heavy 6

applications. For more information, see Compute November
optimized instances (p. 195). 2017

Merge and split 2016-11-15 You can exchange (merge) two or more 6
Convertible Reserved Convertible Reserved Instances for a new November
Instances Convertible Reserved Instance. You can also use 2017
the modification process to split a Convertible
Reserved Instance into smaller reservations. For
more information, see Exchange Convertible
Reserved Instances (p. 279).

P3 instances 2016-11-15 P3 instances are compute-optimized GPU 25

instances. For more information, see Windows October
accelerated computing instances (p. 218). 2017

Modify VPC tenancy 2016-11-15 You can change the instance tenancy attribute 16
of a VPC from dedicated to default. For October
more information, see Change the tenancy of a 2017
VPC (p. 369).

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User Guide for Windows Instances
History for previous years

Feature API Description Release

version date

Stop on interruption 2016-11-15 You can specify whether Amazon EC2 should 18
stop or terminate Spot Instances when they September
are interrupted. For more information, see 2017
Interruption behaviors (p. 320).

Tag NAT gateways 2016-11-15 You can tag your NAT gateway. For more 7
information, see Tag your resources (p. 1464). September
2017

Security group rule 2016-11-15 You can add descriptions to your security group 31 August
descriptions rules. For more information, see Security group 2017
rules (p. 1150).

Elastic Graphics 2016-11-15 Attach Elastic Graphics accelerators to your 29 August

instances to accelerate the graphics performance 2017
of your applications. For more information, see
Amazon Elastic Graphics (p. 805).

Recover Elastic IP 2016-11-15 If you release an Elastic IP address for use in 11 August
addresses a VPC, you might be able to recover it. For 2017
more information, see Recover an Elastic IP
address (p. 946).

Tag Spot Fleet instances 2016-11-15 You can configure your Spot Fleet to 24 July
automatically tag the instances that it launches. 2017

G3 instances 2016-11-15 G3 instances provide a cost-effective, high- 13 July

performance platform for graphics applications 2017
using DirectX or OpenGL. G3 instances also
provide NVIDIA GRID Virtual Workstation features,
supporting 4 monitors with resolutions up to
4096x2160. For more information, see Windows
accelerated computing instances (p. 218).

Tag resources during 2016-11-15 You can apply tags to instances and volumes 28 March
creation during creation. For more information, see Tag 2017
your resources (p. 1464). In addition, you can use
tag-based resource-level permissions to control
the tags that are applied. For more information
see, Grant permission to tag resources during
creation (p. 1078).

I3 instances 2016-11-15 I3 instances are storage optimized instances. 23

For more information, see Storage optimized February
instances (p. 212). 2017

Perform modifications 2016-11-15 With most EBS volumes attached to most EC2 13
on attached EBS instances, you can modify volume size, type, and February
volumes IOPS without detaching the volume or stopping 2017
the instance. For more information, see Amazon
EBS Elastic Volumes (p. 1328).

Attach an IAM role 2016-11-15 You can attach, detach, or replace an IAM role for 9 February
an existing instance. For more information, see 2017
IAM roles for Amazon EC2 (p. 1128).

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User Guide for Windows Instances
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Feature API Description Release

version date

Dedicated Spot 2016-11-15 You can run Spot Instances on single-tenant 19 January
Instances hardware in a virtual private cloud (VPC). For 2017
more information, see Specify a tenancy for your
Spot Instances (p. 295).

IPv6 support 2016-11-15 You can associate an IPv6 CIDR with your VPC and 1
subnets, and assign IPv6 addresses to instances in December
your VPC. For more information, see Amazon EC2 2016
instance IP addressing (p. 904).

R4 instances 2016-09-15 R4 instances are memory optimized instances. R4 30

instances are well-suited for memory-intensive, November
latency-sensitive workloads such as business 2016
intelligence (BI), data mining and analysis, in-
memory databases, distributed web scale in-
memory caching, and applications performance
real-time processing of unstructured big data.
For more information, see Memory optimized
instances (p. 201)

New t2.xlarge and 2016-09-15 T2 instances are designed to provide moderate 30

t2.2xlarge instance base performance and the capability to burst to November
types significantly higher performance as required by 2016
your workload. They are intended for applications
that need responsiveness, high performance
for limited periods of time, and a low cost. For
more information, see Burstable performance
instances (p. 161).

P2 instances 2016-09-15 P2 instances use NVIDIA Tesla K80 GPUs and are 29
designed for general purpose GPU computing September
using the CUDA or OpenCL programming models. 2016
For more information, see Windows accelerated
computing instances (p. 218).

m4.16xlarge 2016-04-01 Expands the range of the general-purpose M4 6

instances family with the introduction of m4.16xlarge September
instances, with 64 vCPUs and 256 GiB of RAM. 2016

Automatic scaling for   You can now set up scaling policies for your Spot 1
Spot Fleet Fleet. For more information, see Automatic scaling September
for Spot Fleet (p. 749). 2016

Elastic Network Adapter 2016-04-01 You can now use ENA for enhanced networking. 28 June
(ENA) For more information, see Enhanced networking 2016
support (p. 974).

Enhanced support for 2016-04-01 You can now view and modify longer ID settings 23 June
viewing and modifying for other IAM users, IAM roles, or the root user. For 2016
longer IDs more information, see Resource IDs (p. 1455).

Copy encrypted 2016-04-01 You can now copy encrypted EBS snapshots 21 June
Amazon EBS snapshots between AWS accounts. For more information, see 2016
between AWS accounts Copy an Amazon EBS snapshot (p. 1242).

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User Guide for Windows Instances
History for previous years

Feature API Description Release

version date

Capture a screenshot of 2015-10-01 You can now obtain additional information 24 May
an instance console when debugging instances that are unreachable. 2016
For more information, see Troubleshoot an
unreachable instance (p. 1488).

X1 instances 2015-10-01 Memory-optimized instances designed for 18 May

running in-memory databases, big data 2016
processing engines, and high performance
computing (HPC) applications. For more
information, see Memory optimized
instances (p. 201).

Two new EBS volume 2015-10-01 You can now create Throughput Optimized 19 April
types HDD (st1) and Cold HDD (sc1) volumes. For 2016
more information, see Amazon EBS volume
types (p. 1177).

Added new Added new NetworkPacketsIn and 23 March

NetworkPacketsIn and NetworkPacketsOut metrics for Amazon EC2. For 2016
NetworkPacketsOut more information, see Instance metrics (p. 854).
metrics for Amazon EC2

CloudWatch metrics for You can now get CloudWatch metrics for your 21 March
Spot Fleet Spot Fleet. For more information, see CloudWatch 2016
metrics for Spot Fleet (p. 747).

Scheduled Instances 2015-10-01 Scheduled Reserved Instances (Scheduled 13 January

Instances) enable you to purchase capacity 2016
reservations that recur on a daily, weekly, or
monthly basis, with a specified start time and
duration. For more information, see Scheduled
Reserved Instances (p. 283).

Longer resource IDs 2015-10-01 We're gradually introducing longer length IDs 13 January
for some Amazon EC2 and Amazon EBS resource 2016
types. During the opt-in period, you can enable
the longer ID format for supported resource
types. For more information, see Resource
IDs (p. 1455).

ClassicLink DNS support 2015-10-01 You can enable ClassicLink DNS support for 11 January
your VPC so that DNS hostnames that are 2016
addressed between linked EC2-Classic instances
and instances in the VPC resolve to private
IP addresses and not public IP addresses. For
more information, see Enable ClassicLink DNS
support (p. 1049).

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User Guide for Windows Instances
History for previous years

Feature API Description Release

version date

New t2.nano instance 2015-10-01 T2 instances are designed to provide moderate 15

type base performance and the capability to burst to December
significantly higher performance as required by 2015
your workload. They are intended for applications
that need responsiveness, high performance
for limited periods of time, and a low cost. For
more information, see Burstable performance
instances (p. 161).

Dedicated hosts 2015-10-01 An Amazon EC2 Dedicated host is a physical 23

server with instance capacity dedicated for November
your use. For more information, see Dedicated 2015
Hosts (p. 331).

Spot Instance duration 2015-10-01 You can now specify a duration for your Spot 6 October
Instances. For more information, see Define a 2015
duration for your Spot Instances (p. 295).

Spot Fleet modify 2015-10-01 You can now modify the target capacity of your 29
request Spot Fleet request. For more information, see September
Modify a Spot Fleet request (p. 744). 2015

Spot Fleet diversified 2015-04-15 You can now allocate Spot Instances in multiple 15
allocation strategy Spot pools using a single Spot Fleet request. For September
more information, see Allocation strategy for Spot 2015
Instances (p. 721).

Spot Fleet instance 2015-04-15 You can now define the capacity units that each 31 August
weighting instance type contributes to your application's 2015
performance, and adjust the amount you are
willing to pay for Spot Instances for each Spot
pool accordingly. For more information, see Spot
Fleet instance weighting (p. 726).

New reboot alarm Added the reboot alarm action and new IAM role 23 July
action and new IAM for use with alarm actions. For more information, 2015
role for use with alarm see Create alarms that stop, terminate, reboot, or
actions recover an instance (p. 875).

New t2.large T2 instances are designed to provide moderate 16 June

instance type base performance and the capability to burst to 2015
significantly higher performance as required by
your workload. They are intended for applications
that need responsiveness, high performance
for limited periods of time, and a low cost. For
more information, see Burstable performance
instances (p. 161).

M4 instances General-purpose instances that provide a balance 11 June

of compute, memory, and network resources. M4 2015
instances are powered by a custom Intel 2.4 GHz
Intel® Xeon® E5 2676v3 (Haswell) processor with
AVX2.

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User Guide for Windows Instances
History for previous years

Feature API Description Release

version date

Spot Fleets 2015-04-15 You can manage a collection, or fleet, of Spot 18 May
Instances instead of managing separate Spot 2015
Instance requests. For more information, see Spot
Fleet (p. 720).

Migrate Elastic IP 2015-04-15 You can migrate an Elastic IP address that you've 15 May
addresses to EC2- allocated for use in EC2-Classic to be used in a 2015
Classic VPC. For more information, see Migrate an Elastic
IP Address from EC2-Classic (p. 1040).

Importing VMs with 2015-03-01 The VM Import process now supports importing 23 April
multiple disks as AMIs VMs with multiple disks as AMIs. For more 2015
information, see Importing a VM as an Image
Using VM Import/Export in the VM Import/Export
User Guide .

New g2.8xlarge The new g2.8xlarge instance is backed by four 7 April

instance type high-performance NVIDIA GPUs, making it well 2015
suited for GPU compute workloads including large
scale rendering, transcoding, machine learning,
and other server-side workloads that require
massive parallel processing power.

D2 instances Dense-storage instances that are optimized for 24 March

applications requiring sequential access to large 2015
amount of data on direct attached instance
storage. D2 instances are designed to offer best
price/performance in the dense-storage family.
Powered by 2.4 GHz Intel® Xeon® E5 2676v3
(Haswell) processors, D2 instances improve on
HS1 instances by providing additional compute
power, more memory, and Enhanced Networking.
In addition, D2 instances are available in four
instance sizes with 6TB, 12TB, 24TB, and 48TB
storage options.

For more information, see Storage optimized

instances (p. 212).

Systems Manager   Systems Manager enables you to configure and 17

manage your EC2 instances. February
2015

Systems Manager for   You can now use Systems Manager for Microsoft 21 January
Microsoft SCVMM 1.5 SCVMM to launch an instance and to import 2015
a VM from SCVMM to Amazon EC2. For more
information, see Create an EC2 Instance (p. 1555)
and Import your virtual machine (p. 1560).

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User Guide for Windows Instances
History for previous years

Feature API Description Release

version date

Automatic recovery for You can create an Amazon CloudWatch alarm 12 January
EC2 instances that monitors an Amazon EC2 instance and 2015
automatically recovers the instance if it becomes
impaired due to an underlying hardware failure
or a problem that requires AWS involvement to
repair. A recovered instance is identical to the
original instance, including the instance ID, IP
addresses, and all instance metadata.

For more information, see Recover your

instance (p. 452).

C4 instances Next-generation compute-optimized instances 11 January

that provide very high CPU performance at 2015
an economical price. C4 instances are based
on custom 2.9 GHz Intel® Xeon® E5-2666 v3
(Haswell) processors. With additional Turbo boost,
the processor clock speed in C4 instances can
reach as high as 3.5Ghz with 1 or 2 core turbo.
Expanding on the capabilities of C3 compute-
optimized instances, C4 instances offer customers
the highest processor performance among EC2
instances. These instances are ideally suited
for high-traffic web applications, ad serving,
batch processing, video encoding, distributed
analytics, high-energy physics, genome analysis,
and computational fluid dynamics.

For more information, see Compute optimized

instances (p. 195).

ClassicLink 2014-10-01 ClassicLink enables you to link your EC2-Classic 7 January

instance to a VPC in your account. You can 2015
associate VPC security groups with the EC2-Classic
instance, enabling communication between your
EC2-Classic instance and instances in your VPC
using private IP addresses. For more information,
see ClassicLink (p. 1043).

Spot Instance   The best way to protect against Spot Instance 5 January
termination notices interruption is to architect your application to be 2015
fault tolerant. In addition, you can take advantage
of Spot Instance termination notices, which
provide a two-minute warning before Amazon
EC2 must terminate your Spot Instance.

For more information, see Spot Instance

interruption notices (p. 324).

Systems Manager for   Systems Manager for Microsoft SCVMM provides 29

Microsoft SCVMM a simple, easy-to-use interface for managing October
AWS resources, such as EC2 instances, from 2014
Microsoft SCVMM. For more information, see AWS
Systems Manager for Microsoft System Center
VMM (p. 1550).

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User Guide for Windows Instances
History for previous years

Feature API Description Release

version date

DescribeVolumes 2014-09-01 The DescribeVolumes API call now supports the 23

pagination support pagination of results with the MaxResults and October
NextToken parameters. For more information, 2014
see DescribeVolumes in the Amazon EC2 API
Reference.

Added support for   You can use Amazon CloudWatch Logs to monitor, 10 July
Amazon CloudWatch store, and access your system, application, and 2014
Logs custom log files from your instances or other
sources. You can then retrieve the associated log
data from CloudWatch Logs using the Amazon
CloudWatch console, the CloudWatch Logs
commands in the AWS CLI, or the CloudWatch
Logs SDK.

T2 instances 2014-06-15 T2 instances are designed to provide moderate 30 June

base performance and the capability to burst to 2014
significantly higher performance as required by
your workload. They are intended for applications
that need responsiveness, high performance
for limited periods of time, and a low cost. For
more information, see Burstable performance
instances (p. 161).

New EC2 Service Limits   Use the EC2 Service Limits page in the Amazon 19 June
page EC2 console to view the current limits for 2014
resources provided by Amazon EC2 and Amazon
VPC, on a per-region basis.

Amazon EBS General 2014-05-01 General Purpose SSD volumes offer cost- 16 June
Purpose SSD Volumes effective storage that is ideal for a broad range 2014
of workloads. These volumes deliver single-digit
millisecond latencies, the ability to burst to 3,000
IOPS for extended periods of time, and a base
performance of 3 IOPS/GiB. General Purpose SSD
volumes can range in size from 1 GiB to 1 TiB.
For more information, see General Purpose SSD
volumes (gp2) (p. 1180).

Windows Server 2012   AMIs for Windows Server 2012 R2 use the new 3 June
R2 AWS PV drivers. For more information, see AWS 2014
PV drivers (p. 529).

AWS Management Pack   AWS Management Pack now supports for System 22 May
Center Operations Manager 2012 R2. For more 2014
information, see AWS Management Pack for
Microsoft System Center (p. 1564).

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User Guide for Windows Instances
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Feature API Description Release

version date

Amazon EBS encryption 2014-05-01 Amazon EBS encryption offers seamless 21 May
encryption of EBS data volumes and snapshots, 2014
eliminating the need to build and maintain a
secure key management infrastructure. EBS
encryption enables data at rest security by
encrypting your data using AWS managed keys.
The encryption occurs on the servers that host
EC2 instances, providing encryption of data
as it moves between EC2 instances and EBS
storage. For more information, see Amazon EBS
encryption (p. 1340).

R3 instances 2014-02-01 Memory-optimized instances with the best price 9 April

point per GiB of RAM and high performance. 2014
These instances are ideally suited for relational
and NoSQL databases, in-memory analytics
solutions, scientific computing, and other
memory-intensive applications that can benefit
from the high memory per vCPU, high compute
performance, and enhanced networking
capabilities of R3 instances.

For more information about the hardware

specifications for each Amazon EC2 instance type,
see Amazon EC2 Instance Types.

Amazon EC2 Usage   Amazon EC2 Usage Reports is a set of reports 28 January
Reports that shows cost and usage data of your usage of 2014
EC2. For more information, see Amazon EC2 usage
reports (p. 1477).

Additional M3 instances 2013-10-15 The M3 instance sizes m3.medium and m3.large 20 January
are now supported. For more information about 2014
the hardware specifications for each Amazon EC2
instance type, see Amazon EC2 Instance Types.

I2 instances 2013-10-15 These instances provide very high IOPS. I2 19

instances also support enhanced networking that December
delivers improve inter-instance latencies, lower 2013
network jitter, and significantly higher packet per
second (PPS) performance. For more information,
see Storage optimized instances (p. 212).

Updated M3 instances 2013-10-15 The M3 instance sizes, m3.xlarge and 19

m3.2xlarge now support instance store with December
SSD volumes. 2013

Resource-level 2013-10-15 You can now create policies in AWS Identity and 20
permissions for Access Management to control resource-level November
RunInstances permissions for the Amazon EC2 RunInstances 2013
API action. For more information and example
policies, see Identity and access management for
Amazon EC2 (p. 1071).

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User Guide for Windows Instances
History for previous years

Feature API Description Release

version date

C3 instances 2013-10-15 Compute-optimized instances that provide very 14

high CPU performance at an economical price. November
C3 instances also support enhanced networking 2013
that delivers improved inter-instance latencies,
lower network jitter, and significantly higher
packet per second (PPS) performance. These
instances are ideally suited for high-traffic web
applications, ad serving, batch processing, video
encoding, distributed analytics, high-energy
physics, genome analysis, and computational fluid
dynamics.

For more information about the hardware

specifications for each Amazon EC2 instance type,
see Amazon EC2 Instance Types.

Launching an instance   You can now launch an instance from the AWS 11
from the AWS Marketplace using the Amazon EC2 launch November
Marketplace wizard. For more information, see Launch an AWS 2013
Marketplace instance (p. 416).

G2 instances 2013-10-01 These instances are ideally suited for 4

video creation services, 3D visualizations, November
streaming graphics-intensive applications, 2013
and other server-side workloads requiring
massive parallel processing power. For more
information, see Windows accelerated computing
instances (p. 218).

New launch wizard   There is a new and redesigned EC2 launch wizard. 10
For more information, see Launch an instance October
using the Launch Instance Wizard (p. 396). 2013

Modifying Amazon EC2 2013-08-15 You can now modify Reserved Instances in a 11
Reserved Instances Region. September
2013

Assigning a public IP 2013-07-15 You can now assign a public IP address when 20 August
address you launch an instance in a VPC. For more 2013
information, see Assign a public IPv4 address
during instance launch (p. 909).

Granting resource-level 2013-06-15 Amazon EC2 supports new Amazon Resource 8 July
permissions Names (ARNs) and condition keys. For more 2013
information, see IAM policies for Amazon
EC2 (p. 1073).

Incremental Snapshot 2013-02-01 You can now perform incremental snapshot 11 June
Copies copies. For more information, see Copy an 2013
Amazon EBS snapshot (p. 1242).

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User Guide for Windows Instances
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Feature API Description Release

version date

AWS Management Pack   The AWS Management Pack links Amazon 8 May
EC2 instances and the Windows or Linux 2013
operating systems running inside them. The AWS
Management Pack is an extension to Microsoft
System Center Operations Manager. For more
information, see AWS Management Pack for
Microsoft System Center (p. 1564).

New Tags page   There is a new Tags page in the Amazon EC2 04 April
console. For more information, see Tag your 2013
Amazon EC2 resources (p. 1463).

Additional EBS- 2013-02-01 The following instance types can now be launched 19 March
optimized instance as EBS-optimized instances: c1.xlarge, 2013
types m2.2xlarge, m3.xlarge, and m3.2xlarge.

For more information, see Amazon EBS–optimized

instances (p. 1357).

PV Drivers   To learn how to upgrade the paravirtualized (PV) March

drivers on your Windows AMI, see Upgrade PV 2013
drivers on Windows instances (p. 533).

Copy an AMI from one 2013-02-01 You can copy an AMI from one Region to another, 11 March
Region to another enabling you to launch consistent instances in 2013
more than one AWS Region quickly and easily.

For more information, see Copy an AMI (p. 116).

Launch instances into a 2013-02-01 Your AWS account is capable of launching 11 March
default VPC instances into either EC2-Classic or a VPC, or only 2013
into a VPC, on a region-by-region basis. If you
can launch instances only into a VPC, we create a
default VPC for you. When you launch an instance,
we launch it into your default VPC, unless you
create a nondefault VPC and specify it when you
launch the instance.

High-memory cluster 2012-12-01 Have large amounts of memory coupled with high 21 January
(cr1.8xlarge) instance CPU and network performance. These instances 2013
type are well suited for in-memory analytics, graph
analysis, and scientific computing applications.

High storage 2012-12-01 High storage instances provide very high storage 20
(hs1.8xlarge) density and high sequential read and write December
instance type performance per instance. They are well-suited 2012
for data warehousing, Hadoop/MapReduce, and
parallel file systems.

EBS snapshot copy 2012-12-01 You can use snapshot copies to create backups 17
of data, to create new Amazon EBS volumes, or December
to create Amazon Machine Images (AMIs). For 2012
more information, see Copy an Amazon EBS
snapshot (p. 1242).

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Feature API Description Release

version date

Updated EBS metrics 2012-10-01 Updated the EBS metrics to include two new 20
and status checks for metrics for Provisioned IOPS SSD volumes. For November
Provisioned IOPS SSD more information, see Amazon CloudWatch 2012
volumes metrics for Amazon EBS (p. 1388). Also added
new status checks for Provisioned IOPS SSD
volumes. For more information, see EBS volume
status checks (p. 1210).

Support for Windows   Amazon EC2 now provides you with several pre- 19
Server 2012 configured Windows Server 2012 AMIs. These November
AMIs are immediately available for use in every 2012
region and for every 64-bit instance type. The
AMIs support the following languages:

• English
• Chinese Simplified
• Chinese Traditional
• Chinese Traditional Hong Kong
• Japanese
• Korean
• Portuguese
• Portuguese Brazil
• Czech
• Dutch
• French
• German
• Hungarian
• Italian
• Polish
• Russian
• Spanish
• Swedish
• Turkish

M3 instances 2012-10-01 There are new M3 extra-large and M3 double- 31

extra-large instance types. For more information October
about the hardware specifications for each 2012
Amazon EC2 instance type, see Amazon EC2
Instance Types.

Spot Instance request 2012-10-01 Spot Instance request status makes it easy to 14
status determine the state of your Spot requests. October
2012

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Feature API Description Release

version date

Amazon EC2 Reserved 2012-08-15 The Reserved Instance Marketplace matches 11

Instance Marketplace sellers who have Amazon EC2 Reserved Instances September
that they no longer need with buyers who are 2012
looking to purchase additional capacity. Reserved
Instances bought and sold through the Reserved
Instance Marketplace work like any other Reserved
Instances, except that they can have less than a
full standard term remaining and can be sold at
different prices.

Provisioned IOPS SSD 2012-07-20 Provisioned IOPS SSD volumes deliver predictable, 31 July
for Amazon EBS high performance for I/O intensive workloads, 2012
such as database applications, that rely
on consistent and fast response times. For
more information, see Amazon EBS volume
types (p. 1177).

High I/O instances for 2012-06-15 High I/O instances provides very high, low latency, 18 July
Amazon EC2 disk I/O performance using SSD-based local 2012
instance storage.

IAM roles on Amazon 2012-06-01 IAM roles for Amazon EC2 provide: 11 June
EC2 instances 2012
• AWS access keys for applications running on
Amazon EC2 instances.
• Automatic rotation of the AWS access keys on
the Amazon EC2 instance.
• Granular permissions for applications running
on Amazon EC2 instances that make requests to
your AWS services.

Spot Instance features   You can now manage your Spot Instances as 7 June
that make it easier follows: 2012
to get started and
handle the potential of • Specify the amount you are willing to pay
interruption. for Spot Instances using Auto Scaling launch
configurations, and set up a schedule for
specifying the amount you are willing to pay
for Spot Instances. For more information, see
Launching Spot Instances in Your Auto Scaling
Group in the Amazon EC2 Auto Scaling User
Guide.
• Get notifications when instances are launched
or terminated.
• Use AWS CloudFormation templates to launch
Spot Instances in a stack with AWS resources.

EC2 instance export and 2012-05-01 Added support for exporting Windows Server 25 May
timestamps for status instances that you originally imported into EC2. 2012
checks for Amazon EC2
Added support for timestamps on instance status
and system status to indicate the date and time
that a status check failed.

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Feature API Description Release

version date

EC2 instance export, 2012-05-01 Added support for EC2 instance export to Citrix 25 May
and timestamps in Xen, Microsoft Hyper-V, and VMware vSphere. 2012
instance and system
status checks for Added support for timestamps in instance and
Amazon VPC system status checks.

Cluster Compute Eight 2012-04-01 Added support for cc2.8xlarge instances in a 26 April
Extra Large instances VPC. 2012

AWS Marketplace AMIs 2012-04-01 Added support for AWS Marketplace AMIs. 19 April
2012

Medium instances, 2011-12-15 Added support for a new instance type and 64-bit 7 March
support for 64-bit on information. 2012
all AMIs

Reserved Instance 2011-12-15 Added a new section discussing how to take 5 March
pricing tiers advantage of the discount pricing that is built into 2012
the Reserved Instance pricing tiers.

Elastic Network 2011-12-01 Added new section about elastic network 21

Interfaces (ENIs) for EC2 interfaces (ENIs) for EC2 instances in a VPC. December
instances in Amazon For more information, see Elastic network 2011
Virtual Private Cloud interfaces (p. 948).

New offering types for 2011-11-01 You can choose from a variety of Reserved 01
Amazon EC2 Reserved Instance offerings that address your projected use December
Instances of the instance. 2011

Amazon EC2 instance 2011-11-01 You can view additional details about the status 16
status of your instances, including scheduled events November
planned by AWS that might have an impact 2011
on your instances. These operational activities
include instance reboots required to apply
software updates or security patches, or instance
retirements required where there are hardware
issues. For more information, see Monitor the
status of your instances (p. 821).

Amazon EC2 Cluster Added support for Cluster Compute Eight Extra 14
Compute Instance Type Large (cc2.8xlarge) to Amazon EC2. November
2011

Spot Instances in 2011-07-15 Added information about the support for Spot 11
Amazon VPC Instances in Amazon VPC. With this update, users October
can launch Spot Instances a virtual private cloud 2011
(VPC). By launching Spot Instances in a VPC,
users of Spot Instances can enjoy the benefits of
Amazon VPC.

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Feature API Description Release

version date

Simplified VM import 2011-07-15 The VM Import process is simplified with the 15

process for users of the enhanced functionality of ImportInstance September
CLI tools and ImportVolume, which now will perform 2011
the upload of the images into Amazon EC2
after creating the import task. In addition, with
the introduction of ResumeImport, users can
restart an incomplete upload at the point the task
stopped.

Support for importing VM Import can now import virtual machine 24 August
in VHD file format image files in VHD format. The VHD file format 2011
is compatible with the Citrix Xen and Microsoft
Hyper-V virtualization platforms. With this
release, VM Import now supports RAW, VHD and
VMDK (VMware ESX-compatible) image formats.
For more information, see the VM Import/Export
User Guide.

Support for Windows VM Import now supports Windows Server 2003 24 August
Server 2003 R2 (R2). With this release, VM Import supports all 2011
versions of Windows Server supported by Amazon
EC2.

Update to the Amazon Added information about the 1.1 version of the 27 June
EC2 VM Import Amazon EC2 VM Import Connector for VMware 2011
Connector for VMware vCenter virtual appliance (Connector). This update
vCenter includes proxy support for Internet access, better
error handling, improved task progress bar
accuracy, and several bug fixes.

Spot Instances 2011-05-15 Added information about the Spot Instances 26 May
Availability Zone pricing Availability Zone pricing feature. In this release, 2011
changes we've added new Availability Zone pricing options
as part of the information returned when you
query for Spot Instance requests and Spot
price history. These additions make it easier to
determine the price required to launch a Spot
Instance into a particular Availability Zone.

AWS Identity and Added information about AWS Identity and 26 April
Access Management Access Management (IAM), which enables users to 2011
specify which Amazon EC2 actions a user can use
with Amazon EC2 resources in general. For more
information, see Identity and access management
for Amazon EC2 (p. 1071).

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Feature API Description Release

version date

Dedicated instances Launched within your Amazon Virtual Private 27 March

Cloud (Amazon VPC), Dedicated Instances are 2011
instances that are physically isolated at the host
hardware level. Dedicated Instances let you
take advantage of Amazon VPC and the AWS
cloud, with benefits including on-demand elastic
provisioning and pay only for what you use, while
isolating your Amazon EC2 compute instances
at the hardware level. For more information, see
Dedicated Instances (p. 363).

Reserved Instances Updates to the AWS Management Console make 27 March

updates to the AWS it easier for users to view their Reserved Instances 2011
Management Console and purchase additional Reserved Instances,
including Dedicated Reserved Instances.

Support for Windows Amazon EC2 now provides you with several 15 March
Server 2008 R2 pre-configured Windows Server 2008 R2 AMIs. 2011
These AMIs are immediately available for use in
every region and in most 64-bit instance types,
excluding t1.micro and HPC families. The AMIs will
support multiple languages.

Metadata information 2011-01-01 Added information about metadata to reflect 11 March

changes in the 2011-01-01 release. For more 2011
information, see Instance metadata and
user data (p. 588) and Instance metadata
categories (p. 605).

Amazon EC2 VM Import Added information about the Amazon EC2 VM 3 March
Connector for VMware Import Connector for VMware vCenter virtual 2011
vCenter appliance (Connector). The Connector is a plug-in
for VMware vCenter that integrates with VMware
vSphere Client and provides a graphical user
interface that you can use to import your VMware
virtual machines to Amazon EC2.

Force volume You can now use the AWS Management Console 23
detachment to force the detachment of an Amazon EBS February
volume from an instance. For more information, 2011
see Detach an Amazon EBS volume from a
Windows instance (p. 1217).

Instance termination You can now use the AWS Management Console 23
protection to prevent an instance from being terminated. February
For more information, see Enable termination 2011
protection (p. 449).

VM Import 2010-11-15 Added information about VM Import, which 15

allows you to import a virtual machine or volume December
into Amazon EC2. For more information, see the 2010
VM Import/Export User Guide.

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Feature API Description Release

version date

Basic monitoring for 2010-08-31 Added information about basic monitoring for 12
instances EC2 instances. December
2010

Filters and Tags 2010-08-31 Added information about listing, filtering, and 19
tagging resources. For more information, see List September
and filter your resources (p. 1456) and Tag your 2010
Amazon EC2 resources (p. 1463).

Idempotent Instance 2010-08-31 Added information about ensuring idempotency 19

Launch when running instances. September
2010

Micro instances 2010-06-15 Amazon EC2 offers the t1.micro instance 8

type for certain types of applications. For September
more information, see Burstable performance 2010
instances (p. 161).

AWS Identity and Amazon EC2 now integrates with AWS Identity 2
Access Management for and Access Management (IAM). For more September
Amazon EC2 information, see Identity and access management 2010
for Amazon EC2 (p. 1071).

Cluster instances 2010-06-15 Amazon EC2 offers cluster compute instances for 12 July
high-performance computing (HPC) applications. 2010
For more information about the hardware
specifications for each Amazon EC2 instance type,
see Amazon EC2 Instance Types.

Amazon VPC IP Address 2010-06-15 Amazon VPC users can now specify the IP address 12 July
Designation to assign an instance launched in a VPC. 2010

Amazon CloudWatch Amazon CloudWatch monitoring is now 14 June

monitoring for Amazon automatically available for Amazon EBS volumes. 2010
EBS Volumes For more information, see Amazon CloudWatch
metrics for Amazon EBS (p. 1388).

High-memory extra 2009-11-30 Amazon EC2 now supports a High-Memory 22

large instances Extra Large (m2.xlarge) instance type. For more February
information about the hardware specifications for 2010
each Amazon EC2 instance type, see Amazon EC2
Instance Types.

Reserved Instances with Amazon EC2 now supports Reserved Instances 22

Windows with Windows. February
2010

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