CODEWITHSUNDEEP
amazon-web-servicesamazon-ec2aws-cli
t2-micro
t2-micro

Reputation: 1

EC2 instance from AWS command line

I am very new to AWS. I've got a Windows instance running and have my aws command line configured. I've read through the AWS docs but can't seem to find exactly what I'm looking for.

How do I view my current instances from the command line?

Upvotes: 0

Views: 1591

Answers (2)

ataylor
ataylor

Reputation: 66099

As noted in the answer by Rodrigo M, you should use describe-instances to view your EC2 instances. In general, the help command is the best way to explore the CLI. Start with aws ec2 help and try the various options. You can get more details on subcommands with aws ec2 describe-instances help as well.

The output is a bit verbose and by default in JSON. This can be a bit overwhelming and hard to read without additional processing. I'd recommend getting familiar with the --query aws CLI parameter if you intend to use the CLI interactively.

In particular, I use this for a quick overview of my EC2 instances:

aws ec2 describe-instances --query 'Reservations[].Instances[].[InstanceId, Tags[?Key==`Name`] | [0].Value, State.Name, PublicDnsName]' --output table

To check one particular attribute on an instance:

aws ec2 describe-instances --query Reservations[0].Instances[0].InstanceType --output text --instance-ids <my-instance-id>

The CLI is very powerful once you get comfortable with learning the commands and managing the output. It's also helpful for learning the porgramming APIs as well, since aws CLI commands generally map one-to-one with an API call.

Upvotes: 1

Rodrigo Murillo
Rodrigo Murillo

Reputation: 13648

If by view your current instances, you mean list all running instances from the command line, you can call the describe-instances command:

aws ec2 describe-instances

This will list all of your current instances.

See describe-instances

Upvotes: 1

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