CODEWITHSUNDEEP
amazon-web-servicesamazon-ec2
Joey Yi Zhao
Joey Yi Zhao

Reputation: 42576

Why can't I get windows password from AWS?

I launched a windows EC2 instance on AWS but I can't get the password for login. I keep getting this warning message even one day after launching the server. 

Password not available yet.
Please wait at least 4 minutes after launching an instance before trying to retrieve the auto-generated password.

Note: Passwords are generated during the launch of Amazon Windows AMIs or custom AMIs that have been configured to enable this feature. Instances launched from a custom AMI without this feature enabled use the username and password of the AMI's parent instance.

And I also tried below command line:

$ aws --profile ie ec2 get-password-data --instance-id i-xxxxx --priv-launch-key my.pem  --region ap-southeast-2

but it returns an empty password:

{
    "InstanceId": "i-xxxx",
    "PasswordData": "",
    "Timestamp": "2019-08-05T23:12:04.000Z"
}

So how can I get the password for this EC2 instance? I have tried to stop/start the instance but it doesn't help.

One possible reason is that the instance is launched from a customised AMI but I also don't know that AMI's password. Is there a way to reset the password?

Upvotes: 3

Views: 6601

Answers (1)

Udara Jayawardana
Udara Jayawardana

Reputation: 1148

It's possible that EC2Config is disabled. The empty string you are getting for console output caused by this. It could be an issue with the EC2Config service; either the misconfigured configuration file or that Windows failed to boot properly.

For recovery, I'd say try the password you used at the machine used to create the AMI and if it's not a custom made AMI, try a different one altogether. I'd be more helpful if you can share the AMI ID.

Additionally, if you are looking to recover data on an EBS volume of the server, you can follow this

Upvotes: 2

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