cheatsheets/ec2.md

title: EC2 API tools

Install

$ sudo apt-get install ec2-api-tools ec2-ami-tools  # Ubuntu
$ brew install ec2-api-tools ec2-ami-tools  # OSX/Homebrew

Key pair

To use public images (AMI's), you need an SSH keypair from EC2.

$ ec2-add-keypair my-keypair > ~/.ec2/my-keypair.pem
$ chmod 600 ec2-keypair.pem

Start an instance

# Show images (AMI's) owned by amazon, or me
$ ec2-describe-images -o self -o amazon

# Start an instance using a given AMI image
$ ec2-run-instances ami-xxxxxx -k ec2-keypair

# Open up ports (in the 'default' security group)
$ ec2-authorize default -p 22
$ ec2-authorize default -p 80

# Now SSH to it
$ ssh -i ~/.ec2/my-keypair.pem root@ec2-xxx.amazonaws.com

Management

# Show running
$ ec2-describe-instances

# Kill an instance
$ ec2-terminate-instances i-yourinstance

Misc

# Create a security group
$ ec2-add-group group_name -d "Description"

Ubuntu images

• Ubuntu EC2 AMI locator

Change certificates

EC2_CERT_PATH="$HOME/.ec2"
export EC2_PRIVATE_KEY="$(/bin/ls $EC2_CERT_PATH/pk-*.pem | /usr/bin/head -1)"
export EC2_CERT="$(/bin/ls $EC2_CERT_PATH/cert-*.pem | /usr/bin/head -1)"