Amazon EC2 - Launch Instance

<AMAWSEC2 IMAGEID="text (options)" INSTANCETYPE="text (options)" 
SECURITYGROUP="text" KEYPAIR="text" ZONE="text (options)" 
TOTALINSTANCES="number" KERNALID="text" 
RAMDISKID="text" USERDATA="text" SUBNETID="text" 
MONITORING="yes/no" RESULTDATASET="text" ACCESSKEY="text" 
SECRETKEY="text (encrypted)" SERVICEURL="text" 
PROXYHOST="text" USERAGENT="text" PROXYPORT="number" 
PROXYUSER="text" PROXYPWD="text (encrypted)" 
MAXERRORRETRY="text" SIGNMETHOD="text" SIGNVERSION="number" />

Description: Launches a specific number of instances of an AMI (Amazon Machine Image) for which you have permissions.

IMPORTANT: The AWS EC2 activities are performed using Amazon's EC2 engine, therefore, launching and administering Amazon EC2 instances requires a valid Access Key ID and Secret Access Key.

Practical Usage

Used to launch an instance, which is a copy of the AMI running as a virtual server in the cloud. An AMI is a special type of virtual appliance which is used to create a virtual machine within the Amazon Elastic Compute Cloud. It serves as the basic unit of deployment for services delivered using EC2. Your instance keeps running until you stop or terminate it, or until it fails. If an instance fails, you can launch a new one from the AMI.

Connection Parameters

Property

Type

Required

Default

Markup

Description

Connection

 

 

 

 

Indicates where user credentials and preferences should originate from. This is a design mode parameter used only during task construction and configuration, thus, comprises no markup. The available options are:

  • Host (default) - Specifies that user credentials and/or advanced preferences are configured individually for this activity. Normally chosen if only a single activity is required to complete an operation.

  • Session - Specifies that user credentials and/or advanced preferences are obtained from a pre-configured session created in an earlier step with the use of the EC2 - Create session activity. Normally chosen if a combination of activities within the same action group are required. Linking several activities to a single session eliminates redundancy and improves efficiency. Several sessions can exist in a single task. Multiple sessions can run simultaneously without interference.

Session

Text

Yes if connection is session-based

EC2Session1

SESSION="EC2Session1"

The name of an existing session to attach this activity to. This parameter is active only if the Connection parameter is set to Session.

Access key

Text

Yes if connection is host-based

(Empty)

ACCESSKEY=

"022QF06E7MXBSH9DHM02"

A 20-character alphanumeric string that uniquely identifies the owner of the AWS service account, similar to a username. This key along with a corresponding secret access key forms a secure information set that AWS uses to confirm a valid user's identity. This parameter is active only if the Connection parameter is set to Host.

Secret Access key

Text

Yes if connection is host-based

(Empty)

SECRETKEY=

"kWcrlUX5JEDGM/LtmEENI/

aVmYvHNif5zB+d9+ct"

A 40-character string that serves the role as password to access the AWS service account. This along with an associated access key forms a secure information set that EC2 uses to confirm a valid user's identity. This parameter is active only if the Connection parameter is set to Host.

User agent

Text

No

AutoMate

USERAGENT="AutoMate"

The name of the client or application initiating requests to AWS. The default value is 'AutoMate'. 

Service URL

Text

No

(Empty)

SERVICEURL=

"https://ec2.eu-west-1.amazonaws.com"

The URL that provides the service endpoint. To make the service call to a different region, you can pass the region-specific endpoint URL. For example, entering  https://ec2.us-west-1.amazonaws.com points to US West (Northern California) region. A complete list of EC2 regions, accompanying endpoints and valid protocols can be found below under EC2 Regions and Endpoints.

Maximum retry on error

Number

No

(Empty)

MAXERRORRETRY="4"

The total amount of instances this activity should retry the request before returning an error. Network components can generate errors anytime in the life of a request, thus, implementing retries can increase reliability. 

Proxy host

Text

No

(Empty)

  1. PROXYHOST="proxy.host.com"

  2. PROXYHOST="193.118.431.52"

The host name (e.g., server.domain.com) or IP address (e.g., xxx.xxx.xxx.xx) of the proxy server to use when connecting to AWS.  

Proxy port

Number

No

(Empty)

PROXYPORT="1028"

The port that should be used to connect to the proxy server.

Signature method

Text

No

(Empty)

SIGNMETHOD="HmacSHA256"

The signature method to use for signing the request. This provides a valid hashing algorithm for signature calculation. Valid AWS signature methods are HmacSHA1 and HmacSHA256.

Signature version

Number

No

(Empty)

SIGNVERSION="2"

The signature version for signing the request. Valid AWS signature versions are 2 and 4. The difference with version 4 is that it allows you to sign your message using a key that is derived from your secret access key rather than using the secret access key itself.

Instance Parameters

Property

Type

Required

Default

Markup

Description

Image ID

Text (Options)

Yes

(Empty)

  • IMAGEID="ami-b232d0db"

  • IMAGEID="ami-22b0534b"

  • IMAGEID="ami-2cb05345"

  • IMAGEID="ami-84db39ed"

  • IMAGEID="ami-69c32f00"

  • IMAGEID="ami-45c22e2c"

  • IMAGEID="ami-cdc22ea4"

  • IMAGEID="ami-2bc32f42"

The unique ID of a machine image. Use the List images activity to gather a list of images. The available options are:

  • ami-b232d0db | Getting Started on Fedora Core 8

  • ami-22b0534b | Ruby on Rails Web Starter

  • ami-2cb05345 | LAMP Web Starter

  • ami-84db39ed | Basic Fedora Core 8

  • ami-69c32f00 | Getting Started on Microsoft Windows Server 2008

  • ami-45c22e2c | Basic Microsoft Windows Server 2008

  • ami-cdc22ea4 | Basic 64-bit Microsoft Windows Server 2008

  • ami-2bc32f42 | Microsoft SQLServer 2008 on Windows Server 2008

Instance type

Text (Options)

Yes

(Empty)

  • INSTANCETYPE="m1.small"

  • INSTANCETYPE="c1.medium"

  • INSTANCETYPE="m1.large"

  • INSTANCETYPE="m1.xlarge"

  • INSTANCETYPE="m2.xlarge"

  • INSTANCETYPE="m2.2xlarge"

  • INSTANCETYPE="m2.4xlarge"

  • INSTANCETYPE="c1.xlarge"

The size of the instance to launch. Larger instance types have more CPU and memory. The available options are:

  • m1.small | Small (32-bit)

  • c1.medium | High-CPU Medium (32-bit)

  • m1.large | Large (64-bit)

  • m1.xlarge | Extra Large (64-bit)

  • m2.xlarge | High-Memory Extra Large (64-bit)

  • m2.2xlarge | High-Memory Double Extra Large (64-bit)

  • m2.4xlarge | High-Memory Quadruple Extra Large (64-bit)

  • c1.xlarge | High-CPU Extra Large (64-bit)

Security group

Text

Yes

(Empty)

SECURITYGROUP="LinuxGroup"

The name of the security group. A security group is a named collection of access rules that specify which incoming network traffic should be delivered to your instance. Use the Create security group activity to create a new security group.

Key pair name

 

Yes

(Empty)

KEYPAIR="websvr-keypair"

The name of the key pair (Example: -k websvr-keypair).

Availability zone

Text (Options)

Yes

No preference

  • ZONE="no-preference"

  • ZONE="us-east-1a"

  • ZONE="us-east-1b"

  • ZONE="us-east-1c"

  • ZONE="us-east-1d"

  • ZONE="us-east-1e"

The zone in which to launch the instance(s). The available options are:

  • No Preference (default)

  • us-east-1a

  • us-east-1b

  • us-east-1c

  • us-east-1d

  • us-east-1e

Number of instance(s)

Number

Yes

1

TOTALINSTANCES="3"

The number of instances based on the selected AMI to launch. The default value is 1.

NOTE: If Amazon EC2 cannot launch the specified number of instances, no instances will launch.

Create and populate dataset with instance information

Text

No

(Empty)

RESULTDATASET="datasetname"

The name of a dataset to create and populate with information regarding the launched instances. More details regarding the fields that this dataset creates can be found below under Datasets.

Advanced Parameters

Property

Type

Required

Default

Markup

Description

Kernel ID

Text

No

(Empty)

KERNELID="aki-ba3adfd3"

The unique ID of the kernel with which to launch the instance (Example: kernel aki-ba3adfd3).

RAM disk ID

Text

No

(Empty)

RAMDISKID="ari-abcdef01"

The unique ID of the RAM disk to select (Example: ari-abcdef01). Some kernels require additional drivers at launch. Check the kernel requirements for information on whether you need to specify a RAM disk.

User data

Text

No

(Empty)

USERDATA="user-data.txt"

Specifies Base64-encoded MIME user data to be made available to the instance(s) in this reservation.

Subnet ID

Text

No

(Empty)

SUBNETID="subnet-f3e6ab83"

Specifies the Amazon VPC subnet ID within which to launch the instance(s) for Amazon Virtual Private Cloud.

Enable cloud watch monitoring

Yes/No

No

No

MONITORING="yes"

If set to YES, enables monitoring for the instance (set to NO by default).

Description tab - A custom description can be provided on the Description tab to convey additional information or share special notes about a task step.

Error Causes tab - Specify how this step should behave upon the occurrence of an error. (Refer to Task Builder > Error Causes Tab for details.)

On Error tab - Specify what AWE should do if this step encounters an error as defined on the Error Causes tab. (Refer to Task Builder > On Error Tab for details.)

EC2 Regions and Endpoints

This table contains a complete list of EC2 endpoints, accompanying regions and supported protocols.

Endpoint

Region

Protocol

ec2.us-east-1.amazonaws.com

US East (Northern Virginia) Region

HTTP and HTTPS

ec2.us-west-2.amazonaws.com

US West (Oregon) Region

HTTP and HTTPS

ec2.us-west-1.amazonaws.com  

US West (Northern California) Region

HTTP and HTTPS

ec2.eu-west-1.amazonaws.com

EU (Ireland) Region

HTTP and HTTPS

ec2.ap-southeast-1.amazonaws.com

Asia Pacific (Singapore) Region

HTTP and HTTPS

ec2.ap-southeast-2.amazonaws.com

Asia Pacific (Sydney) Region

HTTP and HTTPS

ec2.ap-northeast-1.amazonaws.com

Asia Pacific (Tokyo) Region

HTTP and HTTPS

ec2.sa-east-1.amazonaws.com  

South America (Sao Paulo) Region

HTTP and HTTPS

Datasets

A dataset is a multiple column, multiple row container object. This activity creates and populates a dataset containing a specific set of fields in addition to the standard dataset fields. The table below describes these fields (assuming the dataset assigned is named theDataset).

Name

Type

Return Value

theDataset.PublicIp

Text

Returns the public IP address assigned to your account (elastic IP address).

theDataset.InstanceId

Text

Returns the instance ID associated to the public IP address.

Example

The sample AML code below can be copied and pasted directly into the Steps panel of the Task Builder.

Description: Get list of Elastic IPs and store it into dataset "mydataset". Elastic IP is "67.202.55.255". Use default EC2 session.

<AMAWSEC2 IMAGEID="ami-b232d0db" INSTANCETYPE="m1.small" 
KEYPAIR="websvr-keypair" SECURITYGROUP="LinuxGroup" 
ZONE="No Preference" />