aws ec2 describe-instances

https://docs.aws.amazon.com/cli/latest/reference/ec2/describe-instances.html

Examples

• Example output: aws ec2 describe-instances
• aws ec2 describe-instances --instance-ids
• aws ec2 describe-instances | grep InstanceType
• aws ec2 describe-instances | grep AvailabilityZone
• aws ec2 describe-instances | egrep "InstanceId|InstanceType|running"
• aws ec2 describe-instances | egrep "InstanceId|YOUR_INSTANCE_NAME"
• aws ec2 describe-instances | grep -A1 '"Key": "Name"'
• aws ec2 describe-instances --output text | egrep -w "Name|PLACEMENT"
• aws ec2 describe-instances --region us-west-1
• aws ec2 describe-instance --filter "Name=tag:Name,Values=YOUR-TAG-NAME" --query "Reservations[].Instances[?State.Name == 'running'].InstanceId[]" --output text)

Security Group

• aws ec2 describe-instances | grep "GroupName|GroupId"

List Instance ID, Type, status and Name

aws ec2 describe-instances | jq -r '.Reservations[].Instances[]|.InstanceId+" "+.InstanceType+" "+.State.Name+" "+(.Tags[] | select(.Key == "Name").Value)'

i-001d6ef48fd7da240 t3.xlarge stopped YourExample-workers-Node
i-00b1cf99a8fd118aa t2.large running your-machine-name
i-0a81356d71229695f t3.xlarge terminated YourExample-workers-Node

List Instances with public IP address and Name

aws ec2 describe-instances --query 'Reservations[*].Instances[?not_null(PublicIpAddress)]' | jq -r '.[][]|.PublicIpAddress+" "+(.Tags[]|select(.Key=="Name").Value)'
3.125.113.44   your-instance-name1
18.197.142.11  your-instance-name2
3.67.83.67     your-instance-name3
jq: error (at <stdin>:1904): Cannot iterate over null (null)

Remove Tags filter to avoid list of IPs to be truncated and get full list:
aws ec2 describe-instances --query 'Reservations[*].Instances[?not_null(PublicIpAddress)]' | jq -r '.[][].PublicIpAddress'

State

aws ec2 describe-instances | grep -iA2 -w state | grep Name

export INSTANCE_ID=$(aws ec2 run-instances .../... | jq -r '.Instances[].InstanceId')

Basic commands

aws ec2 describe-instances
An error occurred (AuthFailure) when calling the DescribeInstances operation: AWS was not able to validate the provided access credential
Solution: Review configuration with aws configure list

• aws ec2 describe-instances --profile YOUR_PROFILE

Related commands

• aws ec2 run-instances
• aws ec2 describe-addresses
• aws ec2 describe-instance-types
• aws ec2 describe-network-interfaces
• tags
• aws list all
• --region
• aws-ec2-describe-instances-all-regions
• aws ssm start-session
• aws ssm get-inventory
• aws ec2 get-console-output
• GCP: gcloud compute instances list
• aws ec2 describe-instance-status

See also

• AWS EC2, AWS::EC2, aws ec2 [ describe-instances | describe-instance-status | run-instances | terminate-instances | stop-instances | tags | describe-vpcs | describe-addresses | describe-availability-zones | describe-subnets | import-key-pair | create-key-pair | create-vpc | create-internet-gateway | modify-instance-attribute | ec2-instance-connect | get-console-output]
• AWS EC2, Amazon EC2 API, aws ec2, AWS::EC2, Amazon EC2 Spot Instances, CPU credits, Instance type, EC2 limitations, 169.254.169.254, Instance metadata and user data (IMDS), InstanceType, InstanceId, Amazon EC2 Auto Scaling, AWS EC2 Instance Connect, launch template, lifecycle, AWS Security group (SG), Amazon EC2 Recycle Bin, Amazon EC2 Mac Instances, Global View

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