Setting up the CLI tools

• Download and unzip the tools:
  • wget http://s3.amazonaws.com/ec2-downloads/ec2-api-tools.zip
  • unzip ec2-api-tools.zip
• Next, you need to generate keys which will allow you to access your EC2 instances without being logged in through a browser
  • Go to the management console and select "Security Credentials" from the menu in the upper right-hand corner
  • On the Security Credentials page, go to "Access Keys" and select "Create New Root Key"
  • This will download a csv file containing both your "AWSAccessKeyId" and "AWSSecretKey"
• Now we will need to set some environment variables

export EC2_HOME=/opt/ec2-api-tools-1.6.8.1	(location of the unzipped ec2 tools)
export PATH=$PATH:$EC2_HOME/bin	(add the directory to your path)
export AWS_ACCESS_KEY=ABCDEFGHIJKLMNOPQRST	(value of "AWSAccessKeyId" downloaded earlier)
export AWS_SECRET_KEY=abc123DEFghiJKL456789+mnoPqRsTUV0wxyZ123	(value of "AWSSecretKey" downloaded earlier)
export EC2_URL=https://ec2.us-west-2.amazonaws.com	(The URL of your default EC2 region. Can be found here)

• Everything should now be set up to use

Using the CLI tools

• Now that the CLI tools have been set up, we will use them to launch an instance
• If your PATH has been set properly, the commands can be used from anywhere. All commands begin with "ec2"
• To launch an instance, we will use the command "ec2-run-instances" or the short form "ec2run"
• The full command will resemble this: "ec2run ami-0358ce33 -t t1.micro -n 1 -k ec2DemoKey -g sg-565ab739"
  • "ami-0358ce33" specifies the AMI to use. This is the ID for the Amazon Linux AMI
  • "-t t1.micro" specifies what type of instance we wish to launch
  • "-n 1" indicates that we want to launch a single instance
  • "-k ec2DemoKey" specifies the key that this instance requires to connect
  • "-g sg-565ab739" specifies the security group the instance uses. This is the ID for the "quick-start-1" group
• After executing this command, output will be generated, giving all the generated instance's properties. Check the management console to verify the instance is launching

• A full listing and description of the commands can be found here: Commands (CLI Tools)
• A quick reference card for common commands can be found here: Reference Card
• All commands provide usage information if "-h" is used on the command line

Working from an Instance

User Data Scripts

• When launching an instance, the "User Data" field may be utilized to pass any information to an instance
• This data can then be read from within the instance (next section) or executed as a script on startup
• Anytime the user data begins with the characters "#!", it will be run at startup under the root user
• From command line, user data can be provided inline with "-d" or as a file with "-f"
• The following script provided as user data will execute the quick start instructions from above automatically:

#!/bin/bash
sudo yum -y update
curl -L https://get.rvm.io | bash -s stable --ruby
source /home/ec2-user/.rvm/scripts/rvm
wget www.cs.ubc.ca/~hutter/AC_on_the_Cloud.tar.gz
tar xzvf AC_on_the_Cloud.tar.gz
cd AC_on_the_Cloud
ruby scripts/blackbox_evaluator.rb -f

Accessing Instance Metadata

• Information about an instance such as AMI, instance ID, and user data can be accessed from within the instance itself
• The following examples show various pieces of information that can be accessed:

GET http://169.254.169.254/latest/user-data
GET http://169.254.169.254/latest/meta-data/ami-id
GET http://169.254.169.254/latest/meta-data/instance-type
GET http://169.254.169.254/latest/meta-data/instance-id

• Using just "http://169.254.169.254/latest/meta-data" will list names of the pieces of meta-data that can be accessed

CLI Tools on instances

• If your instance is running the Amazon Linux AMI, it will have the CLI Tools already installed
• The keys and region will not be set
• You can either set the environment variables for "AWS_ACCESS_KEY", "AWS_SECRET_KEY", and "EC2_URL" or
• You can provide these as command line options with each command: "-O, --aws-access-key", "-W, --aws-secret-key", and "-U, --url"