Search ec2 instance by its name from aws command line tool

Question

I have an instance named dev-server-03. Now how can I search all dev-server-* instances from command line?

I am using aws cli tool.

This depends on how you've named the instance. Did you set the hostname inside the OS, on the AWS console or both? — Craig Watson, Dec 10 '13 at 13:16

score 92 · Accepted Answer · answered Dec 10 '13 at 23:20

92

Assuming that you are using the convention of putting the name of the instance in a tag with the key of "Name" (this is what the AWS Console does when you enter a name), then you can use the --filters option to list those instances with aws-cli:

aws ec2 describe-instances --filters 'Name=tag:Name,Values=dev-server-*'

If you just wanted the instance ids of those instances, you could use:

aws ec2 describe-instances --filters 'Name=tag:Name,Values=dev-server-*' \
  --output text --query 'Reservations[*].Instances[*].InstanceId'

Note: --query may require a recent version of aws-cli but it's worth getting.

answered Dec 10 '13 at 23:20

Eric Hammond

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Omg it took me almost half an hour to figure this out... how weird is this : `Name=tag:Name` – lisak Apr 09 '15 at 14:40
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Thanks Eric - I was getting multiple instance IDs on the same line, using your query, but https://github.com/aws/aws-cli/issues/914#issuecomment-56210312 suggested `--query 'Reservations[].Instances[].[InstanceId]` which works for me – jaygooby Sep 05 '16 at 20:35
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FWIW, the `jq` tool can be used to get similar results to `aws --query` like this: `aws ec2 describe-instances | jq '.Reservations[].Instances[].PrivateIpAddress'` --note the preceding `.` dot. – MarkHu Nov 08 '17 at 19:04
can you make describe-instances filters case insensitive? – red888 Nov 06 '18 at 14:59
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Also worth adding filter `'Name=instance-state-name,Values=running'`, as terminated instances show up in results for a while. – yurez Nov 23 '20 at 10:59

score 11 · Answer 2 · answered Jul 25 '18 at 16:01

11

You can further filter with name, instance id and private ip with below,

aws ec2 describe-instances --filters "Name=tag:Name,Values=*myinstance*" --output json --query 'Reservations[*].Instances[*].[PrivateIpAddress,InstanceId,Tags[?Key==`Name`].Value]' --region us-east-1

answered Jul 25 '18 at 16:01

Siva Prasad Koka

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This filtering by Key name was exactly what I was looking for, thank you! – ingernet Dec 13 '19 at 04:43
Specifying region was exactly thing without which command refused to work. Now it works, thank you! – Dmitriy Vinokurov May 12 '20 at 08:00
surrounding with `*` worked for me – Andre Leon Rangel Jun 01 '21 at 03:37

enharmonic · Answer 3 · 2020-02-14T15:19:46.277

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If you're using jq, you can achieve this with:

aws ec2 describe-instances | 
jq -r '.Reservations[].Instances[] | 
select(.Tags[].Value | startswith("dev-server-"))'

You can append additional filters to jq for more specific results, such as:

... startswith("dev-server-")) | .PublicDnsName'

edited Feb 14 '20 at 15:19

answered Feb 13 '20 at 22:49

enharmonic

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Search ec2 instance by its name from aws command line tool

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