ec2-describe-snapshots

Description

Describes one or more of the Amazon EBS snapshots available to you. Snapshots available to you include public snapshots available for any AWS account to launch, private snapshots you own, and private snapshots owned by another AWS account but for which you've been given explicit create volume permissions.

The create volume permissions fall into 3 categories:

Permission	Description
public	The owner of the snapshot granted create volume permissions for the snapshot to the `all` group. All AWS accounts have create volume permissions for these snapshots.
explicit	The owner of the snapshot granted create volume permissions to a specific AWS account.
implicit	An AWS account has implicit create volume permissions for all snapshots it owns.

You can modify the list of snapshots returned by specifying snapshot IDs, snapshot owners, or AWS accounts with create volume permissions. If you don't specify any options, Amazon EC2 returns all snapshots for which you have create volume permissions.

If you specify one or more snapshot IDs, only snapshots that have the specified IDs are returned. If you specify an invalid snapshot ID, an error is returned. If you specify a snapshot ID for which you do not have access, it will not be included in the returned results.

If you specify one or more snapshot owners, only snapshots from the specified owners and for which you have access are returned. The results can include the AWS account IDs of the specified owners, amazon for snapshots owned by Amazon, or self for snapshots that you own.

If you specify a list of restorable users, only snapshots with create snapshot permissions for those users are returned. You can specify AWS account IDs (if you own the snapshot(s)), self for snapshots for which you own or have explicit permissions, or all for public snapshots.

Tip

Use the --help option to view examples of ways to use this command.

The short version of this command is ec2dsnap.

Syntax

ec2-describe-snapshots [snapshot_id ...] [-a] [-o owner ...] [-r user_id] [[--filter "name=value"] ...]

Options

Name	Description
`snapshot_id`	One or more snapshot IDs. Type: String Default: Describes all snapshots for which you have launch permissions. Required: No Example: snap-78a54011
`-a, --all` `owner`	Describe all snapshots (public, private or shared) to which you have access. Type: String Default: None Required: No Example: -a
`-o, --owner` `owner`	Describes snapshots owned by the specified owner. Multiple owners can be specified. Type: String Valid values: `self` \| `amazon` \| `AWS Account ID` Default: None Required: No Example: -o AKIAIOSFODNN7EXAMPLE
`-r, --restorable-by` `user_id`	The ID of an AWS account that can create volumes from the snapshot. Type: String Valid values: `self` \| `all` \| an AWS account ID Default: None Required: No Example: -r self
`-F, --filter` `name`=`value`	A filter for limiting the results. See the Supported Filters section for a list of supported filters. Use quotation marks if the value string has a space ("name=value example"). On a Windows system, use quotation marks even without a space in the value string ("name=value"). Type: String Default: Describes all snapshots for which you have launch permissions, or only those you specified by ID. Required: No Example: --filter "tag-key=Production"

Supported Filters

You can specify filters so that the response includes information for only certain snapshots. For example, you can use a filter to specify that you're interested in snapshots whose status is pending. You can specify multiple values for a filter. The response includes information for a snapshot only if it matches at least one of the filter values that you specified.

You can specify multiple filters; for example, specify snapshot's that have a pending status, and have a specific tag. The response includes information for a snapshot only if it matches all the filters that you specified. If there's no match, no special message is returned, the response is simply empty.

You can use wildcards in a filter value. An asterisk (*) matches zero or more characters, and a question mark (?) matches exactly one character. You can escape special characters using a backslash (\) before the character. For example, a value of \*amazon\?\\ searches for the literal string *amazon?\.

The following are the available filters.

description

A description of the snapshot.

Type: String

owner-alias

The AWS account alias (for example, amazon) that owns the snapshot.

Type: String

owner-id

The ID of the AWS account that owns the snapshot.

Type: String

progress

The progress of the snapshot, as a percentage (for example, 80%).

Type: String

snapshot-id

The snapshot ID.

Type: String

start-time

The time stamp when the snapshot was initiated.

Type: DateTime

status

The status of the snapshot.

Type: String

Valid values: pending | completed | error

tag-key

The key of a tag assigned to the resource. This filter is independent of the tag-value filter. For example, if you use both the filter "tag-key=Purpose" and the filter "tag-value=X", you get any resources assigned both the tag key Purpose (regardless of what the tag's value is), and the tag value X (regardless of what the tag's key is). If you want to list only resources where Purpose is X, see the tag:key filter.

For more information about tags, see Tagging Your Resources in the Amazon Elastic Compute Cloud User Guide.

Type: String

tag-value

The value of a tag assigned to the resource. This filter is independent of the tag-key filter.

Type: String

tag:key

Filters the response based on a specific tag/value combination.

Example: To list just the resources that have been assigned tag Purpose=X, specify:

--filter tag:Purpose=X

Example: To list just resources that have been assigned tag Purpose=X OR Purpose=Y, specify:

--filter tag:Purpose=X --filter tag:Purpose=Y

volume-id

The ID of the volume the snapshot is for.

Type: String

volume-size

The size of the volume, in GiB (for example, 20).

Type: String

Common Options

Option	Description
`--region` `REGION`	Overrides the region specified by the `EC2_URL` environment variable and the URL specified by the `-U` option. Default: The value of the `EC2_URL` environment variable, or `us-east-1` if `EC2_URL` isn't set. Example: `--region eu-west-1`
`-U, --url` `URL`	The uniform resource locator (URL) of the Amazon EC2 web service entry point. Default: The value of the `EC2_URL` environment variable, or https://ec2.amazonaws.com if `EC2_URL` isn't set. Example: `-U https://ec2.amazonaws.com`
`-K, --private-key` `EC2-PRIVATE-KEY`	The private key that identifies you to Amazon EC2. For more information, see Tell the Tools Who You Are. Default: The value of the `EC2_PRIVATE_KEY` environment variable. If `EC2_PRIVATE_KEY` isn't set, you must specify this option. Example: `-K pk-HKZYKTAIG2ECMXYIBH3HXV4ZBEXAMPLE.pem`
`-C, --cert` `EC2-CERT`	The X.509 certificate that identifies you to Amazon EC2. Default: The value of the `EC2_CERT` environment variable. If `EC2_CERT` isn't set, you must specify this option. Example: `-C cert-HKZYKTAIG2ECMXYIBH3HXV4ZBEXAMPLE.pem`
`-O, --aws-access-key` `AWS_ACCESS_KEY`	The access key ID associated with your AWS account. For more information, see Tell the Tools Who You Are. Default: The value of the `AWS_ACCESS_KEY` environment variable. If `AWS_ACCESS_KEY` isn't set, you must specify this option. Example: `-O AKIAIOSFODNN7EXAMPLE` Note For more information, see the following section, Deprecated Options.
`-W, --aws-secret-key` `AWS_SECRET_KEY`	The secret access key associated with your AWS account. Default: The value of the `AWS_SECRET_KEY` environment variable. If `AWS_SECRET_KEY` isn't set, you must specify this option. Example: `-W wJalrXUtnFEMI/K7MDENG/bPxRfiCYEXAMPLEKEY` Note For more information, see the following section, Deprecated Options.
`-T, --security-token TOKEN` `AWS_DELEGATION_TOKEN`	The AWS delegation token. Default: The value of the environment variable (if set).
`--connection-timeout` `TIMEOUT`	The connection timeout, in seconds. Example: `--connection-timeout 30`
`--request-timeout` `TIMEOUT`	The request timeout, in seconds. Example: `--request-timeout 45`
`-v, --verbose`	Displays verbose output, including the API request and response on the command line. This is useful if you are building tools to talk directly to our Query API.
`-H, --headers`	Includes column headers in the command output.
`--show-empty-fields`	Shows empty columns as `(nil)`.
`--hide-tags`	Omits tags for tagged resources.
`--debug`	Displays internal debugging information. This can assist us when helping you troubleshooting problems.
`-?, --help, -h`	Displays usage information for the command.
`-`	Reads arguments from standard input. This is useful when piping the output from one command to the input of another. Example: `ec2-describe-instances \| grep stopped \| cut -f 2 \| ec2-start-instances -`

Deprecated Options

For a limited time, you can still use the private key and X.509 certificate instead of your access key ID and secret access key. However, we recommend that you start using your access key ID (-O, --aws-access-key) and secret access key (-W, --aws-secret-key) now, as the private key (-K, --private-key) and X.509 certificate (-C, --cert) won't be supported after the transition period elapses. For more information, see Tell the Tools Who You Are.

Option Description

Option	Description
`-K, --private-key` `EC2-PRIVATE-KEY`	The private key to use when constructing requests to Amazon EC2. Default: The value of the `EC2_PRIVATE_KEY` environment variable. Example: `-K pk-HKZYKTAIG2ECMXYIBH3HXV4ZBEXAMPLE.pem`
`-C, --cert` `EC2-CERT`	The X.509 certificate to use when constructing requests to Amazon EC2. Default: The value of the `EC2_CERT` environment variable. Example: `-C cert-HKZYKTAIG2ECMXYIBH3HXV4ZBEXAMPLE.pem`

-K, --private-key EC2-PRIVATE-KEY

The private key to use when constructing requests to Amazon EC2.

Default: The value of the EC2_PRIVATE_KEY environment variable.

Example: -K pk-HKZYKTAIG2ECMXYIBH3HXV4ZBEXAMPLE.pem

-C, --cert EC2-CERT

The X.509 certificate to use when constructing requests to Amazon EC2.

Default: The value of the EC2_CERT environment variable.

Example: -C cert-HKZYKTAIG2ECMXYIBH3HXV4ZBEXAMPLE.pem

Output

This command returns a table that contains the following information:

The snapshot information
- The SNAPSHOT identifier
- The ID of the snapshot
- The ID of the volume
- The state of the snapshot (pending, completed, error)
- The time stamp when the snapshot initiated
- The percentage of completion
- The ID of the snapshot owner
- The size of the volume
- The description of the snapshot
Any tags associated with the snapshot
- The TAG identifier
- The resource type identifier
- The resource ID
- The tag key
- The tag value

Amazon EC2 command line tools display errors on stderr.

Examples

Example Request

This example describes snapshot snap-1a2b3c4d.

PROMPT>  ec2-describe-snapshots snap-1a2b3c4d
SNAPSHOT	snap-1a2b3c4d	vol-1a2b3c4d	completed	YYYY-MM-DDTHH:MM:SS.SSSZ	100%	111122223333	15	Daily Backup
TAG	snapshot	snap-1a2b3c4d	Name	Test

Example Request

This example filters the response to include only snapshots with the pending status, and that are also tagged with a value that includes the string db_.

PROMPT>  ec2-describe-snapshots --filter "status=pending" --filter "tag-value=*db_*"
SNAPSHOT	snap-1a2b3c4d	vol-1a2b3c4d	pending	YYYY-MM-DDTHH:MM:SS.SSSZ	30%	111122223333	15	demo_db_14_backup
TAG	snapshot	snap-1a2b3c4d	Purpose	db_14

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Description

Syntax

Options

Supported Filters

Common Options

Deprecated Options

Output

Examples

Example Request

Example Request

Related Topics

Download

Related Action

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ec2-describe-snapshots

Description

Syntax

Options

Supported Filters

Common Options

Deprecated Options

Output

Examples

Example Request

Example Request

Related Topics

Download

Related Action

Related Commands