Amazon Elastic Compute Cloud
CLI Reference (API Version 2013-02-01)
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ec2-get-console-output

Description

Retrieves console output for the specified instance.

Amazon EC2 instances do not have a physical monitor through which you can view their console output. They also lack physical controls that allow you to power up, reboot, or shut them down. To allow these actions, we provide them through the Amazon EC2 API and the command line tools.

Instance console output is buffered and posted shortly after instance boot, reboot, and termination. Amazon EC2 preserves the most recent 64 KB output which will be available for at least one hour after the most recent post.

For Linux/UNIX instances, the Amazon EC2 instance console output displays the exact console output that would normally be displayed on a physical monitor attached to a machine. This output is buffered because the instance produces it and then posts it to a store where the instance's owner can retrieve it.

For Windows instances, the Amazon EC2 instance console output displays the last three system event log errors.

The short version of this command is ec2gcons.

Syntax

ec2-get-console-output instance_id [-r]

Options

NameDescription

instance_id

The ID of the instance.

Type: String

Default: None

Required: Yes

Example: i-10a64379

-r, --raw-console-output

Returns raw output without escapes to facilitate reading.

Type: String

Default: Disabled

Required: No

Example: -r

Common Options

OptionDescription

--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.

OptionDescription

-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 instance ID

  • A timestamp indicating the time of the last update

  • The instance console output. By default the ^ESC character is escaped and duplicate new-lines are removed to facilitate reading

Amazon EC2 command line tools display errors on stderr.

Examples

Example Request

This example retrieves the console output for the i-10a64379 Linux and UNIX instance.

PROMPT> ec2-get-console-output i-10a64379
i-10a64379
2010-04-08T09:20:29+0000
Linux version 2.6.21.7-2.ec2.v1.2.fc8xen (root@domU-12-34-56-0A-78-01) (gcc version 4.1.2 20070925 (Red Hat 4.1.2-33)) #1 SMP Fri Nov 20 19:22:36 EST 2009
BIOS-provided physical RAM map:
sanitize start
sanitize bail 0
copy_e820_map() start: 0000000000000000 size: 000000006ac00000 end: 000000006ac00000 type: 1
Xen: 0000000000000000 - 000000006ac00000 (usable)
980MB HIGHMEM available.
727MB LOWMEM available.
NX (Execute Disable) protection: active
...

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