Configuring a Windows Instance Using the EC2Config Service

To change settings using the Ec2 Service Properties dialog box

1. Launch and connect to your Windows instance.

2. From the Start menu, click All Programs, and then click EC2ConfigService Settings.

3. On the General tab of the Ec2 Service Properties dialog box, you can enable or disable the following settings.

   Set Computer Name

   Sets the hostname of the instance to a unique name based on the IP address of the instance and reboots once after booting. To set your own hostname, or to prevent your existing hostname from being modified, don't enable this setting.

   User Data

   User Data execution enables you to inject scripts into the instance metadata during the first launch. From an instance, you can read User Data at http://169.254.169.254/latest/user-data. This information remains static for the life of the instance, persisting when the instance is stopped and started, until it is terminated.

   If you use a large script, we recommend that you use User Data to download the script, and then execute it.

   For EC2Config to execute User Data, you must enclose the lines of the script within one of the following special tags:

   <script></script>

   Run any command that you can run at the cmd.exe prompt.

   Example: <script>dir > c:\test.log</script>

   <powershell></powershell>

   Run any command that you can run at the Windows PowerShell prompt.

   If you use an AMI that includes the AWS Tools for Windows PowerShell, you can also use those cmdlets. If you specify an IAM role when you launch your instance, then you don't need to specify credentials to the cmdlets, as applications that run on the instance can use the role's credentials to access AWS resources such as Amazon Simple Storage Service (Amazon S3) buckets.

   Example: <powershell>Read-S3Object -BucketName myS3Bucket -Key myFolder/myFile.zip -File c:\destinationFile.zip</powershell>

   If both script and powershell tags are present, the batch script is executed first, and then the PowerShell script, regardless of the order in which they appear.

   EC2Config expects the User Data to be available in base64 encoding. If the User Data is not available in base64 encoding, EC2Config logs an error about being unable to find script or powershell tags to execute. If your encoding is not correct, the following is an example that sets the encoding using PowerShell.

   $UserData = [System.Convert]::ToBase64String([System.Text.Encoding]::ASCII.GetBytes($Script))

   Initial Boot

   By default, all Amazon AMIs have User Data execution enabled for the initial boot. If the user clicks Shutdown with Sysprep in Ec2Config, User Data execution is re-enabled, regardless of the setting of the User Data checkbox.

   User Data execution happens under the local Administrator user only when a random password is generated. This is because Ec2Config generates the password and is aware of the credentials briefly (prior to sending to the console. Ec2Config doesn't store or track password changes, so when you don't generate a random password, User Data execution is performed by the Ec2Config service account.

   Subsequent Boots

   Because the User Data plugin automatically disables when run, you must do one of the following to persist User Data across reboots:

   • Programmatically create a scheduled task to run at system start using schtasks.exe /Create, and point the scheduled task to the userdata script (or another script) at C:\Program Files\Amazon\Ec2ConfigServer\Scripts\UserScript.ps1.

   • Programmatically re-enable the User Data plugin in Settings.xml using script similar to the following.

     <powershell>
     $EC2SettingsFile="C:\Program Files\Amazon\Ec2ConfigService\Settings\Config.xml"
     $xml = [xml](get-content $EC2SettingsFile)
     $xmlElement = $xml.get_DocumentElement()
     $xmlElementToModify = $xmlElement.Plugins
     
     foreach ($element in $xmlElementToModify.Plugin)
     {
         if ($element.name -eq "Ec2SetPassword")
         {
             $element.State="Enabled"
         }
         elseif ($element.name -eq "Ec2HandleUserData")
         {
             $element.State="Enabled"
         }
     }
     $xml.Save($EC2SettingsFile)
     </powershell>

   • Starting with Ec2Config version 2.1.10, you can use <persist>true</persist> to re-enable the plugin after user data execution.

   Event Log

   Enables the display of event log entries on the console during boot for easy monitoring and debugging.

   Click the Settings button to specify filters for the log entries sent to the console. By default, the three most recent error entries from the System event log are sent to the console.

   Wallpaper Information

   Enables the display of system information on the desktop background. The information displayed on the desktop background is controlled by the settings file EC2ConfigService\Settings\WallpaperSettings.xml.

   The following is an example of the information displayed on the desktop background.

   

   

4. Click the Storage tab. You can enable or disable the following settings.

   Root Volume

   Dynamically extends Disk 0/Volume 0 to include any unpartitioned space. This can be useful when the instance is booted from a root device volume that has a custom size.

   Initialize Drives

   Formats and mounts all instance store volumes attached to the instance during startup.

   Drive Letter Mapping

   By default, the system maps the volumes that you attach to an instance to drive letters. The system can choose any available drive letter. To choose the drive letters for your volumes, click the Mappings button. In the DriveLetterSetting dialog box, specify the Volume Name and Drive Letter for each volume, and then click OK. We recommend that you select driver letters starting at the end of the alphabet (Z:, Y:, and so on) to avoid conflicts with drive letters that are already in use.

   After you specify a drive letter mapping and attach a volume with same label as one of the volume names that you specified, EC2Config automatically assigns that volume the drive letter that you specified for it. However, the drive letter mapping fails if the drive letter is already in use. Note that EC2Config doesn't change the drive letters of volumes that were already mounted when you specified the drive letter mapping.

   

5. To save your settings and continue working on them later, click OK to close the Ec2 Service Properties dialog box.

   Otherwise, if you have finished customizing your instance and are ready to create your AMI from this instance, click the Image tab. Select an option for the Administrator password, and then click Shutdown with Sysprep or Shutdown without Sysprep. EC2ConfigService edits the settings files based on the password option that you selected.

   

   When you are asked to confirm that you want to run Sysprep and shut down the instance, click Yes. You'll notice that EC2ConfigService runs Sysprep. Next, you are logged off the instance, and the instance is shut down. If you check the Instances page in the EC2 console, the instance state changes from running to stopping, and then finally to stopped. At this point, it's safe to create an AMI from this instance.

   You can manually invoke the Sysprep tool from the command line using the following command:

   %ProgramFiles%\Amazon\Ec2ConfigService\ec2config.exe -sysprep

   However, you must be very careful that the XML file options specified in the Ec2ConfigService\Settings folder are correct, otherwise, you might not be able to connect to the instance. For more information about the settings files, see EC2Config Settings Files. For an example of configuring and then running Sysprep from the command line, see Ec2ConfigService\Scripts\InstallUpdates.ps1.

To install the latest version of EC2Config

1. Go to Amazon Windows EC2Config Service

2. Click the Download button.

3. Download and unzip the file.

4. Run EC2Install.exe. The setup program stops the service, uninstalls it, and reinstalls the new version.

5. Reboot your instance.

6. Connect to your instance, run the Services administrative tool, and verify that the status of EC2Config service is Started.

To stop the EC2Config service

1. Launch and connect to your Windows instance.

2. On the Start menu, point to Administrative Tools, and then click Services.

3. In the list of services, right-click EC2Config, and select Stop.

To delete the EC2Config service

1. Start a command prompt window.

2. Run the following command:

   sc delete ec2config

To uninstall EC2Config

1. Launch and connect to your Windows instance.

2. On the Start menu, click Control Panel.

3. Double-click Programs and Features.

4. On the list of programs, select EC2ConfigService, and click Uninstall .