Run EC2Rescue commands on an Amazon EC2 Linux instance

EC2Rescue is a command line tool. After you have installed EC2Rescue on your Linux instance, you can get general help on how to use the tool by running ./ec2rl help. You can view the available modules by running ./ec2rl list, and you can get help on a specific module by running ./ec2rl help module_name.

The following are common tasks you can perform to get started using this tool.

Run EC2Rescue modules

To run all EC2Rescue modules

Use the ./ec2rl run command without specifying any additional parameters. Some modules require root access. If you are not a root user, use sudo when you run the command.

./ec2rl run

To run a specific EC2Rescue module

Use the ./ec2rl run command and for --only-modules, specify the name of the module to run. Some modules require arguments to use them.

./ec2rl run --only-modules=module_name --arguments

For example, to run the dig module to query the amazon.com domain, use the following command.

./ec2rl run --only-modules=dig --domain=amazon.com

To view the results of an EC2Rescue module

Run the module then view the log file in cat /var/tmp/ec2rl/logfile_location. For example, the log file for the dig module can be found in the following location:

cat /var/tmp/ec2rl/timestamp/mod_out/run/dig.log

Upload the EC2Rescue module results

If AWS Support has requested the results for a EC2Rescue module, you can upload the log file using the EC2Rescue tool. You can upload the results either to a location provided by AWS Support or to an Amazon S3 bucket that you own.

To upload results to a location provided by AWS Support

Use the ./ec2rl upload command. For --upload-directory, specify the location of the log file. For --support-url, specify the URL provided by AWS Support.

./ec2rl upload --upload-directory=/var/tmp/ec2rl/logfile_location --support-url="url_provided_by_aws_support"

To upload results to an Amazon S3 bucket

Use the ./ec2rl upload command. For --upload-directory, specify the location of the log file. For --presigned-url, specify a presigned URL for the S3 bucket. For more information about generating pre-signed URLs for Amazon S3, see Uploading Objects Using Pre-Signed URLs.

./ec2rl upload --upload-directory=/var/tmp/ec2rl/logfile_location --presigned-url="presigned_s3_url"

Create backups of an Amazon EC2 Linux instance

You can use EC2Rescue to backup your Linux instance by creating an AMI or by creating snapshots of it's attached volumes.

To create an AMI

Use the ./ec2rl run command and for --backup, specify ami.

./ec2rl run --backup=ami

To create multi-volume snapshots of all attached volumes

Use the ./ec2rl run command and for --backup, specify allvolumes.

./ec2rl run --backup=allvolumes

To create a snapshot of a specific attached volume

Use the ./ec2rl run command and for --backup, specify the ID of the volume to back up.

./ec2rl run --backup=volume_id