Supported Instance Metadata and User Data

Instance metadata is data about your instance that you can use to configure or manage the running instance. Snowball Edge supports a subset of instance metadata categories for your compute instances. For more information, see Instance metadata and user data in the Amazon EC2 User Guide for Linux Instances.

The following categories are supported. Using any other categories returns a 404 error message.

Supported instance metadata categories on a Snowball Edge
Data	Description
ami-id	The AMI ID used to launch the instance.
hostname	The private IPv4 DNS hostname of the instance.
instance-id	The ID of this instance.
instance-type	The type of instance.
local-hostname	The private IPv4 DNS hostname of the instance.
local-ipv4	The private IPv4 address of the instance.
mac	The instance's media access control (MAC) address.
network/interfaces/macs/mac/local-hostname	The interface's local hostname.
network/interfaces/macs/mac/local-ipv4s	The private IPv4 addresses associated with the interface.
network/interfaces/macs/mac/mac	The instance's MAC address.
network/interfaces/macs/mac/public-ipv4s	The Elastic IP addresses associated with the interface.
public-ipv4	The public IPv4 address.
public-keys/0/openssh-key	Public key. Only available if supplied at instance launch time.
reservation-id	The ID of the reservation.
userData	Shell scripts to send instructions to an instance at launch.

Supported instance dynamic data categories on a Snowball Edge
Data	Description
instance-identity/document	JSON containing instance attributes. Only instanceId, imageId, privateIp, and instanceType have values, and the other returned attributes are null. For more information, see Instance Identity Documents in the Amazon EC2 User Guide for Linux Instances.

User Data in Snowball Compute Instances

User data is supported for use with shell scripts for compute instances on a Snowball Edge. Using shell scripts, you can send instructions to an instance at launch. You can change user data with the modify-instance-attribute AWS CLI command, or the ModifyInstanceAttribute API action.

To change user data

1. Stop your compute instance with the stop-instances AWS CLI command.

2. Using the modify-instance-attribute AWS CLI command, modify the userData attribute.

3. Restart your compute instance with the start-instances AWS CLI command.

Only shell scripts are supported with compute instances. There is no support for cloud-init package directives on compute instances running on a Snowball Edge. For more information about working with AWS CLI commands, see the AWS CLI Command Reference.