Is there any way to install exe/MSI agents in AWS EC2 instances in an automated way?? In specific, I am looking for a counterpart of Azure's Custom Script Extension. [Free of cost]
Scenario:
I want to install BigFix and Datadog agents on 1000 Ec2 instances, this is a one time job, so I am not looking for any solution that involves Chef / Puppet, etc.,
Yes, you can pass a script to the instance that will be executed on the first boot (but not thereafter). It is often referred to as a User Data script.
See:
Running Commands on Your Windows Instance at Launch - Amazon Elastic Compute Cloud
Running Commands on Your Linux Instance at Launch - Amazon Elastic Compute Cloud
If you wish to install after the instance has started, use the AWS Systems Manager Run Command.
Related
I created multiple (say 16) AWS EC2 ubuntu instances such as:
I want to keep these instances to have the same settings for later jobs. My question is how I could manage them jointly. For example, how could I install Docker in all of them at once and so that I can use docker swarm?
Ideally you would actually configure the server build before you deploy the 16 instances.
You would launch a fresh Ubuntu server and install all of the software on it with its configuration. Once all software is installed you'd create an AMI. When you go to launch the 16 servers you'd go ahead with launching them from your AMI instead of the Ubuntu image.
To follow best practices you'd not do this installation by hand, instead using a configuration automation tool such as Ansible, Chef or Puppet to configure the server to your liking.
You can make use of aws user data to install same software on all the instance during ec2 creation.
https://docs.aws.amazon.com/AWSEC2/latest/UserGuide/user-data.html
I have a release of my project. I build a docker image and deploy it on an ec2 instance.
Later, when I have a new release, I would like update the docker on ec2 remotely (without accessing the machine, just executing some service).
Is there a way how to do it without ECS and ElasticBeanstalk?
If it's not possible can I somehow re-run the cfn-init script?
My Research
https://aws.amazon.com/blogs/aws/new-ec2-run-command-remote-instance-management-at-scale/
You can manage your instances remotely (i.e. make changes without manually SSHing into the instance and typing commands) by using any of the many system management services out there. AWS offers Simple Systems Manager (SSM) of which the Run Command you linked is part. AWS also offers the OpsWorks service which uses Chef. You also have other products like Ansible and SaltStack, and you can optionally integrate the use of those services with the AWS SSM service.
How to get a list of process running on Amazon EC2 instances via the AWS API?
This could be accomplished by using the Amazon EC2 Systems Manager Run Command, which uses an agent installed on EC2 instances to run remote commands.
It takes a bit of configuration, but allows you to run commands on potentially hundreds of instances with one command.
This isn't possible. The EC2 API doesn't provide any actions to perform operations or retrieve data from the operating system layer.
We are trying to automate running of multiple powershell scripts in AWS EC2 instance. Any suggestion how this can be done. These execution has to be sequential.
In order to configure state on a fresh EC2 instance, you can use 'User Data' in order to:
a. Fully provision and configure state using powershell, see:
http://docs.aws.amazon.com/AWSEC2/latest/WindowsGuide/ec2-instance-metadata.html#instancedata-add-user-data
b. Install an agent for a configuration management tool such as Puppet, Chef, Ansible (as mentioned in the comment above). An example of provisioning stock Window's AMI's can be followed here: http://blog.rolpdog.com/2015/09/manage-stock-windows-amis-with-ansible.html
If you wish to trigger scripts on an existing Amazon EC2 instance (or a whole fleet of instances), also consider Running PowerShell Commands or Scripts with Amazon EC2 Run Command.
What I need to do is: When a EC2 instance is launched, the lambda function or other installs the script to monitor memory and disk usage in the host.
I'm thinking in how I can do that.. Anyone can give me a idea?
You don't need a lambda. Pass your install script as user data.
See: Running Commands on Your Linux Instance at Launch
It appears that your requirement is to monitor Memory and Disk usage from an Amazon EC2 instance. I will assume that you want to monitor it via Amazon CloudWatch.
Amazon CloudWatch provides default metrics for EC2 instances including CPU utilization, network traffic and disk access. These metrics are visible from the hypervisor. However, CloudWatch cannot see 'inside' the EC2 instance, so it is necessary to run scripts from within the instance to track things like free memory and free disk space. The scripts talk to the operating system to retrieve these metrics, which is why they have to run 'within' the instance.
Some standard monitoring scripts are available for Linux instances: Monitoring Memory and Disk Metrics for Amazon EC2 Linux Instances
You can, of course, write your own scripts to send custom metrics to CloudWatch. Once installed, the scripts will run automatically when the instance is restarted.
If you wish to install these scripts (or your own scripts) on new EC2 instances, there are a couple of methods:
Install the scripts on one instance, then create an Amazon Machine Image (AMI) of that instance that contains a copy of the disk. You can then launch new instances using that AMI, and the scripts will already be installed on the new instances.
Launch the instance(s) with a User Data script to install the monitoring script. Any script passed through User Data will automatically be run the first time that the instance is started.
When you are using a scaling group you must specify a LaunchConfig.
Part of the LaunchConfig is the user-data script which is executed when the instance boots.
This can be also easily done from CloudFormation scripts if that is what you use to create the new EC2 VM.
You can find here samples of scripts.
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