aws cli ec2 describe-instances table output - amazon-web-services

Question

I want to run an ec2 describe-instances command and get output in a table format as follows (where name is the Value of the Tag with Key 'Name'):
----------------------------------------------------------
| DescribeInstances |
+-------------+----------------+--------------+----------+
| instance_id | ip_address | name | state |
+-------------+----------------+--------------+----------+
| i-g93g494d | 99.99.99.01 | name1 | running |
| i-a93f754c | 99.99.99.02 | name2 | running |
+-------------+----------------+--------------+----------+
I can run the following command:
aws ec2 describe-instances --instance-ids i-g93g494d i-a93f754c --query "Reservations[*].Instances[*].{name: Tags[?Key=='Name'].Value, instance_id: InstanceId, ip_address: PrivateIpAddress, state: State.Name}" --output json
and obtain output:
[
[
{
"instance_id": "i-g93g494d",
"state": "running",
"ip_address": "99.99.99.01",
"name": [
"name1"
]
}
],
[
{
"instance_id": "i-a93f754c",
"state": "running",
"ip_address": "99.99.99.02",
"name": [
"name2"
]
}
]
]
However, when I run the same command with --output table rather than --output json I get an error.
command:
aws ec2 describe-instances --instance-ids i-g93g494d i-a93f754c --query "Reservations[*].Instances[*].{name: Tags[?Key=='Name'].Value, instance_id: InstanceId, ip_address: PrivateIpAddress, state: State.Name}" --output json
output:
list index out of range
I would like the table output to look like the above example but I'm having difficulty solving this. I'd very much appreciate any help anyone can offer on this.

Answer 1

You need to use pipe expression to filter the Tag results and get the first value such as:
aws ec2 describe-instances --instance-ids i-g93g494d i-a93f754c --query "Reservations[*].Instances[*].{name: Tags[?Key=='Name'] | [0].Value, instance_id: InstanceId, ip_address: PrivateIpAddress, state: State.Name}" --output table
There is a nice related blog post here: Get a list of instance with id, name and type

Answer 2

Here's a python program that can be used to generate listings from the descibe-instances command:
import json
import sys
with open( sys.argv[1] ) as f:
aws = json.load( f )
Reservations = aws['Reservations']
for Reservation in Reservations:
Instances = Reservation['Instances']
for Instance in Instances:
Tags = Instance['Tags']
for Tag in Tags:
if Tag['Key'] == "Name":
print Tag['Value'],Instance['PrivateIpAddress'],Instance['InstanceId'],Instance['State']['Name']
BTW, I absolutely LOVE Volkan Paksoy's answer. That's going into my bag o' tricks. The above python may have the advantage of allowing you to be more expressive with your search criteria or somehow combining results. In short, it's python, and you don't have to figure out how to use the aws syntax.
Here's how to invoke the python script above:
python parse.py <( aws ec2 describe-instances )
Of course, your mileage may vary. For instance, you may not have your region defaulted so, you may need to add an extra parameter as follows:
python parse.py <( aws ec2 --region us-east-2 describe-instances )
And you can than manipulate the output a bit to select only running instances and put in a well formatted column list:
python parse.py <( aws ec2 --region us-east-2 describe-instances ) | column -t | sort -k1,1 | cat -n | grep running
One last note, as I stated, I am a fan of the one liner provided by Volkan. I was just wondering how if the column ordering can be manipulated. I found that aws is sorting the columns alphabetically. To make the ordering obvious, I put numbers in front of the attribute names. However, these attribute names weren't interpreted properly as identifiers, so I had to quote them with double quotes. Here's what I wound up with, please note the subtle quoting changes ( and not so subtle quoting around 'Name' ):
aws ec2 describe-instances --query 'Reservations[*].Instances[*].{"01-name": Tags[?Key=='"'Name'"'] | [0].Value, "03-instance_id": InstanceId, "02-ip_address": PrivateIpAddress, "04-state" : State.Name}' --output table