iboto 0.20.2

Introduction

iboto offers an interactive shell with the basic set of ec2 commands from the Amazon command line tools, on steroids!

It adds:

• multiple account support

• multiple region support

• powerful filtering

• tab-completion on arguments:

  • amis

  • instance ids

  • tags

  • zones

  • instance types, etc.

  Saving much fiddly copy-pasting of ids around.

• much snappier

  Without having to load all of Java up first before running a command you’ll see it’s much snappier controlling instances compared to the Amazon tools (as great as they are!).

• extra functionality:

  • ec2ssh - waits for the instance to be running and SSH to be available before connecting; all without having to find and copy the public dns name, guess when it’s booted fully or even open a new terminal for SSH.

  • ec2watch - closely monitor what is happening to your instances whilst you’re waiting.

• all the nice features of ipython

  History recall, python integration, session recording, configurability, etc.

It’s probably best illustrated with a demo session:

~ % iboto
iboto ready

Commands available:
%ec2din  (aka ls)
%limit   (aka .)
%pop     (aka ..)
%ec2ssh
%ec2run
%ec2start
%ec2stop
%ec2kill
%ec2watch
%account
%region

'%command?' for more information.

demo1:us-east-1,demo2:eu-west-1
[1]: limit Role:demo

demo1:us-east-1,demo2:eu-west-1 Role:demo
[2]: ec2run -T Role:demo
account (demo1,demo2): demo1
region: us-east-1
instance type (m1.small,m1.large,m1.xlarge,c1.medium,c1.xlarge,m2.xlarge,m2.2xlarge,m2.4xlarge,cc1.4xlarge,t1.micro): t1.micro
number [1]:
key: default
security group (default) [default]:
zone (us-east-1a,us-east-1b,us-east-1c,us-east-1d,us-east-1e) [default]:
arch (i386,x86_64) [x86_64]:
ebs: yes
ami (lucid,maverick,natty,oneiric,precise,ami-xxxxxx): lucid
tags: Role:demo
Out[2]: <Result: success, Instances: i-63f38e07>

demo1:us-east-1,demo2:eu-west-1 Role:demo i-63f38e07
[3]: ec2ssh
Instance i-63f38e07
Waiting for i-63f38e07 pending->running... (Ctrl+C to abort)
Waiting for i-63f38e07 SSH port... (Ctrl+C to abort)
Connecting to ec2-107-21-194-97.compute-1.amazonaws.com... (Ctrl+C to abort)
The authenticity of host 'ec2-107-21-194-97.compute-1.amazonaws.com (107.21.194.97)' can't be established.
RSA key fingerprint is e7:fe:c9:a9:bb:cc:ca:88:f1:26:0d:86:b0:b7:9d:87.
Are you sure you want to continue connecting (yes/no)? yes
Warning: Permanently added 'ec2-107-21-194-97.compute-1.amazonaws.com,107.21.194.97' (RSA) to the list of known hosts.
Linux domU-12-31-38-01-A9-1C 2.6.32-342-ec2 #43-Ubuntu SMP Wed Jan 4 18:22:42 UTC 2012 x86_64 GNU/Linux
Ubuntu 10.04.4 LTS

Welcome to Ubuntu!
...
ubuntu@domU-12-31-38-01-A9-1C:~$ logout
Connection to ec2-107-21-194-97.compute-1.amazonaws.com closed.
Out[3]: 'i-63f38e07'

demo1:us-east-1,demo2:eu-west-1 Role:demo i-63f38e07
[4]: ..

demo1:us-east-1,demo2:eu-west-1 Role:demo
[5]: ec2run -T Role:demo
account (demo1,demo2): demo2
region: eu-west-1
instance type (m1.small,m1.large,m1.xlarge,c1.medium,c1.xlarge,m2.xlarge,m2.2xlarge,m2.4xlarge,cc1.4xlarge,t1.micro): t1.micro
number [1]:
key: default
security group (default) [default]:
zone (eu-west-1a,eu-west-1b,eu-west-1c) [default]:
arch (i386,x86_64) [x86_64]:
ebs: yes
ami (lucid,maverick,natty,oneiric,precise,ami-xxxxxx): lucid
tags: Role:demo
Out[5]: <Result: success, Instances: i-3affcd73>

demo1:us-east-1,demo2:eu-west-1 Role:demo i-3affcd73
[6]: ..

demo1:us-east-1,demo2:eu-west-1 Role:demo
[7]: ls
account instance    state    type      zone        ami           launch time       name
=======================================================================================
demo1 i-63f38e07  running  t1.micro  us-east-1d  ami-349b495d  2012-03-18 17:35
demo2 i-3affcd73  pending  t1.micro  eu-west-1b  ami-fb665f8f  2012-03-18 17:36

demo1:us-east-1,demo2:eu-west-1 Role:demo
[8]: ec2watch
Watching 2 instance(s) (press Ctrl+C to end)
 i-3affcd73  state: pending->running
^C
demo1:us-east-1,demo2:eu-west-1 Role:demo
[9]: I.public_dns_name
Out[9]:
[u'ec2-107-21-194-97.compute-1.amazonaws.com',
 u'ec2-176-34-173-80.eu-west-1.compute.amazonaws.com']

demo1:us-east-1,demo2:eu-west-1 Role:demo
[10]: I.placement
Out[10]: [u'us-east-1d', u'eu-west-1b']

demo1:us-east-1,demo2:eu-west-1 Role:demo
[11]: I.add_tag('MyTag', '123')
This will add_tag 2 instances, ok? (y/N) y
Out[11]: <Result: success, Instances: i-63f38e07, i-3affcd73>

demo1:us-east-1,demo2:eu-west-1 Role:demo
[12]: I.tags
Out[12]:
[{u'MyTag': u'123', u'Role': u'demo'},
 {u'MyTag': u'123', u'Role': u'demo'}]

demo1:us-east-1,demo2:eu-west-1 Role:demo
[13]: limit MyTag:123

demo1:us-east-1,demo2:eu-west-1 MyTag:123
[14]: I.add_volume(1, '/dev/sdf')
Creating and attaching volumes...
Created 2 volumes

demo1:us-east-1,demo2:eu-west-1 MyTag:123
[15]: ec2ssh latest
Instance i-3affcd73
Connecting to ec2-176-34-173-80.eu-west-1.compute.amazonaws.com... (Ctrl+C to abort)
The authenticity of host 'ec2-176-34-173-80.eu-west-1.compute.amazonaws.com (176.34.173.80)' can't be established.
RSA key fingerprint is c9:cc:8b:fe:bc:8b:59:6c:3b:0a:07:54:fc:c2:a8:8c.
Are you sure you want to continue connecting (yes/no)? yes
Warning: Permanently added 'ec2-176-34-173-80.eu-west-1.compute.amazonaws.com,176.34.173.80' (RSA) to the list of known hosts.
Linux ip-10-227-133-146 2.6.32-342-ec2 #43-Ubuntu SMP Wed Jan 4 18:22:42 UTC 2012 x86_64 GNU/Linux
Ubuntu 10.04.4 LTS
...
ubuntu@ip-10-227-133-146:~$ ls -al /dev/sdf
brw-rw---- 1 root disk 8, 80 2012-03-18 17:38 /dev/sdf
ubuntu@ip-10-227-133-146:~$ logout
Connection to ec2-176-34-173-80.eu-west-1.compute.amazonaws.com closed.
Out[15]: 'i-3affcd73'

demo1:us-east-1,demo2:eu-west-1 MyTag:123
[16]: ec2kill
This will terminate 2 instances, ok? (y/N) y
Out[16]: <Result: success, Instances: i-63f38e07, i-3affcd73>

demo1:us-east-1,demo2:eu-west-1 MyTag:123
[17]: ls
account instance    state    type      zone        ami           launch time       name
=======================================================================================
demo1 i-63f38e07  shutting t1.micro  us-east-1d  ami-349b495d  2012-03-18 17:35
demo2 i-3affcd73  shutting t1.micro  eu-west-1b  ami-fb665f8f  2012-03-18 17:36

demo1:us-east-1,demo2:eu-west-1 MyTag:123

Installation

Install with your favourite package manager:

$ pip install iboto

You can then run iboto from your path:

$ iboto

The default is to start the shell with every account/region visible. You can limit to a specific account/region from the command line:

$ iboto demo1 eu-west-1

Configuration

The first time iboto is run you’ll be taken through a wizard which will configure the credentials for your account(s).

Help

The best documentation is the command documentation accessed by entering ‘%command?’ at the shell prompt, e.g.:

'%ec2start?'

'%limit?'

Future plans

• Add the full set of ec2 tools

• Add further AWS apis.

• Parallel ec2ssh execution for more than one host.