awsctl

awsctl

Simple AWS command line for managing EC2 instances

TL;DR;

Key capabilities are to quickly list, start, stop EC2 service instances based on name or instance-id and to retrieve the AWS Windows password using the key-pair used to create a Windows image

Currently this tools only supports using the AWS shared configuration state (by default located in ~/.aws)

Installing AWSCTL

To install AWSCTL there are a couple of options:

Download the platform specific binary from the Github release page

Linux

curl -L https://github.com/gertd/awsctl/releases/download/v0.0.12/awsctl-linux-amd64 > ~/awsctl
chmod +x ~/awsctl

OSX

curl -L https://github.com/gertd/awsctl/releases/download/v0.0.12/awsctl-darwin-amd64 > awsctl
chmod +x ~/awsctl

Windows (using PowerShell)

[Net.ServicePointManager]::SecurityProtocol = [Net.SecurityProtocolType]::Tls12
Invoke-WebRequest -Uri https://github.com/gertd/awsctl/releases/download/v0.0.12/awsctl-windows-amd64.exe -OutFile ~\awsctl.exe

Go Get

Using go get, this requires the golang compiler 1.10.1 or higher to be installed. See https://golang.org/dl/

go get -x https://github.com/gertd/awsctl

Runing go get will install the process architecture specific binary in the $GOPATH/bin directory

Help

awsctl --help
AWS instance manager

Usage:
  awsctl [command]

Available Commands:
  list        list instance status
  pwd         get Windows password
  start       start instances
  stop        stop instances
  version     display version information
  help        Help about any command
  
Flags:
      --access-key-id string       AWS AccessKeyID
  -h, --help                       help for awsctl
      --profile string             AWS profile
      --region string              AWS region: default all
      --secret-access-key string   AWS SecretAccessKey
      		
Use "awsctl [command] --help" for more information about a command.

List - list instances in all regions

awsctl list
Instance ID         - Region         Public IP Addr  State         Name
-------------------------------------------------------------------------------
i-0908c2a42a46f67d6 - us-east-2      N/A             stopped
i-04907c97017c96798 - us-west-2      xxx.xxx.xxx.xxx running       jumpbox
i-0a1ef338556f8d2b9 - us-west-2      xxx.xxx.xxx.xxx running       win2016

List - list Windows instances in region us-west-2

awsctl list --windows --region us-west-2
Instance ID         - Region         Public IP Addr  State         Name
-------------------------------------------------------------------------------
i-0a1ef338556f8d2b9 - us-west-2      xxx.xxx.xxx.xxx running       win2016

Parameters:

• --instance-id || --name (one of optional, defaults to all)
• --region
• --windows

Start - start all or single service instance

Start all

awsctl start
starting stopped instances...
i-0a1ef338556f8d2b9 stopped -> pending
i-04907c97017c96798 stopped -> pending
i-0908c2a42a46f67d6 stopped -> pending
waiting for instances to be started...
i-04907c97017c96798 - xxx.xxx.xxx.xxx running       jumpbox
i-0908c2a42a46f67d6 - xxx.xxx.xxx.xxx running
i-0a1ef338556f8d2b9 - xxx.xxx.xxx.xxx running       win2016

Start single instance

awsctl start --name jumpbox
starting stopped instances...
i-04907c97017c96798 stopped -> pending
waiting for instances to be started...
i-04907c97017c96798 - xxx.xxx.xxx.xxx running       jumpbox

Parameters:

• --instance-id || --name || --all (one of required)
• --region (optional)

Stop - stop all or single service instance

Stop all

awsctl stop
stopping running instances...
i-0a1ef338556f8d2b9 running -> stopping
i-04907c97017c96798 running -> stopping
i-0908c2a42a46f67d6 running -> stopping
waiting for instances to be stopped...
i-04907c97017c96798 - N/A             stopped       jumpbox
i-0908c2a42a46f67d6 - N/A             stopped
i-0a1ef338556f8d2b9 - N/A             stopped       win2016

Stop single instance by name

awsctl stop --name jumpbox
stopping running instances...
i-04907c97017c96798 running -> stopping
waiting for instances to be stopped...
i-04907c97017c96798 - N/A             stopped       jumpbox

Parameters:

• --instance-id || --name || --all (one of required)
• --region (optional)

Pwd - retrieve Windows password

Parameters:

• --instance-id || --name (one of required)
• --keyfile (required)

NOTE: If the keyfile contains a passphrase, the user will be prompted to provide the passphrase

Outputs:

• md5: key file md5 fingerprint (used for AWS imported keys)
• sha1: key file sha1 fingerprint (used for AWS generated keys)
• pwd: decrypted password

The fingerprints are provided to ease the correlation with the AWS KeyPair information, in order to identify the key used to creatd the Windows EC2 instance.

awsctl pwd --instance-id i-0a1ef338556f8d2b9 --key-file ~/.ssh/id_rsa
passphrase>>
md5  bd:4d:40:e2:cf:8c:5e:c8:9a:c2:4a:02:ba:70:2b:a6
sha1 a3:e6:21:6e:33:af:30:82:7f:95:9d:09:10:c6:ee:37:04:21:f3:bc
pwd  xxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxx

Version - version info

awsctl version
awsctl - v0.0.12@eb97789 [2018-04-16T21:13:22+0000].[darwin].[amd64]

Authentication

AWSCTL provides 3 ways to authenticate with AWS, in order of evaluation:

1. Shared configuration (~/.aws/config)
2. Environment variables (AWS_ACCESS_KEY_ID or AWS_ACCESS_KEY and AWS_SECRET_ACCESS_KEY or AWS_SECRET_KEY)
3. Command line arguments --access-key-id and --secret-access-key

Command line example:

awsctl list --access-key-id $MY_AWS_ACCESS_KEY_ID --secret-access-key $MY_AWS_SECRET_ACCESS_KEY

Todo List

Capabilities to add:

• command line login override (incl masked password entry)
• support for selecting configuration
• short parameter support for instance (-i) and name (-n)
• make start/stop all explicit using commandline parameter --all
• support list -instance-id or --name for singleton status
• add header to list output
• add error handling for when AWS config is not present
• add windows filter to list command
• Proviode masked input prompt when --access-key-id or --secret-access-key empty