Passing a script while starting an instance in Amazon EC2

Question

Is it possible to pass a script while starting an instance? Well, I want the script to be executed once the instance is initialized.

Any idea? The script will be kind of beginner script which I need to execute as soon as the instance is ready. Thanks in advance.

Answer 1

Use the user data to pass a script to a new EC2 Instance. I am not sure if you can start a pre-existing instance and pass it data.

I have a pre-configured AMI that has a script saved on the root drive.  This script is used to configure the server and download the latest source.

So your request could look like the following:

var runInstance = new RunInstancesRequest();

        runInstance.WithImageId("{ami-id}")
            .WithInstanceType("{size}")
            .WithMaxCount(1)
            .WithMinCount(1)
            .WithSecurityGroup("{the security group}")
            .WithKeyName("{your key}")
            .WithUserData(Convert.ToBase64String(Encoding.ASCII.GetBytes(userData)));

        ec2.RunInstances(runInstance);

The user data can contain either a reference to a script or the script itself.