Service quotas and restrictions for AWS CloudShell
This page describes the Service quotas and restrictions that apply to the following areas:
Persistent storage
With AWS CloudShell, you have persistent storage of 1 GB for each AWS Region at no cost. Persistent storage is located in your home directory ($HOME) and is private to you. Unlike ephemeral environment resources that are recycled after each shell session ends, data in your home directory persists between sessions.
Note
CloudShell VPC environments do not have persistent storage. The $HOME directory is deleted when your VPC environment times out (after 20-30 minutes of inactivity), or when you delete your environment.
If you stop using AWS CloudShell in an AWS Region, data is retained in the persistent storage of that Region for 120 days after the end of your last session. After 120 days, unless you take action, your data is automatically deleted from the persistent storage of that Region. You can prevent removal by launching AWS CloudShell again in that AWS Region. For more information, see Step 2: Select a Region, launch AWS CloudShell, and choose a shell.
Note
Usage scenario
Márcia has used AWS CloudShell to store files in her home directories in two AWS Regions: US East (N. Virginia) and Europe (Ireland). She then started using AWS CloudShell exclusively in Europe (Ireland) and stopped launching shell sessions in US East (N. Virginia).
Before the deadline for deleting data in US East (N. Virginia), Márcia decides to prevent her home directory from being recycled by launching AWS CloudShell and selecting the US East (N. Virginia) Region again. Because she has continually used Europe (Ireland) for shell sessions, her persistent storage in that Region isn't affected.
Monthly usage
Each AWS Region in your AWS account has a monthly usage quota for AWS CloudShell. This quota combines the total time spent using CloudShell by all IAM principals in that Region. If you attempt to access CloudShell after you reached the monthly quota for that Region, a message displays to explain why the shell environment can't be started.
Note
If you need to increase your monthly usage quotas, contact AWS Support
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CloudShell usage Region
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Your use case. For example, AWS CLI operation and Linux Command execution
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The number of CloudShell users. For example, 5-10
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The maximum estimate of time you use CloudShell in the Region
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CloudShell VPC environment usage
We can approve increasing the maximum time estimate to 1000 hours per month compared to the existing limit of 200 hours.
Command size
The command size cannot exceed 65412 characters.
Note
If you intend to execute the command that exceeds 65412 characters, then create a script with the language of your choice, and then execute it from the command line interface. For more information about the range of pre-installed software that can be accessed from the command line interface, see Pre-installed software.
To see as an example of how to create a script, and then execute it from the command line interface, see Tutorial: Getting started with AWS CloudShell.
Concurrent shells
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Concurrent shells: You can run up to 10 shells at the same time in each AWS Region for your account.
Shell sessions
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Inactive sessions: AWS CloudShell is an interactive shell environment—if you don't interact with it using your keyboard or pointer for 20–30 minutes, your shell session ends. Running processes don't count as interactions.
If you want to perform terminal-based tasks using an AWS service with more flexible timeouts, we recommend launching and connecting to an Amazon EC2 instance.
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Long-running sessions: A shell session that runs continuously for approximately 12 hours automatically end even if the user is regularly interacting with it during that period.
VPC environments
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You can only create up to two VPC environments per IAM principal.
Note
There is no charge to connect to your private VPC and access the resources within it. Data transfers within your Private VPC is included in your VPC billing, and data transfers between your VPCs through CloudShell are charged at the same cost as your current CloudShell.
Network access and data transfer
The following restrictions apply to both the inbound and outbound traffic of your AWS CloudShell environment:
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Outbound: You can access the public internet.
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Inbound: You can’t access inbound ports. No public IP address is available.
Warning
With access to the public internet, there's a risk that certain users might export data from the AWS CloudShell environment. We recommend that IAM administrators manage the allow list of trusted AWS CloudShell users through IAM tools. For information about how specific users can be explicitly denied access, see Managing allowable actions in AWS CloudShell using custom policies.
Data transfer: Uploading and downloading files to and from AWS CloudShell might be slow for large files. Alternatively, you can transfer files to your environment from an Amazon S3 bucket using the command line interface of the shell.
Restrictions on system files and page reloads
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System files: If you incorrectly modify files that are required by the compute environment, you might experience problems when accessing or using the AWS CloudShell environment. If this occurs, you might need to deleting your home directory to regain access.
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Reloading pages: To reload the AWS CloudShell interface, use the refresh button in your browser instead of the default shortcut key sequence for your operating system.
