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Autostarting EC2-compatible instances with launch templates on a Snowball Edge

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Autostarting EC2-compatible instances with launch templates on a Snowball Edge - AWS Snowball Edge Developer Guide

You can automatically start your Amazon EC2-compatible instances on your AWS Snowball Edge device using launch templates and Snowball Edge client launch configuration commands.

A launch template contains the configuration information necessary to create an Amazon EC2-compatible instance on your Snowball Edge. You can use a launch template to store launch parameters so you don't have to specify them every time that you start an EC2-compatible instance on your Snowball Edge.

When you use autostart configurations on your Snowball Edge, you configure the parameters that you want your Amazon EC2-compatible instance to start with. After your Snowball Edge is configured, when you reboot and unlock it, it uses your autostart configuration to launch an instance with the parameters that you specified. If an instance that you launched using an autostart configuration is stopped, the instance starts running when you unlock your device.

Note

After you first configure an autostart configuration, restart your device to launch it. All subsequent instance launches (after planned or unplanned reboots) happen automatically after your device is unlocked.

A launch template can specify the Amazon Machine Image (AMI) ID, instance type, user data, security groups, and tags for an Amazon EC2-compatible instance when you launch that instance. For a list of supported instance types, see Quotas for compute instances on a Snowball Edge device.

To automatically launch EC2-compatible instances on your Snowball Edge, take the following steps:

  1. When you order your AWS Snowball Edge device, create a job to order a Snowball Edge device with compute instances. For more information, see Creating a job to order a Snowball Edge.

  2. After receiving your Snowball Edge, unlock it.

  3. Use the EC2-compatible API command aws ec2 create-launch-template to create a launch template.

  4. Use the Snowball Edge client command snowballEdge create-autostart-configuration to bind your EC2-compatible instance launch template to your network configuration. For more information, see Creating an EC2-compatible launch configuration on a Snowball Edge.

  5. Reboot, then unlock your device. Your EC2-compatible instances are automatically started using the attributes specified in your launch template and your Snowball Edge client command create-autostart-configuration.

To view the status of your running instances, use the EC2-compatible API command describe-autostart-configurations.

Note

There is no console or job management API for AWS Snowball Edge support for launch templates. You use EC2-compatible and Snowball Edge client CLI commands to automatically start EC2-compatible instances on your AWS Snowball Edge device.

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