Supported EC2-compatible instance metadata and user data on Snow Family devices - AWS Snowball Edge Developer Guide
Computer instance user data

Supported EC2-compatible instance metadata and user data on Snow Family devices

Instance metadata is data about your instance that you can use to configure or manage the running instance. Snowball Edge supports a subset of instance metadata categories for your compute instances. For more information, see Instance metadata and user data in the Amazon EC2 User Guide.

The following categories are supported. Using any other categories returns a 404 error message.

Supported instance metadata categories on a Snowball Edge device
Data Description
ami-id The AMI ID used to launch the instance.
hostname The private IPv4 DNS hostname of the instance.
instance-id The ID of this instance.
instance-type The type of instance.
local-hostname The private IPv4 DNS hostname of the instance.
local-ipv4 The private IPv4 address of the instance.
mac The instance's media access control (MAC) address.
network/interfaces/macs/mac/local-hostname The interface's local hostname.
network/interfaces/macs/mac/local-ipv4s The private IPv4 addresses associated with the interface.
network/interfaces/macs/mac/mac The instance's MAC address.
network/interfaces/macs/mac/public-ipv4s The Elastic IP addresses associated with the interface.
public-ipv4 The public IPv4 address.
public-keys/0/openssh-key Public key. Only available if supplied at instance launch time.
reservation-id The ID of the reservation.
userData Shell scripts to send instructions to an instance at launch.
Supported instance dynamic data categories on a Snowball Edge device
Data Description
instance-identity/document JSON containing instance attributes. Only instanceId, imageId, privateIp, and instanceType have values, and the other returned attributes are null. For more information, see Instance Identity Documents in the Amazon EC2 User Guide.

Computer instance user data on Snow Family devices

Use shell scripts to access compute instance user data on a Snowball Edge device. Using shell scripts, you can send instructions to an instance at launch. You can change user data with the modify-instance-attribute AWS CLI command, or the ModifyInstanceAttribute API action.

To change user data

  1. Stop your compute instance with the stop-instances AWS CLI command.

  2. Using the modify-instance-attribute AWS CLI command, modify the userData attribute.

  3. Restart your compute instance with the start-instances AWS CLI command.

Only shell scripts are supported for compute instances. There is no support for cloud-init package directives on compute instances running on a Snowball Edge device. For more information about working with AWS CLI commands, see the AWS CLI Command Reference.