Before you can use these tools you must export some variables to your $SHELL and download your X.509 certificate and private key from Amazon Web Services.
Your certificate and private key are available at .
Download two .pem files, one starting with pk-, and one starting with cert-. You need to put both into a folder in your home directory, ~/.ec2.
Key pair
# To use public images (AMI's), you need an SSH keypair from EC2.
ec2-add-keypair my-keypair > ~/.ec2/my-keypair.pem
chmod 600 ec2-keypair.pem
Start an instance
# Start an instance using a given AMI image:
# (Use the Ubuntu locator, or ec2-describe-images)
ec2-run-instances ami-xxxxxx -k ec2-keypair
# Open up ports (in the 'default' security group):
ec2-authorize default -p 22
ec2-authorize default -p 80
# Connect
ssh -i ~/.ec2/my-keypair.pem root@ec2-xxx.amazonaws.com
Management
# Show running instances
ec2-describe-instances
# Kill an instance
ec2-terminate-instances i-yourinstance
Misc
# Create a security group
ec2-add-group group_name -d "Description"
# Show images (AMI's) owned by amazon, or me
ec2-describe-images -o self -o amazon
