[session-manager-plugin] "aws ssm start-session" should print debug output to stderr instead of stdout

[heidemn]

Confirm by changing [ ] to [x] below to ensure that it's a bug:

• I've gone though the User Guide and the API reference
• I've searched for previous similar issues and didn't find any solution

Describe the bug

ssm start-session should enable the user to pipe stdout to a file or other command.
Currently, it dumps debug output to stdout, which is not helpful.

SDK version number
Same behavior with v1 and v2.
aws-cli/1.19.12 Python/3.8.5 Linux/4.19.128-microsoft-standard botocore/1.20.12
aws-cli/2.1.27 Python/3.7.3 Linux/4.19.128-microsoft-standard exe/x86_64.ubuntu.20 prompt/off

$ session-manager-plugin --version -> 1.2.54.0

Platform/OS/Hardware/Device
Ubuntu 20.04.1 LTS (in WSL2)

To Reproduce (observed behavior)

$ aws ssm start-session --target i-0123456789abcde --document-name AWS-StartInteractiveCommand --parameters 'command=["echo 42"]' > 42.txt
(no output)

$ cat 42.txt

Starting session with SessionId: root-0001234567abcde
42


Exiting session with sessionId: root-0001234567abcde.

Expected behavior

$ aws ssm start-session --target i-0123456789abcde --document-name AWS-StartInteractiveCommand --parameters 'command=["echo 42"]' > 42.txt

Starting session with SessionId: root-0001234567abcde

Exiting session with sessionId: root-0001234567abcde.

$ cat 42.txt
42

Logs/output
n/a

Additional context
Use case: Run a command on the instance, and do some follow-up actions (local or remote) based on the output.

Unix commands generally print additional info to stderr.
Only the main output / payload should go to stdout.

I could find the text "Starting session" / "session with SessionId" neither in this repo, nor in the botocore repo.
-> I assume that this needs to be fixed in the session-manager-plugin, which seems not to be available on Github.

[heidemn]

As requested by @kdaily , I'm re-opening aws/aws-cli#5965 here.

Hi @heidemn, thanks for the report. You're right, this would need to be fixed in the session manager plugin. I will alert the SSM team to this feature request.

You can open this issue here - unfortunately I do not have the permissions to transfer this issue to the other repository.
https://github.com/aws/amazon-ssm-agent
Thanks!

Thanks in advance for fixing this.

[nitikagoyal87]

Thanks for your feedback! We have noted this request.

[rmccue]

We are also interested in this feature, as using scp over a shell requires separating stderr from stdout in the stream. As SSM merges these streams together currently, it is not possible to use SSM for scp functionality.

[heidemn]

@nitikagoyal87 looking at the code, it seems that 42milez' PR should fix the issue.
Since the change is quite small, can we get it merged soon?

[ioquatix]

We have exactly the same problem.

@MehdiZonjy anyway we can get some more attention on this?

[ioquatix]

Even just an option to switch off this logging, or to specify a log device, e.g. --log /dev/null

[tapajos]

We have exactly the same problem.

@MehdiZonjy anyway we can get some more attention on this?

[ioquatix]

@tapajos you should file an internal support request in AWS.

[ioquatix]

@gianniLesl any chance we can merge this?

[cohesion-flotz]

Bumping this as I am having the same problem :)

[ioquatix]

Any progress on this?

[tapajos]

Not yet! I’m not having time to work on it.

[chancez]

aws/session-manager-plugin#94 should help with this if anyone wants to test it out.