How to describe instances from all regions? #1777

ApproximateIdentity · 2016-02-08T16:36:38Z

I'm trying to switch my workflow over to the cli from the aws control panel, but I've run into a very odd issue. I know how to describe instances within a region, but how do I describe all of my instances irrespective of regions? Or at least get an output of all ec2 regions so I can do this programmatically one by one (i.e. something like aws ec2 list-regions).

It's very odd because the cli seems to use different names for regions than the control panel. For one, apparently all of my instances are being started in region "us-west-2" (at least so far), but I cannot find that string anywhere in the control panel. In fact, I can't seem to find anywhere listing my default region at all.

Is there a command inside of aws that does this?

The text was updated successfully, but these errors were encountered:

JordonPhillips · 2016-02-08T18:05:17Z

The console doesn't allow you to list all instances irrespective of region, but it does hide the region identifiers with more descriptive text. us-west-2 is the datacenter located in Oregon, for instance. There's a drop-down in the top right of the console page that lets you select a region (pictured below).

For most services, there is not currently a programmatic way of discovering which regions are available, and so you will need to refer to this list. EC2 is one of the exceptions, however, as it provides the describe-regions function. Since the CLI is a wrapper over service APIs, we can't do multi-region searches unless the service supports it (S3, for instance, is mostly region-agnostic). You will have to provide the region with the --region argument to query in a different region.

Your default region is located in your configuration file (~/.aws/config on UNIX systems), and can be both shown and set with the aws configure command.

nonbeing · 2016-09-09T19:34:04Z

For people arriving here from Google, here's one way to list all your instances across all regions with the AWS CLI (based on the discussion above):

for region in `aws ec2 describe-regions --output text | cut -f3`
do
     echo -e "\nListing Instances in region:'$region'..."
     aws ec2 describe-instances --region $region
done

Fitblip · 2017-03-05T21:03:03Z

For those of you who also don't want to parse JSON with your eyeballs, here's an appended version that uses jq to give you a bit more-to-the-point summary.

for region in `aws ec2 describe-regions --output text | cut -f3`
do
     echo -e "\nListing Instances in region:'$region'..."
     aws ec2 describe-instances --region $region | jq '.Reservations[] | ( .Instances[] | {state: .State.Name, name: .KeyName, type: .InstanceType, key: .KeyName})'
done

Example output:

Listing Instances in region:'us-west-1'...
{
  "state": "stopped",
  "name": "scanner-1",
  "type": "t2.micro",
  "key": "scan1"
}
{
  "state": "stopped",
  "name": "cors",
  "type": "t2.micro",
  "key": "cors"
}
{
  "state": "stopped",
  "name": "scanner-2",
  "type": "t2.medium",
  "key": "scan2"
}

JordonPhillips · 2017-03-06T20:57:45Z

@nonbeing Nice! If you use that often, you should consider making it an alias.

pcgeek86 · 2017-06-16T22:47:49Z

Another option would be to use the AWS PowerShell .NET Core module, which runs natively on Linux, Mac, and Windows.

foreach ($Region in (Get-AWSRegion)) {
  Get-EC2Instance -Region $Region.Region
}

Results

GroupNames    : {}
Groups        : {}
Instances     : {asdf}
OwnerId       : 123
RequesterId   : 123
ReservationId : r-asdf

GroupNames    : {}
Groups        : {}
Instances     : {asdf}
OwnerId       : 123
RequesterId   : 123
ReservationId : r-asdf

GroupNames    : {}
Groups        : {}
Instances     : {asdf}
OwnerId       : 123
RequesterId   : 123
ReservationId : r-asdf

Output using Format-Table

By default, in the current version of the AWS PowerShell module, the EC2 instances are returned in the PowerShell "list" format. However, this is easily changed to tabular formatting, using the Format-Table command.

$InstanceList = @()
foreach ($Region in (Get-AWSRegion)) {
  $InstanceList += Get-EC2Instance -Region $Region.Region -ProfileName CIDBTest
}
$InstanceList | Format-Table

Results

GroupNames Groups Instances   OwnerId      RequesterId  ReservationId       RunningInstance
---------- ------ ---------   -------      -----------  -------------       ---------------
{}         {}     {asdf222}   123          123                  r-123               {asdf222}
{}         {}     {asdf222}   123          123                  r-123               {asdf222}
{}         {}     {asdf222}   123          123                  r-123               {asdf222}

jimdigriz · 2017-06-25T15:51:00Z

You could use jq, if you like adding more dependencies, or just use the built in --query in AWS CLI:

aws --profile whatever ec2 describe-instances --query 'Reservations[].Instances[].[State.Name,InstanceType]'
[
    [
        "running", 
        "t2.small"
    ], 
    [
        "running", 
        "t2.small"
    ], 
    [
        "running", 
        "m3.medium"
    ]
]

ygeo · 2017-08-08T11:03:04Z

while read -r r ; echo start region : $r ; do while read -r i ; do echo instance-id: $i 2>&1 ; done < <(aws ec2 describe-instances --query "Reservations[].Instances[].InstanceId" --region $r --profile prd|perl -nl -e 's/\s+/\n/g;print'); echo "stop region: $r" ; done < <(aws ec2 describe-regions --output text --profile prd| cut -f 3)

Selimcse98 · 2017-12-07T00:00:22Z

Include tags value to better understand your EC2 instances


for region in `aws ec2 describe-regions --output text | cut -f3`
do
     echo -e "\nListing Instances in region:'$region'..."
     aws ec2 describe-instances --region $region | jq '.Reservations[] | ( .Instances[] | {state: .State.Name, name: .KeyName, Tag_Name: .Tags[].Value,type: .InstanceType, key: .KeyName})'
done

Ahmed-AG · 2018-02-13T16:45:49Z

Just another solution I just wrote!
This small script can execute commands across all regions
Usage examples:
sudo ./aws-x.sh ec2 describe-instances
sudo ./aws-x.sh ec2 describe-instances | grep PrivateDnsName

#!/bin/bash

echo "Getting AWS Avaiable Regions:"
sudo aws ec2 describe-regions --region eu-west-2 |grep RegionName |cut -d '"' -f 4 > /tmp/regions.txt
cat /tmp/regions.txt

#Start executing
while read region; do
echo "Executing " $@ " on " $region ":"
aws --region $region $@
done</tmp/regions.txt

#cleanup
rm /tmp/regions.txt

nlsko · 2018-08-19T10:49:29Z

#!/bin/bash
echo Grabbing instances in all regions, please wait..
for region in aws ec2 describe-regions --output text | cut -f3
do
aws ec2 describe-instances --region $region --query 'Reservations[].Instances[].[State.Name,InstanceType,PublicIpAddress,Placement.AvailabilityZone]' --output text
done

#------output-------

#./get-instances.sh
#Grabbing instances in all regions, please wait..
#running t2.micro 54.93.120.174 eu-central-1b
#running t2.micro 54.86.91.202 us-east-1d

obijan42 · 2018-12-06T21:07:23Z

For those of you who also don't want to parse JSON with your eyeballs, here's an appended version that uses jq to give you a bit more-to-the-point summary.

aws cli supports the "query" parameter, which does this stuff as a build-in.

Ahmed-AG · 2018-12-06T21:19:48Z

Thanks obijan! I I started using jq few months back and it changed my life :)

ajorpheus · 2019-06-03T15:44:01Z

Note that the AWS Cli Docs do still recommend JQ for more advanced usage:

If you need more advanced features that might not be possible with --query, you can check out jq, a command line JSON processor. You can download it and find the official tutorial at http://stedolan.github.io/jq/

IMHO, --query is still worth looking if it works for your query use case since it is natively supported by AWS CLI. This option was added in aws cli v. 1.2.0 which was released on 2013/10/18, so you should have definitely have this option unless you have an ancient version of the CLI.

If you prefer to use the --query param, note that it uses JMESPath as its query language (the home page has a live JMESPath tester). The tutorial is worth a gander as well.

Sample Comparison of a similar query

The following queries list the RDS instances in the default region using the aws cli, parsing the json output from it using JQ and JMESPath

For example, a similar query seems to be far more readable OOTB in JMESPath:

# Using Jquery
aws  rds describe-db-instances --output json | jq -r '.DBInstances[] | "\(.DBInstanceIdentifier) -> \(.DBInstanceStatus) ( \(.DBInstanceClass), \(.Endpoint.Address):\(.Endpoint.Port)  ) "  '

## Outputs
someinstancename -> available ( db.t2.small, xxxxx.rds.amazonaws.com:1234 )

## Show a list of properties for DBInstances which have a status containing the word 'avail' 
aws rds describe-db-instances --output json --query "DBInstances[?contains(DBInstanceStatus, 'avail')].[DBInstanceIdentifier, DBInstanceClass, DBInstanceStatus, Endpoint.[Address, Port]]"

## Outputs
[
    [
        "someinstancename",
        "db.t2.small",
        "available",
        [
            "xxxxx.rds.amazonaws.com",
            1234
        ]
    ]
]

PatMyron · 2019-08-09T18:59:11Z

If opt-in-not-required is the 3rd column of output when you run aws ec2 describe-regions --output text, you can change cut -f3 to cut -f4 like so:

for region in `aws ec2 describe-regions --output text | cut -f4`
do

done

coltoncat · 2019-08-14T04:23:28Z

Probably a more robust way is to use a JMESPath query as follows:

for region in $(aws ec2 describe-regions --query "Regions[*].RegionName" --output text)
do

done

genyrosk · 2019-10-11T16:12:31Z

You could also do some further parsing to filter to the regions that you want with grep.
For instance, after installing awscli-aliases, add the following to ~/.aws/cli/alias to list your instances:

list-instances =
  !f() {
    echo "Filtering by \`$1\`"
    for region in $(aws ec2 describe-regions --query "Regions[*].RegionName" --output text | tr "\t" "\n" | grep "$1")
      do
        echo "\nListing Instances in region:'$region'..."
        aws ec2 describe-instances --region $region \
          --output table \
          --query "Reservations[*].Instances[*].{
                    Instance:InstanceId,
                    Type:InstanceType,
                    AZ:Placement.AvailabilityZone,
                    KeyName:KeyName,
                    Name:Tags[?Key==\`Name\`]|[0].Value,
                    Project:Tags[?Key==\`project\`]|[0].Value,
                    IP:PublicIpAddress,
                    State:State.Name,
                    CPUcores:CpuOptions.CoreCount,
                    CPUThreads:CpuOptions.ThreadsPerCore
                }"
      done
  }; f

Usage:

$ aws list-instances

Apply a filter to the region code, e.g. us for US regions:

$ aws list-instances 'us'

Johnjosh11 · 2020-05-20T15:48:27Z

for region in aws ec2 describe-regions --output text | cut -f3
do
echo -e "\nListing Instances in region:'$region'..."
aws ec2 describe-instances --region $region | grep running > file.txt
cat file.txt | wc -l
done

laidig · 2021-01-13T18:59:31Z

The output format from aws ec2 describe-regions has changed slightly. If it doesn't work for you, try cut -f4.

for region in `aws ec2 describe-regions --output text | cut -f4`;
  do 
     echo -e "\nListing Instances in region:'$region'...";
      aws ec2 describe-instances --region $region | jq '.Reservations[] | ( .Instances[] | {state: .State.Name, name: .KeyName, type: .InstanceType, key: .KeyName})' > all_instances ;
done

bugb · 2021-07-05T02:30:00Z

@laidig worked on Jul 2021, thank you for that!! But it will overwrite all output of each command due to >
And finally it will only list all ec2 for aws ec2 describe-regions --output text | cut -f4

My suggestion

for region in `aws ec2 describe-regions --output text | cut -f4`;
  do 
      echo -e "\nListing Instances in region:'$region'..." >> all_instances;
      aws ec2 describe-instances --region $region | jq '.Reservations[] | ( .Instances[] | {state: .State.Name, name: .KeyName, type: .InstanceType, key: .KeyName})' >> all_instances ;
done

And then

cat all_instances

N0B0T-cedric · 2022-02-08T09:22:33Z

Yet another iteration on this theme:

for region in `aws ec2 describe-regions --output text | awk '{split($0,a," "); print a[2]}' | awk '{split($0,a,"."); print a[2]}'`;
  do 
      aws ec2 describe-instances --region $region > ec2-${region}.json
done

ddigitalplus · 2022-02-23T16:49:28Z

hi @N0B0T-cedric when I try your code and that of @bugb AWS comes back with an error saying "you must specify a region. You can also configure your region by running "aws configure"."
I do not have local configs, I am logged to AWS through AAD SAML and I choose the account with --profile , please assist

jujhars13 · 2024-01-08T12:22:48Z

For people arriving here from Google, here's one way to list all your instances across all regions with the AWS CLI (based on the discussion above):
for region in `aws ec2 describe-regions --output text | cut -f3`
do
     echo -e "\nListing Instances in region:'$region'..."
     aws ec2 describe-instances --region $region
done

Thanks for this. I had to use cut -f4 to get this to work as the region is in the 4th column on zsh and
aws-cli/2.13.24 Python/3.11.5 Linux/6.2.0-39-generic :

AWS_DEFAULT_REGION=eu-west-1 aws ec2 describe-regions --output text
REGIONS	ec2.ap-south-1.amazonaws.com	opt-in-not-required	ap-south-1
REGIONS	ec2.eu-north-1.amazonaws.com	opt-in-not-required	eu-north-1
REGIONS	ec2.eu-west-3.amazonaws.com	opt-in-not-required	eu-west-3
REGIONS	ec2.eu-west-2.amazonaws.com	opt-in-not-required	eu-west-2
REGIONS	ec2.eu-west-1.amazonaws.com	opt-in-not-required	eu-west-1
REGIONS	ec2.ap-northeast-3.amazonaws.com	opt-in-not-required	ap-northeast-3
REGIONS	ec2.ap-northeast-2.amazonaws.com	opt-in-not-required	ap-northeast-2
REGIONS	ec2.ap-northeast-1.amazonaws.com	opt-in-not-required	ap-northeast-1
REGIONS	ec2.ca-central-1.amazonaws.com	opt-in-not-required	ca-central-1
REGIONS	ec2.sa-east-1.amazonaws.com	opt-in-not-required	sa-east-1
REGIONS	ec2.ap-southeast-1.amazonaws.com	opt-in-not-required	ap-southeast-1
REGIONS	ec2.ap-southeast-2.amazonaws.com	opt-in-not-required	ap-southeast-2
REGIONS	ec2.eu-central-1.amazonaws.com	opt-in-not-required	eu-central-1
REGIONS	ec2.us-east-1.amazonaws.com	opt-in-not-required	us-east-1
REGIONS	ec2.us-east-2.amazonaws.com	opt-in-not-required	us-east-2
REGIONS	ec2.us-west-1.amazonaws.com	opt-in-not-required	us-west-1
REGIONS	ec2.us-west-2.amazonaws.com	opt-in-not-required	us-west-2

Works great, got a notice from AWS today saying they're going to can Node v16 in June 2024:

for region in $(AWS_DEFAULT_REGION=eu-west-1 aws ec2 describe-regions --output text | cut -f4)
do
     echo -e "\nListing deprecated lambdas in region:'${region}'..."
     aws lambda list-functions --region="${region}" --query "Functions[?Runtime=='nodejs16.x'].FunctionArn"
done

CristianPrundeanu · 2024-01-10T19:56:56Z

There are multiple ways to parse the output of describe-regions, the most stable being jq probably.
But assuming the last field will always be the region name and not relying on knowing the field number (it used to be 3, now it's 4 at least in some cases), one of the shortest ways to find it is this:

aws ec2 describe-regions --output text | sed 's/.*\t//'

JordonPhillips closed this as completed Feb 8, 2016

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How to describe instances from all regions? #1777

How to describe instances from all regions? #1777

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How to describe instances from all regions? #1777

How to describe instances from all regions? #1777

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ApproximateIdentity commented Feb 8, 2016

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Results

Output using Format-Table

Results

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Sample Comparison of a similar query

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