Returns information about Amazon EBS snapshots available to the user. Information returned includes volume ID, status, start time, progress, owner ID, volume size, and description. Snapshots available to the user include public snapshots available for any user to launch, private snapshots owned by the user making the request, and private snapshots owned by other users for which the user granted explicit create volume permissions.
The create volume permissions fall into 3 categories:
| Permission | Description |
|---|---|
| public | The owner of the snapshot granted create volume permissions for the
snapshot to the all group. All users have
create volume permissions for these snapshots. |
| explicit | The owner of the snapshot granted create volume permissions to a specific user. |
| implicit | A user has implicit create volume permissions for all snapshots he or she owns. |
The list of snapshots returned can be modified by specifying snapshot IDs, snapshot owners, or users with create volume permissions. If no options are specified, Amazon EC2 returns all snapshots for which the user has create volume permissions.
If you specify one or more snapshot IDs, only snapshots that have the specified IDs are returned. If you specify an invalid snapshot ID, a fault is returned. If you specify a snapshot ID for which you do not have access, it will not be included in the returned results.
If you specify one or more snapshot owners, only snapshots from the specified owners and for which you have access are returned. The results can include the AWS Account IDs of the specified owners, amazon for snapshots owned by Amazon or self for snapshots that you own.
If you specify a list of restorable users, only users that have create snapshot permissions for the snapshots are returned. You can specify AWS Account IDs (if you own the snapshot(s)), self for snapshots for which you own or have explicit permissions, or all for public snapshots.
ec2-describe-snapshots
[
snapshot_id ...] [-a] [-o owner ...] [-r
user_id]
| Name | Description | Required |
|---|---|---|
|
|
The ID of the Amazon EBS snapshot. Type: String Default: Describes snapshots for which you have launch permissions. Example: snap-78a54011 |
No |
|
|
Returns snapshots owned by the specified owner. Multiple owners can be specified. Type: String Valid Values: Default: None Example: 218213537122 |
No |
|
|
Account ID of a user that can create volumes from the snapshot. Type: String Default: None Example: |
No |
The command returns a table that contains the following information:
SNAPSHOT identifier
ID of the snapshot
ID of the volume
Snapshot state (e.g., pending, completed, error)
Time stamp when snapshot initiated
Percentage of completion
ID of the owner
Size of the volume
Description
Amazon EC2 displays errors on stderr.
This example describes snapshot snap-78a54011.
PROMPT>ec2-describe-snapshots snap-78a54011SNAPSHOT snap-7ddb6e14 vol-9539dcfc completed 2009-09-15T22:06 15+0000 100% 218213537122 1 Daily Backup