Document History

Instance Status Checks

Starting with API version 2011-12-15, you can use the ec2-describe-instance-status command to retrieve results of automated checks performed by Amazon EC2. These status checks detect problems that may impair an instance’s ability to run your applications. You can use ec2-report-instance-status to send us feedback or report an inaccurate instance status.

30 December 2011

Elastic Network Interfaces (ENIs) for Amazon EC2 Instances in Amazon Virtual Private Cloud

Starting with API version 2011-12-01, you can attach an elastic network interface (ENI) to an EC2 instance in a VPC. For more information, see:

21 December 2011

New Offering Types for Amazon EC2 Reserved Instances

Starting with API version 2011-11-01, you can use the new offering-type parameter of ec2-describe-reserved-instances-offerings to identify the Reserved Instance offerings that address your projected use: Heavy Utilization, Medium Utilization, and Light Utilization. See ec2-describe-reserved-instances-offerings.

01 December 2011

Support for Amazon EC2 Instance Status

The ec2-describe-instance-status command allows you to view the status of your instances and any upcoming scheduled events.

14 November 2011

Support for Amazon EC2 Spot Instances in Amazon VPC

The ec2-request-spot-instances command is updated with the subnet option, which enables you to specify an Amazon VPC subnet into which to launch your Spot Instances.

11 October 2011

Added common options table to each entry

The common options table now appears in each command description as well as on the existing Common Options for API Tools page.

18 September 2011

Updates to VM import functionality

We've added ec2-resume-import for restarting an incomplete upload at the point the task stopped, and deprecated ec2-upload-disk-image because its functionality is now performed by the enhanced ec2-import-instance and ec2-import-volume. For more information, see the API actions:

15 September 2011

Support for VHD file format added to the 2011-07-15 API version

We've added VHD as one of the VM file formats supported for import into Amazon EC2. See the API actions ImportInstance and ImportVolume, and the CLI commands ec2-import-instance and ec2-import-volume.

24 August 2011

Spot Instances Availability Zone pricing changes

We've updated several actions that explain API changes for the Spot Instances Availability Zone pricing feature. We've also added new Availability Zone pricing options as part of the information returned by Spot Instance Requests and Spot Price History API calls.

26 May 2011

Updates for the 2011-05-15 API Version

We've updated several existing actions for the 2011-05-15 API release.

26 May 2011

Dedicated Instances

As part of the Dedicated Instances feature release, we've added new options related to the tenancy attribute of instances, and the instance tenancy attribute of VPCs.

27 March 2011

Updates for the 2011-02-28 API version

We've updated several existing actions for the 2011-02-28 API release.

27 March 2011

Updates for the 2011-01-01 API version

We've added new actions and updated several existing actions for the 2011-01-01 API release. The new and updated actions are related to these Amazon VPC objects: Internet gateways, route tables, network ACLs, VPC security groups, and VPC Elastic IP addresses.

11 March 2011

Merged Amazon VPC Documentation

We've merged the Amazon VPC actions into this guide.

11 March 2011

VM Import

Added the following new actions, which allow you to import a virtual machine or volume into Amazon EC2:

15 December 2010

Modifying Block Device Mapping

Removed information from ec2-modify-instance-attribute about modifying an instance's block device mapping attribute. You currently can't modify an instance's block device mapping with this action.

20 November 2010

Filters and Tags

Added information about filters to many of the describe actions.

Added information about creating, describing, and deleting tags.

For more information about the commands for tags, see ec2-create-tags, ec2-delete-tags, and ec2-describe-tags.

19 September 2010

Idempotent Instance Launch

Updated ec2-run-instances to include a --client-token option to ensure idempotency.

For more information about the change, see ec2-run-instances.

19 September 2010

Import Key Pair

Added ec2-import-keypair .

For more information, see ec2-import-keypair.

19 September 2010

Placement Groups for Cluster Compute Instances

Added information about placement groups, which you use with cluster compute instances.

For more information about the commands for placement groups, see ec2-create-placement-group, ec2-describe-placement-groups, and ec2-delete-placement-group.

12 July 2010

Amazon VPC IP Address Designation

Amazon VPC users can now specify the IP address to assign an instance launched in a VPC.

For information about the using the --private-ip-address parameter with ec2-run-instances, see ec2-run-instances.

12 July 2010

Security Group Permissions

Clarified the information about authorizing security group permissions. For more information, see ec2-authorize.

28 April 2010

New Region

Amazon EC2 now supports the Asia Pacific (Singapore) Region. The new endpoint for requests to this Region is ec2.ap-southeast-1.amazonaws.com.

28 April 2010

Clarification about Spot Instances

Clarified that you can't stop and start Spot Instances that use an Amazon EBS root device. For more information about stopping instances, see ec2-stop-instances.

1 February 2010

Spot Instances

To support customers that use Amazon EC2 instances, but have more flexible usage requirements (e.g., when instances run, how long they run, or whether usage completes within a specific timeframe), Amazon EC2 now provides Spot Instances. A Spot Instance is an instance that Amazon EC2 automatically runs for you when its maximum price is greater than the Spot Price. For conceptual information about Spot Instances, go to the Amazon Elastic Compute Cloud User Guide.

14 December 2009