Describes the current state of each instance indicated by the respective INTANCEID specified on the command line. If no instances are explicitly listed then all instances owned by the current user are included in the output.
A table containing the following information is returned:
Output type identifier ("RESERVATION", "INSTANCE")
Instance ID which uniquely identifies each running instance.
AMI ID of the image the instance is based on.
DNS name associated with the instance (only present for instances in the running state).
Instance state.
Key name. If a key was associated with the instance at launch it's name will be displayed in this column.
AMI launch index. See using instance data for more info.
Errors are displayed on stderr.
$ec2-describe-instancesRESERVATION r-15a4417c 495219933132 INSTANCE i-3ea74257 ami-6ba54002 domU-12-31-33-00-00-01.dc3.compute.amazonaws.com running 0 INSTANCE i-31a74258 ami-6ba54002 domU-12-31-33-00-00-02.dc3.compute.amazonaws.com running 1