Auto Shutdown and Start Amazon EC2 Instance

Question

Can I automatically start and terminate my Amazon instance using Amazon API? Can you please describe how this can be done? I ideally need to start the instance and stop the

Answer 1

AWS Data Pipeline is working fine. https://aws.amazon.com/premiumsupport/knowledge-center/stop-start-ec2-instances/

If you wish exclude days from starting (e.g. weekend) add a ShellCommandPrecondition object.

In AWS Console/Data Pipeline, create a new pipeline. It's easyer to edit/import a definition (JSON)

    {
"objects": [
{
  "failureAndRerunMode": "CASCADE",
  "schedule": {
    "ref": "DefaultSchedule"
  },
  "resourceRole": "DataPipelineDefaultResourceRole",
  "role": "DataPipelineDefaultRole",
  "pipelineLogUri": "s3://MY_BUCKET/log/",
  "scheduleType": "cron",
  "name": "Default",
  "id": "Default"
},
{
  "name": "CliActivity",
  "id": "CliActivity",
  "runsOn": {
    "ref": "Ec2Instance"
  },
  "precondition": {
    "ref": "PreconditionDow"
  },
  "type": "ShellCommandActivity",
  "command": "(sudo yum -y update aws-cli) && (#{myAWSCLICmd})"
},
{
  "period": "1 days",
  "startDateTime": "2015-10-27T13:00:00",
  "name": "Every 1 day",
  "id": "DefaultSchedule",
  "type": "Schedule"
},
{
  "scriptUri": "s3://MY_BUCKET/script/dow.sh",
  "name": "DayOfWeekPrecondition",
  "id": "PreconditionDow",
  "type": "ShellCommandPrecondition"
},
{
  "instanceType": "t1.micro",
  "name": "Ec2Instance",
  "id": "Ec2Instance",
  "type": "Ec2Resource",
  "terminateAfter": "50 Minutes"
}
],
"parameters": [
{
  "watermark": "aws [options]   [parameters]",
  "description": "AWS CLI command",
  "id": "myAWSCLICmd",
  "type": "String"
}
 ],
"values": {
"myAWSCLICmd": "aws ec2 start-instances --instance-ids i-12345678 --region eu-west-1"
}
}

Put the Bash script to be dowloaded and executed as precondition in your S3 bucket

#!/bin/sh
if [ "$(date +%u)" -lt 6 ]
then exit 0
else exit 1
fi

On activating and running the pipeline on weekend days, the AWS console Pipeline Health Status reads a misleading "ERROR". The bash script returns an error (exit 1) and EC2 isn't started. On days 1 to 5, the status is "HEALTHY".

To stop EC2 automatically at closing office time, use the AWS CLI command daily wihtout precondition.