start-instance-refresh¶

Description¶

Starts a new instance refresh operation. An instance refresh performs a rolling replacement of all or some instances in an Auto Scaling group. Each instance is terminated first and then replaced, which temporarily reduces the capacity available within your Auto Scaling group.

This operation is part of the instance refresh feature in Amazon EC2 Auto Scaling, which helps you update instances in your Auto Scaling group. This feature is helpful, for example, when you have a new AMI or a new user data script. You just need to create a new launch template that specifies the new AMI or user data script. Then start an instance refresh to immediately begin the process of updating instances in the group.

If the call succeeds, it creates a new instance refresh request with a unique ID that you can use to track its progress. To query its status, call the DescribeInstanceRefreshes API. To describe the instance refreshes that have already run, call the DescribeInstanceRefreshes API. To cancel an instance refresh operation in progress, use the CancelInstanceRefresh API.

Synopsis¶

  start-instance-refresh
--auto-scaling-group-name <value>
[--strategy <value>]
[--desired-configuration <value>]
[--preferences <value>]
[--cli-input-json | --cli-input-yaml]
[--generate-cli-skeleton <value>]

Options¶

--auto-scaling-group-name (string)

The name of the Auto Scaling group.

--strategy (string)

The strategy to use for the instance refresh. The only valid value is Rolling .

A rolling update helps you update your instances gradually. A rolling update can fail due to failed health checks or if instances are on standby or are protected from scale in. If the rolling update process fails, any instances that are replaced are not rolled back to their previous configuration.

Possible values:

Rolling

--desired-configuration (structure)

The desired configuration. For example, the desired configuration can specify a new launch template or a new version of the current launch template.

Once the instance refresh succeeds, Amazon EC2 Auto Scaling updates the settings of the Auto Scaling group to reflect the new desired configuration.

Note

When you specify a new launch template or a new version of the current launch template for your desired configuration, consider enabling the SkipMatching property in preferences. If it’s enabled, Amazon EC2 Auto Scaling skips replacing instances that already use the specified launch template and version. This can help you reduce the number of replacements that are required to apply updates.

LaunchTemplate -> (structure)

Describes the launch template and the version of the launch template that Amazon EC2 Auto Scaling uses to launch Amazon EC2 instances. For more information about launch templates, see Launch templates in the Amazon EC2 Auto Scaling User Guide .

LaunchTemplateId -> (string)

The ID of the launch template. To get the template ID, use the Amazon EC2 DescribeLaunchTemplates API operation. New launch templates can be created using the Amazon EC2 CreateLaunchTemplate API.

Conditional: You must specify either a LaunchTemplateId or a LaunchTemplateName .

LaunchTemplateName -> (string)

The name of the launch template. To get the template name, use the Amazon EC2 DescribeLaunchTemplates API operation. New launch templates can be created using the Amazon EC2 CreateLaunchTemplate API.

Conditional: You must specify either a LaunchTemplateId or a LaunchTemplateName .

Version -> (string)

The version number, $Latest , or $Default . To get the version number, use the Amazon EC2 DescribeLaunchTemplateVersions API operation. New launch template versions can be created using the Amazon EC2 CreateLaunchTemplateVersion API. If the value is $Latest , Amazon EC2 Auto Scaling selects the latest version of the launch template when launching instances. If the value is $Default , Amazon EC2 Auto Scaling selects the default version of the launch template when launching instances. The default value is $Default .

MixedInstancesPolicy -> (structure)

Describes a mixed instances policy. A mixed instances policy contains the instance types that Amazon EC2 Auto Scaling can launch and other information that Amazon EC2 Auto Scaling can use to launch instances and help optimize your costs. For more information, see Auto Scaling groups with multiple instance types and purchase options in the Amazon EC2 Auto Scaling User Guide .

LaunchTemplate -> (structure)

Specifies the launch template to use and the instance types (overrides) that are used to launch EC2 instances to fulfill On-Demand and Spot capacities. Required when creating a mixed instances policy.

LaunchTemplateSpecification -> (structure)

The launch template to use.

LaunchTemplateId -> (string)

The ID of the launch template. To get the template ID, use the Amazon EC2 DescribeLaunchTemplates API operation. New launch templates can be created using the Amazon EC2 CreateLaunchTemplate API.

Conditional: You must specify either a LaunchTemplateId or a LaunchTemplateName .

LaunchTemplateName -> (string)

The name of the launch template. To get the template name, use the Amazon EC2 DescribeLaunchTemplates API operation. New launch templates can be created using the Amazon EC2 CreateLaunchTemplate API.

Conditional: You must specify either a LaunchTemplateId or a LaunchTemplateName .

Version -> (string)

The version number, $Latest , or $Default . To get the version number, use the Amazon EC2 DescribeLaunchTemplateVersions API operation. New launch template versions can be created using the Amazon EC2 CreateLaunchTemplateVersion API. If the value is $Latest , Amazon EC2 Auto Scaling selects the latest version of the launch template when launching instances. If the value is $Default , Amazon EC2 Auto Scaling selects the default version of the launch template when launching instances. The default value is $Default .

Overrides -> (list)

Any properties that you specify override the same properties in the launch template. If not provided, Amazon EC2 Auto Scaling uses the instance type or instance type requirements specified in the launch template when it launches an instance.

The overrides can include either one or more instance types or a set of instance requirements, but not both.

(structure)

Describes an override for a launch template. For more information, see Configuring overrides in the Amazon EC2 Auto Scaling User Guide .

InstanceType -> (string)

The instance type, such as m3.xlarge . You must use an instance type that is supported in your requested Region and Availability Zones. For more information, see Instance types in the Amazon Elastic Compute Cloud User Guide .

WeightedCapacity -> (string)

The number of capacity units provided by the instance type specified in InstanceType in terms of virtual CPUs, memory, storage, throughput, or other relative performance characteristic. When a Spot or On-Demand Instance is launched, the capacity units count toward the desired capacity. Amazon EC2 Auto Scaling launches instances until the desired capacity is totally fulfilled, even if this results in an overage. For example, if there are two units remaining to fulfill capacity, and Amazon EC2 Auto Scaling can only launch an instance with a WeightedCapacity of five units, the instance is launched, and the desired capacity is exceeded by three units. For more information, see Instance weighting for Amazon EC2 Auto Scaling in the Amazon EC2 Auto Scaling User Guide . Value must be in the range of 1–999.

LaunchTemplateSpecification -> (structure)

Provides the launch template to be used when launching the instance type specified in InstanceType . For example, some instance types might require a launch template with a different AMI. If not provided, Amazon EC2 Auto Scaling uses the launch template that’s defined for your mixed instances policy. For more information, see Specifying a different launch template for an instance type in the Amazon EC2 Auto Scaling User Guide .

LaunchTemplateId -> (string)

The ID of the launch template. To get the template ID, use the Amazon EC2 DescribeLaunchTemplates API operation. New launch templates can be created using the Amazon EC2 CreateLaunchTemplate API.

Conditional: You must specify either a LaunchTemplateId or a LaunchTemplateName .

LaunchTemplateName -> (string)

The name of the launch template. To get the template name, use the Amazon EC2 DescribeLaunchTemplates API operation. New launch templates can be created using the Amazon EC2 CreateLaunchTemplate API.

Conditional: You must specify either a LaunchTemplateId or a LaunchTemplateName .

Version -> (string)

The version number, $Latest , or $Default . To get the version number, use the Amazon EC2 DescribeLaunchTemplateVersions API operation. New launch template versions can be created using the Amazon EC2 CreateLaunchTemplateVersion API. If the value is $Latest , Amazon EC2 Auto Scaling selects the latest version of the launch template when launching instances. If the value is $Default , Amazon EC2 Auto Scaling selects the default version of the launch template when launching instances. The default value is $Default .

InstanceRequirements -> (structure)

The instance requirements. When you specify instance requirements, Amazon EC2 Auto Scaling finds instance types that satisfy your requirements, and then uses your On-Demand and Spot allocation strategies to launch instances from these instance types, in the same way as when you specify a list of specific instance types.

VCpuCount -> (structure)

The minimum and maximum number of vCPUs for an instance type.

Min -> (integer)

The minimum number of vCPUs.

Max -> (integer)

The maximum number of vCPUs.

MemoryMiB -> (structure)

The minimum and maximum instance memory size for an instance type, in MiB.

Min -> (integer)

The memory minimum in MiB.

Max -> (integer)

The memory maximum in MiB.

CpuManufacturers -> (list)

Lists which specific CPU manufacturers to include.

For instance types with Intel CPUs, specify intel .

For instance types with AMD CPUs, specify amd .

For instance types with Amazon Web Services CPUs, specify amazon-web-services .

Note

Don’t confuse the CPU hardware manufacturer with the CPU hardware architecture. Instances will be launched with a compatible CPU architecture based on the Amazon Machine Image (AMI) that you specify in your launch template.

Default: Any manufacturer

(string)

MemoryGiBPerVCpu -> (structure)

The minimum and maximum amount of memory per vCPU for an instance type, in GiB.

Default: No minimum or maximum

Min -> (double)

The memory minimum in GiB.

Max -> (double)

The memory maximum in GiB.

ExcludedInstanceTypes -> (list)

Lists which instance types to exclude. You can use strings with one or more wild cards, represented by an asterisk (* ). The following are examples: c5* , m5a.* , r* , *3* .

For example, if you specify c5* , you are excluding the entire C5 instance family, which includes all C5a and C5n instance types. If you specify m5a.* , you are excluding all the M5a instance types, but not the M5n instance types.

Default: No excluded instance types

(string)

InstanceGenerations -> (list)

Indicates whether current or previous generation instance types are included.

For current generation instance types, specify current . The current generation includes EC2 instance types currently recommended for use. This typically includes the latest two to three generations in each instance family. For more information, see Instance types in the Amazon EC2 User Guide for Linux Instances .

For previous generation instance types, specify previous .

Default: Any current or previous generation

(string)

SpotMaxPricePercentageOverLowestPrice -> (integer)

The price protection threshold for Spot Instances. This is the maximum you’ll pay for a Spot Instance, expressed as a percentage higher than the cheapest M, C, or R instance type with your specified attributes. When Amazon EC2 Auto Scaling selects instance types with your attributes, we will exclude instance types whose price is higher than your threshold. The parameter accepts an integer, which Amazon EC2 Auto Scaling interprets as a percentage. To turn off price protection, specify a high value, such as 999999 .

Default: 100

OnDemandMaxPricePercentageOverLowestPrice -> (integer)

The price protection threshold for On-Demand Instances. This is the maximum you’ll pay for an On-Demand Instance, expressed as a percentage higher than the cheapest M, C, or R instance type with your specified attributes. When Amazon EC2 Auto Scaling selects instance types with your attributes, we will exclude instance types whose price is higher than your threshold. The parameter accepts an integer, which Amazon EC2 Auto Scaling interprets as a percentage. To turn off price protection, specify a high value, such as 999999 .

Default: 20

BareMetal -> (string)

Indicates whether bare metal instance types are included, excluded, or required.

Default: excluded

BurstablePerformance -> (string)

Indicates whether burstable performance instance types are included, excluded, or required. For more information, see Burstable performance instances in the Amazon EC2 User Guide for Linux Instances .

Default: excluded

RequireHibernateSupport -> (boolean)

Indicates whether instance types must provide On-Demand Instance hibernation support.

Default: false

NetworkInterfaceCount -> (structure)

The minimum and maximum number of network interfaces for an instance type.

Default: No minimum or maximum

Min -> (integer)

The minimum number of network interfaces.

Max -> (integer)

The maximum number of network interfaces.

LocalStorage -> (string)

Indicates whether instance types with instance store volumes are included, excluded, or required. For more information, see Amazon EC2 instance store in the Amazon EC2 User Guide for Linux Instances .

Default: included

LocalStorageTypes -> (list)

Indicates the type of local storage that is required.

For instance types with hard disk drive (HDD) storage, specify hdd .

For instance types with solid state drive (SSD) storage, specify sdd .

Default: Any local storage type

(string)

TotalLocalStorageGB -> (structure)

The minimum and maximum total local storage size for an instance type, in GB.

Default: No minimum or maximum

Min -> (double)

The storage minimum in GB.

Max -> (double)

The storage maximum in GB.

BaselineEbsBandwidthMbps -> (structure)

The minimum and maximum baseline bandwidth performance for an instance type, in Mbps. For more information, see Amazon EBS–optimized instances in the Amazon EC2 User Guide for Linux Instances .

Default: No minimum or maximum

Min -> (integer)

The minimum value in Mbps.

Max -> (integer)

The maximum value in Mbps.

AcceleratorTypes -> (list)

Lists the accelerator types that must be on an instance type.

For instance types with GPU accelerators, specify gpu .

For instance types with FPGA accelerators, specify fpga .

For instance types with inference accelerators, specify inference .

Default: Any accelerator type

(string)

AcceleratorCount -> (structure)

The minimum and maximum number of accelerators (GPUs, FPGAs, or Amazon Web Services Inferentia chips) for an instance type.

To exclude accelerator-enabled instance types, set Max to 0 .

Default: No minimum or maximum

Min -> (integer)

The minimum value.

Max -> (integer)

The maximum value.

AcceleratorManufacturers -> (list)

Indicates whether instance types must have accelerators by specific manufacturers.

For instance types with NVIDIA devices, specify nvidia .

For instance types with AMD devices, specify amd .

For instance types with Amazon Web Services devices, specify amazon-web-services .

For instance types with Xilinx devices, specify xilinx .

Default: Any manufacturer

(string)

AcceleratorNames -> (list)

Lists the accelerators that must be on an instance type.

For instance types with NVIDIA A100 GPUs, specify a100 .

For instance types with NVIDIA V100 GPUs, specify v100 .

For instance types with NVIDIA K80 GPUs, specify k80 .

For instance types with NVIDIA T4 GPUs, specify t4 .

For instance types with NVIDIA M60 GPUs, specify m60 .

For instance types with AMD Radeon Pro V520 GPUs, specify radeon-pro-v520 .

For instance types with Xilinx VU9P FPGAs, specify vu9p .

Default: Any accelerator

(string)

AcceleratorTotalMemoryMiB -> (structure)

The minimum and maximum total memory size for the accelerators on an instance type, in MiB.

Default: No minimum or maximum

Min -> (integer)

The memory minimum in MiB.

Max -> (integer)

The memory maximum in MiB.

InstancesDistribution -> (structure)

Specifies the instances distribution.

OnDemandAllocationStrategy -> (string)

The order of the launch template overrides to use in fulfilling On-Demand capacity.

If you specify lowest-price , Amazon EC2 Auto Scaling uses price to determine the order, launching the lowest price first.

If you specify prioritized , Amazon EC2 Auto Scaling uses the priority that you assigned to each launch template override, launching the highest priority first. If all your On-Demand capacity cannot be fulfilled using your highest priority instance, then Amazon EC2 Auto Scaling launches the remaining capacity using the second priority instance type, and so on.

Default: lowest-price for Auto Scaling groups that specify InstanceRequirements in the overrides and prioritized for Auto Scaling groups that don’t.

OnDemandBaseCapacity -> (integer)

The minimum amount of the Auto Scaling group’s capacity that must be fulfilled by On-Demand Instances. This base portion is launched first as your group scales.

If you specify weights for the instance types in the overrides, the base capacity is measured in the same unit of measurement as the instance types. If you specify InstanceRequirements in the overrides, the base capacity is measured in the same unit of measurement as your group’s desired capacity.

Default: 0

OnDemandPercentageAboveBaseCapacity -> (integer)

Controls the percentages of On-Demand Instances and Spot Instances for your additional capacity beyond OnDemandBaseCapacity . Expressed as a number (for example, 20 specifies 20% On-Demand Instances, 80% Spot Instances). If set to 100, only On-Demand Instances are used.

Default: 100

SpotAllocationStrategy -> (string)

Indicates how to allocate instances across Spot Instance pools.

If the allocation strategy is lowest-price , the Auto Scaling group launches instances using the Spot pools with the lowest price, and evenly allocates your instances across the number of Spot pools that you specify.

If the allocation strategy is capacity-optimized (recommended), the Auto Scaling group launches instances using Spot pools that are optimally chosen based on the available Spot capacity. Alternatively, you can use capacity-optimized-prioritized and set the order of instance types in the list of launch template overrides from highest to lowest priority (from first to last in the list). Amazon EC2 Auto Scaling honors the instance type priorities on a best-effort basis but optimizes for capacity first.

Default: lowest-price

SpotInstancePools -> (integer)

The number of Spot Instance pools across which to allocate your Spot Instances. The Spot pools are determined from the different instance types in the overrides. Valid only when the Spot allocation strategy is lowest-price . Value must be in the range of 1–20.

Default: 2

SpotMaxPrice -> (string)

The maximum price per unit hour that you are willing to pay for a Spot Instance. If you keep the value at its default (unspecified), Amazon EC2 Auto Scaling uses the On-Demand price as the maximum Spot price. To remove a value that you previously set, include the property but specify an empty string (“”) for the value.

JSON Syntax:

{
  "LaunchTemplate": {
    "LaunchTemplateId": "string",
    "LaunchTemplateName": "string",
    "Version": "string"
  },
  "MixedInstancesPolicy": {
    "LaunchTemplate": {
      "LaunchTemplateSpecification": {
        "LaunchTemplateId": "string",
        "LaunchTemplateName": "string",
        "Version": "string"
      },
      "Overrides": [
        {
          "InstanceType": "string",
          "WeightedCapacity": "string",
          "LaunchTemplateSpecification": {
            "LaunchTemplateId": "string",
            "LaunchTemplateName": "string",
            "Version": "string"
          },
          "InstanceRequirements": {
            "VCpuCount": {
              "Min": integer,
              "Max": integer
            },
            "MemoryMiB": {
              "Min": integer,
              "Max": integer
            },
            "CpuManufacturers": ["intel"|"amd"|"amazon-web-services", ...],
            "MemoryGiBPerVCpu": {
              "Min": double,
              "Max": double
            },
            "ExcludedInstanceTypes": ["string", ...],
            "InstanceGenerations": ["current"|"previous", ...],
            "SpotMaxPricePercentageOverLowestPrice": integer,
            "OnDemandMaxPricePercentageOverLowestPrice": integer,
            "BareMetal": "included"|"excluded"|"required",
            "BurstablePerformance": "included"|"excluded"|"required",
            "RequireHibernateSupport": true|false,
            "NetworkInterfaceCount": {
              "Min": integer,
              "Max": integer
            },
            "LocalStorage": "included"|"excluded"|"required",
            "LocalStorageTypes": ["hdd"|"ssd", ...],
            "TotalLocalStorageGB": {
              "Min": double,
              "Max": double
            },
            "BaselineEbsBandwidthMbps": {
              "Min": integer,
              "Max": integer
            },
            "AcceleratorTypes": ["gpu"|"fpga"|"inference", ...],
            "AcceleratorCount": {
              "Min": integer,
              "Max": integer
            },
            "AcceleratorManufacturers": ["nvidia"|"amd"|"amazon-web-services"|"xilinx", ...],
            "AcceleratorNames": ["a100"|"v100"|"k80"|"t4"|"m60"|"radeon-pro-v520"|"vu9p", ...],
            "AcceleratorTotalMemoryMiB": {
              "Min": integer,
              "Max": integer
            }
          }
        }
        ...
      ]
    },
    "InstancesDistribution": {
      "OnDemandAllocationStrategy": "string",
      "OnDemandBaseCapacity": integer,
      "OnDemandPercentageAboveBaseCapacity": integer,
      "SpotAllocationStrategy": "string",
      "SpotInstancePools": integer,
      "SpotMaxPrice": "string"
    }
  }
}

--preferences (structure)

Set of preferences associated with the instance refresh request. If not provided, the default values are used.

MinHealthyPercentage -> (integer)

The amount of capacity in the Auto Scaling group that must remain healthy during an instance refresh to allow the operation to continue. The value is expressed as a percentage of the desired capacity of the Auto Scaling group (rounded up to the nearest integer). The default is 90 .

Setting the minimum healthy percentage to 100 percent limits the rate of replacement to one instance at a time. In contrast, setting it to 0 percent has the effect of replacing all instances at the same time.

InstanceWarmup -> (integer)

The number of seconds until a newly launched instance is configured and ready to use. During this time, Amazon EC2 Auto Scaling does not immediately move on to the next replacement. The default is to use the value for the health check grace period defined for the group.

CheckpointPercentages -> (list)

Threshold values for each checkpoint in ascending order. Each number must be unique. To replace all instances in the Auto Scaling group, the last number in the array must be 100 .

For usage examples, see Adding checkpoints to an instance refresh in the Amazon EC2 Auto Scaling User Guide .

(integer)

CheckpointDelay -> (integer)

The amount of time, in seconds, to wait after a checkpoint before continuing. This property is optional, but if you specify a value for it, you must also specify a value for CheckpointPercentages . If you specify a value for CheckpointPercentages and not for CheckpointDelay , the CheckpointDelay defaults to 3600 (1 hour).

SkipMatching -> (boolean)

A boolean value that indicates whether skip matching is enabled. If true, then Amazon EC2 Auto Scaling skips replacing instances that match the desired configuration. If no desired configuration is specified, then it skips replacing instances that have the same configuration that is already set on the group. The default is false .

Shorthand Syntax:

MinHealthyPercentage=integer,InstanceWarmup=integer,CheckpointPercentages=integer,integer,CheckpointDelay=integer,SkipMatching=boolean

JSON Syntax:

{
  "MinHealthyPercentage": integer,
  "InstanceWarmup": integer,
  "CheckpointPercentages": [integer, ...],
  "CheckpointDelay": integer,
  "SkipMatching": true|false
}

--cli-input-json | --cli-input-yaml (string) Reads arguments from the JSON string provided. The JSON string follows the format provided by --generate-cli-skeleton. If other arguments are provided on the command line, those values will override the JSON-provided values. It is not possible to pass arbitrary binary values using a JSON-provided value as the string will be taken literally. This may not be specified along with --cli-input-yaml.

--generate-cli-skeleton (string) Prints a JSON skeleton to standard output without sending an API request. If provided with no value or the value input, prints a sample input JSON that can be used as an argument for --cli-input-json. Similarly, if provided yaml-input it will print a sample input YAML that can be used with --cli-input-yaml. If provided with the value output, it validates the command inputs and returns a sample output JSON for that command.

See ‘aws help’ for descriptions of global parameters.

Examples¶

Example 1: To start an instance refresh with command line parameters

The following start-instance-refresh example starts an instance refresh using command line arguments. The optional preferences parameter specifies an InstanceWarmup of 400 seconds and a MinHealthyPercentage of 50 percent.

aws autoscaling start-instance-refresh \
    --auto-scaling-group-name my-asg \
    --preferences '{"InstanceWarmup": 400, "MinHealthyPercentage": 50}'

Output:

{
    "InstanceRefreshId": "08b91cf7-8fa6-48af-b6a6-d227f40f1b9b"
}

For more information, see Replacing Auto Scaling instances based on an instance refresh in the Amazon EC2 Auto Scaling User Guide.

Example 2: To start an instance refresh using a JSON file

The following start-instance-refresh example starts an instance refresh using a JSON file. You can specify the Auto Scaling group and define your preferences in a JSON file, as shown in the following example.

aws autoscaling start-instance-refresh \
    --cli-input-json file://config.json

Contents of config.json:

{
    "AutoScalingGroupName": "my-asg",
    "Preferences": {
        "InstanceWarmup": 400,
        "MinHealthyPercentage": 50
    }
}

Output:

{
    "InstanceRefreshId": "08b91cf7-8fa6-48af-b6a6-d227f40f1b9b"
}

For more information, see Replacing Auto Scaling instances based on an instance refresh in the Amazon EC2 Auto Scaling User Guide.

Output¶

InstanceRefreshId -> (string)

A unique ID for tracking the progress of the request.

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