[ aws . gamelift ]

describe-instances

Description

Retrieves information about the EC2 instances in an Amazon GameLift managed fleet, including instance ID, connection data, and status. You can use this operation with a multi-location fleet to get location-specific instance information. As an alternative, use the operations ListCompute and DescribeCompute to retrieve information for compute resources, including EC2 and Anywhere fleets.

You can call this operation in the following ways:

• To get information on all instances in a fleet’s home Region, specify the fleet ID.
• To get information on all instances in a fleet’s remote location, specify the fleet ID and location name.
• To get information on a specific instance in a fleet, specify the fleet ID and instance ID.

Use the pagination parameters to retrieve results as a set of sequential pages.

If successful, this operation returns Instance objects for each requested instance, listed in no particular order. If you call this operation for an Anywhere fleet, you receive an InvalidRequestException.

Learn more

Remotely connect to fleet instances

Debug fleet issues

Related actions

All APIs by task

See also: AWS API Documentation

describe-instances is a paginated operation. Multiple API calls may be issued in order to retrieve the entire data set of results. You can disable pagination by providing the --no-paginate argument. When using --output text and the --query argument on a paginated response, the --query argument must extract data from the results of the following query expressions: Instances

Synopsis

  describe-instances
--fleet-id <value>
[--instance-id <value>]
[--location <value>]
[--cli-input-json | --cli-input-yaml]
[--starting-token <value>]
[--page-size <value>]
[--max-items <value>]
[--generate-cli-skeleton <value>]
[--debug]
[--endpoint-url <value>]
[--no-verify-ssl]
[--no-paginate]
[--output <value>]
[--query <value>]
[--profile <value>]
[--region <value>]
[--version <value>]
[--color <value>]
[--no-sign-request]
[--ca-bundle <value>]
[--cli-read-timeout <value>]
[--cli-connect-timeout <value>]
[--cli-binary-format <value>]
[--no-cli-pager]
[--cli-auto-prompt]
[--no-cli-auto-prompt]

Options

--fleet-id (string)

A unique identifier for the fleet to retrieve instance information for. You can use either the fleet ID or ARN value.

--instance-id (string)

A unique identifier for an instance to retrieve. Specify an instance ID or leave blank to retrieve all instances in the fleet.

--location (string)

The name of a location to retrieve instance information for, in the form of an Amazon Web Services Region code such as us-west-2 .

--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.

--starting-token (string)

A token to specify where to start paginating. This is the NextToken from a previously truncated response.

For usage examples, see Pagination in the AWS Command Line Interface User Guide .

--page-size (integer)

The size of each page to get in the AWS service call. This does not affect the number of items returned in the command’s output. Setting a smaller page size results in more calls to the AWS service, retrieving fewer items in each call. This can help prevent the AWS service calls from timing out.

For usage examples, see Pagination in the AWS Command Line Interface User Guide .

--max-items (integer)

The total number of items to return in the command’s output. If the total number of items available is more than the value specified, a NextToken is provided in the command’s output. To resume pagination, provide the NextToken value in the starting-token argument of a subsequent command. Do not use the NextToken response element directly outside of the AWS CLI.

For usage examples, see Pagination in the AWS Command Line Interface User Guide .

--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. The generated JSON skeleton is not stable between versions of the AWS CLI and there are no backwards compatibility guarantees in the JSON skeleton generated.

Global Options

--debug (boolean)

Turn on debug logging.

--endpoint-url (string)

Override command’s default URL with the given URL.

--no-verify-ssl (boolean)

By default, the AWS CLI uses SSL when communicating with AWS services. For each SSL connection, the AWS CLI will verify SSL certificates. This option overrides the default behavior of verifying SSL certificates.

--no-paginate (boolean)

Disable automatic pagination. If automatic pagination is disabled, the AWS CLI will only make one call, for the first page of results.

--output (string)

The formatting style for command output.

• json
• text
• table
• yaml
• yaml-stream

--query (string)

A JMESPath query to use in filtering the response data.

--profile (string)

Use a specific profile from your credential file.

--region (string)

The region to use. Overrides config/env settings.

--version (string)

Display the version of this tool.

--color (string)

Turn on/off color output.

• on
• off
• auto

--no-sign-request (boolean)

Do not sign requests. Credentials will not be loaded if this argument is provided.

--ca-bundle (string)

The CA certificate bundle to use when verifying SSL certificates. Overrides config/env settings.

--cli-read-timeout (int)

The maximum socket read time in seconds. If the value is set to 0, the socket read will be blocking and not timeout. The default value is 60 seconds.

--cli-connect-timeout (int)

The maximum socket connect time in seconds. If the value is set to 0, the socket connect will be blocking and not timeout. The default value is 60 seconds.

--cli-binary-format (string)

The formatting style to be used for binary blobs. The default format is base64. The base64 format expects binary blobs to be provided as a base64 encoded string. The raw-in-base64-out format preserves compatibility with AWS CLI V1 behavior and binary values must be passed literally. When providing contents from a file that map to a binary blob fileb:// will always be treated as binary and use the file contents directly regardless of the cli-binary-format setting. When using file:// the file contents will need to properly formatted for the configured cli-binary-format.

• base64
• raw-in-base64-out

--no-cli-pager (boolean)

Disable cli pager for output.

--cli-auto-prompt (boolean)

Automatically prompt for CLI input parameters.

--no-cli-auto-prompt (boolean)

Disable automatically prompt for CLI input parameters.

Output

Instances -> (list)

A collection of objects containing properties for each instance returned.

(structure)

Represents a virtual computing instance that runs game server processes and hosts game sessions. In Amazon GameLift, one or more instances make up a managed EC2 fleet.

FleetId -> (string)

A unique identifier for the fleet that the instance belongs to.

FleetArn -> (string)

The Amazon Resource Name (ARN ) that is assigned to a Amazon GameLift fleet resource and uniquely identifies it. ARNs are unique across all Regions. Format is arn:aws:gamelift:<region>::fleet/fleet-a1234567-b8c9-0d1e-2fa3-b45c6d7e8912 .

InstanceId -> (string)

A unique identifier for the instance.

IpAddress -> (string)

IP address that is assigned to the instance.

DnsName -> (string)

The DNS identifier assigned to the instance that is running the game session. Values have the following format:

• TLS-enabled fleets: <unique identifier>.<region identifier>.amazongamelift.com .
• Non-TLS-enabled fleets: ec2-<unique identifier>.compute.amazonaws.com . (See Amazon EC2 Instance IP Addressing .)

When connecting to a game session that is running on a TLS-enabled fleet, you must use the DNS name, not the IP address.

OperatingSystem -> (string)

Operating system that is running on this EC2 instance.

Note

Amazon Linux 2 (AL2) will reach end of support on 6/30/2025. See more details in the Amazon Linux 2 FAQs . For game servers that are hosted on AL2 and use Amazon GameLift server SDK 4.x., first update the game server build to server SDK 5.x, and then deploy to AL2023 instances. See Migrate to Amazon GameLift server SDK version 5.

Type -> (string)

EC2 instance type that defines the computing resources of this instance.

Status -> (string)

Current status of the instance. Possible statuses include the following:

• PENDING – The instance is in the process of being created and launching server processes as defined in the fleet’s run-time configuration.
• ACTIVE – The instance has been successfully created and at least one server process has successfully launched and reported back to Amazon GameLift that it is ready to host a game session. The instance is now considered ready to host game sessions.
• TERMINATING – The instance is in the process of shutting down. This may happen to reduce capacity during a scaling down event or to recycle resources in the event of a problem.

CreationTime -> (timestamp)

A time stamp indicating when this data object was created. Format is a number expressed in Unix time as milliseconds (for example "1469498468.057" ).

Location -> (string)

The fleet location of the instance, expressed as an Amazon Web Services Region code, such as us-west-2 .

NextToken -> (string)

A token that indicates where to resume retrieving results on the next call to this operation. If no token is returned, these results represent the end of the list.