The Describe instance action retrieves the details of the EC2 instances that are running currently in region specified in the Connect action. The action retrieves details such as instance state, system status, availability zone etc.

The Describe instance action uses the session name specified in the Connect action to authenticate the retrieval request to the base URL. This actions supports retrieving details of one, multiple or all the instances.

The Filters section enables the definition of criteria for retrieving details of specific instances. For more information about the available filters, see the Filters section in DescribeInstances.

Settings

The following settings are available in the Describe instance action:

Session name
The session identifier defined in the Connect action. The system automatically assigns Default as the session name. You can provide a string variable or use a session variable.
Instance IDs
The IDs of EC2 instances to start. For multiple instances, add the instance IDs as comma-separated values. For all instances, leave the field blank.
Filters
The Filters define the criteria for retrieving details of specific EC2 instances. The Add filter button enables the definition of filter names and values. The action retrieves the details of instances that meet the filter criteria.
The system performs logic AND operation for filter with different names and performs logic OR operation for filter with same names and different values. The following examples illustrate how the Filters option work:
To retrieve the details of all the EC2 instances in VPCs vpc-01234 and vpc-56789, define the filter as follows:
Filter name Filter value
vpc-id vpc-01234
vpc-id vpc-56789
To retrieve the details of c5.2xlarge type EC2 instances that are running, define the filter as follows:
Filter name Filter value
instance-type c5.2xlarge
instance-state-name running
Assign instance details to variable
Variables that hold the IDs, current and previous state information of each EC2 instance. The following options are available:
  • Multiple variables: Individual variables with keys, each holding a specific instance detail.
  • Dictionary: A single dictionary variable that holds all the instance details.