{"id":629,"date":"2012-10-15T13:30:25","date_gmt":"2012-10-15T13:30:25","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/wade.one\/blog\/?p=629"},"modified":"2016-04-11T18:23:44","modified_gmt":"2016-04-11T18:23:44","slug":"using-amazon-ec2-with-c-net","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/wade.one\/blog\/2012\/10\/15\/using-amazon-ec2-with-c-net\/","title":{"rendered":"Using Amazon EC2 with C# .net"},"content":{"rendered":"

Amazon’s EC2 platform has a very in-depth console which allows you to do a lot, but what if you want to automate some of the processes or handling servers? I’ve been working with EC2 a lot recently and automating server starting\/stopping based on parameters of the system we use here at MediaSkunkworks<\/a> and thought I’d share some knowledge.<\/p>\n

Getting Started<\/span><\/h3>\n

You’ll want to grab yourself the AWSSDK; this can be from the installer at http:\/\/aws.amazon.com\/sdkfornet\/<\/a> or as a NuGet package in your VS project. If you use the installer, be sure to add a reference to the AWSSDK.dll file (should be at C:\\Program Files (x86)\\AWS SDK for .NET\\bin\\AWSSDK.dll) on a 64-bit OS.<\/p>\n

Set-up<\/span><\/h3>\n

In the Amazon namespace there is a class called AWSClientFactory<\/strong> which is a factory class (kind of obvious I suppose!) used to create “clients” for the various services Amazon offers. In this case we’ll be using the method CreateAmazonEC2Client<\/strong>. You will need your access key and secret access key to call this function, they can be found on the security credentials<\/a> page in your account – if you’ve not created them yet, they can be created here too.<\/p>\n

To get an instance of the client, the method is called as follows:<\/p>\n

AmazonEC2 <\/span>client = AWSClientFactory<\/span>.CreateAmazonEC2Client(\r\n        \"YOUR_ACCESS_KEY\"<\/span>,\r\n        \"YOUR_SECRET_ACCESS_KEY<\/span>\",\r\n        new<\/span> AmazonEC2Config<\/span>()\r\n        {\r\n                ServiceURL = \"<\/span>https:\/\/eu-west-1.ec2.amazonaws.com\/<\/span>\"<\/span>,\r\n                UseSecureStringForAwsSecretKey = false<\/span>\r\n        }\r\n);<\/pre>\n
You’ll notice I’ve passed in an instance of AmazonEC2Config<\/strong>, with a ServiceURL<\/strong>. This makes future calls using this client easier if you’re working on one “zone” in Amazon – also note for Europe it’s just eu-west-1, no a, b or c at the end – this applies to all zones. As for the UseSecureStringForAwsSecretKey<\/strong>, this is due to .NET restrictions in trust levels, ideally this should be true but for a non distributed app (i.e. one you run on a private server no one can access) this is fine.<\/p>\n
The clien<\/em>t<\/em> variable will now have an instance of the AmazonEC2 object which has a whole host of helper methods for various things you can do with the EC2 platform. (The complete list of methods in this class can be seen at the API reference<\/a>.)<\/p>\n
Retrieving a List of Running Instances<\/span><\/h3>\n
The method you’ll need here is DescribeInstances<\/strong> which requires an instance of DescribeInstancesRequest<\/strong> (the AWSSDK is extremely<\/em> OO heavy as you’ll see below!). There are lots of ways to use this method, but I’ll go for a simple one – get a list of instances running with the specified AMI ID (also knows as Image ID).<\/p>\n
DescribeInstancesResponse<\/span> response = client.DescribeInstances(\r\n    new<\/span> DescribeInstancesRequest<\/span>()\r\n    {\r\n        Filter = new<\/span> List<\/span><Filter<\/span>>()\r\n        {\r\n            new<\/span> Filter<\/span>()\r\n            {\r\n                Name = \"image-id\"<\/span>,\r\n                Value = new<\/span> List<\/span><String<\/span>>()\r\n                {\r\n                    \"ami-223c1a1b\"<\/span>\r\n                }\r\n            }\r\n        }\r\n    }\r\n);<\/pre>\n
So now you’ve got a list of instances matching the AMI ID ami-223c1a1b<\/em> right? Well, kind of. What you actually have is an instance of DescribeInstancesResponse. This class has a few functions such as showing the XML response etc. what you want though is the public property DescribeInstancesResult<\/strong> which then has a public property Reservation<\/strong> which is of type List<\/strong><Reservation<\/strong>>, more OO! You’d be forgiven for thinking this is a list of instances as a result of your query: what it actually represents is a list of groups of instances. Why is this? Well from what I can gather, this is because you can request servers to run in bulk with various parameters, each request to run servers is a reservation [happy to be corrected here].<\/p>\n
What next then? Well each Reservation<\/strong> object has a property called RunningInstance<\/strong> which is actually not a single instance but of type List<\/strong><RunningInst<\/strong>ance>. If you’re like me, you probably don’t care about this huge level of abstraction as you simply wanted an actual list of running instances that match your request; so you’ll probably want code something like this:<\/p>\n
List<\/span><RunningInstance<\/span>>() instances = new List<\/span><RunningInstance<\/span>>();\r\nforeach<\/span>(var<\/span> instList in<\/span> response.DescribeInstancesResult.Reservation)\r\n    instances.AddRange(instList.RunningInstance);<\/pre>\n
Running New Instances<\/span><\/h3>\n
Running new instances, like getting a list of instances uses the same OO approach and returns the same type of OO response (in this case a RunInstancesResult<\/strong>). An example of this can be seen below:<\/p>\n
RunInstancesResponse response = client.RunInstances(\r\n        new<\/span> RunInstancesRequest<\/span>()\r\n        {\r\n            ImageId = \"ami-223c1a1b\"<\/span>,\r\n            InstanceType = \"t1.micro\"<\/span>,\r\n            SecurityGroup = new<\/span> List<\/span><string<\/span>>()\r\n            {\r\n                \"security-group-name\"<\/span>\r\n            },\r\n            MinCount = 1,\r\n            MaxCount = 10,\r\n            KeyName = \"quick-start-1\"<\/span>\r\n    }\r\n);<\/pre>\n
What I do with the response is use response.RunInstancesResult.Reservation.RunningInstance.Count<\/em> which lets me know how many instances EC2 actually spawned (note how as this is a request, Reservation<\/em> here is not a list, it’s a single object.)<\/p>\n
What’s Next<\/span>?<\/h3>\n
There is so much more you can do, this really does barely scratch the surface. What I hope it does do though is give you a quick start guide for using the SDK without having to delve too much into the API docs or working out how they like you to call their code.<\/p>\n
For those of you who know the AWSSDK and are wondering why I chose the “inline” approach rather than using the .With…()<\/em> methods – it’s because I prefer this way of doing it and I find it easier to maintain than to daisy-chain lots of .With…()<\/em> ‘s together.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"
Amazon’s EC2 platform has a very in-depth console which allows you to do a lot, but what if you want to automate some of the processes or handling servers? I’ve been working with EC2 a lot recently and automating server starting\/stopping based on parameters of the system we use here at MediaSkunkworks and thought I’d … Read More “Using Amazon EC2 with C# .net”<\/span> »<\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"jetpack_post_was_ever_published":false,"_jetpack_newsletter_access":"","_jetpack_dont_email_post_to_subs":false,"_jetpack_newsletter_tier_id":0,"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paywalled_content":false,"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paid_content":false,"footnotes":"","jetpack_publicize_message":"","jetpack_publicize_feature_enabled":true,"jetpack_social_post_already_shared":false,"jetpack_social_options":{"image_generator_settings":{"template":"highway","default_image_id":0,"font":"","enabled":false},"version":2}},"categories":[13],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-629","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-programming"],"yoast_head":"\nUsing Amazon EC2 with C# .net - wade.one<\/title>\n<meta name=\"robots\" content=\"index, follow, max-snippet:-1, max-image-preview:large, max-video-preview:-1\" \/>\n<link rel=\"canonical\" href=\"https:\/\/wade.one\/blog\/2012\/10\/15\/using-amazon-ec2-with-c-net\/\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:locale\" content=\"en_GB\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:type\" content=\"article\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:title\" content=\"Using Amazon EC2 with C# .net - wade.one\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:description\" content=\"Amazon’s EC2 platform has a very in-depth console which allows you to do a lot, but what if you want to automate some of the processes or handling servers? 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One of the first things I wanted to do was created custom modules so I could organise my code clearly.\u2026","rel":"","context":"In "Programming"","block_context":{"text":"Programming","link":"https:\/\/wade.one\/blog\/category\/programming\/"},"img":{"alt_text":"","src":"","width":0,"height":0},"classes":[]},{"id":556,"url":"https:\/\/wade.one\/blog\/2011\/04\/25\/automating-implemented-methods-for-a-web-based-api\/","url_meta":{"origin":629,"position":3},"title":"Automating “Implemented methods” for a web based API","author":"Wade","date":"April 25, 2011","format":false,"excerpt":"In my leedsphp talk last week I mentioned making a developer (and consumers) life easier by automatically implementing the allow methods functionality that your API may expose (e.g. you call PUT on a URL that only allows GET or POST). I did have an example slide there showing how to\u2026","rel":"","context":"In "Programming"","block_context":{"text":"Programming","link":"https:\/\/wade.one\/blog\/category\/programming\/"},"img":{"alt_text":"","src":"","width":0,"height":0},"classes":[]},{"id":982,"url":"https:\/\/wade.one\/blog\/2016\/04\/02\/useful-tidbits-for-raspberry-pi-users-on-raspian-aka-things-i-wish-i-knew-quickereasier\/","url_meta":{"origin":629,"position":4},"title":"Useful tidbits for Raspberry pi users on Raspian – aka things I wish I knew quicker\/easier","author":"Wade","date":"April 2, 2016","format":false,"excerpt":"I love my Pi2 and my Pi3, they're amazing pieces of cheap kit I can do anything with - although to be honest I don't use them anywhere near as much as I should. So here is a compilation of things I found useful this last week when I finally\u2026","rel":"","context":"In "Programming"","block_context":{"text":"Programming","link":"https:\/\/wade.one\/blog\/category\/programming\/"},"img":{"alt_text":"","src":"https:\/\/i0.wp.com\/wade.one\/blog\/wp-content\/uploads\/2016\/04\/IMG_4090.jpg?resize=350%2C200&ssl=1","width":350,"height":200,"srcset":"https:\/\/i0.wp.com\/wade.one\/blog\/wp-content\/uploads\/2016\/04\/IMG_4090.jpg?resize=350%2C200&ssl=1 1x, https:\/\/i0.wp.com\/wade.one\/blog\/wp-content\/uploads\/2016\/04\/IMG_4090.jpg?resize=525%2C300&ssl=1 1.5x, https:\/\/i0.wp.com\/wade.one\/blog\/wp-content\/uploads\/2016\/04\/IMG_4090.jpg?resize=700%2C400&ssl=1 2x, https:\/\/i0.wp.com\/wade.one\/blog\/wp-content\/uploads\/2016\/04\/IMG_4090.jpg?resize=1050%2C600&ssl=1 3x, https:\/\/i0.wp.com\/wade.one\/blog\/wp-content\/uploads\/2016\/04\/IMG_4090.jpg?resize=1400%2C800&ssl=1 4x"},"classes":[]},{"id":585,"url":"https:\/\/wade.one\/blog\/2012\/05\/22\/php5-4-3-available-on-dotdeb-org-installs-fine-on-ubuntu\/","url_meta":{"origin":629,"position":5},"title":"PHP5.4.3 Available on Dotdeb.org (Installs fine on Ubuntu)","author":"Wade","date":"May 22, 2012","format":false,"excerpt":"Dotdeb.org have the PHP 5.4 series available for installation on Debian based OS's, you can either do it manually or use my installation script I wrote to make the process easier. All you need to do is run: curl https:\/\/wade.one\/blog\/wp-content\/uploads\/php54.sh | sudo bash And it'll do the rest for you!\u2026","rel":"","context":"In "Programming"","block_context":{"text":"Programming","link":"https:\/\/wade.one\/blog\/category\/programming\/"},"img":{"alt_text":"","src":"","width":0,"height":0},"classes":[]}],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/wade.one\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/629","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/wade.one\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/wade.one\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/wade.one\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/wade.one\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=629"}],"version-history":[{"count":3,"href":"https:\/\/wade.one\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/629\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":633,"href":"https:\/\/wade.one\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/629\/revisions\/633"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/wade.one\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=629"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/wade.one\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=629"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/wade.one\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=629"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}
These aren’t all the options available, complete list is here<\/a>. But it does show you the power you have to control EC2. Majority of the variables are self-explanatory; it is worth nothin the SecurityGroup<\/em> list should be populated by the name of the security group, not the ID (the name is what you see in the EC2 web interface) – you can however use SecurityGroupId<\/em> instead. The MinCount\/MaxCount properties are very useful, MinCount means “run at least this many servers, if you can’t, run none”; MaxCount means “run no more than this many servers, but you can run less provided you run at least MinCount”.<\/p>\n
Et voila! A nice simple list of RunningInstance objects you can do whatever you want with (RunningInstance again is part of the AWS SDK, documentation can be seen here<\/a>.)<\/p>\n
See what I mean by extreme OO? Not only does DescribeInstances take a DescribeInstanc<\/strong>esRequest, but in turn that takes a List of type Filter who’s values are a List of type String! The good side to this is you can easily build up filters and each filter can have multiple values (so instead of just one AMI-ID as in the above example, you could specify several and they’ll all get returned). Conversley you can pass in a DescribeInstanceRequest<\/strong> with no parameters and you’ll get every instance available back. There are a lot of filters you can use, the complete list can be seen here<\/a>.<\/p>\n