ec2-metadata

An easy interface to query the EC2 metadata API (version 2), with caching.

A quick example:

>>> from ec2_metadata import ec2_metadata
>>> print(ec2_metadata.region)
us-east-1
>>> print(ec2_metadata.instance_id)
i-123456

---

Working on a Django project? Improve your skills with one of my books.

---

Installation

Use pip:

python -m pip install ec2-metadata

Python 3.9 to 3.13 supported.

Why?

boto came with a utility function to retrieve the instance metadata as a lazy loading dictionary, boto.utils.get_instance_metadata, but this has not been ported to boto3, as per this issue. I thought that rather than building a new version inside boto3 it would work well as a standalone library.

Instance Metadata Service Version 2

In November 2019, AWS released version 2 of the instance metadata service. It's more secure against Server Side Request Forgery (SSRF) attacks.

ec2-metadata now uses it exclusively. So, you may consider disabling version 1, as per AWS' guide.

Note: Instance Metadata Service v2 has a default IP hop limit of 1. This can mean that you can see requests.exceptions.ReadTimeout errors from within Docker containers. To solve this, reconfigure your EC2 instance’s metadata options to allow three hops with aws ec2 modify-instance-metadata-options:

aws ec2 modify-instance-metadata-options  --instance-id <instance-id> --http-put-response-hop-limit 3

API

EC2Metadata(session=None)

A container that represents the data available on the EC2 metadata service. Attributes don't entirely correspond to the paths in the metadata service—they have been 'cleaned up'. You may also want to refer to the metadata service docs to understand the exact contents.

There's a singleton instance of it at the name ec2_metadata which should cover most use cases. Use it like:

from ec2_metadata import ec2_metadata

ec2_metadata.region

The session argument, if provided, should be an instance of requests.Session, allowing you to customize the way requests are made.

Most of the attributes are cached, except where noted below. This is because they are mostly immutable, or at least require an instance stop to change. However some cached attributes do represent things that can change without an instance stop, but rarely do, such as network devices.

The caching is done with @cached_property, so they cache on first access. If you want to clear the cache of one attribute you can just del it:

del ec2_metadata.network_interfaces

To clear all, use the clear_all() method as per below.

account_id: str

The current AWS account ID, for example '123456789012'.

ami_id: str

The ID of the AMI used to launch the instance, for example 'ami-123456'.

autoscaling_target_lifecycle_state: str | None

Uncached.

The target Auto Scaling lifecycle state that the instance is transitionioning to, or None if the instance is not in an autoscaling group. See AWS docs page Retrieve the target lifecycle state through instance metadata.

availability_zone: str

The name of the current AZ, for example 'eu-west-1a'.

availability_zone_id: str | None

The unique, cross-account ID of the current AZ, for example 'use1-az6'. See AWS docs page AZ IDs for your AWS resources.

ami_launch_index: int

The index of the instance in the launch request, zero-based, for example 0.

ami_manifest_path: str

The path to the AMI manifest file in Amazon S3, or '(unknown)' on EBS-backed AMI's.

clear_all() -> None

Clear all the cached attributes on the class, meaning their next access will re-fetch the data from the metadata API. This includes clearing the token used to authenticate with the service.

domain: str

The domain for AWS resources for the region. For example: 'amazonaws.com' for the standard AWS regions and GovCloud (US), or 'amazonaws.com.cn' for China.

iam_info: IamInfoDict | None

A dictionary of data for the IAM role attached to the instance, or None if no role is attached. The dict has this type, based on what the metadata service returns:

class IamInfoDict(TypedDict):
    InstanceProfileArn: str
    InstanceProfileId: str
    LastUpdated: str

iam_security_credentials: IamSecurityCredentialsDict | None

A dictionary of data for the security credentials associated with the IAM role attached to the instance, or None if no role is attached. See the AWS docs section “Retrieve security credentials from instance metadata” for details. The dict has this type, based on that document:

class IamSecurityCredentialsDict(TypedDict):
    LastUpdated: str
    Type: str
    AccessKeyId: str
    SecretAccessKey: str
    Token: str
    Expiration: str

instance_action: str

Uncached.

A state that notifies if the instance will reboot in preparation for bundling. See the AWS docs section “Instance Metadata Categories” for the valid values.

instance_id: str

The current instance's ID, for example 'i-123456'.

instance_identity_document: InstanceIdentityDocumentDict

A dictionary of dynamic data about the instance. See the AWS docs page “Instance Identity Documents” for an explanation of the contents. The dict has this type, based on that document:

class InstanceIdentityDocumentDict(TypedDict):
    accountId: str
    architecture: Literal["i386", "x86_64", "arm64"]
    availabilityZone: str
    billingProducts: list[str] | None
    marketplaceProductCodes: list[str] | None
    imageId: str
    instanceId: str
    instanceType: str
    kernelId: str | None
    pendingTime: str
    privateIp: str
    ramdiskId: str | None
    region: str
    version: str

instance_life_cycle: str

The purchasing option of this instance, for example 'on-demand'.

instance_profile_arn: str | None

The ARN of the IAM role/instance profile attached to the instance, taken from iam_info, or None if no role is attached.

instance_profile_id: str | None

The ID of the IAM role/instance profile attached to the instance, taken from iam_info, or None if no role is attached.

instance_profile_name: str | None

The instance profile name, extracted from instance_profile_arn, or None if no role is attached.

instance_type: str

The current instance's type, for example 't2.nano'.

kernel_id: str | None

The current instance's kernel ID, or None if it doesn't have one, for example 'aki-dc9ed9af'.

mac : str

The instance's MAC address, for example '0a:d2:ae:4d:f3:12'.

network_interfaces: dict[str, NetworkInterface]

A dictionary of mac address to NetworkInterface, which represents the data available on a network interface, documented below. For example: {'01:23:45:67:89:ab': NetworkInterface('01:23:45:67:89:ab')}

partition: str

The AWS partition where the instance is running. For example: 'aws' for the standard AWS regions, 'aws-us-gov' for GovCloud (US), or 'aws-cn' for China.

private_hostname : str

The private IPv4 DNS hostname of the instance, for example 'ip-172-30-0-0.eu-west-1.compute.internal' .

private_ipv4: str

The private IPv4 of the instance, for example '172.30.0.0'.

public_hostname : str | None

The public DNS hostname of the instance, or None if the instance is not public. For example: 'ec2-1-2-3-4.compute-1.amazonaws.com'.

public_ipv4: str | None

The public IPv4 address of the instance, or None if the instance is not public. For example: '1.2.3.4'.

region: str

The region the instance is running in, for example 'eu-west-1'.

reservation_id: str

The ID of the reservation used to launch the instance, for example 'r-12345678901234567'.

security_groups : list[str]

List of security groups by name, for example ['ssh-access', 'custom-sg-1'].

spot_instance_action: SpotInstanceAction | None

Uncached.

An object describing an action about to happen to this spot instance. Returns None if the instance is not spot, or not marked for termination.

The SpotInstanceAction object has two attributes:

• action: str - the action about to happen, one of "hibernate", "stop", or "terminate".
• time: datetime - the approximate UTC datetime when the action will occur.

See AWS docs section for a little more information.

tags: InstanceTags

A dict-like mapping of the tags for the instance (documented below). This requires you to explicitly enable the feature for the instance. If the feature is not enabled, accessing this attribute raises an error.

(It also seems that there is a bug where if the feature is enabled and then disabled, the metadata service returns an empty response. This is indistinguishable from “no tags”, so beware that in that case, InstanceTags will just look like an empty mapping.)

user_data: bytes | None

The raw user data assigned to the instance (not base64 encoded), or None if there is none.

InstanceTags

A dict-like mapping of tag names to values (both strs). To avoid unnecessary requests, the mapping is lazy: values are only fetched when required. (Names are known on construction though, from the first request in EC2Metadata.tags.)

The metadata service will receive tag updates on some instance types, as per the AWS documentation:

If you add or remove an instance tag, the instance metadata is updated while the instance is running for instances built on the Nitro System, without needing to stop and then start the instance. For all other instances, to update the tags in the instance metadata, you must stop and then start the instance.

Because InstanceTags is cached, it won’t reflect such updates on Nitro instances unless you clear it first:

del ec2_metadata.tags
ec2_metadata.tags["Name"]  # fresh

NetworkInterface

Represents a single network interface, as retrieved from EC2Metadata.network_interfaces. Again like EC2Metadata all its attributes cache on first access, and can be cleared with del or its clear_all() method.

device_number: int

The unique device number associated with that interface, for example 0.

interface_id: str

The unique id used to identify the Elastic Network Interface, for example 'eni-12345'.

ipv4_associations: dict[str, list[str]]

A dictionary mapping the interface’s public IP addresses on the interface to the list of private IP addresses associated with that public IP. For example: {'54.0.0.1': ['172.30.0.0']}.

ipv6s: list[str]

The IPv6 addresses associated with the interface, for example ['2001:db8:abcd:ef00::1234'].

mac: str

The MAC address of the interface, for example '01:23:45:67:89:ab'.

owner_id: str

The AWS Account ID of the owner of the network interface, for example '123456789012'.

private_hostname: str

The interface's local/private hostname, for example 'ip-172-30-0-0.eu-west-1.compute.internal'.

private_ipv4s: list[str]

The private IPv4 addresses associated with the interface, for example ['172.30.0.0'].

public_hostname: str | None

The interface's public DNS (IPv4), for example 'ec2-54-0-0-0.compute-1.amazonaws.com'.

public_ipv4s: list[str]

The Elastic IP addresses associated with the interface, for example ['54.0.0.0'].

security_groups: list[str]

The names of the security groups to which the network interface belongs, for example ['ssh-access', 'custom-sg-1'].

security_group_ids: list[str]

The names of the security groups to which the network interface belongs, for example ['sg-12345678', 'sg-12345679'].

subnet_id: str

The ID of the subnet in which the interface resides, for example 'subnet-12345678'.

subnet_ipv4_cidr_block: str | None

The IPv4 CIDR block of the subnet in which the interface resides, or None if there is none, for example '172.30.0.0/24'.

subnet_ipv6_cidr_blocks: list[str]

The list of IPv6 CIDR blocks of the subnet in which the interface resides, for example ['2001:db8:abcd:ef00::/64']. If the subnet does not have any IPv6 CIDR blocks or the instance isn't in a VPC, the list will be empty, for example [].

vpc_id: str

The ID of the VPC in which the interface resides, for example 'vpc-12345678'.

vpc_ipv4_cidr_block: str | None

The IPv4 CIDR block of the VPC, or None if the instance isn't in a VPC, for example '172.30.0.0/16'.

vpc_ipv4_cidr_blocks: list[str]

The list of IPv4 CIDR blocks for example ['172.30.0.0/16']. If the interface doesn’t have any such CIDR blocks, the list will be empty.

vpc_ipv6_cidr_blocks: list[str]

The list of IPv6 CIDR blocks of the VPC in which the interface resides, for example ['2001:db8:abcd:ef00::/56']. If the VPC does not have any IPv6 CIDR blocks or the instance isn't in a VPC, the list will be empty, for example [].