What details do I provide when I open a support case for an Amazon EC2 instance?

Resolution

Make sure that you include the following information in the AWS Support case for your EC2 instance.

Instance and resource IDs

Take the following actions:

• Include the instance ID.
  Note: To find the instance ID, open the Amazon EC2 console. Choose Instances, and then choose your instance.
• Include the virtual private cloud (VPC) IDs and subnet IDs.
  Note: This information is required to resolve connectivity, routing, or Session Manager, a capability of AWS Systems Manager reachability issues.
• If your issue involves Amazon Elastic Block Store (Amazon EBS) volumes, then include the volume IDs.
• If your issue involves network connectivity, then include the IDs of the security group that are attached to your instance. Also, include the elastic network interface IDs, route tables, and network access control list (network ACL) IDs.
  Note: If you activated Amazon VPC Flow Logs, then include the logs for the time window when the issue occurred.
• If you use Elastic IP addresses, then include the Elastic IP addresses.
• If the instance is in an Amazon EC2 Auto Scaling group, then include the EC2 Auto Scaling Group name. If the instance is a load balancer target, then also include the load balancer name.
• If you have environments across multiple AWS accounts, then include the account ID of the account where the issue occurred.

Region and Availability Zone

Specify the AWS Region and Availability Zone where your instance is running.

Error messages and logs

To include error messages that you encountered, take the following actions:

• Copy the full error text and error codes.
• Attach log files or log excerpts that show the error context.
• Include the instance console output logs.

Note: Use the EC2Rescue for Windows Server or EC2Rescue for Linux instances tool to collect logs and other data from an active instance.

Timestamps

Note when the issue occurred with specific timestamps to answer the following questions:

• When did you first notice the issue?
• When did the issue last occur?
• Is the issue intermittent or continuous?

Make sure to include the time zone for all timestamps.

Example text:

"The connectivity issue first occurred on January 15, 2024, at 14:30 UTC and has been continuous since then."

OS information

Make sure that you include the operating system (OS) with the version or build number that the instance uses, such as Windows Server 2019, Amazon Linux 2 (AL2), or Ubuntu 20.04.

For Linux, include the kernel version. To check the kernel version, run the following command:

uname -r

Also, specify whether the system is fully updated or has pending updates.

Clear description of the issue

Include the following information to clearly describe the issue:

• For What you were trying to accomplish, describe your goal or the task that you were performing when the issue occurred.
• For Steps you took, list the specific actions that you performed before you encountered the issue.
• For Expected behavior, describe what you expected to happen.
• For Actual behavior, describe what actually happened instead.
• For Troubleshooting steps already attempted, document any troubleshooting steps that you already tried and their results.

Example description:

"I attempted to install the Remote Server Administration Tools (RSAT) for Active Directory Domain Services feature on my Windows Server 2019 EC2 instance with the Add Roles and Features wizard. I expected the feature to install successfully, but instead received the 0x80073701 error. I already tried to run Windows Update and the DISM repair command, but the issue persists."

Screenshots and attachments

If possible, then include the following visual documentation:

• Screenshots of error messages, configuration screens, or unexpected behavior
• Relevant log files as text files or compressed archives
• Relevant configuration files with the sensitive information removed
• The output of diagnostic commands

Important: Make sure that your visual documentation adheres to the following guidelines:

• The screenshots are clear and readable.
• You removed or redacted sensitive information such as passwords, private keys, or personal data.
• You used a common file formats such as PNG or JPG for images, and TXT or LOG for text files.
• You compressed large files.

Instance configuration details

Provide the following information about your instance configuration:

• The EC2 instance type, such as t3.medium, or g4ad.8xlarge
• The Amazon Machine Image (AMI) that you used to launch the instance
• The time when you originally launched the instance
• Any AWS Identity and Access Management (IAM) role that's attached to the instance
• Any user data scripts that you used during instance launch
  Important: Remove sensitive information from the scripts.

Recent changes

Document recent changes to your environment, such as the following examples:

• Instance type changes
• OS updates or patches
• Application updates
• Configuration changes
• Network or security group modifications
• New software installations

Session Manager information

If you use Session Manager to connect to your instance and experience issues, then include the following details:

• Confirm the AWS Systems Manager Agent (SSM Agent) version. Also, state whether the agent is installed and running. To check the status and version of SSM Agent on your Windows instance, use Fleet Manager, a capability of AWS Systems Manager.
  For Linux instances, run the following command:

  ssm-agent -version

• Include the IAM instance profile that's attached to the instance, and note whether the profile has the AmazonSSMManagedInstanceCore policy attached.

• Include whether the instance is in a private subnet.

• Include whether you configured VPC endpoints for ssm.region.amazonaws.com, ssmmessages.region.amazonaws.com, ec2messages.region.amazon.com, and s3.region.amazonaws.com. Note whether you use AWS PrivateLink for any of the endpoints.

CloudWatch metrics

If you experience performance-related issues such as CPU throttling, network saturation, disk I/O issues, or high memory pressure, then include the related metrics from Amazon CloudWatch.

Based on the issue that you encounter, include the values for the following metrics:

• CPUUtilization
• NetworkIn and NetworkOut
• DiskReadOps and DiskWriteOps
• EBSReadBytes and EBSWriteBytes
• StatusCheckFailed

If a CloudWatch alarm that you configured went off during the issue, then include those details in the support case.

Related information

Get started with Amazon EC2

Troubleshoot issues with Amazon EC2 instances