Mac instance not finding a dedicated host to launch on

Question

I am attempting to launch a MacOS instance, but I keep getting the following error:

A Dedicated host for the specified launch parameters could not be found.

I am choosing macOS Sonoma, which is supposed to be available on all MacOS instances, on a mac1.metal instance, and I am not changing anything in the settings aside from adding my ssh key and changing the Tenancy to Dedicate Host since that's the only one it will allow. It then attempts to launch it but fails with that error every time. Any idea what I need to change?

Thank you.

-Michael

Leo K · Accepted Answer

I believe you first have to allocate the dedicated host and only then launch the instance on that host. This document article explains how to allocate the dedicated host: https://docs.aws.amazon.com/AWSEC2/latest/UserGuide/how-dedicated-hosts-work.html#dedicated-hosts-allocating

And this document about launching Mac instances states at the beginning that the previous step is a prerequisite: https://docs.aws.amazon.com/AWSEC2/latest/UserGuide/mac-instance-launch.html

mvandemar · Answer

Perfect, thank you. In case anyone else stumbles on this, apparently you start out with a max quota of 0 dedicated instances, and you need to request to have that increased before you can actually do this:

https://us-west-2.console.aws.amazon.com/servicequotas/home/services/ec2/quotas

For this I searched "dedicated mac", checked the Running Dedicated mac1 Hosts button, and then clicked the "Request increase at account level". Hoping it doesn't take too long but I am anticipating it will go through.

Mac instance not finding a dedicated host to launch on

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