Use CLI to see "user data"?

Question

Hello!  
  
I start instances using the --user-data command line option.  From inside the running instance, I've had no trouble getting that data and using it.  
  
I have an external process that's attempting to monitor the instances involved in a certain job.  I've used "aws ec2 describe-instances" to get all of the information I need.  Well, almost all of it.  I really need to see the user-data, so I can figure out exactly what workset a given instance is working on.  I can't seem to find it.  
  
The result of "aws ec2 describe-instances --instance-ids xxxx" doesn't contain the user data.  If it is possible to get the user data, I'm guessing it would be a specific query string, but I can't find any reference to user data in the documentation.  
  
Is it possible to use describe-instances to get the user data metadata?  
  
Thanks,  
  
Kevin

rtt · Accepted Answer

Hello  
  
to get the instance user data, you can try the describe instance attribute  
aws ec2 describe-instance-attribute --instance-id  --attribute userData  
where  is your instance id  
  
https://docs.aws.amazon.com/cli/latest/reference/ec2/describe-instance-attribute.html  
  
hope this helps  
RT

Kevin · Answer

Great!  I hadn't found that.  That gives me an encoded text blob, which when base64 decoded, gives me the data!  
  
Thanks!  
  
Kevin

Use CLI to see "user data"?

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