How to disable Systems Manager

Hello,

You can disable SSM manager by following this documentation.

You can verify by disassociating them in Fleet Manager, either by removing the SSM agent or by stopping/deleting the instance.

Check for the ssm agent on your EC2s with the commands:

• sudo systemctl stop amazon-ssm-agent
• sudo systemctl disable amazon-ssm-agent
• sudo yum remove amazon-ssm-agent

Hope it helps 😊

To disable AWS Systems Manager, you have a few options depending on your specific setup:

1. If Systems Manager is enabled and you're logged into an account that is not part of AWS Organizations, or if your Organizations account hasn't been added to Systems Manager by a delegated administrator, you can disable it from the Account setup page. Look for the "Disable Systems Manager" option. This will disable the unified console, but all Systems Manager tools will still function.

2. If you're using Systems Manager with AWS Organizations, you'll need to disable trusted access:

   • Sign in to the AWS Organizations console as an IAM user, assume an IAM role, or sign in as the root user in the organization's management account.
   • Navigate to Services, select AWS Systems Manager, and choose "Disable trusted access".
   • Confirm by typing "disable" when prompted.

3. If you've set up the Systems Manager unified console for an organization, you can disable it from the delegated administrator account:

   • Log in to the delegated administrator account.
   • Go to the Settings section of the unified console.
   • Select the option to disable the setup for your organization.

4. For EC2 instances managed by Default Host Management Configuration:

   • You can deactivate this setting in the Fleet Manager console or using AWS CLI/PowerShell.
   • Note that you need to turn it off in each Region separately.

Remember that disabling Systems Manager or its components doesn't automatically delete all associated resources. You may need to manually delete certain resources or artifacts if you want to completely remove all traces of Systems Manager usage.

Also, keep in mind that disabling Systems Manager doesn't necessarily incur extra costs, as many of its features are included at no additional charge. However, disabling it will prevent you from using its management and automation capabilities.

Fehrist, if you're concerned about specific costs, it might be worth reviewing your usage and the pricing details for any Systems Manager features you've been using before disabling the service entirely.
Sources
Adjusting Systems Manager settings - AWS Systems Manager
AWS Systems Manager and AWS Organizations - AWS Organizations
Disabling the Systems Manager unified console - AWS Systems Manager
Managing EC2 instances automatically with Default Host Management Configuration - AWS Systems Manager
Deleting Systems Manager resources and artifacts - AWS Systems Manager

Hello, thank you for the answer it solved half the issue.

• disabling the SSM as service from the setting was successful
• but when i spin my test EC2 (t2.micro free tier w/ Ubuntu 24.04) it has presence in the Fleet Manager section which mean it is still under monitoring and control from the SSM.

-- after executing the First command as below:

sudo systemctl stop amazon-ssm-agent

-- the response was as below

Failed to stop amazon-ssm-agent.service: Unit amazon-ssm-agent.service not loaded.

+++ +++ Update

in the existing instance based on Ubuntu 24.04 the following commands are executed

~$ sudo dpkg -l | grep amazon-ssm-agent

No output

~$ sudo systemctl status amazon-ssm-agent

output Unit amazon-ssm-agent.service could not be found.

I have created an additional new instance based on Amazon Linux 2023 (AL2023) for testing purpose. Although the Systems Manager service is disabled as per the documentation both instances (the ubuntu based, and the AL2023 based) still appear in the Fleet Manager.

after accessing the Amazon Linux linux 2023 instance via terminal and execute the command

sudo systemctl status amazon-ssm-agent

it shows

     Loaded: loaded (/usr/lib/systemd/system/amazon-ssm-agent.service; enabled; preset: enabled)
     Active: active (running) since Fri 2025-03-07 21:29:10 UTC; 9min ago
   Main PID: 2165 (amazon-ssm-agen)
      Tasks: 16 (limit: 1111)
     Memory: 56.8M
        CPU: 623ms
     CGroup: /system.slice/amazon-ssm-agent.service
             ├─2165 /usr/bin/amazon-ssm-agent
             └─2239 /usr/bin/ssm-agent-worker 

is it fine to have the instances active in the Fleet Manager even though the Systems Manager is disabled?

would this incur any additional cost?

how to check the SSM agent in the ubuntu instance, the documentation method does not work.

+++update: Answer found under this link https://docs.aws.amazon.com/systems-manager/latest/userguide/ami-preinstalled-agent.html