Check if an EC2 instance could be exported

Question

Hi all,

I know how to export an EC2 instance with `create-instance-export-task`, but I'm trying to find a way to check if a certain instance would be exportable without actually starting the export if it is.

Background: AWS docs say

> You can't export an instance if it contains third-party software provided by AWS. For example, VM Export cannot export Windows or SQL Server instances, or any instance created from an image in the AWS Marketplace.

I have a pretty long list of IDs for EC2 instances and need to find out which of them can or can't be exported, so what I'm looking for is basically some kind of

```
aws ec2 create-instance-export-task --dry-run --instance-id ...
```
but I'd be happy with any kind of shell command that tells me "yes, this one can be exported" or "no, this one can't be exported".

Is there any way to do this, or do I have to start an export for every instance, then check the status and cancel it if it's actually running?

Thanks,

Marc

Marc · Answer

Hi Abhinav,

thanks for your reply. What you describe is what I was hoping for, but it seems it doesn't work like this.

The [documentation](https://awscli.amazonaws.com/v2/documentation/api/latest/reference/ec2/describe-export-tasks.html) doesn't list a `--instance-id` parameter and if I try it, the reply is `Unknown options: --instance-id`.

The `create-instance-export-task` actually kind of works, because it will terminate with an error description for instances that can't be exported (marketplace AMI, more than one volume etc.). This is useful because these checks seem to run before the check if the instance is currently running, so it can be used on active instances. The command is 
```
aws ec2 create-instance-export-task --description "test export" \
 --instance-id i-012345... \
 --target-environment vmware \
 --export-to-s3-task DiskImageFormat=vmdk,ContainerFormat=ova,S3Bucket=yourtestbucket
```
where the bucket exists and has permissions according to the documentation.

Note that this *will* create the export task if the machine is exportable and currently stopped, I couldn't find a way around that. Since I now found out that almost none of the instances are exportable, because they were created from a marketplace AMI, I need to find a different solution anyway.

Cheers,

Marc

Check if an EC2 instance could be exported

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