InvalidInstanceId: An error occurred (InvalidInstanceId) when calling the SendCommand operation

Question

The below is the code which i am running from python to execute commands in aws ec2 instance

import boto3
ec2 = boto3.client('ssm',region_name='us-east-1',aws_access_key_id='xxxxxxxxxxxxxxx',aws_secret_access_key='xxxxxxxxx')
a = ec2.send_command(InstanceIds=ids, DocumentName='AWS-RunShellScript', Comment='abcdabcd', Parameters={"commands":["ifconfig"]})

But it is giving the below error

InvalidInstanceId: An error occurred (InvalidInstanceId) when calling the SendCommand operation: 

Solution 1

The following scenarios can result in this error message:

• Instance id is invalid (in the comments you have verified it isn't)
• Instance is in a different region (in the comments you have verified it isn't)
• Instance is not currently in the Running state
• Instance does not have the AWS SSM agent installed and running.

You need to login to the AWS EC2/SSM console and make sure the instance(s) you are trying manage show up in the SYSTEMS MANAGER SHARED RESOURCES - Managed Instances list, and that they show a Ping status of Online. If not, you need to fix that before trying to send commands to the instance(s) in question.

Solution 2

Make sure your instance has SSM setup. For Linux, you need to use Amazon Linux AMI or install manually.

Run:

aws ssm describe-instance-information --output text

to see the SSM agent version from your instances. So make sure your instance is on that list.

See also: SSM send command to EC2 instance Failed.

Solution 3

You must make sure you have the SSM Agent installed on your instance, which comes preinstalled on a few AMIs.

Also, what ended up working for me was going through the setup on the AWS Systems Manager service. The Quick Setup is pretty painless, just give it a couple minutes to run. After I ran through the Quick Setup and tested my command directly on Systems Manager, my Lambda function also successfully ran.