aws cli ec2 describe-instances table output

Question

I want to run an ec2 describe-instances command and get output in a table format as follows (where name is the Value of the Tag with Key 'Name'):

----------------------------------------------------------
|                    DescribeInstances                   |
+-------------+----------------+--------------+----------+
| instance_id |  ip_address    |    name      |  state   |
+-------------+----------------+--------------+----------+
|  i-g93g494d |  99.99.99.01   |  name1       |  running |
|  i-a93f754c |  99.99.99.02   |  name2       |  running |
+-------------+----------------+--------------+----------+

I can run the following command:

aws ec2 describe-instances --instance-ids i-g93g494d i-a93f754c --query "Reservations[*].Instances[*].{name: Tags[?Key=='Name'].Value, instance_id: InstanceId, ip_address: PrivateIpAddress, state: State.Name}" --output json

and obtain output:

[
    [
        {
            "instance_id": "i-g93g494d",
            "state": "running",
            "ip_address": "99.99.99.01",
            "name": [
                "name1"
            ]
        }
    ],
    [
        {
            "instance_id": "i-a93f754c",
            "state": "running",
            "ip_address": "99.99.99.02",
            "name": [
                "name2"
            ]
        }
    ]
]

However, when I run the same command with --output table rather than --output json I get an error.

command:

aws ec2 describe-instances --instance-ids i-g93g494d i-a93f754c --query "Reservations[*].Instances[*].{name: Tags[?Key=='Name'].Value, instance_id: InstanceId, ip_address: PrivateIpAddress, state: State.Name}" --output json

output:

list index out of range

I would like the table output to look like the above example but I'm having difficulty solving this. I'd very much appreciate any help anyone can offer on this.

Answer 1

You need to use pipe expression to filter the Tag results and get the first value such as:

aws ec2 describe-instances --instance-ids i-g93g494d i-a93f754c --query "Reservations[*].Instances[*].{name: Tags[?Key=='Name'] | [0].Value, instance_id: InstanceId, ip_address: PrivateIpAddress, state: State.Name}" --output table

There is a nice related blog post here: Get a list of instance with id, name and type