Create EC2 instance without starting

Question

I would like to create some EC2 instance, but before it starts do some stuff using instance ID generated for this instance. Is there any option in aws ec2 run-instances or another aws ec2 command for creating an AWS EC2 instance without starting it? A workaround would be generating UUID to tag this instance and associate this UUID instead of instance ID, or stopping just after run instance, but I would prefer some smarter solution.

Answer 1

There is no option under EC2 to create an instance without starting it. Once you create an instance it will automatically will move from pending to running state

Docs - http://docs.aws.amazon.com/cli/latest/reference/ec2/run-instances.html

Answer 2

So as I was telling to @pt12lol in the comments, this is exactly what userdata is for.

From Amazon's documentation:

When you launch an instance in Amazon EC2, you have the option of passing user data to the instance that can be used to perform common automated configuration tasks and even run scripts after the instance starts. You can pass two types of user data to Amazon EC2: shell scripts and cloud-init directives. You can also pass this data into the launch wizard as plain text, as a file (this is useful for launching instances via the command line tools), or as base64-encoded text (for API calls).

User-datas can be passed to the instance at creation time, for instance using the --user-data flag in the aws cli or the Userdata text box in AWS console.