How can I access a low-level client from a Boto 3 resource instance?

Question

For example, I have this code:

import boto3

ec2 = boto3.resource('ec2')

# Where is the client???

Do I need to call boto3.client('ec2') or is there another way?

Answer 1

Every resource object has a special attribute called meta, which is a Python dict containing information about the service, access to the low-level client, and sometimes the lazy-loaded cached attributes of the resource. You can access it like so:

client = ec2.meta.client

response = client.reboot_instances(InstanceIds=[...])

This is particularly useful if you created the resource using custom parameters which you don't want to have to keep track of for later:

ec2 = boto3.resource('ec2', region_name='us-west-2')

# This client is now a US-West-2 client
client = ec2.meta.client

As always, be sure to check out the official documentation. Note: this interface changed in boto3#45. Previously meta was a dict.