[SOLVED] passing user-data as a string to aws cli ec2 run-instance command

Issue

I am trying to provide bash command for bootstrapping my ec2 instance during creation time in the following way

aws ec2 run-instances --image-id ami-0000025f7c02a13b2 --count 1 --instance-type t2.micro --user-data '#!/bin/bash\nyum install git -y'

I can spin up the ec2 but I cannot get the bash script to work. In the logs I see the following

/bin/bash\nyum: bad interpreter: No such file or directory

which makes me feel like the string is formatted wrong.

Solution

Try adding a $ in front of your user data string.

aws ec2 run-instances --image-id ami-0000025f7c02a13b2 --count 1 --instance-type t2.micro --user-data $'#!/bin/bash\nyum install git -y'

Answered By - jellycsc