--- title: "Automate AWS EC2 Snapshots with PowerShell" description: "Manage and automate AWS EC2 snapshots using PowerShell to ensure your data is always backed up." canonical: "https://adamtheautomator.com/ec2-snapshot/" --- # Automate AWS EC2 Snapshots with PowerShell > Manage and automate AWS EC2 snapshots using PowerShell to ensure your data is always backed up. Source: https://adamtheautomator.com/ec2-snapshot/ --- ATA Learning Tap to hide [ ATA Learning ](/) * [Home](/) * [Tutorials](/tutorials/) * [Instructors](/author/) * [Advertising](/advertising/) * [Recommended Resources](/resources/) * [About Adam](/about-adam/) Search for: * [](https://twitter.com/adbertram) * [](https://github.com/Adam-the-Automator) * [](https://www.linkedin.com/company/adam-the-automator-llc) * [](/feed/) ![Automate AWS EC2 Snapshots with PowerShell](https://adamtheautomator.com/wp-content/uploads/2019/07/prod-art-aws-600-width-1200.png) # Automate AWS EC2 Snapshots with PowerShell [![](https://secure.gravatar.com/avatar/d0b9d42e21e5622713f8b693aa5c0f9244d5f7dd200ed29b8398f52dee5de337?s=192&d=mm&r=g)Adam Bertram](https://adamtheautomator.com/author/adam-bertram/)31 July 20195 min. read Categories: [Cloud](/category/cloud/) Tags:[AWS EC2](/tag/aws-ec2/)[PowerShell](/tag/powershell/) Table of Contents * [Using PowerShell to Create AWS EC2 Snapshots](#using-powershell) * [Prerequisites](#prerequisites) * [Finding Existing EC2 Snapshots](#finding-existing-snapshots) * [Creating a New EBS Snapshot](#creating-a-new-ebs-snapshot) * [Assigning Tags](#assigning-tags) * [Creating a new AMI from Snapshots](#creating-a-new-ami-from-snapshots) * [Removing AWS EC2 Snapshots](#removing-snapshots) * [Summary](#summary) [Amazon Elastic Block Store (EBS)](https://docs.aws.amazon.com/AWSEC2/latest/UserGuide/ebs-creating-snapshot.html) is a service that provides storage for Amazon EC2 instances. EBS is what every volume on your EC2 instances runs on. When you rely on a service to run important infrastructure it’s wise to ensure that data is backed up. In this blog post, learn how to manage and automate EC2 snapshots using the PowerShell scripting language. Not a reader? Watch this related video tutorial! **_Not seeing the video? Make sure your ad blocker is disabled._** Each EBS volume attached to an EC2 instance can be backed up via an EBS snapshot. Each snapshot can be created via one of two ways; a full or incremental snapshot. Well, technically both but..just go with me on this one. When the first snapshot backup is created for an EC2 instance, it creates a backup of the entire volume. When subsequent snapshots are created, only data at the block-level storage level that have changed since the last snapshot are saved. However, unlike typical incremental point-in-time backups, since snapshots can be chained, when a snapshot is restored all of the data for that volume is restored making it similar to a full backup. Snapshots can occur asynchronously meaning that snapshots can be in the creation process in parallel. When started, a snapshot enters a pending phase until all of the necessary blocks are copied to Amazon S3 where all EBS snapshots are stored. ## Using PowerShell to Create AWS EC2 Snapshots There are a few different ways AWS allows you to manage EBS snapshots. You can use the AWS Management Console, the AWS CLI, PowerShell or the APIs directly if you’d like. In this article, we’re going to be using PowerShell since the AWSPowerShell module has great support for managing EBS snapshots with PowerShell commands. ## Prerequisites Before we get too far, there will be a few prerequisites I’ll be assuming you have to get the most from this tutorial. You will need: * An AWS account * An EC2 instance with an attached volume * Authenticated with the root user or an IAM user with the CreateSnapshot permission (arn:aws:ec2:region::snapshot/\*) Once you’ve got all of these prereqs in order, we’re ready to go! ## Finding Existing EC2 Snapshots One of the first tasks we’ll do is to discover if we have any existing snapshots out there already. To figure that out, we use the `Get-EC2Snapshot` command. This is the command that will search for any snapshots that have already been created and will output them to the PowerShell console. ```powershell PS C:\> Get-EC2Snapshot DataEncryptionKeyId : Description : Business/Industry Summary (Windows) Encrypted : False KmsKeyId : OwnerAlias : amazon OwnerId : 947081328633 Progress : 100% SnapshotId : snap-8af818e3 StartTime : 11/19/2008 6:15:17 AM State : completed StateMessage : Tags : {} VolumeId : vol-e1ac4888 VolumeSize : 15 ``` You will notice that the AWS EC2 snapshots that come up though are not ones for your EC2 instance. These are all snapshots that have been shared with you and are available for you to restore to your EC2 instances. To discover all of the snapshots that have come from your EC2 instances, use the `OwnerId` parameter with the `self` value. ```powershell PS> Get-EC2Snapshot -OwnerId self ``` ## Creating a New EBS Snapshot Assuming that you already have an EC2 instance created, you can now create a snapshot. You can create new snapshots using the `New-EC2Snapshot` command but first, you’ll need to gather up the volume ID for each volume you’d like to snapshot. To do that, we first need to find the EC2 instance ID where the volume is attached to. ```powershell PS> (Get-EC2Instance).instances PS> $instanceId = (Get-EC2Instance).instances.InstanceId ``` Once you know the EC2 instance ID, you’ll need to use that to find the volumes. To find all of the volumes attached to the EC2 instance, you’ll use the `Get-EC2Volume` command and filter the output to only the volumes with an attached instance ID of the one we’re looking for. ```powershell PS> $volumes = Get-EC2Volume | Where-Object { $_.attachments.InstanceId -eq $instanceId } Attachments : {i-083007f62ff750d7a} AvailabilityZone : us-east-1b CreateTime : 3/1/2019 7:06:57 AM Encrypted : False Iops : 100 KmsKeyId : Size : 8 SnapshotId : snap-0ff5b79fdf9b021e8 State : in-use Tags : {} VolumeId : vol-0bf53c62534f99eee VolumeType : gp2 ``` Now that we have the volumes, AWS recommends shutting down the instance or at least dismounting the volume. We’ll go ahead and shut down the instance. ```powershell PS> Stop-EC2Instance -InstanceId $instanceId ``` We can now loop over each one and pass that volume’s ID to the `VolumeId` parameter on the `New-EC2Snapshot` command. Once that happens, you’ll then notice the snapshot will go into a state of _pending_. ```powershell foreach ($volume in $volumes) { New-EC2Snapshot -VolumeId $volume.VolumeId } DataEncryptionKeyId : Description : Encrypted : False KmsKeyId : OwnerAlias : OwnerId : 013223035658 Progress : SnapshotId : snap-027a3550dde80eb3b StartTime : 3/1/2019 7:19:13 AM State : pending StateMessage : Tags : {} VolumeId : vol-0bf53c62534f99eee VolumeSize : 8 ``` You can confirm the snapshot is completed by running `Get-EC2Snapshot` again and confirming the _State_ is now _completed_. ## Assigning Tags If you have a lot of snapshots to manage, it can be hard to keep them all straight. To sort snapshots and categorize them for each discovery, you can also assign tags to them. Tags are a ubiquitous part of EC2 and can be used against your EBS snapshots. You can assign tags at snapshot creation or after. To assign tags at snapshot creation use the `TagSpecification` parameter on `New-EC2Snapshot`. For example, maybe I want to tag this AWS EC2 snapshot that I just took prior to making a production change. I’d like to create a tag called _Stage_ and assigned it as _Dev_. To do that, I can create a TagSpecification object, assign one or more Tag objects to the Tags property, and then define the resource type this tag will be attached to. ```powershell $tag = New-Object Amazon.EC2.Model.Tag $tag.Key = 'Stage' $tag.Value = 'Dev' $tagSpec = New-Object Amazon.EC2.Model.TagSpecification $tagSpec.Tags = $tag $tagSpec.ResourceType = 'snapshot' ``` Once I create the TagSpecification object, I can then pass that to `New-EC2Snapshot`. ```powershell PS> New-EC2Snapshot -VolumeId -TagSpecification $tagSpec ``` ## Creating a new AMI from Snapshots Another cool feature of snapshots is that you can create a brand new image (AMI) from a snapshot. If you have a snapshot of the root volume of a _Linux only_ EC2 instance, you can easily create a brand new AMI from that volume snapshot. Let’s say I want to create a new image from the snapshot I just created. I can do that using the `New-EC2Image` command. I’ll first need to capture the snapshot ID. ```powershell PS> $snapshotId = Get-EC2Snapshot -OwnerId self | where {$_.Tags.where({$_.Key -eq 'Stage' -and $_.Value -eq 'Dev'})} | Select-Object -ExpandProperty SnapshotId ``` Next, I can pass that ID as a hashtable to the `BlockDeviceMapping` parameter on `New-EC2Image`. ```powershell PS> $block = @{SnapshotId=$snapshotId} PS> Register-EC2Image -Name 'my_image' -BlockDeviceMapping @{DeviceName="/dev/sda1";Ebs=$block;VirtualName='ephemeral0'} -RootDeviceName '/dev/sda1' ``` ## Removing AWS EC2 Snapshots If we’re finished with the snapshot, we can now remove them. Doing so is easy. Simply pipe the instance returned by `Get-EC2Snapshot` to `Remove-EC2Snapshot`. However, you may run into this error if an AMI is in use. ```powershell PS> Get-EC2Snapshot -OwnerId self | Remove-EC2Snapshot Confirm Are you sure you want to perform this action? Performing the operation "Remove-EC2Snapshot (DeleteSnapshot)" on target "snap-066ccd492f85192be". [Y] Yes [A] Yes to All [N] No [L] No to All [S] Suspend [?] Help (default is "Y"): a Remove-EC2Snapshot : The snapshot snap-066ccd492f85192be is currently in use by ami-0b353cbd967f6658f At line:1 char:33 + Get-EC2Snapshot -OwnerId self | Remove-EC2Snapshot + ~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~ + CategoryInfo : InvalidOperation: (Amazon.PowerShe...2SnapshotCmdlet:RemoveEC2SnapshotCmdlet) [Remove-EC2Snapshot], InvalidOperationExce ption + FullyQualifiedErrorId : Amazon.EC2.AmazonEC2Exception,Amazon.PowerShell.Cmdlets.EC2.RemoveEC2SnapshotCmdlet ``` In this case, the AMI is registered and you must first unregister it using the `Unregister-EC2Image` command. ```powershell PS> $myImage = Get-EC2Image -Owner self PS> Unregister-EC2Image -ImageId $myImage.ImageId PS> Get-EC2Snapshot -OwnerId self | Remove-EC2Snapshot ``` ## Summary [PowerShell allows you to manage](https://adamtheautomator.com/powershell-scheduled-task/) every aspect of EBS snapshots. If the scenarios we covered here did not fit what you need to do, I suggest taking a look at all of the available EC2 snapshot commands by running `Get-Command -Noun *ec2snapshot* -Module AWSPowerShell`. That will give you a good idea on what’s possible with PowerShell and EC2 (EBS) snapshots. 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