Instance identity documents for Amazon EC2 instances - Amazon Elastic Compute Cloud
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Instance identity documents for Amazon EC2 instances

Each instance that you launch has an instance identity document that provides information about the instance itself. You can use the instance identity document to validate the attributes of the instance.

The instance identity document is generated when the instance is stopped and started, restarted, or launched. The instance identity document is exposed (in plaintext JSON format) through the Instance Metadata Service (IMDS). The IPv4 address 169.254.169.254 is a link-local address and is valid only from the instance. For more information, see Link-local address on Wikipedia. The IPv6 address [fd00:ec2::254] is a unique local address and is valid only from the instance. For more information, see Unique local address on Wikipedia.

Note

The examples in this section use the IPv4 address of the IMDS: 169.254.169.254. If you are retrieving instance metadata for EC2 instances over the IPv6 address, ensure that you enable and use the IPv6 address instead: [fd00:ec2::254]. The IPv6 address of the IMDS is compatible with IMDSv2 commands. The IPv6 address is only accessible on Instances built on the Amazon Nitro System and in an IPv6-supported subnet (dual stack or IPv6 only).

You can retrieve the instance identity document from a running instance at any time. The instance identity document includes the following information:

Data Description
accountId

The ID of the Amazon account that launched the instance.
architecture

The architecture of the AMI used to launch the instance (i386 | x86_64 | arm64).
availabilityZone

The Availability Zone in which the instance is running.
billingProducts

The billing products of the instance.
devpayProductCodes

Deprecated.
imageId

The ID of the AMI used to launch the instance.
instanceId

The ID of the instance.
instanceType

The instance type of the instance.
kernelId

The ID of the kernel associated with the instance, if applicable.
marketplaceProductCodes

The Amazon Web Services Marketplace product code of the AMI used to launch the instance.
pendingTime

The date and time that the instance was launched.
privateIp

The private IPv4 address of the instance.
ramdiskId

The ID of the RAM disk associated with the instance, if applicable.
region

The Region in which the instance is running.
version

The version of the instance identity document format.