Work with Elastic Graphics - Amazon Elastic Compute Cloud
Configure your security groupsLaunch an instance with an Elastic Graphics acceleratorInstall the required software for Elastic GraphicsVerify Elastic Graphics functionality on your instanceView Elastic Graphics informationSubmit feedback
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Work with Elastic Graphics

Important

Amazon Elastic Graphics reached end of life on January 8, 2024. For workloads that require graphics acceleration, we recommend that you use Amazon EC2 G4ad, G4dn, or G5 instances.

You can launch an instance and associate it with an Elastic Graphics accelerator during launch. You must then manually install the necessary libraries on your instance that enable communication with the accelerator. For limitations, see Elastic Graphics limitations.

Configure your security groups

Elastic Graphics requires a self-referencing security group that allows inbound and outbound traffic to and from the security group itself. The security group must include the following inbound and outbound rules.

Inbound
Type Protocol Port Source

Elastic Graphics

TCP

2007

The security group ID (its own resource ID)
Outbound
Type Protocol Port range Destination

Elastic Graphics

TCP

2007

The security group ID (its own resource ID)

If you use the Amazon EC2 console to launch your instance with an Elastic Graphics accelerator, you can either allow the launch instance wizard to automatically create the required security group rules, or you can select a security that you created previously.

If you are launching your instance using the Amazon CLI or an SDK, you must specify a security group that you created previously.

To create a security group for Elastic Graphics

  1. Open the Amazon EC2 console at https://console.amazonaws.cn/ec2/.

  2. In the navigation pane, choose Security Groups and then choose Create security group.

  3. In the Create security group window, do the following:

    1. For Security group name, enter a descriptive name for the security group, such as Elastic Graphics security group.

    2. (Optional) For Description, enter a brief description of the security group.

    3. For VPC, select the VPC into which you intend to use Elastic Graphics.

    4. Choose Create security group.

  4. In the navigation pane, choose Security Groups, select the security group that you just created, and on the Details tab, copy the Security group ID.

  5. On the Inbound rules tab, choose Edit inbound rules and then do the following:

    1. Choose Add rule.

    2. For Type, choose Elastic Graphics.

    3. For Source type, choose Custom.

    4. For Source, paste the security group ID that you copied previously.

    5. Choose Save rules.

  6. On the Outbound rules tab, choose Edit outbound rules and then do the following:

    1. Choose Add rule.

    2. For Type, choose Elastic Graphics.

    3. For Destination type, choose Custom.

    4. For Destination, paste the security group ID that you copied previously.

    5. Choose Save rules.

For more information, see Amazon EC2 security groups for Windows instances.

Launch an instance with an Elastic Graphics accelerator

You can associate an Elastic Graphics accelerator to an instance during launch. If the launch fails, the following are possible reasons:

  • Insufficient Elastic Graphics accelerator capacity

  • Exceeded limit on Elastic Graphics accelerators in the Region

  • Not enough private IPv4 addresses in your VPC to create a network interface for the accelerator

For more information, see Elastic Graphics limitations.

To associate an Elastic Graphics accelerator during instance launch (console)

  1. Open the Amazon EC2 console at https://console.amazonaws.cn/ec2/.

  2. From the dashboard, choose Launch Instance.

  3. Select a Windows AMI and a supported instance type. For more information, see Elastic Graphics basics.

  4. On the Configure Instance Details page, select a VPC and subnet in which to launch your instance.

  5. Choose Add Graphics Acceleration, and select an Elastic Graphics accelerator type.

  6. (Optional) On the Add Storage and Add Tags pages, add volumes and tags as needed.

  7. On the Configure Security Group page, you can let the console create a security group for you with the required inbound and outbound rules, or you can use the security group that you created manually in Configure your security groups. Add additional security groups as needed.

  8. Choose Review and Launch to review your instance options and then choose Launch.

To associate an Elastic Graphics accelerator during instance launch (Amazon CLI)

You can use the run-instances Amazon CLI command with the following parameter:

--elastic-gpu-specification Type=eg1.medium

For the --security-group-ids parameter, you must include a security group that has the required inbound and outbound rules. For more information, see Configure your security groups.

To associate an Elastic Graphics accelerator during instance launch (Tools for Windows PowerShell)

Use the New-EC2Instance Tools for Windows PowerShell command.

Install the required software for Elastic Graphics

If you launched your instance using a current Amazon Windows AMI, the required software is installed automatically during the first boot. If you launched your instance using Windows AMIs that do not automatically install the required software, you must install the required software on the instance manually.

To install the required software for Elastic Graphics (if necessary)

  1. Connect to the instance.

  2. Download the Elastic Graphics installer and open it. The installation manager connects to the Elastic Graphics endpoint and downloads the latest version of the required software.

    Note

    If the download link does not work, try a different browser, or copy the link address and paste it into a new browser tab.

  3. Reboot the instance to verify.

Verify Elastic Graphics functionality on your instance

The Elastic Graphics packages on your instance include tools that you can use to view the status of the accelerator, and to verify that OpenGL commands from your instance to the accelerator are functional.

If your instance was launched with an AMI that does not have the Elastic Graphics packages pre-installed, you can download and install them yourself. For more information, see Install the required software for Elastic Graphics.

You can use one of the following methods to verify Elastic Graphics functionality on your instance.

Note

If the Elastic Graphics status monitor or command line tool returns an unexpected result, see Resolve unhealthy status issues.

Elastic Graphics status monitor

You can use the status monitor tool to view information about the status of an attached Elastic Graphics accelerator. By default, this tool is available in the notification area of the taskbar in your Windows instance and shows the status of the graphics accelerator. The following are the possible values.

Healthy

The Elastic Graphics accelerator is enabled and healthy.

Updating

The status of the Elastic Graphics accelerator is currently updating. It might take a few minutes to display the status.

Out of service

The Elastic Graphics accelerator is out of service. To get more information about the error, choose Read More.

Elastic Graphics command line tool

You can use the Elastic Graphics command line tool, egcli.exe, to check the status of the accelerator. If there is a problem with the accelerator, the tool returns an error message.

To launch the tool, open a command prompt from within your instance and run the following command:

C:\Program Files\Amazon\EC2ElasticGPUs\manager\egcli.exe

The tool also supports the following parameters:

--json, -j

Indicates whether to show the JSON message. The possible values are true and false. The default is true.

--imds, -i

Indicates whether to check the instance metadata for the availability of the accelerator. The possible values are true and false. The default is true.

The following is example output. A status of OK indicates that the accelerator is enabled and healthy.

EG Infrastructure is available.
Instance ID egpu-f6d94dfa66df4883b284e96db7397ee6
Instance Type eg1.large
EG Version 1.0.0.885 (Manager) / 1.0.0.95 (OpenGL Library) / 1.0.0.69 (OpenGL Redirector)
EG Status: Healthy
JSON Message:
{
  "version": "2016-11-30",
  "status": "OK"
}

The following are the possible values for status:

OK

The Elastic Graphics accelerator is enabled and healthy.

UPDATING

The Elastic Graphics driver is being updated.

NEEDS_REBOOT

The Elastic Graphics driver has been updated and a reboot of the Amazon EC2 instance is required.

LOADING_DRIVER

The Elastic Graphics driver is being loaded.

CONNECTING_EGPU

The Elastic Graphics driver is verifying the connectivity with the Elastic Graphics accelerator.

ERROR_UPDATE_RETRY

An error occurred while updating the Elastic Graphics driver, an update will be retried soon.

ERROR_UPDATE

An unrecoverable error occurred while updating the Elastic Graphics driver.

ERROR_LOAD_DRIVER

An error occurred loading the Elastic Graphics driver.

ERROR_EGPU_CONNECTIVITY

The Elastic Graphics accelerator is unreacheable.

View Elastic Graphics information

You can view information about the Elastic Graphics accelerator attached to your instance.

To view information about an Elastic Graphics accelerator (console)

  1. Open the Amazon EC2 console at https://console.amazonaws.cn/ec2/.

  2. In the navigation pane, choose Instances and select your instance.

  3. On the Details tab, find Elastic Graphics ID. Choose the ID to view the following information about the Elastic Graphics accelerator:

    • Attachment State

    • Type

    • Health status

To view information about an Elastic Graphics accelerator (Amazon CLI)

You can use the describe-elastic-gpus Amazon CLI command:

aws ec2 describe-elastic-gpus

You can use the describe-network-interfaces Amazon CLI command and filter by owner ID to view information about the Elastic Graphics network interface.

aws ec2 describe-network-interfaces --filters "Name=attachment.instance-owner-id,Values=amazon-elasticgpus"
To view information about an Elastic Graphics accelerator (Tools for Windows PowerShell)

Use the following commands:

To view information about an Elastic Graphics accelerator using instance metadata

  1. Connect to your Windows instance that is using an Elastic Graphics accelerator.

  2. Do one of the following:

    • From PowerShell, use the following cmdlet:

      PS C:\> Invoke-RestMethod -uri http://169.254.169.254/latest/meta-data/elastic-gpus/associations/egpu-f6d94dfa66df4883b284e96db7397ee6

    • From your web browser, paste the following URL into the address field:

      http://169.254.169.254/latest/meta-data/elastic-gpus/associations/egpu-f6d94dfa66df4883b284e96db7397ee6

Submit feedback

You can submit feedback about your experience with Elastic Graphics so that the team can make further improvements.

To submit feedback using the Elastic Graphics Status Monitor

  1. In the notification area of the taskbar in your Windows instance, open the Elastic Graphics Status Monitor.

  2. In the lower left corner, choose Feedback.

  3. Enter your feedback and choose Submit.