Walkthrough: Automatically update SSM Agent with the Amazon CLI - Amazon Systems Manager
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Walkthrough: Automatically update SSM Agent with the Amazon CLI

The following procedure walks you through the process of creating a State Manager association using the Amazon Command Line Interface. The association automatically updates the SSM Agent according to a schedule that you specify. For more information about SSM Agent, see Working with SSM Agent. To customize the update schedule for SSM Agent using the console, see Automatically updating SSM Agent.

To be notified about SSM Agent updates, subscribe to the SSM Agent Release Notes page on GitHub.

Before you begin

Before you complete the following procedure, verify that you have at least one running Amazon Elastic Compute Cloud (Amazon EC2) instance for Linux, macOS, or Windows Server that is configured for Systems Manager. For more information, see Setting up managed nodes for Amazon Systems Manager.

If you create an association by using either the Amazon CLI or Amazon Tools for Windows PowerShell, use the --Targets parameter to target instances, as shown in the following example. Don't use the --InstanceID parameter. The --InstanceID parameter is a legacy parameter.

To create an association for automatically updating SSM Agent

  1. Install and configure the Amazon Command Line Interface (Amazon CLI), if you haven't already.

    For information, see Installing or updating the latest version of the Amazon CLI.

  2. Run the following command to create an association by targeting instances using Amazon Elastic Compute Cloud (Amazon EC2) tags. Replace each example resource placeholder with your own information. The Schedule parameter sets a schedule to run the association every Sunday morning at 2:00 a.m. (UTC).

    State Manager associations don't support all cron and rate expressions. For more information about creating cron and rate expressions for associations, see Reference: Cron and rate expressions for Systems Manager.

    Linux & macOS
    aws ssm create-association \
--targets Key=tag:tag_key,Values=tag_value \
--name AWS-UpdateSSMAgent \
--schedule-expression "cron(0 2 ? * SUN *)"
    Windows
    aws ssm create-association ^
--targets Key=tag:tag_key,Values=tag_value ^
--name AWS-UpdateSSMAgent ^
--schedule-expression "cron(0 2 ? * SUN *)"

    You can target multiple instances by specifying instances IDs in a comma-separated list.

    Linux & macOS
    aws ssm create-association \
--targets Key=instanceids,Values=instance_ID,instance_ID,instance_ID \
--name AWS-UpdateSSMAgent \
--schedule-expression "cron(0 2 ? * SUN *)"
    Windows
    aws ssm create-association ^
--targets Key=instanceids,Values=instance_ID,instance_ID,instance_ID ^
--name AWS-UpdateSSMAgent ^
--schedule-expression "cron(0 2 ? * SUN *)"

    You can specify the version of the SSM Agent you want to update to.

    Linux & macOS
    aws ssm create-association \
--targets Key=instanceids,Values=instance_ID,instance_ID,instance_ID \
--name AWS-UpdateSSMAgent \
--schedule-expression "cron(0 2 ? * SUN *)" \
--parameters version=ssm_agent_version_number
    Windows
    aws ssm create-association ^
--targets Key=instanceids,Values=instance_ID,instance_ID,instance_ID ^
--name AWS-UpdateSSMAgent ^
--schedule-expression "cron(0 2 ? * SUN *)" ^
--parameters version=ssm_agent_version_number

    The system returns information like the following.

    {
    "AssociationDescription": {
        "ScheduleExpression": "cron(0 2 ? * SUN *)",
        "Name": "AWS-UpdateSSMAgent",
        "Overview": {
            "Status": "Pending",
            "DetailedStatus": "Creating"
        },
        "AssociationId": "123..............",
        "DocumentVersion": "$DEFAULT",
        "LastUpdateAssociationDate": 1504034257.98,
        "Date": 1504034257.98,
        "AssociationVersion": "1",
        "Targets": [
            {
                "Values": [
                    "TagValue"
                ],
                "Key": "tag:TagKey"
            }
        ]
    }
}

    The system attempts to create the association on the instance(s) and applies the state following creation. The association status shows Pending.

  3. Run the following command to view an updated status of the association you created. 

    aws ssm list-associations

    If your instances aren't running the most recent version of the SSM Agent, the status shows Failed. When a new version of SSM Agent is published, the association automatically installs the new agent, and the status shows Success.