Table of Contents
A low-level client representing Amazon Elastic Block Store (EBS)
You can use the Amazon Elastic Block Store (Amazon EBS) direct APIs to create Amazon EBS snapshots, write data directly to your snapshots, read data on your snapshots, and identify the differences or changes between two snapshots. If you’re an independent software vendor (ISV) who offers backup services for Amazon EBS, the EBS direct APIs make it more efficient and cost-effective to track incremental changes on your Amazon EBS volumes through snapshots. This can be done without having to create new volumes from snapshots, and then use Amazon Elastic Compute Cloud (Amazon EC2) instances to compare the differences.
You can create incremental snapshots directly from data on-premises into volumes and the cloud to use for quick disaster recovery. With the ability to write and read snapshots, you can write your on-premises data to an snapshot during a disaster. Then after recovery, you can restore it back to Amazon Web Services or on-premises from the snapshot. You no longer need to build and maintain complex mechanisms to copy data to and from Amazon EBS.
This API reference provides detailed information about the actions, data types, parameters, and errors of the EBS direct APIs. For more information about the elements that make up the EBS direct APIs, and examples of how to use them effectively, see Accessing the Contents of an Amazon EBS Snapshot in the Amazon Elastic Compute Cloud User Guide . For more information about the supported Amazon Web Services Regions, endpoints, and service quotas for the EBS direct APIs, see Amazon Elastic Block Store Endpoints and Quotas in the Amazon Web Services General Reference .
import boto3
client = boto3.client('ebs')
These are the available methods:
Check if an operation can be paginated.
Seals and completes the snapshot after all of the required blocks of data have been written to it. Completing the snapshot changes the status to completed . You cannot write new blocks to a snapshot after it has been completed.
See also: AWS API Documentation
Request Syntax
response = client.complete_snapshot(
SnapshotId='string',
ChangedBlocksCount=123,
Checksum='string',
ChecksumAlgorithm='SHA256',
ChecksumAggregationMethod='LINEAR'
)
[REQUIRED]
The ID of the snapshot.
[REQUIRED]
The number of blocks that were written to the snapshot.
An aggregated Base-64 SHA256 checksum based on the checksums of each written block.
To generate the aggregated checksum using the linear aggregation method, arrange the checksums for each written block in ascending order of their block index, concatenate them to form a single string, and then generate the checksum on the entire string using the SHA256 algorithm.
dict
Response Syntax
{
'Status': 'completed'|'pending'|'error'
}
Response Structure
(dict) --
Status (string) --
The status of the snapshot.
Exceptions
Create a paginator for an operation.
Returns the data in a block in an Amazon Elastic Block Store snapshot.
See also: AWS API Documentation
Request Syntax
response = client.get_snapshot_block(
SnapshotId='string',
BlockIndex=123,
BlockToken='string'
)
[REQUIRED]
The ID of the snapshot containing the block from which to get data.
[REQUIRED]
The block index of the block from which to get data.
Obtain the BlockIndex by running the ListChangedBlocks or ListSnapshotBlocks operations.
[REQUIRED]
The block token of the block from which to get data.
Obtain the BlockToken by running the ListChangedBlocks or ListSnapshotBlocks operations.
dict
Response Syntax
{
'DataLength': 123,
'BlockData': StreamingBody(),
'Checksum': 'string',
'ChecksumAlgorithm': 'SHA256'
}
Response Structure
(dict) --
DataLength (integer) --
The size of the data in the block.
BlockData (StreamingBody) --
The data content of the block.
Checksum (string) --
The checksum generated for the block, which is Base64 encoded.
ChecksumAlgorithm (string) --
The algorithm used to generate the checksum for the block, such as SHA256.
Exceptions
Returns an object that can wait for some condition.
Returns information about the blocks that are different between two Amazon Elastic Block Store snapshots of the same volume/snapshot lineage.
See also: AWS API Documentation
Request Syntax
response = client.list_changed_blocks(
FirstSnapshotId='string',
SecondSnapshotId='string',
NextToken='string',
MaxResults=123,
StartingBlockIndex=123
)
The ID of the first snapshot to use for the comparison.
Warning
The FirstSnapshotID parameter must be specified with a SecondSnapshotId parameter; otherwise, an error occurs.
[REQUIRED]
The ID of the second snapshot to use for the comparison.
Warning
The SecondSnapshotId parameter must be specified with a FirstSnapshotID parameter; otherwise, an error occurs.
The token to request the next page of results.
If you specify NextToken , then StartingBlockIndex is ignored.
The maximum number of blocks to be returned by the request.
Even if additional blocks can be retrieved from the snapshot, the request can return less blocks than MaxResults or an empty array of blocks.
To retrieve the next set of blocks from the snapshot, make another request with the returned NextToken value. The value of NextToken is null when there are no more blocks to return.
The block index from which the comparison should start.
The list in the response will start from this block index or the next valid block index in the snapshots.
If you specify NextToken , then StartingBlockIndex is ignored.
dict
Response Syntax
{
'ChangedBlocks': [
{
'BlockIndex': 123,
'FirstBlockToken': 'string',
'SecondBlockToken': 'string'
},
],
'ExpiryTime': datetime(2015, 1, 1),
'VolumeSize': 123,
'BlockSize': 123,
'NextToken': 'string'
}
Response Structure
(dict) --
ChangedBlocks (list) --
An array of objects containing information about the changed blocks.
(dict) --
A block of data in an Amazon Elastic Block Store snapshot that is different from another snapshot of the same volume/snapshot lineage.
BlockIndex (integer) --
The block index.
FirstBlockToken (string) --
The block token for the block index of the FirstSnapshotId specified in the ListChangedBlocks operation. This value is absent if the first snapshot does not have the changed block that is on the second snapshot.
SecondBlockToken (string) --
The block token for the block index of the SecondSnapshotId specified in the ListChangedBlocks operation.
ExpiryTime (datetime) --
The time when the BlockToken expires.
VolumeSize (integer) --
The size of the volume in GB.
BlockSize (integer) --
The size of the blocks in the snapshot, in bytes.
NextToken (string) --
The token to use to retrieve the next page of results. This value is null when there are no more results to return.
Exceptions
Returns information about the blocks in an Amazon Elastic Block Store snapshot.
See also: AWS API Documentation
Request Syntax
response = client.list_snapshot_blocks(
SnapshotId='string',
NextToken='string',
MaxResults=123,
StartingBlockIndex=123
)
[REQUIRED]
The ID of the snapshot from which to get block indexes and block tokens.
The token to request the next page of results.
If you specify NextToken , then StartingBlockIndex is ignored.
The maximum number of blocks to be returned by the request.
Even if additional blocks can be retrieved from the snapshot, the request can return less blocks than MaxResults or an empty array of blocks.
To retrieve the next set of blocks from the snapshot, make another request with the returned NextToken value. The value of NextToken is null when there are no more blocks to return.
The block index from which the list should start. The list in the response will start from this block index or the next valid block index in the snapshot.
If you specify NextToken , then StartingBlockIndex is ignored.
dict
Response Syntax
{
'Blocks': [
{
'BlockIndex': 123,
'BlockToken': 'string'
},
],
'ExpiryTime': datetime(2015, 1, 1),
'VolumeSize': 123,
'BlockSize': 123,
'NextToken': 'string'
}
Response Structure
(dict) --
Blocks (list) --
An array of objects containing information about the blocks.
(dict) --
A block of data in an Amazon Elastic Block Store snapshot.
BlockIndex (integer) --
The block index.
BlockToken (string) --
The block token for the block index.
ExpiryTime (datetime) --
The time when the BlockToken expires.
VolumeSize (integer) --
The size of the volume in GB.
BlockSize (integer) --
The size of the blocks in the snapshot, in bytes.
NextToken (string) --
The token to use to retrieve the next page of results. This value is null when there are no more results to return.
Exceptions
Writes a block of data to a snapshot. If the specified block contains data, the existing data is overwritten. The target snapshot must be in the pending state.
Data written to a snapshot must be aligned with 512-KiB sectors.
See also: AWS API Documentation
Request Syntax
response = client.put_snapshot_block(
SnapshotId='string',
BlockIndex=123,
BlockData=b'bytes'|file,
DataLength=123,
Progress=123,
Checksum='string',
ChecksumAlgorithm='SHA256'
)
[REQUIRED]
The ID of the snapshot.
[REQUIRED]
The block index of the block in which to write the data. A block index is a logical index in units of 512 KiB blocks. To identify the block index, divide the logical offset of the data in the logical volume by the block size (logical offset of data/524288 ). The logical offset of the data must be 512 KiB aligned.
[REQUIRED]
The data to write to the block.
The block data is not signed as part of the Signature Version 4 signing process. As a result, you must generate and provide a Base64-encoded SHA256 checksum for the block data using the x-amz-Checksum header. Also, you must specify the checksum algorithm using the x-amz-Checksum-Algorithm header. The checksum that you provide is part of the Signature Version 4 signing process. It is validated against a checksum generated by Amazon EBS to ensure the validity and authenticity of the data. If the checksums do not correspond, the request fails. For more information, see Using checksums with the EBS direct APIs in the Amazon Elastic Compute Cloud User Guide .
[REQUIRED]
The size of the data to write to the block, in bytes. Currently, the only supported size is 524288 bytes.
Valid values: 524288
[REQUIRED]
A Base64-encoded SHA256 checksum of the data. Only SHA256 checksums are supported.
[REQUIRED]
The algorithm used to generate the checksum. Currently, the only supported algorithm is SHA256 .
dict
Response Syntax
{
'Checksum': 'string',
'ChecksumAlgorithm': 'SHA256'
}
Response Structure
(dict) --
Checksum (string) --
The SHA256 checksum generated for the block data by Amazon EBS.
ChecksumAlgorithm (string) --
The algorithm used by Amazon EBS to generate the checksum.
Exceptions
Creates a new Amazon EBS snapshot. The new snapshot enters the pending state after the request completes.
After creating the snapshot, use PutSnapshotBlock to write blocks of data to the snapshot.
See also: AWS API Documentation
Request Syntax
response = client.start_snapshot(
VolumeSize=123,
ParentSnapshotId='string',
Tags=[
{
'Key': 'string',
'Value': 'string'
},
],
Description='string',
ClientToken='string',
Encrypted=True|False,
KmsKeyArn='string',
Timeout=123
)
[REQUIRED]
The size of the volume, in GiB. The maximum size is 65536 GiB (64 TiB).
The ID of the parent snapshot. If there is no parent snapshot, or if you are creating the first snapshot for an on-premises volume, omit this parameter.
If your account is enabled for encryption by default, you cannot use an unencrypted snapshot as a parent snapshot. You must first create an encrypted copy of the parent snapshot using CopySnapshot .
The tags to apply to the snapshot.
Describes a tag.
The key of the tag.
The value of the tag.
A unique, case-sensitive identifier that you provide to ensure the idempotency of the request. Idempotency ensures that an API request completes only once. With an idempotent request, if the original request completes successfully. The subsequent retries with the same client token return the result from the original successful request and they have no additional effect.
If you do not specify a client token, one is automatically generated by the Amazon Web Services SDK.
For more information, see Idempotency for StartSnapshot API in the Amazon Elastic Compute Cloud User Guide .
This field is autopopulated if not provided.
Indicates whether to encrypt the snapshot. To create an encrypted snapshot, specify true . To create an unencrypted snapshot, omit this parameter.
If you specify a value for ParentSnapshotId , omit this parameter.
If you specify true , the snapshot is encrypted using the KMS key specified using the KmsKeyArn parameter. If no value is specified for KmsKeyArn , the default KMS key for your account is used. If no default KMS key has been specified for your account, the Amazon Web Services managed KMS key is used. To set a default KMS key for your account, use ModifyEbsDefaultKmsKeyId .
If your account is enabled for encryption by default, you cannot set this parameter to false . In this case, you can omit this parameter.
For more information, see Using encryption in the Amazon Elastic Compute Cloud User Guide .
The Amazon Resource Name (ARN) of the Key Management Service (KMS) key to be used to encrypt the snapshot. If you do not specify a KMS key, the default Amazon Web Services managed KMS key is used.
If you specify a ParentSnapshotId , omit this parameter; the snapshot will be encrypted using the same KMS key that was used to encrypt the parent snapshot.
If Encrypted is set to true , you must specify a KMS key ARN.
The amount of time (in minutes) after which the snapshot is automatically cancelled if:
If no value is specified, the timeout defaults to 60 minutes.
dict
Response Syntax
{
'Description': 'string',
'SnapshotId': 'string',
'OwnerId': 'string',
'Status': 'completed'|'pending'|'error',
'StartTime': datetime(2015, 1, 1),
'VolumeSize': 123,
'BlockSize': 123,
'Tags': [
{
'Key': 'string',
'Value': 'string'
},
],
'ParentSnapshotId': 'string',
'KmsKeyArn': 'string'
}
Response Structure
(dict) --
Description (string) --
The description of the snapshot.
SnapshotId (string) --
The ID of the snapshot.
OwnerId (string) --
The Amazon Web Services account ID of the snapshot owner.
Status (string) --
The status of the snapshot.
StartTime (datetime) --
The timestamp when the snapshot was created.
VolumeSize (integer) --
The size of the volume, in GiB.
BlockSize (integer) --
The size of the blocks in the snapshot, in bytes.
Tags (list) --
The tags applied to the snapshot. You can specify up to 50 tags per snapshot. For more information, see Tagging your Amazon EC2 resources in the Amazon Elastic Compute Cloud User Guide .
(dict) --
Describes a tag.
Key (string) --
The key of the tag.
Value (string) --
The value of the tag.
ParentSnapshotId (string) --
The ID of the parent snapshot.
KmsKeyArn (string) --
The Amazon Resource Name (ARN) of the Key Management Service (KMS) key used to encrypt the snapshot.
Exceptions
The available paginators are: