Boto 2.x contains a number of customizations to make working with Amazon EC2 instances, storage and networks easy. Boto 3 exposes these same objects through its resources interface in a unified and consistent way.
Boto 3 has both low-level clients and higher-level resources. For Amazon EC2, the higher-level resources are the most similar to Boto 2.x's ec2 and vpc modules:
# Boto 2.x
import boto
ec2_connection = boto.connect_ec2()
vpc_connection = boto.connect_vpc()
# Boto 3
import boto3
ec2 = boto3.resource('ec2')
Launching new instances requires an image ID and the number of instances to launch. It can also take several optional parameters, such as the instance type and security group:
# Boto 2.x
ec2_connection.run_instances('<ami-image-id>')
# Boto 3
ec2.create_instances(ImageId='<ami-image-id>', MinCount=1, MaxCount=5)
Stopping and terminating multiple instances given a list of instance IDs uses Boto 3 collection filtering:
ids = ['instance-id-1', 'instance-id-2', ...]
# Boto 2.x
ec2_connection.stop_instances(instance_ids=ids)
ec2_connection.terminate_instances(instance_ids=ids)
# Boto 3
ec2.instances.filter(InstanceIds=ids).stop()
ec2.instances.filter(InstanceIds=ids).terminate()
Boto 3 collections come in handy when listing all your running instances as well. Every collection exposes a filter method that allows you to pass additional parameters to the underlying service API operation. The EC2 instances collection takes a parameter called Filters which is a list of names and values, for example:
# Boto 2.x
reservations = ec2_connection.get_all_reservations(
filters={'instance-state-name': 'running'})
for reservation in reservations:
for instance in reservation.instances:
print(instance.instance_id, instance.instance_type)
# Boto 3
# Use the filter() method of the instances collection to retrieve
# all running EC2 instances.
instances = ec2.instances.filter(
Filters=[{'Name': 'instance-state-name', 'Values': ['running']}])
for instance in instances:
print(instance.id, instance.instance_type)
It is possible to get scheduled maintenance information for your running instances. At the time of this writing Boto 3 does not have a status resource, so you must drop down to the low-level client via ec2.meta.client:
# Boto 2.x
for status in ec2_connection.get_all_instance_statuses():
print(status)
# Boto 3
for status in ec2.meta.client.describe_instance_status()['InstanceStatuses']:
print(status)
Snapshots provide a way to create a copy of an EBS volume, as well as make new volumes from the snapshot which can be attached to an instance:
# Boto 2.x
snapshot = ec2_connection.create_snapshot('volume-id', 'Description')
volume = snapshot.create_volume('us-west-2')
ec2_connection.attach_volume(volume.id, 'instance-id', '/dev/sdy')
ec2_connection.delete_snapshot(snapshot.id)
# Boto 3
snapshot = ec2.create_snapshot(VolumeId='volume-id', Description='description')
volume = ec2.create_volume(SnapshotId=snapshot.id, AvailabilityZone='us-west-2a')
ec2.Instance('instance-id').attach_volume(VolumeId=volume.id, Device='/dev/sdy')
snapshot.delete()
Creating VPC resources in Boto 3 is very similar to Boto 2.x:
# Boto 2.x
vpc = vpc_connection.create_vpc('10.0.0.0/24')
subnet = vpc_connection.create_subnet(vpc.id, '10.0.0.0/25')
gateway = vpc_connection.create_internet_gateway()
# Boto 3
vpc = ec2.create_vpc(CidrBlock='10.0.0.0/24')
subnet = vpc.create_subnet(CidrBlock='10.0.0.0/25')
gateway = ec2.create_internet_gateway()
Elastic IPs and gateways provide a way for instances inside of a VPC to communicate with the outside world:
# Boto 2.x
ec2_connection.attach_internet_gateway(gateway.id, vpc.id)
ec2_connection.detach_internet_gateway(gateway.id, vpc.id)
from boto.ec2.address import Address
address = Address()
address.allocation_id = 'eipalloc-35cf685d'
address.associate('i-71b2f60b')
address.disassociate()
# Boto 3
gateway.attach_to_vpc(VpcId=vpc.id)
gateway.detach_from_vpc(VpcId=vpc.id)
address = ec2.VpcAddress('eipalloc-35cf685d')
address.associate('i-71b2f60b')
address.association.delete()