Question

I am currently experimenting with Amazon EC2 and use standard ec2 console. The web app is ok but I want a better solution. I want to be able to ssh to the instances, monitor them, possibly attach with a debugger etc. Are there any better alternatives to the tool?

Answer 1

You should be able to login to any EC2 instance via SSH using key files and work with it like if it were an ordinary server. To do it you have to create a key pair, download public key to your local machine, and ensure you’ve selected that key-pair while launching new instance. You are free to install any software you like on the instance, so the way how you would monitor you instance is completely up to you (if you decide not to use AWS console).

Apart from the web console there are also Amazon EC2 API tools (a bunch of ec2 scripts to be run from Linux console) and the Query API. The later is considered to be the most flexible way to manage your cloud infrastructure. There are binding for EC2 in many scripting languages including Python (boto), Perl (Net::Amazon::EC2), Ruby (amazon-ec2 gem), node.js (aws2js).

Otherwise there’s no better solution just because EC2 is IaaS service and it is meant to be equally good for almost any task. For your particular needs you’ll have to develop or organize your own environment which will suite your unique needs.

Edit:

Since today it is possible to log in to running EC2 Linux instances from AWS web console:

Our third announcement today is about a new feature in the AWS console that makes it even easier for you to use Amazon EC2 Linux instances. Customers have been asking us to enable the ability to log into their instances directly from the AWS console. Starting today, you can log in to your Linux instances from the EC2 console without the need to install additional software clients. Please see the Amazon EC2 Getting Started Guide for details on how to use this new functionality.