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I have to host an AMI in the Amazon Marketplace. i need to get the type of instance, whenever some user launches the AMI., like if its small medium or large. based on that i need to make some changes in the AMI when its created. I can do this with Amazon API call, to get the instance type, but the problem is that the instances created with the AMI will be started by other users, and i cannot use my AWS Credentials in the Amazon API.

Is there any way that i can create an anonymous readonly user to make only specific type of EC2 API Calls? Or can i encrypt my EC2 API credentials, so no one can use it?

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If you just need the instance-type then you can write code/script which browse the URL 'http://169.254.169.254/latest/meta-data/instance-type' which returns the instance-type. It doesn't requires AWS account credentials.

Ref: http://docs.amazonwebservices.com/AWSEC2/2008-12-01/DeveloperGuide/index.html?AESDG-chapter-instancedata.html

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  • This should be the accepted answer. Much better way of doing it. Faster and easier.
    – ceejayoz
    Sep 5, 2012 at 18:39
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You can use IAM to create a read-only user. This is simple, you need to create the user in IAM via the AWS console, then you need to assign it a Policy, the policy should say it's a read-only user.

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  • but readonly user wont be able to make other API Calls as well? which are sensitive and its information should not be disclosed? actually i want a way to ONLY call this single function, and block all other calls.
    – Farhan
    Sep 3, 2012 at 8:58
  • You can create an Advanced Policy by selecting what exactly you need to use and not allow everything else in such a case. As for the encryption - calls to the API are done via https, thus the information flow is encrypted.
    – Logic Wreck
    Sep 3, 2012 at 9:03

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