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I was successfully using Amazon S3 for some time. Now I was trying to start EC2 instance, but I got an error about exceeding my limit.

I went to "Limits" tab in EC2 menu and I see that all my instance limits are set to zero.

I've sent a limit increase request about 16 hours ago but got no reply.

  1. Is that normal that all EC2 instance limits are set to 0 by default?
  2. Is than normal that there is no reply to my request for 16 hours already?

Thanks!

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  • 1) What sort of account do you have with AWS, and AMI role you are using? 2) If your support plan is the 'Basic' one then yes, it can take a while for them to respond, depending on priorities of tickets I suppose.
    – David B.
    Jun 7, 2017 at 8:40
  • You chose a default region or two when you set up your account. Your initial limit is probably something like one or two t2.micro. They'll increase the limits, it will just take a little time. If you can't wait, run spot instances, I don't think the limits apply to them. Be aware that spot instances can be terminated at any time with virtually no warning so you need appropriate backups.
    – Tim
    Jun 7, 2017 at 9:07

1 Answer 1

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To answer your questions directly.

0) Limits protect AWS infrastructure from overuse, prevent significant loss by fraud, and prevent customers from running up large bills unintentionally. More here. For example, if your access keys are made public by mistake someone could spin up many p2.16xlarge instances to run crypto currency mining at $14/hr.

1) No. The region you select should allow at least one t2.micro, as per the free tier. Once you establish that you will actually pay your bill AWS will raise limits.

2) I wouldn't call 16 hours unusual. The first time I requested an increase it took 12 hours to reply and 4 days to do the increase. The second time it took a couple of hours to reply and around 36 hours to do the increase.

Edit August 2018

I was on an AWS training course recently. We had scripts create a number of AWS accounts. One of those accounts had a limit of zero EC2 instances in some regions, with only a single t2.micro and another t2 instance size I don't recall available. I got an email in the next 12 hours saying the limits had been increased and instances could be created. There's was a theory that the region we were using (US-East-1) had some kind of a temporary resource constraint.

So in some cases the answer is "be patient, limits will automatically increase". The default limits do increase over time, which I assume is to protect AWS against people and automated systems taking advantage of their free tier.

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    Addendum to 0)...*and* they protect customers from shooting themselves in the foot financially. :)
    – EEAA
    Jun 7, 2017 at 19:18

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