Posted On: Mar 30, 2021

Starting today, the interactive EC2 Serial Console is now generally available. EC2 Serial Console provides a simple and secure way to troubleshoot boot and network connectivity issues by establishing a connection to the serial port of an instance. It provides a one-click, text-based access to an instances’ serial port as though a monitor and keyboard were attached to it. This access can be used for interactive troubleshooting.

Previously, you could get serial console output as logs or a screenshot through the EC2 management console, API or the CLI. With the EC2 Serial Console feature, you can interactively run troubleshooting commands for resolving boot and network configuration issues . EC2 Serial Console is ideal for situations where you are unable to connect to your instance via normal SSH or RDP. Access to EC2 Serial Console is not permitted by default at the account level and needs to be allowed explicitly. It is also integrated with IAM and AWS for Organizations policies for fine grained access control.

EC2 Serial Console Access is available for Nitro virtual instances running either Windows or Linux and is now available at no additional cost in the AWS US East (N. Virginia), US East (Ohio), US West (Oregon), Europe (Ireland), Europe (Frankfurt), Asia Pacific (Sydney), Asia Pacific (Tokyo), and Asia Pacific (Singapore) regions.

Visit our documentation page to learn more about how to troubleshoot using the interactive EC2 Serial Console.