AWS EC2 Lookup & Connectivity Toolkit for PowerShell

The Problem with Connecting to EC2 Instances

If you manage AWS EC2 instances day-to-day, you’ll be familiar with the dance:

1. Open the AWS console (or run aws ec2 describe-instances ... with a wall of JSON)
2. Hunt for the instance ID
3. Copy it somewhere
4. Run aws ssm start-session --target i-0abc123...

Even with a previous post on SSHing to EC2 instances over SSM, you still need to know the instance ID upfront. I wanted something closer to just typing ssh hostname.

The Solution

I’ve published a PowerShell toolkit as a Gist:

👉 AWS EC2 Lookup & Connectivity Toolkit

Add it to your PowerShell profile and you get four short commands:

Example Usage

# Find instances with "web" in their Name tag
ec2 web

# SSH to an instance called "ukwebserver01"
ssh2 ukwebserver01

# SSH as a non-default user
ssh2 ukwebserver01 -User ubuntu

# Start an SSM session
ssm2 ukwebserver01

# Search across all your configured AWS CLI profiles
ec2 web -AllAccounts

# Force a fresh lookup (skip the in-session cache)
ec2 web -NoCache

# Open RDP to a Windows instance
rdp2 winserver01

How It Works

Instance Lookup

The core Get-EC2Instance function queries EC2 using aws ec2 describe-instances with a wildcard filter on the Name tag, so ec2 uk will match ukwebserver01, uk-bastion, and anything else with “uk” in the name.

It searches across multiple regions by default (eu-west-2 and eu-west-1) and can optionally loop through all your configured AWS CLI profiles with -AllAccounts.

Results are cached in memory for the duration of your PowerShell session, so repeated lookups are fast.

Multiple Matches

If more than one instance matches your search, you get an interactive picker. On Windows with PowerShell 5+ you’ll get an Out-GridView popup. On other platforms (or if Out-GridView isn’t available) you get a numbered CLI menu instead.

AWS SSO Support

Before querying, the toolkit checks whether your SSO session is still valid. If it isn’t, it automatically runs aws sso login for you rather than failing silently.

SSH with SSM Fallback

ssh2 tries a normal SSH connection first. If that fails (e.g. port 22 isn’t open, or you’re connecting via a private IP), it automatically falls back to an SSM session — no manual intervention needed.

Setup

1. Copy the script from the Gist into your PowerShell profile ($PROFILE).
2. Update the default $Profile parameter in Get-EC2Instance and ec2ssm/ec2ssh to match your AWS CLI profile name.
3. Optionally update the default $Regions array to match the regions you use most.
4. Reload your profile (. $PROFILE) or open a new PowerShell window.

You’ll need the AWS CLI v2 installed and configured with SSO or standard credentials.

PowerShell icon from Devicons — MIT licensed.