Starting/Stopping AWS EC2 Instances using AWS Powershell Tools - powershell

Question

I am attempting to write two separate scripts. One script determines which EC2 instances are stopped, it starts them and documents what it starts to a text file.
The second script will read the text file and stop those instances. For debugging/simplicty sake I am starting out by combining the two scripts into a single script.
Here's my script:
$Instances = (Get-EC2Instance).instances
$start_instances = #()
$Instances | foreach {
$state = Get-EC2InstanceStatus -InstanceId $_.InstanceId -IncludeAllInstance $true
$state = $state.InstanceState.Name
if ($state -eq "stopped"){
$start_instances += $_.InstanceId
}
}
[System.IO.File]::WriteAllText("C:\users\myusername\desktop\so.csv", $($start_instances -join ','))
$shutdown_instances = [System.IO.File]::ReadAllText("C:\users\myusername\desktop\so.csv")
Write-Host "Press any key to continue ..."
$x = $host.UI.RawUI.ReadKey("NoEcho,IncludeKeyDown")
Stop-EC2Instance -Instance $shutdown_instances
Starting and documenting what instances are running works fine. Its the stopping instances which is failing.
I'm getting the following error:
Stop-EC2Instance : Invalid id: "i-99edd755,i-8d647f58"
At C:\users\myusername\Desktop\aws-test.ps1:28 char:1
+ Stop-EC2Instance -Instance $shutdown_instances
+ ~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~
+ CategoryInfo : NotSpecified: (:) [Stop-EC2Instance], AmazonEC2Exception
+ FullyQualifiedErrorId : Amazon.EC2.AmazonEC2Exception,Amazon.PowerShell.Cmdlets.EC2.StopEC2InstanceCmdl
Those instance IDs are indeed valid so I can't figure out why the heck its complaining. I was writing the instance IDs to a file via out-file and getting it via get-content but that seemed to have caused a different error.
I'm assuming the issue has something to do with the format of the data once i'm pulling it out of the text file.
Edit
So I've changed my script to:
$start_instances = $start_instances | Select-Object #{Name='Name';Expression={$_}}
$start_instances | Export-Csv -Delimiter ',' -NoTypeInformation -path C:\temp\instances.csv
$stop_instances = #(Import-Csv -path C:\temp\instances.csv)
$stop_instances | Stop-EC2Instance
But still get an error:
Stop-EC2Instance : No instances specified
At C:\temp\aws-test.ps1:22 char:19
+ $stop_instances | Stop-EC2Instance
+ ~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~
+ CategoryInfo : NotSpecified: (:) [Stop-EC2Instance], AmazonEC2Exception
+ FullyQualifiedErrorId : Amazon.EC2.AmazonEC2Exception,Amazon.PowerShell.Cmdlets.EC2.StopEC2InstanceCmdlet
I've also tried:
Stop-EC2Instance -InstanceID $stop_instances
But that also dies:
Stop-EC2Instance : No instances specified
At C:\temp\aws-test.ps1:22 char:1
+ Stop-EC2Instance -InstanceId $stop_instances
+ ~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~
+ CategoryInfo : NotSpecified: (:) [Stop-EC2Instance], AmazonEC2Exception
+ FullyQualifiedErrorId : Amazon.EC2.AmazonEC2Exception,Amazon.PowerShell.Cmdlets.EC2.StopEC2InstanceCmdlet

Answer 1

InstanceId parameter needs array.
You can declare an empty array first
$EC2Instance =#()
Then use Import-CSV and pipe it to append the empty array with each value from csv
Import-CSV C:\Temp\Instance.csv | Foreach-Object {$EC2Instance += $_.InstanceId}
echo $EC2Instance
$EC2instance will now have the required instance id's in an array
Then you can use it in the command
Stop-EC2instance -InstanceId $EC2instance
This worked for me.