I am not sure if this is going to be useful to anyone, but if you’re working with AWS Linux and Windows instances (especially if these are ephemeral) you’ll know that it’s a bit of a pain to quickly connect to these. I wanted a single-click solution that would allow me to SSM or WinSCP onto Linux servers, and RDP to my Windows instances and always get me the latest information, but I couldn’t find anything on the net, so I wrote my own Windows tool.
The very first alpha version is available for download now and the source code is released as an open-source on Github: https://github.com/JozefJarosciak/AWS-Connect-Manager
AWS Connect Manager
- Open-source Windows tool to simplify connecting to Amazon AWS EC2 instances.
- Ever wanted to connect to your Windows or Linux instances with a single click? Give it a try!
Functionality
- Automatically reads your AWS ‘credentials’ file
- Single click connection to SSM, WinSCP and RDP
- Combobox to switch between AWS Profiles
- Combobox to switch between AWS Regions
- Auto lists all instances, providing details such as Instance Tag, Instance ID, Private IP Address, Instance Type, Platform and Availability Zone
- Easily copy to clipboard: Instance ID, IP Address or CLI SSM Command
Screenshots
- Single-click SSM, WinSCP & RDP:
- Configuration Screen
Prerequisites
- .NET Framework 4.7.2 installed on Windows
- AWS CLI – https://docs.aws.amazon.com/cli/latest/userguide/cli-chap-install.html
- AWS Credential File (.aws/credentials) – https://docs.aws.amazon.com/cli/latest/userguide/cli-configure-files.html
- Session Manager plugin for the AWS CLI – https://docs.aws.amazon.com/systems-manager/latest/userguide/session-manager-working-with-install-plugin.html
- WinSCP – https://winscp.net/eng/download.php
- ConEmu (auto packaged in the Windows download), if you want to use your own version, download here: https://conemu.github.io/
WinSCP Prerequisite:
Integration with WinSCP needs some work, it currently requires a manual setup of the new WinSCP connection in WinSCP, which must be configured as follows:
- Connection Name: AWS
- File Protocol: SCP
- Host Name: localhost
- Port: 54321
- User Name: root Note: If you want SCP auto-login, you need to configure advanced settings and under SSH / Authentication, configure the path to your private key PPK file (also needs to be configured on the server.
RDP Auto-Login
- If you want RDP to auto-login to your Windows servers, enter shared RDP credentials into the configuration screen. I currently advise against this practice, but if you want to go ahead, be AWARE, that currently credentials are saved into the application config file in a raw unencrypted format.
Application Download
- You can download the initial release of AWS Connect Manager for Windows (v1.0.0) in zip format from the GitHub release page:
- https://github.com/JozefJarosciak/AWS-Connect-Manager/releases/download/v1.0.0/AWS_Connect_Manager-1.0.0.zip
Application Installation
- Download AWS_Connect_Manager-1.0.0.zip
- Unzip
- Run: AWS-Connect-Manager.exe
Source Code & Licensing
- This project is open-source released under GNU GENERAL PUBLIC LICENSE – Version 2, June 1991.
- Feel free to fork and further enhance this project.
- Application is coded entirely in C# using Visual Studio.
- No third-party dependencies except ConEmu (open-source tabbed terminal emulator for Windows).
Support
- Having trouble? Contact me, I’ll try to help as much as I can.
- Or contact me in this dedicated Reddit post: https://www.reddit.com/r/aws/comments/qp5h6y/opensource_aws_connect_manager_for_windows_ssm/
Author / Contact
- Jozef Jarosciak
- LinkedIn Contact: https://www.linkedin.com/in/jozefj
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It’s a work in progress. Let me know what you think or if this is something you find useful.