Elasticfox Firefox Extension for Amazon EC2

Developer Tools>Elasticfox Firefox Extension for Amazon EC2
Community Contributed Software

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ElasticFox is a Mozilla Firefox extension for managing your Amazon EC2 account. Launch new instances, mount Elastic Block Storage volumes, map Elastic IP addresses, and more. The project source code is also available for customizing the tool.

Details

Submitted By: Manoj@AWS
AWS Products Used: Amazon EC2
Languages(s): JavaScript
License: Apache License 2.0
Source Control Access: svn co https://elasticfox.svn.sourceforge.net/svnroot/elasticfox elasticfox
Created On: January 17, 2007 8:33 AM GMT
Last Updated: September 1, 2010 9:48 PM GMT
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About this Project

  • Provides basic Amazon EC2 management features within Mozilla Firefox.
    • List available AMIs
    • List your running instances
    • Launch new instances of an AMI
    • Manage security groups and launch permissions associated with your instances
    • Manage Amazon EBS volumes
  • Use the packaged .xpi file to easily install the plugin in Firefox.
  • View the source code on SourceForge: http://sourceforge.net/projects/elasticfox/. Some JavaScript highlights include:
    • content/ec2ui/client.js - Contains logic to construct and sign requests to Amazon EC2.
    • content/ec2ui/controller.js - Contains the logic to un-pack Amazon EC2 responses.

What's New

  • Version 1.7.000116 - Added support for user-specified IPs in Amazon VPC.
  • Version 1.7.000113 - Added support for Amazon EBS-backed AMIs, including Start/Stop and CreateImage calls; improved AMI filtering; introduced snapshot filtering.
  • Version 1.7.000112 - Added support for EC2 Northern California region, and fixed a few reported bugs in the extension. Upcoming feature is support for Boot from EBS volumes.
  • Version 1.7.000110 - Added support for EC2 BigMem instances, and fixed a few reported bugs in the extension - sort order lost when switching tabs, Windows AMI migration.
  • Version 1.7.000108 - Added support for Amazon Virtual Private Cloud.
  • Version 1.6.000107 - Bugfix release: Instance & Volume tags persisted; Bundle Windows AMI fixes.
  • Version 1.6.000106 - Bugfix release with support for "My AMIs"
  • Version 1.6.000105 - Reserved Instances Offerings can be viewed and purchased with Elasticfox. Purchased Reserved Instances can also be viewed.
  • Version 1.6.000104 - Bug Fix Release with some refactoring. An EIP can now be associated to another instance in 1 click regardless of whether it is currently associated with an instance or not. Windows instance bundling bugs have been fixed.
  • Version 1.6.000102 - Bug Fixes, Delete AMI parts from S3, Fixes for AMI migration, etc.
  • Version 1.6.000098 - Bugfix release for Elasticfox with tagging extended to more EC2 resources.
  • Version 1.6.000097 - Tagging for Elastic IPs, Images (so you can create Favorite Images), and bug fixes.
  • Version 1.6.000094 - Support Windows AMI Migration between regions. If the AMI parts are migrated correctly, the new AMI is registered and ready for launch.
  • Version 1.6.000093 - Per user and per region EC2 resource tagging - Instances, Volumes and Snapshots can now be tagged. Tags are stored in the Firefox preferences.
  • Support for EC2 API version 2008-12-01: Support for EC2 instances running in multiple regions - US and EU.
  • Support for EC2 API version 2008-08-08: Amazon EC2 running Windows Server and SQL Server
  • Support for API version 2008-05-05: Amazon Elastic Block Store
  • Support for API version 2008-02-01: Elastic IP Addresses, Availability Zones, and User Selectable Kernels
  • Support for c1.medium and c1.xlarge instance types
  • Support for Firefox 3.0

Prerequisites

  • This extension requires Mozilla Firefox version 2.0 or later.

Running the Extension

Install the extension by clicking on the following link with Mozilla Firefox:

http://s3.amazonaws.com/ec2-downloads/elasticfox.xpi

Firefox guides you through the installation process. You may need to configure Firefox to install software from this domain.

Documentation

Read the ElasticFox Getting Started Guide for information on using the extension.

Comments

Installs on FF 3.6.10
I have not yet used this add-on to the fullest but just wanted to add my 2 cents in regard of installing this add-on to the latest FF releases. I tried with FF 3.6.10 under Ubuntu 10.04. Doesn't install right away, asks what to open this with or suggests to download. Download and save on disk. Then open de Add-on window, switch to the Themes tab (strange I know), open a file browser, drag the xpi file into the themes tab and presto! :)
resyncaws on October 20, 2010 12:32 PM GMT
Not in Add-ons
Firefox has a section for add-ons like Elastic Fox (https://addons.mozilla.org/en-US/firefox/). Is there a reason this isn't there?
Tim Wood on September 24, 2010 3:43 PM GMT
Can't Install
Might be nice if I could get past step 1, ie firefox does NOT automatically install or give an option to install. So now I have 4 useless versions of elasticfox.xpi sitting on my machine. It would be nice to have documented a backup plan when the magic doesn't work.
steveatimf on September 17, 2010 2:53 PM GMT
Indespensible
This is a great tool. Amazon should hire this guy immediately. Yes it's missing a few features that you can get in Amazon's portal (setting permissions for other accounts to access snapshots is one I'd like to see added), but overall, nothing makes working with EC2 easier for me. For the reviewer above with a screen that's not wide enough -- on the far right of the column headers, click the little box at the end of the row. You can add or remove columns at your leisure. I am having one odd issue where the basic filters (like selecting "My Snapshots" in the dropdown) don't work. I have to select "No Filter", then put my account IDs into the filter field. Creating an entirely new Firefox profile and starting over doesn't help either... Somehow Elasticfox retains my old account info & data. Very odd.
J. Gerry on July 1, 2010 3:32 PM GMT
No version information
I wasted so much of my time just to find the correct version of firefox which will accept this plugin, but still no luck (tried 3.6, 3.5.7, 3.5.5). I hope to see simple browser version certificaiton matrix to save everyone's time. -Manish
manishjigupta on June 16, 2010 9:04 PM GMT
MUST-have tool
Like any other tools, you can never get absolutely every capability you desire. I mostly use RightScale to manage my AWS servers, but for the most up-to-date information and doing quick changes, I absolutely love ElasticFox.
affinegy on March 19, 2010 8:30 PM GMT
Great Tool But
This is great, but in FF3 on a Mac (latest Snow Leopard) the UI is about twice as wide as my screen, even maximized (on a 13" macbook). I don't see any way to eliminate columns or change font sizes, so is there a way to make this usable? I don't even have a horizontal scroll bar.
Ken Ficara on December 15, 2009 8:55 PM GMT
XPI corrupted in Firefox 3.5
XPI corrupted (at least for Firefox 3.5 on Mac) When I click on the link, Firefox tried to download it, and I end up with an empty file.
Mike B on November 24, 2009 5:19 PM GMT
so easy to use
I just want to also request support for ELB. Thank you
siiva on November 4, 2009 2:27 PM GMT
Feature Request - Allow Sharing of Tags and Make it hard to Terminate
We use ElasticFox all the time and love it. The following would make it superb 1. Make it hard to terminate. It is very easy to Elastic terminate an instance. At least, make it user configurable menu item so that by default it is not present, unless we click on a nested menu 2. Allow sharing of tags. Everyone in our team right now has to name on their own - for the *same* servers.
mark5to1 on October 2, 2009 6:49 PM GMT
CloudWatch Support with Elasticfox
Hi, We are using EC2 service and Elasticfox for 2 months, and we found Elasticfox as a great, easy to use tool for managing and configuring AWS EC2 instances. We have one feature request to ask: do you plan to add CloudWatch support to the Elasticfox in the near future? Thanks, Finjan Support
finjansupport on September 16, 2009 11:18 AM GMT
Dumb Monkey
Guess I must be the dumb monkey in the room. I downloaded the .xpi file, and Firefox looks at me like I am talking Greek. Running Firefox 3.0, clicked the link, saved it, tried opening it, nothin. IE wanted to try to look up the extension online, it found nothing. I guess I must have been in the bathroom when the teacher told everyone about XPI files. Honestly, does it really have to be this hard? I am sure some smart pants will instantly point to my giant error. How ridiculous. Bah!
sthede1000 on July 6, 2009 8:00 PM GMT
Suggestion to improve
Great tool. Just missing one thing - the ability to view 'My AMIs'. In the Images tab would be useful if you can view the AMIs owned by oneself. You can do this in awsconsole.
thewook on June 22, 2009 8:28 PM GMT
When Next
Hi, When can we expect a version which includes ELB, Auto Scaling features included. Rajshekar
raj9297 on June 16, 2009 7:00 AM GMT
Tags killer feature
Great app I was thrilled with the new tags thingie. Then I was shocked there was no way to see tags from the CLI/API. Amazon ought to have something like that in their awsconsole. Period. Good thing is that it was pretty easy to locate the mappings in the FF preferences so that I could dump them into my script sources to be used.
S. Heeren on June 9, 2009 11:08 PM GMT
Awesome Work!
Automaxion (http://automaxion.com) is considering utilizing this Extension for AWS. Thanks for your contribution to the community!
7keys on May 19, 2009 5:47 PM GMT
Be able to package resources
Elastic Fox really is great but I'll also add my voice to those calling for the ability to create nicknames especially for private images, running instances and volumes. In fact I'd like to go a step further and be able to create a package of resources that are logically related. For example when I start an instance I usually know what image I want to use, the volume(s) to attach, the IP address I want to assign and the security groups I'd like to use. These resources constitute a re-usable package and its really handy to be able to click on the package name, press a button and have the PC take care of the individual actions. We created our own utility to do these things but it will be ideal to give up this utility in favor of similar functionality in Elastic Fox.
lyquidityaws on December 13, 2008 11:31 AM GMT
Awesome tool
This tool has made my life significantly easier. Thanks.
Sean Campion on November 5, 2008 11:35 PM GMT
Good, but missing essential feature
A good tool, but like other reviewers have pointed out, the ability to give a label/nickname to instances on launch would be very, very convenient.
kyrre15 on October 24, 2008 12:56 PM GMT
Simple and easy.
It took about a day to get ElasticFox down. It's very easy to use. I made screenshots and a walkthrough for it here: http://www.howtocloud.com/blog/?p=22
howtocloud on September 26, 2008 8:52 PM GMT
Works with Firefox 3
I just wanted to post this so there would not be any doubts. The latest version works with FF3. Works great with Mac OS X and Linux, YMMV with Windows XP or Vista.
PJ Cabrera on July 1, 2008 11:24 PM GMT
FF3 FTW
Please, please release a version compatible with FF3! Thanks
Mark Baseggio on April 23, 2008 4:46 PM GMT
Very good start
as mentioned by others, here, SSH seems to be an issue, As well working from standard bash, I can not seem to access the server instance, using various access methods, defining, the pem files, ect, no joy, anyone successfully connected, with an instance loaded from this UI?
Macro books on March 24, 2008 1:02 PM GMT
Great stuff
This tool is really awesome. However, I'm having some problems on making the "Open SSH Connection" button to work under Windows XP with Firefox 2.0.0.8 - it simply doesn't do anything, no error message, no window, no nothing! I've tried everything that has crossed my mind in the "Manage local tools" configuration window: absolute paths, relative paths, Windows-style paths, linux-style paths, console applications, GUI applications, etc. Does anybody knows what's the trick? Thanks in advance
gsais on February 23, 2008 6:51 AM GMT
root lossh login
I cannot seems to login as root after registering my instance. OS: mac ssh -2 -i id_rsa-gsg-keypair root@ec2-xxxxxx.compute-1.amazonaws.com
kekekekeke on February 17, 2008 6:34 PM GMT
Just a couple of Nits...
Fantastic Tool! I was able to get up and going in no time! Only a few things that got me after my first hour or so with this: 1. Ability to import existing PEM, can create, but not simply load an existing PEM set. 2. Tab overwrite. It would be less disruptive if the tool started its own (new) tab, rather than usurping the existing tab. 3. Editable Security Groups Name or Description after creation? If this is an EC2 limitation, so be it. That is really it. Otherwise, it gets the job done, and done effectively.
thepappas on February 10, 2008 5:28 AM GMT
Very Useful...
To answer a previous post, I believe they are storing credentials using the standard FF user/pass store method...meaning the data should be encrypted like any other credentials you have stored in FF....if you have set a master password in FF (which is highly recommended).
Gabriel Kent on January 25, 2008 11:06 PM GMT
Secure?
How secure is it? Security is relative but, since we store the AWS credentials using this extension, is it prone to hacking etc more easily than it normally is?
ivrokv on January 19, 2008 2:35 PM GMT
Totally indispensable!
Best EC2 utility, period.
D. C Smith on December 29, 2007 2:12 AM GMT
Indispensable
I could live without this plugin, but life would be a bit more dreary. Thank you!
Eric Hammond on December 10, 2007 10:01 PM GMT
Good show
So far I've found it to be quite handy - a nice way to start and stop instances and deal with permissions. I haven't tried making my own AMI yet. But today Firefox is up to 2.0.0.10 and it's telling me that the extension isn't compatible. The extension is disabled!
L. Edelstein on November 30, 2007 10:40 PM GMT
would be nice if the password entries stripped trailing spaces
This is a nice gui, but they ought to call .trim() on the AWS account ID and secret key, because it is easy to get trailing spaces in on either when copying and pasting from the AWS account page. And because the secret key is displayed as ******** you dont notice.
Steve Loughran on November 23, 2007 2:54 PM GMT
If you are having troubles getting it to run
You can follow this link to a tutorial on using the extension http://developer.amazonwebservices.com/connect/thread.jspa?threadID=17717&tstart=0
donalvarez on October 26, 2007 1:47 AM GMT
Less Typing for Me
Thanks for creating this extension, it sure makes accessing EC2 much less painful. Before diving into the extension I recommend everybody read the "Getting Started" guide, and poking around with one of the various CLI tools available. Regardless, very simple extension to configure and use. Works great on Ubuntu Gutsy w/ FF 2.0.0.6
twkelvinn on October 7, 2007 4:16 AM GMT
Great utility
Easy to set up, and works perfectly. Like someone said earier, launching SSH clients would be a great addition.
repoleved on September 21, 2007 1:09 PM GMT
Great Tool, But...
It would be PERFECT to have SSH from this app. That's like 10 stars!!
joel1198 on August 30, 2007 2:58 AM GMT
Great tool
The Firefox UI makes everything so much easier. I want to second the request of the previous writer- some sort of mouse operation to launch putty or ssh from the instance listed in the ui.
nmdave on August 20, 2007 7:21 PM GMT
Works perfectly!
It took all of 2 minutes to configure. I think the problem is that people haven't already setup their keys so that they can work through the command line. Follow the amazon ec2 tutorial first so that you can connect then go back and use the GUI. My wish is that I could launch an ssh terminal by double clicking an instance.
hessml on July 30, 2007 6:33 PM GMT
Very useful functionality but installation sucks
I'm giving only 2 stars because of the lack of documentation and improper extension metadata. I had the older EC2UI extension installed which had version 1.2.9xxx. The newer extension with private and public DNS columns is listed as version 1.2.1xxx. This means that Firefox won't install the lower version (but newer) extension over the higher version (but older) extension. You have to go to your profiles\xxxx\extensions directory and delete the {2204c510-88f3-11db-b606-0800200c9a66} directory before installing this. So 2 stars for wasting my time like that.
jeda2 on July 19, 2007 7:44 PM GMT
managing acl rights work only on windows
I recently tried to use this plugins from ubuntu and my mac and couldn't get it to work. I could upload files but couldn't alter the acl rights.
dwebsubmit on July 10, 2007 3:11 PM GMT
Looks great!
But, I can not get it to work? No documentation? No help file? Sorry........
islanding on July 10, 2007 1:22 AM GMT
Awesome and Invaluable Tool
Great job. This is a must have for any EC2 user.
T. Reeder on June 12, 2007 5:21 PM GMT
Won't restart
I liked what I saw the 1st time it loaded and worked but then when I restarted Firefox like the previous poster mentioned Firefox freezes when I try to use the plug in. I have XP Pro SP2 and FireFox 2.0.0.4. If there is an update let me know. I uninstalled and reinstalled the plugin but it still froze Firefox. So thus the 2 stars.
Andrew Jones on June 12, 2007 5:36 AM GMT
Excellent - one possible addition
Hi I have been using the EC2 UI for a couple of months and its a brilliant. Saves me so much time and allows me to instantly see what instances I'm running. A feature that would make it perfect for me, is if you could provide a name for each instance. Any Chance?? Thanks Rob
robgilchrist on June 7, 2007 4:31 PM GMT
Fantastic tool - now I'm sunk
So the ec2ui tool is absolutely fantastic. It allows you to do all the things you need to and worry about what your instances are doing rather than keeping up with which ID belongs to what. However, after no upgrades or other system changes, I woke up this morning and it has stopped working. I can't even launch it anymore. I've tried uninstalling and reinstalling it. I tried disabling all of my other Firefox extensions. Nothing. Anybody at AWS wanna help out?
Monty Taylor on May 12, 2007 2:36 PM GMT
VERY easy to use
The only part of the process not made very very simple and easy is key generation. I wanted to give this 5 stars, and this is all that stood in my way. The extension comes with the ability to generate key pairs. I tried several times without success to get this working and I could not log in to the instances I SO easily created. I could not import the PEM file that EC2UI produced to convert it to PuTTY format. After converting the PEM file to DOS format (I am running WinXP and using UltraEdit) PuTTYGen worked fine in importing the private key. Other than that every other part of the process was made foolproof even for me to use.
davidbullock@tech-center.com on March 4, 2007 7:20 AM GMT
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