Elasticfox Firefox Extension for Amazon EC2
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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.
| Submitted By: |
Manoj@AWS
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| AWS Products Used: |
Amazon EC2 |
| Language(s): |
JavaScript/AJAX |
| License: |
Apache License 2.0 |
| Source Control Access: |
svn co https://elasticfox.svn.sourceforge.net/svnroot/elasticfox elasticfox |
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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 1.7.000110 - 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.xpiFirefox 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.
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Posts:
9
Registered:
5/8/07
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Re: Firefox Extension for Amazon EC2 and Firefox 3.0
Posted:
Sep 25, 2009 11:00 AM PDT
in response to: Joel Feenstra
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CAn we get a favicon.ico in the tab? I run very small tabs with just the icon showing, it would be great to have an icon representing elasticfox in my tab.
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Posts:
2
Registered:
5/19/09
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ElasticFox enhancement project proposal
Posted:
Sep 25, 2009 3:14 PM PDT
in response to: johnfjohnf
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Hello,
I have been using ElasticFox for managing 10-15 servers for a while and I like a lot of the features, especially tagging the objects. I wonder if you are open to some additional features. Primarily, I am trying to see if we can expand the scope to make this tool optionally a multi-user tool within a ‘master account’. Examples of some of these features in the wish list are:
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Adding a centralized data storage to share tag names, user accounts etc across browser clients
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Role based security to control access to VMs, running hours etc
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Support self-service so that each user can launch VMs based on security privileges within the ‘master account’
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Reporting for tracking group, user and instance level usage tracking
If you have some plans along these lines, I would love to hear about it. Also, one of our engineers may be able to help if it makese sense...
Thanks!
Biju
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Posts:
6
Registered:
5/22/07
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Latest Version (1.7.000108) broken for small screens
Posted:
Oct 10, 2009 6:13 PM PDT
in response to: johnfjohnf
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Is it possible to obtain previous versions of the extension?
The latest release is completely broken for small screens/laptops as an windows which are too large for the screen are clipped. In particular the launch screen is clipped on my laptop making it impossible to launch new instances, and effectively making the entire extension unusable.
This issue has been recently added to the bug tracker on source forge but I use this on a daily basis for work and I'd like to know if there is a work around, such as rolling back to the previous release?
I did a bit more searching around and found that the older versions can be accessed, built and painlessly reinstalled via the SVN repository,
http://ajmf.wordpress.com/2009/10/05/elasticfox-for-eucalyptus/
I've rolled back to 1.6 and my woes are gone.
added some additional info
Message was edited by: jrnkettle
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Posts:
131
Registered:
8/11/08
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Re: Firefox Extension for Amazon EC2 and Firefox 3.0
Posted:
Oct 27, 2009 3:49 AM PDT
in response to: phileaster
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i will add a favicon to the list of things to add to the next release.
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Posts:
3
Registered:
4/10/08
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Relational Database Service support
Posted:
Oct 30, 2009 2:52 PM PDT
in response to: Manoj@AWS
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Are there any plans for RDS support? If so, is there a time line for release? Thanks for the great tool!
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VERY easy to use, Mar 3, 2007 11:20 PM
Reviewer: davidbullock@tech-center.com
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.
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Fantastic tool - now I'm sunk, May 12, 2007 7:36 AM
Reviewer: Monty Taylor
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?
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Excellent - one possible addition, Jun 7, 2007 9:31 AM
Reviewer: robgilchrist
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
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Won't restart, Jun 11, 2007 10:36 PM
Reviewer: Andrew Jones
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.
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Awesome and Invaluable Tool, Jun 12, 2007 10:21 AM
Reviewer: T. Reeder
Great job. This is a must have for any EC2 user.
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Looks great!, Jul 9, 2007 6:22 PM
Reviewer: islanding
But, I can not get it to work? No documentation? No help file?
Sorry........
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managing acl rights work only on windows, Jul 10, 2007 8:11 AM
Reviewer: dwebsubmit
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.
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Very useful functionality but installation sucks, Jul 19, 2007 12:44 PM
Reviewer: jeda2
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.
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Works perfectly!, Jul 30, 2007 11:33 AM
Reviewer: hessml
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.
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Great tool, Aug 20, 2007 12:21 PM
Reviewer: nmdave
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.
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Great Tool, But..., Aug 29, 2007 7:58 PM
Reviewer: joel1198
It would be PERFECT to have SSH from this app. That's like 10 stars!!
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Great utility, Sep 21, 2007 6:09 AM
Reviewer: repoleved
Easy to set up, and works perfectly. Like someone said earier, launching SSH clients would be a great addition.
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Less Typing for Me, Oct 6, 2007 9:16 PM
Reviewer: twkelvinn
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
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If you are having troubles getting it to run, Oct 25, 2007 6:47 PM
Reviewer: donalvarez
You can follow this link to a tutorial on using the extension http://developer.amazonwebservices.com/connect/thread.jspa?threadID=17717&tstart=0
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would be nice if the password entries stripped trailing spaces, Nov 23, 2007 6:54 AM
Reviewer: Steve Loughran
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.
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Good show, Nov 30, 2007 2:40 PM
Reviewer: L. Edelstein
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!
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Indispensable, Dec 10, 2007 2:01 PM
Reviewer: Eric Hammond
I could live without this plugin, but life would be a bit more dreary. Thank you!
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Totally indispensable!, Dec 28, 2007 6:12 PM
Reviewer: D. C Smith
Best EC2 utility, period.
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Secure?, Jan 19, 2008 6:35 AM
Reviewer: ivrokv
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?
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Very Useful..., Jan 25, 2008 3:06 PM
Reviewer: Gabriel Kent
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).
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Just a couple of Nits..., Feb 9, 2008 9:28 PM
Reviewer: thepappas
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.
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root lossh login, Feb 17, 2008 10:34 AM
Reviewer: kekekekeke
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
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Great stuff, Feb 22, 2008 10:51 PM
Reviewer: gsais
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
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Very good start, Mar 24, 2008 6:02 AM
Reviewer: Macro books
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?
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FF3 FTW, Apr 23, 2008 9:46 AM
Reviewer: Mark Baseggio
Please, please release a version compatible with FF3! Thanks
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Works with Firefox 3, Jul 1, 2008 4:24 PM
Reviewer: PJ Cabrera
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.
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Simple and easy., Sep 26, 2008 1:52 PM
Reviewer: howtocloud
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
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Good, but missing essential feature, Oct 24, 2008 5:56 AM
Reviewer: kyrre15
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.
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Awesome tool, Nov 5, 2008 3:35 PM
Reviewer: Sean Campion
This tool has made my life significantly easier. Thanks.
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Be able to package resources, Dec 13, 2008 3:31 AM
Reviewer: lyquidityaws
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.
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Awesome Work!, May 19, 2009 10:47 AM
Reviewer: 7keys
Automaxion is considering utilizing this Extension for AWS. Thanks for your contribution to the community!
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Tags killer feature, Jun 9, 2009 4:08 PM
Reviewer: S. Heeren
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.
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When Next, Jun 16, 2009 12:00 AM
Reviewer: raj9297
Hi,
When can we expect a version which includes ELB, Auto Scaling features included.
Rajshekar
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Suggestion to improve, Jun 22, 2009 1:28 PM
Reviewer: thewook
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.
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Dumb Monkey, Jul 6, 2009 1:00 PM
Reviewer: sthede1000
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!
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CloudWatch Support with Elasticfox, Sep 16, 2009 4:18 AM
Reviewer: finjansupport
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
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Feature Request - Allow Sharing of Tags and Make it hard to Terminate, Oct 2, 2009 11:49 AM
Reviewer: mark5to1
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.
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so easy to use, Nov 4, 2009 6:27 AM
Reviewer: siiva
I just want to also request support for ELB.
Thank you
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