I'm new to AWS EC2 and I'm trying to access to a windows instance (it's an image created from another instance),
But when I click on Get password in RDP section, i got this message:
The instance was running since yesterday so why I still have this message? is this something related to missing configuration?
Thanks for your help!
Check the console output for the instance to see whether the AMI that you used to launch it was created with password generation disabled. If password generation is disabled, the console output contains the following:
Ec2SetPassword: Disabled
If password generation is disabled and you don't remember the password for the original instance, you can reset the password for this instance. For more information, see .Reset a lost or expired Windows administrator password
Related
Im a newb to AWS, so please go easy on me. We currently just spun up a custom Windows 10 instance in AWS. I was able to login via RDP successfully, but I'd like to create a new user within the instance so they can login with a different user account using RDP. Any thoughts would be much appreciated.
Okay, After your response to my first, I think I see what you are asking. Plase watch this video:
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=rgk2w3dQGSo
Download the RDP. Save it. You can then Edit the .rdp and enter the user name and password you created in Windows.
You can create users in the User Management Console in Windows. Ensure they have the rights needed (Remote Desktop User, Administrator, etc).
Enjoy!
Once an Amazon EC2 Windows instance has been launched, it is just a normal Windows computer.
Therefore, you should use use the standard Admin tools to create the user on the Windows computer, with their own username and password.
It is also recommended that you change the random Administrator password after initial login, or (even better) connect the instance to Active Directory or whatever standard authentication system your company uses.
Technoob here. I just figured out why all of you are having trouble. You need to go to the security group the machine is a part of and open port 3389 to your public IP address (ipchicken.com works). Enjoy
If you are trying to connect from another computer then you have to change the inbound rules.
Go to the security groups of your instance. Go to the inbound rules. Add ipv4 and ipv6 as a new rule and apply it. Download the RDP File and try to connect again. It worked for me.
My secretary created a new instance in Amazon using their EC2 server but lost the .pem file. Doing research online I was able to go to the instance system settings/get system log and retrieve some type of password there. The instance system log shows something like this:
2019/04/15 12:15:19Z: Username: Username
2019/04/15 12:15:19Z: Password: <Password>
It is a very long code of random characters.
Is there any way I can use this to log in via remote desktop or is there a way to decrypt it? I tried several decryption methods online and they said this was not a valid "hash"...whatever this means. I am not a technical person so I need hopefully a response in layman terms.
It appears that you are connecting to a Windows instance. When a new Amazon EC2 Windows instance is launched, a program on the AMI (disk image) automatically generates a random Administrator password. This is done so that you can access the instance, but nobody else can.
To keep the password secret, the program encrypts the password with the keypair nominated when the instance was launched. The encrypted password is passed back to AWS via the console. That is the string of 'random characters' you saw.
To decrypt the password, you can use the Get Windows Password feature, which requires you to supply the nominated keypair. It will then decrypt the password, which can be used to login to the instance as Administrator.
Since you no longer have the keypair, you cannot decrypt the password and therefore cannot login to the server. This is good! This proves that security works, because you would not want other people to be able to login to the server.
So, can do you regain access?
Refer to the steps on: I need to reset the administrator password on a Windows Server instance in Amazon EC2
Basically, there are two methods:
If Systems Manager is enabled for the instance, you can run a "rescue" script
Otherwise, there is a series of scripts that assist with the process of:
Detaching the disk
Attaching it to another instance
Resetting a configuration on the disk
Reattaching the disk to the original instance
The second process is a bit like plugging a USB disk into another computer to change a file (except that EC2 disks are managed differently).
I have a Windows 2008R2 server in GCE that is behaving oddly (may be compromised). I can no longer access it via RDP. When I reboot the machine and look at the serial console, I see at the very bottom after the boot sequence, that something called Credentials Manager runs and appears to delete or change some username/password. I suspect that this is what is changing the RDP password. (see image attached). On a normally running Windows VM, I do not see this in the trace.
GCE Agent started.
Starting AddressManager
Starting CredentialsManager
Credentials have changed. Updating...
Changing username...
Deleting old user...
Username or password was updated successfully.```
I have tried resetting or adding a new password using the metadata windows-startup-script-cmd = net user but that does not seem to do anything.
What I get is an error message of the form:
Booting on date 05/05/2015 10:22:49
WARNING: Computer Name windows does not match Compute Engine Instance Name XXXXX.
Did you forget to run gcesysprep?
attributes/windows-startup-script-bat value is not set or metadata server is not reachable.
attributes/windows-startup-script-ps1 value is not set or metadata server is not reachable.
So the question is, how can I get into the machine to see what is happening? Is there a way that the GCE startup sequence could be changed to not call the credential manager to change the password or username?
What you could do is if you have a Gcloud SDK (https://cloud.google.com/compute/docs/gcloud-compute/) installed, you can run the following command while that instance is running:
gcloud compute instances decribe instance_name
This will provide all the information about the instance and you will see a section called MetaData which will display the users and the passwords. Then you can try to remote in and remove any credentials setup in the Credentials Manager located in Control Panel -> User Accounts.
I hope this give you access to your VM
I have a ec2 windows machine AMI, from Which I created an instance yesterday, I don;t remember its admin password, and I have been trying to get the windows password, but every time I try it says "it may take upto 30 minutes". It has been more then 15 hrs now, is there something fundamentally wrong here, how can i get access to my machine.
Windows instance created from a custom AMI will inherit the password from the instance from which you created the AMI.
It will not generate PAssword. You have to login with the password you have configured on the instance from which you created this AMI.
This post is a typical scenario of not reading the error message carefully. :
I've just created a windows EC2 instance. I got the password and downloaded the RDP shortcut. I tried to log in using the Administrator account and the provided password but it keep giving me a message saying that my credentials are wrong. What can I do? Amazon help just giving the simple steps that I did: 1) download the RDP shortcut, 2) retrieve the password using the .PEM file.
It was a matter of time. I waited for some more time (although, it was ready and all checks are done), but just waited and that solved the issue.