AWS EC2 User Data Not Decoding Correctly - bash

Question

I am experimenting with creating an EC2 instance to host a Perforce server. My instance is configured with the following user data:
#!/bin/bash
# Add a newline to the ec2-user prompt string
echo PS1=\"\\n\$PS1\" >> /home/ec2-user/.bashrc
# Update all packages
yum update –y
# Install Perforce packages
# The RHEL/7 part of the baseurl should be replaced with
# the latest RHEL version that both Amazon and Perforce support
rpm –import https://package.perforce.com/perforce.pubkey
cd /etc/yum.repos.d/
echo [perforce] > perforce.repo
echo name=Perforce >> perforce.repo
echo baseurl=http://package.perforce.com/yum/rhel/7/x86_64 >> perforce.repo
echo enabled=1 >> perforce.repo
echo gpgcheck=1 >> perforce.repo
yum install –y helix-p4d
# Make directories for the server, owned by new “perforce” user
cd /opt/perforce/servers/
mkdir danware
cd danware
mkdir danware-db danware-chkpts journal
chown –R perforce:perforce danware
I have tested each of the above commands, and know that they work when executed manually in this order. However, some aspect of Amazon's base64 encode/decode system seems to be getting in the way. When I go to "Actions > Instance Settings > View/Change User Data" from the EC2 Console after launching (and passing all system checks), I see the following user data. Note how almost every hyphen "-" has been replaced with some strange "a" character.
However, I'm not sure that this is the issue, because the log file at /var/log/cloud-init-output.log gives me the following output (I replaced some repetitive text with [...] to save space). Note the line that says Failed running /var/lib/cloud/instance/scripts/part-001 I have verified that this part-001 file actually does have the correctly displayed hyphen characters.
[...]
Cloud-init v. 0.7.6 running 'modules:final' at Fri, 09 Sep 2016 06:23:39 +0000. Up 86.66 seconds.
Loaded plugins: priorities, update-motd, upgrade-helper
No Match for argument: –y
No packages marked for update
RPM version 4.11.2
Copyright (C) 1998-2002 - Red Hat, Inc.
This program may be freely redistributed under the terms of the GNU GPL
Usage: rpm [-aKfgpqVcdLilsiv?] [-a|--all] [-f|--file] [-g|--group] [...]
Loaded plugins: priorities, update-motd, upgrade-helper
Resolving Dependencies
--> Running transaction check
---> [...]
Dependencies Resolved
================================================================================
Package Arch Version Repository Size
================================================================================
Installing:
helix-p4d x86_64 2016.1-1429894 perforce 24 k
Installing for dependencies:
helix-cli x86_64 2016.1-1429894 perforce 8.8 k
helix-cli-base x86_64 2016.1-1429894 perforce 1.4 M
helix-p4d-base x86_64 2016.1-1429894 perforce 3.1 k
helix-p4d-base-16.1 x86_64 2016.1-1429894 perforce 2.4 M
helix-p4dctl x86_64 2016.1-1429894 perforce 1.2 M
Transaction Summary
================================================================================
Install 1 Package (+5 Dependent packages)
Total download size: 5.0 M
Installed size: 13 M
Is this ok [y/d/N]: Exiting on user command
Your transaction was saved, rerun it with:
yum load-transaction /tmp/yum_save_tx.2016-09-09.06-23.dRP_r2.yumtx
/var/lib/cloud/instance/scripts/part-001: line 22: cd: /opt/perforce/servers/: No such file or directory
chown: invalid user: ‘–R’
Sep 09 06:23:41 cloud-init[2517]: util.py[WARNING]: Failed running /var/lib/cloud/instance/scripts/part-001 [1]
Sep 09 06:23:41 cloud-init[2517]: cc_scripts_user.py[WARNING]: Failed to run module scripts-user (scripts in /var/lib/cloud/instance/scripts)
Sep 09 06:23:41 cloud-init[2517]: util.py[WARNING]: Running module scripts-user (<module 'cloudinit.config.cc_scripts_user' from '/usr/lib/python2.7/dist-packages/cloudinit/config/cc_scripts_user.pyc'>) failed
Cloud-init v. 0.7.6 finished at Fri, 09 Sep 2016 06:23:41 +0000. Datasource DataSourceEc2. Up 88.53 seconds
Even more annoying, I assumed that the early No Match for argument: –y line from the log file was referring to the yum update -y line from my user data. Sure enough, just running the example user data script from the EC2 documentation page, which also uses yum update -y, gives me this same error/warning! Amazon's own example script doesn't work!? So can anyone answer why A) AWS is not displaying the user data code correctly, and B) why my user data is yielding the errors shown above? The help is much appreciated!

Answer 1

For lines such as
yum update –y
The character you are using is a "EN DASH U+2013"
The usual character for a hyphen is "HYPHEN-MINUS U+002D"
Fix your user data source to use "hyphen minus" and have another go
I checked the character codes by cut n pasting into this online site http://www.fileformat.info/info/unicode/char/search.htm?q=-&preview=entity
Don't know if you can see the difference but this is your hyphen
yum update –y
and this is a "hyphen minus"
yum update -y