ec2_instance updates exisitng instances instead of creating new

[poleszcz]

Summary

I'm using amazon.aws 2.0. I want to create new instance with module ec2_instance but instead ansible is updating other instances that use the same image. Apparently I'm missing something. Based on documentation I don't see how module is deciding to update or create new instance.

Collection Version

---

amazon.aws 2.0.0

- name: Create EC2 instance
  amazon.aws.ec2_instance:
    key_name: "{{ aws_ssh_key_name }}-{{ env_timestamp }}"
    region: "{{ region }}"
    instance_type: "{{ instance_type }}"
    image_id: "{{ ami }}"
    wait: yes
    wait_timeout: 600
    tags:
      Name: "{{ ec2_instance_name }}-{{ env_timestamp }}"
      Creator: "{{ creator }}"
      project: "{{ project }}"
    vpc_subnet_id: "{{ subnet_id }}"
    network:
      assign_public_ip: yes
      groups:
        - "{{ security_group.group_name }}"
  register: ec2

Issue Type

Bug Report

Component Name

ec2_instance

Ansible Version

ansible [core 2.11.3] 
  config file = None
  configured module search path = ['/Users/XXX/.ansible/plugins/modules', '/usr/share/ansible/plugins/modules']
  ansible python module location = /Users/XXX/Library/Python/3.8/lib/python/site-packages/ansible
  ansible collection location = /Users/XXX/.ansible/collections:/usr/share/ansible/collections
  executable location = /Users/XXX/Library/Python/3.8/bin/ansible
  python version = 3.8.2 (default, Apr  8 2021, 23:19:18) [Clang 12.0.5 (clang-1205.0.22.9)]
  jinja version = 3.0.1
  libyaml = False

Collection Versions

Collection       Version
---------------- -------
amazon.aws       2.0.0  
community.docker 1.9.1  

AWS SDK versions

WARNING: Package(s) not found: boto
Name: boto3
Version: 1.17.112
Summary: The AWS SDK for Python
Home-page: https://github.com/boto/boto3
Author: Amazon Web Services
Author-email: None
License: Apache License 2.0
Location: /Users/XXX/Library/Python/3.8/lib/python/site-packages
Requires: jmespath, botocore, s3transfer
Required-by: 
---
Name: botocore
Version: 1.20.112
Summary: Low-level, data-driven core of boto 3.
Home-page: https://github.com/boto/botocore
Author: Amazon Web Services
Author-email: None
License: Apache License 2.0
Location: /Users/XXX/Library/Python/3.8/lib/python/site-packages
Requires: jmespath, urllib3, python-dateutil
Required-by: s3transfer, boto3

Configuration

$ ansible-config dump --only-changed

OS / Environment

local: MacOS

Steps to Reproduce

I have few preexisting instances and they are getting updated and new instance is not created.

Expected Results

I exepect to get new instance created.

Actual Results

ec2_instance returns list of 6 updated instances

Code of Conduct

• I agree to follow the Ansible Code of Conduct

[ansibullbot]

Files identified in the description:

• [plugins/modules/ec2_instance.py](https://github.com/['ansible-collections/amazon.aws', 'ansible-collections/community.aws', 'ansible-collections/community.vmware']/blob/main/plugins/modules/ec2_instance.py)

If these files are inaccurate, please update the component name section of the description or use the !component bot command.

click here for bot help

[ansibullbot]

cc @jillr @ryansb @s-hertel @tremble @wimnat
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[goneri]

Hi @poleszcz,

Thank you for opening this. There is no top level name parameter, can you retry with one?

[tremble]

@poleszcz The documentation currently says (under 'filters')

      - By default, instances are filtered for counting by their "Name" tag, base AMI, state (running, by default), and
        subnet ID.

What's slightly confusing here is that currently the 'Name' tag that it compares is only read from the name parameter, rather that also looking at the 'Name' key in the tags parameter.

[poleszcz]

@goneri Thanks for the hint - top level parameter "name" does the job.
The main sources of confusion are:

1. Legacy doc under https://docs.ansible.com/ansible/latest/collections/amazon/aws (only ec2 and no ec2_instance)
2. So in fact I'm using community.aws doc while declaring amazon.aws in the playbook
3. Community doc used a confusing wording for top level name parameter - "The Name tag for the instance." (so why not to use Name under tags ;-) )
   Thanks once more.

[tremble]

(1) Will be updated when release 2.0.0 of this collection is a part of the latest version of Ansible
(2) See (1). In general you can expect modules to slowly migrate from community.aws over into amazon.aws as they're cleaned up and made 'supportable'. I think this would be a really good thing to raise with the documentation team over on ansible/ansible. Unfortunately as a collection we have no direct control over this.
(3) I agree, this will hopefully be fixed with release 2.1.0 of this collection.

[vanga]

In my case, both community.aws and amazon.aws are installed and is misbehaving where even after specifying count, it was selecting existing instances also in addition to launching a new one. Specifying amazon.aws.ec2_instance instead of simply ec2_instance solved the issue.

[nickheyer]

This is clearly still an issue and the documentation is terrible. You'd expect more from a project like this.