Get amazon ec2 elastic ip only when available

[christian_lemm]

Hi, currently I'm trying some workflows with amazon aws / ec2 cloud. I have a simple ec2 instance that provides a public ip. But this is *not* an elastic ip, that will be the same when shutting down and starting a new ec2 instance. I managed to run FNP LicensingService on that instance. Then I tried to retrieve a specific elastic ip host id: % lmutil lmhostid -ptype AMZN -eip lmutil - Copyright (c) 1989-2022 Flexera. All Rights Reserved. The FlexNet host ID of this machine is "AMZN_EIP=1.234.56.78" (I changed the ip in the example above.) But, it printed the current public ip, which is not the desired behaviour for me. My question: Oftentimes the customers have a hard time to understand all these aws configuration options and they might not really understand the difference between a temporary public ip and an elastic ip. Is there some technical support to detect, whether the instance *really* has an elastic ip?

[mrathinam]

Hi @christian_lemm It's difficult to differentiate the public IP or it's an elastic IP unless you have  Tag an Elastic IP address (Read https://docs.aws.amazon.com/AWSEC2/latest/UserGuide/elastic-ip-addresses-eip.html under Tag an Elastic IP address ). 

Best Regards,

[christian_lemm]

Hi mrathinam

thanks for the answer, but I don't understand in how tagging an elastic
ip will help me (the software vendor) in order to check, whether the
customer has sent me a valid elastic-ip host id.

[mrathinam]

Hi @christian_lemm, Yes, customers can confirm this because they can view these details on their console for example

--

1. Open the Amazon EC2 console at https://console.aws.amazon.com/ec2/.

2. In the navigation pane, choose Elastic IPs.

--

So if we really want to know then need confirmation from the customer that it's a  public IPv4 address or valid elastic-IP because elastic-ip is costly compared to public IP. 

Best Regards,

[mrathinam · Accepted solution]

Hi, @CarolBrusteredm Thanks for the detailed information and advantage of the Elastic IP, however, the query here was, How to distinguish the given IP is a public IP and an Elastic IP?. Is there any way we have?. 

To answer this query I have published a KB https://community.flexera.com/t5/FlexNet-Publisher-Knowledge-Base/How-to-distinguish-between-amazon-ec2-Elastic-IP-quot-AMZN-EIP/ta-p/228859 please review it and let me know if you have any more suggestion. 

Best Regards,