Stop / Start EC2 Instance on a schedule

Tech Notes > AWS > Editing Stop / Start EC2 Instance on a schedule

Introduction

This approach depends on three components.

• AWS IAM for rights
• Lambda to execute the code
• Event bridge to execute the lambda code

Setup rights

Create a policy

• Launch the IAM Console

• Click Policies

• Click Creare policy

• Select JSON (Blue button, top right)

• edit the section and paste the following between the square brackets in the statement.

{
   "Version": "2012-10-17",
   "Statement": [
       {
           "Effect": "Allow",
           "Action": [
               "logs:CreateLogGroup",
               "logs:CreateLogStream",
               "logs:PutLogEvents"
           ],
           "Resource": "arn:aws:logs:*:*:*"
       },
       {
           "Effect": "Allow",
           "Action": [
               "ec2:Start*",
               "ec2:Stop*"
           ],
           "Resource": "*"
       }
   ]
}

• Name the polcy EC2_StartStop

Create a role

• In IAM, Click Roles.

• Select AWS Service

• Select Lambda from the dropdown

• Select Next

• Search for and select EC2_StsartStop

• Name the policy Lambda_StartStop

Add Lambda functions

Create Start Function

Note down the instance ID and region for the EC2 instance.

• Name the function startEC2

• Select Python 3.13 for runtime.

• Change default execution role

• Select Ues existing role

• Select Lambda_StartStop

• Select create function

Paste the following code:

replace rrrrr wih the region name replace iiiiii with the instance ID

import boto3  
region = 'rrrrrrr'
instances = ['iiiiiii']
ec2 = boto3.client('ec2', region_name=region)
def lambda_handler(event, context):
    ec2.start_instances(InstanceIds=instances)
    print('started your instances: ' + str(instances))

• Save the function

Create Stop Function

Note down the instance ID and region for the EC2 instance.

• Name the function stopEC2

• Select Python 3.13 for runtime.

• Change default execution role

• Select Ues existing role

• Select Lambda_StartStop

• Select create function

Paste the following code:

replace rrrrr wih the region name replace iiiiii with the instance ID

import boto3  
region = 'rrrrrrr'
instances = ['iiiiiiiiiii']
ec2 = boto3.client('ec2', region_name=region)
def lambda_handler(event, context):
   ec2.stop_instances(InstanceIds=instances)
   print('stopped your instances: ' + str(instances))

• Save the function

Schedule the functions

• Open Amazon eventbridge

• Select schedules

• Select Create schedule

• Select Recurring schedule

• Provide a name

• Enter a time use * for wildcards and ? for any day of the week

• Provide schedule flexibility

• Select Next

• Select AWS Lambda Invoke

• Select StartEC2 function'

• Repeat the process for the EC2 Stop function