How to iterate through nested Dictionary in python boto3

Question

Hi want to find only stopped instance and their ids below is the below-nested JSON

{
 "Reservations": [
  {
   "Groups": [],
   "Instances": [
    {
     "AmiLaunchIndex": 0,
     "Architecture": "x86_64",
     "BlockDeviceMappings": [
      {
       "DeviceName": "/dev/xvda",
       "Ebs": {
        "AttachTime": "2021-03-11 09:43:59+00:00",
        "DeleteOnTermination": true,
        "Status": "attached",
        "VolumeId": "vol-0c49ff5c979904337"
       }
      }
     ],
     "CapacityReservationSpecification": {
      "CapacityReservationPreference": "open"
     },
     "ClientToken": "",
     "CpuOptions": {
      "CoreCount": 1,
      "ThreadsPerCore": 1
     },
     "EbsOptimized": false,
     "EnaSupport": true,
     "EnclaveOptions": {
      "Enabled": false
     },
     "HibernationOptions": {
      "Configured": false
     },
     "Hypervisor": "xen",
     "ImageId": "ami-038f1ca1bd58a5790",
     "InstanceId": "i-041fb789f1554b7d5",
     "InstanceType": "t2.micro",
     "KeyName": "HadoopLearning",
     "LaunchTime": "2021-03-11 09:43:58+00:00",
     "MetadataOptions": {
      "HttpEndpoint": "enabled",
      "HttpPutResponseHopLimit": 1,
      "HttpTokens": "optional",
      "State": "applied"
     },
     "Monitoring": {
      "State": "disabled"
     },
     "NetworkInterfaces": [
      {
       "Attachment": {
        "AttachTime": "2021-03-11 09:43:58+00:00",
        "AttachmentId": "eni-attach-022ac34489909cc78",
        "DeleteOnTermination": true,
        "DeviceIndex": 0,
        "NetworkCardIndex": 0,
        "Status": "attached"
       },
       "Description": "",
       "Groups": [
        {
         "GroupId": "sg-5878120b",
         "GroupName": "default"
        }
       ],
       "InterfaceType": "interface",
       "Ipv6Addresses": [],
       "MacAddress": "0a:15:95:72:23:6b",
       "NetworkInterfaceId": "eni-0d356de72ae7e6bfc",
       "OwnerId": "216808211954",
       "PrivateDnsName": "ip-172-31-29-51.ec2.internal",
       "PrivateIpAddress": "172.31.29.51",
       "PrivateIpAddresses": [
        {
         "Primary": true,
         "PrivateDnsName": "ip-172-31-29-51.ec2.internal",
         "PrivateIpAddress": "172.31.29.51"
        }
       ],
       "SourceDestCheck": true,
       "Status": "in-use",
       "SubnetId": "subnet-e705ccaa",
       "VpcId": "vpc-4401543e"
      }
     ],
     "Placement": {
      "AvailabilityZone": "us-east-1d",
      "GroupName": "",
      "Tenancy": "default"
     },
     "PrivateDnsName": "ip-172-31-29-51.ec2.internal",
     "PrivateIpAddress": "172.31.29.51",
     "ProductCodes": [],
     "PublicDnsName": "",
     "RootDeviceName": "/dev/xvda",
     "RootDeviceType": "ebs",
     "SecurityGroups": [
      {
       "GroupId": "sg-5878120b",
       "GroupName": "default"
      }
     ],
     "SourceDestCheck": true,
     "State": {
      "Code": 80,
      "Name": "stopped"  ####this one only which is stopped ###
     },
     "StateReason": {
      "Code": "Client.UserInitiatedShutdown",
      "Message": "Client.UserInitiatedShutdown: User initiated shutdown"
     },
     "StateTransitionReason": "User initiated (2021-03-11 10:13:00 GMT)",
     "SubnetId": "subnet-e705ccaa",
     "Tags": [
      {
       "Key": "Name",
       "Value": "aviral"
      }
     ],
     "VirtualizationType": "hvm",
     "VpcId": "vpc-4401543e"
    },
    {
     "AmiLaunchIndex": 1,
     "Architecture": "x86_64",
     "BlockDeviceMappings": [
      {
       "DeviceName": "/dev/xvda",
       "Ebs": {
        "AttachTime": "2021-03-11 09:43:59+00:00",
        "DeleteOnTermination": true,
        "Status": "attached",
        "VolumeId": "vol-069a9ca7f860fefd8"
       }
      }
     ],
     "CapacityReservationSpecification": {
      "CapacityReservationPreference": "open"
     },
     "ClientToken": "",
     "CpuOptions": {
      "CoreCount": 1,
      "ThreadsPerCore": 1
     },
     "EbsOptimized": false,
     "EnaSupport": true,
     "EnclaveOptions": {
      "Enabled": false
     },
     "HibernationOptions": {
      "Configured": false
     },
     "Hypervisor": "xen",
     "ImageId": "ami-038f1ca1bd58a5790",
     "InstanceId": "i-0d0c876682eef71ae",
     "InstanceType": "t2.micro",
     "KeyName": "HadoopLearning",
     "LaunchTime": "2021-03-11 09:43:58+00:00",
     "MetadataOptions": {
      "HttpEndpoint": "enabled",
      "HttpPutResponseHopLimit": 1,
      "HttpTokens": "optional",
      "State": "applied"
     },
     "Monitoring": {
      "State": "disabled"
     },
     "NetworkInterfaces": [
      {
       "Attachment": {
        "AttachTime": "2021-03-11 09:43:58+00:00",
        "AttachmentId": "eni-attach-0b0eba3fb5b3c3205",
        "DeleteOnTermination": true,
        "DeviceIndex": 0,
        "NetworkCardIndex": 0,
        "Status": "attached"
       },
       "Description": "",
       "Groups": [
        {
         "GroupId": "sg-5878120b",
         "GroupName": "default"
        }
       ],
       "InterfaceType": "interface",
       "Ipv6Addresses": [],
       "MacAddress": "0a:3d:3e:bc:96:e3",
       "NetworkInterfaceId": "eni-0688951c8bd226676",
       "OwnerId": "216808211954",
       "PrivateDnsName": "ip-172-31-19-102.ec2.internal",
       "PrivateIpAddress": "172.31.19.102",
       "PrivateIpAddresses": [
        {
         "Primary": true,
         "PrivateDnsName": "ip-172-31-19-102.ec2.internal",
         "PrivateIpAddress": "172.31.19.102"
        }
       ],
       "SourceDestCheck": true,
       "Status": "in-use",
       "SubnetId": "subnet-e705ccaa",
       "VpcId": "vpc-4401543e"
      }
     ],
     "Placement": {
      "AvailabilityZone": "us-east-1d",
      "GroupName": "",
      "Tenancy": "default"
     },
     "PrivateDnsName": "ip-172-31-19-102.ec2.internal",
     "PrivateIpAddress": "172.31.19.102",
     "ProductCodes": [],
     "PublicDnsName": "",
     "RootDeviceName": "/dev/xvda",
     "RootDeviceType": "ebs",
     "SecurityGroups": [
      {
       "GroupId": "sg-5878120b",
       "GroupName": "default"
      }
     ],
     "SourceDestCheck": true,
     "State": {
      "Code": 80,
      "Name": "running" ###Not this one #####
     },
     "StateReason": {
      "Code": "Client.UserInitiatedShutdown",
      "Message": "Client.UserInitiatedShutdown: User initiated shutdown"
     },
     "StateTransitionReason": "User initiated (2021-03-11 10:13:00 GMT)",
     "SubnetId": "subnet-e705ccaa",
     "Tags": [
      {
       "Key": "Name",
       "Value": "avinash"
      }
     ],
     "VirtualizationType": "hvm",
     "VpcId": "vpc-4401543e"
    }
   ],
   "OwnerId": "216808211954",
   "ReservationId": "r-0d646190512fec9f8"
  }
 ],
 "ResponseMetadata": {
  "HTTPHeaders": {
   "cache-control": "no-cache, no-store",
   "content-type": "text/xml;charset=UTF-8",
   "date": "Thu, 11 Mar 2021 10:14:39 GMT",
   "server": "AmazonEC2",
   "strict-transport-security": "max-age=31536000; includeSubDomains",
   "transfer-encoding": "chunked",
   "vary": "accept-encoding",
   "x-amzn-requestid": "58065d1d-76fc-4f7a-9229-18584ee1031e"
  },
  "HTTPStatusCode": 200,
  "RequestId": "58065d1d-76fc-4f7a-9229-18584ee1031e",
  "RetryAttempts": 0
 }
}

I only want an instance of those who are stopped and then I want to start them using their instance ID using boto3

I am using the below code

import boto3
import json

access_key = "XXXXXXXXXX"
secret_key = "XXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXX"
client = boto3.client('ec2', aws_access_key_id=access_key, aws_secret_access_key=secret_key, region_name='us-east-1')

ec2_result = client.describe_instances(
    Filters=[
        {
            'Name': 'tag:Name',
            'Values': ['?avi*']
        }
    ]
)

#ids= [ec2_result['Reservations'][0]['Instances'][i]['InstanceId'] for i in range(len(ec2_result['Reservations'][0]['Instances']))]
#print(ids)
print(ec2_result)

using the above code I am getting first block JSON but I only want an instance which is stopped, as I have 4000 instances in my AWS

Answer 1

I think the following should work:

instances_stopped = []

for reservation in ec2_result['Reservations']:
  for instance in reservation['Instances']:   
    
    instance_id = instance['InstanceId']
    
    if 'State' not in instance:
      print(f"Missing state for {instance_id}")
    else:
      state = instance['State']['Name']
      if state == 'stopped':        
        instances_stopped.append(instance_id)
        #print(instance_id, state)

print(instances_stopped)