Use the Workbench multi-terminal to connect to multiple ECS instances for batch operations - Elastic Compute Service

The multi-terminal feature lets you connect to multiple Linux Elastic Compute Service (ECS) instances and run commands on them simultaneously. This improves Operations and Maintenance (O&M) efficiency for tasks such as installing patches in batches or polling processes.

Usage notes

This feature is supported only on Linux instances. Windows instances are not supported.
A single multi-terminal session supports up to 16 ECS instances.
This feature is supported only in Workbench 1.0. How do I know if I am using Workbench 1.0?

Create terminal connection windows

Follow these steps to create connection windows for multiple ECS instances and run batch commands.

In the top navigation bar, choose Features > Multi-terminal.
In the Multi-terminal dialog box, click Create Terminal.
In the Instance Login dialog box, specify the parameters required to connect to an instance and click OK.
Important
You can connect to up to 16 ECS instances at the same time using the multi-terminal feature.
For more information, see Use Workbench to log on to a Linux instance.
(Optional) Click Create Terminal again to add more terminal connections.
In the terminal connection window of an instance, enter a command and press the Enter key. Then, the command runs on all of the connected instances at the same time.
The following figure shows the Multi-terminal page where a command is run on two instances at the same time in their terminal connection windows.

Manage terminal connection windows

During a batch operation, you may need to temporarily exclude an instance (Block) or disconnect an instance (Remove). Follow these steps.

In the upper-right corner of the connected instance window, click Manage.
In the Multi-terminal dialog box, find the terminal connection window that you want to manage and click one of the following buttons in the Actions column:
- Block: disables the terminal connection window. After the terminal connection window is disabled, subsequently entered commands do not take effect for the window.
  You can also click the icon in the upper-right corner of the window to disable or enable it.
- Remove: removes the terminal connection window. After the terminal connection window of an instance is removed, the instance is disconnected.
  You can also click the icon in the upper-right corner of the window to close the instance connection.
- Locate: navigates to the terminal connection window.

Configure the layout of the Multi-terminal page

After you establish connections, you can adjust the layout of the terminal windows.

In the top-right corner of the instance window, click Set Window Layout.
You can configure the Multi-terminal page to display 1, 2, 4, 9, or 16 windows as needed.

FAQ

How do I know if I am using Workbench 1.0 or 2.0? How do I switch back to 1.0?

You can identify the Workbench version by its user interface (UI). Workbench 2.0 displays the Workbench icon in the upper-left corner, while Workbench 1.0 displays the word WORKBENCH. The layout of the navigation pane on the left is also different.

Workbench 2.0	Workbench 1.0

To switch between versions, click New Version in the upper-right corner to switch to Workbench 2.0, or click Previous Version to return to Workbench 1.0.