Get the EC2 instance name

instance_name.py

"""
Get the EC2 instance name (tag "Name") for the instance

Usage:

    python instance_name.py [instance id]

On an EC2 instance, you can run:

    python instance_name.py `ec2metadata --instance-id`

You'll need the boto library and your connection environment variables setup for this to work!
"""

import sys
from boto.ec2.connection import EC2Connection

if len(sys.argv) != 2:
        print "Please provide instance ID"
        sys.exit(1)

c = EC2Connection()
r = c.get_all_instances([sys.argv[1],])
try:
        print r[0].instances[0].tags['Name']
except:
        sys.exit(1)

that doesnt work very well in the multitude of cases where your instance is not r[0].instances[0].

If you want to iterate through all instances in all reservations you can loop through it like so:

import boto
conn = boto.connect_ec2(key,secret)
reservations = conn.get_all_reservations()

for r in reservations
print r.instances[0].tags['Name']