EC2 boot time and debugging

How long on average does it take an EC2 instance to boot, download software and begin polling getwork.php? I’m seeing delays of an couple of hours before an instance will come online and be visible in getTesters.php. I’m using ami-f97029bc.

If the instance is having trouble reaching the WPT server what’s the best process for debugging? Are there any status pages on the testing instance or do you need to remote login? If so is there a default admin password?

I usually see them come online in 15-30 minutes but I have seen it take over an hour before. Are you requesting spot instances by any chance? Just wondering how much of the delay is from when the machine starts up vs fulfilling the request.

There aren’t any status pages - the password for the administrator account is 2dialit

I’m booting normal instances via the API but planning to switch to spot instances. They take a consistent 70min to begin requesting work at the moment. If I log in to the instance the first thing I see is an error on the login screen stating “The system cannot find the file specified”. The boot process seems to be waiting for user input before eventually timing out while waiting for user input and logging in after 60min, installing software and then requesting work. If I click ok to the error then the server seems fine, installs software and starts requesting work after 5-10 min.

Any suggestions on what to look for in server logs? I’m not a windows server user. Be great if the error at least named the file it was looking for.

I’m hoping to spin up and kill instances fairly quickly on the spot market so it would be great to not lose the first hour of each instance.

I’ll take a look when I get a breather (may be a few days). I spin up and tear down instances very frequently and would love to solve the hour delay so I have a vested interest in getting it fixed. Let me know if you find anything, otherwise I’ll take a look and update the AMI’s as needed.