A logistics fleet of private EC2 instances needs the same agent restarted, using a procedure someone reviewed, without SSH keys or passwords pasted into chat. Which approach fits?
Select an answer to reveal the explanation.
Short Explanation
You want a written procedure that Systems Manager runs on the tagged instances, not a password traveling through chat. The runbook is that procedure. Terminating the fleet to restart one agent is remodeling the warehouse to reboot a forklift.
Full Explanation
Systems Manager Automation runs a reviewed document against instances selected by tag, through the agent and the instance profile, so operators do not share shell credentials. That matches a private fleet and a repeated restart. Emailing the root password exposes a long-lived credential and does not scale across a fleet. Opening SSH and sharing a key widens the network path and the secret, which the stem is trying to avoid. Replacing the AMI and terminating instances restarts more than the agent and drops local state for no benefit. Caveat: the instances must already be managed nodes, with the agent and a path to Systems Manager, or the runbook has no targets. Operational check: run the document against one tagged instance, confirm the agent process is back, and only then target the rest of the tag.