AWS CLI: describe-import-snapshot-tasks returns snapshotId attribute while it's in progress

[tanmoysinha]

Describe the bug

AWS EC2 describe-import-snapshot-tasks is not expected to return the SnapshotId attribute when the import snapshot task that is in progress, reference: https://docs.aws.amazon.com/cli/latest/reference/ec2/describe-import-snapshot-tasks.html.

However observed, an empty string value is returned for the attribute SnapshotId

Regression Issue

• Select this option if this issue appears to be a regression.

Expected Behavior

$ aws ec2 describe-import-snapshot-tasks --import-task-ids "import-snap-247b055a63e5a470t" --profile sen_cloud_img_producer_aws 
{
    "ImportSnapshotTasks": [
        {
            "Description": "Debug Sensor Import",
            "ImportTaskId": "import-snap-247b055a63e5a470t",
            "SnapshotTaskDetail": {
                "DiskImageSize": 0.0,
                "Format": "VHD",
                "Status": "pending",
                "UserBucket": {
                    "S3Bucket": "scloud-dev",
                    "S3Key": "Sensor.vhd"
                }
            },
            "Tags": []
        }
    ]
}

Current Behavior

Notice the SnapshotId attribute is returned as an empty string.

$ aws ec2 describe-import-snapshot-tasks --import-task-ids "import-snap-247b055a63e5a470t" --profile sen_cloud_img_producer_aws 
{
    "ImportSnapshotTasks": [
        {
            "Description": "Debug Import",
            "ImportTaskId": "import-snap-247b055a63e5a470t",
            "SnapshotTaskDetail": {
                "DiskImageSize": 0.0,
                "Format": "VHD",
                **"SnapshotId": "",**
                "Status": "active",
                "UserBucket": {
                    "S3Bucket": "cloud-dev",
                    "S3Key": "Sensor.vhd"
                }
            },
            "Tags": []
        }
    ]
}

### Reproduction Steps

$ aws --version
aws-cli/1.22.34 Python/3.10.12 Linux/6.2.0-26-generic botocore/1.23.34

$ cat container.json 
{

    "Description": "Debug Sensor Import",
    "Format": "VHD",
    "UserBucket": {
        "S3Bucket": "cloud-dev",
        "S3Key": "Sensor.vhd"
    }
}

$ aws s3 cp Sensor.vhd s3://cloud-dev --profile sen_cloud_img_producer_aws
upload: ./Sensor.vhd to s3://cloud-dev/Sensor.vhd

$ aws ec2 import-snapshot --description "Debug Sensor Import" --disk-container file://container.json/     --profile sen_cloud_img_producer_aws
{
    "Description": "Debug Sensor Import",
    "ImportTaskId": "import-snap-247b055a63e5a470t",
    "SnapshotTaskDetail": {
        "DiskImageSize": 0.0,
        "Format": "VHD",
        "Progress": "0",
        "Status": "active",
        "StatusMessage": "pending",
        "UserBucket": {
            "S3Bucket": "cloud-dev",
            "S3Key": "Sensor.vhd"
        }
    }
}

$ aws ec2 describe-import-snapshot-tasks --import-task-ids "import-snap-247b055a63e5a470t" --profile sen_cloud_img_producer_aws 
{
    "ImportSnapshotTasks": [
        {
            "Description": "Debug Import",
            "ImportTaskId": "import-snap-247b055a63e5a470t",
            "SnapshotTaskDetail": {
                "DiskImageSize": 0.0,
                "Format": "VHD",
                "SnapshotId": "",
                "Status": "active",
                "UserBucket": {
                    "S3Bucket": "cloud-dev",
                    "S3Key": "Sensorvhd"
                }
            },
            "Tags": []
        }
    ]
}

Possible Solution

No response

Additional Information/Context

The same aws cli version has worked in our build pipeline on 12 Sep 2024.

$> aws configure list --profile sen_cloud_img_producer_aws
      Name                    Value             Type    Location
      ----                    -----             ----    --------
   profile sen_cloud_img_producer_aws           manual    --profile
access_key     ****************XXXX shared-credentials-file    
secret_key     ****************YYYY shared-credentials-file    
    region               ap-south-1      config-file    ~/.aws/config

CLI version used

aws-cli/1.22.34 Python/3.10.12 Linux/6.2.0-26-generic botocore/1.23.34

Environment details (OS name and version, etc.)

Ubuntu 22.04.5 LTS

[tim-finnigan]

Thanks for reaching out. I think this is an issue with the example in the CLI documentation, which was written 5 years ago: https://github.com/aws/aws-cli/blob/develop/awscli/examples/ec2/describe-import-snapshot-tasks.rst?plain=1

This screenshot shows the discrepancies between that example and what I got when testing on the latest AWS CLI version:
(It looks like there is also an extra Description in the documented example.)

The describe-import-snapshot-tasks command makes a request to the underlying DescribeImportSnapshotTasks API — if the API behavior changed and is not returning what is expected, then we might need to escalate this to the EC2 team internally. But in this case, an array of ImportSnapshotTask objects is expected in the API response, which contains SnapshotTaskDetail objects, and snapshotId is documented there, so I think the API behavior is expected.

Also I should note CLI version you referenced (1.22.34) is very old — the latest version of v1 is 1.36.14. We also recommend migrating to v2 of the CLI if possible.

[github-actions]

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[tanmoysinha]

Closing, as an answer was provided.