How to see whats happening on ec2 instance whithout ssh?

Question

I am using AWS SEK for java. I create and run an EC2 instance with a user data script which gets a .jar from a S3 bucket and runs it. When I run the instance it shows me that it is running but nothing happens. The .jar should create a SimpleDB table and a SQS queue. How do see whats wrong whithout connecting through ssh to the instance or is it the only what to see the logs?

Kind regards, Snafu

Answer 1

Some of the user-data output may be found in the system log (on EC2 dashboard, right-click on the instance and choose System logs) you could put a piece of java code \ shell script and\or cron job to upload your logs to S3, but it's best to SSH to see what's in there at least at the first time you run your code. You can use mind-term java applet to connect directly from EC2 dashboard (there's a button labeled 'connect' at the top, it's easy and you don't need to download ssh client). I would highly recommend getting used to work with SSH because it's the easiest way to see what's inside.