How does Deep Security Agent use the Amazon Instance Metadata Service?

When running on EC2 instances in AWS, the Deep Security Agent uses the Amazon Instance Metadata Service (IMDS) to query information about the EC2 instance.

Deep Security support for IMDS v2 was added in Deep Security 12.0 update 10. If you are using an older version of Deep Security, only IMDS v1 is supported and you must ensure that your AWS configuration allows Deep Security Agent access to host metadata using IMDS v1.

The information retrieved by the Deep Security Agent is necessary to ensure that the agent activates under the proper AWS account within Deep Security and the right instance size is used for metered billing.

If the Deep Security Agent cannot successfully retrieve data from the instance using a Metadata Service Version 1 (IMDSv1) or 2 (IMDSv2), the following issues might be encountered:

Issue Root cause Resolution Additional notes
Duplicate computers appear - one under the AWS account and another outside of the AWS account. If the Deep Security Agent does not have access to Instance Metadata Service Version 1 (IMDSv1) or 2 (IMDSv2), Deep Security cannot properly associate this activation with the desired cloud account.

Ensure that Deep Security has access to IMDS v1 or IMDS v2.

For more details, see Configuring the Instance Metadata Service.

If you determine that the creation of duplicate computers has occurred, you can use inactive agent cleanup to automatically remove these computers.
Incorrect billing of instance hours at the default rate of $0.06 per hour rather than the rate associated with the workload size. If the Deep Security Agent does not have access to Instance Metadata Service Version 1 (IMDSv1) or 2 (IMDSv2), Deep Security cannot properly determine the instance size for metered billing. As a result, the computer does not appear under a cloud account and is charged at the data center rate.

If you believe overbilling has occurred please ensure that:

  1. The Deep Security Agent has access to IMDS v1 or IMDS v2.
  2. You have added the AWS cloud account to Deep Security.

Please contact technical support for additional assistance.
Smart folders or event-based tasks based on AWS metadata fail. If the Deep Security Agent does not have access to Instance Metadata Service Version 1 (IMDSv1) or 2 (IMDSv2), Deep Security cannot access the AWS metadata needed for these operations. N/A