# Launching a Bottlerocket instance for Amazon ECS
<a name="bottlerocket-launch"></a>

You can launch a Bottlerocket instance so that you can run your container workloads.

You can use the AWS CLI to launch the Bottlerocket instance.

1. Create a file that's called `userdata.toml`. This file is used for the instance user data. Replace {{cluster-name}} with the name of your cluster.

   ```
   [settings.ecs]
   cluster = "{{cluster-name}}"
   ```

1. Use one of the commands that are included in [Retrieving Amazon ECS-optimized Bottlerocket AMI metadata](ecs-bottlerocket-retrieve-ami.md) to get the Bottlerocket AMI ID. You use this in the following step.

1. Run the following command to launch the Bottlerocket instance. Remember to replace the following parameters:
   + Replace {{subnet}} with the ID of the private or public subnet that your instance will launch in.
   + Replace {{bottlerocket\_ami}} with the AMI ID from the previous step.
   + Replace {{t3.large}} with the instance type that you want to use.
   + Replace {{region}} with the Region code.

   ```
   aws ec2 run-instances --key-name ecs-bottlerocket-example \
      --subnet-id {{subnet}} \
      --image-id {{bottlerocket_ami}} \
      --instance-type {{t3.large}} \
      --region {{region}} \
      --tag-specifications 'ResourceType=instance,Tags=[{Key=bottlerocket,Value=example}]' \
      --user-data file://userdata.toml \
      --iam-instance-profile Name=ecsInstanceRole
   ```

1. Run the following command to verify that the container instance is registered to the cluster. When you run this command, remember to replace the following parameters:
   + Replace {{cluster}} with your cluster name.
   + Replace {{region}} with your Region code.

   ```
   aws ecs list-container-instances --cluster {{cluster-name}} --region {{region}}
   ```

For a detailed walkthrough of how to get started with the Bottlerocket operating system on Amazon ECS, see [Using a Bottlerocket AMI with Amazon ECS](https://github.com/bottlerocket-os/bottlerocket/blob/develop/QUICKSTART-ECS.md) on GitHub and Getting started with [Bottlerocket and Amazon ECS](https://aws.amazon.com/blogs/containers/getting-started-with-bottlerocket-and-amazon-ecs/) on the AWS blog site.