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Allocating a dedicated host for EC2 Mac instances

Every AWS EC2 Mac instance needs to run on a dedicated host. To be able to run the Bitrise AMI on an EC2 instance, you'll need to allocate a dedicated host and launch the EC2 instance on that host. Doing that requires knowing the host ID which AWS automatically generates when you allocate a host.

AWS pricing for Mac dedicated hosts

For macOS instances, a dedicated host must be allocated. On-Demand EC2 Mac Dedicated Hosts have a minimum host allocation and billing duration of 24 hours. For more details, check out the official AWS documentation: Amazon EC2 Dedicated Hosts Pricing.

Service quotas

Make sure you have enough service quotas in your selected region to be able to launch a dedicated host.

  1. On the EC2 Dashboard, find the Instances menu on the left navigation bar.

  2. Select Dedicated Hosts.

  3. Click Allocate dedicated host.

  4. Fill out the required fields:

    • Name tag: This will be the name of your host.

      Host ID

      The name is not the same as the host ID which you need to launch an EC2 instance on the dedicated host. The host ID is automatically generated by AWS.

    • Instance family: mac2

    • Instance type: mac2.metal

    • Availability Zone: It depends on the subnets you plan to use. AWS will tell you if there is no node capacity in your chosen zone.

    • Quantity: The number of hosts you want to create.

    • Host maintenance: Disabled. The mac2 instance family does not support host maintenance

  5. When you're ready, click Allocate.

Once the host is ready, you can proceed to launch an EC2 Mac instance.

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