You might want to look at the new life cycle states: http://aws.amazon.com/blogs/aws/auto-scaling-update-lifecycle-standby-detach/ http://aws.amazon.com/blogs/a

You might want to look at the new life cycle states: http://aws.amazon.com/blogs/aws/auto-scaling-update-lifecycle-standby-detach/ http://aws.amazon.com/blogs/aws/auto-scaling-update-lifecycl... . That should make it possible to bootstrap via SSH now. as to whether or not you'd want to.. That's another matter :)