Unable to provision AWS server with salt-cloud: Key pair does not exist

Question

I'm following the salt-cloud AWS guide and am having a little trouble with an error message I believe to be unclear. The error is:

$ sudo salt-cloud -p ubuntu_aws test-vm                        
[INFO    ] salt-cloud starting
[INFO    ] Creating Cloud VM test-vm in ap-southeast-1
[ERROR   ] EC2 Response Status Code and Error: [400 400 Client Error: Bad Request] {'Errors': {'Error': {'Message': "The key pair 'testkey' does not exist", 'Code': 'InvalidKeyPair.NotFound'}}, 'RequestID': '******************************'}
[ERROR   ] There was a profile error: 'str' object does not support item assignment

I've learned that the last portion is a python error which I thought might suggest that there's a syntax error in my configuration, but I can't find any issues with it.

ubuntu_aws config

ubuntu_aws:
    provider: aws
    image: ami-e2f1c1b0
    size: Micro Instance
    ssh_username: ec2-user

provider config

private_key: /path/to/testkey.pem
keyname: testkey
securitygroup: default

I also noticed there are 2 default groups, neither of which I'm able to delete:

When I visit https://console.aws.amazon.com/ec2/v2/home?region=us-east-1#KeyPairs:sort=keyName I can see that the key is indeed there on us-east-1.

My testkey.pem key has -rw------- permissions.

I'm still learning to use salt-cloud and AWS and I'm struggling to determine if it's an issue with my AWS config or something with my Salt config. Any guidance would be helpful.

Answer 1

Your configs are trying to create a vm in the ap-southeast-1 region, which is Singapore. Your key exists in the us-east-1 region.

So you either need to add your key to the singapore region, or configure your vm to be created in the us-east-1 region.