How to enable Enhanced Networking Adapter (ENA) on Windows

Most times when you increase or change the instance type of a server on AWS, the Network adapter changes and this can cause system related issues

Here are steps for installing the ENA Driver:

Install the driver for the operating system from this link. http://docs.aws.amazon.com/AWSEC2/latest/WindowsGuide/enhanced-networking-ena.html
Locate the Operating system relevant to you. This can be selected by clicking on the relevant operating system as shown below.

Moreover, Copy this to the browser of the Instance where you wish to install the Network Adapter into. This will automatically download the zip file containing the ENA network adapter

Nonetheless, Open the command prompt (CLI) and navigate to the folder containing the path and run the command below.

 pnputil -i -aena.inf

The output will be as follow below

Output success would be
Microsoft PnP Utility
                                
Processing inf :            ena.inf 
Succesfully installed the driver on a device on the system.
Driver package added successfully.
Published name :            oem9.inf
                            
Total attempted:                 1                            
Number successfully imported:    1

Next stop the instance (server) by shutting it down
Furthermore, Enable ENA support on the instance.
- Run this command below
  Note: (This step has to be done from your local computer) and NOT on on the instance itself).
- Open the command prompt (CLI) on you local machine (work station) and type in aws configure
- Now follow the prompt (instruction) by entering your keys and region where the instance is located.
  
  Modifying the instance Attribute (AWS-CLI)

aws ec2 modify-instance-attribute --instance-id Replacethiswith theinstance_id --ena-support

However, The next step would be to describe the instance to ensure the ENA (Enhanced Networking Adapter) is installed.

aws ec2 describe-instances --instance-ids Replacethiswith theinstance_id --query "Reservations[].Instances[].EnaSupport"

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xtnsele

4 years ago

Note: At the moment the the download and installer steps have changed by AWS but the syntax still remains the same
– Now you have to download, navigate to the folder and run the install.ps1.

All other steps and syntaxes are valid

If you encounter problems when you restart the instance, then you will have to disable ENA support using one of the following commands: And this has to be done from your local workstation and not on the server.

Modify-instance-attribute(AWS CLI)

– aws ec2 modify-instance-attribute –instance-id instance_id –no-ena-support

https://docs.aws.amazon.com/AWSEC2/latest/WindowsGuide/enhanced-networking-ena.html

Thank you for reading this post. Kindly share it with others.

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