Executing commands within virtual machine instances

An apparatus, comprising:

• a processor;
• and
• a non-transitory computer-readable storage medium having instructions stored thereupon which are executable by the processor and which, when executed, cause the apparatus to
• expose an application programming interface (API) comprising a method for executing a command within a virtual machine (VM) instance, the command being specified in data identifying a list of commands available for execution within the VM instance;
• receive, at a software agent executing within the VM instance, a call to the method for executing the command within the VM instance, the software agent configured to listen on an assigned port for calls to the API;
• and
• cause a request to execute the command to be transmitted to a software component executing in the VM instance, the software component configured to process the request and cause the command to be executed in the VM instance in response to receiving the request.

A computer-implemented method for executing a command within a virtual machine (VM) instance, comprising:

• receiving, from the VM instance, data identifying a list of commands available for execution within the VM instance;
• storing the data identifying the list of commands available for execution within the VM instance in a cache outside of the VM instance;
• exposing an application programming interface (API) comprising a method for executing a command within a VM instance, the command being specified in the cache;
• receiving a call to the method for executing the command within the VM instance;
• and
• causing a request to execute the command to be transmitted to a software component executing in the VM instance, the software component configured to process the request and cause the command to be executed in the VM instance in response to receiving the request.