my $trick_my_box_script; my $base_path = '/home/hesco/sandbox/EC2'; my $build_script = 'build_server.sh'; open('USER_DATA','<',"$base_path/$build_script") or die "Unable to open $base_path/$build_script: $! \n"; while(){ $trick_my_box_script .= $_; } close(USER_DATA); my $user_data = encode_base64($trick_my_box_script);