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); #### hesco@marcus8:~/sandbox/EC2$ time perl ec2_faxserver.pl $VAR1 = bless( { 'errors' => [ bless( { 'message' => '500 read failed: Connection reset by peer', 'code' => 'HTTP POST FAILURE' }, 'Net::Amazon::EC2::Error' ) ], 'request_id' => 'N/A' }, 'Net::Amazon::EC2::Errors' );