General Information

Custom Amazon Machine Images (VM Templates).

Checklist

• AWS Account

• Choose AMI: This matters
  • Select the OS that you want the image to be modeled after
• Instance type:
  • This does not matter for the template, as the instance type is prompted every time.
• Configure Instance:
  • Launch somewhere you get login and customize the instance for template creation.
• Add Storage: This matters
  • Select the disk you want to be selected by default for the template.
  • This is also prompted every time, but will retain the template selections by default.
• Add Tags:
  • This does not matter and is prompted every time.
• Configure Security Group:
  • This does not matter and is prompted every time.
• Review: This matters
  • Select the SSH Key when launching that will end up baked into the template.
• Launch Instance, Login, Customize (install/configure)

• In AWS Console, select the instance
• Click “Actions” > “Image” > “Create Image”
  • Type an Image name
  • Type an Image description
  • Click “Create Image”

Customization examples that could be baked into an EC2 instance template.

Create an auto updating instance

#!/bin/bash
 
# Update right after launch
yum -y update
 
# Install bash-completion and yum-cron
yum -y install bash-completion vim yum-cron
 
# Set to auto update daily
sed -i 's/apply_updates = no/apply_updates = yes/' /etc/yum/yum-cron.conf
 
# Reboot instance
reboot