EC2: Create AMI Templates
General Information
Custom Amazon Machine Images (VM Templates).
Checklist
- AWS Account
General AMI Creation Instructions
Launch a normal EC2 instance
- 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)
Create Image
- In AWS Console, select the instance
- Click “Actions” > “Image” > “Create Image”
- Type an Image name
- Type an Image description
- Click “Create Image”
Customization Examples
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