Starting with an Existing AMI
From Amazon Elastic Compute Cloud: 2008-08-08
To quickly and easily get a new working AMI, start with an existing public AMI or one of your own.
You can then modify it and create a new AMI with the ec2-bundle-vol utility
described in Bundling an AMI.
![[Note]](/ec2-dg-2008-08-08/note.png){kind=small}
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Note |
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Before selecting an AMI, determine whether the instance types you plan to launch are 32-bit or 64-bit. For more information, see Instance Types Make sure you are using GNU Tar 1.15 or later. |
To use an existing AMI to create a new AMI, complete the following tasks:
This step is only required if you selected one of the public AMIs provided by Amazon EC2. You must create a public/private key pair to ensure that only you have access to instances that you launch.
After you generate a key pair, the public key is stored in Amazon EC2 using the key pair name you selected. Whenever you launch an instance using the key pair name, the public key is copied to the instance metadata. This allows you to access the instance securely using your private key.
To create a public/private key pair
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Enter the following command:
PROMPT>ec2-add-keypair<keypair-name>The
<keypair-name>is the name you select for the key pair.The resulting private key is displayed.
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Open a text editor.
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Paste the entire private key, starting with the line "
-----BEGIN RSA PRIVATE KEY-----" and ending with the line "-----END RSA PRIVATE KEY-----". -
Save the file and exit.
Note This file should only be readable by the file owner.
You are now ready to launch an instance of the AMI that you previously selected.
![[Important]](/ec2-dg-2008-08-08/important.png){kind=small}
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Important |
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Once you launch an instance, you will be billed for all usage, including hourly CPU time. Make sure to terminate any instances that you do not want to leave running. For information on Amazon EC2 pricing, go to the Amazon EC2 home page. |
After starting an instance, you can log in and modify it according to your requirements.
You now have complete control over the instance. You can add, remove, modify, or upgrade
packages and files to suit your needs.
Important
We recommend exercising extreme care when changing some of the basic Amazon EC2
configuration settings, such as the network interface configuration and the
/etc/fstab contents. Otherwise, the AMI might become unbootable or
inaccessible from the network once running.
Your new AMI is encrypted and signed to ensure that only you and Amazon EC2 can access
it. Therefore, you must upload your Amazon EC2 private key and X.509 certificate to the running instance,
for use in the AMI bundling process.
Note
For information on obtaining your Amazon EC2 private key and X.509 certificate, refer to the
Amazon Elastic Compute Cloud Getting Started Guide.
To upload your Amazon EC2 private key and X.509 certificate
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Copy your Amazon EC2 private key and X.509 certificate to the /mnt directory.
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Enter the following command:
PROMPT>
scp <private_keyfile> <certificate_file> root@<dns_location>:/mnt
The <private_keyfile> is the file that contains the private key,
certificate_file is the file that contains the certificate, and
dns_location is the DNS location of the instance within Amazon EC2.
Amazon EC2 returns the name of the files and some performance statistics.
Note
It is important that the key and cert files are uploaded into /mnt to prevent them from being
bundled with the new AMI.
You are ready to bundle the volume and uploading the resulting AMI to Amazon S3.
For more information, see Bundling an AMI.