Amazon EC2 enables users to share their AMIs with other users. This section describes how to share AMIs using the Amazon EC2 command line tools.

	Note
	Before proceeding, make sure to read the security considerations of sharing AMIs in the Protecting a Shared AMI (Linux and UNIX) section.

AMIs have a launchPermission property that controls which users, besides the owner, are allowed to launch instances of that AMI. By modifying an AMI's launchPermission property, you can allow all users to launch the AMI (make the AMI public) or only allow a few specific users to launch the AMI.

The launchPermission attribute is a list of users and launch groups. Launch permissions can be granted by adding or removing items from the list. Explicit launch permissions for users are granted or revoked by adding or removing their AWS account IDs. The only launch group currently supported is the all group, which makes the AMI public. The rest of this section refers to launch groups simply as groups. Launch groups are not the same as security groups and the two should not be confused. An AMI can have both public and explicit launch permissions.

	Note
	You are not billed when your AMI is launched by other users. Users launching the AMI are billed.

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