EC2: Create AMI

September 25, 2017 08:11

Oveview

The "EC2: Create AMI" action allows you to create an Amazon Machine Image (hereinafter "AMI") from an Amazon EC2 instance (hereinafter "EC2 instance").
The AMI contains a disk image of the EC2 instance and information required to launch it, so that it can be used as a backup of your EC2 instance. As with other actions, you can specify the EC2 instance, from which the AMI is created, with a 、resource ID or a tag attached to the EC2 instance.

Configuration options

No	Option	Explanation
1	Region	Specify the region where the EC2 instance, which you want to retrieve an AMI, is located
2	Instance	Specify the EC2 instance, which you want to retrive the AMI, by resource ID
2	Instance with specified tag	Specify the EC2 instance, which you want to retrive the AMI, by tag
3	AMI name	Specify AMI name The resource ID, job ID and generation number of the created EC2 instance are attached to the end of the specified name
4	Explanation	Enter the text to be attached to the "description" of the created AMI You can include following keywords for the explanation %Y 4 digits Year (Example:2017) %m Month（01〜12） %d Day（01〜31） %H Time（00〜23） %M Minutes（00〜59） %S Second（00〜60） %% 「%」When escaping characters When you sepecify "%Y%m%d%H%M", it will be replaced with "201709231100". If you use a keyword in the description, the time zone of the time stored in the retrieved AMI description will be UTC.
5	Number of generations to be created	Select the number of generations for generation management of the created AMI For example, when there are already 5 AMIs created by Cloud Automator and the "generations to be created" option is 5, and the "EC2: Create AMI" action is further executed, the oldest AMI will be deleted to create new AMI. Example: production-backup-i-XXXXXXXXXXX-1234-1 When "No generation management" is selected AMI will not be deleted AMI name will be different from when generation management is enabled Example: prodbackup-i-1234567890abcdef1-12123-20190820T035938Z
6	Instance restart	Choose to restart your EC2 instance to provide a quiesce point when you get an AMI If data inconsistency is not allowed and restart downtime is acceptable, we recommend to restart See also `Re-create an image when AMI status is "Failed"` option
7	Tags to be added to the created image	Specify the tag key and tag value of the tag to be attached to the created AMI Add the same tag to the snapshot Select to attach the same tag key and tag value to the EBS snapshot linked to the AMI
8	Check the completion status of the resource	When not checking the completion status of a resource CreateImage API The success or failure of CreateImage API request is the result of job execution When checking the completion status of a resource A job is considered successful when the Create Image API request is successful and the status of the created AMI is available. When the Create Image API request is successful and the status of the created AMI is something other than available (such as failed), the job is determined to have failed.
9	Re-create an image when AMI status is "Failed"	Select to re-create if the AMI status is failed when checking the completion status of the resource NOTE: If "Instance restart" option is "Yes", the target instance will restart during Re-create an image

Configuration example

Create a job in Cloud Automator using the "EC2: Create AMI" action.

Click the "Add Job" button on the Job screen of Cloud Automator
Select the group to add the job at Select Group
Select an intended trigger in the trigger selection (example: On-demand trigger)
In the action selection, select the "EC2: Create AMI" action
At AWS account selection, select designated AWS account

Setting parameter of the action

No.	Option	Example of setting value
1	Region	Asia pacific (Tokyo)
2	Instances tagged with	key: environment value: production
3	Image name	production-backup
4	Description	%Y%m%d%H%M
5	Generation for create resource	5
6	Reboot instance	No
7	Additional tag for created image	key: environment value: production
8	Add same tag to image snapshot.	Check
9	Watch resource exit status	Check
10	Re-create AMI when AMI creation has been failed.	Check

Setting post-process when succeeded or failed
Enter Job name and click "Confirm"

Operation check

Click log button for created Job
Click the details of the execution log from the execution log list
Check the result in the log details.
If it is "success", you can confirm that the Job is executed successfully.
If it is "Running", the Job is being executed, so check it back after a while.
The operation result of each resource can be confirmed by clicking "Show detail".

Now you can confirm the operation of the Job using the "EC2: Create AMI" action. The "EC2: Create AMI" action is used by a large number of customers to back up EC2 instances. Please use it for your own benefits.

Status condition of the log

Execution result

Status

Explanation

Success

It is successful in any of the following cases.

When checking the completion status of the resource
- If the CreateImage API request is successful and the status of the created AMI is available
When you don't check the completion status of the resources
- When CreateImage API request is successful

Failed

It is failed in any of the following cases.

When checking the completion status of the resource
- When EC2 instance, which was specified in the Job, is not existed
- When EC2 instance, which was specified in the Job, exceeds 200
- When EC2 instance, which was specified in the Job, is "running" or "not stopped"
- When the Create Image API request fails, or when the status of the created AMI is something other than available (such as failed)
When you don't check the completion status of the resources
- When EC2 instance, which was specified in the Job, is not existed
- When EC2 instance, which was specified in the Job, exceeds 200
- When EC2 instance, which was specified in the Job, is "running" or "not stopped"
- When the Create Image API request fails

Resource operation history status conditions

The operational status is displayed for each AMI that you created.

Status

Explanation

completed

It is completed in any of the following cases.

When checking the completion status of the resource
- If the CreateImage API request is successful and the status of the created AMI is available
When you don't check the completion status of the resources
- When the Create Image API request is successful

failed

It is failed in any of the following cases.

When checking the completion status of the resource
- When the Create Image API request fails, or when the status of the created AMI is something other than available (such as failed)
When you don't check the completion status of the resources
- When the Create Image API request fails

About tags attached to AMI

The following tags are attached to the AMI generated by this action.

Key	Value
Cloud Automator AMI Generation	Generation management number of AMI managed by Cloud Automator (only when generation management is enabled)
Cloud Automator Job ID	Job ID which is executed by Cloud Automator
Cloud Automator Source Instance Name	Name tag value of the EC2 instance, which created the AMI
Cloud Automator Organization ID	Cloud Automator Organization ID for the job
Cloud Automator Organization Name	Cloud Automator Organization Name for the job
Cloud Automator Group ID	Cloud Automator Group ID for the job
Cloud Automator Group Name	Cloud Automator Group Name for the job

If an EC2 instance already has more than 30 tags, its original tags will not be carried over to the AMI. This is to avoid exceeding the maximum tag limit when combined with Cloud Automator's administrative tags.

However, even when an EC2 instance has over 30 tags, its "Name" tag and any tags specified during the Cloud Automator job registration will be applied to the AMI.

AWS API to be used in this action

The following AWS APIs were used for execution of the action.
Please note that the AWS account under which you run the action must have an IAM policy, which enables to run these APIs, attached.

EC2 API