make-ebs.txt

Launch an instance to work with:

# us-east-1 ami-548c783d canonical ebs/ubuntu-maverick-10.10-amd64-server-20101007.1
$ ec2-run-instances --region us-east-1 --instance-type t1.micro \
--key mykey ami-548c783d
$ iid=i-1855ea75
$ zone=$(ec2-describe-instances $iid |
awk '-F\t' '$2 == iid { print $12 }' iid=${iid} )
$ echo ${zone}
us-east-1d
$ host=$(ec2-describe-instances $iid |
awk '-F\t' '$2 == iid { print $4 }' iid=${iid} )
$ echo ${host}
ec2-174-129-61-12.compute-1.amazonaws.com


create a volume in correct zone of the desired size to attach to the instance. Change '10' to '5' if you wanted a 5GB root filesystem.

$ ec2-create-volume --size 10 --availability-zone ${zone}
$ vol=vol-c64d55af
$ ec2-attach-volume --instance ${iid} --device /dev/sdh ${vol}


Then, ssh to ubuntu@${host}, and download the uec reference image and extract it. Below, I've downloaded the i386 image for maverick. You could browse through at http://uec-images.ubuntu.com/releases/10.10/release/ and find an amd64 image or a 10.04 base image.

% sudo chown ubuntu:ubuntu /mnt
% cd /mnt
% url=http://uec-images.ubuntu.com/releases/10.10/release/ubuntu-10.10-server-uec-i386.tar.gz
% tarball=${url##*/}
% wget ${url} -O ${tarball}
% tar -Sxvzf ${tarball}
maverick-server-uec-i386.img
maverick-server-uec-i386-vmlinuz-virtual
maverick-server-uec-i386-loader
maverick-server-uec-i386-floppy
README.files
% img=maverick-server-uec-i386.img
% mkdir src target


create target filesystem, mount the attached volume, and copy source filesystem contents to target filesystem using rsync.

% sudo mount -o loop,ro ${img} /mnt/src
% sudo mkfs.ext4 -L uec-rootfs /dev/sdh
% sudo mount /dev/sdh /mnt/target
# the rsync could take quite a while. for me it took 22 seconds.
% sudo rsync -aXHAS /mnt/src/ /mnt/target
% sudo umount /mnt/target
% sudo umount /mnt/src


Now, back on the laptop, snapshot the volume.

$ ec2-create-snapshot ${vol}
$ snap=snap-b97dfdd3
# now you have to wait for snapshot to be 'completed'
$ ec2-describe-snapshots ${snap}
SNAPSHOT snap-b97dfdd3 vol-c64d55af completed 2010-11-03T17:31:52+0000 100% 950047163771 10


Turn the contents of that volume into an AMI. Note, you must set 'arch', 'rel', and 'region' correctly. Then, we use that information to get the aki associated with the most recent released Ubuntu image.


$ rel=maverick; region=us-east-1; arch=i386; # arch=amd64
$ [ $arch = amd64 ] && xarch=x86_64 || xarch=${arch}
$ qurl=http://uec-images.ubuntu.com/query/${rel}/server/released.current.txt
$ aki=$(curl --silent "${qurl}" |
awk '-F\t' '$5 == "ebs" && $6 == arch && $7 == region { print $9 }' \
arch=$arch region=$region )
$ echo ${aki}
aki-407d9529
$ ec2-register --snapshot ${snap} \
--architecture=${xarch} --kernel=${aki} \
--name "my-ubuntu-${rel}" --description "my-ubuntu-${rel}"
IMAGE ami-4483742d
$ ami=ami-4483742d


Clean up your instance and volume

$ ec2-detach-volume ${vol}
$ ec2-terminate-instances ${iid}
$ ec2-delete-volume ${vol}


And now run your instance

$ ec2-run-instances --instance-type t1.micro ${ami}
$ ssh ubuntu@
% sudo apt-get update && sudo apt-get dist-upgrade
# if you got a new kernel (linux-virtual package), then you will
# need to reboot
% sudo reboot


Now, your newly created image has filesystem contents that are identical to those of the official Ubuntu images, but with a 10G filesystem.

Once you've launched your image, you can actually clean up the snapshot and the AMI id that you launched. To do that:

ec2-deregister ${ami}
ec2-delete-snapshot ${snap}