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Retrieving Amazon ECS-optimized Linux AMI metadata

You can programmatically retrieve the Amazon ECS-optimized AMI metadata. The metadata includes the AMI name, Amazon ECS container agent version, and Amazon ECS runtime version which includes the Docker version.

When you create a cluster using the console, Amazon ECS creates a launch template for your instances with the latest AMI associated with the selected operating system.

When you use Amazon CloudFormation to create a cluster, the SSM parameter is part of the Amazon EC2 launch template for the Auto Scaling group instances. You can configure the template to use a dynamic Systems Manager parameter to determine what Amazon ECS Optimized AMI to deploy. This parameter ensures that each time you deploy the stack it will check to see if there is available update that needs to be applied to the EC2 instances. For an example of how to use the Systems Manager parameter, see Create an Amazon ECS cluster with the Amazon ECS-optimized Amazon Linux 2023 AMI in the Amazon CloudFormation User Guide.

The AMI ID, image name, operating system, container agent version, source image name, and runtime version for each variant of the Amazon ECS-optimized AMIs can be programmatically retrieved by querying the Systems Manager Parameter Store API. For more information about the Systems Manager Parameter Store API, see GetParameters and GetParametersByPath.

Systems Manager Parameter Store parameter format

The following is the format of the parameter name for each Amazon ECS-optimized AMI variant.

Linux Amazon ECS-optimized AMIs

The following parameter name format retrieves the image ID of the latest recommended Amazon ECS-optimized Amazon Linux 2 AMI by using the sub-parameter image_id.

/aws/service/ecs/optimized-ami/amazon-linux-2/recommended/image_id

The following parameter name format retrieves the metadata of a specific Amazon ECS-optimized AMI version by specifying the AMI name.

Examples

The following examples show ways in which you can retrieve the metadata for each Amazon ECS-optimized AMI variant.

Retrieving the metadata of the latest recommended Amazon ECS-optimized AMI

You can retrieve the latest recommended Amazon ECS-optimized AMI using the Amazon CLI with the following Amazon CLI commands.

Linux Amazon ECS-optimized AMIs

Retrieving the image ID of the latest recommended Amazon ECS-optimized Amazon Linux 2023 AMI

You can retrieve the image ID of the latest recommended Amazon ECS-optimized Amazon Linux 2023 AMI ID by using the sub-parameter image_id.

aws ssm get-parameters --names /aws/service/ecs/optimized-ami/amazon-linux-2023/recommended/image_id --region us-east-1

To retrieve the image_id value only, you can query the specific parameter value; for example:

aws ssm get-parameters --names /aws/service/ecs/optimized-ami/amazon-linux-2023/recommended/image_id --region us-east-1 --query "Parameters[0].Value"

Retrieving the metadata of a specific Amazon ECS-optimized Amazon Linux 2 AMI version

Retrieve the metadata of a specific Amazon ECS-optimized Amazon Linux AMI version using the Amazon CLI with the following Amazon CLI command. Replace the AMI name with the name of the Amazon ECS-optimized Amazon Linux AMI to retrieve.

aws ssm get-parameters --names /aws/service/ecs/optimized-ami/amazon-linux-2/amzn2-ami-ecs-hvm-2.0.20200928-x86_64-ebs --region us-east-1

Retrieving the Amazon ECS-optimized Amazon Linux 2 kernel 5.10 AMI metadata using the Systems Manager GetParametersByPath API

Retrieve the Amazon ECS-optimized Amazon Linux 2 AMI metadata with the Systems Manager GetParametersByPath API using the Amazon CLI with the following command.

aws ssm get-parameters-by-path --path /aws/service/ecs/optimized-ami/amazon-linux-2/kernel-5.10/ --region us-east-1

Retrieving the image ID of the latest recommended Amazon ECS-optimized Amazon Linux 2 kernel 5.10 AMI

You can retrieve the image ID of the latest recommended Amazon ECS-optimized Amazon Linux 2 kernel 5.10 AMI ID by using the sub-parameter image_id.

aws ssm get-parameters --names /aws/service/ecs/optimized-ami/amazon-linux-2/kernel-5.10/recommended/image_id --region us-east-1

To retrieve the image_id value only, you can query the specific parameter value; for example:

aws ssm get-parameters --names /aws/service/ecs/optimized-ami/amazon-linux-2/recommended/image_id --region us-east-1 --query "Parameters[0].Value"

Using the latest recommended Amazon ECS-optimized AMI in an Amazon CloudFormation template

You can reference the latest recommended Amazon ECS-optimized AMI in an Amazon CloudFormation template by referencing the Systems Manager parameter store name.

Linux example

Parameters:kernel-5.10
  LatestECSOptimizedAMI:
    Description: AMI ID
    Type: AWS::SSM::Parameter::Value<AWS::EC2::Image::Id>
    Default: /aws/service/ecs/optimized-ami/amazon-linux-2/kernel-5.10/recommended/image_id