Create a new version of an image recipe - EC2 Image Builder
Create a new image recipe version (console)Create an image recipe with the Amazon CLIImport a VM as your base image in the console
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Create a new version of an image recipe

This section describes how to create a new version of an image recipe.

Create a new image recipe version (console)

When you create a new recipe version, it's virtually the same as creating a new recipe. The difference is that certain details are pre-selected to match the base recipe, in most cases. The following list describes the differences between creating a new recipe and creating a new version of an existing recipe.

Base recipe details in the new version

  • Name – Not editable.

  • Version – Required. This base detail isn't pre-filled with the current version or any kind of a sequence. Enter the version number that you want to create in the format <major>.<minor>.<patch>. If the version already exists, you encounter an error.

  • The Select image option – Pre-selected, but you can edit it. If you change your choice for the source of your base image, you might lose other details that depend on the original option that you chose.

    To see details that are associated with your base image selection, choose the tab that matches your selection.

    Managed image

    • Image Operating System (OS) – Not editable.

    • Image name – Pre-selected, based on the combination of base image choices that you made for the existing recipe. However, if you change the Select image option, you lose the pre-selected Image name.

    • Auto-versioning options – Does not match your base recipe. This image option defaults to the Use selected OS version option.

      Important

      If you're using semantic versioning to kick off pipeline builds, make sure that you change this value to Use latest available OS version. To learn more about semantic versioning for Image Builder resources, see Semantic versioning.

    Amazon Web Services Marketplace image

    • Subscriptions – This tab should be open, and the subscribed image from Amazon Web Services Marketplace should be pre-selected to match your base recipe. If you change the image that your recipe uses as its base image, you might lose other details that depend on the original image that you chose.

    For more information about Amazon Web Services Marketplace products, see Buying products in the Amazon Web Services Marketplace Buyer Guide.

    Custom AMI

    • AMI ID – Required. However, this setting is not pre-filled with your original entry. You must enter the AMI ID for your base image.

  • Instance configuration – Settings are pre-selected, but you can edit them.

    • Systems Manager agent – You can select or clear this check box to control installation of the Systems Manager agent on the new image. The check box is cleared by default to include the Systems Manager agent in your new image. To remove the Systems Manager agent from the final image, select the check box so that the agent isn't included in your AMI.

    • User data – You can use this area to provide commands, or a command script to run, when you launch your build instance. However, this value replaces any commands that Image Builder might have added to ensure that Systems Manager is installed. These commands include the clean-up script that Image Builder normally runs for Linux images prior to creating the new image.

      Note

      • If you enter user data, make sure that the Systems Manager agent is pre-installed on your base image, or that you include the install in your user data.

      • For Linux images, ensure that clean-up steps run by including a command to create an empty file named perform_cleanup in your user data script. Image Builder detects this file, and runs the clean-up script prior to creating the new image. For more information and a sample script, see Security best practices for EC2 Image Builder.

  • Working directory – Pre-selected, but you can edit it.

  • Components – Components that are already included in the recipe are displayed in the Selected components section at the end of each of the component lists (build and test). You can remove or reorder the selected components to suit your needs.

    CIS hardening components don't follow the standard component ordering rules in Image Builder recipes. The CIS hardening components always run last to ensure that the benchmark tests run against your output image.

    Note

    Build and test component lists display available components based on the component owner type. To add or update components for your recipe, select the owner type for the component you're looking for. For example, if you want to add a component that's associated with a base image that you subscribed to in Amazon Web Services Marketplace, select Third party managed from the owner type list, next to the search bar.

    You can configure the following settings for your selected component:

    • Versioning options – Pre-selected, but you can change them. We recommend that you choose the Use latest available component version option to ensure that your image builds always pick up the latest version of the component. If you need to use a specific component version in your recipe, you can choose Specify component version, and enter the version in the Component version box that appears.

    • Input parameters – Displays input parameters that the component accepts. The Value is pre-filled with the value from the prior version of the recipe. If you are using this component for the first time in this recipe, and a default value was defined for the input parameter, the default value appears in the Value box with greyed-out text. If no other value is entered, Image Builder uses the default value.

      If an input parameter is required, but doesn't have a default value defined in the component, you must provide a value. Image Builder won't create the recipe version if there are any required parameters that are missing and don't have a default value defined.

      Important

      Component parameters are plain text values, and are logged in Amazon CloudTrail. We recommend that you use Amazon Secrets Manager or the Amazon Systems Manager Parameter Store to store your secrets. For more information about Secrets Manager, see What is Secrets Manager? in the Amazon Secrets Manager User Guide. For more information about Amazon Systems Manager Parameter Store, see Amazon Systems Manager Parameter Store in the Amazon Systems Manager User Guide.

    To expand settings for Versioning options or Input parameters, you can choose the arrow next to the name of the setting. To expand all of the settings for all selected components, you can toggle the Expand all switch off and on.

  • Storage (volumes) – are pre-filled. The root volume Device name, Snapshot, and IOPS selections, are not editable. However, you can change all of the remaining settings, such as the Size. You can also add new volumes, and encrypt new or existing volumes.

    To encrypt volumes for the images that Image Builder creates under your account in the source Region (where the build runs), you must use the storage volume encryption in the image recipe. Encryption that runs during the distribution phase of the build is only for images that are distributed to other accounts or Regions.

    Note

    If you use encryption for your volumes, you must select the key for each volume separately, even if the key is the same one that's used for the root volume.

To create a new image recipe version:

  1. At the top of the recipe details page, choose Create new version. This takes you to the Create image recipe page.

  2. To create the new version, make your changes, and then choose Create image recipe.

For more information on how to create an image recipe when you create an image pipeline, see Step 2: Choose recipe in the Get started section of this guide.

Create an image recipe with the Amazon CLI

To create an image recipe with the Image Builder create-image-recipe command in the Amazon CLI, follow these steps:

Prerequisites

Before you run the Image Builder commands in this section to create an image recipe from the Amazon CLI, you must create the components that the recipe uses. The image recipe example in the following step refers to example components that are created in the Create a component with the Amazon CLI section of this guide.

After you create your components, or if you are using existing components, note the ARNs that you want to include in the recipe.

  1. Create a CLI input JSON file

    You can provide all of the input for the create-image-recipe command with inline command parameters. However, the resulting command can be quite long. To streamline the command, you can instead provide a JSON file that contains all of the recipe settings.

    Note

    The naming convention for the data values in the JSON file follows the pattern that is specified for the Image Builder API action request parameters. To review the API command request parameters, see the CreateImageRecipe command in the EC2 Image Builder API Reference.

    To provide the data values as command line parameters, refer to the parameter names specified in the Amazon CLI Command Reference.

    Here is a summary of the parameters that these examples specify:

    • name (string, required) – The name of the image recipe.

    • description (string) – The description of the image recipe.

    • parentImage (string, required) – The image that the image recipe uses as a base for your customized image. The value can be the base image ARN or an AMI ID.

      Note

      The Linux example uses an Image Builder AMI, and the Windows example uses an ARN.

    • semanticVersion (string, required) – The semantic version of the image recipe, expressed in the following format, with numeric values in each position to indicate a specific version: <major>.<minor>.<patch>. For example a value might be 1.0.0. To learn more about semantic versioning for Image Builder resources, see Semantic versioning.

    • components (array, required) – Contains an array of ComponentConfiguration objects. At least one build component must be specified:

      Note

      Image Builder installs components in the order that you specified them in the recipe. However, CIS hardening components always run last to ensure that the benchmark tests run against your output image.

      • componentARN (string, required) – The component ARN.

        Tip

        To use one of the examples to create your own image recipe, you must replace the example ARNs with the ARNs for the components that you are using for your recipe.

      • parameters (array of objects) – Contains an array of ComponentParameter objects. If an input parameter is required, but doesn't have a default value defined in the component, you must provide a value. Image Builder won't create the recipe version if there are any required parameters that are missing and don't have a default value defined.

        Important

        Component parameters are plain text values, and are logged in Amazon CloudTrail. We recommend that you use Amazon Secrets Manager or the Amazon Systems Manager Parameter Store to store your secrets. For more information about Secrets Manager, see What is Secrets Manager? in the Amazon Secrets Manager User Guide. For more information about Amazon Systems Manager Parameter Store, see Amazon Systems Manager Parameter Store in the Amazon Systems Manager User Guide.

        • name (string, required) – The name of the component parameter to set.

        • value (array of strings, required) – Contains an array of strings to set the value for the named component parameter. If there is a default value defined for the component, and no other value is provided, EC2 TOE uses the default value.

    • additionalInstanceConfiguration (object) – Specify additional settings and launch scripts for your build instances.

      • systemsManagerAgent (object) – Contains settings for the Systems Manager agent on your build instance.

        • uninstallAfterBuild (Boolean) – Controls whether the Systems Manager agent is removed from your final build image prior to creating the new AMI. If this option is set to true, then the agent is removed from the final image. If the option is set to false, then the agent is left in so that it is included in the new AMI. The default value is false.

          Note

          If the uninstallAfterBuild attribute isn't included in the JSON file, and the following conditions are true, then Image Builder removes the Systems Manager agent from the final image so that it isn't available in the AMI:

          • The userDataOverride is empty or has been omitted from the JSON file.

          • Image Builder automatically installed the Systems Manager agent on the build instance for an operating system that didn't have the agent pre-installed on the base image.

      • userDataOverride (string) – Provide commands or a command script to run when you launch your build instance.

        Note

        The user data is always base 64 encoded. For example, the following commands are encoded as IyEvYmluL2Jhc2gKbWtkaXIgLXAgL3Zhci9iYi8KdG91Y2ggL3Zhcg==:

        #!/bin/bash
mkdir -p /var/bb/
touch /var

        The Linux example uses this encoded value.

    Linux

    The base image (parentImage property) in the following example is an AMI. When you use an AMI, you must have access to the AMI, and the AMI must be in the source Region (the same Region where Image Builder runs the command). Save the file as create-image-recipe.json, and use it in the create-image-recipe command.

    {
"name": "BB Ubuntu Image recipe",
"description": "Hello World image recipe for Linux.",
"parentImage": "ami-0a01b234c5de6fabc",
"semanticVersion": "1.0.0",
"components": [
	{
		"componentArn": "arn:aws:imagebuilder:us-west-2:123456789012:component/bb$"
	}
],
"additionalInstanceConfiguration": {
	"systemsManagerAgent": {
	 	"uninstallAfterBuild": true
	},
	"userDataOverride": "IyEvYmluL2Jhc2gKbWtkaXIgLXAgL3Zhci9iYi8KdG91Y2ggL3Zhcg=="
}
}
    Windows

    The following example refers to the latest version of the Windows Server 2016 English Full Base image. The ARN in this example references the latest image in the SKU based on the semantic version filters that you've specified: arn:aws:imagebuilder:us-west-2:aws:image/windows-server-2016-english-full-base-x86/x.x.x.

    {
"name": "MyBasicRecipe",
"description": "This example image recipe creates a Windows 2016 image.",
"parentImage": "arn:aws:imagebuilder:us-west-2:aws:image/windows-server-2016-english-full-base-x86/x.x.x",
"semanticVersion": "1.0.0",
"components": [
	{
		"componentArn": "arn:aws:imagebuilder:us-west-2:123456789012:component/my-example-component/2019.12.02/1"
	},
	{
		"componentArn": "arn:aws:imagebuilder:us-west-2:123456789012:component/my-imported-component/1.0.0/1"
	}
]
}
    Note

    To learn more about semantic versioning for Image Builder resources, see Semantic versioning.
  2. Create the recipe

    Use the following command to create the recipe. Provide the name of the JSON file that you created in the prior step in the --cli-input-json parameter:

    aws imagebuilder create-image-recipe --cli-input-json file://create-image-recipe.json
    Note

    • You must include the file:// notation at the beginning of the JSON file path.

    • The path for the JSON file should follow the appropriate convention for the base operating system where you are running the command. For example, Windows uses the backslash (\) to refer to the directory path, and Linux uses the forward slash (/).

Import a VM as your base image in the console

In this section, we focus on how to import a virtual machine (VM) as the base image for your image recipe. We don't cover other steps involved with creating a recipe or recipe version here. For additional steps to create a new image recipe with the pipeline creation wizard in the Image Builder console, see Create an image pipeline (AMI). For additional steps to create a new image recipe or recipe version, see Create a new version of an image recipe.

To import a VM as the base image for your image recipe in the Image Builder console, follow these steps, along with any other required steps, to create your recipe or recipe version.

  1. In the Select image section for the base image, select the Import base image option.

  2. Choose the Image Operating System (OS) and OS version as you normally would.

VM import configuration

When you export your VM from its virtualization environment, that process creates a set of one or more disk container files that act as snapshots of your VM environment, settings, and data. You can use these files to import your VM as the base image for your image recipe. For more information about importing VMs in Image Builder, see Import and export VM images

To specify the location of your import source, follow these steps:

Import source

Specify the source for the first VM image disk container or snapshot to import in the Disk container 1 section.

  1. Source – This can be either an S3 bucket or an EBS snapshot.

  2. Select S3 location of disk – Enter the location in Amazon S3 where your disk images are stored. To browse for the location, choose Browse S3.

  3. To add a disk container, choose Add disk container.

IAM role

To associate an IAM role with your VM import configuration, select the role from the IAM role dropdown list, or choose Create new role to create a new one. If you create a new role, the IAM Roles console page opens in a separate tab.

Advanced settings – optional

The following settings are optional. With these settings, you can configure encryption, licensing, tags, and more for the base image that the import creates.

General

  1. Specify a unique Name for the base image. If you do not enter a value, the base image inherits the recipe name.

  2. Specify a Version for the base image. Use the following format: <major>.<minor>.<patch>. If you do not enter a value, the base image inherits the recipe version.

  3. You can also enter a Description for the base image.

Base image architecture

To specify the architecture of your VM import source, select a value from the Architecture list.

Encryption

If your VM disk images are encrypted, you must provide a key to use for the import process. To specify an Amazon KMS key for the import, select a value from the Encryption (KMS key) list. The list contains KMS keys that your account has access to in the current Region.

License management

When you import a VM, the import process automatically detects the VM OS and applies the appropriate license to the base image. Depending on your OS platform, the license types are as follows:

  • License included – An appropriate Amazon license for your platform is applied to your base image.

  • Bring your own license (BYOL) – Retains the license from your VM, if applicable.

To attach license configurations created with Amazon License Manager to your base image, select from the License configuration name list. For more information about License Manager, see Working with Amazon License Manager

Note

  • License configurations contain licensing rules based on the terms of your enterprise agreements.

  • Linux only supports BYOL licenses.

Tags (base image)

Tags use key-value pairs to assign searchable text to your Image Builder resource. To specify tags for the imported base image, enter key-value pairs with the Key and Value boxes.

To add a tag, choose Add tag. To remove a tag, choose Remove tag.