Find AMIs with the SSM Agent preinstalled - Amazon Systems Manager
Verify the status of SSM Agent
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Find AMIs with the SSM Agent preinstalled

Amazon Systems Manager Agent (SSM Agent) is preinstalled on some Amazon Machine Images (AMIs) provided by Amazon and trusted third-parties.

For example, when you launch an Amazon Elastic Compute Cloud (Amazon EC2) instance created from an AMI with one of the following operating systems, you'll likely find that the SSM Agent is already installed:

  • AlmaLinux

  • Amazon Linux 1 Base AMIs dated 2017.09 and later

  • Amazon Linux 2

  • Amazon Linux 2 ECS-Optimized Base AMIs

  • Amazon Linux 2023 (AL2023)

  • Amazon EKS-Optimized Amazon Linux AMIs

  • macOS 10.14.x (Mojave), 10.15.x (Catalina), 11.x (Big Sur), 12.x (Monterey), 13.x (Ventura), 14.x (Sonoma), and 15.x (Sequoia)

  • SUSE Linux Enterprise Server (SLES) 12 and 15

  • Ubuntu Server 16.04 LTS 64-bit (Snap), 18.04, 20.04, 22.04 LTS, 23.10, 24.04 LTS, 24.0, and 25.04

  • Windows Server 2008-2012 R2 AMIs published in November 2016 or later

  • Windows Server 2016, 2019, 2022 (excluding Nano versions), and 2025

Note

The version of SSM Agent preinstalled on an AMI might not be the latest available version. As a best practice, we recommend always using the latest available version of SSM Agent on your managed nodes. For more information about automating SSM Agent updates, see Automating updates to SSM Agent.

SSM Agent might be preinstalled on Amazon managed AMIs that aren’t on this list. This typically indicates that the operating system (OS) is not fully supported by all Systems Manager tools.

SSM Agent might also be preinstalled on AMIs found in Amazon Web Services Marketplace or in the Community AMIs repository, but Amazon doesn’t support these AMIs.

Verify the status of SSM Agent

Depending on when it was initialized, an instance created from an AMI on the preceding list might not have SSM Agent preinstalled. It's also possible that an instance has the agent preinstalled, but the agent isn't running. Therefore, we recommend that you check the status of SSM Agent before you try to use Systems Manager on an instance for the first time.

Use the following procedure to verify that SSM Agent is installed and running on an instance. If you find that the agent is not installed, you can manually install it on Linux, macOS, and Windows Server instances.

To verify installation of SSM Agent on an instance

  1. After launching a new instance, wait a few minutes for it to initialize.

  2. Connect to the instance using your preferred method. For example, you can use SSH to connect to Linux instances or use Remote Desktop to connect to Windows Server instances.

  3. Check the status of SSM Agent by running the command for your instance's operating system type.

    Operating system Command
    Amazon Linux 1 sudo status amazon-ssm-agent
    Amazon Linux 2 and Amazon Linux 2023 sudo systemctl status amazon-ssm-agent
    macOS There is no command to check SSM Agent status on macOS. You can check the status by locating and evaluating the agent log file /var/log/amazon/ssm/amazon-ssm-agent.log.
    SUSE Linux Enterprise Server sudo systemctl status amazon-ssm-agent
    Ubuntu Server (32-bit) sudo status amazon-ssm-agent
    Ubuntu Server (64-bit - Deb) sudo systemctl status amazon-ssm-agent
    Ubuntu Server (64-bit - Snap) sudo systemctl status snap.amazon-ssm-agent.amazon-ssm-agent.service
    Windows Server Get-Service AmazonSSMAgent
    Tip

    To view the commands for checking SSM Agent status on all operating system types supported by Systems Manager, see Checking SSM Agent status and starting the agent.

  4. Evaluate the command output to learn the status of the SSM Agent.

    Status: Installed and running

    In most cases, the command output indicates that the agent is installed and running.

    The following example shows that SSM Agent is installed and running on an Amazon Linux 2 instance.

    amazon-ssm-agent.service - amazon-ssm-agent
Loaded: loaded (/usr/lib/systemd/system/amazon-ssm-agent.service; enabled; vendor preset: enabled)
Active: active (running) since Wed 2021-10-20 19:09:29 UTC; 4min 6s ago
--truncated--

    The following example shows that SSM Agent is installed and running on a Windows Server instance.

    Status   Name               DisplayName
------   ----               -----------
Running  AmazonSSMAgent     Amazon SSM Agent
    Status: Installed but not running

    In some cases, the command output indicates that the agent is installed but not running.

    The following example shows that SSM Agent is installed but not running on an Amazon Linux 2 instance.

    amazon-ssm-agent.service - amazon-ssm-agent
Loaded: loaded (/usr/lib/systemd/system/amazon-ssm-agent.service; enabled; vendor preset: enabled)
Active: inactive (dead) since Wed 2021-10-20 22:16:41 UTC; 18s ago
--truncated--

    The following example shows that SSM Agent is installed but not running on a Windows Server instance.

    Status   Name               DisplayName
------   ----               -----------
Stopped  AmazonSSMAgent     Amazon SSM Agent

    If the agent is installed but not running, you can activate it manually using the commands for your instance's operating system type.

    Operating system Command
    Amazon Linux 1 sudo start amazon-ssm-agent
    Amazon Linux 2 and Amazon Linux 2023

    sudo systemctl enable amazon-ssm-agent

    sudo systemctl start amazon-ssm-agent
    macOS

    sudo launchctl load -w /Library/LaunchDaemons/com.amazon.aws.ssm.plist

    sudo launchctl start com.amazon.aws.ssm
    SUSE Linux Enterprise Server

    sudo systemctl enable amazon-ssm-agent

    sudo systemctl start amazon-ssm-agent
    Ubuntu Server (32-bit)

    sudo start amazon-ssm-agent
    Ubuntu Server (64-bit - Deb)

    sudo systemctl enable amazon-ssm-agent

    sudo systemctl start amazon-ssm-agent
    Ubuntu Server (64-bit - Snap) sudo snap start amazon-ssm-agent
    Windows Server

    Run the following command in PowerShell.

    Start-Service AmazonSSMAgent
    Status: Not installed

    In some cases, the command output indicates that the agent is not installed.

    The following example shows that SSM Agent is not installed on an Amazon Linux 2 instance.

    Unit amazon-ssm-agent.service could not be found.

    The following example shows that SSM Agent is not installed on a Windows Server instance.

    Get-Service : Cannot find any service with service name 'AmazonSSMAgent'.
--truncated--

    If the agent isn't installed, you can install it manually using the procedure for your operating system type: