Programmatic modifications made to VMs by VM Import/Export - VM Import/Export
Import VM without modifications
Services or capabilities described in Amazon Web Services documentation might vary by Region. To see the differences applicable to the China Regions, see Getting Started with Amazon Web Services in China (PDF).

Programmatic modifications made to VMs by VM Import/Export

When importing a VM using the ImportImage API, Amazon modifies the file system and adds drivers to make the imported VM bootable. When writing a modified file, Amazon retains the original file at the same location under a new name. The following actions may occur:

General

  • For parity with images provided by Amazon, the Amazon Systems Manager client is installed on the VM.

Windows

  • Modifying registry settings to make the VM bootable.

Linux

  • Installing Citrix PV drivers either directly in OS or modify initrd/initramfs to contain them.

  • Modifying network scripts to replace static IPs with dynamic IPs.

  • Modifying /etc/fstab, commenting out invalid entries and replacing device names with UUIDs. If no matching UUID can be found for a device, the nofail option is added to the device description. You must correct the device naming and remove nofail after import. As a best practice when preparing your VMs for import, we recommend that you specify your VM disk devices by UUID rather than device name.

    Entries in /etc/fstab that contain non-standard file system types (cifs, smbfs, vboxsf, sshfs, etc.) are disabled.

  • Modifying grub bootloader settings such as the default entry and timeout.

Import VM without modifications

If you need to import a VM without programmatic modifications, we recommend that you follow these steps instead of using ImportImage.

Important

If you use this process, Amazon does not do any post-import validations to ensure that the image is bootable. It is your responsibility to ensure that you properly prepare your VM for exporting.

To import a VM without modifications

  1. Prepare your VM for export. For more information, see Configurations to export VMs from your virtualization environment.

  2. Export the boot disk for your VM in one of the following file formats: VHD/VHDX, VMDK, or raw. For more information, refer to the documentation for your virtualization environment.

  3. Use the put-object command to upload the exported boot disk file to an Amazon S3 bucket in the Region where you want to create the image.

  4. Use the import-snapshot command to import the boot disk as a snapshot. For more information about importing a snapshot, see Importing a disk as a snapshot using VM Import/Export.

    Note

    You can monitor the progress of the import snapshot task using the describe-import-snapshot-tasks command.

    Make a note of the snapshot ID returned by the command. You'll need it for the next step.

  5. Use the register-image command to register a new AMI, and specify the snapshot from the previous step as the root device volume.

    Make a note of the image ID returned by the command. You'll need it for the next step.

  6. After the AMI reaches the available state, you can use it to launch instances.