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IDProjectCategoryView StatusLast Update
0000124AlmaLinux-8-OTHERpublic2021-09-02 22:45
Reporterfdr Assigned To 
PrioritynormalSeverityminorReproducibilityN/A
Status newResolutionopen 
Summary0000124: Improve AWS AMI ID acquisition instructions
DescriptionAlmaLinux's documentation on how to find AMIs could be expanded for
the benefit of those that want to automatically acquire new base
images.

Compare
https://web.archive.org/web/20210720172500/https://wiki.almalinux.org/cloud/AWS.html
to
https://docs.aws.amazon.com/AWSEC2/latest/UserGuide/finding-an-ami.html.

Some differences:

* AlmaLinux has both Marketplace and "Community" AMIs. Is the
  Marketplace one "official?" is the "community" account number -- not
  documented anywhere -- held in as strict confidence as images that
  make it to the marketplace? Why would I use one or the other? Why
  am I given this choice?

  Whereas, Amazon Linux really has only one method: public images,
  most comparable to "community" AMIs. "System Manager" is used to
  retrieve latest AMI ID.

  An older way to do something similar is to make careful use of
  naming conventions and a well-known account number. CentOS offers
  their account number, https://wiki.centos.org/Cloud/AWS. So does
  Oracle Linux,
  https://community.oracle.com/tech/apps-infra/discussion/4417739/launch-an-oracle-linux-instance-in-aws

* A major downside of Marketplace is that it's necessary to associate
  the product subscription with each account using it. This has
  different APIs, different SDKs, different IAM policies required than
  what would be required for most programs using EC2.

* AWS provides precise API calls used to get the latest AMI,
  indicating how they anticipate you will source new image IDs, and
  will keep it working. None of the other systems do, but they
  should, and in practice, code of this kind works practically
  indefinitely:

      images(
        owners: ["764336703387"],
        filters: [
          {name: "name", values: ["AlmaLinux OS 8.* x86_64"]},
          {name: "state", values: ["available"]}
        ]
      ).max_by { |img| img.creation_date }.id


  The following such wildcarded strings can be useful for different
  levels of automatic updates:
  
  AlmaLinux OS * x86_64

  AlmaLinux OS 8.* x86_64

  AlmaLinux OS 8.4.* x86_64
Tagsaws, cloud
abrt_hash
URL

Activities

fdr

2021-09-02 02:58

reporter   ~0000329

For more information about this "parameter store" that Amazon Linux uses, see https://docs.aws.amazon.com/systems-manager/latest/userguide/systems-manager-parameter-store.html. I haven't used this much myself, but I seem to remember following AWS instructions to use it in the past and it was no sweat.

Issue History

Date Modified Username Field Change
2021-09-02 02:53 fdr New Issue
2021-09-02 02:53 fdr Tag Attached: aws
2021-09-02 02:58 fdr Note Added: 0000329
2021-09-02 22:45 fdr Tag Attached: cloud