An AMI is a registered snapshot and can be created using Create Image from the console.
Deregistering an AMI does not delete the snapshot.
An AMI can have Public visibility.
Latest image starting with GAMI-AMZLinux2
aws ec2 describe-images --filters "Name=name,Values=GAMI-AMZLinux2*" --query 'reverse(sort_by(Images, &CreationDate))[0].Name' --output text
List all images owned by your account (self) and account 137112412989 (ie: Amazon Linux base image)
aws ec2 describe-images --owners self 137112412989 --query 'reverse(sort_by(Images, &CreationDate))[].[Name,ImageId,CreationDate]' --output table
List images
aws ec2 describe-images --image-ids ami-66506c1c
amazon All Amazon images (windows, deep learning, eks etc.) 137112412989 Amazon Linux base 099720109477 Canonical Ubuntu 898082745236 Amazon Deep Learning
To list all the latest amazon linux base AMIs, query parameter store (ref):
aws ssm get-parameters-by-path --path /aws/service/ami-amazon-linux-latest/
To filter to just the amazon linux 2 AMIs
aws ssm get-parameters-by-path --path /aws/service/ami-amazon-linux-latest/ | jq -r '.Parameters[] | select(.Name | contains("amzn2")) | [.Name, .Value] | @tsv'
To get the latest amazon linux 2 GP2 AMI:
aws ssm get-parameters --name /aws/service/ami-amazon-linux-latest/amzn2-ami-hvm-x86_64-gp2
- graphics - for use with the GPU instance types
- minimal - for use with the EBS storage type (see below)
- arm64 - ARM CPU
- x86_64 - Intel CPU
Storage types:
- ebs - backed by a magnetic EBS volume
- gp2/ssd - backed by a SSD EBS volume (recommended)
- s3 - instance-store backed (ie: temporary locally attached storage)
- hvm - fully virtualized (recommended)
- pv - paravirtual (older instances only)
If you create an AMI from a source instance, it will contain authorization for the key pair used at the time the source instance was created.
Any instances created from that AMI, even with a different key pair, will still allow access from the source instance's key pair as well.