How do I turn a customized appliance on AWS EC2 into an AMI so I can clone it?

Here is the scenario: I create a tomcat-apache appliance using the hub. I then use the configuration and management tools to create a customized version of that appliance; adding virtual hosts, deploying WARs and the like. So far, so good.

Now, I want to 'save' that instance as an AMI so I can create copies of it for scaling purposes. (Otherwise every time I want to set up a new server for scaling I have to go through all the configuration steps.) How do I do that? I tried to create an AMI from the AWS management console, but that option is grayed out. I've down a lot of googling, but no joy.

This should be a FAQ, methinks.

Yes, I'm a noob with AWS...

Replies (4)

Launch a new server like this one

Reply 1 2012-01-09

I had thought that I'd be able to do the customizations, then just click on the "Launch a new server like this one" link from the hub to clone a server.

Unfortunately this just seems to be a shortcut to spawn an instance of the old base application.

There's a related discussion here.

Gotta Remember to allow root longins

Reply 2 2012-01-10

That sounded like it would work.. I went to Webmin's backup & downloaded the "Download Escrow Key" - then re-uploaded it to Drupal 6 application that I'd spun up.

It would be quite cool to do that

Reply 3 2012-01-09

But using TKLBAM you should be able to create the same result. Ie backup your server, create a new server, restore your backup to the new server.

You could also work with TKLPatch to create a New Boot Image.

Reply 4 2012-01-13

I can't remember if you need to TKLPatch before or after your changes.

If you know the sequence of changes though it is pretty easy to make a Customized Ap that you can boot from CD.

TKLPatch is outlined in Docs above.