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How To Create a Centos 5.2 EC2 Amazon Machine Image – AMI

By admin, on February 13th, 2009

Create the disk image

dd if=/dev/zero of=my-image.fs bs=1M count=1024

Create root file system inside file

mke2fs -F -j my-image.fs

Mount it

mkdir /mnt/ec2-fs

mount -o loop my-image.fs /mnt/ec2-fs

Create /dev

mkdir /mnt/ec2-fs/dev

Populate /dev with a minimal set of devices

/sbin/MAKEDEV -d /mnt/ec2-fs/dev/ -x console

/sbin/MAKEDEV -d /mnt/ec2-fs/dev/ -x null

/sbin/MAKEDEV -d /mnt/ec2-fs/dev/ -x zero

Create /etc

mkdir /mnt/ec2-fs/etc

Create yum-xen.conf in the local file system, not the mounted system. Put the following in yum-xen.conf

[main]

cachedir=/var/cache/yum

debuglevel=2

logfile=/var/log/yum.log

exclude=*-debuginfo

gpgcheck=0

obsoletes=1

pkgpolicy=newest

distroverpkg=redhat-release

tolerant=1

exactarch=1

reposdir=/dev/null

metadata_expire=1800

[base]

name=CentOS-5.2 – Base

baseurl=http://mirror.centos.org/centos/5.2/os/i386/

gpgcheck=1

gpgkey=http://mirror.centos.org/centos/RPM-GPG-KEY-centos5.2

priority=1

protect=1

#released updates

[update]

name=CentOS-5.2 – Updates

baseurl=http://mirror.centos.org/centos/5.2/updates/i386/

gpgcheck=1

gpgkey=http://mirror.centos.org/centos/RPM-GPG-KEY-centos5.2

priority=1

protect=1

#packages used/produced in the build but not released

[addons]

name=CentOS-5.2 – Addons

baseurl=http://mirror.centos.org/centos/5.2/addons/i386/

gpgcheck=1

gpgkey=http://mirror.centos.org/centos/RPM-GPG-KEY-centos5.2

priority=1

[extras]

name=CentOS 5.2 Extras $releasever – $basearch

baseurl=http://mirror.centos.org/centos/5.2/extras/i386/

enabled=1

Mount proc

mkdir /mnt/ec2-fs/proc

mount -t proc none /mnt/ec2-fs/proc

Install the Operating System

yum -c yum-xen.conf –installroot=/mnt/ec2-fs -y groupinstall Core

Create the network settings

vi /mnt/ec2-fs/etc/sysconfig/network-scripts/ifcfg-eth0

Enter

DEVICE=eth0

BOOTPROTO=dhcp

ONBOOT=yes

TYPE=Ethernet

USERCTL=yes

PEERDNS=yes

IPV6INIT=no

Turn on networking

vi /mnt/ec2-fs/etc/sysconfig/network

Enter

NETWORKING=yes

Set up the hard drives

vi /mnt/ec2-fs/etc/fstab

Enter

/dev/sda2 /mnt ext3 defaults 1 2

/dev/sda3 swap swap defaults 0 0

Start some services on start

chroot /mnt/ec2-fs /bin/sh

chkconfig –level 345 sshd on

exit

Unmount the image

umount /mnt/ec2-fs/proc

umount -d /mnt/ec2-fs

Now bundle the AMI

Install ruby

yum install ruby

Download the EC2 AMI Tools

wget http://s3.amazonaws.com/ec2-downloads/ec2-ami-tools.noarch.rpm

Install the EC2 AMI Tools

rpm -Uvh ec2-ami-tools.noarch.rpm

Put both your private key and cert in the same folder as my-image.fs

Use the AMI tools to bundle the your image

ec2-bundle-image -i my-image.fs -c my-cert.pem -k my-private-key.pem -u 12345678(amazon account id)

nb. Selinux should be disabled while this is done.

This create the bundles the image to an AMI and puts it in /tmp

Now upload the ec2-bundle to S3

ec2-upload-bundle -b my-bucket -m image.manifest -a my-aws-access-key-id -s my-secret-key-id

This is a good resource on how to script the whole thing – http://www.centos.org/modules/newbb/viewtopic.php?topic_id=11788&forum=27&post_id=38389

6 comments to How To Create a Centos 5.2 EC2 Amazon Machine Image – AMI

weput

May 6, 2009 at 11:40 am

I’ve been trying this method and it’s not working for me…
I can’t ssh to the instance i launch using this fresh ami created with your method…

when i do

chroot /mnt/ec2-fs /bin/sh
chkconfig –level 345 sshd on

it works fine; but i can’t ssh into the instance…. then i mounted the filesystem and did chroot again…. and this is what’s going on.

root@rawlinux # /sbin/chkconfig –list sshd
sshd 0:off 1:off 2:on 3:on 4:on 5:on 6:off
root@rawlinux # service sshd status
sshd is stopped
root@rawlinux # service sshd start
Generating SSH1 RSA host key: [FAILED]

I have no idea how to correct this problem.

weput

May 6, 2009 at 2:40 pm

Ok
I’ve found some other interesting stuff…. this is the console output of the instance launched using the ami created with your method.

Linux version 2.6.16-xenU (builder@xenbat.amazonsa) (gcc version 4.0.1 20050727 (Red Hat 4.0.1-5)) #1 SMP Mon May 28 03:41:49 SAST 2007
BIOS-provided physical RAM map:
Xen: 0000000000000000 – 000000006a400000 (usable)
980MB HIGHMEM available.
727MB LOWMEM available.
NX (Execute Disable) protection: active
IRQ lockup detection disabled
Built 1 zonelists
Kernel command line: root=/dev/sda1 ro 4
Enabling fast FPU save and restore… done.
Enabling unmasked SIMD FPU exception support… done.
Initializing CPU#0
PID hash table entries: 4096 (order: 12, 65536 bytes)
Xen reported: 2600.000 MHz processor.
Dentry cache hash table entries: 131072 (order: 7, 524288 bytes)
Inode-cache hash table entries: 65536 (order: 6, 262144 bytes)
Software IO TLB disabled
vmalloc area: ee000000-f53fe000, maxmem 2d7fe000
Memory: 1718700k/1748992k available (1958k kernel code, 20948k reserved, 620k data, 144k init, 1003528k highmem)
Checking if this processor honours the WP bit even in supervisor mode… Ok.
Calibrating delay using timer specific routine.. 5200.43 BogoMIPS (lpj=26002197)
Mount-cache hash table entries: 512
CPU: L1 I Cache: 64K (64 bytes/line), D cache 64K (64 bytes/line)
CPU: L2 Cache: 1024K (64 bytes/line)
Checking ‘hlt’ instruction… OK.
Brought up 1 CPUs
migration_cost=0
Grant table initialized
NET: Registered protocol family 16
Brought up 1 CPUs
xen_mem: Initialising balloon driver.
highmem bounce pool size: 64 pages
VFS: Disk quotas dquot_6.5.1
Dquot-cache hash table entries: 1024 (order 0, 4096 bytes)
Initializing Cryptographic API
io scheduler noop registered
io scheduler anticipatory registered (default)
io scheduler deadline registered
io scheduler cfq registered
i8042.c: No controller found.
RAMDISK driver initialized: 16 RAM disks of 4096K size 1024 blocksize
Xen virtual console successfully installed as tty1
Event-channel device installed.
netfront: Initialising virtual ethernet driver.
mice: PS/2 mouse device common for all mice
md: md driver 0.90.3 MAX_MD_DEVS=256, MD_SB_DISKS=27
md: bitmap version 4.39
NET: Registered protocol family 2
Registering block device major 8
IP route cache hash table entries: 65536 (order: 6, 262144 bytes)
TCP established hash table entries: 262144 (order: 9, 2097152 bytes)
TCP bind hash table entries: 65536 (order: 7, 524288 bytes)
TCP: Hash tables configured (established 262144 bind 65536)
TCP reno registered
TCP bic registered
NET: Registered protocol family 1
NET: Registered protocol family 17
NET: Registered protocol family 15
Using IPI No-Shortcut mode
md: Autodetecting RAID arrays.
md: autorun …
md: … autorun DONE.
kjournald starting. Commit interval 5 seconds
EXT3-fs: mounted filesystem with ordered data mode.
VFS: Mounted root (ext3 filesystem) readonly.
Freeing unused kernel memory: 144k freed
Warning: unable to open an initial console.

***************************************************************
***************************************************************
** WARNING: Currently emulating unsupported memory accesses **
** in /lib/tls glibc libraries. The emulation is **
** slow. To ensure full performance you should **
** install a ‘xen-friendly’ (nosegneg) version of **
** the library, or disable tls support by executing **
** the following as root: **
** mv /lib/tls /lib/tls.disabled **
** Offending process: init (pid=1) **
***************************************************************
***************************************************************

Pausing… 5Pausing… 4Pausing… 3Pausing… 2Pausing… 1Continuing…
Restarting system.

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