amibuilder

Build an AMI from a shell script or Dockerfile

Installation

You can easily install the latest version of amibuilder with pip. Alternitavely, you can download the source directly from this repository.

pip install amibuilder

Configuration

A configuration file should be created for each server type you want to make. Here is a sample configuration file:

[main]

# You can specify either an AWS profile name here,
# or manually specify region, access_key and secret_key.
# AWS profiles are usually stored in the ~/.aws/config file
aws_profile = profile

# The AWS credentials to use; if aws_profile is specified,
# the following three settings are ignored
#region = us-east-1
#access_key = ANLK3UHQKIAJF4MLBVF7
#secret_key = vhhHzsDIzMbFgTDMWEYIbYyUaFFIY0cyBh

# the host tag contains the Name tag that will be applied to
# the temporary EC2 server instance used during AMI creation
host_tag = flexio-build

# the target_name is the name of the AMI that is created.
# By default, an existing AMI with the same name will not be
# overwritten.  See the overwrite configuration option
target_name = flexio-build

# the type of instance you want to use during AMI creation
instance_type = t2.micro

# optional EC2 subnet id
subnet_id =

# The source AMI you want to start with
source_ami = ami-80861296

# The script file you would like to execute after the temporary
# instance is created.  This script file can either be a Dockerfile
# or any script containing a shebang line, such as a bash script
file = ./Dockerfile

# security groups that the temporary instance should belong to
security_groups = securitygroup1, securitygroup2

# By default, overwrite is off.  If you want to overwrite an AMI
# with the same name that already exists, set the overwrite to true
# overwrite = true

Usage

usage: local.py [-h] [-a SOURCE_AMI] [-b [BUILD_ARG [BUILD_ARG ...]]]
                [-c CONFIG] [-d DEBUG] [-f FILE] [-g SECURITY_GROUPS]
                [-i INSTANCE_TYPE] [-n TARGET_NAME] [-m TARGET_DESCRIPTION]
                [-p AWS_PROFILE] [-r REGION] [-s SUBNET_ID] [-t HOST_TAG]
                [-T TARGET_TYPE] [-o]

optional arguments:
-h, --help            show this help message and exit
-a SOURCE_AMI, --source-ami SOURCE_AMI
                        source AMI image id
-b [BUILD_ARG [BUILD_ARG ...]], --build-arg [BUILD_ARG [BUILD_ARG ...]]
                        specify values for ARG arguments in Dockerfiles
-c CONFIG, --config CONFIG
                        configuration file
-d DEBUG, --debug DEBUG
                        print debug info
-f FILE, --file FILE  script file
-g SECURITY_GROUPS, --security-groups SECURITY_GROUPS
                        one or more security groups (comma-delimited)
-i INSTANCE_TYPE, --instance-type INSTANCE_TYPE
                        EC2 instance type
-n TARGET_NAME, --target-name TARGET_NAME
                        target AMI image name
-m TARGET_DESCRIPTION, --target-description TARGET_DESCRIPTION
                        target AMI description
-p AWS_PROFILE, --aws-profile AWS_PROFILE
                        Use credentials from profile stored in AWS
                        configuration file
-r REGION, --region REGION
                        AWS region
-s SUBNET_ID, --subnet-id SUBNET_ID
                        AWS subnet id
-t HOST_TAG, --host-tag HOST_TAG
                        tag that will be applied to temporary instance
-T TARGET_TYPE, --target-type TARGET_TYPE
                        ami (default) to build an AMI; instance to just build
                        an instance
-o, --overwrite       set to true if you want to overwrite an existing AMI

Limitations

If you use Dockerfile scripts, only the ARG, RUN and COPY commands are supported at this time. The COPY commands are only recommended for smaller files, such as .conf files. If you want to transfer large data payloads, a more robust solution would be to store them in an S3 bucket, for example.