5.0 - Building Custom AMIs with Ansible

Build AMIs

• To gather info around the AMI suitable for usage within the region and deployment, use the ec2_ami_info module.

• This can filter by parameters such as:

  • region
  • owners
  • architectures

• Once the AMI is determined, the EC2 instance can be deployed via the ec2 module.

• The ec2_ami module can then register or deregister AMIs, this can be applied to a running EC2 instance.

• Example usage:

- name: Create an AMI
  ec2_ami:
    aws_access_key: "{{ aws_access_key }}"
    aws_secret_key: "{{ aws_secret_key }}"
    region: "{{ aws_region }}"
    instance_id: "{{ ec2info.instance_ids[0] }}"
    wait: yes
    name: "pluralsight-{{ uuid }}"
    tags:
      Name: "pluralsight-{{ uuid }}"
      Service: TestService

Disclaimer

• Whilst this IS achievable via Ansible, it's recommended to use a tool specifically designed to create custom AMIs, such as Hashicorp Packer. Packer can then run ansible playbooks to do the configuration.