VM Import/Export

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VM Import/Export

User Guide

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VM Import/Export: User Guide

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What is VM Import/Export?

VM Import/Export enables you to import virtual machine (VM) images from your existing virtualization environment to Amazon EC2, and then export them back. This enables you to migrate applications and workloads to Amazon EC2, copy your VM image catalog to Amazon EC2, or create a repository of VM images for backup and disaster recovery.

For more information, see VM Import/Export.

Features of VM Import/Export

VM Import provides the following features:

• The ability to import a VM from your virtualization environment to Amazon EC2 as an Amazon Machine Image (AMI). You can launch EC2 instances from your AMI any time.

• The ability to import a VM from your virtualization environment to Amazon EC2 as an EC2 instance.

The instance is initially in a stopped state. You can create an AMI from the instance.

• The ability to export a VM that was previously imported from your virtualization environment.

• The ability to import disks as Amazon EBS snapshots.

• VM import supports ENA drivers for Linux. ENA support will be enabled only if the original VM has ENA and/or NVMe drivers installed. We recommend installing the latest drivers.

How to get started with VM Import/Export

First, you must decide whether you will import your VMs as AMIs or instances. To get started, read about how image import and instance import work. You can also read through the prerequisites and limitations of each method. For more information, see:

• How VM Import/Export works (p. 2)

• Importing a VM as an image using VM Import/Export (p. 16)

• Importing a disk as a snapshot using VM Import/Export (p. 22)

Accessing VM Import/Export

You can access VM Import/Export using the following interfaces:

AWS Command Line Interface (CLI)

Provides commands for a broad set of AWS products, and is supported on Windows, Mac, and Linux.

To get started, see AWS Command Line Interface User Guide. For more information about the commands for Amazon EC2, see ec2 in the AWS CLI Command Reference.

AWS Tools for Windows PowerShell

Provides commands for a broad set of AWS products for those who script in the PowerShell environment. To get started, see the AWS Tools for Windows PowerShell User Guide. For more information about the cmdlets for Amazon EC2, see the AWS Tools for PowerShell Cmdlet Reference.

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Pricing

Amazon EC2 API

Amazon EC2 provides a Query API. These requests are HTTP or HTTPS requests that use the HTTP verbs GET or POST and a Query parameter named Action. For more information about the API actions for Amazon EC2, see Actions in the Amazon EC2 API Reference.

AWS SDKs and Tools

If you prefer to build applications using language-speciﬁc APIs instead of submitting a request over HTTP or HTTPS, AWS provides libraries, sample code, tutorials, and other resources for software developers. These libraries provide basic functions that automate tasks such as cryptographically signing your requests, retrying requests, and handling error responses, making it is easier for you to get started. For more information, see AWS SDKs and Tools.

TipIn supported AWS Regions, you can also use AWS CloudShell for a browser-based, pre- authenticated shell that launches directly from the AWS Management Console.

Pricing

With Amazon Web Services, you pay only for what you use. There is no additional fee to use VM Import/

Export. You pay the standard fees for the S3 buckets and EBS volumes used during the import and export processes, and for the EC2 instances that you run.

Related services

Consider the following services as you plan your migration to AWS:

• You can use the Application Discovery Service to gather information about your data center, such as server utilization data and dependency mappings, so that you can view information about your workloads. For more information, see the Application Discovery Service User Guide.

• If you use VMware vSphere, Microsoft Hyper-V, or Microsoft Azure, you can use AWS Application Migration Service to automate the migration of your virtual machines to AWS. For more information, see the Application Migration Service User Guide.

• If you use Microsoft Systems Center, you can use AWS Systems Manager for Microsoft SCVMM to import Windows VMs from SCVMM to Amazon EC2. For more information, see Import your virtual machine using AWS Systems Manager for Microsoft SCVMM in the Amazon EC2 User Guide for Windows Instances.

How VM Import/Export works

To use your VM in Amazon EC2, you must ﬁrst export it from the virtualization environment, and then import it into Amazon EC2 as either an Amazon Machine Image (AMI) or an instance.

Beneﬁts

You can use VM Import/Export to migrate applications and workloads, copy your VM image catalog, or create a disaster recovery repository for VM images.

• Migrate existing applications and workloads to Amazon EC2—When you migrate your VM-based applications and workloads to Amazon EC2, you preserve their software and conﬁguration settings.

When you create an AMI from your VM, you can run multiple instances based on the same imported VM. You can also use the AMI to replicate your applications and workloads around the world using AMI copy. For more information, see Copying an AMI in the Amazon EC2 User Guide for Linux Instances.

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Diﬀerences between image import and instance import

• Import your VM image catalog to Amazon EC2— If you maintain a catalog of approved VM images, you can copy your image catalog to Amazon EC2 and create AMIs from the imported images. You can import your existing software, including products that you have installed such as anti-virus software, intrusion detection systems, and so on, along with your VM images. You can use the AMIs you create as your Amazon EC2 image catalog.

• Create a disaster recovery repository for VM images—You can import your local VM images into Amazon EC2 for backup and disaster recovery purposes. You can import your VMs and store them as AMIs. The AMIs you create will be ready to launch in Amazon EC2 when you need them. If your local environment suﬀers an event, you can quickly launch your instances to preserve business continuity while simultaneously exporting them to rebuild your local infrastructure.

Diﬀerences between image import and instance import

The following table summarizes the key diﬀerences between image import and instance import.

Characteristic Image import Instance import

CLI support AWS CLI Amazon EC2 CLI

Supported formats for import OVA, VHD, VHDX,

VMDK, raw VHD, VMDK, raw

Multi-disk support ✔

Windows BYOL support ✔

Image import

First, prepare your virtual machine for export, and then export it using one of the supported formats.

Next, upload the VM image to Amazon S3, and then start the image import task. After the import task is complete, you can launch instances from the AMI. If you want, you can copy the AMI to other Regions so that you can launch instances in those Regions. You can also export an AMI to a VM.

The following diagram shows the process of exporting a VM from your virtualization environment to Amazon EC2 as an AMI.

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Instance import

First, prepare your virtual machine for export, and then export it using one of the supported formats.

Next, upload the VM image to Amazon S3, and then start the instance import task. After the import task is complete, you can create an AMI from the stopped instance. If you want, you can copy the AMI to other Regions so that you can launch instances in those Regions. You can also export a previously imported instance to your virtualization environment.

The following diagram shows the process of exporting a VM from your virtualization environment to Amazon EC2 as an instance.

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System requirements

VM Import/Export Requirements

Before attempting to import a VM, take action as needed to meet the following requirements. You may also need to prepare your AWS environment by creating a service account with appropriate permissions, and you must prepare your locally hosted VM so that is accessible once it is imported into AWS.

Contents

• System requirements (p. 5)

• Image formats (p. 5)

• Operating systems (p. 5)

• Volume types and ﬁle systems (p. 7)

• Licensing options (p. 7)

• Licensing for Linux (p. 9)

• Licensing for Windows (p. 9)

• Limitations (p. 9)

• Required permissions for IAM users (p. 10)

• Required service role (p. 11)

• Required conﬁguration for VM export (p. 13)

• Programmatic modiﬁcations to VMs (p. 15)

System requirements

Before you begin, you must be aware of the operating systems and image formats that VM Import/

Export supports, and understand the limitations on importing instances and volumes.

Image formats

VM Import/Export supports the following image formats for importing both disks and VMs:

• Open Virtual Appliance (OVA) image format, which supports importing images with multiple hard disks.

• Stream-optimized ESX Virtual Machine Disk (VMDK) image format, which is compatible with VMware ESX and VMware vSphere virtualization products.

• Fixed and Dynamic Virtual Hard Disk (VHD/VHDX) image formats, which are compatible with Microsoft Hyper-V, Microsoft Azure, and Citrix Xen virtualization products.

• Raw format for importing disks and VMs.

Operating systems

The following operating systems can be imported to and exported from Amazon EC2. For more

information about whether a Region is enabled by default, see Available Regions in the Amazon EC2 User Guide for Linux Instances.

Windows (Regions enabled by default)

• Microsoft Windows Server 2003 (Standard, Datacenter, Enterprise) with Service Pack 1 (SP1) or later (32- and 64-bit)

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Operating systems

• Microsoft Windows Server 2003 R2 (Standard, Datacenter, Enterprise) (32- and 64-bit)

• Microsoft Windows Server 2008 (Standard, Datacenter, Enterprise) (32- and 64-bit)

• Microsoft Windows Server 2008 R2 (Standard, Web Server, Datacenter, Enterprise) (64-bit only)

• Microsoft Windows Server 2012 (Standard, Datacenter) (64-bit only)

• Microsoft Windows Server 2012 R2 (Standard, Datacenter) (64-bit only) (Nano Server installation not supported)

• Microsoft Windows 7 (Home, Professional, Enterprise, Ultimate) (US English) (32- and 64-bit)

• Microsoft Windows 8 (Home, Professional, Enterprise) (US English) (32- and 64-bit)

• Microsoft Windows 8.1 (Professional, Enterprise) (US English) (64-bit only)

• Microsoft Windows 10 (Home, Professional, Enterprise, Education) (US English) (64-bit only)

Windows (Regions not enabled by default) (64-bit only)

• Microsoft Windows Server 2008 R2 (Standard, Web Server, Datacenter, Enterprise)

• Microsoft Windows Server 2012 (Standard, Datacenter)

• Microsoft Windows Server 2012 R2 (Standard, Datacenter) (Nano Server installation not supported)

• Microsoft Windows 7 (Home, Professional, Enterprise, Ultimate) (US English)

• Microsoft Windows 8 (Home, Professional, Enterprise) (US English)

• Microsoft Windows 8.1 (Professional, Enterprise) (US English)

• Microsoft Windows 10 (Home, Professional, Enterprise, Education) (US English)

Linux/Unix (64-bit only)

• Amazon Linux 2

• CentOS 5.1-5.11, 6.1-6.8, 7.0-7.9, 8.0-8.2

• Debian 6.0.0-6.0.8, 7.0.0-7.8.0, 8.0.0

• Fedora Server 19-21

• Oracle Linux 5.10-5.11 with el5uek kernel suﬃx

• Oracle Linux 6.1-6.10 using RHEL-compatible kernel 2.6.32 or UEK kernels 3.8.13, 4.1.12

• Oracle Linux 7.0-7.6 using RHEL compatible kernel 3.10.0 or UEK kernels 3.8.13, 4.1.12, 4.14.35, 4.15, 5.4.17

• Red Hat Enterprise Linux (RHEL) 5.1-5.11, 6.1-6.9, 7.0-7.9, 8.0-8.2

• SUSE Linux Enterprise Server 11 with Service Pack 1 and kernel 2.6.32.12-0.7

• SUSE Linux Enterprise Server 11 with Service Pack 2 and kernel 3.0.13-0.27

• SUSE Linux Enterprise Server 11 with Service Pack 3 and kernel 3.0.76-0.11, 3.0.101-0.8, or 3.0.101-0.15

• SUSE Linux Enterprise Server 11 with Service Pack 4 and kernel 3.0.101-63

• SUSE Linux Enterprise Server 12 with kernel 3.12.28-4

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Volume types and ﬁle systems

• SUSE Linux Enterprise Server 12 with Service Pack 1 and kernel 3.12.49-11

• SUSE Linux Enterprise Server 12 with Service Pack 2 and kernel 4.4

• SUSE Linux Enterprise Server 15 with kernel 4.12

• Ubuntu 12.04, 12.10, 13.04, 13.10, 14.04, 14.10, 15.04, 16.04, 16.10, 17.04, 18.04, and 20.04, with a supported kernel. For example, Ubuntu 18.04 requires kernel 4.15.

Volume types and ﬁle systems

VM Import/Export supports importing Windows and Linux instances with the following ﬁle systems:

Windows

MBR-partitioned volumes and GUID Partition Table (GPT) partitioned volumes that are formatted using the NTFS ﬁle system. For GPT-partitioned volumes, only VHDX is supported as an image format.

Linux/Unix

MBR-partitioned volumes that are formatted using the ext2, ext3, ext4, Btrfs, JFS, or XFS ﬁle system.

Btrfs subvolumes are not supported. GUID Partition Table (GPT) partitioned volumes are not supported.

Licensing options

When you create a new VM Import task, you have two options. You can specify values for the -- license-type or the --usage-operation parameters. You can specify values for only one of these parameters. Specifying values for both parameters will return an error. You can use --usage- operation to blend your OS and SQL Server licenses.

Specify license type

You can specify the following values for the --license-type parameter:

• Auto (default)

Detects the source-system operating system (OS) and applies the appropriate license to the migrated virtual machine (VM).

• AWS (license included)

Replaces the source-system license with an AWS license, if appropriate, on the migrated VM.

• BYOL

Retains the source-system license, if appropriate, on the migrated VM.

NoteIf you choose a license type that is incompatible with your VM, the VM Import task fails with an error message. For more information, see the OS-speciﬁc information below.

Leaving the --license-type parameter unset is the same as choosing Auto.

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Licensing options

For example, to specify the license type as an AWS license, run the following command:

aws ec2 import-image --license-type aws

--disk-containers Format=OVA,Url=S3://bucket_name/sql_std_image.ova Specify usage operation

Important

AWS stamps the software edition with the information that you provide. You are responsible for entering the correct software edition information for any licenses that you bring to AWS.

You can specify the following values for the --usage-operation parameter:

Platform details Usage operation**

Windows Server License Included without SQL

Server RunInstances:0002

Windows Server License Included with SQL Server

(any edition) BYOL RunInstances:0002

Standard License Included RunInstances:0006

Enterprise License Included RunInstances:0102

Web License Included RunInstances:0202

Windows Server BYOL without SQL Server RunInstances:0800 Windows Server BYOL with SQL (any edition)

BYOL RunInstances:0800

Linux/UNIX without SQL Server RunInstances

Linux/UNIX with SQL Server (any edition) BYOL RunInstances Linux/UNIX with SQL Server Enterprise License

Included RunInstances:0100

Linux/UNIX with SQL Server Standard License

Included RunInstances:0004

Linux/UNIX with SQL Server Web License Included RunInstances:0200

** If you are running Spot Instances, the lineup/Operation on your AWS Cost and Usage Report might be diﬀerent from the Usage operation value that is listed here.

For example, to specify the usage operation for Windows with SQL Server Standard, run the following command:

aws ec2 import-image

--usage-operation RunInstances:0006

--disk-containers Format=OVA,Url=S3://bucket_name/sql_std_image.ova For more information about billing codes, see AMI billing information ﬁelds.

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Licensing for Linux

Linux operating systems support only BYOL licenses. Choosing Auto means that a BYOL license is used.

Migrated Red Hat Enterprise Linux (RHEL) VMs must use Cloud Access (BYOL) licenses. For more information, see Red Hat Cloud Access on the Red Hat website.

Migrated SUSE Linux Enterprise Server VMs must use SUSE Public Cloud Program (BYOS) licenses. For more information, see SUSE Public Cloud Program—Bring Your Own Subscription.

Licensing for Windows

Windows server operating systems support either BYOL or AWS licenses. Windows client operating systems (such as Windows 10) support only BYOL licenses.

If you choose Auto (the default), the AWS license is used if the VM has a server OS. Otherwise, the BYOL license is used.

The following rules apply when you use your BYOL Microsoft license, either through MSDN or Windows Software Assurance Per User:

• Your BYOL instances are priced at the prevailing Amazon EC2 Linux instance pricing, provided that you meet the following conditions:

• Run on a Dedicated Host (Dedicated Hosts).

• Launch from VMs sourced from software binaries provided by you using AWS VM Import/Export, which are subject to the current terms and abilities of AWS VM Import/Export.

• Designate the instances as BYOL instances.

• Run the instances within your designated AWS Regions, and where AWS oﬀers the BYOL model.

• Activate using Microsoft keys that you provide or which are used in your key management system.

• You must account for the fact that when you start an Amazon EC2 instance, it can run on any one of many servers within an Availability Zone. This means that each time you start an Amazon EC2 instance (including a stop/start), it may run on a diﬀerent server within an Availability Zone. You must account for this fact in light of the limitations on license reassignment as described in Microsoft's document Volume Licensing Product Terms, or consult your speciﬁc use rights to determine if your rights are consistent with this usage.

• You must be eligible to use the BYOL program for the applicable Microsoft software under your agreements with Microsoft, for example, under your MSDN user rights or under your Windows Software Assurance Per User Rights. You are solely responsible for obtaining all required licenses and for complying with all applicable Microsoft licensing requirements, including the PUR/PT. Further, you must have accepted Microsoft's End User License Agreement (Microsoft EULA), and by using the Microsoft Software under the BYOL program, you agree to the Microsoft EULA.

• AWS recommends that you consult with your own legal and other advisers to understand and comply with the applicable Microsoft licensing requirements. Usage of the Services (including usage of the licenseType parameter and BYOL ﬂag) in violation of your agreements with Microsoft is not authorized or permitted.

Limitations

• An imported VM may fail to boot if the root partition is not on the same virtual hard drive as the MBR.

• A VM import task fails for VMs with more than 21 volumes attached. Additional disks can be individually imported using the ImportSnapshot API.

• Importing VMs with dual-boot conﬁgurations is not supported.

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Required permissions for IAM users

• VM Import/Export does not support VMs that use Raw Device Mapping (RDM). Only VMDK disk images are supported.

• Imported Linux VMs must use 64-bit images. Migrating 32-bit Linux images is not supported.

• Imported Linux VMs should use default kernels for best results. VMs that use custom Linux kernels might not migrate successfully.

• When preparing Amazon EC2 Linux VMs for import, make sure that there is sufficient disk space available on the root volume for installing drivers and other software. For Microsoft Windows VMs, configure a fixed pagefile size and ensure that there is at least 6 GiB of free space available on the root volume. If Windows is configured to use the "Automatically manage paging file size for all drives", it might create 16 GB pagefile.sys files on the C drive of the instance.

• Multiple network interfaces are not currently supported. After import, your VM has a single virtual network interface that uses DHCP to assign addresses. Your instance receives a private IP address.

• A VM migrated into a VPC does not receive a public IP address, regardless of the auto-assign public IP setting for the subnet. Instead, you can allocate an Elastic IP address to your account and associate it with your instance.

• VM Import/Export assigns only IPv4 addresses to your instances. You can add IPv6 addresses.

• Disk images must be less than 16 TiB. For disk images that are larger than 8 TiB, you must use a manifest ﬁle.

• If you import a VM that's compatible with UEFI, you can't specify encryption, you can't specify a license conﬁguration, and you can't specify an EBS snapshot unless you also specify a platform. On Linux, you must have a fallback EFI binary, BOOTX64.EFI, located on the EFI System Partition. On Windows, we convert GPT boot volumes to MBR if the following are true: the image format is VHDX, the uncompressed size is 2 TiB or smaller, there are no more than three primary partitions, and the volume is not a dynamic disk.

• VMs that are created as the result of a P2V conversion are not supported. A P2V conversion occurs when a disk image is created by performing a Linux or Windows installation process on a physical machine and then importing a copy of that Linux or Windows installation to a VM.

• VM Import/Export does not install the single root I/O virtualization (SR-IOV) drivers except with imports of Microsoft Windows Server 2012 R2 VMs. These drivers are not required unless you plan to use enhanced networking, which provides higher performance (packets per second), lower latency, and lower jitter. For Microsoft Windows Server 2012 R2 VMs, SR-IOV drivers are automatically installed as a part of the import process.

• VM Import/Export does not support VMware SEsparse delta-ﬁle format.

• VM Import/Export does not support Emergency Management Services (EMS). If EMS is enabled for a source Windows VM, we disable it in the imported image.

• Windows language packs that use UTF-16 (or non-ASCII) characters are not supported for import. We recommend using the English language pack when importing Windows VMs.

• The base AMI used to launch an instance must exist when you attempt to export the instance. If you have deleted the AMI, the export fails.

Required permissions for IAM users

If you're logged in as an AWS Identity and Access Management (IAM) user, you'll need the following permissions in your IAM policy to use VM Import/Export:

NoteSome actions require the use of an Amazon S3 bucket. This example policy does not grant permission to create Amazon S3 buckets. The IAM user will need to specify an existing bucket, or have permissions to create a new bucket ( s3:CreateBucket).

{ "Version": "2012-10-17",

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Required service role

"Statement": [ {

"Effect": "Allow", "Action": [

"s3:GetBucketLocation", "s3:GetObject",

"s3:PutObject"

],

"Resource": ["arn:aws:s3:::mys3bucket","arn:aws:s3:::mys3bucket/*"]

}, {

"ec2:CancelConversionTask", "ec2:CancelExportTask", "ec2:CreateImage",

"ec2:CreateInstanceExportTask", "ec2:CreateTags",

"ec2:DescribeConversionTasks", "ec2:DescribeExportTasks", "ec2:DescribeExportImageTasks", "ec2:DescribeImages",

"ec2:DescribeInstanceStatus", "ec2:DescribeInstances", "ec2:DescribeSnapshots", "ec2:DescribeTags", "ec2:ExportImage", "ec2:ImportInstance", "ec2:ImportVolume", "ec2:StartInstances", "ec2:StopInstances", "ec2:TerminateInstances", "ec2:ImportImage", "ec2:ImportSnapshot",

"ec2:DescribeImportImageTasks", "ec2:DescribeImportSnapshotTasks", "ec2:CancelImportTask"

],

"Resource": "*"

} ] }

Required service role

VM Import/Export requires a role to perform certain operations on your behalf. You must create a service role named vmimport with a trust relationship policy document that allows VM Import/Export to assume the role, and you must attach an IAM policy to the role. For more information, see IAM Roles in the IAM User Guide.

Prerequisite

You must enable AWS Security Token Service (AWS STS) in any Region where you plan to use VM Import/

Export. For more information, see Activating and deactivating AWS STS in an AWS Region.

To create the service role

1. Create a ﬁle named trust-policy.json on your computer. Add the following policy to the ﬁle:

{

"Version": "2012-10-17",

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Required service role

"Statement": [ {

"Effect": "Allow",

"Principal": { "Service": "vmie.amazonaws.com" }, "Action": "sts:AssumeRole",

"Condition": { "StringEquals":{

"sts:Externalid": "vmimport"

} } } ]}

2. Use the create-role command to create a role named vmimport and grant VM Import/Export access to it. Ensure that you specify the full path to the location of the trust-policy.json ﬁle that you created in the previous step, and that you include the file:// preﬁx as shown the following example:

aws iam create-role --role-name vmimport --assume-role-policy-document "file://C:

\import\trust-policy.json"

3. Create a ﬁle named role-policy.json with the following policy, where disk-image-file- bucket is the bucket for disk images and export-bucket is the bucket for exported images:

{ "Version":"2012-10-17", "Statement":[

{

"s3:ListBucket"

],

"Resource": [

"arn:aws:s3:::disk-image-file-bucket", "arn:aws:s3:::disk-image-file-bucket/*"

] }, {

"s3:ListBucket", "s3:PutObject", "s3:GetBucketAcl"

],

"Resource": [

"arn:aws:s3:::export-bucket", "arn:aws:s3:::export-bucket/*"

] }, {

"ec2:ModifySnapshotAttribute", "ec2:CopySnapshot",

"ec2:RegisterImage", "ec2:Describe*"

],

"Resource": "*"

}

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Required conﬁguration for VM export

] }

4. (Optional) To import resources encrypted using an AWS KMS key from AWS Key Management Service, add the following permissions to the role-policy.json ﬁle.

{

"kms:CreateGrant", "kms:Decrypt", "kms:DescribeKey", "kms:Encrypt",

"kms:GenerateDataKey*", "kms:ReEncrypt*"

], "Resource": "*"

}

If you use a KMS key other than the default provided by Amazon EBS, you must grant VM Import/

Export permission to the KMS key if you enable Amazon EBS encryption by default or enable encryption on an import operation. You can specify the Amazon Resource Name (ARN) of the KMS key as the resource instead of *.

5. (Optional) To attach license conﬁgurations to an AMI, add the following License Manager permissions to the role-policy.json ﬁle.

{ "Effect": "Allow", "Action": [

"license-manager:GetLicenseConfiguration",

"license-manager:UpdateLicenseSpecificationsForResource", "license-manager:ListLicenseSpecificationsForResource"

],

"Resource": "*"

}

6. Use the following put-role-policy command to attach the policy to the role created above. Ensure that you specify the full path to the location of the role-policy.json ﬁle.

aws iam put-role-policy --role-name vmimport --policy-name vmimport --policy-document "file://C:\import\role-policy.json"

Required conﬁguration for VM export

Use the following guidelines to conﬁgure your VM before exporting it from the virtualization environment.

General

• Install the AWS CLI on the workstation you will use to issue import commands. For more information, see Installing the AWS Command Line Interface in the AWS Command Line Interface User Guide.

• Disable any antivirus or intrusion detection software on your VM. These services can be re-enabled after the import process is complete.

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Required conﬁguration for VM export

• Uninstall the VMware Tools from your VMware VM.

• Disconnect any CD-ROM drives (virtual or physical).

• Your source VM must have a functional DHCP client service. Ensure that the service can start and is not disabled administratively. All static IP addresses currently assigned to the source VM are removed during import. When your imported instance is launched in an Amazon VPC, it receives a primary private IP address from the IPv4 address range of the subnet. If you don't specify a primary private IP address when you launch the instance, we select an available IP address in the subnet's IPv4 range for you. For more information, see VPC and Subnet Sizing.

• Shut down your VM before exporting it.

Windows

• Enable Remote Desktop (RDP) for remote access.

• Make sure that your host firewall (Windows firewall or similar), if configured, allows access to RDP.

Otherwise, you cannot access your instance after the import is complete.

• Make sure that the administrator account and all other user accounts use secure passwords. All accounts must have passwords or the importation might fail.

• Install .NET Framework 4.5 or later on the VM. We install the .NET framework on your VM as needed.

• You can run System Preparation (Sysprep) on your Windows Server VM images before or after they are imported. If you run Sysprep before importing your VM, the importation process adds an answer ﬁle (unattend.xml) to the VM that automatically accepts the End User License Agreement (EULA) and sets the locale to EN-US. If you choose to run Sysprep after importation, we recommend that you use E2Launch (Windows Server 2016 and later) or EC2Conﬁg (through Windows Server 2012 R2) to run Sysprep.

To include your own answer ﬁle instead of the default (unattend.xml)

1. Copy the following sample ﬁle below and set the processorArchitecture parameter to x86 or amd64, depending on your OS architecture:

<?xml version='1.0' encoding='UTF-8'?>

</component>

<OOBE>

</OOBE>

</component>

</settings>

</unattend>

2. Save the ﬁle in the C:\Windows\Panther directory with the name unattend.xml.

3. Run Sysprep with the /oobe and /generalize options. These options strip all unique system information from the Windows installation and prompt you to reset the administrator password.

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Programmatic modiﬁcations to VMs

4. Shut down the VM and export it from your virtualization environment.

• Disable Autologon on your Windows VM.

• Open Control Panel > System and Security > Windows Update. In the left pane, choose Change settings. Choose the desired setting. Be aware that if you choose Download updates but let me choose whether to install them (the default value) the update check can temporarily consume between 50% and 99% of CPU resources on the instance. The check usually occurs several minutes after the instance starts. Make sure that there are no pending Microsoft updates, and that the computer is not set to install software when it reboots.

• Apply the following hot ﬁxes as needed:

• You cannot change system time if RealTimeIsUniversal registry entry is enabled in Windows

• High CPU usage during DST changeover in Windows Server 2008, Windows 7, or Windows Server 2008 R2

• Set the RealTimeIsUniversal registry key. For more information, see Setting the Time in the Amazon EC2 User Guide for Windows Instances.

Linux

• Enable Secure Shell (SSH) for remote access.

• Make sure that your host ﬁrewall (such as Linux iptables) allows access to SSH. Otherwise, you won't be able to access your instance after the import is complete.

• Make sure that you have conﬁgured a non-root user to use public key-based SSH to access your instance after it is imported. The use of password-based SSH and root login over SSH are both possible, but not recommended. The use of public keys and a non-root user is recommended because it is more secure. VM Import does not conﬁgure an ec2-user account as part of the import process.

• Make sure that your Linux VM uses GRUB (GRUB legacy) or GRUB 2 as its bootloader.

• Make sure that your Linux VM uses one of the following for the root ﬁle system: EXT2, EXT3, EXT4, Btrfs, JFS, or XFS.

Programmatic modiﬁcations to VMs

When importing a VM using the ImportImage API, AWS modiﬁes the ﬁle system to make the imported VM accessible to the customer. The following actions may occur:

• [Linux] Installing Citrix PV drivers either directly in OS or modify initrd/initramfs to contain them.

• [Linux] Modifying network scripts to replace static IPs with dynamic IPs.

• [Linux] Modifying /etc/fstab, commenting out invalid entries and replacing device names with UUIDs. If no matching UUID can be found for a device, the nofail option is added to the device description. You must correct the device naming and remove nofail after import. As a best practice when preparing your VMs for import, we recommend that you specify your VM disk devices by UUID rather than device name.

Entries in /etc/fstab that contain non-standard ﬁle system types (cifs, smbfs, vboxsf, sshfs, etc.) are disabled.

• [Linux] Modifying grub bootloader settings such as the default entry and timeout.

• [Windows] Modifying registry settings to make the VM bootable.

• [Both] For parity with images provided by AWS, the AWS Systems Manager client is installed on the VM.

When writing a modified file, AWS retains the original file at the same location under a new name.

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Export your VM from its virtualization environment

Importing a VM as an image using VM Import/Export

You can use VM Import/Export to import virtual machine (VM) images from your virtualization environment to Amazon EC2 as Amazon Machine Images (AMI), which you can use to launch instances.

Subsequently, you can export the VM images from an instance back to your virtualization environment.

This enables you to leverage your investments in the VMs that you have built to meet your IT security, conﬁguration management, and compliance requirements by bringing them into Amazon EC2.

Contents

• Export your VM from its virtualization environment (p. 16)

• Import your VM as an image (p. 16)

• Monitor an import image task (p. 18)

• Cancel an import image task (p. 19)

• Next steps (p. 19)

Export your VM from its virtualization environment

After you have prepared your VM for export, you can export it from your virtualization environment.

When importing a VM as an image, you can import disks in the following formats: Open Virtualization Archive (OVA), Virtual Machine Disk (VMDK), Virtual Hard Disk (VHD/VHDX), and raw. With some virtualization environments, you would export to Open Virtualization Format (OVF), which typically includes one or more VMDK, VHD, or VHDX files, and then package the files into an OVA file.

For more information, see the documentation for your virtualization environment. For example:

• VMware — Search for "Export an OVF Template" on the VMware Docs site. Follow the instructions for creating an OVA.

• Citrix — About VM Import and Export on the Citrix website

• Microsoft Hyper-V — Overview of exporting and importing a virtual machine on the Microsoft website

• Microsoft Azure — Download a Windows VHD from Azure or Download a Linux VHD from Azure on the Microsoft website. From the Azure Portal, choose the VM to migrate, and then choose Disks. Select each disk (either OS or data) and choose Create Snapshot. On the completed snapshot resource, choose Export. This creates a URL that you can use to download the virtual image.

Import your VM as an image

After exporting your VM from your virtualization environment, you can import it to Amazon EC2. The import process is the same regardless of the origin of the VM.

Tasks

• Prerequisites (p. 17)

• Upload the image to Amazon S3 (p. 17)

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Prerequisites

• Import the VM (p. 17)

Prerequisites

• Create an Amazon S3 bucket for storing the exported images or choose an existing bucket. The bucket must be in the Region where you want to import your VMs. For more information about S3 buckets, see the Amazon Simple Storage Service User Guide.

• Create an IAM role named vmimport. For more information, see Required service role (p. 11).

• If you have not already installed the AWS CLI on the computer you'll use to run the import commands, see the AWS Command Line Interface User Guide.

Upload the image to Amazon S3

Upload your VM image ﬁle to your Amazon S3 bucket using the upload tool of your choice. For information about uploading objects through the Amazon S3 console, see Uploading Objects.

Import the VM

After you upload your VM image file to Amazon S3, you can use the AWS CLI to import the image. These tools accept either the Amazon S3 bucket and path to the file or a URL for a public Amazon S3 file.

Private Amazon S3 ﬁles require a presigned URL.

The following examples use the AWS CLI command import-image to create import tasks.

Example 1: Import an image with a single disk

Use the following command to import an image with a single disk.

aws ec2 import-image --description "My server VM" --disk-containers "file://C:\import

\containers.json"

The following is an example containers.json ﬁle that speciﬁes the image using an S3 bucket.

[ {

"Description": "My Server OVA", "Format": "ova",

"UserBucket": {

"S3Bucket": "my-import-bucket", "S3Key": "vms/my-server-vm.ova"

} } ]

The following is an example containers.json ﬁle that speciﬁes the image using a URL in Amazon S3.

[

{ "Description": "My Server OVA", "Format": "ova",

"Url": "s3://my-import-bucket/vms/my-server-vm.ova"

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Monitor an import image task

} ]

Example 2: Import an image with multiple disks

Use the following command to import an image with multiple disks.

$ C:\> aws ec2 import-image --description "My server disks" --disk-containers "file://C:

\import\containers.json"

The following is an example containers.json ﬁle.

[

{ "Description": "First disk", "Format": "vmdk",

"UserBucket": {

"S3Bucket": "my-import-bucket",

"S3Key": "disks/my-server-vm-disk1.vmdk"

}

},

{ "Description": "Second disk", "Format": "vmdk",

"UserBucket": {

"S3Bucket": "my-import-bucket",

"S3Key": "disks/my-server-vm-disk2.vmdk"

} }]

Example 3: Import with the encrypted option enabled

Use the following command to import an image with an encrypted root volume.

aws ec2 import-image --description "My server disks" --encrypted --kms-key- id 0ea3fef3-80a7-4778-9d8c-1c0c6EXAMPLE --disk-containers "file://C:\import

The CMK provided for encryption must not be disabled during the entire import process. For more information, see Amazon EBS Encryption in the Amazon EC2 User Guide.

Monitor an import image task

Use the describe-import-image-tasks command to return the status of an import task.

aws ec2 describe-import-image-tasks --import-task-ids import-ami-1234567890abcdef0

Status values include the following:

• active — The import task is in progress.

• deleting — The import task is being canceled.

• deleted — The import task is canceled.

• updating — Import status is updating.

• validating — The imported image is being validated.

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Cancel an import image task

• validated — The imported image was validated.

• converting — The imported image is being converted into an AMI.

• completed — The import task is completed and the AMI is ready to use.

After the import image task is completed, the output includes the ID of the AMI. The following is example output that includes ImageId.

{

"ImportImageTasks": [ {

"ImportTaskId": "import-ami-01234567890abcdef", "ImageId": "ami-1234567890EXAMPLE",

"SnapshotDetails": [ {

"DiskImageSize": 705638400.0, "Format": "ova",

"SnapshotId": "snap-111222333444aaabb"

"Status": "completed", "UserBucket": {

"S3Bucket": "my-import-bucket", "S3Key": "vms/my-server-vm.ova"

} } ],

"Status": "completed"

} ] }

Cancel an import image task

If you need to cancel an active import task, use the cancel-import-task command.

aws ec2 cancel-import-task --import-task-id import-ami-1234567890abcdef0

Next steps

After the import image task is complete, you can launch an instance using the resulting AMI or copy the AMI to another Region.

Windows

• Launching an Instance

• Copying an AMI

Linux

• Launching an Instance

• Copying an AMI

For some operating systems, the device drivers for enhanced networking and NVMe block devices that are required by Nitro-based instances are not installed automatically during import. To install these

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Next steps

drivers manually, use the directions in the following documentation. Next, create a new AMI from the customized instance.

Windows

• (Recommended) Installing the Latest Version of EC2Conﬁg or Installing the Latest Version of EC2Launch

• Enabling Enhanced Networking on Windows Instances

• AWS NVMe Drivers for Windows Instances

Linux

• Enabling Enhanced Networking on Linux Instances

• Install or Upgrade the NVMe Driver

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Importing a VM as an instance using VM Import/Export

Important

We strongly recommend that you import VMs as Amazon Machine Images (AMI) instead of instances. For more information, see Importing a VM as an image using VM Import/

Export (p. 16).

You can use VM Import/Export to import virtual machine (VM) images from your virtualization environment to Amazon EC2 as instances. Subsequently, you can export the VM images from the instance back to your virtualization environment. This enables you to leverage your investments in the VMs that you have built to meet your IT security, conﬁguration management, and compliance requirements by bringing them into Amazon EC2.

Limitations

• The AWS Command Line Interface (AWS CLI) does not support importing a VM as an instance, so you must use the deprecated Amazon EC2 Command Line Interface (Amazon EC2 CLI).

• You cannot import a Windows instance that uses the bring your own license (BYOL) model as an instance. Instead, you must import the VM as an AMI.

• VM Import/Export supports importing Windows instances into most instance types. Linux instances can be imported into the following instance types:

• The ImportInstance and ImportVolume API actions are supported only in the following Regions and will not be supported in any additional Regions.

• South America: sa-east-1

• Europe/Middle East/Africa: eu-west-1 | eu-central-1

To import your VM to Amazon EC2 as an instance using the legacy Amazon EC2 CLI

You must export the VM from your virtualization environment and then import it to Amazon EC2 using the Amazon EC2 CLI, which is deprecated. Because the Amazon EC2 CLI is deprecated, the Amazon EC2 Command Line Reference, which describes its use, is not maintained. However, there is a legacy PDF version of this guide stored in Amazon S3. To view the directions for importing a VM as an instance in the legacy PDF version of the Amazon EC2 Command Line Reference, see Importing a VM to Amazon EC2.

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Prerequisites

Importing a disk as a snapshot using VM Import/Export

VM Import/Export enables you to import your disks as Amazon EBS snapshots. After the snapshot is created, you can create an EBS volume from the snapshot, and then attach the volume to an EC2 instance.

An imported snapshot has an arbitrary volume ID that should not be used for any purpose.

Prerequisites

• The following disk formats are supported: Virtual Hard Disk (VHD/VHDX), ESX Virtual Machine Disk (VMDK), and raw.

• You must ﬁrst upload your disks to Amazon S3.

• If you have not already installed the AWS CLI on the computer you'll use to run the import commands, see the AWS Command Line Interface User Guide.

Tip

In supported AWS Regions, you can also use AWS CloudShell for a browser-based, pre- authenticated shell that launches directly from the AWS Management Console.

Start an import snapshot task

Use the following import-snapshot command to import a disk. You can specify the URL of the S3 bucket, or provide the S3 bucket name and key.

aws ec2 import-snapshot --description "My server VM" --disk-container "file://C:\import

The ﬁle containers.json is a JSON document that contains the required information.

{

"Description": "My server VMDK", "Format": "VMDK",

"UserBucket": {

"S3Bucket": "my-import-bucket", "S3Key": "vms/my-server-vm.vmdk"

} }

The following is an example response:

{ "Description": "My server VM",

"ImportTaskId": "import-snap-1234567890abcdef0", "SnapshotTaskDetail": {

"Description": "My server VMDK",

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Monitor an import snapshot task

"DiskImageSize": "0.0", "Format": "VMDK", "Progress": "3", "Status": "active",

"StatusMessage": "pending", "UserBucket": {

} } }

Monitor an import snapshot task

Use the describe-import-snapshot-tasks command to check the status of an import snapshot task.

aws ec2 describe-import-snapshot-tasks --import-task-ids import-snap-1234567890abcdef0 The following is an example response. The status shown is active, which means that the import is in progress. The snapshot is ready to use when the status is completed.

{

"ImportSnapshotTasks": [ {

"Description": "My server VM",

"ImportTaskId": "import-snap-1234567890abcdef0", "SnapshotTaskDetail": {

"Description": "My server VMDK", "DiskImageSize": "3.115815424E9", "Format": "VMDK",

"Progress": "22", "Status": "active",

"StatusMessage": "downloading/converting", "UserBucket": {

}, } } ] }

Cancel an import snapshot task

If you need to, you can cancel an import task that is in progress using the cancel-import-task command.

aws ec2 cancel-import-task --import-task-id import-snap-1234567890abcdef0

Next steps

You can create one or more EBS volumes from an EBS snapshot. You can attach each EBS volume to a single EC2 instance.

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Next steps

The following procedure shows how to create a volume and attach it to an instance using the AWS CLI.

Alternatively, you could use the AWS Management Console.

To create a volume and attach it to an EC2 instance

1. Use the describe-import-snapshot-tasks command to determine the ID of the snapshot that was created by the import task.

2. Use the following create-volume command to create a volume from the snapshot. You must select the Availability Zone of the instance to which you'll attach the volume.

aws ec2 create-volume --availability-zone us-east-1a --snapshot-id snap-1234567890abcdef0

The following is example output:

{ "AvailabilityZone": "us-east-1a", "VolumeId": "vol-1234567890abcdef0", "State": "creating",

"SnapshotId": "snap-1234567890abcdef0"

}

3. Use the following attach-volume command to attach the EBS volume that you created in the previous step to one of your existing instances.

aws ec2 attach-volume --volume-id vol-1234567890abcdef0 --instance-id i-1234567890abcdef0 --device /dev/sdf

The following is example output:

{ "AttachTime": "YYYY-MM-DDTHH:MM:SS.000Z", "InstanceId": "i-1234567890abcdef0", "VolumeId": "vol-1234567890abcdef0", "State": "attaching",

"Device": "/dev/sdf"

}

4. Mount the attached volume. For more information, see the documentation for the operating system for your instance.

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Prerequisites

Exporting an instance as a VM using VM Import/Export

Exporting as a VM is useful when you want to deploy a copy of an Amazon EC2 instance in your on- site virtualization environment. You can export most EC2 instances to Citrix Xen, Microsoft Hyper-V, or VMware vSphere.

When you export an instance, you are charged the standard Amazon S3 rates for the bucket where the exported VM is stored. In addition, there might be a small charge for the temporary use of an Amazon EBS snapshot. For more information about Amazon S3 pricing, see Amazon Simple Storage Service Pricing.

Contents

• Considerations for instance export (p. 26)

• Start an instance export task (p. 27)

• Monitor an instance export task (p. 27)

• Cancel an instance export task (p. 27)

Prerequisites

To export a VM from Amazon EC2, ﬁrst meet the following prerequisites.

• Install the AWS CLI. For more information, see the AWS Command Line Interface User Guide.

Tip

In supported AWS Regions, you can also use AWS CloudShell for a browser-based, pre- authenticated shell that launches directly from the AWS Management Console.

• Create an Amazon S3 bucket for storing the exported instances or choose an existing bucket. The bucket must be in the Region where you want export your VMs. For more information, see the Amazon Simple Storage Service User Guide.

• Attach an access control list (ACL) to your S3 bucket containing the following grants. For more information, see Managing Access with ACLs in the Amazon Simple Storage Service User Guide.

NoteYou can't export a VM to an S3 bucket that uses the bucket owner enforced setting for S3 Object Ownership because ACLs are disabled. For more information, see Controlling Object Ownership and disabling ACLs in the Amazon S3 User Guide.

• For Grantee, provide the appropriate Region-speciﬁc canonical account ID:

Africa (Cape Town)

3f7744aeebaf91dd60ab135eb1cf908700c8d2bc9133e61261e6c582be6e33ee Asia Paciﬁc (Hong Kong)

97ee7ab57cc9b5034f31e107741a968e595c0d7a19ec23330eae8d045a46edfb

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Considerations for instance export

Asia Paciﬁc (Jakarta)

de34aaa6b2875fa3d5086459cb4e03147cf1a9f7d03d82f02bedb991ﬀ3d1df5 Asia Paciﬁc (Osaka)

40f22ﬀd22d6db3b71544ed6cd00c8952d8b0a63a87d58d5b074ec60397db8c9 Europe (Milan)

04636d9a349e458b0c1cbf1421858b9788b4ec28b066148d4907bb15c52b5b9c Middle East (Bahrain)

aa763f2cf70006650562c62a09433f04353db3cba6ba6aeb3550fdc8065d3d9f China (Beijing) and China (Ningxia)

834bafd86b15b6ca71074df0fd1f93d234b9d5e848a2cb31f880c149003ce36f AWS GovCloud (US)

af913ca13efe7a94b88392711f6cfc8aa07c9d1454d4f190a624b126733a5602 All other Regions

c4d8eabf8db69dbe46bfe0e517100c554f01200b104d59cd408e777ba442a322

• READ_ACP permission

• WRITE permission

Considerations for instance export

Exporting instances and volumes is subject to the following limitations:

• You must export your instances and volumes to one of the following image formats that your virtualization environment supports:

• Open Virtual Appliance (OVA), which is compatible with VMware vSphere versions 4, 5, and 6.

• Virtual Hard Disk (VHD), which is compatible with Citrix Xen and Microsoft Hyper-V virtualization products.

• Stream-optimized ESX Virtual Machine Disk (VMDK), which is compatible with VMware ESX and VMware vSphere versions 4, 5, and 6.

• You can't export an instance if it contains third-party software provided by AWS. For example, VM Export cannot export Windows or SQL Server instances, or any instance created from an image in the AWS Marketplace.

• You can't export an instance with encrypted EBS snapshots in the block device mapping.

• You can't export an instance with instance store volumes in the block device mapping.

• You can only export EBS volumes that are speciﬁed in the block device mapping, not EBS volumes attached after instance launch.

• You can't export an instance launched from an imported image if you deleted the AMI or the EBS snapshot for the AMI. To work around the issue, create an AMI from the instance and export the AMI.

• You can't export an instance that has more than one virtual disk.

• You can't export an instance that has more than one network interface.

• You can't export an instance from Amazon EC2 if you've shared it from another AWS account.

• By default, you can't have more than 5 conversion tasks per Region in progress at the same time. This limit is adjustable up to 20.

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Start an instance export task

• You can export a volume to either an unencrypted S3 bucket or to a bucket encrypted using SSE-S3.

You cannot export to an S3 bucket encrypted using SSE-KMS.

Start an instance export task

To export your instance, use the create-instance-export-task command. The exported file is written to the specified S3 bucket in the following S3 key: prefixexport-i-xxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxx.format (for example, my-export-bucket/vms/export-i-1234567890abcdef0.ova).

aws ec2 create-instance-export-task --instance-id instance-id --target-environment vmware --export-to-s3-task file://C:\file.json

The ﬁle file.json is a JSON document that contains the required information.

{

"ContainerFormat": "ova", "DiskImageFormat": "VMDK", "S3Bucket": "my-export-bucket", "S3Prefix": "vms/"

}

Monitor an instance export task

To monitor the export of your instance, use the following describe-export-tasks command:

aws ec2 describe-export-tasks --export-task-ids export-i-1234567890abcdef0

Cancel an instance export task

If you need to, you can use the following cancel-export-task command to cancel the export of an instance that is in progress.

aws ec2 cancel-export-task --export-task-id export-i-1234567890abcdef0

This command removes all artifacts of the export, including any partially created Amazon S3 objects. If the export task is complete or is in the process of transferring the ﬁnal disk image, the command fails and returns an error.

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Prerequisites

Exporting a VM directly from an Amazon Machine Image (AMI)

Exporting a VM ﬁle based on an Amazon Machine Image (AMI) is useful when you want to deploy a new, standardized instance in your on-site virtualization environment. You can export most AMIs to Citrix Xen, Microsoft Hyper-V, or VMware vSphere.

When you export an image, you are charged the standard Amazon S3 rates for the bucket where the exported VM is stored. In addition, there might be a small charge for the temporary use of an Amazon EBS snapshot. For more information about Amazon S3 pricing, see Amazon Simple Storage Service Pricing.

Contents

• Considerations for image export (p. 28)

• Start an export image task (p. 29)

• Monitor an export image task (p. 29)

• Cancel an export image task (p. 29)

Prerequisites

To export a VM from Amazon EC2, ﬁrst meet the following prerequisites.

• Install the AWS CLI. For more information, see the AWS Command Line Interface User Guide.

• Create an Amazon S3 bucket for storing the exported images or choose an existing bucket. The bucket must be in the Region where you want to export your VMs. For more information about S3 buckets, see the Amazon Simple Storage Service User Guide.

• Create an IAM role named vmimport. For more information, see Required service role (p. 11).

Considerations for image export

Exporting images and volumes is subject to the following limitations:

• You must export to one of the following image formats that your virtualization environment supports:

• Virtual Hard Disk (VHD), which is compatible with Citrix Xen and Microsoft Hyper-V virtualization products.

• Stream-optimized ESX Virtual Machine Disk (VMDK), which is compatible with VMware ESX and VMware vSphere versions 4, 5, and 6.

• Raw format.

• You can't export an image if it contains third-party software provided by AWS. For example, VM Export cannot export Windows or SQL Server images, or any image created from an image in the AWS Marketplace.

• You can't export an image with encrypted EBS snapshots in the block device mapping.

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Start an export image task

• You can only export EBS data volumes that are speciﬁed in the block device mapping, not EBS volumes attached after instance launch.

• You can't export an image from Amazon EC2 if you've shared it from another AWS account.

• You can't have multiple export image tasks in progress for the same AMI at the same time.

• By default, you can't have more than 5 conversion tasks per Region in progress at the same time. This limit is adjustable up to 20.

• VMs with volumes larger than 1 TiB are not supported.

• You can export a volume to either an unencrypted Amazon S3 bucket or to a bucket encrypted using SSE-S3 encryption. You cannot export to an S3 bucket encrypted using SSE-KMS encryption.

Start an export image task

To export your image, use the export-image command. The exported file is written to the specified S3 bucket using the following S3 key: prefixexport-ami-id.format (for example, my-export-bucket/exports/

export-ami-1234567890abcdef0.ova).

aws ec2 export-image --image-id ami-id --disk-image-format VMDK --s3-export-location S3Bucket=my-export-bucket,S3Prefix=exports/

Monitor an export image task

To monitor the export of your image, use the following describe-export-image-tasks command:

aws ec2 describe-export-image-tasks --export-image-task-ids export-ami-1234567890abcdef0 The following is an example response. The status shown is active, which means that the export task is in progress. The image is ready to use when the status is completed.

{

"ExportImageTasks": [ {

"ExportImageTaskId": "export-ami-1234567890abcdef0"

"Progress": "21", "S3ExportLocation": {

"S3Bucket": "my-export-bucket", "S3Prefix": "exports/"

},

"Status": "active",

"StatusMessage": "updating"

} ]}

Cancel an export image task

If you need to, you can use the following cancel-export-task command to cancel the export of an image that is in progress.

aws ec2 cancel-export-task --export-task-id export-ami-1234567890abcdef0

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Cancel an export image task

If the export task is complete or is in the process of transferring the ﬁnal disk image, the command fails and returns an error.

VM Import/Export

VM Import/Export

User Guide

VM Import/Export: User Guide

Table of Contents

What is VM Import/Export?

Features of VM Import/Export

How to get started with VM Import/Export

Accessing VM Import/Export

Pricing

Related services

How VM Import/Export works

Beneﬁts

Diﬀerences between image import and instance import

Image import

Instance import

VM Import/Export Requirements

System requirements

Image formats

Operating systems

Volume types and ﬁle systems

Licensing options

Licensing for Linux

Licensing for Windows

Limitations

Required permissions for IAM users

Required service role

Required conﬁguration for VM export

Programmatic modiﬁcations to VMs

Importing a VM as an image using VM Import/Export

Export your VM from its virtualization environment

Import your VM as an image

Prerequisites

Upload the image to Amazon S3

Import the VM

Monitor an import image task

Cancel an import image task

Next steps

Importing a VM as an instance using VM Import/Export

Importing a disk as a snapshot using VM Import/Export

Prerequisites

Start an import snapshot task

Monitor an import snapshot task

Cancel an import snapshot task

Next steps

Exporting an instance as a VM using VM Import/Export

Prerequisites

Considerations for instance export

Start an instance export task

Monitor an instance export task

Cancel an instance export task

Exporting a VM directly from an Amazon Machine Image (AMI)

Prerequisites

Considerations for image export

Start an export image task

Monitor an export image task

Cancel an export image task