How to transfer an image to an Amazon EBS volume for EC2 usage?

Question

I have a local filesystem image that I want to transfer to an Amazon EBS volume and boot as an EC2 micro instance. The instance should have the EBS volume as it's root filesystem - and I will be booting the instance with the Amazon PV-GRUB "kernels".

I have used ec2-bundle-image to create a bundle from the image, and I have used ec2-upload-bundle to upload the bundle to Amazon S3. However, now when I'd like to use ec2-register to register the image for usage, I can't seem to find a way to make the uploaded bundle be the ebs root image. It would seem that it requires an EBS snapshot to make the root device, and I have no idea how I would convert the bundle in to an EBS snapshot.

I do realize, that I could probably do this by starting a "common" instance, attaching an EBS volume to it and then just using 'scp' or something to transfer the image directly to the EBS volume - but is this really the only way? Also, I have no desire to use EBS snapshots as such, I'd rather have none - can I create a micro instance with just the EBS volume as root, without an EBS snapshot?

Colbert

Answer 1

Did not find any way to do this :(

So, I created a new instance, attached a newly created EBS volume to, attached it to the instance, and transferred the data via ssh.

Then, to be able to boot the volume, I still need to create a snapshot of it and then create an AMI that uses the snapshot - and as a result, I get another EBS volume that is created from the snapshot and is the running instance's root volume.

Now, if I want to minimize expences, I can remove the created snapshot, and the original EBS volume.

NOTE: If the only copy of the EBS volume is the root volume of an instance, it may be deleted when the instance is terminated. This setting can be changed with the command-line tools - or the instance may simple by "stopped" instead of "terminated", and then a snapshot can be generated from the EBS volume. After taking a snapshot, the instance can ofcourse be terminated.

Colbert

Answer 2

Yes, there is no way to upload an EBS Image via S3, and using a Instance where you attach an additional volume is the best way. If you attach that Volume after the instance is started, it will also not be deleted.

Note, do not worry too much about Volume->snapshot->Volume, as those share the same data blocks (as long as you dont modify them). The storage cost ist not trippled, only 1,1times one Volume. EBS snapshots and image creation is quite handy in that regard. Dont hesitate to use multiple snapshots. The less you "work" in a snapshot the smaller is its block usage later on if you start it as an AMI.

Cuboid