Debian Wheezy (7.x) on AWS EC2

• 7.8.aws.1 (28 January 2015)

You may wish to use a CloudFormation template and add a UserData script. For some releases are duplicated into Amazon Marketplace but the same images are shared directly as "Community Shared AMIs" (account number 379101102735, but with different AMI IDs to the Marketplace). All AMIs shared from the Debian AWS Account and their corresponding EBS snapshots are marked as public so can be inspected by any AWS user.

Please note that an Amazon Marketplace image volume cannot be attached to another running instance (For example, to repair a broken /etc/fstab, or /etc/network/interfaces). This is a limitation of all Marketplace images, as described here: Official AWS documentation

Upgrading from previous 6.x.y releases

As is standard with Debian, a simple apt-get update && apt-get dist-upgrade should bring all packages up to date. There is no need to reinstall, but any CloudFormation templates and AutoScale Launch Configurations should be tested with and then updated to use the current AMI. It is recommended not to use older point releases.

CloudFormation Template

CloudFormation is a templating system for defining AWS resources - see http://aws.amazon.com/cloudformation/

{
    "AWSTemplateFormatVersion": "2010-09-09",
    "Description": "Debian AMI list, generated 2015-02-05 13:35:31.317011 by James Bromberger, jeb@debian.org",
    "Mappings": {
        "AMImap": {
            "ap-northeast-1": {
                "Wheezy78basei386paravirtualebs": "ami-58b7a659",
                "Wheezy78basex8664hvmebs": "ami-48b9a849",
                "Wheezy78basex8664paravirtualebs": "ami-00b6a701",
                "Wheezy78basex8664paravirtualinstancestore": "ami-52a3b253"
            },
            "ap-southeast-1": {
                "Wheezy78basei386paravirtualebs": "ami-c56d4597",
                "Wheezy78basex8664hvmebs": "ami-bd6d45ef",
                "Wheezy78basex8664paravirtualebs": "ami-8d6d45df",
                "Wheezy78basex8664paravirtualinstancestore": "ami-956149c7"
            },
            "ap-southeast-2": {
                "Wheezy78basei386paravirtualebs": "ami-6de68c57",
                "Wheezy78basex8664hvmebs": "ami-d3e68ce9",
                "Wheezy78basex8664paravirtualebs": "ami-efe68cd5",
                "Wheezy78basex8664paravirtualinstancestore": "ami-15e58f2f"
            },
            "eu-west-1": {
                "Wheezy78basei386paravirtualebs": "ami-5d46c02a",
                "Wheezy78basex8664hvmebs": "ami-a345c3d4",
                "Wheezy78basex8664paravirtualebs": "ami-cb47c1bc",
                "Wheezy78basex8664paravirtualinstancestore": "ami-8153d5f6"
            },
            "sa-east-1": {
                "Wheezy78basei386paravirtualebs": "ami-dd0cbec0",
                "Wheezy78basex8664hvmebs": "ami-b90dbfa4",
                "Wheezy78basex8664paravirtualebs": "ami-750dbf68",
                "Wheezy78basex8664paravirtualinstancestore": "ami-4ffb4652"
            },
            "us-east-1": {
                "Wheezy78basei386paravirtualebs": "ami-e895e580",
                "Wheezy78basex8664hvmebs": "ami-f295e59a",
                "Wheezy78basex8664paravirtualebs": "ami-3695e55e",
                "Wheezy78basex8664paravirtualinstancestore": "ami-363a495e"
            },
            "us-west-1": {
                "Wheezy78basei386paravirtualebs": "ami-f9fbe4bc",
                "Wheezy78basex8664hvmebs": "ami-c7fae582",
                "Wheezy78basex8664paravirtualebs": "ami-7ffae53a",
                "Wheezy78basex8664paravirtualinstancestore": "ami-d7f5ea92"
            },
            "us-west-2": {
                "Wheezy78basei386paravirtualebs": "ami-9f623eaf",
                "Wheezy78basex8664hvmebs": "ami-3d9cc00d",
                "Wheezy78basex8664paravirtualebs": "ami-01633f31",
                "Wheezy78basex8664paravirtualinstancestore": "ami-2995c919"
            }
        }
    },
    "Parameters": {
        "InstanceType": {
            "AllowedPattern": "[a-z]+[0-9].[a-z0-9]+",
            "Default": "m3.medium",
            "Description": "Type of EC2 Instance",
            "Type": "String"
        },
        "KeyName": {
            "Description": "SSH Key Name",
            "Type": "String"
        },
        "Release": {
            "AllowedValues": [
                "Wheezy78basex8664hvmebs",
                "Wheezy78basex8664paravirtualinstancestore",
                "Wheezy78basex8664paravirtualebs",
                "Wheezy78basei386paravirtualebs"
            ],
            "Default": "Wheezy75basex8664paravirtualebs",
            "Description": "Release, arch and root filesystem type",
            "Type": "String"
        }
    },
    "Resources": {
        "MyInstance": {
            "Properties": {
                "ImageId": {
                    "Fn::FindInMap": [
                        "AMImap",
                        {
                            "Ref": "AWS::Region"
                        },
                        {
                            "Ref": "Release"
                        }
                    ]
                },
                "InstanceType": {
                    "Ref": "InstanceType"
                },
                "KeyName": {
                    "Ref": "KeyName"
                },
                "SecurityGroups": [
                    {
                        "Ref": "MySecurityGroup"
                    }
                ]
            },
            "Type": "AWS::EC2::Instance"
        },
        "MySecurityGroup": {
            "Properties": {
                "GroupDescription": "Permit inbound SSH",
                "SecurityGroupIngress": [
                    {
                        "CidrIp": "0.0.0.0/0",
                        "FromPort": "22",
                        "IpProtocol": "tcp",
                        "ToPort": "22"
                    }
                ]
            },
            "Type": "AWS::EC2::SecurityGroup"
        }
    }
}

Suggested UserData scripts

Debian !AMIs use cloud-init. This gives you a choice when crafting your UserData to configure your instance. Simple shell scripts continue to be supported by starting with #!/bin/sh, such as:

   1 #!/bin/sh
   2 apt-get update && apt-get upgrade -y && apt-get install -y unattended-upgrades python-pip

However other formats for UserData are also supported, such as:

cloud-config:
packages:
 - pwgen
package_upgrade: true
ssh_keys:
  rsa_public: ssh-rsa AAAAB3NzaC1yc2EAAAABIwAAAGEAoPRhIfLvedSDKw7XdewmZ3h8eIXJD7TRHtVExampleOne
  rsa_public: ssh-rsa AAAAB3NzaC1yc2EAAAABIwAAAGEAoPRhIfLvedSDKw7XdewmZ3h8eIXJD7TRHtVExampleTwo

The unattended-upgrades package is described on UnattendedUpgrades.

See also Cloud and Teams/Cloud.