

Introducing The Amazon Linux AMI - amock
http://aws.typepad.com/aws/2010/09/introducing-amazon-linux-ami.html

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blasdel
From the User Guide:
[http://ec2-downloads.s3.amazonaws.com/AmazonLinuxAMIUserGuid...](http://ec2-downloads.s3.amazonaws.com/AmazonLinuxAMIUserGuide.pdf)

    
    
      Can I run Amazon Linux on my own servers outside of EC2?
      No. The Amazon Linux AMI is only available for use inside of Amazon EC2.
    

Uh, what? I really can't download it and run it on Eucalyptus? Is source not
available either?

Is this actually legit under the GPL given that in use the software is never
conveyed beyond Amazon's property?

~~~
amock
[http://aws.amazon.com/ec2/faqs/#Can_I_view_the_source_code_t...](http://aws.amazon.com/ec2/faqs/#Can_I_view_the_source_code_to_the_Amazon_Linux_AMI)
says that the source is easily available.

~~~
jeffbarr
You can materialize the source on an EC2 instance by simply typing one
command, which is fully documented in the User Guide.

~~~
blasdel
I must have scrolled right past it when reading the PDF.

It turns out that no, you can't just materialize all the source by simply
typing one command. _get_reference_source_ is a rather absurd python script:
<https://gist.github.com/86abe580675500a35900>

It requires your nonsecret AWS account ID as a parameter, but the server it's
making requests to is only available inside the EC2 network. They already know
who you are, they rented you the damn box! There's no check that the account
ID is the one that created the box either. As an added bonus, the input
sanitization code allows dashes, as Amazon always displays it, but it passes
it along verbatim to a web service that does not.

It takes one package at a time, which must already be installed for it to
match the name, and the script is interactive — it always attempts to prompt
you for _'Are these parameters correct? Please type 'yes' to continue'_ even
if it's not connected to a TTY.

The web service responds with a unique signed S3 URL that are set to expire 30
minutes in the future, plus or minus a minute or so. It then downloads it to a
fixed location: _/usr/src/srpm/debug/_

Most of this could be alleviated by just hacking up the shitty python script,
but still, this is ridiculous. Why did they do it at all?

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teilo
It looks like this is, roughly, a very scaled down version of Centos 5 with
EC2 tweaks, and all the EC2 tools pre-installed. Great if you want something
super lean and ready to customize.

They claim that most Centos packages should work out-of-the-box.

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MBlume
just going to ask, since it doesn't seem to be mentioned anywhere -- AMI ==
Amazon Machine Image?

~~~
cmelbye
Yeah. Basically, the image that's used to create a new EC2 instance from.

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spicyj
Can someone explain what this means? I've used EC2 some but I can't figure out
what this allows that wasn't possible before.

~~~
codyrobbins
It’s basically a custom Linux distro maintained by Amazon that’s based on
CentOS 5. One of the biggest problems with EC2 until recently is that the
official AMIs provided by Amazon are ridiculously out of date. For example,
the standard Fedora AMI is Fedora 8—the latest version of Fedora is Fedora 13.

~~~
binomial
However, the fact that it's based on Centos 5 doesn't seem great too me.
Granted, I've only started using Centos recently, but it seems like most
packages are not kept up to date in the default repositories, and you end up
having to add a few independently maintained ones to get some more recent
software.

But yeah, can always just install from source I suppose. Perhaps I'm "Doing It
Wrong" on Centos.

~~~
patrickgzill
Centos 5.x exactly tracks bug-for-bug what RHEL 5.x is. That is why some of it
appears old.

If you don't need or want a free version of Linux that is exactly compatible
with RHEL, then simply add some repositories, such as EPEL or the DAG
repository (<http://dag.wieers.com/rpm/> ) .

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Estragon
By the way, is there any automation out there for automatically limiting the
cost of a given set of aws instances/traffic?

(Slightly OT, sorry, but my AskHN question seems to be sinking without a trace
<http://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=1694181>)

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danbmil99
meh, been using Ubuntu on Ec2 for almost 3 years. The official AMI's are known
suck.

~~~
amock
The point of this is to make one image that is up to date and works well so
that there's a good official choice. Even if you're fine with rolling your
own, not having to do so really lowers the barrier to entry.

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bluesnowmonkey
Is there any reason one would use this instead of an AMI from Alestic?

