New updates have been released for the Ubuntu and Debian AMIs (EC2 images) published on:
The following notes apply to this release:
The EC2 AMI tools have been upgraded to version 1.3-34544. Note that an “apt-get upgrade” will downgrade the EC2 AMI tools because the versions of the ec2-ami-tools package currently in the Ubuntu Hardy, Intrepid, Jaunty archives are outdated. If you have an easy solution to this, please let us know.
The ssh host key regeneration has been moved to run after the RNG is seeded. This improves security, especially for folks who are verifying the ssh host key on the first connect by comparing the fingerprint to the value in the instance console output. Thanks to Andrew Becherer for suggesting this improvement.
The Ubuntu Karmic Alpha images were not updated. Due to a new kernel requirement, Karmic will no longer run on Amazon’s 2.6.21 kernel. Once Canonical releases an Ubuntu kernel with the appropriate features, the Karmic series may be resumed. Running “apt-get upgrade” on an existing Karmic AMI will cause it to be inaccessible after rebooting.
The Debian Etch desktop images were not updated because apparently LaTeX refuses to build a format from a source file which is more than five years old. If there is anybody who wants Etch desktops and is willing to investigate, please contact me, otherwise I plan to discontinue support for this series. If you’re using Debian, I’d encourage you to upgrade to Lenny “stable” anyway.
Please give these new images a spin and let us know if you run into any problems.
Enjoy
>Note that an “apt-get upgrade” will downgrade the EC2 AMI
>tools because the versions of the ec2-ami-tools package
>currently in the Ubuntu Hardy, Intrepid, Jaunty archives are
>outdated. If you have an easy solution to this, please let us
>know.
Create a PPA on Launchpad.net and publish the latest ec2-ami-tools package there. Then, just add it by default to /etc/apt/sources.list.
can't you simply put the ec2-ami-tools package on hold?
as described here:
http://blogs.koolwal.net/2009/03/04/tip-how-to-keep-a-debian-package-on-hold/
onestone: I've been putting off learning about publishing packages because I have a company to build in my real job, but there are a growing number of reasons I would like to do this, so we'll see.
jrhadmin: Thanks! So it boils down to:
echo ec2-ami-tools hold | sudo dpkg --set-selections
and then it won't be downgraded on upgrades. Unfortunately, it also won't be upgraded if the archives ever catch up, but this statement releases the hold:
echo ec2-ami-tools install | sudo dpkg --set-selections
If the archives continue to stay out of date, I'll use this setting by default in the next release of the AMIs.
Is there a document that contains all of the release notes describing the differences between the "tweaked" Amazon AMIs and a basic Ubuntu install? I'm specifically interested in 9.04.
agussman: Most of the differences are described in the "Features" section of the AMI documentation:
http://ec2jaunty.notlong.com
You can also read the code which builds the images:
http://ec2ubuntu-build-ami.notlong.com
Hi, with the Jaunty desktop image, running user-setup crashes if encrypted home directories is selected. Tried installing ecryptfs-utils package first, but it didn't make a difference.
Thanks