Amazon EC2 AMI tools reference - Amazon Elastic Compute Cloud

Amazon EC2 AMI tools reference

You can use the AMI tools commands to create and manage instance store-backed Linux AMIs. To set up the tools, see Set up the Amazon EC2 AMI tools.

For information about your access keys, see Managing access keys for IAM users in the IAM User Guide.

ec2-ami-tools-version

Description

Describes the version of the AMI tools.

Syntax

ec2-ami-tools-version

Output

The version information.

Example

This example command displays the version information for the AMI tools that you're using.

[ec2-user ~]$ ec2-ami-tools-version 1.5.2 20071010

ec2-bundle-image

Description

Creates an instance store-backed Linux AMI from an operating system image created in a loopback file.

Syntax

ec2-bundle-image -c path -k path -u account -i path [-d path] [--ec2cert path] [-r architecture] [--productcodes code1,code2,...] [-B mapping] [-p prefix]

Options

-c, --cert path

The user's PEM encoded RSA public key certificate file.

Required: Yes

-k, --privatekey path

The path to a PEM-encoded RSA key file. You'll need to specify this key to unbundle this bundle, so keep it in a safe place. Note that the key doesn't have to be registered to your AWS account.

Required: Yes

-u, --user account

The user's AWS account ID, without dashes.

Required: Yes

-i, --image path

The path to the image to bundle.

Required: Yes

-d, --destination path

The directory in which to create the bundle.

Default: /tmp

Required: No

--ec2cert path

The path to the Amazon EC2 X.509 public key certificate used to encrypt the image manifest.

The us-gov-west-1 and cn-north-1 Regions use a non-default public key certificate and the path to that certificate must be specified with this option. The path to the certificate varies based on the installation method of the AMI tools. For Amazon Linux, the certificates are located at /opt/aws/amitools/ec2/etc/ec2/amitools/. If you installed the AMI tools from the RPM or ZIP file in Set up the Amazon EC2 AMI tools, the certificates are located at $EC2_AMITOOL_HOME/etc/ec2/amitools/.

Required: Only for the us-gov-west-1 and cn-north-1 Regions.

-r, --arch architecture

Image architecture. If you don't provide the architecture on the command line, you'll be prompted for it when bundling starts.

Valid values: i386 | x86_64

Required: No

--productcodes code1,code2,...

Product codes to attach to the image at registration time, separated by commas.

Required: No

-B, --block-device-mapping mapping

Defines how block devices are exposed to an instance of this AMI if its instance type supports the specified device.

Specify a comma-separated list of key-value pairs, where each key is a virtual name and each value is the corresponding device name. Virtual names include the following:

  • ami—The root file system device, as seen by the instance

  • root—The root file system device, as seen by the kernel

  • swap—The swap device, as seen by the instance

  • ephemeralN—The Nth instance store volume

Required: No

-p, --prefix prefix

The filename prefix for bundled AMI files.

Default: The name of the image file. For example, if the image path is /var/spool/my-image/version-2/debian.img, then the default prefix is debian.img.

Required: No

--kernel kernel_id

Deprecated. Use register-image to set the kernel.

Required: No

--ramdisk ramdisk_id

Deprecated. Use register-image to set the RAM disk if required.

Required: No

Output

Status messages describing the stages and status of the bundling process.

Example

This example creates a bundled AMI from an operating system image that was created in a loopback file.

[ec2-user ~]$ ec2-bundle-image -k pk-HKZYKTAIG2ECMXYIBH3HXV4ZBEXAMPLE.pem -c cert-HKZYKTAIG2ECMXYIBH3HXV4ZBEXAMPLE.pem -u 111122223333 -i image.img -d bundled/ -r x86_64 Please specify a value for arch [i386]: Bundling image file... Splitting bundled/image.gz.crypt... Created image.part.00 Created image.part.01 Created image.part.02 Created image.part.03 Created image.part.04 Created image.part.05 Created image.part.06 Created image.part.07 Created image.part.08 Created image.part.09 Created image.part.10 Created image.part.11 Created image.part.12 Created image.part.13 Created image.part.14 Generating digests for each part... Digests generated. Creating bundle manifest... ec2-bundle-image complete.

ec2-bundle-vol

Description

Creates an instance store-backed Linux AMI by compressing, encrypting, and signing a copy of the root device volume for the instance.

Amazon EC2 attempts to inherit product codes, kernel settings, RAM disk settings, and block device mappings from the instance.

By default, the bundle process excludes files that might contain sensitive information. These files include *.sw, *.swo, *.swp, *.pem, *.priv, *id_rsa*, *id_dsa* *.gpg, *.jks, */.ssh/authorized_keys, and */.bash_history. To include all of these files, use the --no-filter option. To include some of these files, use the --include option.

For more information, see Create an instance store-backed AMI.

Syntax

ec2-bundle-vol -c path -k path -u account [-d path] [--ec2cert path] [-r architecture] [--productcodes code1,code2,...] [-B mapping] [--all] [-e directory1,directory2,...] [-i file1,file2,...] [--no-filter] [-p prefix] [-s size] [--[no-]inherit] [-v volume] [-P type] [-S script] [--fstab path] [--generate-fstab] [--grub-config path]

Options

-c, --cert path

The user's PEM encoded RSA public key certificate file.

Required: Yes

-k, --privatekey path

The path to the user's PEM-encoded RSA key file.

Required: Yes

-u, --user account

The user's AWS account ID, without dashes.

Required: Yes

-d, --destination destination

The directory in which to create the bundle.

Default: /tmp

Required: No

--ec2cert path

The path to the Amazon EC2 X.509 public key certificate used to encrypt the image manifest.

The us-gov-west-1 and cn-north-1 Regions use a non-default public key certificate and the path to that certificate must be specified with this option. The path to the certificate varies based on the installation method of the AMI tools. For Amazon Linux, the certificates are located at /opt/aws/amitools/ec2/etc/ec2/amitools/. If you installed the AMI tools from the RPM or ZIP file in Set up the Amazon EC2 AMI tools, the certificates are located at $EC2_AMITOOL_HOME/etc/ec2/amitools/.

Required: Only for the us-gov-west-1 and cn-north-1 Regions.

-r, --arch architecture

The image architecture. If you don't provide this on the command line, you'll be prompted to provide it when the bundling starts.

Valid values: i386 | x86_64

Required: No

--productcodes code1,code2,...

Product codes to attach to the image at registration time, separated by commas.

Required: No

-B, --block-device-mapping mapping

Defines how block devices are exposed to an instance of this AMI if its instance type supports the specified device.

Specify a comma-separated list of key-value pairs, where each key is a virtual name and each value is the corresponding device name. Virtual names include the following:

  • ami—The root file system device, as seen by the instance

  • root—The root file system device, as seen by the kernel

  • swap—The swap device, as seen by the instance

  • ephemeralN—The Nth instance store volume

Required: No

-a, --all

Bundle all directories, including those on remotely mounted file systems.

Required: No

-e, --exclude directory1,directory2,...

A list of absolute directory paths and files to exclude from the bundle operation. This parameter overrides the --all option. When exclude is specified, the directories and subdirectories listed with the parameter will not be bundled with the volume.

Required: No

-i, --include file1,file2,...

A list of files to include in the bundle operation. The specified files would otherwise be excluded from the AMI because they might contain sensitive information.

Required: No

--no-filter

If specified, we won't exclude files from the AMI because they might contain sensitive information.

Required: No

-p, --prefix prefix

The file name prefix for bundled AMI files.

Default: image

Required: No

-s, --size size

The size, in MB (1024 * 1024 bytes), of the image file to create. The maximum size is 10240 MB.

Default: 10240

Required: No

--[no-]inherit

Indicates whether the image should inherit the instance's metadata (the default is to inherit). Bundling fails if you enable --inherit but the instance metadata is not accessible.

Required: No

-v, --volume volume

The absolute path to the mounted volume from which to create the bundle.

Default: The root directory (/)

Required: No

-P, --partition type

Indicates whether the disk image should use a partition table. If you don't specify a partition table type, the default is the type used on the parent block device of the volume, if applicable, otherwise the default is gpt.

Valid values: mbr | gpt | none

Required: No

-S, --script script

A customization script to be run right before bundling. The script must expect a single argument, the mount point of the volume.

Required: No

--fstab path

The path to the fstab to bundle into the image. If this is not specified, Amazon EC2 bundles /etc/fstab.

Required: No

--generate-fstab

Bundles the volume using an Amazon EC2-provided fstab.

Required: No

--grub-config

The path to an alternate grub configuration file to bundle into the image. By default, ec2-bundle-vol expects either /boot/grub/menu.lst or /boot/grub/grub.conf to exist on the cloned image. This option allows you to specify a path to an alternative grub configuration file, which will then be copied over the defaults (if present).

Required: No

--kernel kernel_id

Deprecated. Use register-image to set the kernel.

Required: No

--ramdiskramdisk_id

Deprecated. Use register-image to set the RAM disk if required.

Required: No

Output

Status messages describing the stages and status of the bundling.

Example

This example creates a bundled AMI by compressing, encrypting and signing a snapshot of the local machine's root file system.

[ec2-user ~]$ ec2-bundle-vol -d /mnt -k pk-HKZYKTAIG2ECMXYIBH3HXV4ZBEXAMPLE.pem -c cert-HKZYKTAIG2ECMXYIBH3HXV4ZBEXAMPLE.pem -u 111122223333 -r x86_64 Copying / into the image file /mnt/image... Excluding: sys dev/shm proc dev/pts proc/sys/fs/binfmt_misc dev media mnt proc sys tmp/image mnt/img-mnt 1+0 records in 1+0 records out mke2fs 1.38 (30-Jun-2005) warning: 256 blocks unused. Splitting /mnt/image.gz.crypt... Created image.part.00 Created image.part.01 Created image.part.02 Created image.part.03 ... Created image.part.22 Created image.part.23 Generating digests for each part... Digests generated. Creating bundle manifest... Bundle Volume complete.

ec2-delete-bundle

Description

Deletes the specified bundle from Amazon S3 storage. After you delete a bundle, you can't launch instances from the corresponding AMI.

Syntax

ec2-delete-bundle -b bucket -a access_key_id -s secret_access_key [-t token] [--url url] [--region region] [--sigv version] [-m path] [-p prefix] [--clear] [--retry] [-y]

Options

-b, --bucket bucket

The name of the Amazon S3 bucket containing the bundled AMI, followed by an optional '/'-delimited path prefix

Required: Yes

-a, --access-key access_key_id

The AWS access key ID.

Required: Yes

-s, --secret-key secret_access_key

The AWS secret access key.

Required: Yes

-t, --delegation-token token

The delegation token to pass along to the AWS request. For more information, see the Using Temporary Security Credentials.

Required: Only when you are using temporary security credentials.

Default: The value of the AWS_DELEGATION_TOKEN environment variable (if set).

--regionregion

The Region to use in the request signature.

Default: us-east-1

Required: Required if using signature version 4

--sigvversion

The signature version to use when signing the request.

Valid values: 2 | 4

Default: 4

Required: No

-m, --manifestpath

The path to the manifest file.

Required: You must specify --prefix or --manifest.

-p, --prefix prefix

The bundled AMI filename prefix. Provide the entire prefix. For example, if the prefix is image.img, use -p image.img and not -p image.

Required: You must specify --prefix or --manifest.

--clear

Deletes the Amazon S3 bucket if it's empty after deleting the specified bundle.

Required: No

--retry

Automatically retries on all Amazon S3 errors, up to five times per operation.

Required: No

-y, --yes

Automatically assumes the answer to all prompts is yes.

Required: No

Output

Amazon EC2 displays status messages indicating the stages and status of the delete process.

Example

This example deletes a bundle from Amazon S3.

[ec2-user ~]$ ec2-delete-bundle -b amzn-s3-demo-bucket -a your_access_key_id -s your_secret_access_key Deleting files: amzn-s3-demo-bucket/image.manifest.xml amzn-s3-demo-bucket/image.part.00 amzn-s3-demo-bucket/image.part.01 amzn-s3-demo-bucket/image.part.02 amzn-s3-demo-bucket/image.part.03 amzn-s3-demo-bucket/image.part.04 amzn-s3-demo-bucket/image.part.05 amzn-s3-demo-bucket/image.part.06 Continue? [y/n] y Deleted amzn-s3-demo-bucket/image.manifest.xml Deleted amzn-s3-demo-bucket/image.part.00 Deleted amzn-s3-demo-bucket/image.part.01 Deleted amzn-s3-demo-bucket/image.part.02 Deleted amzn-s3-demo-bucket/image.part.03 Deleted amzn-s3-demo-bucket/image.part.04 Deleted amzn-s3-demo-bucket/image.part.05 Deleted amzn-s3-demo-bucket/image.part.06 ec2-delete-bundle complete.

ec2-download-bundle

Description

Downloads the specified instance store-backed Linux AMIs from Amazon S3 storage.

Syntax

ec2-download-bundle -b bucket -a access_key_id -s secret_access_key -k path [--url url] [--region region] [--sigv version] [-m file] [-p prefix] [-d directory] [--retry]

Options

-b, --bucket bucket

The name of the Amazon S3 bucket where the bundle is located, followed by an optional '/'-delimited path prefix.

Required: Yes

-a, --access-key access_key_id

The AWS access key ID.

Required: Yes

-s, --secret-key secret_access_key

The AWS secret access key.

Required: Yes

-k, --privatekey path

The private key used to decrypt the manifest.

Required: Yes

--url url

The Amazon S3 service URL.

Default: https://s3.amazonaws.com/

Required: No

--region region

The Region to use in the request signature.

Default: us-east-1

Required: Required if using signature version 4

--sigv version

The signature version to use when signing the request.

Valid values: 2 | 4

Default: 4

Required: No

-m, --manifest file

The name of the manifest file (without the path). We recommend that you specify either the manifest (-m) or a prefix (-p).

Required: No

-p, --prefix prefix

The filename prefix for the bundled AMI files.

Default: image

Required: No

-d, --directory directory

The directory where the downloaded bundle is saved. The directory must exist.

Default: The current working directory.

Required: No

--retry

Automatically retries on all Amazon S3 errors, up to five times per operation.

Required: No

Output

Status messages indicating the various stages of the download process are displayed.

Example

This example creates the bundled directory (using the Linux mkdir command) and downloads the bundle from the amzn-s3-demo-bucket Amazon S3 bucket.

[ec2-user ~]$ mkdir bundled [ec2-user ~]$ ec2-download-bundle -b amzn-s3-demo-bucket/bundles/bundle_name -m image.manifest.xml -a your_access_key_id -s your_secret_access_key -k pk-HKZYKTAIG2ECMXYIBH3HXV4ZBEXAMPLE.pem -d mybundle Downloading manifest image.manifest.xml from amzn-s3-demo-bucket to mybundle/image.manifest.xml ... Downloading part image.part.00 from amzn-s3-demo-bucket/bundles/bundle_name to mybundle/image.part.00 ... Downloaded image.part.00 from amzn-s3-demo-bucket Downloading part image.part.01 from amzn-s3-demo-bucket/bundles/bundle_name to mybundle/image.part.01 ... Downloaded image.part.01 from amzn-s3-demo-bucket Downloading part image.part.02 from amzn-s3-demo-bucket/bundles/bundle_name to mybundle/image.part.02 ... Downloaded image.part.02 from amzn-s3-demo-bucket Downloading part image.part.03 from amzn-s3-demo-bucket/bundles/bundle_name to mybundle/image.part.03 ... Downloaded image.part.03 from amzn-s3-demo-bucket Downloading part image.part.04 from amzn-s3-demo-bucket/bundles/bundle_name to mybundle/image.part.04 ... Downloaded image.part.04 from amzn-s3-demo-bucket Downloading part image.part.05 from amzn-s3-demo-bucket/bundles/bundle_name to mybundle/image.part.05 ... Downloaded image.part.05 from amzn-s3-demo-bucket Downloading part image.part.06 from amzn-s3-demo-bucket/bundles/bundle_name to mybundle/image.part.06 ... Downloaded image.part.06 from amzn-s3-demo-bucket

ec2-migrate-manifest

Description

Modifies an instance store-backed Linux AMI (for example, its certificate, kernel, and RAM disk) so that it supports a different Region.

Syntax

ec2-migrate-manifest -c path -k path -m path {(-a access_key_id -s secret_access_key --region region) | (--no-mapping)} [--ec2cert ec2_cert_path] [--kernel kernel-id] [--ramdisk ramdisk_id]

Options

-c, --cert path

The user's PEM encoded RSA public key certificate file.

Required: Yes

-k, --privatekey path

The path to the user's PEM-encoded RSA key file.

Required: Yes

--manifest path

The path to the manifest file.

Required: Yes

-a, --access-key access_key_id

The AWS access key ID.

Required: Required if using automatic mapping.

-s, --secret-key secret_access_key

The AWS secret access key.

Required: Required if using automatic mapping.

--region region

The Region to look up in the mapping file.

Required: Required if using automatic mapping.

--no-mapping

Disables automatic mapping of kernels and RAM disks.

During migration, Amazon EC2 replaces the kernel and RAM disk in the manifest file with a kernel and RAM disk designed for the destination region. Unless the --no-mapping parameter is given, ec2-migrate-bundle might use the DescribeRegions and DescribeImages operations to perform automated mappings.

Required: Required if you're not providing the -a, -s, and --region options used for automatic mapping.

--ec2cert path

The path to the Amazon EC2 X.509 public key certificate used to encrypt the image manifest.

The us-gov-west-1 and cn-north-1 Regions use a non-default public key certificate and the path to that certificate must be specified with this option. The path to the certificate varies based on the installation method of the AMI tools. For Amazon Linux, the certificates are located at /opt/aws/amitools/ec2/etc/ec2/amitools/. If you installed the AMI tools from the ZIP file in Set up the Amazon EC2 AMI tools, the certificates are located at $EC2_AMITOOL_HOME/etc/ec2/amitools/.

Required: Only for the us-gov-west-1 and cn-north-1 Regions.

--kernel kernel_id

The ID of the kernel to select.

Important

We recommend that you use PV-GRUB instead of kernels and RAM disks. For more information, see User provided kernels in the Amazon Linux 2 User Guide.

Required: No

--ramdisk ramdisk_id

The ID of the RAM disk to select.

Important

We recommend that you use PV-GRUB instead of kernels and RAM disks. For more information, see User provided kernels in the Amazon Linux 2 User Guide.

Required: No

Output

Status messages describing the stages and status of the bundling process.

Example

This example copies the AMI specified in the my-ami.manifest.xml manifest from the US to the EU.

[ec2-user ~]$ ec2-migrate-manifest --manifest my-ami.manifest.xml --cert cert-HKZYKTAIG2ECMXYIBH3HXV4ZBZQ55CLO.pem --privatekey pk-HKZYKTAIG2ECMXYIBH3HXV4ZBZQ55CLO.pem --region eu-west-1 Backing up manifest... Successfully migrated my-ami.manifest.xml It is now suitable for use in eu-west-1.

ec2-unbundle

Description

Re-creates the bundle from an instance store-backed Linux AMI.

Syntax

ec2-unbundle -k path -m path [-s source_directory] [-d destination_directory]

Options

-k, --privatekey path

The path to your PEM-encoded RSA key file.

Required: Yes

-m, --manifest path

The path to the manifest file.

Required: Yes

-s, --source source_directory

The directory containing the bundle.

Default: The current directory.

Required: No

-d, --destination destination_directory

The directory in which to unbundle the AMI. The destination directory must exist.

Default: The current directory.

Required: No

Example

This Linux and UNIX example unbundles the AMI specified in the image.manifest.xml file.

[ec2-user ~]$ mkdir unbundled $ ec2-unbundle -m mybundle/image.manifest.xml -k pk-HKZYKTAIG2ECMXYIBH3HXV4ZBEXAMPLE.pem -s mybundle -d unbundled $ ls -l unbundled total 1025008 -rw-r--r-- 1 root root 1048578048 Aug 25 23:46 image.img

Output

Status messages indicating the various stages of the unbundling process are displayed.

ec2-upload-bundle

Description

Uploads the bundle for an instance store-backed Linux AMI to Amazon S3 and sets the appropriate access control lists (ACLs) on the uploaded objects. For more information, see Create an instance store-backed AMI.

Note

To upload objects to an S3 bucket for your instance store-backed Linux AMI, ACLs must be enabled for the bucket. Otherwise, Amazon EC2 will not be able to set ACLs on the objects to upload. If your destination bucket uses the bucket owner enforced setting for S3 Object Ownership, this won’t work because ACLs are disabled. For more information, see Controlling ownership of uploaded objects using S3 Object Ownership.

Syntax

ec2-upload-bundle -b bucket -a access_key_id -s secret_access_key [-t token] -m path [--url url] [--region region] [--sigv version] [--acl acl] [-d directory] [--part part] [--retry] [--skipmanifest]

Options

-b, --bucket bucket

The name of the Amazon S3 bucket in which to store the bundle, followed by an optional '/'-delimited path prefix. If the bucket doesn't exist, it's created if the bucket name is available. Additionally, if the bucket doesn't exist and the AMI tools version is 1.5.18 or later, this command sets the ACLs for the bucket.

Required: Yes

-a, --access-key access_key_id

Your AWS access key ID.

Required: Yes

-s, --secret-key secret_access_key

Your AWS secret access key.

Required: Yes

-t, --delegation-token token

The delegation token to pass along to the AWS request. For more information, see the Using Temporary Security Credentials.

Required: Only when you are using temporary security credentials.

Default: The value of the AWS_DELEGATION_TOKEN environment variable (if set).

-m, --manifest path

The path to the manifest file. The manifest file is created during the bundling process and can be found in the directory containing the bundle.

Required: Yes

--url url

Deprecated. Use the --region option instead unless your bucket is constrained to the EU location (and not eu-west-1). The --location flag is the only way to target that specific location restraint.

The Amazon S3 endpoint service URL.

Default: https://s3.amazonaws.com/

Required: No

--region region

The Region to use in the request signature for the destination S3 bucket.

  • If the bucket doesn't exist and you don't specify a Region, the tool creates the bucket without a location constraint (in us-east-1).

  • If the bucket doesn't exist and you specify a Region, the tool creates the bucket in the specified Region.

  • If the bucket exists and you don't specify a Region, the tool uses the bucket's location.

  • If the bucket exists and you specify us-east-1 as the Region, the tool uses the bucket's actual location without any error message, any existing matching files are over-written.

  • If the bucket exists and you specify a Region (other than us-east-1) that doesn't match the bucket's actual location, the tool exits with an error.

If your bucket is constrained to the EU location (and not eu-west-1), use the --location flag instead. The --location flag is the only way to target that specific location restraint.

Default: us-east-1

Required: Required if using signature version 4

--sigv version

The signature version to use when signing the request.

Valid values: 2 | 4

Default: 4

Required: No

--acl acl

The access control list policy of the bundled image.

Valid values: public-read | aws-exec-read

Default: aws-exec-read

Required: No

-d, --directory directory

The directory containing the bundled AMI parts.

Default: The directory containing the manifest file (see the -m option).

Required: No

--part part

Starts uploading the specified part and all subsequent parts. For example, --part 04.

Required: No

--retry

Automatically retries on all Amazon S3 errors, up to five times per operation.

Required: No

--skipmanifest

Does not upload the manifest.

Required: No

--location location

Deprecated. Use the --region option instead, unless your bucket is constrained to the EU location (and not eu-west-1). The --location flag is the only way to target that specific location restraint.

The location constraint of the destination Amazon S3 bucket. If the bucket exists and you specify a location that doesn't match the bucket's actual location, the tool exits with an error. If the bucket exists and you don't specify a location, the tool uses the bucket's location. If the bucket doesn't exist and you specify a location, the tool creates the bucket in the specified location. If the bucket doesn't exist and you don't specify a location, the tool creates the bucket without a location constraint (in us-east-1).

Default: If --region is specified, the location is set to that specified Region. If --region is not specified, the location defaults to us-east-1.

Required: No

Output

Amazon EC2 displays status messages that indicate the stages and status of the upload process.

Example

This example uploads the bundle specified by the image.manifest.xml manifest.

[ec2-user ~]$ ec2-upload-bundle -b amzn-s3-demo-bucket/bundles/bundle_name -m image.manifest.xml -a your_access_key_id -s your_secret_access_key Creating bucket... Uploading bundled image parts to the S3 bucket amzn-s3-demo-bucket ... Uploaded image.part.00 Uploaded image.part.01 Uploaded image.part.02 Uploaded image.part.03 Uploaded image.part.04 Uploaded image.part.05 Uploaded image.part.06 Uploaded image.part.07 Uploaded image.part.08 Uploaded image.part.09 Uploaded image.part.10 Uploaded image.part.11 Uploaded image.part.12 Uploaded image.part.13 Uploaded image.part.14 Uploading manifest ... Uploaded manifest. Bundle upload completed.

Common options for AMI tools

Most of the AMI tools accept the following optional parameters.

--help, -h

Displays the help message.

--version

Displays the version and copyright notice.

--manual

Displays the manual entry.

--batch

Runs in batch mode, suppressing interactive prompts.

--debug

Displays information that can be useful when troubleshooting problems.