Linux operating systems - AWS OpsWorks
Amazon LinuxUbuntu LTSCentOSRed Hat Enterprise Linux

Linux operating systems

Important

The AWS OpsWorks Stacks service reached end of life on May 26, 2024 and has been disabled for both new and existing customers. We strongly recommend customers migrate their workloads to other solutions as soon as possible. If you have questions about migration, reach out to the AWS Support Team on AWS re:Post or through AWS Premium Support.

AWS OpsWorks Stacks supports the 64-bit versions of the following Linux operating systems.

You can also use custom AMIs based on these operating systems.

Some general notes on Linux instances:

Supported package versions

The supported versions and patch levels for packages, such as Ruby, depend on the operating system and version as described in the following sections.

Updates

By default, AWS OpsWorks Stacks ensures that Linux instances have the latest security patches by automatically calling yum update or apt-get update after an instance boots. To disable automatic updates use the CreateInstance, UpdateInstance, CreateLayer, or UpdateLayer actions—or the equivalent AWS SDK methods or AWS CLI commands— to set the InstallUpdatesOnBoot parameter to false.

To avoid service interruptions, AWS OpsWorks Stacks does not automatically install updates after an instance is online. You can manually update an online instance's operating system at any time by running the Upgrade Operating System stack command. For more information on how to manage security updates, see Managing Security Updates.

For more control over how AWS OpsWorks Stacks updates your instances, create a custom AMI based on one of the supported operating systems. For example, with custom AMIs you can specify which package versions are installed on an instance. Each Linux distribution has different support timelines and package-merge policies, so you should consider which approach best suits your requirements. For more information, see Using Custom AMIs.

Hosts file

Each online instance has a /etc/hosts file that maps IP addresses to host names. AWS OpsWorks Stacks includes the public and private addresses for all of the stack's online instances in each instance's hosts file. For example, suppose that you have a stack with two Node.js App Server instances, nodejs-app1 and nodejs-app2, and one MySQL instance, db-master1. The nodejs-app1 instance's hosts file will look something like the following example, and the other instances' will have similar hosts files.


...
# OpsWorks Layer State
192.0.2.0 nodejs-app1.localdomain nodejs-app1
10.145.160.232 db-master1
198.51.100.0 db-master1-ext
10.243.77.78 nodejs-app2
203.0.113.0 nodejs-app2-ext
10.84.66.6 nodejs-app1
192.0.2.0 nodejs-app1-ext
AWS OpsWorks Stacks agent proxy support

The AWS OpsWorks Stacks agent for Chef 11.10 and later stacks includes basic support for proxy servers, which are typically used with isolated VPCs. To enable proxy server support, an instance must have an /etc/environment file that provides the appropriate settings for HTTP and HTTPS traffic. The file should look similar to the following, where you replace the highlighted text with your proxy server's URL and port:


http_proxy="http://myproxy.example.com:8080/"
https_proxy="http://myproxy.example.com:8080/"
no_proxy="169.254.169.254"

To enable proxy support, we recommend creating a custom AMI that includes an appropriate /etc/environment file and using that AMI to create your instances.

Note

We do not recommend using a custom recipe to create an /etc/environment file on your instances. AWS OpsWorks Stacks needs the proxy server data early in the setup process, before any custom recipes have executed.

Amazon Linux

AWS OpsWorks Stacks supports the 64-bit versions of Amazon Linux and Amazon Linux 2. In addition to regular updates and patches, Amazon Linux releases a new version approximately every six months, which can involve significant changes. When you create a stack or a new instance, you must specify which Amazon Linux version to use. When AWS releases a new version, your instances continue to run the specified version until you explicitly change it. After a new Amazon Linux version is released, there is a four-week migration period, during which AWS continues to provide regular updates for the old version. After the migration period ends, your instances can continue to run the old version, but AWS does not provide further updates. For more information, see Amazon Linux AMI FAQs.

When a new Amazon Linux version is released, we recommend that you update to the new version within the migration period so your instances continue to receive security updates. Before updating your production stack's instances, we recommend you start a new instance and verify that your app runs correctly on the new version. You can then update the production stack instances.

Note

By default, custom AMIs based on Amazon Linux are automatically updated to the new version when it is released. The recommended practice is to lock your custom AMI to a specific Amazon Linux version so you can defer the update until you have tested the new version. For more information, see How do I lock my AMI to a specific version?.

If you use an AWS CloudFormation template to create stacks with instances running Amazon Linux, the templates should explicitly specify an Amazon Linux version. In particular, if your template specifies Amazon Linux, the instances will continue to run version 2016.09. For more information, see AWS::OpsWorks::Stack and AWS::OpsWorks::Instance.

To update an instance's Amazon Linux version, do one of the following:

  • For online instances, run the Upgrade Operating System stack command.

    When a new Amazon Linux version is available, the Instances and Stack pages display a notice with a link that takes you to the Run Command page. You can then run Upgrade Operating System to upgrade your instance.

  • For offline Amazon Elastic Block Store-backed (EBS-backed) instances, start the instances and run Upgrade Operating System, as described in the preceding statement.

  • For offline instance store-backed instances, including time-based and load-based instances, edit the instance's Operating system setting to specify the new version.

    AWS OpsWorks Stacks automatically updates the instances to the new version when they are restarted.

Amazon Linux: Supported Node.js Versions
Amazon Linux Version Node.js Versions 
2
 
(Not applicable to operating systems that are available for Chef 12 and higher stacks only)
 
2018.03
 
0.12.18
 
2017.09
 
0.12.18
 
2017.03
 
0.12.18
 
2016.09
 
0.12.18
0.12.17
0.12.16
0.12.15
 
2016.03
 
0.12.18
0.12.17
0.12.16
0.12.15
0.12.14
0.12.13
0.12.12
0.12.10
Amazon Linux: Supported Chef Versions
Chef Version Supported Amazon Linux Versions 
12
 
Amazon Linux 2
Amazon Linux 2018.03
Amazon Linux 2017.09
Amazon Linux 2017.03
Amazon Linux 2016.09
Amazon Linux 2016.03
 
11.10
 
Amazon Linux 2018.03
Amazon Linux 2017.09
Amazon Linux 2017.03
Amazon Linux 2016.09
Amazon Linux 2016.03
 
11.4 (deprecated)
 
Amazon Linux 2016.09
Amazon Linux 2016.03
Important

Before updating t1.micro instances, make sure they have a temporary swap file, /var/swapfile. The t1.micro instances on Chef 0.9 stacks do not have a swap file. For Chef 11.4 and Chef 11.10 stacks, recent versions of the instance agent automatically create a swap file for t1.micro instances. However, this change was introduced over a period of several weeks, so you should check for the existence of /var/swapfile on instances created before approximately Mar. 24, 2014.

For t1.micro instances that lack a swap file, you can create one as follows:

  • For Chef 11.10 and later stacks, create new t1.micro instances, which automatically have a swap file.

  • For Chef 0.9 stacks, run the following commands on each instance as root user.

    dd if=/dev/zero of=/var/swapfile bs=1M count=256
 mkswap /var/swapfile
 chown root:root /var/swapfile
 chmod 0600 /var/swapfile
 swapon /var/swapfile

    You can also use these commands on Chef 11.10 and later stacks if you don't want to create new instances.

Ubuntu LTS

Ubuntu releases a new Ubuntu LTS version approximately every two years and supports each release for approximately five years. Ubuntu provides security patches and updates for the duration of the operating system support. For more information, see LTS - Ubuntu Wiki.

CentOS

AWS OpsWorks Stacks supports the 64-bit version of CentOS 7. The initial supported version is CentOS 7, and CentOS releases a new version approximately every two years.

When you start a new instance in a CentOS stack, AWS OpsWorks Stacks automatically installs the most current CentOS version. Because AWS OpsWorks Stacks does not automatically update the operating system on existing instances when a new CentOS minor version is released, a newly created instance might receive a more recent version than the stack's existing instances. To keep versions consistent across your stack, you can update your existing instances to the current CentOS version, as follows:

  • For online instances, run the Upgrade Operating System stack command, which runs yum update on the specified instances to update them to the current version.

    When a new CentOS 7 minor version is available, the Instances and Stack pages display a notice with a link that takes you to the Run Command page. You can then run Upgrade Operating System to upgrade your instances.

  • For offline Amazon EBS-backed instances, start the instances and run Upgrade Operating System as described in the preceding list item.

  • For offline instance store-backed instances, AWS OpsWorks Stacks automatically installs the new version when the instances are restarted.

CentOS: Supported Chef Versions
Chef Version Supported CentOS Version 
12
 
CentOS 7
 
11.10
 
(None supported)
 
11.4 (deprecated)
 
(None supported)
Note

AWS OpsWorks Stacks supports Apache 2.4 for CentOS instances.

Red Hat Enterprise Linux

AWS OpsWorks Stacks supports the 64-bit version of Red Hat Enterprise Linux 7 (RHEL 7). The initial supported version is RHEL 7.1 and Red Hat releases a new minor version approximately every 9 months. Minor versions should be compatible with RHEL 7.0. For more information, see Life Cycle and Update Policies.

When you start a new instance, AWS OpsWorks Stacks automatically installs the current RHEL 7 version. Because AWS OpsWorks Stacks does not automatically update the operating system on existing instances when a new RHEL 7 minor version is released, a newly created instance might receive a more recent version than the stack's existing instances. To keep versions consistent across your stack, you can update your existing instances to the current RHEL 7 version, as follows:

  • For online instances, run the Upgrade Operating System stack command, which runs yum update on the specified instances to update them to the current version.

    When a new RHEL 7 version is available, the Instances and Stack pages display a notice with a link that takes you to the Run Command page. You can then run Upgrade Operating System to upgrade your instances.

  • For offline Amazon EBS-backed instances, start the instances and run Upgrade Operating System as described in the preceding list item.

  • For offline instance store-backed instances, AWS OpsWorks Stacks automatically installs the new version when the instances are restarted.

Red Hat Enterprise Linux: Supported Node.js Versions
RHEL Version Node.js Versions 
7
 
(Node.js versions only apply to Chef 11.10 stacks)
0.8.19
0.8.26
0.10.11
0.10.21
0.10.24
0.10.25
0.10.27
0.10.29
0.10.40
0.12.10
0.12.12
0.12.13
0.12.15
Red Hat Enterprise Linux: Supported Chef Versions
Chef Version Supported RHEL Version 
12
 
Red Hat Enterprise Linux 7
 
11.10
 
Red Hat Enterprise Linux 7
 
11.4 (deprecated)
 
(None supported)

All versions of Node.js that are older than 0.10.40 are deprecated. 0.12.7 and 0.12.9 are also deprecated.

Note

AWS OpsWorks Stacks supports Apache 2.4 for RHEL 7 instances.