The following information describes how to identify an AL2 instance from another Amazon Linux version or other Linux distribution.
Identify Amazon Linux images
Each image contains a unique /etc/image-id file that identifies
it. This file contains the following information about the image:
-
image_name,image_version,image_arch– Values from the build recipe that Amazon used to construct the image. -
image_stamp– A unique, random hex value generated during image creation. -
image_date– The UTC time of image creation, in YYYYMMDDhhmmss format. -
recipe_name,recipe_id– The name and ID of the build recipe Amazon used to construct the image.
Amazon Linux contains an /etc/system-release file that specifies the
current release that is installed. This file is updated using yum and
is part of the system-release
RPM Package Manager (RPM).
Amazon Linux also contains a machine-readable version of
/etc/system-release that follows the
Common Platform Enumeration (CPE)
specification; see /etc/system-release-cpe.
AL2
The following is an example of /etc/image-id for the current
version of AL2.
[ec2-user ~]$cat /etc/image-idimage_name="amzn2-ami-hvm" image_version="2" image_arch="x86_64" image_file="amzn2-ami-hvm-2.0.20180810-x86_64.xfs.gpt" image_stamp="8008-2abd" image_date="20180811020321" recipe_name="amzn2 ami" recipe_id="c652686a-2415-9819-65fb-4dee-9792-289d-1e2846bd"
The following is an example of /etc/system-release for the
current version of AL2.
[ec2-user ~]$cat /etc/system-releaseAL2
The following is an example of /etc/os-release for
AL2.
[ec2-user ~]$cat /etc/os-releaseNAME="Amazon Linux" VERSION="2" ID="amzn" ID_LIKE="centos rhel fedora" VERSION_ID="2" PRETTY_NAME="Amazon Linux 2" ANSI_COLOR="0;33" CPE_NAME="cpe:2.3:o:amazon:amazon_linux:2" HOME_URL="https://amazonlinux.com/"
Amazon Linux AMI
The following is an example of /etc/image-id for the current
Amazon Linux AMI.
[ec2-user ~]$cat /etc/image-idimage_name="amzn-ami-hvm" image_version="2018.03" image_arch="x86_64" image_file="amzn-ami-hvm-2018.03.0.20180811-x86_64.ext4.gpt" image_stamp="cc81-f2f3" image_date="20180811012746" recipe_name="amzn ami" recipe_id="5b283820-dc60-a7ea-d436-39fa-439f-02ea-5c802dbd"
The following is an example of /etc/system-release for the
current Amazon Linux AMI.
[ec2-user ~]$cat /etc/system-releaseAmazon Linux AMI release 2018.03
