Using an Amazon EC2-compatible AMI on Snowball Edge

1. Open the Amazon EC2 console at https://console.aws.amazon.com/ec2/.

2. From the navigation bar, select the Region in which to launch your instances and from which you will create the job to order the Snowball Edge device. You can select any Region that is available to you, regardless of your location.

3. In the navigation pane, choose AMIs.

4. Use the filter and search options to scope the list of displayed AMIs to see only the AMIs that match your criteria. For example, AMIs provided by the AWS Marketplace, choose Public images. Then use the search options to further scope the list of displayed AMIs:

   • (New console) Choose the Search bar and, from the menu, choose Owner alias, then the = operator, and then the value amazon.

   • (Old console) Choose the Search bar and, from the menu, choose Owner and then the value Amazon images.

   Note

   AMIs from AWS Marketplace include aws-marketplace in the Source column.

5. In the AMI ID column, choose the AMI ID of the AMI.

6. In the Image summary of the AMI, ensure the Product codes are supported by your Region. For more information, see the table below.

   Supported AWS Marketplace AMI product codes

   AMI operating system	Product code
   Ubuntu Server 14.04 LTS	b3dl4415quatdndl4qa6kcu45
   CentOS 7 (x86_64)	aw0evgkw8e5c1q413zgy5pjce
   Ubuntu 16.04 LTS	csv6h7oyg29b7epjzg7qdr7no
   Amazon Linux 2	avyfzznywektkgl5qv5f57ska
   Ubuntu 20.04 LTS	a8jyynf4hjutohctm41o2z18m
   Ubuntu 22.04 LTS	47xbqns9xujfkkjt189a13aqe

7. Then, also ensure the Platform details contains one of entries from the list below.

   • Amazon Linux, Ubuntu, or Debian

   • Red Hat Linux bring-your-own-license

   • Amazon RDS for Oracle bring-your-own-license

   • Windows bring-your-own-license

• Use the describe-images AWS CLI command to see the description of the AMI. The version is contained in the description. Provide the public key certificate from the previous step. For more information, see describe-images in the AWS CLI Command Reference.

  
  aws ec2 describe-images --endpoint http://snow-device-ip:8008 --region snow                    
                  

  Example of output of the describe-images command

  
  {
      "Images": [
          {
              "CreationDate": "2024-02-12T23:24:45.705Z",
              "ImageId": "s.ami-02ba84cb87224e16e",
              "Public": false,
              "ProductCodes": [
                  {
                      "ProductCodeId": "avyfzznywektkgl5qv5f57ska",
                      "ProductCodeType": "marketplace"
                  }
              ],
              "State": "AVAILABLE",
              "BlockDeviceMappings": [
                  {
                      "DeviceName": "/dev/xvda",
                      "Ebs": {
                          "DeleteOnTermination": true,
                          "Iops": 0,
                          "SnapshotId": "s.snap-0efb49f2f726fde63",
                          "VolumeSize": 8,
                          "VolumeType": "sbp1"
                      }
                  }
              ],
              "Description": "Snow Family Amazon Linux 2 AMI 2.0.20240131.0 x86_64 HVM gp2",
              "EnaSupport": false,
              "Name": "amzn2-ami-snow-family-hvm-2.0.20240131.0-x86_64-gp2-b7e7f8d2-1b9e-4774-a374-120e0cd85d5a",
              "RootDeviceName": "/dev/xvda"
          }
      ]
  }                            
                          

  In this example, the version of the Amazon Linux 2 AMI for Snowball Edge is 2.0.20240131.0. It is found in the value of the Description name.

1. Open the Amazon EC2 console at https://console.aws.amazon.com/ec2/.

2. Launch a new instance of a supported AMI in AWS Marketplace.

   Note

   When you launch your instance, make sure that the storage size you assign to the instance is appropriate for your use case. In the Amazon EC2 console, you do this in the Add storage step.

3. Install and configure the applications that you want to run on the Snowball Edge, and make sure that they work as expected.

   Important

   • Only single volume AMIs are supported.

   • The EBS volume in your AMI should be 10 TB or less. We recommend that you provision the EBS volume size needed for the data in the AMI. This will help decrease the time it takes to export your AMI and load it into your device. You can resize or add more volumes to your instance after your device is deployed.

   • The EBS snapshot in your AMI must not be encrypted.

4. Make a copy of the PEM or PPK file that you used for the SSH key pair when you created this instance. Save this file to the server that you plan to use to communicate with the Snowball Edge device. Make a note of the path to this file because you will need it when you use SSH to connect to the EC2-compatible instance on your device.

   Important

   If you don't follow this procedure, you can't connect to your instances with SSH when you receive your Snowball Edge device.

5. Save the instance as an AMI. For more information, see Amazon EC2 User Guide for Linux Instances in the Amazon EC2 User Guide.

6. Repeat steps 1–4 for each of the instances that you want to connect to using SSH. Be sure to make copies of each of the SSH key pairs, and keep track of the AMIs that they're associated with.

7. Now, when you order your device, these AMIs are available to add to your device.

To create a Windows image

1. On your Microsoft Windows computer, choose Start and enter devmgmt.msc to open Device Manager.

2. In the main menu, choose Actions, and then choose Add legacy hardware.

3. In the wizard, choose Next.

4. Choose Install the hardware that I manually select from a list (advanced), and choose Next.

5. Choose Show All Devices and choose Next.

6. Choose Have Disk, open the Copy manufacturer’s files from list, and browse to the ISO file.

7. In the ISO file, browse to the Driver\W2K8R2\amd64 directory, and then find the .INF file.

8. Choose the .INF file, choose Open, and then choose OK.

9. When you see the driver name, choose Next, and then choose Next two more times. Then choose Finish.

   This installs a device using the new driver. The actual hardware doesn't exist, so you will see a yellow exclamation mark that indicates an issue on the device. You must fix this issue.

To fix the hardware issue

1. Open the context (right-click) menu for the device that has the exclamation mark.

2. Choose Uninstall, clear Delete the driver software for this device, and choose OK.

   The driver is installed, and you are ready to launch the AMI on your device.

1. Use the ssm get-parameters AWS CLI command to find the latest image ID of the Amazon Linux 2 AMI in the AWS Marketplace.

   
     aws ssm get-parameters --names /aws/service/ami-amazon-linux-latest/amzn2-ami-hvm-x86_64-gp2 --query 'Parameters[0].[Value]' --region your-region                
               

   The command returns the latest image ID of the AMI. For example, ami-0ccb473bada910e74.

2. Export the latest Amazon Linux 2 image. See Exporting a VM directly from an Amazon Machine Image (AMI) in the Amazon EC2 User Guide. Use the latest image ID of the Amazon Linux 2 AMI as the value of the image-id parameter of the ec2 export-image command.

3. Import the VM image into the Snow device using the AWS CLI or AWS OpsHub.

   • For information about using AWS CLI, see Importing a virtual machine image to a Snowball Edge device.

   • For information about using AWS OpsHub, see Importing an image as an Amazon EC2-compatible AMI with AWS OpsHub.