Tutorial: Create a maintenance window for patching using the console

To create a maintenance window for patching

1. Open the AWS Systems Manager console at https://console.aws.amazon.com/systems-manager/.

2. In the navigation pane, choose Maintenance Windows.

3. Choose Create maintenance window.

4. For Name, enter a name that designates this as a maintenance window for patching critical and important updates.

5. (Optional) For Description, enter a description.

6. Choose Allow unregistered targets if you want to allow a maintenance window task to run on managed nodes, even if you haven't registered those nodes as targets.

   If you choose this option, then you can choose the unregistered nodes (by node ID) when you register a task with the maintenance window.

   If you don't choose this option, then you must choose previously-registered targets when you register a task with the maintenance window.

7. In the top of the Schedule section, specify a schedule for the maintenance window by using one of the three scheduling options.

   For information about building cron/rate expressions, see Reference: Cron and rate expressions for Systems Manager.

8. For Duration, enter the number of hours the maintenance window will run. The value you specify determines the specific end time for the maintenance window based on the time it begins. No maintenance window tasks are permitted to start after the resulting endtime minus the number of hours you specify for Stop initiating tasks in the next step.

   For example, if the maintenance window starts at 3 PM, the duration is three hours, and the Stop initiating tasks value is one hour, no maintenance window tasks can start after 5 PM.

9. For Stop initiating tasks, enter the number of hours before the end of the maintenance window that the system should stop scheduling new tasks to run.

10. (Optional) For Window start date, specify a date and time, in ISO-8601 Extended format, for when you want the maintenance window to become active. This allows you to delay activation of the maintenance window until the specified future date.

11. (Optional) For Window end date, specify a date and time, in ISO-8601 Extended format, for when you want the maintenance window to become inactive. This allows you to set a date and time in the future after which the maintenance window no longer runs.

12. (Optional) For Schedule timezone, specify the time zone to base scheduled maintenance window executions on, in Internet Assigned Numbers Authority (IANA) format. For example: "America/Los_Angeles", "etc/UTC", or "Asia/Seoul".

    For more information about valid formats, see the Time Zone Database on the IANA website.

13. (Optional) In the Manage tags area, apply one or more tag key name/value pairs to the maintenance window.

    Tags are optional metadata that you assign to a resource. Tags allow you to categorize a resource in different ways, such as by purpose, owner, or environment. For example, you might want to tag this maintenance window to identify the type of tasks it runs. In this case, you could specify the following key name/value pair:

    • Key=TaskType,Value=Patching

14. Choose Create maintenance window.

15. In the maintenance windows list, choose the maintenance window you just created, and then choose Actions, Register targets.

16. (Optional) In the Maintenance window target details section, provide a name, a description, and owner information (your name or alias) for this target.

17. For Target selection, choose Specify instance tags.

18. For Specify instance tags, enter a tag key and a tag value to identify the nodes to register with the maintenance window, and then choose Add.

19. Choose Register target. The system creates a maintenance window target.

20. In the details page of the maintenance window you created, choose Actions, Register Run command task.

21. (Optional) For Maintenance window task details, provide a name and description for this task.

22. For Command document, choose AWS-RunPatchBaseline.

23. For Task priority, choose a priority. Zero (0) is the highest priority.

24. For Targets, under Target by, choose the maintenance window target you created earlier in this procedure.

25. For Rate control:

    • For Concurrency, specify either a number or a percentage of managed nodes on which to run the command at the same time.

      Note

      If you selected targets by specifying tags applied to managed nodes or by specifying AWS resource groups, and you aren't certain how many managed nodes are targeted, then restrict the number of targets that can run the document at the same time by specifying a percentage.

    • For Error threshold, specify when to stop running the command on other managed nodes after it fails on either a number or a percentage of nodes. For example, if you specify three errors, then Systems Manager stops sending the command when the fourth error is received. Managed nodes still processing the command might also send errors.

26. (Optional) For IAM service role, choose a role to provide permissions for Systems Manager to assume when running a maintenance window task.

    If you don't specify a service role ARN, Systems Manager uses a service-linked role in your account. If no appropriate service-linked role for Systems Manager exists in your account, it's created when the task is registered successfully.

    Note

    For an improved security posture, we strongly recommend creating a custom policy and custom service role for running your maintenance window tasks. The policy can be crafted to provide only the permissions needed for your particular maintenance window tasks. For more information, see Setting up Maintenance Windows.

27. (Optional) For Output options, to save the command output to a file, select the Enable writing output to S3 box. Enter the bucket and prefix (folder) names in the boxes.

    Note

    The S3 permissions that grant the ability to write the data to an S3 bucket are those of the instance profile assigned to the managed node, not those of the IAM user performing this task. For more information, see Configure instance permissions required for Systems Manager or Create an IAM service role for a hybrid environment. In addition, if the specified S3 bucket is in a different AWS account, verify that the instance profile or IAM service role associated with the managed node has the necessary permissions to write to that bucket.

    To stream the output to an Amazon CloudWatch Logs log group, select the CloudWatch output box. Enter the log group name in the box.

28. In the SNS notifications section, if you want notifications sent about the status of the command execution, select the Enable SNS notifications check box.

    For more information about configuring Amazon SNS notifications for Run Command, see Monitoring Systems Manager status changes using Amazon SNS notifications.

29. For Parameters:

    • For Operation, choose Scan to scan for missing patches, or choose Install to scan for and install missing patches.

    • You don't need to enter anything in the Snapshot Id field. This system automatically generates and provides this parameter.

    • You don't need to enter anything in the Install Override List field unless you want Patch Manager to use a different patch set than is specified for the patch baseline. For information, see Parameter name: InstallOverrideList.

    • For RebootOption, specify whether you want nodes to reboot if patches are installed during the Install operation, or if Patch Manager detects other patches that were installed since the last node reboot. For information, see Parameter name: RebootOption.

    • (Optional) For Comment, enter a tracking note or reminder about this command.

    • For Timeout (seconds), enter the number of seconds the system should wait for the operation to finish before it is considered unsuccessful.

30. Choose Register Run command task.