Working with SSM Agent on EC2 instances for macOS - AWS Systems Manager

Working with SSM Agent on EC2 instances for macOS

AWS Systems Manager (SSM Agent) processes Systems Manager requests and configures your machine as specified in the request. Use the following procedures to install, configure, or uninstall SSM Agent for macOS.

Note

SSM Agent is preinstalled, by default, on Amazon Machine Images (AMIs) for macOS. You don't need to install SSM Agent on an Amazon Elastic Compute Cloud (Amazon EC2) instance for macOS unless you have uninstalled it.

The source code for SSM Agent is available on GitHub so that you can adapt the agent to meet your needs. We encourage you to submit pull requests for changes that you would like to have included. However, AWS doesn't provide support for running modified copies of this software.

Note

To view details about the different versions of SSM Agent, see the release notes.

Before you manually install SSM Agent on a macOS operating system, review the following information.

  • SSM Agent is installed by default on the following EC2 instances and Amazon Machine Images:

    • macOS 10.14.x (Mojave)

    • macOS 10.15.x (Catalina)

    • macOS 11.x (BigSur)

    • macOS 12.x (Monterey)

    • macOS 13.x (Ventura)

    • macOS 14.x (Sonoma)

    SSM Agent doesn't need to be manually installed on macOS EC2 instances unless it has been uninstalled.

  • EC2 instances for macOS are not supported in all AWS Regions. For lists of Regions where x86-based and M1 EC2 instances for macOS are supported, see macOS workloads in the Amazon EC2 FAQs.

  • An updated version of SSM Agent is released whenever new capabilities are added to Systems Manager or updates are made to existing capabilities. Failing to use the latest version of the agent can prevent your managed node from using various Systems Manager capabilities and features. For that reason, we recommend that you automate the process of keeping SSM Agent up to date on your machines. For information, see Automating updates to SSM Agent. Subscribe to the SSM Agent Release Notes page on GitHub to get notifications about SSM Agent updates.

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