aws-images

Purpose

Search for Amazon EC2 AMIs.

Syntax

Syntax: aws-images [--glob] [--region REGION ]
        --owner OWNER_ID --name NAME_PATTERN

Options and Arguments

| Option | Description | Default | |——————|——————————————————————————————————————————————–|————————————————————————————————————————-| | --regexp | Pattern is in the style of a regular expression like used by grep | Pattern is in the style of filename expansion in a Linux shell | | --region | Override the AWS EC2 region | The default region set in your AWS credentials is used. I think a default region does not need to chosen in an AWS configuration but that I believe a default is very common and I know it’s very useful. | -v | Enable verbose debugging | Debugging is not enabled |

Examples

I found the AWS owner by looking at the details of an Ubuntu AMI. See the aws-image example

All images from the owner

You could use a simple name pattern that will match everything to show all images.

$ aws-images -o 099720109477 --regexp -n . | headtail
       1 Image name                                                                                              Image ID               Created
       2 ubuntu/images-testing/hvm-ssd/ubuntu-jammy-daily-amd64-server-20220313                                  ami-048161b37204478fd  2022-03-13T07:40:45.000Z
       3 ubuntu/images-testing/hvm-ssd/ubuntu-jammy-daily-arm64-server-20220313                                  ami-0ff349ebceeced8a1  2022-03-13T07:40:14.000Z
       4 ubuntu/images-testing/hvm-ssd/ubuntu-focal-daily-arm64-server-20220310                                  ami-051b53650d31ab7dc  2022-03-11T00:43:37.000Z
       5 ubuntu/images-testing/hvm-ssd/ubuntu-focal-daily-amd64-server-20220310                                  ami-02cba2b076a57c1ff  2022-03-11T00:43:12.000Z
         .
         .
         .
   14605 ubuntu-lucid-amd64-linux-image-2.6.32-301-ec2-v-2.6.32-301.4-ramdisk.20100108.smoser0.img               ari-64d73a0d           2010-01-08T08:28:04.000Z
   14606 ubuntu-lucid-i386-linux-image-2.6.32-301-ec2-v-2.6.32-301.4-ramdisk.20100108.smoser0.img                ari-86d439ef           2010-01-08T08:05:36.000Z
   14607 ubuntu-lucid-i386-linux-image-2.6.32-300-ec2-v-2.6.32-300.1-ramdisk.20100104.smoser0.img                ari-caf11ca3           2010-01-04T22:13:54.000Z
   14608 ubuntu-lucid-amd64-linux-image-2.6.32-300-ec2-v-2.6.32-300.1-ramdisk.20100104.smoser0.img               ari-14f11c7d           2010-01-04T21:55:21.000Z
   14609
$

Showing specific releases

You can specify more to the pattern to select only certain images.

$ aws-images -o 099720109477 --regexp -n 'ubuntu-.*-20.10-arm64' | headtail
       1 Image name                                                         Image ID               Created
       2 ubuntu/images/hvm-ssd/ubuntu-groovy-20.10-arm64-server-20210720    ami-0e7a5554e82452478  2021-07-21T13:02:53.000Z
       3 ubuntu/images/hvm-ssd/ubuntu-groovy-20.10-arm64-server-20210622    ami-0d57f0639aae57eb6  2021-06-22T20:12:19.000Z
       4 ubuntu/images/hvm-ssd/ubuntu-groovy-20.10-arm64-server-20210611    ami-09b84ecaca8c6d392  2021-06-11T14:16:27.000Z
       5 ubuntu/images/hvm-ssd/ubuntu-groovy-20.10-arm64-server-20210609    ami-0c6d6b37f76083978  2021-06-09T14:28:07.000Z
         .
         .
         .
      23 ubuntu/images/hvm-ssd/ubuntu-groovy-20.10-arm64-server-20201126    ami-01069be104eb25898  2020-11-27T17:48:38.000Z
      24 ubuntu/images/hvm-ssd/ubuntu-groovy-20.10-arm64-server-20201111    ami-01fd91c5afea9ccb1  2020-11-11T22:26:14.000Z
      25 ubuntu/images/hvm-ssd/ubuntu-groovy-20.10-arm64-server-20201030    ami-06284dd7c2ed5d8e7  2020-10-30T15:03:17.000Z
      26 ubuntu/images/hvm-ssd/ubuntu-groovy-20.10-arm64-server-20201022.1  ami-0ef42a98ef49bbb52  2020-10-22T18:04:02.000Z
      27
$

Using a glob pattern

A glob pattern works a little differently:

• The biggest difference is that a glob pattern is anchored on both ends so you likely need wildcards at the start and finish.
• The * glob metacharacter does not apply to the previous regular expression so it’s slightly easier to use.

  $ aws-images -o 099720109477 -n '*ubuntu-*-20.10-arm64*' | headtail
       1 Image name                                                         Image ID               Created
       2 ubuntu/images/hvm-ssd/ubuntu-groovy-20.10-arm64-server-20210720    ami-0e7a5554e82452478  2021-07-21T13:02:53.000Z
       3 ubuntu/images/hvm-ssd/ubuntu-groovy-20.10-arm64-server-20210622    ami-0d57f0639aae57eb6  2021-06-22T20:12:19.000Z
       4 ubuntu/images/hvm-ssd/ubuntu-groovy-20.10-arm64-server-20210611    ami-09b84ecaca8c6d392  2021-06-11T14:16:27.000Z
       5 ubuntu/images/hvm-ssd/ubuntu-groovy-20.10-arm64-server-20210609    ami-0c6d6b37f76083978  2021-06-09T14:28:07.000Z
         .
         .
         .
      23 ubuntu/images/hvm-ssd/ubuntu-groovy-20.10-arm64-server-20201126    ami-01069be104eb25898  2020-11-27T17:48:38.000Z
      24 ubuntu/images/hvm-ssd/ubuntu-groovy-20.10-arm64-server-20201111    ami-01fd91c5afea9ccb1  2020-11-11T22:26:14.000Z
      25 ubuntu/images/hvm-ssd/ubuntu-groovy-20.10-arm64-server-20201030    ami-06284dd7c2ed5d8e7  2020-10-30T15:03:17.000Z
      26 ubuntu/images/hvm-ssd/ubuntu-groovy-20.10-arm64-server-20201022.1  ami-0ef42a98ef49bbb52  2020-10-22T18:04:02.000Z
      27
  $
  

Notes

• This script uses the aws CLI and requires that you have installed it and set it up.
• The output is sorted by the the creation date of the image so the most recent is at the top. I’m typically most interested in the latest image.