Get the latest AMI information with the AWS CLI

TL;DR

• I want to find the latest AMI ID of a specific OS with the AWS CLI
• Use --query to narrow down to the latest one
• The conditions for --filters are likely to differ depending on the OS, so I will summarize them.

describe-images

Use the AWS CLI describe-images command.

Finding a Linux AMI

describe-images

$ aws ec2 describe-images \
  --region [region] \
  --query '[query]' \
  --owners [owner] \
  --filters '[condition]' \
  --output [output]

The inside of [] is changed according to the conditions. This time, we will go below.

• --region … ap-northeast-1
• --query … reverse(sort_by(Images, &CreationDate))[0]
• --owners… Changed according to the AMI to be searched
• --filters… Changed according to the AMI to be searched
• --output … table

Select ʻowners from ʻamazon, ʻaws-marketplace, and microsoft`. If not specified, the search will be performed on all AMIs that you can use.

--owners (list)

Filters the images by the owner. Specify an AWS account ID, self (owner is the sender of the request), or an AWS owner alias (valid values are amazon | aws-marketplace | microsoft ). Omitting this option returns all images for which you have launch permissions, regardless of ownership.

For example.

$ aws ec2 describe-images \
  --region ap-northeast-1 \
  --query 'reverse(sort_by(Images, &CreationDate))[:1]' \
  --owners amazon \
  --filters 'Name=name,Values=amzn2-ami-hvm-2.0.*-x86_64-gp2' \
  --output table
----------------------------------------------------------------------------
|                              DescribeImages                              |
+---------------------+----------------------------------------------------+
|  Architecture       |  x86_64                                            |
|  CreationDate       |  2019-12-18T01:33:12.000Z                          |
|  Description        |  Amazon Linux 2 AMI 2.0.20191217.0 x86_64 HVM gp2  |
|  EnaSupport         |  True                                              |
|  Hypervisor         |  xen                                               |
|  ImageId            |  ami-011facbea5ec0363b                             |
|  ImageLocation      |  amazon/amzn2-ami-hvm-2.0.20191217.0-x86_64-gp2    |
|  ImageOwnerAlias    |  amazon                                            |
|  ImageType          |  machine                                           |
|  Name               |  amzn2-ami-hvm-2.0.20191217.0-x86_64-gp2           |
|  OwnerId            |  137112412989                                      |
|  Public             |  True                                              |
|  RootDeviceName     |  /dev/xvda                                         |
|  RootDeviceType     |  ebs                                               |
|  SriovNetSupport    |  simple                                            |
|  State              |  available                                         |
|  VirtualizationType |  hvm                                               |
+---------------------+----------------------------------------------------+
||                           BlockDeviceMappings                          ||
|+------------------------------------+-----------------------------------+|
||  DeviceName                        |  /dev/xvda                        ||
|+------------------------------------+-----------------------------------+|
|||                                  Ebs                                 |||
||+--------------------------------+-------------------------------------+||
|||  DeleteOnTermination           |  True                               |||
|||  Encrypted                     |  False                              |||
|||  SnapshotId                    |  snap-0ffc2bf377f23be03             |||
|||  VolumeSize                    |  8                                  |||
|||  VolumeType                    |  gp2                                |||
||+--------------------------------+-------------------------------------+||

By the way, if you only want the AMI ID, you can set --query toreverse (sort_by (Images, & CreationDate)) [0]. [ImageId].

For each OS

Then, from here, I will write the search method for each OS.

With --filters, specify which information in the AMI (Name) and what to search for (Values).

By the way, it seems that * and ? Can be used as wildcards for --filters.

You can also use wildcards with the filter values. An asterisk (*) matches zero or more characters, and a question mark (?) matches zero or one character.

Listing and Filtering Using the CLI and API

Amazon Linux 2

Narrow down by name. ʻOwners is ʻamazon.

$ aws ec2 describe-images \
  --region ap-northeast-1 \
  --query 'reverse(sort_by(Images, &CreationDate))[:1]' \
  --owners amazon \
  --filters 'Name=name,Values=amzn2-ami-hvm-2.0.*-x86_64-gp2' \
  --output table

Amazon Linux

As with Amazon Linux 2, narrow down by name. ʻOwners is ʻamazon.

$ aws ec2 describe-images \
  --region ap-northeast-1 \
  --query 'reverse(sort_by(Images, &CreationDate))[:1]' \
  --owners amazon \
  --filters 'Name=name,Values=amzn-ami-hvm-*-x86_64-gp2' \
  --output table

CentOS 7

Use product-code to narrow down as you can see on the CentOS Wiki. ʻOwners is ʻaws-marketplace.

Images

Finding AMI ids

$ aws ec2 describe-images \
  --query 'reverse(sort_by(Images, &CreationDate))[:1]' \
  --owners aws-marketplace \
  --filters 'Name=product-code,Values=aw0evgkw8e5c1q413zgy5pjce' \
  --output table

Ubuntu Server 18.04 LTS

Narrow down by name. ʻOwners is 099720109477`.

$ aws ec2 describe-images \
  --region ap-northeast-1 \
  --owners 099720109477 \
  --query 'reverse(sort_by(Images, &CreationDate))[:1]' \
  --filters 'Name=name,Values=ubuntu/images/hvm-ssd/ubuntu-bionic-18.04-amd64-server-*' \
  --output table