Find shared AMIs to use for Amazon EC2 instances - Amazon Elastic Compute Cloud

Find shared AMIs to use for Amazon EC2 instances

You can use the Amazon EC2 console or the command line to find public or private shared AMIs to use with your Amazon EC2 instances.

AMIs are a Regional resource. When you search for a shared AMI (public or private), you must search for it from the same Region from which it is shared. To make an AMI available in a different Region, copy the AMI to the Region, and then share it. For more information, see Copy an Amazon EC2 AMI.

Console

The console provides an AMI filter field. You can also scope your searches using the filters provided in the Search field.

To find a shared or AMI

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

  2. In the navigation pane, choose AMIs.

  3. In the first filter, choose one of the following options:

    • Private images – Lists all AMIs that are shared with you.

    • Public images – Lists all public AMIs.

  4. (Optional) To display only the public images from Amazon, choose the Search field and then, from the menu options, choose Owner alias, then =, and then amazon.

  5. (Optional) Add filters to scope your search to AMIs that meet your requirements.

To find a shared public AMI from a verified provider

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

  2. In the navigation pane, choose AMI Catalog.

  3. Choose Community AMIs.

  4. In the Refine results pane, select Verified provider. The Verified provider label indicates that the AMIs are from Amazon or a verified partner.

AWS CLI

Use the describe-images command to list AMIs. You can scope the list to the types of AMIs that interest you, as shown in the following examples.

To list all public AMIs

The following command lists all public AMIs, including any public AMIs that you own.

aws ec2 describe-images --executable-users all
To list AMIs with explicit launch permissions

The following command lists the AMIs for which you have explicit launch permissions. This list does not include any AMIs that you own.

aws ec2 describe-images --executable-users self
To list AMIs owned by verified providers

The following command lists the AMIs owned by verified providers. Public AMIs owned by verified providers (either Amazon or verified partners) have an aliased owner, which appears as amazon, aws-backup-vault, or aws-marketplace in the account field. This helps you to easily find AMIs from verified providers. Other users can't alias their AMIs.

aws ec2 describe-images \
    --owners amazon aws-marketplace \
    --query 'Images[*].[ImageId]' \
    --output text
To list AMIs owned by an account

The following command lists the AMIs owned by the specified AWS account.

aws ec2 describe-images --owners 123456789012
To scope AMIs using a filter

To reduce the number of displayed AMIs, use a filter to list only the types of AMIs that interest you. For example, use the following filter to display only EBS-backed AMIs.

--filters "Name=root-device-type,Values=ebs"
PowerShell

Use the Get-EC2Image cmdlet (Tools for Windows PowerShell) to list AMIs. You can scope the list to the types of AMIs that interest you, as shown in the following examples.

To list all public AMIs

The following command lists all public AMIs, including any public AMIs that you own.

Get-EC2Image -ExecutableUser all
To list AMIs with explicit launch permissions

The following command lists the AMIs for which you have explicit launch permissions. This list does not include any AMIs that you own.

Get-EC2Image -ExecutableUser self
To list AMIs owned by verified providers

The following command lists the AMIs owned by verified providers. Public AMIs owned by verified providers (either Amazon or verified partners) have an aliased owner, which appears as amazon, aws-backup-vault, or aws-marketplace in the account field. This helps you to easily find AMIs from verified providers. Other users can't alias their AMIs.

Get-EC2Image -Owner amazon aws-marketplace
To list AMIs owned by an account

The following command lists the AMIs owned by the specified AWS account.

Get-EC2Image -Owner 123456789012
To scope AMIs using a filter

To reduce the number of displayed AMIs, use a filter to list only the types of AMIs that interest you. For example, use the following filter to display only EBS-backed AMIs.

-Filter @{Name="root-device-type"; Values="ebs"}