Deploying Custom Amazon Images with the AWS CLI on Demand

Hey All! Today I am going to go over how to make a gold image of an Amazon EC2 instance, then deploy copies of that instance on demand with a simple AWS CLI script! 

First of all, this tutorial assumes you have already installed the AWS CLI tools on your client architecture. You will also want to create a new IAM user such that you aren't using your root credentials to hit the AWS API, and make sure this new user has enough permissions to create new instances. Make sure to use that user's Access Key ID and Secret Access Key in your AWS CLI config. Finally, we will want to have launched default AMI, configured this system like we want every subsequent system (this includes setting up the AWS access keys, security group, and subnet) , and then turn this into a custom AMI using the Web Console:

Next, we are going to launch a copy of that instance using the following AWS command line script:

ec2-run-instances ami-xxxxxxxx -t t2.medium -k my-key-xxxxx -s subnet-xxxxxxxx -g sg-xxxxxxxx --associate-public-ip-address true

And boom! This will return all the details of the new instance it has just launched in the console, making it easy to script this simple command and parse the output to chain even more automated deployment (like then ssh-ing to the server and running some updated configuration scripts)!