Sign In to the Console
Amazon Elastic Compute Cloud
API Reference (API Version 2016-11-15)

AWS Documentation » Amazon EC2 » API Reference » Actions » ImportImage

ImportImage

Import single or multi-volume disk images or EBS snapshots into an Amazon Machine Image (AMI). For more information, see Importing a VM as an Image Using VM Import/Export in the VM Import/Export User Guide.

Request Parameters

The following parameters are for this specific action. For more information about required and optional parameters that are common to all actions, see Common Query Parameters.

Architecture

The architecture of the virtual machine.

Valid values: i386 | x86_64

Type: String

Required: No

ClientData

The client-specific data.

Type: ClientData object

Required: No

ClientToken

The token to enable idempotency for VM import requests.

Type: String

Required: No

Description

A description string for the import image task.

Type: String

Required: No

DiskContainer.N

Information about the disk containers.

Type: Array of ImageDiskContainer objects

Required: No

DryRun

Checks whether you have the required permissions for the action, without actually making the request, and provides an error response. If you have the required permissions, the error response is DryRunOperation. Otherwise, it is UnauthorizedOperation.

Type: Boolean

Required: No

Encrypted

Specifies whether the destination AMI of the imported image should be encrypted. The default CMK for EBS is used unless you specify a non-default AWS Key Management Service (AWS KMS) CMK using KmsKeyId. For more information, see Amazon EBS Encryption in the Amazon Elastic Compute Cloud User Guide.

Type: Boolean

Required: No

Hypervisor

The target hypervisor platform.

Valid values: xen

Type: String

Required: No

KmsKeyId

An identifier for the AWS Key Management Service (AWS KMS) customer master key (CMK) to use when creating the encrypted AMI. This parameter is only required if you want to use a non-default CMK; if this parameter is not specified, the default CMK for EBS is used. If a KmsKeyId is specified, the Encrypted flag must also be set.

The CMK identifier may be provided in any of the following formats:

  • Key ID

  • Key alias, in the form alias/ExampleAlias

  • ARN using key ID. The ID ARN contains the arn:aws:kms namespace, followed by the region of the CMK, the AWS account ID of the CMK owner, the key namespace, and then the CMK ID. For example, arn:aws:kms:us-east-1:012345678910:key/abcd1234-a123-456a-a12b-a123b4cd56ef.

  • ARN using key alias. The alias ARN contains the arn:aws:kms namespace, followed by the region of the CMK, the AWS account ID of the CMK owner, the alias namespace, and then the CMK alias. For example, arn:aws:kms:us-east-1:012345678910:alias/ExampleAlias.

AWS parses KmsKeyId asynchronously, meaning that the action you call may appear to complete even though you provided an invalid identifier. This action will eventually report failure.

The specified CMK must exist in the region that the AMI is being copied to.

Type: String

Required: No

LicenseType

The license type to be used for the Amazon Machine Image (AMI) after importing.

Note: You may only use BYOL if you have existing licenses with rights to use these licenses in a third party cloud like AWS. For more information, see Prerequisites in the VM Import/Export User Guide.

Valid values include:

  • Auto - Detects the source-system operating system (OS) and applies the appropriate license.

  • AWS - Replaces the source-system license with an AWS license, if appropriate.

  • BYOL - Retains the source-system license, if appropriate.

Default value: Auto

Type: String

Required: No

Platform

The operating system of the virtual machine.

Valid values: Windows | Linux

Type: String

Required: No

RoleName

The name of the role to use when not using the default role, 'vmimport'.

Type: String

Required: No

Response Elements

The following elements are returned by the service.

architecture

The architecture of the virtual machine.

Type: String

description

A description of the import task.

Type: String

encrypted

Indicates whether the AMI is encypted.

Type: Boolean

hypervisor

The target hypervisor of the import task.

Type: String

imageId

The ID of the Amazon Machine Image (AMI) created by the import task.

Type: String

importTaskId

The task ID of the import image task.

Type: String

kmsKeyId

The identifier for the AWS Key Management Service (AWS KMS) customer master key (CMK) that was used to create the encrypted AMI.

Type: String

licenseType

The license type of the virtual machine.

Type: String

platform

The operating system of the virtual machine.

Type: String

progress

The progress of the task.

Type: String

requestId

The ID of the request.

Type: String

snapshotDetailSet

Information about the snapshots.

Type: Array of SnapshotDetail objects

status

A brief status of the task.

Type: String

statusMessage

A detailed status message of the import task.

Type: String

Errors

For information about the errors that are common to all actions, see Common Client Errors.

See Also

For more information about using this API in one of the language-specific AWS SDKs, see the following: