Create an Amazon EC2 launch template - Amazon Elastic Compute Cloud
Create a launch template by specifying parametersCreate a launch template from an existing launch templateCreate a launch template from an instanceUse a Systems Manager parameter instead of an AMI ID

Create an Amazon EC2 launch template

You can create an Amazon EC2 launch template by specifying your own values for the instance configuration parameters, or by getting the values from an existing launch template or Amazon EC2 instance.

You don't need to specify a value for every parameter in the launch template; you need only specify one instance configuration parameter to create a launch template. To indicate parameters that you choose not to specify, select Don't include in launch template when using the console. When using a command line tool, don't include the parameters to indicate that you're choosing not to specify them in the launch template.

If you want to specify an AMI in the launch template, you can either select an AMI, or specify a Systems Manager parameter that will point to an AMI on instance launch.

When an instance is launched with a launch template, the values that are specified in the launch template are used to configure the corresponding instance parameters. If a value isn't specified in the launch template, then the default value for the corresponding instance parameter is used.

Create a launch template by specifying parameters

To create a launch template, you must specify the launch template name and at least one instance configuration parameter.

For a description of each parameter, see Reference for Amazon EC2 instance configuration parameters.

Console
To create a launch template using the console

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

  2. In the navigation pane, choose Launch Templates, and then choose Create launch template.

  3. Under Launch template name and description, do the following:

    1. For Launch template name, enter a descriptive name for the launch template.

    2. For Template version description, provide a brief description of this version of the launch template.

    3. To tag the launch template on creation, expand Template tags, choose Add new tag, and then enter a tag key and value pair. Choose Add new tag again for each additional tag to add.

      Note

      To tag the resources that are created when an instance is launched, you must specify the tags under Resource tags. For more information, see Step 9 in this procedure.

  4. Under Application and OS Images (Amazon Machine Image), you can either keep Don't include in launch template selected, or choose the operating system (OS) for the instance, and then choose an AMI. Alternatively, you can specify a Systems Manager parameter instead of specifying an AMI. For more information, see Use a Systems Manager parameter instead of an AMI ID.

    An AMI is a template that contains the operating system and software required to launch an instance.

  5. Under Instance type, you can either keep Don't include in launch template selected, or select an instance type, or specify instance attributes and let Amazon EC2 identify the instance types with those attributes.

    Note

    Specifying instance attributes is supported only when the launch template is used by Auto Scaling groups, EC2 Fleet, and Spot Fleet to launch instances. For more information, see Creating an Auto Scaling group using attribute-based instance type selection and Specify attributes for instance type selection for EC2 Fleet or Spot Fleet.

    If you plan to use the launch template in the launch instance wizard or with the RunInstances API, you can't specify instance type attributes.

    The instance type determines the hardware configuration (CPU, memory, storage, and networking capacity) and size of the host computer used for an instance.

    If you're not sure which instance type to choose, you can do the following:

    • Choose Compare instance types to compare different instance types by the following attributes: number of vCPUs, architecture, amount of memory (GiB), amount of storage (GB), storage type, and network performance.

    • Choose Get advice to get guidance and suggestions for instance types from the EC2 instance type finder. For more information, see Get recommendations from EC2 instance type finder.

    Note

    If your AWS account is less than 12 months old, you can use Amazon EC2 under the Free Tier by choosing the t2.micro instance type (or the t3.micro instance type in Regions where t2.micro is unavailable). If an instance type is eligible under the Free Tier, it is labeled Free tier eligible.

  6. Under Key pair (login), for Key pair name, either keep Don't include in launch template selected, or choose an existing key pair, or create a new one.

  7. Under Network settings, you can either keep Dont include in launch template selected, or you can specify values for the various network settings.

  8. Under Configure storage, if you specified an AMI in the launch template, the AMI includes one or more volumes of storage, including the root volume (Volume 1 (AMI Root). You can optionally specify additional volumes to attach to the instance. To add a new volume, choose Add new volume.

  9. Under Resource tags, to tag the resources that are created when an instance is launched, choose Add tag, and then enter a tag key and value pair. For Resource types, specify the resources to tag on creation. You can specify the same tag for all the resources, or specify different tags for different resources. Choose Add tag again for each additional tag to add.

    You can specify tags for the following resources that are created when a launch template is used:

    • Instances

    • Volumes

    • Elastic graphics

    • Spot Instance requests

    • Network interfaces

    Note

    To tag the launch template itself, you must specify the tags under Template tags. For more information, see Step 3 in this procedure.

  10. For Advanced details, expand the section to view the fields and optionally specify any additional parameters for your instance.

  11. Use the Summary panel to review your launch template configuration. You can navigate to any section by choosing its link and then make any necessary changes.

  12. When you're ready to create your launch template, choose Create launch template.

AWS CLI

The following example uses the create-launch-template command to create a launch template with the specified name and instance configuration.

aws ec2 create-launch-template \
    --launch-template-name TemplateForWebServer \
    --version-description WebVersion1 \
    --tag-specifications 'ResourceType=launch-template,Tags=[{Key=purpose,Value=production}]' \
    --launch-template-data file://template-data.json

The following is example JSON that specifies the launch template data for the instance configuration. Save the JSON to a file and include it in the --launch-template-data parameter as shown in the example command.

{
    "NetworkInterfaces": [{
        "AssociatePublicIpAddress": true,
        "DeviceIndex": 0,
        "Ipv6AddressCount": 1,
        "SubnetId": "subnet-7b16de0c"
    }],
    "ImageId": "ami-8c1be5f6",
    "InstanceType": "r4.4xlarge",
    "TagSpecifications": [{
        "ResourceType": "instance",
        "Tags": [{
            "Key":"Name",
            "Value":"webserver"
        }]
    }],
    "CpuOptions": {
        "CoreCount":4,
        "ThreadsPerCore":2
    }
}

The following is example output.

{
    "LaunchTemplate": {
        "LatestVersionNumber": 1, 
        "LaunchTemplateId": "lt-01238c059e3466abc", 
        "LaunchTemplateName": "TemplateForWebServer", 
        "DefaultVersionNumber": 1, 
        "CreatedBy": "arn:aws:iam::123456789012:root", 
        "CreateTime": "2017-11-27T09:13:24.000Z"
    }
}
PowerShell

The following example uses the New-EC2LaunchTemplate cmdlet to create a launch template with the specified name and instance configuration.

$launchTemplateData = [Amazon.EC2.Model.RequestLaunchTemplateData]@{
    ImageId = 'ami-8c1be5f6'
    InstanceType = 'r4.4xlarge'
    NetworkInterfaces = @(
        [Amazon.EC2.Model.LaunchTemplateInstanceNetworkInterfaceSpecificationRequest]@{
            AssociatePublicIpAddress = $true
            DeviceIndex = 0
            Ipv6AddressCount = 1
            SubnetId = 'subnet-7b16de0c'
        }
    )
    TagSpecifications = @(
        [Amazon.EC2.Model.LaunchTemplateTagSpecificationRequest]@{
            ResourceType = 'instance'
            Tags = [Amazon.EC2.Model.Tag]@{
                Key = 'Name'
                Value = 'webserver'
            }
        }
    )
    CpuOptions = [Amazon.EC2.Model.LaunchTemplateCpuOptionsRequest]@{
        CoreCount = 4
        ThreadsPerCore = 2
    }
}
$tagSpecificationData = [Amazon.EC2.Model.TagSpecification]@{
    ResourceType = 'launch-template'
    Tags = [Amazon.EC2.Model.Tag]@{
        Key = 'purpose'
        Value = 'production'
    }
}
New-EC2LaunchTemplate -LaunchTemplateName 'TemplateForWebServer' -VersionDescription 'WebVersion1' -LaunchTemplateData $launchTemplateData -TagSpecification $tagSpecificationData

The following is example output.

CreatedBy            : arn:aws:iam::123456789012:root
CreateTime           : 9/19/2023 16:57:55
DefaultVersionNumber : 1
LatestVersionNumber  : 1
LaunchTemplateId     : lt-01238c059eEXAMPLE
LaunchTemplateName   : TemplateForWebServer
Tags                 : {purpose}

Create a launch template from an existing launch template

You can clone an existing launch template and then adjust the parameters to create a new launch template. However, you can only do this when using the Amazon EC2 console. The AWS CLI does not support cloning a template. For a description of each parameter, see Reference for Amazon EC2 instance configuration parameters.

Console
To create a launch template from an existing launch template

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

  2. In the navigation pane, choose Launch Templates, and then choose Create launch template.

  3. For Launch template name, enter a descriptive name for the launch template.

  4. For Template version description, provide a brief description of this version of the launch template.

  5. To tag the launch template on creation, expand Template tags, choose Add new tag, and then enter a tag key and value pair.

  6. Expand Source template, and for Launch template name choose a launch template on which to base the new launch template.

  7. For Source template version, choose the launch template version on which to base the new launch template.

  8. Adjust any launch parameters as required, and then choose Create launch template.

Create a launch template from an instance

You can clone the parameters of an existing Amazon EC2 instance and then adjust the parameters to create a launch template. For a description of each parameter, see Reference for Amazon EC2 instance configuration parameters.

Console
To create a launch template from an instance

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

  2. In the navigation pane, choose Instances.

  3. Select the instance, and choose Actions, Image and templates, Create template from instance.

  4. Provide a name, description, and tags, and adjust the launch parameters as required.

    Note

    When you create a launch template from an instance, the instance's network interface IDs and IP addresses are not included in the template.

  5. Choose Create launch template.

AWS CLI

You can use the AWS CLI to create a launch template from an existing instance by first getting the launch template data from an instance, and then creating a launch template using the launch template data.

To get launch template data from an instance

  • Use the get-launch-template-data command and specify the instance ID. You can use the output as a base to create a new launch template or launch template version. By default, the output includes a top-level LaunchTemplateData object, which cannot be specified in your launch template data. Use the --query option to exclude this object.

    aws ec2 get-launch-template-data \
    --instance-id i-0123d646e8048babc \
    --query "LaunchTemplateData"

    The following is example output.

        {
        "Monitoring": {}, 
        "ImageId": "ami-8c1be5f6", 
        "BlockDeviceMappings": [
            {
                "DeviceName": "/dev/xvda", 
                "Ebs": {
                    "DeleteOnTermination": true
                }
            }
        ], 
        "EbsOptimized": false, 
        "Placement": {
            "Tenancy": "default", 
            "GroupName": "", 
            "AvailabilityZone": "us-east-1a"
        }, 
        "InstanceType": "t2.micro", 
        "NetworkInterfaces": [
            {
                "Description": "", 
                "NetworkInterfaceId": "eni-35306abc", 
                "PrivateIpAddresses": [
                    {
                        "Primary": true, 
                        "PrivateIpAddress": "10.0.0.72"
                    }
                ], 
                "SubnetId": "subnet-7b16de0c", 
                "Groups": [
                    "sg-7c227019"
                ], 
                "Ipv6Addresses": [
                    {
                        "Ipv6Address": "2001:db8:1234:1a00::123"
                    }
                ], 
                "PrivateIpAddress": "10.0.0.72"
            }
        ]
    }

    You can write the output directly to a file, for example:

    aws ec2 get-launch-template-data \
    --instance-id i-0123d646e8048babc \
    --query "LaunchTemplateData" >> instance-data.json
To create a launch template using launch template data

Use a Systems Manager parameter instead of an AMI ID

Instead of specifying an AMI ID in your launch templates, you can specify an AWS Systems Manager parameter. If the AMI ID changes, you can update the AMI ID in one place by updating the Systems Manager parameter in the Systems Manager Parameter Store. Parameters can also be shared with other AWS accounts. You can centrally store and manage AMI parameters in one account and share them with every other account that needs to reference them. By using a Systems Manager parameter, all your launch templates can be updated in a single action.

A Systems Manager parameter is a user-defined key-value pair that you create in the AWS Systems Manager Parameter Store. The Parameter Store provides a central place to store your application configuration values.

In the following diagram, the golden-ami parameter is first mapped to the original AMI ami-aabbccddeeffgghhi in the Parameter Store. In the launch template, the value for the AMI ID is golden-ami. When an instance is launched using this launch template, the AMI ID resolves to ami-aabbccddeeffgghhi. Later, the AMI is updated resulting in a new AMI ID. In the Parameter Store, the golden-ami parameter is mapped to the new ami-00112233445566778. The launch template remains unchanged. When an instance is launched using this launch template, the AMI ID resolves to the new ami-00112233445566778.

Using Systems Manager parameters in the Parameter Store to update a launch template.

Systems Manager parameter format for AMI IDs

Launch templates require that user-defined Systems Manager parameters adhere to the following format when used in place of an AMI ID:

  • Parameter type: String

  • Parameter data type: aws:ec2:image – This ensures that Parameter Store validates that the value you enter is in the proper format for an AMI ID.

For more information about creating a valid parameter for an AMI ID, see Creating Systems Manager parameters in the AWS Systems Manager User Guide.

Systems Manager parameter format in launch templates

To use a Systems Manager parameter in place of an AMI ID in a launch template, you must use one of the following formats when specifying the parameter in the launch template:

To reference a public parameter:

  • resolve:ssm:public-parameter

To reference a parameter stored in the same account:

  • resolve:ssm:parameter-name

  • resolve:ssm:parameter-name:version-number – The version number itself is a default label

  • resolve:ssm:parameter-name:label

To reference a parameter shared from another AWS account:

  • resolve:ssm:parameter-ARN

  • resolve:ssm:parameter-ARN:version-number

  • resolve:ssm:parameter-ARN:label

Parameter versions

Systems Manager parameters are versioned resources. When you update a parameter, you create new, successive versions of the parameter. Systems Manager supports parameter labels that you can map to specific versions of a parameter.

For example, the golden-ami parameter can have three versions: 1, 2, and 3. You can create a parameter label beta that maps to version 2, and a parameter label prod that maps to version 3.

In a launch template, you can specify version 3 of the golden-ami parameter by using either of the following formats:

  • resolve:ssm:golden-ami:3

  • resolve:ssm:golden-ami:prod

Specifying the version or label is optional. If a version or label is not specified, the latest version of the parameter is used.

Specify a Systems Manager parameter in a launch template

You can specify a Systems Manager parameter in a launch template instead of an AMI ID when you create a launch template or a new version of a launch template.

Console
To specify a Systems Manager parameter in a launch template

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

  2. In the navigation pane, choose Launch Templates, and then choose Create launch template.

  3. For Launch template name, enter a descriptive name for the launch template.

  4. Under Application and OS Images (Amazon Machine Image), choose Browse more AMIs.

  5. Choose the arrow button to the right of the search bar, and then choose Specify custom value/Systems Manager parameter.

  6. In the Specify custom value or Systems Manager parameter dialog box, do the following:

    1. For AMI ID or Systems Manager parameter string, enter the Systems Manager parameter name using one of the following formats:

      To reference a public parameter:

      • resolve:ssm:public-parameter

      To reference a parameter stored in the same account:

      • resolve:ssm:parameter-name

      • resolve:ssm:parameter-name:version-number

      • resolve:ssm:parameter-name:label

      To reference a parameter shared from another AWS account:

      • resolve:ssm:parameter-ARN

      • resolve:ssm:parameter-ARN:version-number

      • resolve:ssm:parameter-ARN:label

    2. Choose Save.

  7. Specify any other launch template parameters as needed, and then choose Create launch template.

For more information, see Create a launch template by specifying parameters.

AWS CLI
To specify a Systems Manager parameter in a launch template

  • Use the create-launch-template command to create the launch template. To specify the AMI to use, enter the Systems Manager parameter name using one of the following formats:

    To reference a public parameter:

    • resolve:ssm:public-parameter

    To reference a parameter stored in the same account:

    • resolve:ssm:parameter-name

    • resolve:ssm:parameter-name:version-number

    • resolve:ssm:parameter-name:label

    To reference a parameter shared from another AWS account:

    • resolve:ssm:parameter-ARN

    • resolve:ssm:parameter-ARN:version-number

    • resolve:ssm:parameter-ARN:label

    The following example creates a launch template that specifies the following:

    • A name for the launch template (TemplateForWebServer)

    • A tag for the launch template (purpose=production)

    • The data for the instance configuration, specified in a JSON file:

      • The AMI to use (resolve:ssm:golden-ami)

      • The instance type to launch (m5.4xlarge)

      • A tag for the instance (Name=webserver)

    aws ec2 create-launch-template \
    --launch-template-name TemplateForWebServer \
    --tag-specifications 'ResourceType=launch-template,Tags=[{Key=purpose,Value=production}]' \
    --launch-template-data file://template-data.json

    The following is an example JSON file that contains the launch template data for the instance configuration. The value for ImageId is the Systems Manager parameter name, entered in the required format resolve:ssm:golden-ami.

    {"LaunchTemplateData": {
    "ImageId": "resolve:ssm:golden-ami",
    "InstanceType": "m5.4xlarge",
    "TagSpecifications": [{
        "ResourceType": "instance",
        "Tags": [{
            "Key":"Name",
            "Value":"webserver"
        }]
    }]
  }
}

Verify that a launch template gets the correct AMI ID

To resolve the Systems Manager parameter to the actual AMI ID

Use the describe-launch-template-versions command and include the --resolve-alias parameter.

aws ec2 describe-launch-template-versions \
    --launch-template-name my-launch-template \
    --versions $Default \
    --resolve-alias

The response includes the AMI ID for ImageId. In this example, when an instance is launched using this launch template, the AMI ID resolves to ami-0ac394d6a3example.

{
    "LaunchTemplateVersions": [
        {
            "LaunchTemplateId": "lt-089c023a30example",
            "LaunchTemplateName": "my-launch-template",
            "VersionNumber": 1,
            "CreateTime": "2022-12-28T19:52:27.000Z",
            "CreatedBy": "arn:aws:iam::123456789012:user/Bob",
            "DefaultVersion": true,
            "LaunchTemplateData": {
                "ImageId": "ami-0ac394d6a3example",
                "InstanceType": "t3.micro",
            }
        }
    ]
}

For more information about working with Systems Manager parameters, see the following reference materials in the Systems Manager documentation.

Limitations

  • Only EC2 Fleets of type instant support using a launch template that has a Systems Manager parameter specified in place of an AMI ID.

  • EC2 Fleets of type maintain and request, and Spot Fleets do not support using a launch template that has a Systems Manager parameter specified in place of an AMI ID. For EC2 Fleets of type maintain and request, and for Spot Fleets, if you specify an AMI in the launch template, you must specify the AMI ID.

  • If you use attribute-based instance selection in your EC2 Fleet, you can't specify a Systems Manager parameter in place of an AMI ID. When using attribute-based instance selection, you must specify the AMI ID.

  • Amazon EC2 Auto Scaling provides other restrictions. For more information, see Use AWS Systems Manager parameters instead of AMI IDs in launch templates in the Amazon EC2 Auto Scaling User Guide.