Manually installing SSM Agent on Debian Server instances

The Amazon Machine Images (AMIs) for Debian Server that are provided by AWS do not come with AWS Systems Manager Agent (SSM Agent) preinstalled by default. For a list of AWS managed AMIs on which the agent might be preinstalled, see Amazon Machine Images (AMIs) with SSM Agent preinstalled.

Use the information in this section to help you manually install or reinstall SSM Agent on a Debian Server instance.

Before you begin

Before you install SSM Agent on a Debian Server instance, note the following:

• For important information that applies to installation of SSM Agent on all Linux-based operating systems, see Manually installing and uninstalling SSM Agent on EC2 instances for Linux.

Quick installation commands for SSM Agent on Debian Server

Use the following steps to manually install SSM Agent on a single instance. This procedure uses globally available installation files.

To install SSM Agent on Debian Server

1. Connect to your Debian Server instance using your preferred method, such as SSH.

2. Run the following command to create a temporary directory on the instance.

   mkdir /tmp/ssm

3. Run the following command to change to the temporary directory.

   cd /tmp/ssm

4. Copy the command for your instance’s architecture and run it on the instance.

   Note

   Even though URLs in the following commands include an ec2-downloads-windows directory, these are the correct global installation files for Debian Server.

   For Debian Server 8, only the x86_64 architecture is supported.

   x86_64 instances

   wget https://s3.amazonaws.com/ec2-downloads-windows/SSMAgent/latest/debian_amd64/amazon-ssm-agent.deb

   ARM64 instances

   wget https://s3.amazonaws.com/ec2-downloads-windows/SSMAgent/latest/debian_arm64/amazon-ssm-agent.deb

5. Run the following command.

   sudo dpkg -i amazon-ssm-agent.deb

6. (Recommended) Run the following command to verify that the agent is running.

   sudo systemctl status amazon-ssm-agent

   In most cases, the command reports that the agent is running, as shown in the following example.

   ● amazon-ssm-agent.service - amazon-ssm-agent
      Loaded: loaded (/lib/systemd/system/amazon-ssm-agent.service; enabled; vendor
      Active: active (running) since Tue 2022-04-19 16:25:03 UTC; 4s ago
    Main PID: 628 (amazon-ssm-agen)
      CGroup: /system.slice/amazon-ssm-agent.service
              ├─628 /usr/bin/amazon-ssm-agent
              └─650 /usr/bin/ssm-agent-worker
               --truncated--

   In rare cases, the command reports that the agent is installed but not running, as shown in the following example.

   ● amazon-ssm-agent.service - amazon-ssm-agent
      Loaded: loaded (/lib/systemd/system/amazon-ssm-agent.service; enabled; vendor
      Active: inactive (dead) since Tue 2022-04-19 16:26:30 UTC; 5s ago
    Main PID: 628 (code=exited, status=0/SUCCESS)
               --truncated--

   To activate the agent in these cases, run the following commands.

   sudo systemctl enable amazon-ssm-agent

   sudo systemctl start amazon-ssm-agent

Create custom agent installation commands for Debian Server in your Region

When you install SSM Agent on multiple instances using a script or template, we recommended using installation files that are stored in the AWS Region you're working in.

For the following commands, we provide examples that use a publicly accessible S3 bucket in the US East (Ohio) Region (us-east-2).

Tip

You can also replace a global URL in the procedure Quick installation commands for SSM Agent on Debian Server earlier in this topic with a custom Regional URL you construct.

In the following command, replace region with your own information. For a list of supported region values, see the Region column in Systems Manager service endpoints in the Amazon Web Services General Reference.

Note

For Debian Server 8, only the x86_64 architecture is supported.

x86_64

wget https://s3.region.amazonaws.com/amazon-ssm-region/latest/debian_amd64/amazon-ssm-agent.deb

sudo dpkg -i amazon-ssm-agent.deb

See the following example.

wget https://s3.us-east-2.amazonaws.com/amazon-ssm-us-east-2/latest/debian_amd64/amazon-ssm-agent.deb

sudo dpkg -i amazon-ssm-agent.deb

ARM64

wget https://s3.region.amazonaws.com/amazon-ssm-region/latest/debian_arm64/amazon-ssm-agent.deb

sudo dpkg -i amazon-ssm-agent.deb

See the following example.

wget https://s3.us-east-2.amazonaws.com/amazon-ssm-us-east-2/latest/debian_arm64/amazon-ssm-agent.deb

sudo dpkg -i amazon-ssm-agent.deb