How to create an Amazon EC2 AMI from an instance?

Question

How to create an EC2 AMI from an instance?

Ok, so I got an EC2 account. I launched an instance with Fedora 8, Apache, MySQL PHP. I also configured some things and installed Piwik. "Cool...", I thought, "... I should now be able to create an AMI with that custom configuration. Instead, all I can find are guides with 300 steps on how to create one from scratch. Maybe I am dreaming but I thought this was the easy part.

What is the easiest way to create your own AMI with custom stuff installed?

Answer 1

The steps I use are:

1. Stop all services like apache, postgresql, memcache
2. Bundle the volume: http://docs.amazonwebservices.com/AmazonEC2/dg/2006-10-01/CLTRG-ami-bundle-vol.html
3. Upload the bundle to s3: http://docs.amazonwebservices.com/AmazonEC2/dg/2006-10-01/CLTRG-ami-upload-bundle.html
4. Register the AMI manifest in ElasticFox

Answer 2

I have followed the AMI creation instructions here multiple times and been happy with them.