How do I create an AMI in one AWS Region and then copy it to another?

Resolution

To create a copy of your AMI in another AWS Region, follow these steps:

1. Create an AMI of your EC2 instance:

   To create a Linux AMI, see Create your own AMI.

   To create a Linux instance store-backed AMI, see Create an instance store-backed Linux AMI.

   To create a Windows AMI, see Create a custom Windows AMI.

2. Copy the AMI of your EC2 instance to another AWS Region:

   To copy a Linux AMI, see Copy an AMI.

   To copy a Windows AMI, see Copy an AMI.

3. After the copy operation completes, launch a new EC2 instance from your AMI in the new AWS Region.

Copy an encrypted AMI

Use this information to copy and share an encrypted AMI:

Copy an encrypted AMI

For Linux, see Copy an AMI - Encryption and copying.

For Windows, see Copy an AMI - Encryption and copying.

Share an AMI with specific AWS accounts

For Linux, see Share an AMI with specific AWS accounts.

For Windows, see Share an AMI with specific AWS accounts.

For more information, see How to share encrypted AMIs across accounts to launch encrypted EC2 instances.

Resolve Linux error message "This AMI was copied from an AMI with a kernel that is unavailable in the destination region: {Image ID}"

Linux paravirtual (PV) AMIs aren't supported in all AWS Regions. If you receive this message, first create a new Hardware Virtual Machine (HVM) instance. Then, attach the new Amazon Elastic Block Store (Amazon EBS) volumes to the HVM instance. Finally, copy over the data from the EBS volumes attached to the old PV instance. For more information, see Linux AMI virtualization types.

Related information

Best practices for Amazon EC2

How can I share an encrypted EBS snapshot or volume with another AWS account?

Amazon PV-GRUB Kernel Image IDs