Uploading disk image

It's time to load the newly created plain-text disk image into EC2.

We are going to be following the AWS VM Import/Export guide

Prerequisites:

• You will need your Key ID and Secret, from the Sign up for AWS step.
• Make sure your S3 bucket is in the same region you're specifying in the command (e.g. eu-west-1).
• Review the instance types to choose one that works for you (e.g t2.large).
• Follow the AWS guide to Installing the AWS Command Line Interface

From the import guide mentioned above, we are focusing on the Image Import section.

The guide first requires to upload our disk file (.vhd) to AWS S3, then calls a command with AWS CLI to convert the uploaded disk into a AWS AMI (VM image).

After following the guide mentioned above, the we converted the uploaded .vhd into a AWS AMI with this command:

$ aws ec2 import-image --description "Dradis" --license-type BYOL --disk-containers file:///[your own path]/containers.json

It will take a little while to complete.

Once the conversion starts , you can check the status of the conversion task with:

$ eaws ec2 describe-import-image-tasks

  {
      "ImportImageTasks": [
          {
              "Status": "completed",
              "LicenseType": "BYOL",
              "Description": "Dradis",
              "ImageId": "ami-4de7d334",
              "Platform": "Linux",
              "Architecture": "x86_64",
              "SnapshotDetails": [
                  {
                      "DeviceName": "/dev/sda1",
                      "Description": "Dradis Pro",
                      "Format": "VHD",
                      "DiskImageSize": 3016455168.0,
                      "SnapshotId": "snap-01742fd55ff2a6341",
                      "UserBucket": {
                          "S3Bucket": "dradistest",
                          "S3Key": "PlainDisk.vhd"
                      }
                  }
              ],
              "ImportTaskId": "import-ami-fgwmyc7q"
          }
      ]
  }

And once the task completes, you can use the EC2 console to fire the VM.