Amazon Linux AMI 2012.03 Release Notes

Upgrading to Amazon Linux AMI 2012.03

Think about migrating to Amazon Linux AMI 2012.03 from earlier versions.

While older versions of the AMI and its packages will continue to be available for launch in Amazon EC2 even as new Amazon Linux AMI versions are released, we encourage users to migrate to the newer versions of the AMI, and to keep their systems updated. In some cases, customers seeking support for an older version of the Amazon Linux AMI through Amazon Premium Support may be asked to move to newer versions as part of the support process.

To upgrade to Amazon Linux AMI 2012.03 from 2011.09 or 2011.02, run yum update. When the transaction is complete, reboot your instance.

New features

AWS tools

We have included updated versions of all the AWS command line tools that are part of the Amazon Linux AMI. See the 2012.03 package list for more details.

Tomcat 7

Support is included for both Tomcat 6 and Tomcat 7. Both are included in the package repository, and can be installed via yum install tomcat6 or yum install tomcat7.

MySQL 5.5

New Amazon Linux AMI 2012.03 users who yum install mysql (or yum install mysql55) will get MySQL 5.5 by default, unless they explicitly choose to install the older MySQL 5.1. Users upgrading via yum from Amazon Linux AMI 2011.09 instances with the older MySQL 5.1 installed will stay with MySQL 5.1, which is still available as mysql51 in the package repository.

PostgreSQL 9

Similar to MySQL, new Amazon Linux AMI 2012.03 users who yum install postgresql (or yum install postgresql9) will get PostgreSQL 9 by default, unless they explicitly choose to install the older PostgreSQL 8. Users upgrading via yum from Amazon Linux AMI 2011.09 instances with the older PostgreSQL 8.4.x installed will stay with PostgreSQL 8, which is still available as postgresql8 in the package repository.

Kernel 3.2

The Amazon Linux AMI 2012.03.3 point release shipped with kernel version 3.2.21, replacing the 3.2.12 kernel that shipped with the initial Amazon Linux AMI 2012.03.

GCC 4.6

While GCC 4.4.6 remains the default, we have included GCC 4.6.2, specifically for use on EC2 instances that support AVX. Run yum install gcc46 in order to get the packages. GCC 4.6 enables the Amazon Linux AMI to take advantage of the AVX support available on cc2.8xlarge instance types.

Python 2.7

While Python 2.6 is still the default, users can yum install python27.

Ruby 1.9.3

While Ruby 1.8.7 is still the default, users can yum install ruby19.

CUDA toolkit 4.1

The CUDA toolkit version 4.1 is available on the GPU-enabled HVM AMI (in us-east-1).

Fresh packages

Many of the packages in the AMI have been re-synced to their latest upstream version. For reference, we have produced a list of all source RPMs included in Amazon Linux AMI 2012.03.

Supported instance types

There are six different flavors of the Amazon Linux AMI 2012.03. This compatibility table shows which 2012.03 AMI flavors launch on each EC2 instance type.

Frequently Asked Questions

The Amazon Linux AMI FAQs is updated with both general and technical topics.

Feedback

We use the Amazon EC2 Discussion Forum for bug reports, feature requests, and package requests. These forums are monitored by AWS Developer Support as well as the Amazon Linux AMI engineering team.

Help build the Amazon Linux AMI

We are actively hiring Linux Systems Engineer, Linux Software Development Engineer, and Linux Kernel Engineer positions.
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