AWS News Blog
Amazon Linux AMI 2012.09 Now Available
|
Max Spevack of the Amazon EC2 team brings news of the latest Amazon Linux AMI.
— Jeff;
The Amazon Linux AMI 2012.09 is now available.
After we removed the Public Beta tag from the Amazon Linux AMI last September, we’ve been on a six month release cycle focused on making sure that EC2 customers have a stable, secure, and simple Linux-based AMI that integrates well with other AWS offerings.
There are several new features worth discussing, as well as a host of general updates to packages in the Amazon Linux AMI repositories and to the AWS command line tools. Here’s what’s new:
- Kernel 3.2.30: We have upgraded the kernel to version 3.2.30, which follows the 3.2.x kernel series that we introduced in the 2012.03 AMI.
- Apache 2.4 & PHP 5.4: This release supports multiple versions of both Apache and PHP, and they are engineered to work together in specific combinations. The first combination is the default, Apache 2.2 in conjunction with PHP 5.3, which are installed by running yum install httpd php. Based on customer requests, we support Apache 2.4 in conjunction with PHP 5.4 in the package repositories. These packages are accessed by running yum install httpd24 php54.
- OpenJDK 7: While OpenJDK 1.6 is still installed by default on the AMI, OpenJDK 1.7 is included in the package repositories, and available for installation. You can install it by running yum install java-1.7.0-openjdk.
- R 2.15: Also coming from your requests, we have added the R language to the Amazon Linux AMI. We are here to serve your statistical analysis needs! Simply yum install R and off you go.
- Multiple Interfaces & IP Addresses: Additional network interfaces attached while the instance is running are configured automatically. Secondary IP addresses are refreshed during DHCP lease renewal, and the related routing rules are updated.
- Multiple Versions of GCC: The default version of GCC that is available in the package repositories is GCC 4.6, which is a change from the 2012.03 AMI in which the default was GCC 4.4 and GCC 4.6 was shipped as an optional package. Furthermore, GCC 4.7 is available in the repositories. If you yum install gcc you will get GCC 4.6. For the other versions, either run yum install gcc44 or yum install gcc47.
The Amazon Linux AMI 2012.09 is available for launch in all regions. Users of 2012.03, 2011.09, and 2011.02 versions of the Amazon Linux AMI can easily upgrade using yum.
The Amazon Linux AMI is a rolling release, configured to deliver a continuous flow of updates that allow you to roll from one version of the Amazon Linux AMI to the next. In other words, Amazon Linux AMIs are treated as snapshots in time, with a repository and update structure that gives you the latest packages that we have built and pushed into the repository. If you prefer to lock your Amazon Linux AMI instances to a particular version, please see the Amazon Linux AMI FAQ for instructions.
As always, if you need any help with the Amazon Linux AMI, don’t hesitate to post on the EC2 forum, and someone from the team will be happy to assist you.
— Max