Amazon Linux AMI 2013.09 Now Available

Max Spevack of the AWS Kernel and Operating Systems (KaOS) team brings news of the latest Amazon Linux AMI.

— Jeff;

Its been another six months, so its time for a fresh release of the Amazon Linux AMI.  Today, we are pleased to announce that the Amazon Linux AMI 2013.09 is available.

This release marks the two year anniversary of the public Amazon Linux AMI GA.  As always, our roadmap and new features are heavily driven by customer requests, so please continue to let us know how we can improve the Amazon Linux AMI for your needs and workloads.

Our 2013.09 release contains several new features that are detailed below.  Our release notes contain additional release information, including more detailed lists of new and updated packages.

• Kernel 3.4.62 – We have upgraded the kernel to version 3.4.62, which follows the long-term release 3.4.x kernel series that we introduced in the 2013.03 AMI.
• AWS Command Line Interface 1.1 – The AWS Command Line Interface has celebrated its GA release in the interval since we introduced the Developer Preview version in the 2013.03 Amazon Linux AMI. We provide the latest version of this python-based interface to AWS, including command-line completion for bash and zsh.  The tool is pre-installed on the Amazon Linux AMI as the aws-cli package.
• GPT partitioning on HVM AMIs – The root device of the Amazon Linux HVM AMI is now partitioned using the GPT format, where previous releases used the MBR format. The partition table can be manipulated by GPT-aware tools such as parted and gdisk.
• Improved Ruby 1.9 Support – We’ve improved the Ruby 1.9 experience on the Amazon Linux AMI, including the latest patch level (ruby19-1.9.3-448).  Our Ruby 1.9 packages fix several other bugs, including a load issue with rake, and a fixed bigdecimal so that Ruby on Rails is easier to install.  Furthermore, Ruby now has alternatives support in the Amazon Linux AMI. You can switch between Ruby 1.8 and 1.9 with one command.
• RPM 4.11.1 and Yum 3.4.3 – The core components of RPM and Yum have been updated to newer versions, with RPM 4.11 and Yum 3.4.3 being featured in this release. Both of these updates provide numerous bug fixes, performance improvements, and new features.
• R 3.0 – Last year we added R to the Amazon Linux AMI repositories based on your requests.  With this release, we have updated R to 3.0.1, following the upstream release of R 3.0.
• Nginx 1.4.2 – Based on your requests, we have upgraded to Nginx 1.4.2.  This replaces the 1.2.x Nginx packages that we had previously delivered in the Amazon Linux AMI repositories.

The Amazon Linux AMI 2013.09 is available for launch in all regions.

The Amazon Linux AMI is a rolling release, configured to deliver a continuous flow of updates that allow you to move 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, dont hesitate to post on the EC2 forum, and someone from the team will be happy to assist you.

Thank you for using the Amazon Linux AMI!

— Max

P.S.  Help us to build the Amazon Linux AMI! We are actively hiring for Linux Systems Engineer, Linux Software Development Engineer, and Linux Kernel Engineer positions.