Find if AWS instance is running Amazon Linux 1 or 2?

Question

In AWS I need to add amazon linux instance to domain based on this article. However how do i know which Amazon Linux version the instance is using. I do not have access to AWS console. But i do have access to actual instance. What linux command i should be using.

I use uname -srm command which returns Linux 4.4.0-1057-aws x86_64

Not sure if this is Amazon Linux 1 or Amazon Linux 2

score 76 · Answer 1 · answered Jun 13 '19 at 08:09

You can use /etc/os-release file to get the info about Amazon Linux Version, the machine is running.

In case of Amazon 1

[ec2-user@ip-x-x-x- ~]$ cat /etc/os-release
NAME="Amazon Linux AMI"
VERSION="2018.03"
ID="amzn"
ID_LIKE="rhel fedora"
VERSION_ID="2018.03"
PRETTY_NAME="Amazon Linux AMI 2018.03"
ANSI_COLOR="0;33"
CPE_NAME="cpe:/o:amazon:linux:2018.03:ga"
HOME_URL="http://aws.amazon.com/amazon-linux-ami/"

In case of Amazon 2

[ec2-user@x-x-x-x ~]$ cat /etc/system-release
Amazon Linux release 2.0 (2017.12) LTS Release Candidate
[ec2-user@fresh-amazon-host ~]$ cat /etc/os-release
NAME="Amazon Linux"
VERSION="2.0 (2017.12)"
ID="amzn"
ID_LIKE="centos rhel fedora"
VERSION_ID="2.0"
PRETTY_NAME="Amazon Linux 2.0 (2017.12) LTS Release Candidate"
ANSI_COLOR="0;33"
CPE_NAME="cpe:2.3:o:amazon:amazon_linux:2.0"
HOME_URL="https://amazonlinux.com/"

As you can clearly see the two different versions, mentioned as Amazon Linux and Amazon Linux 2.0

what is the excet meaning ID_LIKE="centos rhel fedora", Is this support all three distros — Lokendra Parihar, May 11 '21 at 03:34
The format of the various environment variables seems to have changed a bit, but these files are indeed present. — Christopher Schultz, Oct 06 '21 at 16:15

score 13 · Answer 2 · answered Jan 04 '19 at 08:19

13

$ cat /etc/system-release

or

$ cat /etc/issue

or

$ uname -a

and head for https://aws.amazon.com/amazon-linux-ami/

answered Jan 04 '19 at 08:19

Remigiusz

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score 4 · Answer 3 · answered Jun 01 '21 at 20:22

4

Here's a one-liner.

awk -F '[="]*' '/^PRETTY_NAME/ { print $2 }' < /etc/os-release

It prints out:

Amazon Linux 2

answered Jun 01 '21 at 20:22

Jameson

6,400
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score 3 · Answer 4 · edited Oct 21 '21 at 08:33

3

You can use the following command:

rpm -E %{rhel}

For Operating System: Amazon Linux 2

The answer is : 7

edited Oct 21 '21 at 08:33

Vardit

1,056
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answered Jul 27 '20 at 13:37

Hakimeh Mordadi

181
1
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1

without the asterisks logically :) – Oscar Florez Nov 26 '20 at 13:39

score 2 · Answer 5 · answered Dec 17 '18 at 22:31

2

Well, the announcement in: https://aws.amazon.com/about-aws/whats-new/2017/12/introducing-amazon-linux-2 states that it uses a 4.9 kernel. Yours is older, so I would say it is Linux 1.

Still, the following call from the terminal should give you the AMI ID and you could do a search on that(see docs at https://docs.aws.amazon.com/AWSEC2/latest/UserGuide/ec2-instance-metadata.html):

curl http://169.254.169.254/latest/meta-data/ami-id

answered Dec 17 '18 at 22:31

Moreno

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Just know that the AMI ID may not tell you anything. If the instance was created off of a custom AMI then it may not even exist anymore. – JeffR Jun 21 '19 at 19:34

Find if AWS instance is running Amazon Linux 1 or 2?

5 Answers5