Importing OVA to AWS as AMI using AWS CLI (Part 1 of 2)

It's been awhile since my last post again. Now I'm busy with AWS and today I'm going to show you how we can upload our OVA file (exported from any virtualize vendor) to our S3 bucket and convert it to AMI which is an image format using by AWS.

Before we started, there are some prerequisites that needed to be done.

1. Download and install AWS CLI tool from AWS website, click here

(Don't forget to set your AWSCLI_HOME)

2. Now we need "VM Import Service Role" this will uses a role in your AWS account to perform certain operations. The role must be created with the name "vmimport" with the following policy and trust entities. Create a file name "trust-policy.json" with following policies:

{
   "Version":"2012-10-17",
   "Statement":[
      {
         "Sid":"",
         "Effect":"Allow",
         "Principal":{
            "Service":"vmie.amazonaws.com"
         },
         "Action":"sts:AssumeRole",
         "Condition":{
            "StringEquals":{
               "sts:ExternalId":"vmimport"
            }
         }
      }
   ]
} 

Then use this command to create service role:

> aws iam create-role --role-name vmimport --assume-role-policy-document file://trust-policy.json

3. Then create a file named "role-policy.json" to use as policy for this service role: 

{
   "Version":"2012-10-17",
   "Statement":[
      {
         "Effect":"Allow",
         "Action":[
            "s3:ListBucket",
            "s3:GetBucketLocation"
         ],
         "Resource":[
            "arn:aws:s3:::<disk-image-file-bucket>"
         ]
      },
      {
         "Effect":"Allow",
         "Action":[
            "s3:GetObject"
         ],
         "Resource":[
            "arn:aws:s3:::<disk-image-file-bucket>/*"
         ]
      },
      {
         "Effect":"Allow",
         "Action":[
            "ec2:ModifySnapshotAttribute",
            "ec2:CopySnapshot",
            "ec2:RegisterImage",
            "ec2:Describe*"
         ],
         "Resource":"*"
      }
   ]
}

Then create policy and replace <disk-image-file-bucket> with the appropriate Amazon S3 bucket where the disk files are stored. Run this command to attach the policy to the role created above:

> aws iam put-role-policy --role-name vmimport --policy-name vmimport --policy-document file://role-policy.json

4. If you're logged on as an IAM user, you'll need the following permissions in your IAM policy to import or export a VM:

{
  "Version": "2012-10-17",
  "Statement": [
    {
      "Effect": "Allow",
      "Action": [
        "s3:ListAllMyBuckets"
      ],
      "Resource": "*"
    },
    {
      "Effect": "Allow",
      "Action": [
        "s3:CreateBucket",
        "s3:DeleteBucket",
        "s3:DeleteObject",
        "s3:GetBucketLocation",
        "s3:GetObject",
        "s3:ListBucket",
        "s3:PutObject"
      ],
      "Resource": ["arn:aws:s3:::mys3bucket","arn:aws:s3:::mys3bucket/*"]
    },
    {
      "Effect": "Allow",
      "Action": [
        "ec2:CancelConversionTask",
        "ec2:CancelExportTask",
        "ec2:CreateImage",
        "ec2:CreateInstanceExportTask",
        "ec2:CreateTags",
        "ec2:DeleteTags",
        "ec2:DescribeConversionTasks",
        "ec2:DescribeExportTasks",
        "ec2:DescribeInstanceAttribute",
        "ec2:DescribeInstanceStatus",
        "ec2:DescribeInstances",
        "ec2:DescribeTags",
        "ec2:ImportInstance",
        "ec2:ImportVolume",
        "ec2:StartInstances",
        "ec2:StopInstances",
        "ec2:TerminateInstances",
        "ec2:ImportImage",
        "ec2:ImportSnapshot",
        "ec2:DescribeImportImageTasks",
        "ec2:DescribeImportSnapshotTasks",
        "ec2:CancelImportTask"
      ],
      "Resource": "*"
    }
  ]
}

Now we're ready to import our OVA files using AWS CLI tool. Let's continue on part 2...