Instance and Instance's AMI's Kernel-ID

Question

When you create an AMI Image of an EC2 Instance the kernel-id of an instance and AMI's kernel-id will always be the same, correct?

Answer 1

Yes. It defaults to the kernel-id of the original instance. However, you can always change it at create time, assuming it's a compatible kernel.

Answer 2

If you are using create-image through the API / command line / web console, then yes, the AKI (kernel image) associated with the new AMI will be the same as the AKI of the running instance.

If you want to use a different AKI you could:

• stop the instance

• snapshot the root EBS volume

• register the snapshot as a new AMI, specifying a different AKI id.

• start the instance

This is the procedure followed by create-image but it defaults to using the same AKI.

That said, it would be a rare situation where you wanted to use a different AKI as the default on Amazon is to us PV-GRUB, which just loads the kernel from the image on your AMI.