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Amazon Elastic Compute Cloud
User Guide for Linux Instances

Launching an Instance Using an Existing Instance as a Template

The Amazon EC2 console provides a Launch More Like This wizard option that enables you to use a current instance as a template for launching other instances. This option automatically populates the Amazon EC2 launch wizard with certain configuration details from the selected instance.

Note

The Launch More Like This wizard option does not clone your selected instance; it only replicates some configuration details. To create a copy of your instance, first create an AMI from it, then launch more instances from the AMI.

The following configuration details are copied from the selected instance into the launch wizard:

  • AMI ID

  • Instance type

  • Availability Zone, or the VPC and subnet in which the selected instance is located

  • Public IP address. If the selected instance currently has a public IP address, the new instance receives a public IP address - regardless of the selected instance's default public IP address setting. For more information about public IP addresses, see Public IP Addresses and External DNS Hostnames.

  • Placement group, if applicable

  • IAM role associated with the instance, if applicable

  • Shutdown behavior setting (stop or terminate)

  • Termination protection setting (true or false)

  • CloudWatch monitoring (enabled or disabled)

  • Amazon EBS-optimization setting (true or false)

  • Tenancy setting, if launching into a VPC (shared or dedicated)

  • Kernel ID and RAM disk ID, if applicable

  • User data, if specified

  • Tags associated with the instance, if applicable

  • Security groups associated with the instance

The following configuration details are not copied from your selected instance; instead, the wizard applies their default settings or behavior:

  • (VPC only) Number of network interfaces: The default is one network interface, which is the primary network interface (eth0).

  • Storage: The default storage configuration is determined by the AMI and the instance type.

To use your current instance as a template

  1. On the Instances page, select the instance you want to use.

  2. Choose Actions, and then Launch More Like This.

  3. The launch wizard opens on the Review Instance Launch page. You can check the details of your instance, and make any necessary changes by clicking the appropriate Edit link.

    When you are ready, choose Launch to select a key pair and launch your instance.