Ubuntu 9.04 Jaunty Desktop with NX Server Free Edition

A clean, base install of Ubuntu 9.04 Jaunty desktop with NX Server Free Edition, built by Eric Hammond as part of the Alestic.com series [update 2009-10-11]

Pick the Right Release

For a complete list of the Debian and Ubuntu AMIs available in this series including AMIs in the European EC2 region, please see the following web page:

http://alestic.com

Selecting the correct Ubuntu AMI image for your needs will improve your EC2 experience.

Description

This AMI is an install of Ubuntu 9.04 Jaunty desktop with NX Server Free Edition, built by Eric Hammond. This 32-bit AMI is for running on the 32-bit instance sizes including: m1.small, c1.medium

NOTICE! If you do not need the Ubuntu desktop, this AMI is not recommended. Instead, use the Ubuntu 9.04 Jaunty server AMI which is much smaller and loads and boots in a fraction of the time.

Steps to try out the Ubuntu desktop using NX on this AMI:

• On the instance, create a system user (remember your new password):

  apt-get update && apt-get upgrade -y
  user-setup

• On your local computer, install and run an NX Client from NoMachine.com:
  

  http://www.nomachine.com/download.php

  Clients available for Windows, Linux, Mac OSX, Solaris. For example, on my local Ubuntu system, I use:

  curl -O http://64.34.161.181/download/3.2.0/Linux/nxclient_3.2.0-9_i386.deb
  sudo dpkg -i nxclient_3.2.0-9_i386.deb 
  /usr/NX/bin/nxclient --wizard

• Point the NX Client to the external hostname of your Ubuntu desktop EC2 instance and enter the username/password from above. Choose the "Gnome" desktop.

Features

Features include:

• Ubuntu 9.04 Jaunty with upgraded packages (as of 2009-10-11)
• Amazon EC2 AMI tools (1.3-34544 20071010) installed and patched for Ubuntu
• Uses Amazon's newer 2.6.21 kernel (2.6.21.7-2.fc8xen-ec2-v1.0)

• Includes 2.6.21 kernel modules

• Defaults to Ubuntu archive mirrors inside of EC2, hosted by RightScale.
• Alestic PPA added to software sources so packages can be installed easily including ec2-consistent-snapshot.
• runurl utility from Alestic PPA pre-installed for use in user-data scripts.
• openssh-server installed
• On first boot, runs instance user-data script if it starts with #!
• Generate new ssh host keys on first boot and output fingerprints
• ca-certificates installed to support SSL in ec2-bundle-upload
• libc6-xen installed for performance
• /etc/apt/sources.list for jaunty main restricted universe multiverse
• /etc/event.d/tty[2-6] removed to avoid error messages in logs
• Shadow passwords enabled
• root password locked
• ssh PasswordAuthentication enabled
• 10GB root (/) partition
• Network: DHCP on eth0, loopback on lo, simple /etc/hosts with localhost
• root ssh public key creditials retrieved from instance parameters or ephemeral store on startup (standard Amazon EC2 ssh access for public AMIs)
• Added "UseDNS no" to /etc/ssh/sshd_config as recommended by http://docs.amazonwebservices.com/AWSEC2/2007-03-01/DeveloperGuide/public-ami-guidelines.html
• Comment appended to /etc/motd
• Locale en_US, Timezone UTC

Support

If you use or are thinking of using this AMI, please subscribe to the ec2ubuntu Google Group where you will find out about updates to the Ubuntu AMIs and tips for running Ubuntu on Amazon EC2.

To subscribe, send an email mesage to ec2ubuntu-subscribe@googlegroups.com

Support is also available through the above forum with a growing number of folks in the community using Ubuntu on EC2 (and a good core of folks willing to answer questions).

Build Process

Advanced users may consult the following page for information on how this AMI was built and to get instructions for building their own.

http://alestic.com

History

-

• Use new 2.6.21 kernel, ramdisk, and kernel modules from Amazon (security fix)
• Add Alestic PPA to apt sources on Ubuntu
• Install runurl from Alestic PPA
• Pin the ec2-ami-tools package version so it does not get downgraded
• All packages upgraded to latest versions

ami-eb46a782 - alestic/ubuntu-9.04-jaunty-desktop-20090804.manifest.xml

• Upgrade EC2 AMI tools to 1.3-34544
• Improve security by running host key regeneration after RNG initialization.
• All packages upgraded to latest versions

ami-0b729462 - alestic/ubuntu-9.04-jaunty-desktop-20090614.manifest.xml

• Switch to Ubuntu archive mirror inside of EC2, hosted by RightScale.
• Improve apt sources to failover through Ubuntu archive mirrors in multiple availability zones if one or two of them are unavailable.
• Upgrade EC2 AMI tools to 1.3-31780
• "denyhosts" package installed for added protection from ssh password attacks.
• All packages upgraded to latest versions

ami-8a5eb9e3 - alestic/ubuntu-9.04-jaunty-desktop-20090423.manifest.xml

• All packages upgraded to latest versions (Initial Release)

ami-e657b08f - alestic/ubuntu-9.04-jaunty-desktop-20090418.manifest.xml

• Pre-load 2.6.21fc8 XFS kernel module to avoid problems with Amazon's 2.6.21fc8 kernel and XFS.
• Upgrade desktop to latest 3.3.0 versions of NX Free Edition software
• All packages upgraded to latest versions (Release Candidate)

ami-b21ff8db - alestic/ubuntu-9.04-jaunty-desktop-20090329.manifest.xml

• All packages upgraded to latest versions (Beta release)

ami-b236d1db - alestic/ubuntu-9.04-jaunty-desktop-20090313.manifest.xml

• All packages upgraded to latest versions

ami-75fe191c - alestic-64/ubuntu-9.04-jaunty-base-64-20090215.manifest.xml

• NX Server Free Edition has been upgraded to the latest 3.3 version.
• All packages upgraded to latest versions

ami-375eba5e - alestic/ubuntu-9.04-jaunty-desktop-20081222.manifest.xml

• Original (Alpha) release