dd if=/dev/zero of=debian.fs count=1024 bs=1M
mke2fs -F -j debian.fs
mount -o loop debian.fs /mnt

debootstrap -arch i386 etch /mnt http://ftp.debian.org
nano /mnt/etc/apt/sources.list (I just added the security updates line)
chroot /mnt

3. We need to create some devices:

mount /proc
cd /dev
/sbin/MAKEDEV console
/sbin/MAKEDEV std
/sbin/MAKEDEV generic (it's been suggested this isn't actually necessary but I left it in anyway just in case)

4. Setup the root password, network interfaces and fstab:

passwd (this is 'etch' on the public AMI)

nano /etc/network/interfaces

auto lo
iface lo inet loopback
auto eth0
iface eth0 inet dhcp

nano /etc/fstab

/dev/sda1 / ext3 defaults 0 1
/dev/sda2 /mnt ext3 defaults 1 2
/dev/sda3 swap swap defaults 0 0

5. Now we use apt to update and add sshd:

apt-get update
apt-get dist-upgrade (don't worry about the locale warnings here, we'll fix this later)
apt-get install openssh-server

exit (out of the chroot environment)
sync
umount -l /mnt (for lazy umount)
ec2-bundle-image -i debian.fs -k private_key -c certificate -u aws_id
ec2-upload-bundle -b bucket -m /tmp/debian.fs.manifest.xml -a s3_access_key -s s3_secret_key
ec2-register bucket /debian.fs.manifest.xml

apt-get install locales libc6-xen  curl rsync ruby libopenssl-ruby1.8 module-init-tools openssl
dpkg-reconfigure locales (I selected en_US.UTF-8)

dpkg -i ec2-ami-tools_1.2-7222_all.deb
RUBYLIB=/usr/lib/site_ruby/
add the following to /root/.profile

RUBYLIB=/usr/lib/site_ruby/
export RUBYLIB

9. We need to modify the AMI tools slightly due to differences in MAKEDEV:

nano /usr/lib/site_ruby/aes/amiutil/image.rb

changing

exec( ‘for i in console null zero ; do /sbin/MAKEDEV -d ‘ + dev_dir + ‘ -x $i ; done’ )

on around line 150 to

exec("cd #{dev_dir} && /sbin/MAKEDEV console && /sbin/MAKEDEV std && /sbin/MAKEDEV generic")

 10. We also need the AWS kernel modules:

cd /

wget http://s3.amazonaws.com/ec2-downloads/modules-2.6.16-ec2.tgz

tar -xzvf modules-2.6.16-ec2.tgz

rm modules-2.6.16-ec2.tgz

depmod -a

11. Finally, in order to secure the image a bit we will disable root password login:

nano /etc/ssh/sshd_config

changing

PermitRootLogin yes

to

PermitRootLogin without-password

12. and enable the AWS public key login feature by appending the following to rc.local:

nano /etc/rc.local

if [ ! -d /root/.ssh ] ; then

    mkdir -p /root/.ssh

    chmod 700 /root/.ssh

fi

curl http://169.254.169.254/1.0//meta-data/public-keys/0/openssh-key > /tmp/my-key

if [ $? -eq 0 ] ; then

    cat /tmp/my-key >> /root/.ssh/authorized_keys

    chmod 600 /root/.ssh/authorized_keys

    rm /tmp/my-key

fi

exit 0

13. If the image is being bundled for public consumption you may wish to do the following where appropriate:

rm /root/.ssh/authorized_keys

rm /root/.bash_history && touch /root/.bash_history

14. We can now use the new 'self-bundling' ability of the instance:

ec2-bundle-vol -d /mnt -p ami_name -k private_key -c certificate -u aws_id -s 3072

ec2-upload-bundle -b bucket -m /mnt/ ami_name .manifest.xml -a s3_access_key -s s3_secret_key

ec2-register bucket / ami_name .manifest.xml

15. Again, if this AMI doesn't work on launch take a look at the console to figure out why (don't forget that root password login was disabled).

If you notice any bugs in this HOWTO please let us know. Otherwise the public  ami-30f11459 was made today using these same instructions if you want to try it out.

Best regards

Paul