In AWS where how can I get the list of image ids

Question

If I need to get list of AMI image ids (Ex: "ami-0ff8a91507f77f867") for Amazon Linux 2 AMI (HVM), SSD Volume Type

Is there a CLI command I can run (prefered) or is it documented some where?

Answer 1

The AWS managed list of current AMIs for Amazon Linux can be obtained using aws cli and querying public AWS SSM Parameters:

• Calling AMI Public Parameters

• Query for the latest Amazon Linux AMI IDs using AWS Systems Manager Parameter Store

The cool thing is that these values can be referenced in CloudFormation templates, so there is no need to hard-code the AMI ids.

Having the latest AMI ids, one can also use describe-images AWS CLI command to get more details about them, or filter out those which exhibit properties of interest to you (e.g. Volume Type).