The stock RHEL and CentOS AMIs are highly unoptimized and typically out of date. This project aims to create a high-performance CentOS 7 image that is unencumbered of product codes or other restrictions. It now also includes a recent Linux kernel and Docker.
In informal testing (building Chef server clusters) we've been able to cut deploy times by 50%.
These images are built by Chef's Customer Success team for the benefit of our customers. For that reason, all images include the latest ChefDK :)
Credit to the DCOS team, this project is based on their CentOS 7 cloud image
Simply set your AWS_* environment variables and run packer. The easiest way to do this is to set up your profiles via aws configure and then export the correct AWS_PROFILE variable.
export AWS_PROFILE='myprofile'
packer build packer.json
data "aws_ami" "centos" {
most_recent = true
owners = ["446539779517"] # Chef success
filter {
name = "name"
values = ["chef-highperf-centos7-*"]
}
}
resource "aws_instance" "web" {
ami = "${data.aws_ami.centos.id}"
instance_type = "t2.micro"
}
The latest AMIs were published on 2018/05/10:
ca-central-1: ami-68ad2d0c
eu-central-1: ami-93496578
eu-west-1: ami-6c96a115
eu-west-2: ami-91b954f6
eu-west-3: ami-24843559
us-east-1: ami-5036bf2f
us-east-2: ami-28e9d44d
us-west-1: ami-7df7e91d
us-west-2: ami-24d6a65c
Changelog:
- Update to CentOS 7.5
- Return back to using the stock kernel
- Stop using
net.ifnames=0as it appears to cause networking issues on M5/C5 instances - docker-ce 18.03.1 and docker-compose 1.21.2
- ChefDK 2.5.3
Published on 2018/03/21:
ca-central-1: ami-e7db5d83
eu-central-1: ami-cdb8e826
eu-west-1: ami-a6c692df
eu-west-2: ami-a82bcdcf
eu-west-3: ami-983c8ae5
us-east-1: ami-b5c413c8
us-east-2: ami-dd4071b8
us-west-1: ami-f9eafd99
us-west-2: ami-0131ad79
Changelog:
- Publishing to more EU regions as well as Canada
- kernel 4.9.86
- docker-ce 17.12.1 and docker-compose 1.18.0
- cloud-init 0.7.9
- ChefDK 2.5.3
Published on 2018/01/20:
eu-west-1: ami-bfff65c6
eu-west-2: ami-409c8724
us-east-1: ami-23aa8159
us-east-2: ami-8ec5efeb
us-west-1: ami-634d4003
us-west-2: ami-10fa4768
Changelog:
- Update to the 4.9.77 kernel to protect against Meltdown/Spectre
- docker-ce 17.12.0 and docker-compose 1.18.0
Published on 2017/12/21:
eu-west-1: ami-3135b748
eu-west-2: ami-e6e2fb82
us-east-1: ami-4583f83f
us-east-2: ami-9ddcf4f8
us-west-1: ami-0f90976f
us-west-2: ami-5378d52b
Changelog:
- Enable
centos-release-xenwhich switches to a much more modern Linux 4.9 (LTS) kernel- Docker now leverages the latest and greatest
overlay2filesytem and features
- Docker now leverages the latest and greatest
- Switch from NTP to chronyd
docker-composenow in/usr/binbecause Redhat stubbornly excludes/usr/local/binfrom root's PATH- docker-ce 17.0.9.1 and docker-compose 1.18.0
Published on 2017/11/29:
eu-west-1: ami-b62193cf
eu-west-2: ami-a17866c5
us-east-1: ami-2b4dd251
us-east-2: ami-e5755c80
us-west-1: ami-b29da6d2
us-west-2: ami-143ae36c
Changelog:
- CentOS 7.4 (kernel 3.10.0-693.5.2.el7)
- switch to using a new, cleanroom-built 7.4 base image that has XFS formatted with ftype=1
- ChefDK 2.4.17
- Fixing a compatibility issue with newer AWS instances like C5 (specifically the initramfs)
- Setting ulimits to a sane-by-default value for newer single-user high performance servers
- Install and start Docker CE (17.0.9) and docker-compose
- Adding nice bash completions for things like systemd
Published on 2017/09/22:
| Region | AMI |
|---|---|
| eu-west-1 | ami-6865aa11 |
| eu-west-2 | ami-23e3f047 |
| us-east-1 | ami-96f41fec |
| us-east-2 | ami-9993b1fc |
| us-west-1 | ami-993e0ff9 |
| us-west-2 | ami-9555a9ed |
Changelog:
- Based on CentOS 7.4 (kernel 3.10.0-693.2.2.el7)
- ChefDK 2.3.3
Published on 2017/08/31:
| Region | AMI |
|---|---|
| eu-west-1 | ami-9b19e3e2 |
| eu-west-2 | ami-a8e4f4cc |
| us-east-1 | ami-53101b28 |
| us-east-2 | ami-88b89bed |
| us-west-1 | ami-060b3f66 |
| us-west-2 | ami-39628841 |
Changelog:
- Probably the last AMI on CentOS 7.3 before 7.4 comes out
- Security updates since the last AMI
- ChefDK 2.1.11
Published on 2017/08/01:
| Region | AMI |
|---|---|
| eu-west-1 | ami-60669319 |
| eu-west-2 | ami-0f3e2f6b |
| us-east-1 | ami-c39ebab8 |
| us-east-2 | ami-37193952 |
| us-west-1 | ami-e2c5ed82 |
| us-west-2 | ami-0c4eaa74 |
Changelog:
- Security updates since the last AMI
- ChefDK 2.0.28 and Chef 13
Published on 2017/07/03:
| Region | AMI |
|---|---|
| eu-west-1 | ami-9b9573e2 |
| eu-west-2 | ami-15d0c671 |
| us-east-1 | ami-6b71497d |
| us-east-2 | ami-ed0c2d88 |
| us-west-1 | ami-9e5d72fe |
| us-west-2 | ami-9f3121e6 |
Changelog:
- Add the ENA (10GbE support) network driver to make enhanced networking work with newer instances such as i3
Published on 2017/07/03:
| Region | AMI |
|---|---|
| eu-west-1 | ami-2a8d6b53 |
| eu-west-2 | ami-ead2c48e |
| us-east-1 | ami-4196af57 |
| us-east-2 | ami-b40d2cd1 |
| us-west-1 | ami-885f70e8 |
| us-west-2 | ami-c50b1bbc |
Changelog:
- Add additional system performance tuning settings as recommended by the Chef Automate engineering team:
- Disabling Transparent Huge Pages (THP)
- Adjusting Linux VM sysctl settings
- Removing setting to disable IPv6 as it's now supported in VPCs
- Publishing to additional AWS regions (us-east-2, eu-west-1, eu-west-2)
- Rebuilding AMIs to get the latest update, of note:
- kernel 3.10.0-514.26.1.el7 (Stack Clash vulnerability)
- chefdk 1.5.0 (Chef 12)
Published on 2017/06/01:
| Region | AMI |
|---|---|
| us-east-1 | ami-b8f9acae |
| us-west-1 | ami-a21231c2 |
| us-west-2 | ami-8ee08dee |
Changelog:
- Rebuilding AMIs to get the latest update, of note:
- kernel 3.10.0-514.21.1.el7
- sudo 1.8.6p7-22.el7_3
- openssl-libs 1.0.1e-60.el7_3.1
- chefdk 1.4.3
Published on 2017/02/16:
| Region | AMI |
|---|---|
| us-east-1 | ami-a88c47be |
| us-west-1 | ami-f0481790 |
| us-west-2 | ami-6bb7310b |
Changelog:
- Rebuilding AMIs to get the latest update, of note:
- kernel 3.10.0-514.6.1.el7
- openssl-libs 1:1.0.1e-60.el7
- ntp 4.2.6p5-25.el7.centos.1
- chefdk 1.2.22
Published on 2016/12/22:
| Region | AMI |
|---|---|
| us-east-1 | ami-6f3e2378 |
| us-west-1 | ami-31f8a951 |
| us-west-2 | ami-8c10a6ec |
Changelog:
- Update to CentOS 7.3
- Enable
Multi-queue I/O scheduling for SCSIwhich brings significant performance gains to SSD storage: https://access.redhat.com/documentation/en-US/Red_Hat_Enterprise_Linux/7/html/7.3_Release_Notes/technology_previews_storage.html
Published on 2016/10/26:
| Region | AMI |
|---|---|
| us-east-1 | ami-a2f1aeb5 |
| us-west-1 | ami-4895de28 |
| us-west-2 | ami-e6963186 |
Changelog:
- Update for the "Dirty Cow" Linux kernel vulnerability
- Install awscli and aws-cfn-bootstrap
- Install and enable ntp by default
Published 2016/10/07:
| Region | AMI |
|---|---|
| us-east-1 | ami-0d206e1a |
| us-west-1 | ami-c7b3faa7 |
| us-west-2 | ami-6c2ff70c |