Install SSM Agent in Amazon EC2 Instance

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What is SSM Agent

AWS Systems Manager Agent is a Amazon software which can be installed on Amazon EC2 Instances. If SSM Agent is Installed in the servers then it will be easy to manage the EC2 Instances through AWS Systems manager. 

By default SSM agent is pre installed for below Amazon Machine Images
  • Amazon Linux
  • Amazon Linux 2
  • Amazon Linux 2 ECS-Optimized Base AMIs
  • macOS 10.14.x (Mojave), 10.15.x (Catalina), and 11.x (Big Sur)
  • SUSE Linux Enterprise Server (SLES) 12 and 15
  • Ubuntu Server 16.04, 18.04, and 20.04
  • Windows Server 2008-2012 R2 AMIs published in November 2016 or later
  • Windows Server 2016 and 2019
In this blog, I will walk you through on the ways to Install SSM Agent in the Instances which will not get SSM Agent by default.

Steps to Install SSM Agent on the New EC2 Instance

Step 1 : Create an IAM Instance profile Role

To create an IAM Instance profile, navigate to IAM service and click on Create Role and Select EC2 and click on Next

Select AmazonSSMFullAccess managed policy

You can optionally provide the tags and go to review and provide the name for the role and click on Create role

Step 2 : Launch the EC2 Instance

As I mentioned above, most of the Amazon Machine Images by default have SSM agent pre installed. For this demo, I will launch RHEL 8 Image.

Navigate to EC2 Dashboard, click on Launch Instances

Select the RHEL 8 AMI

I choose t2.micro as an Instance type and in configure instance page, I will select the role which I created in first step

In Advanced Details, add the user data

I have provided the user data script for various Linux Distributions in following page and you can grab the user data and enter in the AWS console. Finish adding other parameters, such as storage, tags, and security groups and Launch the EC2 Instance. 

Once the Instance is up, you will be able to see the Instance in Systems Manager and you can then easily manage the instance from Systems Manager. To check, Navigate to Systems Manager and select Fleet Manager in left pane.

Also, we will be able to connect to instance from Session manager

Steps to Install SSM Agent on the Existing EC2 Instance

Things that you should know before to proceed to this topic

    • Instance Profile Role should be attached, if not follow the Step 1 for creating the role and attach the role by selecting the instance, and click on Actions and select Security and click Modify IAM Role and from the drop down select the role and save
    • This procedure will requires start and stop of your instance. Hence, please keep in mind that data in instance store volumes will be lost. Make sure that you backup any data on the instance store volume that you want to keep
    • Stopping and starting the instance changes the public IP address of the instance. Its a best practice to use an Elastic IP address instead of a public IP address when routing external traffic to your instance

    Follow the Below Steps

    In AWS management console, navigate to EC2 console and select the instance which you want to install ssm agent. Stop the instance. (To test this use case, I uninstalled the ssm agent manually and using the same EC2 as an Existing instance without ssm agent)

    Once, instance is stopped. Select the Actions and choose Instance settings and select Edit user data. Copy the respective user data script and paste it in user data. For this demo, I am using RHEL 8 Instance, hence using RHEL 8 user data. Save and start the EC2 instance


    Once Instance is Up and running, connect to the EC2 instance via Session Manager to confirm the instance is managed via Systems manager.

    User Data Scripts for various Linux Distributions

    Amazon Linux 2, RHEL 7, and CentOS 7 (64 bit) 
    #!/bin/bash
    cd /tmp
    sudo yum install -y https://s3.amazonaws.com/ec2-downloads-windows/SSMAgent/latest/linux_amd64/amazon-ssm-agent.rpm
    sudo systemctl enable amazon-ssm-agent
    sudo systemctl start amazon-ssm-agent
    RHEL 8 and CentOS 8
    #!/bin/bash
    cd /tmp
    sudo dnf install -y https://s3.amazonaws.com/ec2-downloads-windows/SSMAgent/latest/linux_amd64/amazon-ssm-agent.rpm
    sudo systemctl enable amazon-ssm-agent
    sudo systemctl start amazon-ssm-agent
    Note: Python must be installed on your RHEL 8 or CentOS 8 instance for SSM Agent to work correctly. To verify that Python is installed, add the following command to the preceding command examples: 
    sudo dnf install python3
    Amazon Linux, CentOS 6 (64 bit)
     
    #!/bin/bash
    cd /tmp
    sudo yum install -y https://s3.amazonaws.com/ec2-downloads-windows/SSMAgent/latest/linux_amd64/amazon-ssm-agent.rpm
    sudo start amazon-ssm-agent
    Ubuntu 16 (Deb Installer), Debian 8 and 9
    #!/bin/bash
    mkdir /tmp/ssm
    cd /tmp/ssm
    wget https://s3.amazonaws.com/ec2-downloads-windows/SSMAgent/latest/debian_amd64/amazon-ssm-agent.deb
    sudo dpkg -i amazon-ssm-agent.deb
    sudo systemctl enable amazon-ssm-agent
    Ubuntu 14 (Deb installer)
    #!/bin/bash
    mkdir /tmp/ssm
    cd /tmp/ssm
    wget https://s3.amazonaws.com/ec2-downloads-windows/SSMAgent/latest/debian_amd64/amazon-ssm-agent.deb
    sudo dpkg -i amazon-ssm-agent.deb
    sudo start amazon-ssm-agent
    Suse 12
    #!/bin/bash
    mkdir /tmp/ssm
    cd /tmp/ssm
    wget https://s3.amazonaws.com/ec2-downloads-windows/SSMAgent/latest/linux_amd64/amazon-ssm-agent.rpm
    sudo rpm --install amazon-ssm-agent.rpm
    sudo systemctl enable amazon-ssm-agent
    sudo systemctl start amazon-ssm-agent

    Conclusion

    In this blog post, I have shown you how to install the SSM agent on the new and existing Linux EC2 Instance to manage the instance through Systems Manager. Also for your reference, I have provided you the user data scripts for various Linux distributions. Hope this blog helped you in your similar use case.

    Thank you for reading!

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