Configuring a custom SysPrep file for AWS Windows Instanes

I needed to convert a Windows Server 2012 instance into an AMI so that it could be deployed as part of an auto-scaling configuration.

My domain already existed and so I simply needed to grab the existing Sysprep2008.xml file from

C:\Program Files\Amazon\Ec2ConfigService\sysprep2008.xml

And add in the following components under the respective sections.

Under the “Generalize” section.

_    _

_      1_

_    _

Under the “Specialize” section.

_    _

_      _

_        _

_          MyDomain.LOCAL_

_          password123_

_          sysprepaccount_

_        _

_        MyDomain.LOCAL_

_        OU=Session Hosts,OU=Servers,DC=MyDomain,DC=local _

_        False_

_      _

_    _

I then copied the modified sysprep file back into C:\Program Files\Amazon\Ec2ConfigService\sysprep2008.xml overwriting the original template.

After that, I ran EC2Config as follows:

“Set Computer Name” – I may look into including my own custom naming convention at a later stage, but for the purposes of testing, this ensures my servers all have unique names.

“Shutdown with Sysprep” – Pretty obvious what this does.

Once Sysprep has run and the instance has just down, you can then create an AMI from the instance and start having fun with auto-scaling.

A couple of gotchas – if you have a password with any kind special characters within the sysprep file, EC2Config will crap out and report an error parsing EntityName.

Needs a little more investigation but I changed the password to something a little more straight forward and it worked no problem.

I’ll add a future post about my exploits with auto-scaling.