Getting test images on AWS

Project Discussion Ubuntu on AWS
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Canonical releases a new version of Ubuntu every six months. Each version is a snapshot of the open-source ecosystem, pinning major package versions for the entire lifecycle of that release to ensure stability and consistent support for end users.

There are two types of releases: Long-Term Support (LTS) and interim releases.

  • LTS releases are published every two years and supported for five years in the classic Ubuntu version or 10 to 12 years with a Pro subscription.
  • Interim releases, released between LTS versions, are also production-ready and receive security and bug-fix patches with the same urgency as LTS versions. However, they are only supported for nine months. This allows users to access newer package versions and test ahead of the next LTS release.

You can find more details about Ubuntu’s release cycle on our official page.

Getting daily test images on AWS

If you want to test the latest Ubuntu versions before their official release, Canonical provides testing images. You can retrieve these images using the AWS CLI with the following command:

aws ec2 describe-images --output json --region us-east-1 \
--filters "Name=name,Values=ubuntu/images-testing/hvm-ssd*/ubuntu-$RELEASE*$ARCH*" \
--query 'sort_by(Images, &CreationDate)[-1].{Name: Name, ImageId: ImageId, CreationDate: CreationDate, Owner: OwnerId}'

Where:

  • $RELEASE = The release name, e.g., jammy, noble, or plucky (for testing the upcoming release at the time of writing).
  • $ARCH = One of the supported architectures: amd64 or arm64.

For example, to get the daily testing image for an AMD64 instance of Plucky Puffin—our next interim release—you can run:

aws ec2 describe-images --output json --region us-east-1 \
--filters "Name=name,Values=ubuntu/images-testing/hvm-ssd*/ubuntu-plucky*amd64*" \
--query 'sort_by(Images, &CreationDate)[-1].{Name: Name, ImageId: ImageId, CreationDate: CreationDate, Owner: OwnerId}'

If you need the Graviton (ARM64) image, simply replace amd64 with arm64.

For more details on obtaining official Ubuntu AMIs, visit our official documentation page