Create an ECS instance by using a custom image or a shared custom image - Elastic Compute Service

You can use a custom image to quickly create Elastic Compute Service (ECS) instances that have the same operating system, applications, and data. This improves the O&M efficiency of your business in the cloud.

Prerequisites

A custom image must exist in the account and region where you want to create the instance. For more information, see Custom image overview.

If a custom image is not available in the destination account or region, see the following table for solutions.

Image Ownership	Solution
You have an image on an on-premises device.	Import the on-premises image to Alibaba Cloud as a custom image. For more information, see Image import procedure.
You have a custom image in another region.	Copy the custom image to the region where you want to create the instance. For more information, see Copy a custom image.
You have a custom image in another account.	Share the custom image with the account that you want to use to create the instance. For more information, see Share a custom image.
You have an instance or snapshot that can be used as a template.	Create a custom image from an instance Create a custom image from a snapshot

Procedure

Go to ECS console - Images.
In the top navigation bar, select the region and resource group of the resource that you want to manage.
On the Custom Images or Shared Images tab, find the image that you want to use and click Create Instance in the Actions column.
The region and image are automatically selected. Configure other parameters, such as the billing method and instance type, as needed.
Note
If the custom image that you select contains one or more data disk snapshots, the same number of data disks with the same capacities are automatically created from the snapshots when you create the ECS instance.
For more information about the parameters, see Create an instance on the Custom Launch tab.

What to do next

If you increased the capacity of an existing data disk when you created the ECS instance, you must log on to the instance to extend the partitions and file systems for the changes to take effect. For more information, see Extend partitions and file systems (Linux) or Extend partitions and file systems (Windows).
Note
If you increase the system disk capacity and the custom image has utilities such as cloud-init and growpart installed, the root partition of the system disk automatically extends after the instance is created. For example, if your image size is 20 GiB and you set the system disk size to 100 GiB when you create the instance, the root partition automatically extends to 100 GiB after the instance is created. If the automatic extension fails, see What do I do if the system disk of an instance that is created from a custom image fails to automatically extend?.
If you added new data disks when you created the instance, you must initialize the data disks before you can use them. For more information, see Initialize a data disk.