What is Image Builder, What are its use scenarios and benefits-Elastic Compute Service(ECS)-阿里云帮助中心

Image Builder automates image customization, repair, testing, cross-region distribution, and cross-account sharing through reusable templates.

Advantages

Compared to manual image creation, Image Builder improves efficiency, simplifies operations, and strengthens quality control.

Automated building
- Define the OS, pre-installed software, and configurations in an image template for reusable, repeatable builds without redundant setup.
- Intermediate ECS instances are automatically created and destroyed, so you can focus on image content without manual intervention.
Component support

Image Builder supports build and test components, including OS-provided software and user-defined packages to meet various business scenarios.
Automatic repair and testing

Automatically detects and repairs image issues during the build, and tests the generated image to ensure it is active.
Flexible distribution and sharing

Automatically distribute built images to specified regions or share them with other Alibaba Cloud accounts.
Cost optimization

Image Builder is free. Intermediate ECS instances are billed on a pay-as-you-go basis with cost-optimized defaults, and you can customize the instance configuration as needed.

Billing

Image Builder is a free service. However, when using an image template to build an image, multiple intermediate ECS instances are created to assist in the process. If image testing is enabled, additional intermediate instances will be created for testing. These intermediate instances are pay-as-you-go ECS instances and will incur fees. See Pay-as-you-go.

Note

Intermediate ECS instances default to the smallest vCPU and memory for the instance type. You can adjust these configurations to suit your business needs. See Create a template and run a build task.

How to use Image Builder

The following figure shows the Image Builder workflow:

(Optional) Create image components.

Image components store reusable commands for image building, such as installing applications, applying configurations, and running tests. Add components to a template for quick customization. See Image Builder commands.

ECS supports system and custom components:
- (Recommended) System components: pre-installed OS software such as system libraries, command line tools, and system services.
- Custom components: user-defined software packages and applications for specific scenarios. Instead of being part of the operating system, they are tailored to user needs. For stability and reliability, use system components when possible. ECS supports both build components (for customizing image content) and test components (for verifying the built image).
See (Optional) Create an image component.
Create an image template.

Specify the source image, configure template content, and set up image distribution. For step-by-step instructions, see Step 1: Create an image template.
- Specify the source image: provides the OS, pre-installed software, and essential system configurations as the base for customization.
- (Optional) Configure template content: add image components, enable image repair, and configure image testing.
  - Image detection and repair: automatically fixes common image issues and installs required cloud components such as Cloud Assistant before the build.
  - Image testing: automatically runs test components to verify the new image is active after the building task is complete.
- (Optional) Configure intermediate instances: customize the ECS instance specifications used during the build to match your business requirements.
- (Optional) Configure image distribution: distribute the built image to specific regions or share it with designated Alibaba Cloud accounts.
Execute a build task.

You can choose to execute the task immediately after template creation, or run it later. See Step 2: Run a build task.

Note
Use the built image to create ECS instances or replace an instance's OS. See Use a custom image to create one or more instances or Replace an OS (system disk).