This topic provides an overview of the public images provided by Alibaba Cloud, including Aliyun Linux images, third-party images, and open-source images. Public images are fully licensed to provide a secure and stable operating environment for applications on ECS instances.

Types of public images

The following table describes two types of public images provided by Alibaba Cloud. Windows Server and Red Hat Enterprise Linux images cannot be used free of charge. However, you can use other public images for free to create ECS instances. For more information, see Image overview.
Type Description Technical support
Aliyun Linux images Aliyun Linux images are custom, proprietary operating systems provided by Alibaba Cloud to launch ECS instances. Aliyun Linux images are fully tested to guarantee its security, stability, and normal startup and operation. Alibaba Cloud provides technical support for problems that occur when you use Aliyun Linux images.
Third-party images and open-source images Third-party and open-source images are fully tested and released by Alibaba Cloud to guarantee their security, stability, and normal startup and operation. Such images include:
  • Windows: Windows Server
  • Linux: Ubuntu, CentOS, Red Hat Enterprise Linux, Debian, SUSE Linux, FreeBSD, and CoreOS
We recommend that you contact the corresponding operating system vendors or open-source communities for technical support. Alibaba Cloud also provides information about image- and system-related problems.

Aliyun Linux images

Aliyun Linux is a Linux public image independently developed by Alibaba Cloud. The following table describes the versions of Aliyun Linux images.
Operating system Version Description
Aliyun Linux 2 Aliyun Linux 2.1903 64-bit

A next-generation operating system that supports various Alibaba Cloud instance types including ECS Bare Metal Instances. By default, Aliyun Linux 2 is also equipped with Alibaba Cloud CLI and other software packages.

If you want to replace other Linux distributions with Aliyun Linux 2, you can select Public Image and then Aliyun Linux 2 when you create an ECS instance, or replace the system disk of an existing ECS instance with Aliyun Linux 2.

For more information, see Aliyun Linux 2.

Third-party images and open-source images

Alibaba Cloud releases and updates public images of third-party and open-source image vendors on a regular basis. For more information, see Release notes. You can view all the available public images on the Public Images page in the corresponding region in the ECS console. For more information, see Search for an image.

The following tables describe the versions of third-party and open-source public images for Windows and Linux provided by Alibaba Cloud.
  • Windows images
    Operating system Version
    Windows Server 2019
    • Windows Server 2019 Datacenter edition 64-bit (Chinese)
    • Windows Server 2019 Datacenter edition 64-bit (English)
    Windows Server 2016
    • Windows Server 2016 Datacenter edition 64-bit (Chinese)
    • Windows Server 2016 Datacenter edition 64-bit (English)
    Windows Server 2012
    • Windows Server 2012 R2 Datacenter edition 64-bit (Chinese)
    • Windows Server 2012 R2 Datacenter edition 64-bit (English)
    Windows Server Version **** (Semi-Annual Channel)
    • Windows Server Version **** Datacenter edition 64-bit (Chinese)
    • Windows Server Version **** Datacenter edition 64-bit (English)

    The asterisks (****) indicate the latest version number of the Semi-Annual Channel release.

    Note From January 14, 2020, Microsoft stopped providing support for Windows Server 2008 and Windows Server 2008 R2 operating systems. Therefore, Alibaba Cloud no longer provides technical support for ECS instances that use the preceding operating systems. If you have ECS instances that use the preceding operating systems, upgrade them to Windows Server 2012 or later in a timely manner.
  • Linux images
    Operating system Version
    CentOS
    • CentOS 8.0 64-bit
    • CentOS 7.7 64-bit
    • CentOS 7.6 64-bit
    • CentOS 7.5 64-bit
    • CentOS 7.4 64-bit
    • CentOS 7.3 64-bit
    • CentOS 7.2 64-bit
    • CentOS 6.10 64-bit
    • CentOS 6.9 64-bit
    • CentOS 6.8 32-bit
    Note If you are using a 32-bit operating system, select instance types that have a memory capacity less than or equal to 4 GiB. For more information, see Select an image.
    CoreOS
    • CoreOS 2303.3.0 64-bit
    • CoreOS 2247.6.0 64-bit
    • CoreOS 2023.4.0 64-bit
    • CoreOS 1745.7.0 64-bit
    Debian
    • Debian 10.2 64-bit
    • Debian 9.11 64-bit
    • Debian 9.9 64-bit
    • Debian 9.8 64-bit
    • Debian 9.6 64-bit
    • Debian 8.11 64-bit
    • Debian 8.9 64-bit
    FreeBSD FreeBSD 11.2 64-bit
    OpenSUSE
    • openSUSE 15.1 64-bit
    • openSUSE 42.3 64-bit
    Red Hat
    • Red Hat Enterprise Linux 8.1 64-bit
    • Red Hat Enterprise Linux 8 64-bit
    • Red Hat Enterprise Linux 7.7 64-bit
    • Red Hat Enterprise Linux 7.6 64-bit
    • Red Hat Enterprise Linux 7.5 64-bit
    • Red Hat Enterprise Linux 7.4 64-bit
    • Red Hat Enterprise Linux 6.10 64-bit
    • Red Hat Enterprise Linux 6.9 64-bit
    Note You must check whether a Red Hat image is supported by the instance family before you use the Red Hat image. For more information, see Which instance families do Red Hat Enterprise Linux (RHEL) images support?.
    SUSE Linux
    • SUSE Linux Enterprise Server 15 SP1 64-bit
    • SUSE Linux Enterprise Server 12 SP4 64-bit
    • SUSE Linux Enterprise Server 12 SP2 64-bit
    • SUSE Linux Enterprise Server 11 SP4 64-bit
    Ubuntu
    • Ubuntu 18.04 64-bit
    • Ubuntu 16.04 64-bit
    • Ubuntu 16.04 32-bit
    • Ubuntu 14.04 64-bit
    • Ubuntu 14.04 32-bit
    Note If you are using a 32-bit operating system, select instance types that have a memory capacity less than or equal to 4 GiB. For more information, see Select an image.