You can publish custom images that are in the Available state as community images. This topic describes how to publish a custom image in the Elastic Compute Service (ECS) console.

Prerequisites

The owner of each community image is responsible for the quality and updates of the image. Alibaba Cloud merely provides the platform where community images can be published and managed. Before you publish a community image, make sure that you fully understand the Product Terms, Terms of Use, and Membership Agreement.

Background information

Before you publish a community image, take note of the following items:
  • You can use published community images to create ECS instances. However, only verified enterprise users have permissions to publish community images.
  • Encrypted images cannot be published as community images.
  • You must sign Product Terms, Terms of Use, and Membership Agreement before you can publish a community image.
  • Community images are publicly available. A community image is available to all Alibaba Cloud accounts in the region where it resides.
  • Community images cannot be shared, exported, or copied.

Requirements

When you publish a community image, you must specify a name and a description for the image that comply with the following rules. If you do not meet these requirements for publishing community images for an extended period of time, your permissions to publish community images are revoked.
  • The image name must indicate the operating system type, kernel version, architecture, and the time when the community image is published. The image name can also indicate the image version. Example: ubuntu20.04_kernel4.18_x86_64_20230101_v1.0.
  • The image description must specify the purpose of the image, such as providing services or installing software. Example: Zend Server Enterprise with PHP 7.0 on RHEL7.
  • The image name and description cannot contain sensitive words, and the image must be free of illicit content, such as trojans, viruses, vulnerabilities, and weak passwords.
  • The Publish Community Image operation triggers an image check. For information about the image check feature, see Image check items. After the image check is completed, a system tag that indicates the detected attributes of the image is added to help you understand the image. The detected attributes include the operating system version, kernel version, boot mode, and whether the image supports Non-Volatile Memory Express (NVMe). For information about system tags, see Overview.

Procedure

  1. Go to the Images page.
    1. Log on to the ECS console.
    2. In the left-side navigation pane, choose Instances & Images > Images.
    3. In the top navigation bar, select a region.
  2. On the Custom Images tab, find the custom image that you want to publish as a community image. Move the pointer over the Icon in the Actions column icon in the Actions column and select Publish as Community Image.
  3. In the Publish As Community Image message, click OK.
    • If you have not signed Community Image Terms of Service, read the relevant terms and agreements, select You have signed and agreed to the following agreements, and then click Publish.
      Important Read the Product Terms, Terms of Use and Membership Agreement. If you agree to the terms and agreement, select the "You have signed and agreed to the following agreements" option.
    • If you have signed the Community Image Terms of Service, click OK.
    After the community image is published, you can go to the Images page and click the Community Images tab to view the information of the published community image.