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The DescribeImages operation returns
information about AMIs, AKIs, and ARIs available to the
user. Information returned includes image type, product
codes, architecture, and kernel and RAM disk IDs. Images
available to the user include public images available for
any user to launch, private images owned by the user making
the request, and private images owned by other users for
which the user has explicit launch permissions.
Launch permissions fall into three categories:
| Launch Permission | Description |
|---|---|
| public | The owner of the AMI granted launch permissions for the AMI
to the all group. All users have launch permissions
for these AMIs. |
| explicit | The owner of the AMI granted launch permissions to a specific user. |
| implicit | A user has implicit launch permissions for all AMIs he or she owns. |
The list of AMIs returned can be modified by specifying AMI IDs, AMI owners, or users with launch permissions. If no options are specified, Amazon EC2 returns all AMIs for which the user has launch permissions.
If you specify one or more AMI IDs, only AMIs that have the specified IDs are returned. If you specify an invalid AMI ID, a fault is returned. If you specify an AMI ID for which you do not have access, it will not be included in the returned results.
If you specify one or more AMI owners, only AMIs from the
specified owners and for which you have access are returned. The
results can include the account IDs of the specified owners,
amazon for AMIs owned by Amazon or
self for AMIs that you own.
If you specify a list of executable users, only users that have
launch permissions for the AMIs are returned. You can specify
account IDs (if you own the AMI(s)), self
for AMIs for which you own or have explicit permissions, or
all for public AMIs.
![[Note]](images/note.png) | Note |
|---|---|
Deregistered images are included in the returned results for an unspecified interval after deregistration. |
The following table describes the request parameters for
DescribeImages. Parameter names are case
sensitive.
| Name | Description | Required |
|---|---|---|
|
|
AMI IDs to describe Type: xsd:string[] | Yes (but can be empty) |
| Owners of AMIs to describe Type: xsd:string[] | Yes (but can be empty) |
| AMIs for which specified users have access Type: xsd:string[] | Yes (but can be empty) |
The following table describes the default response tags included
in DescribeImages responses.
| Name | Description |
|---|---|
|
| A list of image descriptions Type: DescribeImagesResponseItemType[] |
<DescribeImages xmlns="http://ec2.amazonaws.com/doc/2008-02-01">
<executableBySet>
<item>
<user>all</user>
</item>
</executableBySet>
<ownersSet />
<imagesSet>
<item>
<imageId>ami-be3adfd7</imageId>
</item>
</imagesSet>
</DescribeImages>
<DescribeImagesResponse xmlns="http://ec2.amazonaws.com/doc/2008-02-01">
<imagesSet>
<item>
<imageId>ami-be3adfd7</imageId>
<imageLocation>ec2-public-images/fedora-8-i386-base-v1.04.manifest.xml
</imageLocation>
<imageState>available</imageState>
<imageOwnerId>206029621532</imageOwnerId>
<isPublic>false</isPublic>
<architecture>i386</architecture>
<imageType>machine</imageType>
<kernelId>aki-4438dd2d</kernelId>
<ramdiskId>ari-4538dd2c</ramdiskId>
</item>
</imagesSet>
</DescribeImagesResponse>