How to upgrade Ubuntu LTS to Ubuntu Pro on AWS using AWS License Manager

1. Overview

In April 2023, AWS released a new functionality that allows users running Ubuntu LTS to upgrade their instances to Ubuntu Pro with just a few clicks. This tutorial will cover all the steps needed for upgrading Ubuntu LTS instances to Ubuntu Pro on AWS.

What you’ll need

Ubuntu LTS EC2 machines from 16.04 onwards
Having your EC2 machines managed by SSM
Having pro client tool up to date: sudo apt install ubuntu-pro-client
Your instances need network access as described in the network requirements page. If your instances are behind a proxy, please check this documentation

What you’ll learn

How to use AWS license manager to do a license conversion from Ubuntu LTS to Ubuntu Pro.

2. Getting started

To check if your instances are managed by SSM, go to the SSM console and check if the instances you would like to upgrade appear as managed nodes under fleet management. If they don’t appear, follow the links provided above and ensure you have completed the steps correctly. You may need to either restart the instance or directly the SSM agent: sudo snap restart amazon-ssm-agent to re-activate it.

3. Shut down your machines

Go to EC2 and shutdown all the machines you would like to upgrade.

Once they are totally stopped, you can proceed to the next step.

4. Create a License Conversion to upgrade to Ubuntu Pro

Go to AWS License Manager and select License type conversion on the left side menu.

And click on the Create license type conversion button.

In the next screen, select Ubuntu LTS in the dropdown menu as shown in the next screen.

Your machines should appear in the table below as shown in the following picture:

Select all the instances you would like to upgrade. At the point of writing this document, License conversion on AWS License Manager is limited up to 10 machines on the web console. Click next to continue with the conversion.

In the next screen you will be asked for the License type destination where Ubuntu Pro is the only option at the moment. Click next for the final screen confirmation and click on the Convert button.

Now you can wait and check the conversion status after a while.

5. That’s all Folks!

The confirmation page will look like as shown below. If for any reason the conversion status shows failure, you would need to double check on the machine whether it has network access and pro client up to date, as mentioned earlier in this document.

You can verify the upgrade by login into one of the machines to check the Ubuntu pro status as shown below: