sudo dnf update -y --releasever=latest version mismatch with source_ami_al2023

[Slekee]

Version: 20260408

After running the latest release tag 20260408 I noticed that the amazon-ecs-ami build succeeded but our following pipelines started to fail. This was the first time this was happening and I started to investigate why. During the investigation I noticed that the latest(20260408) release tag has source_ami_al2023=al2023-ami-minimal-2023.10.20260330.0-kernel-6.1-x86_64 but after launching an EC2 instance from the created ami I found out that the actual version running was 2023.11.20260406.

This is probably related to using sudo dnf update -y --releasever=latest in the build script.

amazon-ecs-ami/al2023.pkr.hcl

Lines 89 to 94 in eb80a9f

	provisioner "shell" {
	inline_shebang = "/bin/sh -ex"
	inline = [
	"sudo dnf update -y --releasever=latest"
	]
	}

Logs from running the make al2023 from the release 20260408

amazon-ebs.al2023: + sudo dnf update -y --releasever=latest
amazon-ebs.al2023: Amazon Linux 2023 repository                     66 MB/s |  58 MB     00:00
amazon-ebs.al2023: Amazon Linux 2023 Kernel Livepatch repository   209 kB/s |  31 kB     00:00
amazon-ebs.al2023: Dependencies resolved.
amazon-ebs.al2023: ================================================================================
amazon-ebs.al2023:  Package                  Arch   Version                      Repository   Size
amazon-ebs.al2023: ================================================================================
amazon-ebs.al2023: Upgrading:
amazon-ebs.al2023:  amazon-linux-repo-s3     noarch 2023.11.20260406-0.amzn2023  amazonlinux  15 k
amazon-ebs.al2023:  kernel-livepatch-repo-s3 noarch 2023.11.20260406-0.amzn2023  amazonlinux  15 k
amazon-ebs.al2023:  system-release           noarch 2023.11.20260406-0.amzn2023  amazonlinux  27 k
amazon-ebs.al2023:
amazon-ebs.al2023: Transaction Summary
amazon-ebs.al2023: ================================================================================
amazon-ebs.al2023: Upgrade  3 Packages
amazon-ebs.al2023:
amazon-ebs.al2023: Total download size: 57 k
amazon-ebs.al2023: Downloading Packages:
amazon-ebs.al2023: (1/3): amazon-linux-repo-s3-2023.11.20260406-0. 416 kB/s |  15 kB     00:00
amazon-ebs.al2023: (2/3): kernel-livepatch-repo-s3-2023.11.2026040 382 kB/s |  15 kB     00:00
amazon-ebs.al2023: (3/3): system-release-2023.11.20260406-0.amzn20 623 kB/s |  27 kB     00:00
amazon-ebs.al2023: --------------------------------------------------------------------------------
amazon-ebs.al2023: Total                                           683 kB/s |  57 kB     00:00
amazon-ebs.al2023: Running transaction check
amazon-ebs.al2023: Transaction check succeeded.
amazon-ebs.al2023: Running transaction test
amazon-ebs.al2023: Transaction test succeeded.
amazon-ebs.al2023: Running transaction
amazon-ebs.al2023:   Preparing        :                                                        1/1
amazon-ebs.al2023:   Upgrading        : kernel-livepatch-repo-s3-2023.11.20260406-0.amzn2023   1/6
amazon-ebs.al2023:   Upgrading        : system-release-2023.11.20260406-0.amzn2023.noarch      2/6
amazon-ebs.al2023:   Upgrading        : amazon-linux-repo-s3-2023.11.20260406-0.amzn2023.noa   3/6
amazon-ebs.al2023:   Cleanup          : kernel-livepatch-repo-s3-2023.10.20260330-0.amzn2023   4/6
amazon-ebs.al2023:   Cleanup          : system-release-2023.10.20260330-0.amzn2023.noarch      5/6
amazon-ebs.al2023:   Cleanup          : amazon-linux-repo-s3-2023.10.20260330-0.amzn2023.noa   6/6
amazon-ebs.al2023:   Running scriptlet: amazon-linux-repo-s3-2023.10.20260330-0.amzn2023.noa   6/6
amazon-ebs.al2023:   Verifying        : amazon-linux-repo-s3-2023.11.20260406-0.amzn2023.noa   1/6
amazon-ebs.al2023:   Verifying        : amazon-linux-repo-s3-2023.10.20260330-0.amzn2023.noa   2/6
amazon-ebs.al2023:   Verifying        : kernel-livepatch-repo-s3-2023.11.20260406-0.amzn2023   3/6
amazon-ebs.al2023:   Verifying        : kernel-livepatch-repo-s3-2023.10.20260330-0.amzn2023   4/6
amazon-ebs.al2023:   Verifying        : system-release-2023.11.20260406-0.amzn2023.noarch      5/6
amazon-ebs.al2023:   Verifying        : system-release-2023.10.20260330-0.amzn2023.noarch      6/6
amazon-ebs.al2023:
amazon-ebs.al2023: Upgraded:
amazon-ebs.al2023:   amazon-linux-repo-s3-2023.11.20260406-0.amzn2023.noarch
amazon-ebs.al2023:   kernel-livepatch-repo-s3-2023.11.20260406-0.amzn2023.noarch
amazon-ebs.al2023:   system-release-2023.11.20260406-0.amzn2023.noarch
amazon-ebs.al2023:
amazon-ebs.al2023: Complete!

So the latest was not 2023.10.20260330.0 at the time the build ran. The release was done at 7.4.2026 9:16pm GMT+3 and we created the AMI at 8.4.2026 1:53pm.

Also the local.ami_name_al2023 is named wrong as it has the static -hvm-2023.0. part in it so the name does not get updated with the major version.

amazon-ecs-ami/al2023.pkr.hcl

Line 2 in eb80a9f

ami_name_al2023 = "${var.ami_name_prefix_al2023}-hvm-2023.0.${var.ami_version_al2023}${var.kernel_version_al2023}-x86_64"

[TheanLim]

Hi @Slekee, thanks for the report!
Looking at the 20260408 release commit (#671), the source_ami_al2023 was actually already updated to al2023-ami-minimal-2023.11.20260406.2-kernel-6.1- (not 2023.10.20260330.0 which was from release 20260403). So the 2023.11.20260406 version you saw on the launched instance matches the source AMI used in this release — this looks expected.

Could you double check which release tag you were actually building from?