What is EC2 hibernation and how does it work?

EC2 hibernation pauses your instance and saves its memory (RAM) contents to the EBS root volume. When you restart, the instance resumes from where it left off, including in-memory data, running processes, and network connections. This is faster than a full stop/start cycle.

How do I enable hibernation for an EC2 instance running Ubuntu?

To enable hibernation, your EC2 instance must be launched with hibernation enabled at launch time (you cannot enable it on a running instance). The root EBS volume must be large enough to hold the instance's RAM. Install the EC2 Hibernate Agent on Ubuntu with: sudo apt-get install ec2-hibinit-agent.

What are the prerequisites for EC2 hibernation?

EC2 hibernation requires: the instance to be launched with hibernation enabled, an encrypted EBS root volume, sufficient root volume size (RAM size + 20GB), a supported instance family (M, C, R types), and the instance must be in a supported region and running a supported AMI like Ubuntu 16.04/18.04 or Amazon Linux 2.

Does EC2 hibernation cost money while the instance is hibernated?

When hibernated, you are not charged for instance compute time (vCPU, RAM). However, you continue to pay for the EBS storage (which now includes the RAM dump file). Any Elastic IPs and other attached resources are also still billed. Hibernation is cost-effective for instances that need quick resume with preserved state.

Install Hibernation for Ubuntu 16.04 LTS on EC2 -

June 6, 2020 / Nirav Shah

Hibernation is now Available on AWS EC2, in this blog we explain to you how we can install hibernation on your running instances.

What is hibernation?

In simple words, it’s to pause your running instance when it is not required and resume them at a later time. Users can take advantage of this feature without the need of modifying your existing applications.

Steps for implementing hibernate on AWS

Step 1.

Step 2.

Connect the instance via putty or SSH

Something you have to know,

Hibernation on Amazon EC2 is provided by the linux-aws-hwe kernel package, version of 4.15.0-1058-aws, now available for Ubuntu 16.04 LTS.

Step 3.

Follow my instructions

sudo apt update

Install Hibernation for Ubuntu 16.04 LTS on EC2

Step 4.

sudo apt install linux-aws-hwe

Install Hibernation for Ubuntu 16.04 LTS on EC2

Step 5.

sudo apt install ec2-hibinit-agent

Install Hibernation for Ubuntu 16.04 LTS on EC2

Step 6.

To confirm the correct kernel is now in use after the reboot, issue the following command.

uname -a

Install Hibernation for Ubuntu 16.04 LTS on EC2

To learn more about Amazon EC2 Hibernation, please visit this blog. For information about enabling hibernation for your Amazon EC2 instances, please visit the Amazon EC2 Hibernation user guide.

Spread Love By Sharing:

Nirav Shah

Nirav Shah is the Director of Eternal Web Pvt Ltd, an AWS Advanced Consulting Partner and certified Odoo Partner based in the UK. With over a decade of experience in cloud computing, digital transformation, and ERP implementation, Nirav helps enterprises adopt the right technology to solve complex business challenges. He specialises in AWS infrastructure, Odoo ERP, and web development solutions for businesses across the UK and beyond.