billingProducts code is null and YUM updates fail after restore of some SUSE and Red Hat Instances

billingProducts code is null and YUM updates fail after restore of some SUSE and Red Hat Instances


On some operating systems, primarily SUSE and Red Hat, you will find that AWS cannot properly restore the "billingProducts" ID in the metadata for the instance and the field will be set to "null".
Also, YUM repository updates will begin to fail.  If you attempt to restore the instance manually within AWS (outside of CPM), it will still experience the same problem.  This is a due to it being a issue in AWS.

You can run the following curl command to see if the "billingproducts" field is set to "null"

Connect to the affected instance via SSH and issue the following command.

You will see the output below -

{

  "accountId" : "AWSaccountID",

  "architecture" : "x86_64",

  "availabilityZone" : "AZofInstance",

  "billingProducts" : null,

  "devpayProductCodes" : "devpayProductCodes",

  "marketplaceProductCodes" : "marketplaceProductCodes",

  "imageId" : "ImageID",

  "instanceId" : "InstanceID",

  "instanceType" : "InstanceType",

  "kernelId" : "kernelId",

  "pendingTime" : "PendingTimeStamp",

  "privateIp" : "PrivateIP",

  "ramdiskId" : "ramdiskId".

  "region" : ""region"",

  "version" : "2017-09-30"

}

CPM can workaround this AWS issue.  Instances with a "billingProducts" ID must use the option in CPM to launch from "Image" when restoring.
In the Recovery options panel choose "Launch From: Image"  see below.



You can ensure there is always an up to date AMI (image) to use in in case you have to restore by configuring CPM to create a new AMI on every backup. This will add a very minimal amount of time to the backup and will avoid this AWS issue.

To configure AMI rotation to take place on every backup, login to the CPM UI and go to General Settings , expand "Cleanup" and then set the AMI Rotation to 1 day , as illustrated below.