Lab Builder provides the ability to import VMs from your environment into the builder to be used in labs. Currently, we only support the ability to provision machines from Amazon Machine Images (AMIs) you have shared with us.

These AMIs must be created in your own AWS account. This gives you the ability to control how to build and manage your images yourself. 

Before adding a Virtual Machine, you must share your AMI with Lab Builder.

Adding a Virtual Machine

1. From the navigation bar, click Manage > Create Lab.
2. On the top of the Lab Builder Dashboard, click + Create a new custom lab. 

3. On the left-hand Lab properties panel, you can add an image by clicking Add system. 

   

4. To add your own AMI, click Add on the Virtual Machine – EC2 option. 
   
   This will add a machine with default settings and load a placeholder AMI. 

5. To edit the machine, click the Edit button.

   A new page appears, allowing you to configure the settings for this machine.

Configuring Machine Settings

System Name

The System Name is a name you can give the system, which will appear in the lab next to the IP address it is given. We recommend giving a useful name that can be referenced in your lab briefing panel and tasks (for example, which ports are open on the Web Application machine).

Machine Configuration

This section allows you to configure your AMI and machine size for this system. Note that it has an important panel that details the account with which you need to share your AMI and the region.

• AMI ID: This is the AMI ID of the AMI you hare shared with the Immersive AWS Account.
• Instance Type: This is the instance size for the machine when it is started on our platform as part of a lab. Lab Builder currently only supports t3.micro, t3.medium, and t3.large. We recommend using one of these instance types when building your AMI to ensure it works on these types of machines.

Connection Type

Within Immersive Labs, machines can drop users straight into a session via SSH or RDP. We can also embed web apps too so they are rendered in their own frame in the lab.

• None: This would typically be used for a machine you don't wish to display as a Desktop tab in a lab. For example, if you have built a vulnerable machine and want users to attack it in a lab, you would select None for the connection type. This will still show the IP address of the machines in the systems tab, but it won't have its own connection tab in the Lab.

• SSH: This allows an SSH session to be opened into the machine automatically in a tab when the lab loads. We do not support SSH keys and only support connections via username and passwords. Ensure that you configure your SSH agent to accept these types of connections.

  

• RDP: This allows an RDP session to be opened automatically in a tab on the lab when the machine loads.

• HTTP: This automatically opens a tab in the lab that embeds an application that can be run on a machine. The application must support HTTP and will need to be listening on port 80.

Sharing your AMI with Lab Builder

To import your AMI into Lab Builder to use in an EC2 machine inside a lab, you need to share it with us. As explained in the section above, the machine configurator page, which is seen when selecting edit on a virtual machine, will display the account you need to share your AMI with, along with the region your AMI must be in.

You must ensure that:

• Your AMI does not have an Encrypted volume
• Your AMI storage volumes are less than 150 GB in total
• Your AMI is in the correct region

To share your AMI:

1. Navigate to your AMI within the AWS console. 

2. On the Permissions tab, under Shared account ID, click Add account ID.

   

3. Specify the AWS account ID displayed in the machine configuration panel on Lab Builder, and then click Share AMI.

This will add your account to the shared accounts for the selected AMI. You can now enter the AMI ID within Lab Builder, and it will be ready to use.

Lab Builder runs various verification checks on the machine configuration window when you enter an AMI ID. We check whether we have access to the AMI, and that the images are under the maximum size (150GB). If there are any issues at this point, Lab Builder will display an error to inform you.

If you get an error, ensure:

• Your AMI does not have an Encrypted volume.
• Your AMI storage volumes are less than 150GB in total.
• Your AMI is in the correct region.
• Your AMI is correctly shared with the right account.

For a step-by-step guide on configuring your first machine in AWS and importing it into Lab Builder, please see our The Human Connection blog:

1. Building Your First Practical Lab (Part 1)
2. Building Your First Practical Lab (Part 2)