Debian Cloud Images & Platforms

Official Debian cloud images, AWS/Azure/OpenStack usage, cloud-init, image verification, and lifecycle management.

Current Cloud Image Baseline

Latest official Debian 13 (Trixie) cloud image build: 20260831-2587 (2026-08-31)
Latest Debian 12 (Bookworm, LTS) cloud image build: 20260907-2594 (2026-09-07)
Debian 11 (Bullseye) reached EOL on 2026-08-31; its cloud images no longer receive Debian security updates
Debian 14 (Forky) testing daily cloud image: 20260908-2595 (2026-09-08)

Supported Cloud Environments

The Debian Cloud Team publishes official images for:

Platform	Support	Notes
Amazon EC2	Official	amd64/arm64; AMIs published by the official Debian account
Microsoft Azure	Official	amd64; available through Azure Marketplace
OpenStack	Official	Upload the `generic` image to Glance
Plain VM / QEMU	Official	Use `nocloud` or `generic` images
Google Compute Engine	Third-party	Built and maintained by Google, not an official Debian cloud image
Oracle Cloud / IBM, etc.	No official support	Import an image yourself or use a third-party image

Image Types

Type	Purpose	cloud-init
`generic`	General purpose; works with most clouds and local virtualization	Yes
`genericcloud`	Similar to generic with a reduced hardware driver set	Yes
`nocloud`	Does not run cloud-init; boots directly to root	No
`ec2`	Optimized for Amazon EC2	Yes
`azure`	Optimized for Microsoft Azure	Yes

Default login user: debian for most images; official AWS EC2 images use admin. Inject SSH keys through cloud-init and do not enable password authentication.

Quick Start

Download and Verify

# Example: Debian 13
wget https://cloud.debian.org/images/cloud/trixie/latest/debian-13-generic-amd64.qcow2
wget https://cloud.debian.org/images/cloud/trixie/latest/SHA512SUMS
sha512sum -c SHA512SUMS --ignore-missing

Image directory: cloud.debian.org/images/cloud

Amazon EC2

# Query the current official AMIs (AWS CLI required)
aws --region us-east-2 ssm get-parameters-by-path \
  --recursive \
  --path /aws/service/debian/release/13/latest

Current AMI names: debian-13-amd64-20260831-2587 / debian-13-arm64-20260831-2587.

Microsoft Azure

Use the Debian image in Azure Marketplace with this URN format:

Debian:debian-13:13:latest

The 13-gen2 and 13-arm64 variants are also available.

OpenStack

openstack image create \
  --container-format bare \
  --disk-format qcow2 \
  --property hw_disk_bus=scsi \
  --property hw_scsi_model=virtio-scsi \
  --property os_type=linux \
  --property os_distro=debian \
  --property os_admin_user=debian \
  --public \
  --file debian-13-generic-amd64.qcow2 \
  debian-13-generic-amd64

Local QEMU

qemu-system-x86_64 \
  -m 2G -smp 2 \
  -drive file=debian-13-nocloud-amd64.qcow2,format=qcow2 \
  -netdev user,id=net0 -device virtio-net-pci,netdev=net0

cloud-init and Initialization

generic / genericcloud / ec2 / azure images run cloud-init on first boot.
Use user-data to inject SSH keys, users, packages, and startup scripts.
nocloud does not run cloud-init; it is useful for local QEMU or manual configuration.
Do not bake long-lived keys into images; inject them through instance metadata or a secret manager.

Example user-data:

#cloud-config
users:
  - name: debian
    ssh_authorized_keys:
      - ssh-ed25519 AAAA...
package_update: true
packages:
  - qemu-guest-agent

Lifecycle and Update Strategy

Version	Cloud image status	Recommendation
Debian 13 (Trixie)	Current stable; rebuilt with point releases	Default choice for new deployments
Debian 12 (Bookworm)	LTS; still receives security updates	Plan an upgrade to Debian 13
Debian 11 (Bullseye)	EOL on 2026-08-31	Do not use for new cloud hosts
Debian 14 (Forky)	testing; daily builds	Testing only

After a point release such as 13.7, official cloud and Docker images are rebuilt; do not keep using old image IDs.
Pin image versions or digests in production and rebuild instances regularly; do not treat cloud hosts as long-lived pets.
Use unattended-upgrades or an image build pipeline to keep security updates current.
Follow the Debian release lifecycle.

Container Images

Official Docker images: debian:13, debian:13-slim, debian:trixie, debian:trixie-slim.
The current 13.6 tag was updated on 2026-08-25; pin a point-release tag such as debian:13.6-slim or a digest in production.
In multi-stage builds, use debian:13 for the build stage and debian:13-slim for the runtime stage.

FROM debian:13-slim
RUN apt-get update && apt-get install -y --no-install-recommends ca-certificates \
    && rm -rf /var/lib/apt/lists/*

Debian Cloud Images & Platforms

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