1) Export Aws Access and Secret keys #export AWS_ACCESS_KEY=XXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXX #export AWS_SECRET_KEY=XXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXX 2) Create Import instance task #ec2-import-instance win2k-r2-disk1.vmdk -f VMDK -t m1.small -a x86_64 -b import-export -o $AWS_ACCESS_KEY -w $AWS_SECRET_KEY --region us-west-1