diff --git a/nixos/maintainers/scripts/ec2/amazon-base-config.nix b/nixos/maintainers/scripts/ec2/amazon-base-config.nix
new file mode 100644
index 000000000000..d23f15e828b2
--- /dev/null
+++ b/nixos/maintainers/scripts/ec2/amazon-base-config.nix
@@ -0,0 +1,5 @@
+{ modulesPath, ...}:
+{
+  imports = [ "${modulesPath}/virtualisation/amazon-config.nix" ];
+  services.journald.rateLimitBurst = 0;
+}
diff --git a/nixos/maintainers/scripts/ec2/create-ebs-amis.py b/nixos/maintainers/scripts/ec2/create-ebs-amis.py
index 93971ac9504d..e159d456b260 100755
--- a/nixos/maintainers/scripts/ec2/create-ebs-amis.py
+++ b/nixos/maintainers/scripts/ec2/create-ebs-amis.py
@@ -8,9 +8,11 @@ import nixops.util
 from nixops import deployment
 from boto.ec2.blockdevicemapping import BlockDeviceMapping, BlockDeviceType
 import boto.ec2
+from nixops.statefile import StateFile, get_default_state_file
 
 parser = argparse.ArgumentParser(description='Create an EBS-backed NixOS AMI')
 parser.add_argument('--region', dest='region', required=True, help='EC2 region to create the image in')
+parser.add_argument('--channel', dest='channel', default="13.10", help='Channel to use')
 parser.add_argument('--keep', dest='keep', action='store_true', help='Keep NixOps machine after use')
 parser.add_argument('--hvm', dest='hvm', action='store_true', help='Create HVM image')
 parser.add_argument('--key', dest='key_name', action='store_true', help='Keypair used for HVM instance creation', default="rob")
@@ -37,11 +39,11 @@ f.write('''{{
 '''.format(args.region, ebs_size))
 f.close()
 
-db = deployment.open_database(deployment.get_default_state_file())
+db = StateFile(get_default_state_file())
 try:
-    depl = deployment.open_deployment(db, "ebs-creator")
+    depl = db.open_deployment("ebs-creator")
 except Exception:
-    depl = deployment.create_deployment(db)
+    depl = db.create_deployment()
     depl.name = "ebs-creator"
 depl.auto_response = "y"
 depl.nix_exprs = [os.path.abspath("./ebs-creator.nix"), os.path.abspath("./ebs-creator-config.nix")]
@@ -64,7 +66,7 @@ m.run_command("mkdir -p /mnt")
 m.run_command("mount {0} /mnt".format(device))
 m.run_command("touch /mnt/.ebs")
 m.run_command("mkdir -p /mnt/etc/nixos")
-m.run_command("nix-channel --add http://nixos.org/channels/nixos-unstable")
+m.run_command("nix-channel --add http://nixos.org/channels/nixos-{} nixos".format(args.channel))
 m.run_command("nix-channel --update")
 m.run_command("nixos-rebuild switch")
 version = m.run_command("nixos-version", capture_stdout=True).replace('"', '').rstrip()