This requires you to install the Amazon CLI API tools located at: http://s3.amazonaws.com/ec2-downloads/ec2-api-tools.zip
This also requires java installed
Api Reference here: http://docs.amazonwebservices.com/AWSEC2/latest/CommandLineReference/ApiReference-cmd-CreateImage.html

This is for the lazy people like myself to reference
This will snapshot all ebs volumes that are also attached to the system you’re creating an image from.
If you’re not pausing this instance when you take a snapshot you can get an inconsistent state, but if you can’t afford downtime then just do this and if it doesn’t work when you boot a new system do it again

james.tran$ ec2cim i-111a111 -n my_newami_name -d my_description --no-reboot --region us-west-1 -W AWSUSER_SECRET_KEY -O AWSUSER_ACCESS_KEY
IMAGE     ami-543106

I’ve stolen the example from here but i’ve made my own adjustments

1. Create an Amazon IAM user for snapshotting and save the credentials file. ( You’ll need them to use the amazon cli api , it comes in csv format)
Create an Amazon IAM Group for snapshot permissions
add a “Custom Policy” and paste the code block below
Example IAM Policy:

{
  "Statement": [
    {
      "Action": [
        "ec2:DescribeVolumes",
        "ec2:CreateSnapshot",
        "ec2:DeleteSnapshot",
        "ec2:DescribeSnapshotAttribute",
        "ec2:DescribeSnapshots",
        "ec2:ModifySnapshotAttribute",
        "ec2:ResetSnapshotAttribute"
      ],
      "Effect": "Allow",
      "Resource": [
        "*"
      ]
    }
  ]
}

2. Install the Amazon CLI Tools

$ wget http://s3.amazonaws.com/ec2-downloads/ec2-api-tools.zip
$ unzip ec2-api-tools.zip
$ mv ec2-api-tools /opt
$ ln -s /opt/ec2-api-tools /opt/aws

3. Install the below script in cron on your snapshot interval and change the “Constants” and also plugin your AWS Keys
Script Below

#!/bin/bash
# EBS Snapshot volume script
# Constants - You'll want to edit these
JAVA_HOME="/usr"
EC2_HOME="/opt/aws"
ec2_bin="/opt/aws/bin"
export EC2_HOME
export JAVA_HOME
LOGFILE='/var/log/aws_snapshot.log'
TMPFILE='/tmp/snap_info.txt'

VOLTMPFILE='/tmp/volume_info.txt'

# Retention in days
RETENTION="7"

# AWS ACCESS INFO
access_key='SOMEACCESSKEY'
secret_key='SOMESECRETKEY'
instance_id=`wget -q -O- http://169.254.169.254/latest/meta-data/instance-id`

# Dates
datecheck_7d=`date +%Y-%m-%d --date "$RETENTION days ago"`
datecheck_s_7d=`date --date="$datecheck_7d" +%s`
datenow=`date +%Y-%m-%d-%H:%M:%S`

# Add entry in logfile for run begin
echo "${datenow} ======= BEGIN SNAPSHOT SCRIPT =========" 2>&1 >> $LOGFILE
# Get all volume info and copy to temp file
$ec2_bin/ec2-describe-volumes -O $access_key -W $secret_key  --filter "attachment.instance-id=$instance_id" > $VOLTMPFILE 2>&1

# Get all snapshot info
$ec2_bin/ec2-describe-snapshots -O $access_key -W $secret_key | grep "$instance_id" > $TMPFILE 2>&1

# Loop to remove any snapshots older than 7 days
for obj0 in $(cat $TMPFILE | awk '{print $5}')
do
        snapshot_name=`cat $TMPFILE | grep "$obj0" | awk '{print $2}'`
        datecheck_old=`cat $TMPFILE | grep "$snapshot_name" | awk '{print $5}' | awk -F "T" '{print $1}'`
        datecheck_s_old=`date --date="$datecheck_old" +%s`

        # Check if snapshot is older than retention days
        if (( $datecheck_s_old <= $datecheck_s_7d ));
        then
                echo "deleting snapshot $snapshot_name ... older than $RETENTION days" 2>&1 >> $LOGFILE
                $ec2_bin/ec2-delete-snapshot -O $access_key -W $secret_key $snapshot_name
        else
                echo "not deleting snapshot $snapshot_name ... not older than $RETENTION days" 2>&1 >> $LOGFILE
        fi
done

# Create snapshot
for volume in $(cat $VOLTMPFILE | grep "VOLUME" | awk '{print $2}')
do
        # Description cannot have spaces
        description="instance-id:${instance_id}_vol-id:${volume}_`hostname`_backup-`date +%Y-%m-%d`"
        echo "Creating Snapshot for the volume: $volume with description: $description" 2>&1 >> $LOGFILE
        $ec2_bin/ec2-create-snapshot -O $access_key -W $secret_key -d "$description" $volume 2>&1 >> $LOGFILE
done