J's picture

Hi,

  I used the LAPP install for AMI and created an EBS in the configuration.  After reviewing the instance on Amazon it does not show EBS as root device, it shows instance-store.  Is there special configuration needed to make this feature work?

When I run this command from putty, it does not find the directory

 

ebsmount-manual --format=ext3 /dev/sdf

 

If I go into my AWS management console and attach the volume to the instance and then run the upper command I get


/dev/sdf is entire device, not just one partition!
Proceed anyway? (y,n) y
/dev/sdf: mounted /dev/sdf /media/ebs/vbd-2128/d396

 

I am new to the command line and unsure of the next step.

if I CD /dev/sdf /media/ebs/vbd-2128/d396

 

It states

 

dev# cd sdf
-bash: cd: sdf: Not a directory
 

Would love to move forward with TKL and learn more about ideal architectures for elastic scaling and aws as well.

 

Thanks for the innovative service,  Mazel tov!

  Thanks,

  -J

Forum: 
Alon Swartz's picture

First, sorry for the late reply, we are reaching the end of a development cycle and things are hectic.

Amazon support two types of images, instance-store-backed (root partition stored on s3) and EBS-backed (root partition stored on an EBS volume), each with their own pro's and con's. TurnKey AMI's are of type instance-store-backed.

In a nutshell, what this means is that the instance is not persistent - any data / changes will be lost when the instance is terminated. This is where EBS volumes (as well as our upcoming backup and migration mechanism - TKLBAM) come into play. An EBS volume is basically an external harddrive which you can attach to your instance, and use it as persistent storage. When the instance is terminated, the data on the EBS volume is still available, and can be attached to a new instance.

The ebsmount tool you are referring to makes working with EBS volumes easier, in that it will automatically mount an EBS volume when attached, if it is formatted. ebsmount-manual is a convenience command to assist in formatting and mounting a new EBS volume. From then on, it will be mounted automatically when attached to any TurnKey instance (to the same unique mountpoint).

 

/dev/sdf: mounted /dev/sdf /media/ebs/vbd-2128/d396

EBS volumes are normally attached to /dev/sd[f-k].

What the above output means, is that your EBS volume was attached to /dev/sdf, and ebsmount mounted it to /media/ebs/vbd-2128/d396. For easy access to your EBS I would recommend creating a symlink, something like this:

ln -s /media/ebs/vbd-2128/d396 /vol

Then, you can simply "cd /vol".

I hope the above helps.

 

J's picture

Unfortunately, this is the second time writing this post, almost had a disaster this morning when about to hit send... the laptop died.   Once many years ago, something similar happened, and after cleaning the fan and removing the lint, it started right back up.  This time, it did not... although was able to find a quick doc on how to remove the keyboard and clean the graphics card/ cpu fan, and now am fortunately back up...

There are two lessons here...

First dont forget to clean and mantainance your fans

The 2nd, In architecture school they always said your second draft is better...

 

TKLBAM sounds awesome!

Now is it fair presume the ebsmount tool is one step in the progression of TKLBAM?

How do most users currently use ebsmount?

I would definately benefit from a tutorial on how to setup LAPP TKL with an ebs-backed imi, or if this is comming in the near future release of TKL, perhaps I will wait it out...

After doing a bunch of research on AWS, i have found it difficult to find design documents as to a good way to build an elastic or scalable stack.  Does anyone have any suggestions as where to look?  How would TKL help in this process?  Perhaps I can begin to compile a list of suggested architectures from other communities on the community docs / wiki?  Would this be the appropriate location?  http://www.turnkeylinux.org/docs/ec2

 


Mike Gifford's picture

Ok, so this is just a configuration that we can change as I understand it.

We'd just mount the EBS volume and store persistent data there.

Are there any problems with this in relation to using the turnkey hub?

Jeremy Davis's picture

Once you have EBS backed instances enabled in the Hub then you can easily mount instances when you launch them (AFAIK you just select them from the dropdown).

Mike Gifford's picture

Thanks Jeremy for your quick & informative feedback.  Thanks and all the best in 2012.

Add new comment