Amazon EC2 cloud server deployment

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Amazon EC2, simplified: TurnKey Hub is a web service we've developed which makes it easier to launch and manage TurnKey Linux appliances in the Amazon EC2 cloud.

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Benefits

There are many advantages to using Amazon EC2 (Elastic Compute Cloud) to deploy TurnKey Linux appliances on-demand:

  • Fast: launch an appliance into a high performance cloud in just minutes.
  • Convenient: No additional hardware or software is required.
  • Cost effective: starts from less than $0.1/hour (9¢) and you only pay for what you use.
  • Nothing to download: this is especially useful with larger appliances.
  • Simple: Basic usage can be managed from a web browser.
  • Powerful: can be managed and automated from a powerful API.

TurnKey AMIs optimized for EC2

TurnKey Amazon Machine Images are specially optimized for EC2:

  • EBS auto-mounting support: custom EBSmount mechanism automatically mounts EBS devices when attached.
  • Support for automating EC2 instance setup: via user-data scripts mechanism.
  • Para-Virt kernel, no ramdisk: images are configured to use Amazon's para-virt kernell, which chains into the appliance kernel. This provides kernel upgrades and super fast booting.
  • Automatic APT configuration on boot: saves bandwidth costs by using the Ubuntu package archive located in the deployed region for maximum performance (bandwidth is free inside a region).
  • AWS SSH key support: instances that are launched with a key-pair will be configured accordingly.
  • SSH host key fingerprints displayed in system log: verification of server to prevent man-in-the-middle (mitm) attacks.
  • Appliance pre-configuration via Hub deployment: allows customization of the root password, database password and appliance specific configuration (admin password, email, domain).
  • Randomly generated root password (when not using the Hub): is set on first boot, and displayed in the system log.
  • Randomly generated mysql/postgres passwords (when not using the Hub): the MySQL root and/or PostgreSQL postgres passwords are set to to the same random password as root.
  • EC2 metadata python library and CLI: used internally, but useful for advanced users. (learn more)