Introduction:

This is a guide for implementing the following:

1. Launch EC2 Instance, Create and Mount EBS Volume with UserData file.
2. Create and Mount EFS Volume with AWS EFS Dashboard and EFS mount helper.

Explanation:

EBS (Elastic Block Store):

• An Amazon EBS Volume is a durable, block-level storage device that can be attached to Amazon EC2 instances.
  
• Useful for storing data that requires frequent updates, such as system drives for instances or databases.
  
• They are specific to an availability zone and can be migrated between zones using snapshots, but they cannot be attached to instances in different zones.
  
• It can be created during the process of creating an EC2 instance or as standalone volumes and attached to running EC2 instances.
  

EFS (Elastic File System):

• An AWS EFS volume is a scalable, simple, and managed file storage service, provided by Amazon Web Services (AWS).
  
• Useful for applications that require shared storage(from a file system) across multiple Amazon Elastic Container Service (ECS) tasks or Amazon EC2 instances.
  
• They are designed to be highly available and scalable, automatically adjusting storage capacity as you add or remove files.
  

Tasks + Steps:

Mission 1: Launch EC2 Instance and Mount EBS Volume with UserData

Step 1: Launch EC2 Instance

• Download AWS CLI and verify if it’s properly installed with the command:

  $ aws --version
  

• Create AWS Access Key:
  • Go to your AWS account overview.
  • Account menu in the upper-right (has your name on it), press "Security Credentials".
  • In section "Access keys", press "Create access key".
  • Save Access Key in a secure location.
• Configure and login the necessary IAM user with AWS CLI:

  $ aws configure
  

  Here we’ll need the access key and secret key for the IAM user, as well as the region id (can be found beside the region name in your AWS account):

  AWS Access Key ID [None]: accesskey
  AWS Secret Access Key [None]: secretkey
  Default region name [None]: us-west-2
  Default output format [None]:
  

  To update just the region name:

  $ aws configure
  AWS Access Key ID [****]:
  AWS Secret Access Key [****]:
  Default region name [us-west-1]: us-west-2
  Default output format [None]:
  

• Launch an EC2 instance using AWS CLI (specify the necessary details: AMI ID, instance type, key pair, subnet, security group, and tags):
  • Get AMI ID:
    • Go to "EC2 Dashboard".
    • Then in the left menu click on "Images", and then "AMI Catalog".
    • Here you'll find a list of base images from AWS along with the AMI ID.
  • Get VPC ID and Subnet Id:
    • Go to the "VPC Dashboard" and click on "VPCs", here you will get the "VPC ID".
    • Then in the left menu click on "Virtual private cloud", then "Subnets", and search with the "VPC ID" to list all the subnets associated with that VPC and copy the "Subnet ID".
  • Setting up SSH key pair, in order to authenticate our EC2 instance:

    $ aws ec2 create-key-pair \       
      --key-name  <your key name> \
      --query '<your query>' --output text > ~/.ssh/<key-file-name>
    

  • Setting up a security group, in order to control who has access to that instance:

    $ aws ec2 create-security-group \
      --group-name <group name> \
      --description "rules for this group" \
      --vpc-id <vpc-xxxx>
    $ aws ec2 authorize-security-group-ingress \
      --group-id <group-id> \
      --protocol tcp \
      --port 22 \
      --cidr 0.0.0.0/0
    

  • Finally, Launching the instance:

    $ aws ec2 run-instances \
      --image-id <ami-id> \
      --instance-type <instance-type> \
      --key-name <ec2-key-pair-name> \
      --subnet-id <subnet-id> \
      --security-group-ids <security-group-id> \
      --tag-specifications 'ResourceType=instance,Tags=[{Key=Name,Value=<instance-name>}]'
    

Step 2: Create and Attach an EBS Volume

• Create an EBS volume in the same availability zone and attach it to the launched EC2 instance.
  • Create:

    $ aws ec2 create-volume --volume-type <type of storage volume> --availability-zone <availability-zone> --size <size-in-GiB>
    

  • Attach: ( device-name usually: /dev/sd* or /dev/xvd* )

    $ aws ec2 attach-volume --volume-id <id of created volume> --instance-id <instance-id where volume is to be attached> --device <device-name>
    

Step 3: Mount EBS Volume Using UserData

• Connect to created EC2 instance with SSH Client:
  • Go to "EC2 Dashboard".
  • Press your "EC2 Instance", press "connect", and follow the instructions for "SSH client".
• Enter as root:

  $ sudo -i
  

• Create a UserData script ( userdata.sh ) to be executed during instance launch:

  $ vim userdata.sh
  

• The script should format the EBS volume, create a mount point, and mount the volume. Also, mount EBS volume automatically on boot:
  • userdata.sh - make sure to change "EBS_DEVICE" and "MOUNT_POINT" endings.
• Ensure the UserData script is made executable:

  $ chmod +x userdata.sh
  

• Run the script:

  $ ./userdata.sh
  

• Check EBS volume(xvd*) has a set mount point:

  $ lsblk
  

• Exit and Check changes:
  • Exit root:

    $ exit
    

  • Exit EC2 instance:

    $ exit
    

  • Reboot EC2 instance:

    $ aws ec2 reboot-instances --instance-ids <instance-id>
    

  • Enter EC2 instance again with SSH Client as before.
  • Enter as root as before.
  • Check mount again:

    $ lsblk
    

Mission 2: Create and Mount EFS Volume

Step 1: Create an EFS Volume

• Creating Security Group for EFS:
  • Go to EC2 dashboard, in left menu press "Network & Security", then "Security Groups".
  • Set a "name" and "description".
  • Select "VPC". (EFS and its Security group must be in the same VPC).
  • In "inbound rules" section press "Add rule", and select the "Type" NFS, select "source" to Anywhere.
• Navigate to the AWS Management Console and access the EFS service.
• Create a new EFS file system, select "customize" and configure: name, throughput mode, performance mode, network access, including selecting VPC and defining security groups:
  • Set EFS "name".
  • Select "Throughput mode".
  • In "Additional settings" -> set "Performance mode".
  • In "Network access" select VPC and security group from before for all mount targets.

Step 2: Mount EFS Volume on EC2 Instance

• Install the EFS mount helper on the EC2 instance using the package manager:
  • Enter EC2 instance again with SSH Client as before.
  • Install the EFS mount helper(NFS Client):

    $ sudo apt-get -y install nfs-common
    

• Create a mount point on the EC2 instance for the EFS volume:
  • Enter as root:

    $ sudo -i
    

  • Create mount point folder:

    $ mkdir <efs-mount-point>
    

• Mount the EFS volume to the specified mount point. Access the DNS name of the EFS file system from the console for mounting on EC2 instances:
  • In the EFS dashboard, go to the EFS created, press "attach".
  • Select "Mount via DNS" and use the NFS client, example:

    $ sudo mount -t nfs4 -o nfsvers=4.1,rsize=1048576,wsize=1048576,hard,timeo=600,retrans=2,noresvport fs-0000000000000.efs.<region>.amazonaws.com:/ <efs-mount-point>
    

  • Check mount:

    $ df -h
    

Author: LuciaHeredia