Just wanted to know, how can I launch an Instance Store Backed Instance, on the EC2 launch page I see all EBS backed AMIs. Don't see any Instance store backed AMI. Do I have to create an Instance Store Backed AMI first to launch an Instance Store backed instance.
You will need to use an instance store-backed AMI.
When launching an Amazon EC2 instance in the management console:
Select Community AMIs
For Root device type, select Instance store
Select a desired AMI
By the way, there is very little benefit these days in booting off instance store, compared to the benefits that EBS provides (start/stop, snapshots, resizing, etc).
Related
AWS launch new instance using Ubuntu 22.04:
The selected AMI contains more instance store volumes
than the instance allows. Only the first 0 instance
store volumes from the AMI will be accessible from the
instance
What does it mean? does an AMI have volumes?
EC2 instances can have two basic types of volumes: EBS (Elastic Block Store) and Instance Store. This article spells out the differences, but in a nutshell, EBS volumes are network attached storage that are independent of an instance, while Instance Store volumes are local block storage volumes that are not persistent (e.g. when the instance is terminated, the instance store volume is lost).
You ask if an AMI has volumes. An AMI basically is one or more volumes. The AMI is a snapshot of a disk in a particular state. These days, most modern AMIs use EBS storage for the root volume; that is, the volume that contains the operating system kernel that an instance boots from. It used to be commonplace to use Instance Store for the root volume, but EBS has become nearly as fast, more secure, and more reliable than Instance Store, so the use cases for Instance Store volumes are dwindling.
With all that said, I'm quite surprised that you're seeing this error. The error message suggests that the AMI includes Instance Store but the instance type you selected does not support Instance Store (many instance types do not). However, all Ubuntu 22.04 AMIs use EBS, not Instance Store. If you use the Ubuntu Amazon EC2 AMI Locator and search for "22.04", you'll find that all of the results have hvm:ebs-ssd as the instance type. Only very old Ubuntu AMIs have Instance Store volumes.
Make sure you are using the AMI Locator to find the Ubuntu 22.04 AMI. Those AMIs should work with most or all EC2 instance types.
I have several AMIs that developers use to spin up instances. These AMI do not have "delete on termination" set on all their EBS volumes. At times terminating instances launched using these AMIs has the unintended consequence of leaving behind orphan EBS volumes. Unfortunately, "blessing" a new AMI for general use is quite an ordeal. Is it possible to edit an existing AMI to turn on "delete on termination" or is the only way forward to create a new AMI with the proper settings?
It is not possible to modify the "Delete on termination" value on an existing AMI.
So you have 2 choices:
Launch an EC2 instance from your AMI and produce a new AMI with the appropriate "Delete on Terminate" value, or
Modify the value when you launch the new EC2 instance.
Once the instance is running you can call modifyAttribute (modify-instance-attribute in the CLI) on the attribute blockDeviceMapping.
aws ec2 modify-instance-attribute --instance-id i-a3ef245 --block-device-mappings "[{\"DeviceName\": \"/dev/sda\",\"Ebs\":{\"DeleteOnTermination\":false}}]"
You can see an example here: http://www.petewilcock.com/how-to-modify-deletion-on-termination-flag-for-ebs-volume-on-running-ec2-instance/
There is no such features.
In addition, I think you misundestand the purpose of AWS web console EC2 EBS Volumes vs snapshot.
When you launch an instances, a EBS Volume is assign to the instance(if it is a EBS base instance like t2., c3.) , once you terminate it, that assoicated volume will be deleted.
Unless you create a EBS volumes that attach to a instances, that is another story. An attached volumes will stay even the instance it attached to is deleted, this is intended design as EBS volumes is network storage anyway, it should allow you to detach/attach to different instances dynamically.
On the other hand, your user may create snapshot(s) for their instances, which store under the Snapshot portion. This is part that will stay, even you terminate the original instance. Once you deleted the original instance, the volume it point do will be "orphaned".
It is a good practice to create a snapshot for instance as backup, but it will go wilds if you don't have a standard policy to handle it. No automation can help a process nature issues.
You MUST enforce a policy and standard for your developer to follow as well, e.g. backup cycle, tag for snapshot, etc.
How do I launch an EBS backed AMI as an instance store machine with out having to do too much hack? Also, more specifically, can I launch this using in an autoscaler?
I can answer the first part of your question. As far as I know you can not launch an EBS backed AMI as instance store machine. Instead what you can do is create an IS (instance store) backed AMI from the EBS backed running instance and use that to launch instance store backed instances.
The process of converting EBS backed instance to IS backed AMI not so straight forward. You need to start from a EBS backed paravirtual instance and after that I followed this answer for the conversion. To install AWS tools and command line utilities use this AWS tutorial.
On AWS EC2, if we launch and AMI with instance-store, we can attach EBS volume for persisent store. Is the vice-versa possible.
ie.,
Can we add instance-store volume when launching a EBS HVM AMI, the reason behind this is to use it as a swap.
I can't see the option to add Instance store on Storage Configuration, while launching a EBS backed instance.
Please let me know, if there is a method to achieve root volume as EBS and swap volume as instance-store.
many thanks,
Shan
If you are launching an instance class that includes instance store (ephemeral) disks, those should be accessible from Storage Configuration, as in this example, where the instance class provides two ephemeral disks.
See Instance Storage in the EC2 documentation to confirm whether the instance class you're launching includes instance store volumes. Some classes do not, and where that is the case, you can only select EBS as the Volume Type.
If you're launching from an AMI that already contains references to the ephemeral disks, you should see something like this screen shot. If it doesn't include references to the instance store volumes, you can use Add New Volume to include the desired instance store volumes with the new instance. Their sizes are fixed by the specs of the instance class, which is why Size says N/A. Since they are provided at no charge, you should always attach them at launch, even if you have no plan for them, because they can't be added after launching.
AMIs can't be edited, so if you want these included automatically on future launches, you'll need to build a new AMI, which you'll probably also want to be configured (within the OS boot sequence) to create and mount the desired swap space.
I am trying to stop a Amazon EC2 instance and get the warning message
Warning: Please note that any data on the ephemeral storage of your instance will be lost when it is stopped.
My Question
What data is stored in ephemeral storage of an Amazon EC2 instance?
Basically, root volume (your entire virtual system disk) is ephemeral, but only if you choose to create AMI backed by Amazon EC2 instance store.
If you choose to create AMI backed by EBS then your root volume is backed by EBS and everything you have on your root volume will be saved between reboots.
If you are not sure what type of volume you have, look under EC2->Elastic Block Store->Volumes in your AWS console and if your AMI root volume is listed there then you are safe. Also, if you go to EC2->Instances and then look under column "Root device type" of your instance and if it says "ebs", then you don't have to worry about data on your root device.
More details here: http://docs.aws.amazon.com/AWSEC2/latest/UserGuide/RootDeviceStorage.html
Anything that is not stored on an EBS volume that is mounted to the instance will be lost.
For example, if you mount your EBS volume at /mystuff, then anything not in /mystuff will be lost. If you don't mount an ebs volume and save stuff on it, then I believe everything will be lost.
You can create an AMI from your current machine state, which will contain everything in your ephemeral storage. Then, when you launch a new instance based on that AMI it will contain everything as it is now.
Update: to clarify based on comments by mattgmg1990 and glenn bech:
Note that there is a difference between "stop" and "terminate". If you "stop" an instance that is backed by EBS then the information on the root volume will still be in the same state when you "start" the machine again. According to the documentation, "By default, the root device volume and the other Amazon EBS volumes attached when you launch an Amazon EBS-backed instance are automatically deleted when the instance terminates" but you can modify that via configuration.
To be clear and answer #Dean's question: EBS-type root storage doesn't seem to be ephemeral. Data is persistent across reboots and actually it doesn't make any sense to use ebs-backed root volume which is 'ephemeral'. This wouldn't be different from image-based root volume.
For EC2 instance
Stop & Start != Reboot
so for ephemeral storage (Instance Store)
Stop cause data lost
Reboot will not
According to AWS documentation [https://aws.amazon.com/premiumsupport/knowledge-center/instance-store-vs-ebs/] instance store volumes is not persistent through instance stops, terminations, or hardware failures.
Any AMI created from instance stored disk doesn't contain data present in instance store so all instances launched by this AMI will not have data stored in instance store. Instance store can be used as cache for applications running on instance, for all persistent data you should use EBS.
ephemeral is just another name of root volume when you launch Instance from AMI backed from Amazon EC2 instance store
So Everything will be stored on ephemeral.
if you have launched your instance from AMI backed by EBS volume then your instance does not have ephemeral.
refer: https://docs.aws.amazon.com/AWSEC2/latest/UserGuide/InstanceStorage.html#instance-store-volumes
The data in an instance store persists only during the lifetime of
its associated instance. If an instance reboots (intentionally or
unintentionally), data in the instance store persists. However,
data in the instance store is lost under any of the following
circumstances:
- The underlying disk drive fails
- The instance stops
- The instance hibernates
- The instance terminates