[ec2-beta] I just wanted to report a few things with Ubuntu on EC2

[Eric Hammond]

Mirza:

Thanks for finding and reporting this.

The problem running the newaliases command comes down to the fact that
the beta image is currently built with no domain name.  The command

  hostname -f

returns

  ubuntu.

and dnsdomainname returns nothing.

Many other EC2 images start with a host+domain matching the internal DNS
name of the instance (presumably obtained from DHCP when networking
starts).  For example (though not all follow this format),

  domU-12-31-39-00-C0-81.compute-1.internal

Some EC2 images query the external DNS name of the instance and set that
as the host and domain name on boot.  For example,

  ec2-174-129-140-172.compute-1.amazonaws.com

I agree that it would be nice for postfix installation to work without
too much additional effort on the part of a new user and either of these
options would do it.

I think I'd slightly prefer the external DNS name so that when installed
software gets configured it defaults to a name that works from both
inside and outside of EC2.

I've been using the internal DNS name on the community Ubuntu images I
build partly because it was easier at the beginning and partly because
the main existing images were doing it that way.

I've entered a bug report to track this problem (LP#316201) in the
official Ubuntu images.

--
Eric Hammond
ehammond at thinksome.com



Mirza Borogovac wrote:
> I am not sure what I am doing here so bear with me. I am not asking for
> help, I am just trying to report a bug. I was trying to create instance
> of ubuntu server on EC2 and I was unsuccessful. Here are few notes that
> I took:
> 
> on the site https://help.ubuntu.com/community/EC2StartersGuide
> 
> LInes that go into .bashrc: 
> 	- I have Java-6-sun rather than java-1.5.0-sun
> 	- once you write lines into .bashrc, you need to somehow have systemtake them. I had to restart computer
> 
> Once I created an instance:
> 
> 1. I logged in as root
> 2. I chose default configuration
> 3. System then kicked me out and told me to log in as Ubuntu
> 4. Once I loged in again, I typed sudo apt-get install postfix
> 5. I chose web server configuration. 
> 6. on the next screen I put in
> ec2-174-129-156-217.compute-1.amazonaws.com
> I am not sure if this is correct since I have no idea what I am doing.
> Well installation exited abruptly with error. Even though I'm a dummy, installation should not just crash. Here is console output:
> 
> 
>> ubuntu at ubuntu:~$ sudo apt-get install postfix
>> [sudo] password for ubuntu: 
>> Reading package lists... Done
>> Building dependency tree       
>> Reading state information... Done
>> The following extra packages will be installed:
>>   openssl-blacklist ssl-cert
>> Suggested packages:
>>   procmail postfix-mysql postfix-pgsql postfix-ldap postfix-pcre sasl2-bin
>>   resolvconf postfix-cdb mail-reader
>> The following NEW packages will be installed:
>>   openssl-blacklist postfix ssl-cert
>> 0 upgraded, 3 newly installed, 0 to remove and 0 not upgraded.
>> Need to get 7569kB of archives.
>> After this operation, 15.6MB of additional disk space will be used.
>> Do you want to continue [Y/n]? 
>> Get:1 http://archive.ubuntu.com intrepid/main openssl-blacklist 0.4.2 [6337kB]
>> Get:2 http://archive.ubuntu.com intrepid/main ssl-cert 1.0.23 [13.2kB]
>> Get:3 http://archive.ubuntu.com intrepid/main postfix 2.5.5-1 [1219kB]
>> Fetched 7569kB in 2s (3235kB/s)
>> Preconfiguring packages ...
>> Selecting previously deselected package openssl-blacklist.
>> (Reading database ... 17632 files and directories currently installed.)
>> Unpacking openssl-blacklist (from .../openssl-blacklist_0.4.2_all.deb) ...
>> Selecting previously deselected package ssl-cert.
>> Unpacking ssl-cert (from .../ssl-cert_1.0.23_all.deb) ...
>> Selecting previously deselected package postfix.
>> Unpacking postfix (from .../postfix_2.5.5-1_i386.deb) ...
>> Processing triggers for man-db ...
>> Processing triggers for ufw ...
>> Setting up openssl-blacklist (0.4.2) ...
>> Setting up ssl-cert (1.0.23) ...
>>
>> Setting up postfix (2.5.5-1) ...
>> Adding group `postfix' (GID 114) ...
>> Done.
>> Adding system user `postfix' (UID 106) ...
>> Adding new user `postfix' (UID 106) with group `postfix' ...
>> Not creating home directory `/var/spool/postfix'.
>> Creating /etc/postfix/dynamicmaps.cf
>> Adding tcp map entry to /etc/postfix/dynamicmaps.cf
>> Adding group `postdrop' (GID 115) ...
>> Done.
>> setting myhostname: ubuntu.
>> setting alias maps
>> setting alias database
>> changing /etc/mailname to ec2-174-129-156-217.compute-1.amazonaws.com
>> setting myorigin
>> setting destinations: ec2-174-129-156-217.compute-1.amazonaws.com, ubuntu., localhost., localhost
>> setting relayhost: 
>> setting mynetworks: 127.0.0.0/8 [::ffff:127.0.0.0]/104 [::1]/128
>> setting mailbox_size_limit: 0
>> setting recipient_delimiter: +
>> setting inet_interfaces: all
>> /etc/aliases does not exist, creating it.
>> WARNING: /etc/aliases exists, but does not have a root alias.
>>
>> Postfix is now set up with a default configuration.  If you need to make 
>> changes, edit
>> /etc/postfix/main.cf (and others) as needed.  To view Postfix configuration
>> values, see postconf(1).
>>
>> After modifying main.cf, be sure to run '/etc/init.d/postfix reload'.
>>
>> Running newaliases
>> newaliases: fatal: bad string length 0 < 1: mydomain = 
>> dpkg: error processing postfix (--configure):
>>  subprocess post-installation script returned error exit status 75
>> Processing triggers for libc6 ...
>> ldconfig deferred processing now taking place
>> Errors were encountered while processing:
>>  postfix
>> E: Sub-process /usr/bin/dpkg returned an error code (1)
>