[ec2-beta] some feedback on the i386 image

[Soren Hansen]

On Sun, Jan 11, 2009 at 11:34:47PM -0800, Alex Polvi wrote:
> 1) The initial login experience is odd. I'm after root on the box, not
> to be forced to login with the ubuntu user.

Appreciated. However, Ubuntu uses sudo in favour of logging in as root.
We do it this way on servers and on the desktop, essentially in every
other context, and we have no interest in diverging from all our other
edition on EC2, so this is unlikely to change.

> 2) I would much prefer a bare-bones, ec2 tailored image, instead of an
> install dialog.

The install dialog has proven more controversial than expected. The
intention was to make it easier for novice users to present a set of
simple tasks and making them very, very available.

> 3) The first apt-get update threw warnings:

Yes, this is a known problem and should be fixed in the upcoming
release.

> Also, would be great if you could provide an EC2 local mirror in the
> default sources.list (bandwidth is free within EC2). I would be happy
> to help with this!

This is being worked on. :)

> 4) I've found the included ec2-bundling tools on the alestic images
> very helpful (ec2-bundle-vol, ec2-upload-bundle, etc), although I have
> yet to miss them on this beta image.

Noted.

> 5) In fact, it would be really awesome if the
> ec2-api-tools/ec2-bundle-tools were apt-get'able -
> http://developer.amazonwebservices.com/connect/entry.jspa?externalID=351

The AMI tools are, if you enable multiverse, actually.

> One last thing, why are the host keys regenerated in firstboot.sh? The
> ec2-get-console-output command was created just so we could check the
> host keys before logging in:
> http://docs.amazonwebservices.com/AWSEC2/latest/DeveloperGuide/index.html?CLTRG-get-console-output.html
> -- I probably overlooked something silly, but I wanted to point it out
> just in-case.

The host keys are regenerated so that they won't be identical on every
user's instance. That would mean that everyone had everyone else's host
private keys and that defeats the purpose of a public key crypto system.

> Hope this helps! Thanks again for making an awesome product.

It does. Thanks for your feedback.

-- 
Soren Hansen               | 
Virtualisation specialist  | Ubuntu Server Team
Canonical Ltd.             | http://www.ubuntu.com/
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