[ec2-beta] Ec2-beta Digest, Vol 4, Issue 13
Hareem Haque
hareem.haque at gmail.com
Wed Mar 11 04:21:42 GMT 2009
Overall we need a simpler novice friendly method to bundle the instances
with our apps and configurations.
Best Regards
Hareem. Haque
On Wed, Mar 11, 2009 at 12:17 AM, <ec2-beta-request at lists.ubuntu.com> wrote:
> Send Ec2-beta mailing list submissions to
> ec2-beta at lists.ubuntu.com
>
> To subscribe or unsubscribe via the World Wide Web, visit
> https://lists.ubuntu.com/mailman/listinfo/ec2-beta
> or, via email, send a message with subject or body 'help' to
> ec2-beta-request at lists.ubuntu.com
>
> You can reach the person managing the list at
> ec2-beta-owner at lists.ubuntu.com
>
> When replying, please edit your Subject line so it is more specific
> than "Re: Contents of Ec2-beta digest..."
>
>
> Today's Topics:
>
> 1. Re: the ubuntu users home directory (Soren Hansen)
> 2. Re: document: EC2 Ubuntu sudo Guide (Soren Hansen)
> 3. feature request: user-data scripts (Keary Griffin)
> 4. Re: feature request: user-data scripts (Jeff Koftinoff)
> 5. Re: feature request: user-data scripts (Eric Hammond)
> 6. Re: feature request: user-data scripts (Rodney T. Quillo)
> 7. Re: feature request: user-data scripts (Keary Griffin)
> 8. Re: document: EC2 Ubuntu sudo Guide (Michael Greenly)
>
>
> ----------------------------------------------------------------------
>
> Message: 1
> Date: Tue, 10 Mar 2009 17:31:36 +0100
> From: Soren Hansen <soren at ubuntu.com>
> Subject: Re: [ec2-beta] the ubuntu users home directory
> To: ec2-beta at lists.ubuntu.com
> Message-ID: <20090310163136.GC28544 at ralph.linux2go.dk>
> Content-Type: text/plain; charset="us-ascii"
>
> On Sun, Mar 08, 2009 at 09:25:37AM -0500, Michael Greenly wrote:
> >> To which the answer seems to be "That means you're no longer using
> >> Ubuntu the way it was intended. So why use Ubuntu in the first
> >> place?"
> > Only Ubuntu's users and contributors can determine how it's intended
> > to be used
>
> Indeed. Correct me if I'm wrong, but are you not making the argument
> that we should do something differently from what said users and
> contributors have decided long ago and are quite happy with?
>
> > Honestly how many instances are running these AMIs for production
> > purposes?
>
> Hopefully none or perhaps very, very few. They're beta images.
>
> --
> Soren Hansen |
> Lead Virtualisation Engineer | Ubuntu Server Team
> Canonical Ltd. | http://www.ubuntu.com/
> -------------- next part --------------
> A non-text attachment was scrubbed...
> Name: not available
> Type: application/pgp-signature
> Size: 315 bytes
> Desc: Digital signature
> Url :
> https://lists.ubuntu.com/mailman/private/ec2-beta/attachments/20090310/2274c4d8/attachment-0001.pgp
>
> ------------------------------
>
> Message: 2
> Date: Tue, 10 Mar 2009 20:15:47 +0100
> From: Soren Hansen <soren at ubuntu.com>
> Subject: Re: [ec2-beta] document: EC2 Ubuntu sudo Guide
> To: ec2-beta at lists.ubuntu.com
> Message-ID: <20090310191547.GG28544 at ralph.linux2go.dk>
> Content-Type: text/plain; charset="us-ascii"
>
> On Tue, Mar 10, 2009 at 12:52:43PM -0500, Michael Greenly wrote:
> >> Your statement begs the counter-statement: "It shouldn't do something
> >> different than every other Ubuntu system unless there's some
> >> advantage."
> > The advantage is that rsync as root would work and that's an extremely
> > likely activity given what this AMI is and how it will be used.
>
> How do you use rsync differently on EC2 compared to a regular Ubuntu
> Server install? Also, what is the particular difficulty here? Do you
> have a specific use case?
>
> The use of sudo is all about interactive logins. If you need to log in
> as root to do rsync, that's fine. Set up ssh public key authentication,
> and you're good. I don't remember ever having to to that, though. I run
> rsync as root (via crontab or sudo or whatever) on the destination
> machine, and that's all I really need.
>
> > The problem is that none of the traditional 'sudo' advantages gain you
> > anything at this point in this AMIs life cycle.
> >
> > This AMI doesn't represent a finished product that some one will login
> > to and use for anything.
> >
> > It represents a blank slate that's a starting point from which a
> > server will be configured and then re-bundled.
>
> I don't think I follow? People can use these images as is for many
> different purposes. Not everyone will rebundle.
>
> > Had it been my decision it would have allowed root log in just like
> > all other Linux AMIs. Then I would of provide a connivance script to
> > disable root login and instructions to use it prior to bundling.
> >
> > This would have allowed all the conventional EC2 wisdom to just work and
> > once the server was being used it would operate as an Ubuntu user/admin
> > would expect.
>
> 10-15 years ago, virtually all linux documentation started with "log in
> as root". :) As I said in my previous e-mail, I don't think that
> "everybody else does it" is a very good argument for doing something. If
> it were, nothing would ever improve or evolve.
>
> --
> Soren Hansen |
> Lead Virtualisation Engineer | Ubuntu Server Team
> Canonical Ltd. | http://www.ubuntu.com/
> -------------- next part --------------
> A non-text attachment was scrubbed...
> Name: not available
> Type: application/pgp-signature
> Size: 315 bytes
> Desc: Digital signature
> Url :
> https://lists.ubuntu.com/mailman/private/ec2-beta/attachments/20090310/a6f0ae9b/attachment-0001.pgp
>
> ------------------------------
>
> Message: 3
> Date: Tue, 10 Mar 2009 19:15:43 -0400
> From: Keary Griffin <keary.griffin at unwiredappeal.com>
> Subject: [ec2-beta] feature request: user-data scripts
> To: ec2-beta at lists.ubuntu.com
> Message-ID: <49B6F49F.1080102 at unwiredappeal.com>
> Content-Type: text/plain; charset=ISO-8859-1; format=flowed
>
> I know this is a little late in the game for this release, but maybe for
> the future, one of things I really liked about the Eric's alestic Ubuntu
> images was the ability for the image to launch a script supplied in the
> ec2 user-data on first boot.
>
> This allows people to launch the AMI's as-is without needing to
> rebundle, and use the user-data supplied script to customize the image
> on boot.
>
> I've seen a bunch of talk on this list lately about the pros and cons of
> rebundling/not rebundling the AMI's. I usually rebundle my AMI's
> (because without a feature like the above it's a necessity), but find it
> time-consuming and would rather skip this step. Being able to specify a
> script to launch on first-boot would allow me to skip this step.
>
> And if this functionality is already there and I missed it, I'll
> apologize in advance.
>
> Thanks
> Keary
>
>
>
> ------------------------------
>
> Message: 4
> Date: Tue, 10 Mar 2009 19:30:00 -0700
> From: Jeff Koftinoff <jeffk at jdkoftinoff.com>
> Subject: Re: [ec2-beta] feature request: user-data scripts
> To: Keary Griffin <keary.griffin at unwiredappeal.com>
> Cc: ec2-beta at lists.ubuntu.com
> Message-ID: <C1008D74-314C-4115-8B6F-53CDA24A3003 at jdkoftinoff.com>
> Content-Type: text/plain; charset=US-ASCII; format=flowed; delsp=yes
>
> On 2009-Mar-10, at 4:15 PM, Keary Griffin wrote:
>
> > I know this is a little late in the game for this release, but maybe
> > for
> > the future, one of things I really liked about the Eric's alestic
> > Ubuntu
> > images was the ability for the image to launch a script supplied in
> > the
> > ec2 user-data on first boot.
> >
> > This allows people to launch the AMI's as-is without needing to
> > rebundle, and use the user-data supplied script to customize the image
> > on boot.
> >
> > I've seen a bunch of talk on this list lately about the pros and
> > cons of
> > rebundling/not rebundling the AMI's. I usually rebundle my AMI's
> > (because without a feature like the above it's a necessity), but
> > find it
> > time-consuming and would rather skip this step. Being able to
> > specify a
> > script to launch on first-boot would allow me to skip this step.
> >
> > And if this functionality is already there and I missed it, I'll
> > apologize in advance.
> >
>
> I personally like doing this with all my AMI's - then I can use the
> same AMI for multiple purposes and easily start a cluster of machines
> each doing different roles from the same AMI. One modification I've
> done is to have the user-data just contain a URL of a script living in
> S3. Upon boot, the machine reads the s3 resource and executes it as a
> script. This allows more advanced scripts on bootup like 'aptitude
> update && aptitude safe-upgrade && aptitude install my-special-server-
> for-this-role' etc
>
> jeffk at jdkoftinoff.com
>
>
>
>
>
> ------------------------------
>
> Message: 5
> Date: Tue, 10 Mar 2009 19:32:11 -0700
> From: Eric Hammond <ehammond at thinksome.com>
> Subject: Re: [ec2-beta] feature request: user-data scripts
> To: Keary Griffin <keary.griffin at unwiredappeal.com>
> Cc: ec2-beta at lists.ubuntu.com
> Message-ID: <49B722AB.50909 at thinksome.com>
> Content-Type: text/plain; charset=ISO-8859-1
>
> Keary:
>
> Yes, the user-data script functionality has been copied into the
> official Ubuntu beta images.
>
> And it actually works in beta2 ;)
>
> It's not your fault for missing it. It's about as (un)documented in the
> official beta as it is in my images, but it works exactly the same way.
>
> --
> Eric Hammond
> ehammond at thinksome.com
>
>
>
> Keary Griffin wrote:
> > I know this is a little late in the game for this release, but maybe for
> > the future, one of things I really liked about the Eric's alestic Ubuntu
> > images was the ability for the image to launch a script supplied in the
> > ec2 user-data on first boot.
> >
> > This allows people to launch the AMI's as-is without needing to
> > rebundle, and use the user-data supplied script to customize the image
> > on boot.
> >
> > I've seen a bunch of talk on this list lately about the pros and cons of
> > rebundling/not rebundling the AMI's. I usually rebundle my AMI's
> > (because without a feature like the above it's a necessity), but find it
> > time-consuming and would rather skip this step. Being able to specify a
> > script to launch on first-boot would allow me to skip this step.
> >
> > And if this functionality is already there and I missed it, I'll
> > apologize in advance.
> >
> > Thanks
> > Keary
> >
>
>
>
> ------------------------------
>
> Message: 6
> Date: Wed, 11 Mar 2009 11:04:18 +0800
> From: "Rodney T. Quillo" <imcocoy at gmail.com>
> Subject: Re: [ec2-beta] feature request: user-data scripts
> To: ec2-beta at lists.ubuntu.com
> Message-ID: <200903111104.18210.imcocoy at gmail.com>
> Content-Type: text/plain; charset="iso-8859-1"
>
> Hi Keary,
>
> I tested the user-data script when launching the instance on ubuntu beta
> AMI
> and its working great.
>
> You can check the init script /etc/init.d/ec2-init calling the command to
> run
> ec2-run-user-data.
>
> Rodney
>
> On Wednesday 11 March 2009 07:15:43 Keary Griffin wrote:
> > I know this is a little late in the game for this release, but maybe for
> > the future, one of things I really liked about the Eric's alestic Ubuntu
> > images was the ability for the image to launch a script supplied in the
> > ec2 user-data on first boot.
> >
> > This allows people to launch the AMI's as-is without needing to
> > rebundle, and use the user-data supplied script to customize the image
> > on boot.
> >
> > I've seen a bunch of talk on this list lately about the pros and cons of
> > rebundling/not rebundling the AMI's. I usually rebundle my AMI's
> > (because without a feature like the above it's a necessity), but find it
> > time-consuming and would rather skip this step. Being able to specify a
> > script to launch on first-boot would allow me to skip this step.
> >
> > And if this functionality is already there and I missed it, I'll
> > apologize in advance.
> >
> > Thanks
> > Keary
>
>
>
>
>
> ------------------------------
>
> Message: 7
> Date: Wed, 11 Mar 2009 00:12:56 -0400
> From: Keary Griffin <keary.griffin at unwiredappeal.com>
> Subject: Re: [ec2-beta] feature request: user-data scripts
> To: Eric Hammond <ehammond at thinksome.com>
> Cc: ec2-beta at lists.ubuntu.com
> Message-ID: <49B73A48.2030208 at unwiredappeal.com>
> Content-Type: text/plain; charset=ISO-8859-1; format=flowed
>
> Sorry, my bad, I should have just tried it ;-) I looked at the ubuntu
> ec2 web page, and then grepped /etc/ for "169.254.169.254", and not
> seeing it jumped to the wrong conclusion. I now see the script in
> /usr/sbin.
>
> Thanks, this feature makes me happy :-)
>
> Eric Hammond wrote:
> > Keary:
> >
> > Yes, the user-data script functionality has been copied into the
> > official Ubuntu beta images.
> >
> > And it actually works in beta2 ;)
> >
> > It's not your fault for missing it. It's about as (un)documented in the
> > official beta as it is in my images, but it works exactly the same way.
> >
> > --
> > Eric Hammond
> > ehammond at thinksome.com
> >
> >
> >
> > Keary Griffin wrote:
> >
> >> I know this is a little late in the game for this release, but maybe for
> >> the future, one of things I really liked about the Eric's alestic Ubuntu
> >> images was the ability for the image to launch a script supplied in the
> >> ec2 user-data on first boot.
> >>
> >> This allows people to launch the AMI's as-is without needing to
> >> rebundle, and use the user-data supplied script to customize the image
> >> on boot.
> >>
> >> I've seen a bunch of talk on this list lately about the pros and cons of
> >> rebundling/not rebundling the AMI's. I usually rebundle my AMI's
> >> (because without a feature like the above it's a necessity), but find it
> >> time-consuming and would rather skip this step. Being able to specify a
> >> script to launch on first-boot would allow me to skip this step.
> >>
> >> And if this functionality is already there and I missed it, I'll
> >> apologize in advance.
> >>
> >> Thanks
> >> Keary
> >>
> >>
>
>
>
> ------------------------------
>
> Message: 8
> Date: Tue, 10 Mar 2009 20:21:23 -0500
> From: Michael Greenly <mgreenly at gmail.com>
> Subject: Re: [ec2-beta] document: EC2 Ubuntu sudo Guide
> To: Soren Hansen <soren at ubuntu.com>, ec2-beta at lists.ubuntu.com
> Message-ID:
> <fe0998f40903101821y91c55dbp51480025eaf907ce at mail.gmail.com>
> Content-Type: text/plain; charset="utf-8"
>
> On Tue, Mar 10, 2009 at 2:15 PM, Soren Hansen <soren at ubuntu.com> wrote:
>
> >
> > How do you use rsync differently on EC2 compared to a regular Ubuntu
> > Server install? Also, what is the particular difficulty here? Do you
> > have a specific use case?
>
>
> The problem exists when you are trying to use rsync to push files up to the
> server and preserve permissions and ownership.
>
> The same problem exists on a regular server setup.
>
> I hadn't personally experienced the problem because I've traditionally done
> my server installation/configuration interactively. Now that I've become
> accustom to scripting this process I'm sure I'll be running into the
> problem
> there as well.
>
>
>
> > The use of sudo is all about interactive logins. If you need to log in
> > as root to do rsync, that's fine. Set up ssh public key authentication,
> > and you're good. I don't remember ever having to to that, though. I run
> > rsync as root (via crontab or sudo or whatever) on the destination
> > machine, and that's all I really need.
> >
> > > The problem is that none of the traditional 'sudo' advantages gain you
> > > anything at this point in this AMIs life cycle.
> > >
> > > This AMI doesn't represent a finished product that some one will login
> > > to and use for anything.
> > >
> > > It represents a blank slate that's a starting point from which a
> > > server will be configured and then re-bundled.
> >
> > I don't think I follow? People can use these images as is for many
> > different purposes. Not everyone will rebundle.
> >
>
> So now we've found a difference about what we think this AMI is...
>
> The user has to customize their instance if they don't it serves no purpose
> except to make money for Amazon.
>
> I can imagine two types of EC2 user. The kind who provisions their own
> server from a distribution base image and the kind who just uses an
> existing
> public application image, maybe an AMI containing a preconfigured LAMP
> stack.
>
> This instance is only really for the first kind of user I described.
>
> The users in the second category are not prepared to cope with all the
> backup/recovery issues that must be dealt with when running an EC2
> instance. You can't just do a tasksel and end up with a production
> environment. Those packages are not configured to run in a this
> environment. They don't know the machine is guaranteed to evaporate. They
> don't assume that the root partition is limited to 10GB. Etc...
>
> I certainly hope you guys are not trying to encourage that kind of
> thinking?
>
> This AMI is for the first kind of user I described. That user will create
> a
> customized AMI for some specific applicaiton, maybe a LAMP stack, and will
> deal with all of those complexities. Once they've done this they will
> bundle it into a customized AMI so that they don't have to re-do all that
> work later when there instance needs to be restored.
>
>
>
>
> >
> > > Had it been my decision it would have allowed root log in just like
> > > all other Linux AMIs. Then I would of provide a connivance script to
> > > disable root login and instructions to use it prior to bundling.
> > >
> > > This would have allowed all the conventional EC2 wisdom to just work
> and
> > > once the server was being used it would operate as an Ubuntu user/admin
> > > would expect.
> >
> > 10-15 years ago, virtually all linux documentation started with "log in
> > as root". :) As I said in my previous e-mail, I don't think that
> > "everybody else does it" is a very good argument for doing something. If
> > it were, nothing would ever improve or evolve.
>
>
> Everyone in this conversation has entirely missed my point about this.
> This
> is not something I'm advocating or ever do with live servers. This is
> about
> an EC2 instance on first boot that still has not been configured for use.
> Don't think of it as the Ubuntu distribution image. Think of it as a
> pre-distribution. In this situation there's no advantage to sudo and there
> are disadvantages. I'm not the one failing to evolve. You guys are all
> stuck in "that's how we do it" mode and can't look beyond that.
>
> Yes if there are going to to be interactice logons to the system root
> logins
> should be diabled. That should be the last step of configuring your image
> prior to bundling your AMI.
>
>
>
> >
> > --
> > Soren Hansen |
> > Lead Virtualisation Engineer | Ubuntu Server Team
> > Canonical Ltd. | http://www.ubuntu.com/
> >
> > -----BEGIN PGP SIGNATURE-----
> > Version: GnuPG v1.4.9 (GNU/Linux)
> >
> > iJwEAQECAAYFAkm2vGIACgkQo+Mz6+DAzGyuNQP/Z57IWd1gcHUx0l++BXbX34ki
> > EK5hnw6gwB2GeQ8djl/tzk3HsNk6NXCBhV5wFWqFSOBYUvjJ1tkztCLfOUSk//Lz
> > i/gEhm7QMmNcDQ9TOA5WedoiY020cID93RWbCKaI01uoH4sTXXePGP7AvRFZqZAe
> > zKpU+ElQH4/LGdw1nXA=
> > =0bIb
> > -----END PGP SIGNATURE-----
> >
> > --
> > Ec2-beta mailing list
> > Ec2-beta at lists.ubuntu.com
> > Modify settings or unsubscribe at:
> > https://lists.ubuntu.com/mailman/listinfo/ec2-beta
> >
> >
>
>
> --
> Michael Greenly
> http://blog.michaelgreenly.com
> -------------- next part --------------
> An HTML attachment was scrubbed...
> URL:
> https://lists.ubuntu.com/mailman/private/ec2-beta/attachments/20090310/d01116db/attachment.htm
>
> ------------------------------
>
> --
> Ec2-beta mailing list
> Ec2-beta at lists.ubuntu.com
> Modify settings or unsubscribe at:
> https://lists.ubuntu.com/mailman/listinfo/ec2-beta
>
>
> End of Ec2-beta Digest, Vol 4, Issue 13
> ***************************************
>
-------------- next part --------------
An HTML attachment was scrubbed...
URL: https://lists.ubuntu.com/mailman/private/ec2/attachments/20090311/d67fba5c/attachment-0002.htm
More information about the Ec2-beta
mailing list