[ec2] [ubuntu-cloud] RFC: server-lucid-ec2-config: user-data configuration file

[Mathias Gug]

Hi Eric,

On Sun, Dec 27, 2009 at 10:45:52PM -0800, Eric Hammond wrote:
> Mathias Gug wrote:
> > It seems that running apt-get update is an action that needs to be done on
> > *every* first boot.
> 
> 
> My other concern is the dependency on the Canonical Ubuntu archives
> hosted on EC2.  In their current architecture I do not wish to use them
> or have an outage slow down my instance startup.
>

This seems to be the main issue you're raising. We should make sure that Ubuntu
mirrors in ec2 are as reliable as the other archive mirrors.

> > I'm not sure I fully understand what you mean here. If existing apt mirrors are
> > removed from the sources.list (in the case of a customized instance), apt-get
> > update will not fetched them.
> 
> It's a matter of timing.  It sounds like this order is being proposed:
> 
> 1. ec2init scripts install Canonical mirrors on EC2.
> 2. ec2init scripts run apt-get update
> 3. user-data script is run
> 4. user-data script installs other apt mirrors
> 5. user-data script runs apt-get update
> 
> This doesn't work for me as I'd like to avoid having (2) automatically
> run before the user-data gets a chance to set things up.
>

Right. And you'd like to avoid running (2) because if the mirrors are not available it
would slow down the boot process.

> It also uses a particular point in time snapshot of the Ubuntu mirrors
> (2009/12/01 in this example) which is a feature not currently offered by
> the Canonical mirrors but which helps with running only tested software
> in production EC2 environments.
> 

I'm not sure I fully understand the point of using a snapshot of Ubuntu mirrors
if you're using a stable release. Stable releases don't change (that's why
they're *stable*). I do see a use case if you're using a development release
though. What are the other use cases you have in mind for snapshotted Ubuntu
mirrors?

> Proposal:
> 
>   ec2init automatically runs apt-get update on first boot, UNLESS:
> 
>   1. a user-data script is provided by the user (starting with #!), OR
>   2. the advanced user-data configuration format is provided by the user
>      AND that configuration specifies that apt-get update should not be
>      run.
>

This seems like a good proposal to me.
 
-- 
Mathias Gug
Ubuntu Developer  http://www.ubuntu.com