Trying Ubuntu 10.10 in AWS Free Usage Tier

After trying 60 Free Minutes with Ubuntu 10.10 in Amazon EC2 yesterday, I decided to take the next step and try the AWS Free Usage Tier. This blog post by Jay Andrew Allen titled Getting Started (for Free!) with Amazon Elastic Cloud Computing (EC2) helped me.

One important caveat applies: this activity will not be completely free. The AMI chose uses a 15 GB filesystem, and the terms of the free usage stipulate no more than a 10 GB filesystem. I'll pay $0.50 per month for the privilege of using a prebuilt Ubuntu AMI. Since I'm an AMI n00b, I decided to pay the $0.50. At some point when I am comfortable creating or trusting 10 GB AMIs, maybe I'll switch.

First I visited http://aws.amazon.com/ec2/ and signed up for Amazon EC2. At Amazon Web Services Sign In, I chose to "Identity Verification by Telephone." When I completed sign up I received three emails: 1) Amazon Virtual Private Cloud Sign-Up Confirmation; 2) Amazon Elastic Compute Cloud Sign-Up Confirmation; and 3) Amazon Simple Notification Service Sign-Up Confirmation.

Next I visited the AWS Management Console at https://console.aws.amazon.com/ec2/home. In Getting Started, I choose Launch Instance. I had to decide what sort of virtual machine I wanted to run. I decided to try a 64 bit Ubuntu 10.10 Amazon Machine Image (AMI) I found mentioned at http://uec-images.ubuntu.com/releases/maverick/release/ and at http://alestic.com/. I selected an AMI available at Amazon's us-east-1 facility, identified as ami-548c783d. This AMI uses Amazon's Elastic Block Store (EBS) so that changes persist.

Under Instance Details, I chose:

Number of Instances: 1
Availability Zone: No Preference
Instance Type: Micro (t1.micro, 613 MB)

Under Select Launch Instances, I chose:

Kernel ID: Use Default
RAM Disk ID: Use Default
No Monitoring
No User Data
No Tags

Next I had to Create and Download Key Pair. That produced a file called taosecuritykey.pem which we'll use later.

I chose

Security Groups: Default

When I reviewed my choices I saw:

AMI: Ubuntu AMI ID ami-548c783d (x86_64)
Name:
Description:
Number of Instances: 1
VPC Subnet:
Availability Zone: No Preference
Instance Type: Micro (t1.micro)
Instance Class: On Demand
Number of Instances: 1
Availability Zone: No Preference
Instance Class: On Demand
Maximum Price:
Request Valid From:
Availability Zone Group:
Request Valid Until:
Launch Group:
Persistent Request:
Placement Group:
Strategy:
Monitoring: Disabled
Bursting:
Kernel ID: Use Default
RAM Disk ID: Use Default
IP Address:
User Data:
Key Pair Name: taosecuritykey
Security Group(s): default

Finally I launched Launched the instance and visited the Instances Page.

In order to SSH to my AMI I had to add "SSH" to my Security Group and I decided to add my own IP address (with /32 netmask) as the IP allowed to traverse the firewall.

To SSH to the system I had to find the hostname in the EC2 Instance listing at the bottom of the page, e.g., ec2-obfuscated.compute-1.amazonaws.com. I also had to set permissions on my .pem so I could use it with SSH:
```
richard@neely:~$ mv taosecuritykey.pem .ssh/
richard@neely:~$ chmod 400 .ssh/taosecuritykey.pem 
```

Then I connected to the AMI:


richard@neely:~$ ssh -v -i .ssh/taosecuritykey.pem \
 ubuntu@ec2-obfuscated.compute-1.amazonaws.com

Linux domU-12-31-39-14-F9-0C 2.6.35-22-virtual #33-Ubuntu SMP
 Sun Sep 19 21:05:42 UTC 2010 x86_64 GNU/Linux

Ubuntu 10.10

Welcome to Ubuntu!
 * Documentation:  https://help.ubuntu.com/

  System information as of Wed Nov 24 20:36:24 UTC 2010

  System load:  0.0               Processes:           60
  Usage of /:   4.4% of 14.76GB   Users logged in:     0
  Memory usage: 6%                IP address for eth0: 10.206.250.250
  Swap usage:   0%

  Graph this data and manage this system at https://landscape.canonical.com/
---------------------------------------------------------------------
At the moment, only the core of the system is installed. To tune the 
system to your needs, you can choose to install one or more          
predefined collections of software by running the following          
command:                                                             
                                                                     
   sudo tasksel --section server                                     
---------------------------------------------------------------------

The programs included with the Ubuntu system are free software;
the exact distribution terms for each program are described in the
individual files in /usr/share/doc/*/copyright.

Ubuntu comes with ABSOLUTELY NO WARRANTY, to the extent permitted by
applicable law.

To run a command as administrator (user "root"), use "sudo ".
See "man sudo_root" for details.

ubuntu@domU-12-31-39-14-F9-0C:~$

At this point my system was working, so I poked around a little.


ubuntu@domU-12-31-39-14-F9-0C:~$ df -h
Filesystem            Size  Used Avail Use% Mounted on
/dev/sda1              15G  665M   14G   5% /
none                  290M  108K  290M   1% /dev
none                  297M     0  297M   0% /dev/shm
none                  297M   48K  297M   1% /var/run
none                  297M     0  297M   0% /var/lock

ubuntu@domU-12-31-39-14-F9-0C:~$ sudo netstat -natup
Active Internet connections (servers and established)
Proto Recv-Q Send-Q Local Address           Foreign Address         State       PID/Program name
tcp        0      0 0.0.0.0:22              0.0.0.0:*               LISTEN      468/sshd        
tcp        0     48 10.206.250.250:22       98.218.35.11:57655      ESTABLISHED 577/sshd: ubuntu [p
tcp6       0      0 :::22                   :::*                    LISTEN      468/sshd        
udp        0      0 0.0.0.0:68              0.0.0.0:*                           387/dhclient3   

ubuntu@domU-12-31-39-14-F9-0C:~$ ifconfig -a
eth0      Link encap:Ethernet  HWaddr 12:31:39:14:f9:0c  
          inet addr:10.206.250.250  Bcast:10.206.251.255  Mask:255.255.254.0
          inet6 addr: fe80::1031:39ff:fe14:f90c/64 Scope:Link
          UP BROADCAST RUNNING MULTICAST  MTU:1500  Metric:1
          RX packets:429 errors:0 dropped:0 overruns:0 frame:0
          TX packets:337 errors:0 dropped:0 overruns:0 carrier:0
          collisions:0 txqueuelen:1000 
          RX bytes:67019 (67.0 KB)  TX bytes:49777 (49.7 KB)
          Interrupt:9 

lo        Link encap:Local Loopback  
          inet addr:127.0.0.1  Mask:255.0.0.0
          inet6 addr: ::1/128 Scope:Host
          UP LOOPBACK RUNNING  MTU:16436  Metric:1
          RX packets:0 errors:0 dropped:0 overruns:0 frame:0
          TX packets:0 errors:0 dropped:0 overruns:0 carrier:0
          collisions:0 txqueuelen:0 
          RX bytes:0 (0.0 B)  TX bytes:0 (0.0 B)

ubuntu@domU-12-31-39-14-F9-0C:~$ sudo lft -D eth0 www.bejtlich.net

Tracing __________________________________.

TTL  LFT trace to vhost.identityvector.com (205.186.148.46):80/tcp
 1   10.206.248.3 0.8ms
 2   216.182.232.236 0.5ms
 3   216.182.232.64 0.4ms
**   [neglected] no reply packets received from TTLs 4 through 6
 7   dca-edge-18.inet.qwest.net (65.120.78.57) 2.1ms
 8   dcp-brdr-03.inet.qwest.net (205.171.251.110) 4.9ms
**   [neglected] no reply packets received from TTL 9
10   216.88.34.170 3.7ms
11   cr02-1-1.iad1.net2ez.com (65.97.48.206) 9.7ms
12   65.97.50.26 4.2ms
13   static-70-32-64-246.mtsvc.net (70.32.64.246) 4.2ms
14   vzd052.mediatemple.net (205.186.147.5) 3.7ms
15   [target] vhost.identityvector.com (205.186.148.46):80 4.1ms

I decided to update the AMI using apt.


$ sudo apt-get update
$ sudo apt-get upgrade

After reboot

ubuntu@domU-12-31-39-14-F9-0C:~$ uname -a
Linux domU-12-31-39-14-F9-0C 2.6.35-22-virtual #35-Ubuntu
 SMP Sat Oct 16 23:19:29 UTC 2010 x86_64 GNU/Linux

I decided to try sending email from the system:


ubuntu@domU-12-31-39-14-F9-0C:~$ sudo apt-get install exim4-daemon-light
...edited...
ubuntu@domU-12-31-39-14-F9-0C:~$ sudo dpkg-reconfigure exim4-config
 * Stopping MTA for restart   [ OK ] 
 * Restarting MTA             [ OK ] 

ubuntu@domU-12-31-39-14-F9-0C:~$ echo "test mail 1557" | mailx -v -s "test mail 1557" richard@bejtlich.net
LOG: MAIN
  <= ubuntu@domu-12-31-39-14-f9-0c.compute-1.amazonaws.com U=ubuntu P=local S=489
ubuntu@domU-12-31-39-14-F9-0C:~$ delivering 1PLMPR-0000eu-4P
R: dnslookup for richard@bejtlich.net
T: remote_smtp for richard@bejtlich.net
Connecting to ASPMX.L.GOOGLE.COM [74.125.93.27]:25 ... connected
  SMTP<< 220 mx.google.com ESMTP g35si18125523qcs.170
  SMTP>> EHLO domU-12-31-39-14-F9-0C.compute-1.internal
  SMTP<< 250-mx.google.com at your service, [174.129.106.239]
         250-SIZE 35651584
         250-8BITMIME
         250 ENHANCEDSTATUSCODES
  SMTP>> MAIL FROM: SIZE=1523
  SMTP<< 250 2.1.0 OK g35si18125523qcs.170
  SMTP>> RCPT TO:
  SMTP<< 250 2.1.5 OK g35si18125523qcs.170
  SMTP>> DATA
  SMTP<< 354  Go ahead g35si18125523qcs.170
  SMTP>> writing message and terminating "."
  SMTP<< 250 2.0.0 OK 1290632265 g35si18125523qcs.170
  SMTP>> QUIT
LOG: MAIN
  => richard@bejtlich.net R=dnslookup T=remote_smtp H=ASPMX.L.GOOGLE.COM [74.125.93.27]
LOG: MAIN
  Completed

I also decided to try an IPv6 tunnel client:

ubuntu@domU-12-31-39-14-F9-0C:~$ sudo apt-get install miredo

ubuntu@domU-12-31-39-14-F9-0C:~$ ifconfig -a
eth0      Link encap:Ethernet  HWaddr 12:31:39:14:f9:0c  
          inet addr:10.206.250.250  Bcast:10.206.251.255  Mask:255.255.254.0
          inet6 addr: fe80::1031:39ff:fe14:f90c/64 Scope:Link
          UP BROADCAST RUNNING MULTICAST  MTU:1500  Metric:1
          RX packets:5025 errors:0 dropped:0 overruns:0 frame:0
          TX packets:2849 errors:0 dropped:0 overruns:0 carrier:0
          collisions:0 txqueuelen:1000 
          RX bytes:2717010 (2.7 MB)  TX bytes:1308113 (1.3 MB)
          Interrupt:9 

lo        Link encap:Local Loopback  
          inet addr:127.0.0.1  Mask:255.0.0.0
          inet6 addr: ::1/128 Scope:Host
          UP LOOPBACK RUNNING  MTU:16436  Metric:1
          RX packets:0 errors:0 dropped:0 overruns:0 frame:0
          TX packets:0 errors:0 dropped:0 overruns:0 carrier:0
          collisions:0 txqueuelen:0 
          RX bytes:0 (0.0 B)  TX bytes:0 (0.0 B)

teredo    Link encap:UNSPEC  HWaddr 00-00-00-00-00-00-00-00-00-00-00-00-00-00-00-00  
          inet6 addr: 2001:0:53aa:64c:102c:3760:517e:9510/32 Scope:Global
          inet6 addr: fe80::ffff:ffff:ffff/64 Scope:Link
          UP POINTOPOINT RUNNING NOARP MULTICAST  MTU:1280  Metric:1
          RX packets:0 errors:0 dropped:0 overruns:0 frame:0
          TX packets:3 errors:0 dropped:0 overruns:0 carrier:0
          collisions:0 txqueuelen:500 
          RX bytes:0 (0.0 B)  TX bytes:144 (144.0 B)

ubuntu@domU-12-31-39-14-F9-0C:~$ host ipv6.google.com
ipv6.google.com is an alias for ipv6.l.google.com.
ipv6.l.google.com has IPv6 address 2001:4860:800f::68

ubuntu@domU-12-31-39-14-F9-0C:~$ ping6 2001:4860:800f::68
PING 2001:4860:800f::68(2001:4860:800f::68) 56 data bytes
64 bytes from 2001:4860:800f::68: icmp_seq=1 ttl=59 time=3.70 ms
64 bytes from 2001:4860:800f::68: icmp_seq=2 ttl=59 time=3.97 ms
64 bytes from 2001:4860:800f::68: icmp_seq=3 ttl=59 time=4.73 ms
^C
--- 2001:4860:800f::68 ping statistics ---
3 packets transmitted, 3 received, 0% packet loss, time 2003ms
rtt min/avg/max/mdev = 3.707/4.140/4.736/0.435 ms

I did that all under an hour, so before the first hour finished I shut down the AMI.

The next time I want to use it, I'll visit the console, start it, and SSH. I don't have any real plans for this AMI besides experimentation, for now. I'll probably keep my eye on this ec2ubuntu Google Group too.

Comments

Subraya Mallya said…

You can find information here on how to reduce the filesystem to 10GB

http://ubuntu-smoser.blogspot.com/2010/11/using-ubunt-images-on-aws-free-tier.html

11:25 AM