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Use an Amazon EBS Volume on Linux

aws-series , ebs , ec2

Suppose that you have created a new EBS volume for your instance. In order to use the new volume you have to attach it to your instance and then format it.

Attach EBS volume to EC2 instance

  • Login to your AWS console, then go to EC2 menu and choose Volumes submenu under Elastic Block Store section.
  • Select your new volume then click Actions, and choose Attach Volume. Choose instance that will use the new volume.
  • Once completed, the new volume will be attached to the EC2 instance.

Mount and format an attached volume

Suppose that the root device volume is /dev/xvda and the new attached EBS volume /dev/xvdb . Use the following to mount the new volume

  • Connect to your instance using SSH.
  • Use lsblk command to view your disk device and their mount points (if mounted).
lsblk
NAME          MAJ:MIN RM SIZE RO TYPE MOUNTPOINT
nvme0n1       259:3    0   8G  0 disk
├─nvme0n1p1   259:4    0   8G  0 part /
└─nvme0n1p128 259:5    0   1M  0 part
nvme1n1       259:2    0  50G  0 disk
  • Check if there is any file system on the volume. If you create the volume from the snapshot, there is likely the volume already have file system. Below is the sample for no file system on the volume.
sudo file -s /dev/nvme1n1
/dev/nvme1n1: data

Below is the sample for volume with file system

sudo file -s /dev/nvme1n1
/dev/nvme1n1: SGI XFS filesystem data (blksz 4096, inosz 512, v2 dirs)
  • If you have and empty volume use the mkfs -t to create a file system. You will remove / format the volume if the volume is not empty
sudo yum install xfsprogs
sudo mkfs -t xfs /dev/nvme1n1
  • Use the mkdir to create a mount point directory.
sudo mkdir /media/data
  • Mount the volume.
sudo mount /dev/nvme1n1 /media/data

Automatically mount an attached volume on reboot

The mount point on the step before is not preserved after rebooting your instance. To mount automatically follow procedure below

  • (optional) Create a backup of /etc/fstab.
sudo cp /etc/fstab /etc/fstab.original
  • Use the blkid or lsblk to find the UUID of the device.
sudo blkid
/dev/nvme0n1p1: LABEL="/" UUID="43c07df6-e944-4b25-8fd1-5ff848b584b2" TYPE="ext4" PARTLABEL="Linux" PARTUUID="e3466a0c-3a36-48a8-8bc2-f5ab5ee2afec"
/dev/nvme1n1: UUID="95319669-3a31-4f23-9a80-2d90370a25a5" TYPE="xfs"
  • Edit the /etc/fstab to add the new mount point.
sudo nano /etc/fstab

Add the entry below

UUID=95319669-3a31-4f23-9a80-2d90370a25a5  /media/data  xfs  defaults,nofail  0  2
  • Verify the /etc/fstab by unmount the volume the mount it.
sudo umount /media/data
sudo mount -a

source: https://docs.aws.amazon.com/AWSEC2/latest/UserGuide/ebs-using-volumes.html