Amazon Web Services Support

Roboconf has a target implementation for Amazon Web Services (AWS).
It only supports the creation of compute VMs.

To install it, open the DM’s interactive mode and use one of the following options.
With the roboconf:target command:

# The version will be deduced automatically by the DM
roboconf:target aws

Or with the native Karaf commands:

# Here in version 0.9
bundle:install --start mvn:net.roboconf/roboconf-target-iaas-ec2/0.9

Every new VM is associated with a public IP address.
This address will be used by other components which resolve their dependencies through Roboconf.

Sample target.properties.
Just copy / paste and edit.

# Configuration file for EC2
handler = iaas-ec2

# Provide a meaningful description of the target
id = a unique identifier
name = 
description = 

# EC2 URL
ec2.endpoint = 

# Credentials to connect
ec2.access.key = 
ec2.secret.key = 

# VM configuration
ec2.ami = 
ec2.instance.type = t1.micro
ec2.ssh.key = 
ec2.security.group =

# Elastic IP address
# ec2.elastic.ip =  

# ec2.availability-zone =

# Block Storage
# ec2.use-block-storage = volume1, volume2
# ec2.ebs-snapshot-id.volume1 = my volume 1
# ec2.ebs-size.volume1 = 4
# ec2.ebs-mount-point.volume1 = /dev/sdf
# ec2.ebs-type.volume1 = gp2
# ec2.ebs-delete-on-termination.volume1 = true
# ec2.ebs-snapshot-id.volume2 = my volume 2
# ec2.ebs-size.volume2 = 2
# ec2.ebs-mount-point.volume2 = /dev/sdg
# ec2.ebs-type.volume2 = gp2
# ec2.ebs-delete-on-termination.volume2 = false

It is also possible to define an elastic IP address.
It is not a good idea to set it in the target.properties, although it works. Indeed, all the VM instances created from this target configuration will try to use the same elastic IP. Since Amazon does not allow it, only the last created VM will be associated with this IP. It is much better to define the elastic IP in the instance definition, as shown below.


instance of VM {
	name: VM1;
	data.ec2.elastic.ip: your-elastic-ip;

	# Put children instances next...
}

In a general matter, VM instances can inject target parameters through their definitions.
These properties must start with “data.” followed by the target property.

General parameters

Here is a description of general parameters for Amazon Web Services. Block storage parameters are detailed further.

Property	Description	Default	Mandatory
handler	Determines the target handler to use	none, must be “iaas-ec2”	yes
id	A unique identifier for the target properties.	-	yes
name	A human-readable name for the target	-	no
description	A description of the target.	-	no
ec2.endpoint	URL of the compute service (eg. eu-west-1.ec2.amazonaws.com)	none	yes
ec2.access.key	Access key defined in your ec2 account	none	yes
ec2.secret.key	Secret key defined in your ec2 account	none	yes
ec2.ami	The ID of the VM image used as a template for the VM	none	yes
ec2.instance.type	The VM “size” aka. instance type or flavor	t1.micro	no
ec2.ssh.key	The name of the ssh key used to connect	none	yes
ec2.security.group	The VM security group name. Caution to not set the security group id.	default	no
ec2.elastic.ip	An elastic IP address	none	no
ec2.availability-zone	Availability zone for instances and EBS volumes: necessary to reuse volumes (they must be in the same availability zone as instances they are attached to)	none	no

Block storage parameters

Roboconf’s EC2 driver allows you to create and attach several volumes to a VM. Here is a sample that will show you to use this feature.

# Create two volumes with different properties.
# volume1 and volume2 are only references to block storages in this configuration file.
# They will not appear anywhere in EC2 meta-data.
ec2.use-block-storage = volume1, volume2

# Volume 1
ec2.ebs-snapshot-id.volume1 = my volume 1
ec2.ebs-mount-point.volume1 = /dev/sdf
ec2.ebs-type.volume1 = gp2
ec2.ebs-delete-on-termination.volume1 = true

# Volume 2
# Use default values, except for volume size
ec2.ebs-size.volume2 = 4
ec2.ebs-mount-point.volume2 = /dev/sdg

Property	Description	Default	Mandatory
ec2.use-block-storage	A list of block storage IDs. Items are separated by a comma.	-	no
ec2.ebs-snapshot-id.	Snapshot ID for volume, or volume name that can be reused if delete-on-termination is false. Since several Roboconf instances may share the same EC2 configuration, it is strongly recommended to use a template tag to define the name. Two templates tags are currently available. %NAME% will be replaced by the instance name. %APP% will be replaced by the application name.	roboconf-%APP%-%NAME%	no
ec2.ebs-delete-on-termination.	Delete volume on instance termination, or not	false	no
ec2.ebs-size.	Volume size (Gb)	2	no
ec2.ebs-mount-point.	Volume mount point	/dev/sdf	no
ec2.ebs-type.	Volume type. Can be standard, io1 (Provisioned IOPS - SSD) or gp2 (General Purpose - SSD).	standard	no

Notice that when ec2.ebs-delete-on-termination. is false, Roboconf will first search for a volume with this name and try to reuse it. If it does not exist, or if the volume is supposed to be deleted after VM termination, then Roboconf will create the volume. This is why persistent block storages should have a unique name in your installation. Roboconf guarantees the uniqueness of the couple (application name, root instance name). This is why you can use the %APP% and %NAME% tags to generate the volume name.

Notice also that creating a volume only means creating a disk. Attaching it means linking your server with this disk. So, once your server is up, you should find the disk. On Linux systems, you can use the following command to list the available disks.

sudo fdisk -l

If your volumes were never initialized, you might see something like Disk /dev/sdf doesn't contain a valid partition table. It means you need to format the disk and mount it in the system. This is not an operation performed by the IaaS. You have to do it in your system. For Roboconf, we suggest you create a script that will be invoked at startup to format and mount partitions if necessary.

This last point may be improved in the future.
Additional information about volumes configuration can be found here.