Postgres/PostGIS with RAID 10 on Amazon EBS without Leaving the Browser

Since some one asked about installing Postgres on AWS without leaving the browser, I've updated the Postgres install script to Ubuntu 10.10 Maverick Meerkat and made the size and number of the volumes as command line arguments. The script below can be cut and pasted into the User Data textbox when launching the AMI as in the previous GeoServer install instructions.

You will need to place your private key and X.509 certificate where they can be downloaded. For the sake of simplicity, the example script retrieves the credentials  using wget protected by a username and password. In practice, I would use sftp or scp to transfer the credentials


UPDATE 1/14/11: The script from 1/13/11 contained errors and has been replaced. The current script has been tested against ami-cef405a7

#!/bin/bash -ex
exec > >(tee /var/log/user-data.log|logger -t user-data -s 2>/dev/console) 2>&1

# download the install script and run it
cd /home/ubuntu

# grab your private key and X.509 cert
wget --user=user --password='myPassword' http://example.server.com/home/*.pem
sudo chmod 600 *pem 

# change this to your keypair and cert
export EC2_PRIVATE_KEY=~/myKey.pem
export EC2_CERT=~/myCert.pem

# get install script
wget http://dl.dropbox.com/u/6706687/postgres-ubuntu-ec2-install.sh 
chmod 755 postgres-ubuntu-ec2-install.sh

# run it, note that the install script now takes arguments for the number of volumes
#   and the size of each volume in gigbytes, args below create a 500GB RAID10 
sudo -u ubuntu ./postgres-ubuntu-ec2-install.sh 10 100

Install GeoServer on Amazon EC2 without leaving the browser

Learned a new trick from @waxpancake at ThinkUp, so here's how to install GeoServer on a Ubuntu Maverick 10.10 EC2 instance with out leaving the browser.

Launch an Ubuntu AMI, in this example I use ami-cef405a7, but check this page to find a suitable AMI from Canonical. 

I use a micro instance in this example, but you can use any size.

Copy the following script in the User Data textbox. The script downloads the install script from the earlier blog post and runs it.

#!/bin/bash -ex
exec > >(tee /var/log/user-data.log|logger -t user-data -s 2>/dev/console) 2>&1

# download the install script and run it
cd /home/ubuntu
wget http://dl.dropbox.com/u/6706687/geoserver-ubuntu-ec2-install.sh 
chmod 755 geoserver-ubuntu-ec2-install.sh
./geoserver-ubuntu-ec2-install.sh

It should look like this:

You can tag your instance or leave it blank.

Use an existing keypair or create a new one.

Use and existing security group or create a new one. Note that port 80 and 22 need to be open for Apache and ssh respectively.

Launch the instance.

That's it! It may take a minute or three to get everything installed, configured, and running even if the console shows that the instance is running.

Install script for Geoserver on Ubuntu EC2 instance

Continuing with the theme of running stuff on the free tier of Amazon Web Services, here's a script to install Geoserver proxied through apache for when you want to throw up a quick map server. The script installs Geoserver 2.02 on Ubuntu Maverick 10.10 using ami-cef405a7.

The script is available here.

#
# install Geoserver on Ubuntu Maverick 10.10
# note: Geoserver is proxied through apache so port 8080 is not used
#
# @spara 11/15/10
#

# setup sources 
sudo sh -c "echo ' ' >> /etc/apt/sources.list"
sudo sh -c "echo 'deb http://us.archive.ubuntu.com/ubuntu/ maverick multiverse' >> /etc/apt/sources.list"
sudo sh -c "echo 'deb-src http://us.archive.ubuntu.com/ubuntu/ maverick multiverse' >> /etc/apt/sources.list"
sudo sh -c "echo 'deb http://us.archive.ubuntu.com/ubuntu/ maverick-updates multiverse' >> /etc/apt/sources.list"
sudo sh -c "echo 'deb-src http://us.archive.ubuntu.com/ubuntu/ maverick-updates multiverse' >> /etc/apt/sources.list"
sudo sh -c "echo 'deb http://archive.canonical.com/ maverick partner' >> /etc/apt/sources.list"
sudo apt-get update

# magic! (installs java without physically accepting license)
echo "sun-java6-jdk shared/accepted-sun-dlj-v1-1 boolean true" | sudo -E debconf-set-selections

# setup prerequisites 
sudo apt-get -y install sun-java6-bin
export JAVA_HOME=/usr/lib/jvm/java-6-sun
sudo apt-get -y install unzip

# set java paths
sudo touch /etc/profile.d/java.sh
sudo sh -c "echo 'export JAVA_HOME=/usr/lib/jvm/java-6-sun' >> /etc/profile.d/java.sh"
sudo sh -c "echo 'export PATH=$PATH;$JAVA_HOME/bin' >> /etc/profile.d/java.sh"
sudo source /etc/profile.d/java.sh

#install tomcat6
sudo apt-get install -y tomcat6
sudo chgrp -R tomcat6 /etc/tomcat6
sudo chmod -R g+w /etc/tomcat6

# install and config apache
sudo apt-get install -y apache2
sudo ln -s /etc/apache2/mods-available/proxy.conf /etc/apache2/mods-enabled/proxy.conf
sudo ln -s /etc/apache2/mods-available/proxy.load /etc/apache2/mods-enabled/proxy.load
sudo ln -s /etc/apache2/mods-available/proxy_http.load /etc/apache2/mods-enabled/proxy_http.load

# add tomcat proxy
sudo chmod 666 /etc/apache2/sites-available/default
sudo sed -i '$d'  /etc/apache2/sites-available/default
sudo sh -c "echo ' ' >> /etc/apache2/sites-available/default"
sudo sh -c "echo 'ProxyRequests Off' >> /etc/apache2/sites-available/default"
sudo sh -c "echo '# Remember to turn the next line off if you are proxying to a NameVirtualHost' >> /etc/apache2/sites-available/default"
sudo sh -c "echo 'ProxyPreserveHost On' >> /etc/apache2/sites-available/default"
sudo sh -c "echo ' ' >> /etc/apache2/sites-available/default"
sudo sh -c "echo '' >> /etc/apache2/sites-available/default"
sudo sh -c "echo '    Order deny,allow' >> /etc/apache2/sites-available/default"
sudo sh -c "echo '    Allow from all' >> /etc/apache2/sites-available/default"
sudo sh -c "echo '' >> /etc/apache2/sites-available/default"
sudo sh -c "echo ' ' >> /etc/apache2/sites-available/default"
sudo sh -c "echo 'ProxyPass /geoserver http://localhost:8080/geoserver' >> /etc/apache2/sites-available/default"
sudo sh -c "echo 'ProxyPassReverse /geoserver http://localhost:8080/geoserver' >> /etc/apache2/sites-available/default"
sudo sh -c "echo ' ' >> /etc/apache2/sites-available/default"
sudo sh -c "echo '' >> /etc/apache2/sites-available/default"
sudo chmod 644 /etc/apache2/sites-available/default

# get geoserver, change to version you want
sudo service tomcat6 stop
wget http://downloads.sourceforge.net/geoserver/geoserver-2.0.2-war.zip
sudo unzip -d /var/lib/tomcat6/webapps/ geoserver-2.0.2-war.zip
sudo chown -R tomcat6 /var/lib/tomcat6/webapps/geoserver.war
sudo chgrp g+w tomcat6 /var/lib/tomcat6/webapps/geoserver.war

# restart
sudo service tomcat6 restart
sudo service apache2 restart

# echo message
addy=$(GET http://169.254.169.254/latest/meta-data/public-hostname)
echo " "
echo "Geoserver is available at: http://$addy/geoserver"


# additional tweaks for production instances
#
# add the following options to catalina.sh
#
# JAVA_OPTS="-Djava.awt.headless=true -Xms256m -Xmx768m -Xrs -XX:PerfDataSamplingInterval=500 -XX:MaxPermSize=128m -DGEOSERVER_DATA_DIR=/var/lib/tomcat6/webapps/geoserver/data"

Recipe: Ubuntu Maverick 10.10 on the AWS Free Tier

I love free stuff, who doesn't? In grad school, I once found a fancy cake in a shopping cart in the grocery store parking lot. I brought it to our graduate seminar to share with my fellow grad students, who enjoyed it until I mentioned where the cake came from.


I pretend to read the fine print, but in my excitement over free I usually fail to comprehend it. So it was for the AWS free tier announcement. I excitedly spun up an Official Ubuntu AMI and went on my merry way setting up apps, thinking all the time how wonderful it was to have my very own server on the interwebs humming away for gratis. At the end of the month, I got a bill for $0.50. Huh, not free, so I read the fine print (again):

10 GB of Amazon Elastic Block Storage, plus 1 million I/Os, 1 GB of snapshot storage, 10,000 snapshot Get Requests and 1,000 snapshot Put Requests*

Oops, the Official Unbuntu images have a 15GB root file system. 


Scott Moser provided a recipe for making an AWS Ubuntu 10.10 AMI with a 10GB root file system. So I made a public AMI based on his recipe that y'all can use: ami-8548bfec


UPDATE 12/30/10: Canonical released refreshed UEC images for 10.10 (Maverick Meerkat) with 8GB root EBS volumes that will run on the AWS free tier. The list of Amazon published AMIs is available here.