Resizing Root AWS EBS Volumes to Increase Performance

Create an EBS snapshot from one of the existing EC2 instance volumes.

• Find the root volume of the bastion host
• Check the box beside it on the Volumes page
• Click Actions
• Choose Create Snapshot
• Add a description, then click Create Snapshot
• Click Close

Using the snapshot you just created, provision a new EBS volume from the snapshot that provides a higher amount of IOPS.

• Check the box beside your new snapshot
• Click Actions
• Choose Create Volume
• Change size to 40 GB
• Click Create Volume
• Click Close

Replace an existing (root) EBS volume that is attached to an EC2 instance with the new (larger) EBS volume that you just created. The new volume needs to replace the old volume as the root volume.

• Stop the bastion host
• On the Volumes page, check the box beside the 8GB volume attached to the bastion host
• Click Actions, then choose Detach Volume
• Check the box next to the new larger volume
• Click Actions, then choose Attach Volume
• Choose the stopped bastion host for instance
• Device should be /dev/xvda
• Click Attach

Create a new Auto Scaling launch template that uses the new (larger) EBS volume for created instances. Then, update the existing Auto Scaling group to use the new launch template.

1. Click Instances > Launch Templates in the left sidebar, then select the Create launch template.

2. For Launch template name, enter newLT.

3. Under Launch template contents > Application and OS Images (Amazon Machine Image), select the Recents tab and choose Currently in use to pick the Amazon Linux 2 2024-05-20 Update image with the Amazon Linux 2 w/cloud_user description.

4. Enter t2.micro for the Instance Type.

5. Under Network settings > Select existing security group, Select the WebServerSecurityGroup from the list.

6. Under Storage (volumes), expand the EBS volume Volume 1 (AMI Root) option and set the Size (GiB) to 40.

7. Under Advanced details > User data - optional, copy and paste the following script:

   #!/bin/bash
   yum update -y
   yum install -y httpd24 php70 mysql56-server php70-mysqlnd git
   cd /var/www/html
   git clone https://github.com/linuxacademy/content-aws-sysops-administrator.git
   cd content-aws-sysops-administrator/wp-site/
   mv * /var/www/html
   groupadd www
   usermod -a -G www ec2-user
   chown -R root:www /var/www
   chmod -R 2775 /var/www
   echo '<?php phpinfo(); ?>' > /var/www/html/phpinfo.php
   service httpd start
   chkconfig httpd on
   service mysqld start
   chkconfig mysqld on
   

8. Click Create launch template.

9. Click View launch templates.

10. Click Auto Scaling Groups in the left sidebar and select the available auto-scaling group.

11. Click Actions > Edit.

12. Click Switch to launch template and select the newLT you just created.

13. Click Update.

14. Click Instances in the left sidebar.

15. Select one of the webserver-instance instances in the list (either us-east-1a or us-east-1b).

16. Use the Actions dropdown to select Instance State, then click Terminate. Click Yes, Terminate in the Terminate Instance window.

17. After the new instance that Auto Scaling has created is in the running state, select it.

18. Click on the Storage tab, and look at the volume Root device (/dev/xvda). You should see the new /dev/xvda showing with a volume size of 40 GiB.

19. (Optional) Repeat these steps with the other webserver-instance in the Instances list.