Moving an EC2 Instance to another Size

Instead of starting a new instance and having to configure it from scratch, you are able to simply resize the existing instance. In this example you resize a micro instance to a small instance.

Requirements:

1. You must be running an EBS boot instance (not instance-store or S3-based AMI). Any files on ephemeral storage (e.g., /mnt) will be lost.

2. You can only move to a different instance type of the same architecture (32-bit or 64-bit).

3. The private and initial public IP addresses of the instance will be different when it is running on the new hardware. Use an Elastic IP Address to keep the public IP address the same.

4. There will be a short outage while the instance is moved to new hardware (roughly equivalent to the reboot time of normal hardware).

Process:

Run a new t1.micro Ubuntu 10.04 Lucid instance to be our demo. I recommend uploading your own ssh key first.

instance_id=$(ec2-run-instances --instance-type t1.micro --key $USER ami-3e02f257 |
egrep ^INSTANCE | cut -f2)

Wait until it is running and perhaps log in to install software or touch some files so you know it’s your instance. When you are ready, stop the t1.micro instance:

ec2-stop-instances $instance_id

At this point in a normal environment, you might want to create an EBS snapshot AMI of the instance for backup purposes in the event that anything goes wrong. (See: ec2-create-image)

While the EBS boot instance is stopped, switch the instance type from t1.micro to m1.small:

ec2-modify-instance-attribute --instance-type m1.small $instance_id

Start the instance using its new m1.small type:

ec2-start-instances $instance_id

Wait until it is running (again), then log in to verify that it is the same instance with all your software and data. If you were using an Elastic IP address with the instance, it would need to be reassociated after the instance is started.

Eventually, you’ll discover that an m1.small isn’t all that powerful either for moderate loads, so you’ll want to upgrade to a c1.medium, which for many purposes is a great size. It offers 5X the CPU of an m1.small for only 2X the price.

Unfortunately, with a 32-bit instance, c1.medium is as high as you can currently go as of this writing. You’ll need to switch over to a new instance running a 64-bit AMI if you want to go larger.


Vice Versa:

Though we often think “scaling” means moving to larger/faster/more hardware, Amazon EC2 has shown us that it is equally valuable to be able to scale down when we no longer need the extra capacity. The above approach can be used to move your instances to smaller instance types to reduce costs.

If you run this demo, you will be charged for 1 hour of t1.micro instance time plus 1 hour of m1.small instance time, plus fractions of a penny in EBS volume and IO charges. That’s slightly more than a dime.

If you do not need the example instance anymore do not forget to delete it:

ec2-terminate-instances $instance_id

Install Alfresco on Rackspace Cloud with Bitnami Stack

Create new (centos) server at rackspace with at minimal 512 MB RAM

yum update

Then you install the lamp stack and alfresco stack form bitnami:

http://bitnami.org/files/stacks/lampstack/5.3.6-0/bitnami-lampstack-5.3.6-0-linux-x64-installer.bin

chmod +x bitnami-lampstack-5.3.6-0-linux-x64-installer.bin

./bitnami-lampstack-5.3.6-0-linux-x64-installer.bin

wget http://bitnami.org/files/stacks/alfresco/3.4.d-1/bitnami-alfresco-3.4.d-1-linux-x64-installer.bin

chmod +x bitnami-alfresco-3.4.d-1-linux-x64-installer.bin

./chmod +x bitnami-alfresco-3.4.d-1-linux-x64-installer.bin
if sql port 3306 is occupied try nother one e.g. 3308

Connect Diaspora with Facebook

Enable posting to Facebook from your Dispora Server:


Goto http://developers.facebook.com/setup/
Choose a name, for example "Diaspora at example.org"
Set the site address to your pod URL including a trailing /, for example http://example.org/
Choose a language
Click on Create application
Fill the Captcha
It will now give you your app id and your app_secret which you have to set in your config/oauth_keys.yml
Go to http://www.facebook.com/developers/editapp.php?app_id=< your app id >
Go to Website and fill the domain of your pod (without http://) in Website-Domain, then click Save changes
Restart Diaspora on your server
You're done. It's now possible to post to Facebook from your pod :)

Mobile internet bob.at and Linux

These are the network settings which should work for the austrian mobile internet provider bob.at:


profil name: data.bob
number: *99#
Benutzername: data@bob.at
password: ppp
APN: bob.at
authentication protocol: CHAP and/or PAP

DNS: dynamic
APN und erweiterte Einstellungen: static
IP: dynamic
WINS: dynamic 

AWS EC2 mail with SendGrid

mail is a beast. Sending email is easy but getting it pass spam filters when you’re a legitimate service is rather hard. Sending good email is especially hard when on EC2. The reason is due to spammers using and abusing elastic IPS. So, for startups your best bet of sending out a lot of email and getting it to the user is to use a service. You can pick Sendgrid. It’s cheap, fast, has good email tracking and builds all the appropriate email headers to get the mail white listed and into the destinations inbox. Sendgrid is the sender (think of them as an extension to sendmail).

New signups will usually get activated in less than four hours and then you simply add your username/password to the Postfix installation by editing the main.cf file.

First install postfix:

In Ubuntu, or any other apt using Linux distro, type in:

sudo apt-get install postfix

or if your system uses yum:

yum install postfix



Next choice your type of mail configuration: “Internet with Smarthost”.

From there, it’ll ask you questions that are entirely up to you.

It’s going to ask you for the smarthost address. Since we’re using SendGrid, use

smtp.sendgrid.net

Second edit the main.cf file:

Type in

sudo pico /etc/postfix/main.cf
or
sudo vi /etc/postfix/main.cf
to prepare the main.cf file

smtp_sasl_auth_enable = yes
smtp_sasl_password_maps = static:yourSendgridUsername:yourSendgridPassword
smtp_sasl_security_options = noanonymous
smtp_tls_security_level = may
header_size_limit = 4096000
relayhost = [smtp.sendgrid.net]:587

Replace yourSendgridUsername and yourSendgridPassword with your username and password.

sudo service postfix restart


Signup for SendGrid here

Google +1 /Plus One and your website

The +1 button is a shorthand for "this is pretty cool" or "you should check this out." Click +1 to publicly give something your stamp of approval. Your +1's can help friends, contacts and others find the stuff they search.

Learn more at http://google.com/+1button

Google has provided a “configurator” for web site owners to quickly and easily grab several variations on the necessary Google +1 code.
If you visited the link above, you’ll see that the basic +1 configuration options are self-explanatory.

http://www.google.com/webmasters/+1/button/

Google URL Shortener for your website

Google URL Shortener at goo.gl is a service that takes long URLs and squeezes them into fewer characters

to share, tweet, or email to friends. The core goals of this service are:

Stability – ensuring that the service has very good uptime
Security – protecting users from malware and phishing pages
Speed – fast resolution of short URL

Google provides a gadget  for this service. The good news is you can add this gadget to your website.

Google shortener at Google