excercices

Attaching and Expanding an EBS Volume on an EC2 Instance

Main Takeaway You can seamlessly add storage to a running EC2 instance by attaching a new EBS volume and then resizing the partition and filesystem—all without downtime.

1

Prerequisites

• An existing EC2 instance in the desired Availability Zone.

• AWS CLI configured with sufficient IAM permissions (ec2:DescribeVolumes, ec2:AttachVolume, ec2:ModifyVolume).

• SSH access to the EC2 instance as a user with sudo privileges.

2

Attaching an Additional EBS Volume

Create a New EBS Volume (if not already created)

aws ec2 create-volume \
  --region us-east-1 \
  --availability-zone us-east-1a \
  --size 20 \
  --volume-type gp3

Note the resulting VolumeId (e.g., vol-0abcd1234efgh5678).

Attach the Volume to the EC2 Instance

aws ec2 attach-volume \
  --volume-id vol-0abcd1234efgh5678 \
  --instance-id i-0123456789abcdef0 \
  --device /dev/xvdf

• Replace vol-… and i-… with your volume and instance IDs.

• On Nitro instances, the device may appear as /dev/nvme1n1; check with lsblk after attaching.

3

Preparing and Mounting the New Volume on Linux

Verify Attachment

sudo lsblk

You should see a new device (e.g., xvdf or nvme1n1) without partitions.

Create a Filesystem

sudo mkfs -t xfs /dev/xvdf

(Use ext4 if preferred: sudo mkfs.ext4 /dev/xvdf.)

Mount the Volume

sudo mkdir /data
sudo mount /dev/xvdf /data

Persist Mount Across Reboots

1. Retrieve the UUID:

   sudo blkid /dev/xvdf

2. Edit /etc/fstab and add:

   UUID=<your-uuid>  /data  xfs  defaults,nofail  0  2

4

Expanding an Existing EBS Volume

Modify the Volume Size

aws ec2 modify-volume \
  --volume-id vol-0abcd1234efgh5678 \
  --size 40

Monitor until the modification state is completed:

aws ec2 describe-volumes-modifications \
  --volume-id vol-0abcd1234efgh5678 \
  --filters Name=modification-state,Values=completed

Extend Partition (if applicable)

1. Check for partition on the volume:

   lsblk

2. If there’s a partition (e.g., /dev/xvdf1), grow it:

   sudo growpart /dev/xvdf 1

(Install cloud-utils if growpart is unavailable.)

Extend the Filesystem

For XFS:

sudo xfs_growfs /data

For ext4:

sudo resize2fs /dev/xvdf1

Verify the New Size

df -hT /data

5

Summary of Commands

Task	Command Snippet
Create EBS volume	aws ec2 create-volume … --size 20 …
Attach volume	aws ec2 attach-volume … --device /dev/xvdf
Verify block devices	sudo lsblk
Format filesystem	sudo mkfs -t xfs /dev/xvdf
Mount volume	sudo mount /dev/xvdf /data
Persist in fstab	Add UUID=… /data xfs defaults,nofail 0 2 to /etc/fstab
Modify volume size	aws ec2 modify-volume … --size 40
Grow partition	sudo growpart /dev/xvdf 1
Grow XFS filesystem	sudo xfs_growfs /data
Grow ext4 filesystem	sudo resize2fs /dev/xvdf1
Verify filesystem size	df -hT /data

Attaching and resizing EBS volumes in AWS can be accomplished without downtime by leveraging the AWS CLI and Linux filesystem tools. Following these steps ensures your EC2 instance seamlessly gains additional storage and adapts to increased capacity requirements.