<span style="border-collapse:collapse;color:rgb(34,34,34);font-family:arial,sans-serif;font-size:14px">Hello, <div><br></div><div>I am new to starcluster, and probably to AWS generally, and have a few issues before I start a cluster and incur cost, </div>
<div><br></div><div>I am trying to run a graphics processing packages on the GPU cluster instance, and will need to download VisualSFM, meshlab, ffmpeg before I start. I will start only one instance in the region us-east-1 from the instance type "cg1.4xlarge" using the image id "ami-999d49f0" which is starcluster-base-ubuntu-11.10-x86_64 (EBS). I am not sure if this image already has EBS volume mounted in it</div>
<div><br></div><div><div>I am planning that once I start the cluster, I download what I need using wget, and apt-get to install and configure all dependencies to the GPU cluster hardware. I am afraid I have a long list of dependencies, but with lapack and CUDA already installed in the image, I hope I won't suffer the way I suffered to get these packages on my local machine.</div>
<div><br></div><div>I will run the program on one dataset, and time that, and terminate the cluster. </div><div><br></div><div>My questions are:</div><div><br></div><div>1. Is EBS already attached to this image, or do I need to attach it using the config file? I tried to uncomment the sections in the config file, and I ended up with this error:</div>
<div><br></div><div><br></div><div><div>!!! ERROR - volume 'sfmdata</div><div>[volume sfmdata]</div><div>VOLUME_ID = vol-c999999</div><div>MOUNT_PATH = /home' not defined in config</div></div><div><br></div><div>
So having an ebs already in the ubunto image I am using doesn't require further editing in the config file, nor using the command:</div>
<div><br></div><div>starcluster ebsimage i-9999999 my-new-image</div><div><br></div><div>if so, where is the already exising ebs mounted?</div><div><br></div><div><br></div><div>2. Is having the base AMI defined in the config file, instance type and number of instances (cluster size), and region, …. etc in the config file, and the previous point become clear as EBS is already included in this image or need to be defined in the config file, do I start the cluster by this command:</div>
<div><br></div><div>starcluster start imagehost</div><div><br></div><div>or as a full command as defined in this page:</div><div><br></div><div><a href="http://web.mit.edu/star/cluster/docs/latest/manual/create_new_ami.html" style="color:rgb(17,85,204)" target="_blank">http://web.mit.edu/star/cluster/docs/latest/manual/create_new_ami.html</a></div>
<div><br></div><div>such as:</div><div><br></div><div>starcluster start -o -s 1 -i <INSTANCE-TYPE> -n <BASE-AMI-ID> imagehost</div><div><br></div><div>then create a new EBS using:</div><div><br></div><div>starcluster ebsimage i-9999999 my-new-image</div>
<div><br></div><div>3. After I do further installs in the image, I need to download the image before I terminate to be able to use it again, without paying for the ebs storage by stopping the cluster (not terminating). I need to download the image, and terminate the cluster, so that I don't pay for anything (cluster or ebs storage) until I am ready to run again. I see the downloadimage command and not sure how to use it, I couldn't find help about it, except the command line help:</div>
<div><br></div><div>starcluster downloadimage [options] <image_id> <destination_directory></div><div><br></div><div> is the image_id here is the same one I started from, which is "ami-999d49f0" in my case, or is it the one I customised and is currently running? Does the image take a new image_id once it is running for a specific user? if so, do I get this from my console manager on the AWS website?</div>
<div><br></div><div>4. After knowing how to download the image, I will need the command to start a new cluster using the image I have stored on my local disk. I think I have seen something to install from an image to the cluster</div>
<div><br></div><div>I really appreciate if you can shed some light, so that I can resume testing, I am totally lost at the moment, </div><div><br></div><div>Thank you very much for your support, </div></div><div>Manal</div>
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