[StarCluster] Custom AMI .ssh directories disappearing on restart

[Justin Riley]

Hi Danny,

First of all if you always want to use the same SSH keys for all 30
users you need to specify an EBS volume for StarCluster to attach,
mount, and NFS-share on /home, e,g:

[volume myhome]
volume_id = vol-923923
mount_path = /home

[cluster smallcluster]
...
volumes = myhome

This will preserve the entire /home folder when the cluster is
terminated. The next time the cluster is started, using the
'smallcluster' template above, the /home folder will be reattached and
the SSH keys will be reused by the createusers plugin.

Concerning the 'disappearing' of .ssh I'm guessing you ran the plugin
using the 'runplugin' command which does a quick one-time run of the
plugin. In general if you wish to use a plugin every time you start a
cluster you need to put the plugin in one of your cluster template's
plugins list, e.g.:

[cluster smallcluster]
...
volumes = myhome
plugins = createusers

Hope that helps,

~Justin

On 5/4/12 9:35 PM, danny jacobs wrote:
> Hi Everyone,
>
> Background:
> I created my own EBS-backed AMI by copying one of the starcluster AMIs
> in the way described in the docs. ie
>
> starcluster start -o -s 1 -i m1.large -n ami-999d49f0 imagehost
> <installed some stuff>
> starcluster ebsimage <ami id> myami
>
> Then I substituted the output ami id into the starcluster config file,
> Node_IMAGE_ID = <myami id>
>
> and started up a cluster with my new ami
> Finally I ran the createusers plugin (with the 30 users example).
>
> Problem:
> I am able to connect as any of the new users with the ssh keys
> automatically downloaded as a tarball; all is well.
> But when I terminate and then restart a new instance of the cluster,
> the .ssh directories are gone.  The userXXX directories are still
> there but no more userXXX/.ssh.
>
> Is this supposed to be? What am I doing wrong?
>
>
> Thanks,
> ~Danny
>
> Arizona State University
> School of Earth and Space Exploration
> Low Frequency Cosmology
> Phone:           (505) 500 4521
> Homepage:     http://loco.lab.asu.edu/~jacobs/
>
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