[StarCluster] newbie problems

[Manal Helal]

Hello,

I am new to starcluster, and probably to AWS generally, and have a few
issues before I start a cluster and incur cost,

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

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.

I will run the program on one dataset, and time that, and terminate the
cluster.

My questions are:

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:


!!! ERROR - volume 'sfmdata
[volume sfmdata]
VOLUME_ID = vol-c999999
MOUNT_PATH = /home' not defined in config

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:

starcluster ebsimage i-9999999 my-new-image

if so, where is the already exising ebs mounted?


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:

starcluster start imagehost

or as a full command as defined in this page:

http://web.mit.edu/star/cluster/docs/latest/manual/create_new_ami.html

such as:

starcluster start -o -s 1 -i <INSTANCE-TYPE> -n <BASE-AMI-ID> imagehost

then create a new EBS using:

starcluster ebsimage i-9999999 my-new-image

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:

starcluster downloadimage [options] <image_id> <destination_directory>

 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?

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

I really appreciate if you can shed some light, so that I can resume
testing, I am totally lost at the moment,

Thank you very much for your support,
Manal
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