ec2-consistent-snapshot release 0.1-9

Thanks for creating this as well as everything else you've created. Very helpful for developers trying to get started with serious EC2 setups. I've tried to create my first snapshot using this script. I have a mysql database running on a raid of 4 volumes. This database is slaving from another. When I run ec2-consistent-snapshot, I get the following:

ec2-consistent-snapshot \
> --region us-east-1 \
> --xfs-filesystem /mnt/db \
> --mysql \
> vol-1 vol-2 vol-3 vol-4
ec2-consistent-snapshot: master_log_file="mysql-bin.000467", master_log_pos=98
ec2-consistent-snapshot: ERROR: create_snapshot: Attribute (progress) does not pass the type constraint because: Validation failed for 'Str' failed with value undef at /usr/local/share/perl/5.10.0/Net/Amazon/EC2.pm line 828
Net::Amazon::EC2::create_snapshot(undef, 'VolumeId', 'vol-1', 'Description', 'ec2-consistent-snapshot') called at /usr/bin/ec2-consistent-snapshot line 136
eval {...} called at /usr/bin/ec2-consistent-snapshot line 134
main::ebs_snapshot('ARRAY(0xa34dc50)', 'us-east-1', 'ec2-consistent-snapshot') called at /usr/bin/ec2-consistent-snapshot line 90

Yes, I changed the volume ids above. The first snapshot gets created, but everything else dies. Any thoughts?

Hello,

Thanks for creating this tool. I am planning to use it to backup my ubuntu EC2 instance.

I have been getting errors with and without using sudo. With sudo, it throws up error about keys and takes no snapshot. Without sudo, it throws up error about xfs_freeze, but does creates a snapshot.

Any help will be much appreciated.

regards,

anil

ubuntu@domU-12-31-38-00-0D-41:/mnt2/aks$ sudo ec2-consistent-snapshot --xfs-filesystem /mnt2 --description "mnt2 source" vol-f3ba039a
ec2-consistent-snapshot: ERROR: Can't find AWS access key or secret access key at /usr/bin/ec2-consistent-snapshot line 76.
xfs_freeze: cannot unfreeze filesystem mounted at /mnt2: Invalid argument
ec2-consistent-snapshot: ERROR: xfs_freeze -u /mnt2: failed(256)

ubuntu@domU-12-31-38-00-0D-41:/mnt2/aks$ ec2-consistent-snapshot --xfs-filesystem /mnt2 --description "mnt2 source" vol-f3ba039a
xfs_freeze: cannot freeze filesystem at /mnt2: Operation not permitted
ec2-consistent-snapshot: ERROR: xfs_freeze -f /mnt2: failed(256)
snap-7c432e14
xfs_freeze: cannot unfreeze filesystem mounted at /mnt2: Operation not permitted
ec2-consistent-snapshot: ERROR: xfs_freeze -u /mnt2: failed(256)

Much gratitude for all your work Eric - you're a titan openness and developer education.

Question:

I have a 10.04 EBS boot AMI with a single XFS-formatted root volume containing a LAMP stack. I want to snap the entire root file system (including MySQL) for backup purposes, and it's working using:

sudo ec2-consistent-snapshot --aws-access-key-id XXXXXXXXXXXXXX --aws-secret-access-key XXXXXXXXXXXXXX --xfs-filesystem / --description "root_snapshot $(date +'%Y-%m-%d %H:%M:%S')" vol-XXXXXXX

Do I gain any benefit/consistency by including the --mysql option, or the mysql username and password options? Or is it unnecessary because I'm snapping the entire root file system?

Thanks again.

Ben

We have been using a precursor of this technique in a production system for about 18 months. Suddenly MySQL started "going away" with clockwork every time the script ran. MySQL support concluded "the 'SYSTEM ec2-create-snapshot $VOLUME_NAME' did not return in a hurry / got suck and hence filesystem access stayed suspended."

A reboot of the server was necessary to recover.

Is this something others have experienced? Is this potential lockup solved with ec2-consistent-snapshot?

The exact script we were running is:

#!/bin/sh
export EC2_HOME=/root/ec2-api-tools-1.3-24159
export EC2_PRIVATE_KEY=/root/.ec2/pk-*********.pem
export EC2_CERT=/root/.ec2/cert-********.pem
export JAVA_HOME=/usr/lib/jvm/java-6-openjdk
export PATH=$PATH:$EC2_HOME/bin
MYSQLUSER=UUUUUUU
MYSQLPASS=PPPPPPP

# Obtain instance data
INSTANCE_NAME=`curl -s http://169.254.169.254/2008-02-01/meta-data/instance-id`
echo "Instance: $INSTANCE_NAME"
VOLUME_NAME=`ec2-describe-volumes | grep $INSTANCE_NAME | grep -o "vol-\S*"`
echo "Volume: $VOLUME_NAME"
VOLUME_LOCATION=/mnt/data

mysql -u$MYSQLUSER -p$MYSQLPASS FLUSH TABLES WITH READ LOCK;
SHOW MASTER STATUS;
SYSTEM xfs_freeze -f /mnt/data
SYSTEM ec2-create-snapshot $VOLUME_NAME
SYSTEM xfs_freeze -u /mnt/data
UNLOCK TABLES;
EXIT
EOF

# Delete older snapshots (oldest 2).
NUMBER_SNAPSHOTS=`ec2-describe-snapshots | grep $VOLUME_NAME | wc -l` echo "Snapshots: $NUMBER_SNAPSHOTS"
if [ "$NUMBER_SNAPSHOTS" -gt "200" ]; then
# Delete oldest two.
ec2-describe-snapshots | grep $VOLUME_NAME | sort -k 5 | head -2 | awk '{print "Deleting: " $2; system("ec2-delete-snapshot " $2)}'
#ec2-describe-snapshots | grep $VOLUME_NAME | sort -k 5 | head -2 | awk '{print "Deleting: " $2}'
fi