Attach an AWS EBS volume to a Linux server

Format and mount the volume

List the available disk devices and their mount points

lsblk

The nvme1n1 volume is not yet mounted

Create a partition on the volume

List the existing partitions

fdisk -l

Create a new partition

fdisk /dev/nvme1n1
# enter n to create a new partition and follow the defaults to maximize the drive space used 
# enter p tp view the partition table
# enter w to write the partition table to the disk

Check the partition list

lsblk

Detect the new partition with

partprobe

If there is a file system on the partition to determine the file system of the volume

file -s /dev/nvme1n1p1

“data” means no file system

If there is no file system on the volume, create one

mkfs -t xfs /dev/nvme1n1p1
# If the partition already has a files system and you want to overwrite it use the xfs -f option
mkfs -t xfs -f /dev/nvme1n1p1

If the mkfs tool is not found, install it with yum install xfsprogs

Create a mount point

Create a directory where the volume will be mounted

mkdir /data

Mount the volume to the directory

mount /dev/nvme1n1p1 /data

Automatically mount the volume after reboot

The mounting above will not be retained after a reboot. To keep the volume mounted after a reboot add am entry to the /etc/fstab file

Make a safety copy of the original fstab file

cp /etc/fstab /etc/fstab.orig

Use blkid to find the UUID of the device

blkid

# On Ubuntu 18.04
lsblk -o +UUID

Open the /etc/fstab file in an editor

vim /etc/fstab

Add an entry to the /etc/fstab file for the volume

UUID=7c6cb20b-ada0-4cd7-9c3a-342d6faf87a2  /data  xfs  defaults,nofail  0  2

• UUID
• Mount point
• file system
• recommended file system mount options. The nofail option will allow this server to boot even if the volume is not available. On Debian derivatives, including earlier than Ubuntu 16.04 nobootwait is also necessary

To test if the file entry is correct unmount the volume and use the /etc/fstab to mount it again

umount /data
mount -a

If there are no errors, the file should be correct.

To list the directory sizes

du -sh *

To empty a file

cat /dev/null > ./MY_LARGE_LOG_FILE

Check the load on the computer

uptime

23:58:50 up 318 days, 16:32, 1 user, load average: 0.03, 5.34, 18.68

The load averages are from the past 1, 5, and 15 minutes