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1.1       wiki        1: [[!toc]]
                      2: 
                      3: # Introduction
                      4: 
1.3       wiki        5: This tutorial aims at showing how you can build, setup, upload and launch NetBSD under the [Amazon EC2](http://aws.amazon.com/ec2/) service.
1.1       wiki        6: 
1.3       wiki        7: # Subscribe to AWS (Amazon Web Services)
                      8: 
                      9: If you already have an account for [Amazon Web Services](http://aws.amazon.com/), and you are a registered user for EC2 service, you can directly jump to section [What do you need to know](#index2h2). If not, keep reading.
1.1       wiki       10: 
1.3       wiki       11: ## Quick overview
1.1       wiki       12: 
1.3       wiki       13: Before you can start playing with Amazon EC2, you have to create an account on Amazon Web Services, of which EC2, the Elastic Compute Cloud, is part. This is fairly straightforward, and done in two steps:
1.1       wiki       14: 
1.3       wiki       15: 1. you "sign-up" directly on [Amazon Web Services](http://aws.amazon.com/) home-page. This is where you enter your credentials, and confirm your AWS account registration.
                     16: 1. you sign-up to EC2 through [EC2 AWS home-page](http://aws.amazon.com/ec2/). You will be asked some more information, like a credit card (for billing), and a phone-number, for account validation.
1.1       wiki       17: 
                     18: ## What do you need to know
                     19: 
1.3       wiki       20: EC2 uses different types of credentials. In addition to your login and password, you need an access key, a X.509 certificate (with its private key), and a pair of RSA keys, for remote SSH access.
                     21: 
                     22: These can be created through the [Security Credentials](https://aws-portal.amazon.com/gp/aws/developer/account/index.html?ie=UTF8&action=access-key) page (also accessible from the [Account](http://aws.amazon.com/account/) page):
                     23: 
                     24: 1. create the access key. Keep a secured copy of the ID and its associated secret value. These will be used by various scripts later on to perform certain EC2 actions.
                     25: 1. note down your account number (different from your access key ID!). This identifier can usually be obtained in the right top part of the page; it is a serie of numbers, separated with dashes: XXXX-XXXX-XXXX.
                     26: 1. create, or upload, a X.509 certificate, in PEM format. Keep the private key in a safe place.
                     27: 1. lastly, generate Amazon EC2 key pairs that will be used for SSH access. This step will be performed through the [Amazon Management Console](https://console.aws.amazon.com/ec2/home).
                     28: 
1.1       wiki       29: ### Keep your credentials!
                     30: 
1.3       wiki       31: The different credentials created above will be used in various places of EC2, and by a myriad of commands. You are advised to keep them easily accessible, while still reasonably secure regarding their access. Most EC2 tools expect them to be find through a set of environment variables.
                     32: 
1.4       wiki       33: For convenience, you could store them under a **.ec2** directory inside your **$HOME**:
1.3       wiki       34: 
                     35: [[!template id=programlisting text="""
                     36: $ ls .ec2/                                                                
                     37: cert-SOMERANDOMKEY.pem # the X.509 certificate
1.5     ! wiki       38: id_rsa.ec2             # private RSA SSH key
        !            39: id_rsa.ec2.pub         # public RSA SSH key
1.3       wiki       40: pk-SOMERANDOMKEY.pem   # the private key associated to the certificate
                     41: """]]
                     42: 
                     43: then set the environment accordingly:
                     44: 
                     45: [[!template id=programlisting text="""
                     46: export EC2_PRIVATE_KEY=$HOME/.ec2/pk-SOMERANDOMKEY.pem
                     47: export EC2_CERT=$HOME/.ec2/cert-SOMERANDOMKEY.pem
                     48: export EC2_SSH_KEY=$HOME/.ec2/id_rsa.ec2
                     49: export EC2_ACCOUNT_NUM=XXXX-XXXX-XXXX
                     50: export EC2_ACCESS_KEY=MYACCESSKEYID
                     51: export EC2_SECRET_KEY=MYSECRETACCESSKEY
                     52: """]]
                     53: 
                     54: Please note that the rest of the tutorial will assume that these variables are set.
                     55: 
                     56: ### EC2 vocabulary -- last notes
                     57: 
                     58: Before starting to play with EC2, you need to be familiar with the EC2 vocabulary used throughout this tutorial.
                     59: 
                     60: Briefly said, EC2 uses [Xen](http://www.xen.org) as virtualization solution. So, in essence, all operating systems that support Xen para-virtualization can theoretically run inside EC2, as a domU. This is the case for NetBSD; however, please note that only amd64 is currently supported. Work is on-going to support 32 bits for EC2.
                     61: 
                     62: All operating systems are run as *instances*, which are, as their name implies, the instantiation of a specific AMI, or *Amazon Machine Image*. An AMI is an image built from specific *snapshots* of *volumes*. The volumes are part of [Elastic Block Storage](http://aws.amazon.com/ebs/) (or EBS for short), which is another service offered by AWS, distinct from EC2.
1.1       wiki       63: 
1.3       wiki       64: AKI, or *Amazon Kernel Image*, are a specific type of image. It represents the Xen guest para-virtualized kernel, as used by an AMI. Certain AKIs are allowed to boot customized operating systems, e.g. those that are still not officially supported by Amazon. Thanks to [PyGrub](http://wiki.xensource.com/xenwiki/PyGrub), it can boot a kernel that resides inside an AMI's snapshot.
1.1       wiki       65: 
                     66: # Building up your first AMI (Amazon Image)
                     67: 
                     68: ## Pre-built AMIs
                     69: 
1.3       wiki       70: (For the future) Once NetBSD has decent support for Amazon EC2, we will publish the AMI identifiers so you can quickly boot up in a NetBSD environment without going through all the steps given below.
1.1       wiki       71: 
                     72: ## Fetch and build the operating system
                     73: 
                     74: ## Customizations
                     75: 
                     76: ### For EC2
                     77: 
                     78: ### For your own needs
                     79: 
                     80: 
1.2       wiki       81: ## Upload your OS
1.1       wiki       82: 
1.2       wiki       83: ### Create an Amazon Linux AMI instance
1.1       wiki       84: 
1.2       wiki       85: ### Upload your files
1.1       wiki       86: 
1.2       wiki       87: ### Snapshots!
                     88: 
                     89: ### Shutdown the instance
1.1       wiki       90: 
                     91: ## Create your customized AMI
                     92: 
                     93: 
                     94: # Play with your first NetBSD instance
                     95: 
                     96: ## Create the instance
                     97: 
                     98: ## Connect to it
                     99: 
                    100: ## And now?