Skip to main content

Launch an AWS instance

This page shows how to start an AWS EC2 instance using the resctl-demo AMI. This requires an AWS account. The AMI already has bench results for the supported instance types - c5d.4xlarge and c5d.9xlarge, so you can delve into scenarios right away.

Login to AWS console​

  1. Login to the AWS console: https://console.aws.amazon.com/console/home

  2. In the top right menu bar, choose one of the following regions:

    • US East (Ohio) us-east-2
    • Europe (Ireland) eu-west-1
    • Asia Pacific (Seoul) ap-northeast-2

  3. Make sure that your public key is setup in this region by navigating to Services > EC2 > Key pairs then choosing Create key pair and following the instructions. For more information see: https://docs.aws.amazon.com/AWSEC2/latest/UserGuide/ec2-key-pairs.html

Find resctl-demo Amazon Machine Image (AMI)​

  1. Select Services > EC2 from the menu bar.

  2. Select Images > AMIs from the side bar.

  3. Select Public images from the search bar filter.

  4. Type resctl-demo into the search bar filter and press enter to see the list of available images.

    • Make sure the owner is 920584875147.

    • The AMI Name is in the format resctl-demo-VERSION.

    • If there are multiple matching AMIs, pick the latest one.

Launch AMI​

  1. Right-click on the AMI you wish to launch and select Launch.

  2. Select either c5d.4xlarge or c5d.9xlarge. The former is recommended as it fits within the default vCPU limit of 32.

  3. While the instance can be launched as-is, we want to configure a couple more things for convenience. Press the Next button.

Configure Instance Details​

  1. Shutdown behavior > Terminate removes the instance when it is shutdown.

  2. User data can be populated with cloud-init YAML data to add extra ssh keys, so that you can login with your usual ssh key in addition to the EC2 key-pair from above. For example:

    #cloud-config
    ssh_authorized_keys:
      - ssh-rsa AAAAB3NzaC1yc2EAAAADAQABAAABAQCjmeEPHu325dSeoEbMxI7d8ORK4aVKGvVD5kkrCctoIDEEugH3ajfM4Nble7KVDZu6PNq86ESSHta06rKR+Z9ujx7WvND5N5H7NPkWA2K5zCNKn9Pc62Q9apVAmCv8RaXo5T4V4mRhFn13fUNH46Wz0++2xDFi4X7+0PD7h1foJG8NAhUezJRa7rMLQmBfewE/Bmpz3bP3jg6xuw+t/ZDRGoHq1lwbkjSpPnFjsPKPxmKARfTzIiK7CT5UE0zkKju/fSGj3dUuvL6NluhjehcXwk/PjiXWUPHXA7YfdOJP6U8wQljP4mXOGWCNBK1HXNFCZ19F6J8s7QZVsfE0/hsb htejun
      - ssh-rsa AAAAB3NzaC1yc2EAAAABJQAAAQEAhPa8R9jgFJ2gv2bhCBMgEyniBsgyOtAQVm1NiycVEorpQSCBSlaqTy97k3Ro+lSgMuB5VwPZOZoUdawzUokTI+XCg7RZMi8GiTPfdAUr/AlsrVz4lTb3yoyGpIBVNvXAsf4gusHZSVhKQhJR2FfENfizkXSGOxLHbItl+I+GEtjgAdulba3S+Mx+ROhyDu8G6obf+wwqD3a3pg7w0vvReQt3wC0rMNS3voz8BW5OmZc2XZN5IWa9pVEDIKa1jAvE+QKXUAc6mOOGdjxT7+5Q/qV50QVtcEPcOmRJVW3yHhriEvy+OXA1eebUG62nmR+rY72we3Yjgyp20qz+3ILpEw== obbardc

  3. We're done configuring. Press the Review and Launch button.

Review and Launch​

  1. Check the information is correct and choose Launch.

  2. Choose the key pair which was defined earlier and choose Launch Instances.

  3. Once the instance is launched, click the View Instances button and then select the checkbox for the new instance.

Login and Start resctl-demo​

After a few minutes, the Instance State should change to running. The resctl-demo image needs further initialization steps and will take several more minutes before accepting ssh connections.

Do not attempt to connect to the machine using the Connect button, but instead login to the instance via SSH with the username demo and the public IP address in the instance info as shown below. Make sure your terminal is at least 160x50 and supports 256 colors. Login by running ssh demo@IP_ADDR where IP_ADDR is the public IP address. If you want to use the EC2 key-pair, you may need to specify the private key file explicitly - ssh -i ec2_private_key_file.

It's ready. Run ./start-resctl-demo and dive in!

Instance system log​

If the instance fails to accept ssh connections, the console output may be useful for understanding what happened and reporting issues - right-click on the machine ID in the Instances view and choose Instance settings > Get system log. Note that AWS may take several minutes to populate the system log.