Hosting website on AWS EFS

Question

I know that I can host a static website on S3, but can this be done with AWS EFS? Is it even recommended?

Answer 1

I have this setup currently using Elastic Beanstalk. All I have is a .ebextensions folder with two scripts:

• 01-umount-efs.config
• 02-mount-efs.config

01-umount-efs.config

commands:
  01_mount:
    command: umount /var/app/current/efs || /bin/true
  02_mount:
    command: umount -l /var/app/current/efs || /bin/true

02-mount-efs.config

# Mount
commands:
  create_post_dir:
    command: "mkdir -p /opt/elasticbeanstalk/hooks/appdeploy/post"
    ignoreErrors: true
  do_something:
    command: "/sbin/service httpd restart"
files:
  "/opt/elasticbeanstalk/hooks/appdeploy/post/99_mount_efs.sh":
      mode: "000755"
      content : |
        #!/bin/bash

        EC2_REGION="ap-southeast-2"
        EFS_MOUNT_DIR=/var/app/current/efs
        EFS_FILE_SYSTEM_ID=fs-xxxxxxxx
        EC2_ZONE=$(curl -s http://169.254.169.254/latest/meta-data/placement/availability-zone)

        echo "Mounting EFS filesystem ${EFS_DNS_NAME} to directory ${EFS_MOUNT_DIR} ..."

        echo "Region is ${EC2_REGION}"

        echo 'Stopping NFS ID Mapper...'
        service rpcidmapd status &> /dev/null
        if [ $? -ne 0 ] ; then
            echo 'rpc.idmapd is already stopped!'
        else
            service rpcidmapd stop
            if [ $? -ne 0 ] ; then
                echo 'ERROR: Failed to stop NFS ID Mapper!'
                exit 1
            fi
        fi

        echo 'Checking if EFS mount directory exists...'
        if [ ! -d ${EFS_MOUNT_DIR} ]; then
            echo "Creating directory ${EFS_MOUNT_DIR} ..."
            mkdir -p ${EFS_MOUNT_DIR}
            if [ $? -ne 0 ]; then
                echo 'ERROR: Directory creation failed!'
                exit 1
            fi
            chmod 777 ${EFS_MOUNT_DIR}
            if [ $? -ne 0 ]; then
                echo 'ERROR: Permission update failed!'
                exit 1
            fi
        else
            echo "Directory ${EFS_MOUNT_DIR} already exists!"
        fi

        mountpoint -q ${EFS_MOUNT_DIR}
        if [ $? -ne 0 ]; then
            echo "mount -t nfs4 -o nfsvers=4.1 ${EC2_ZONE}.${EFS_FILE_SYSTEM_ID}.efs.${EC2_REGION}.amazonaws.com:/ ${EFS_MOUNT_DIR}"
            mount -t nfs4 -o nfsvers=4.1 ${EC2_ZONE}.${EFS_FILE_SYSTEM_ID}.efs.${EC2_REGION}.amazonaws.com:/ ${EFS_MOUNT_DIR}
            if [ $? -ne 0 ] ; then
                echo 'ERROR: Mount command failed!'
                exit 1
            fi
        else
            echo "Directory ${EFS_MOUNT_DIR} is already a valid mountpoint!"
        fi

        echo 'EFS mount complete.'

Just need to change ap-southeast-2 (EC2_REGION) and fs-xxxxxxxx (EFS_FILE_SYSTEM_ID).

Then in your Beanstalk Configuration > Software set the Document Root to /efs

You can also setup FTP access to the EFS by going through the EC2 instance:

1. create and download a key file: EC2 > NETWORK & SECURITY > Key Pairs > Create Key Pair
2. Select the key pair you just created: Beanstalk > Configuration > Security > Virtual machine permissions > EC2 key pair
3. You will then probably want to convert the .pem file to .ppk and use that to connect via sftp

Example FTP settings

{
    "type": "sftp",
    "host": "ec2-XX-XX-XXX-XX.ap-southeast-2.compute.amazonaws.com",
    "user": "ec2-user",
    "port": "22",
    "remote_path": "/var/app/current/efs/",
    "connect_timeout": 30,
    "ftp_passive_mode": true,
    "ssh_key_file": "C:/Path/To/KeyFile/ec2-access.ppk",
    "remote_time_offset_in_hours": 10,
}

Note: Your "host" can change because you are using Elastic Beanstalk and instances spin up and down all the time. So far I have not found an easier way to access the files on an EFS.

Answer 2

It can be done but I would not recommend it due to pricing and performance. EFS is currently $0.30/GB and S3 is $0.03/GB per month. Also, serving from EFS requires one or more running EC2 instances. I don't know of any benchmarks but I fully expect S3 to also offer better performance since S3 scales automatically.

Answer 3

EFS is Elastic File System. Basically EFS is a volume that can be attached to multiple instances and very helpful in case of autoscaling.

But basic function of EFS is volume, so off course you can host a website on a EC2 instance using EFS as the volume. The issue is with pricing as EFS is costlier then EBS.

And also hosting a static website on S3 is easy as you have to just upload the files to the bucket. In case of EFS you will need a EC2 instance and then you will mount the EFS to the EC2 instance and then setup the web server for the website and then serve the website. So it is too much work for hosting a static website using EFS.

So I will recommend S3.