How to Attach and Mount an EBS volume to EC2 Linux Instance

AWS allows you to create new EBS volumes and you can attach it to instances for extra storage. However, to make it usable as a storage inside the instance, you need to mount it to a specific folder.

Mount an EBS volume to EC2 Linux

In this tutorial, we will teach you how to attach and mount an EBS volume to ec2 linux instances. Follow the steps given below carefully for the setup.

Step 1: Head over to EC2 –> Volumes and create a new volume of your preferred size and type.

Step 2: Select the created volume, right click and select the “attach volume” option.

Step 3: Select the instance from the instance text box as shown below.

Step 4: Now, login to your ec2 instance and list the available disks using the following command.

 lsblk

lsblk

The above command will list the disk you attached to your instance.

You Might Like: Best AWS Certification and Training Course

Step 5: Check if the volume has any data using the following command.

sudo file -s /dev/xvdf

1	sudo file -s /dev/xvdf

If the above command output shows “/dev/xvdf: data”, it means your volume is empty.

Step 6: Format the volume to ext4 filesystem using the following command.

sudo mkfs -t ext4 /dev/xvdf

Step 7: Create a directory of your choice to mount our new ext4 volume. I am using the name “newvolume”

sudo mkdir /newvolume

1	sudo mkdir /newvolume

Step 8: Mount the volume to “newvolume” directory using the following command.

sudo mount /dev/xvdf /newvolume/

1	sudo mount /dev/xvdf /newvolume/

Step 9: cd into newvolume directory and check the disk space for confirming the volume mount.

READ How to Setup and Push Server/Application Logs to AWS Cloudwatch

cd /newvolume
df -h .

1 2	cd /newvolume df -h .

The above command would show the free space in the newvolume directory.

To unmount the volume, you have to use the following command.

umount /dev/xvdf

1	umount /dev/xvdf

EBS Automount on Reboot

By default on every reboot the EBS volumes other than root volume will get unmounted. To enable automount, you need to make an entry in the /etc/fstab file.

Back up the /etc/fstab file.

sudo cp /etc/fstab /etc/fstab.bak

1	sudo cp /etc/fstab /etc/fstab.bak

2. Open /etc/fstab file and make an entry in the following format.

device_name mount_point file_system_type fs_mntops fs_freq fs_passno

1	device_name mount_point file_system_type fs_mntops fs_freq fs_passno

For example,

/dev/xvdf       /newvolume   ext4    defaults,nofail        0       0

1	/dev/xvdf /newvolume ext4 defaults,nofail

3. Execute the following command to check id the fstab file has any error.

sudo mount -a

1	sudo mount -a

If the above command shows no error, it means your fstab entry is good.

Now, on every reboot the extra EBS volumes will get mounted automatically.

That’s how you mount and unmount EBS volumes in your ec2 instances. If you get any error during the setup, please feel free to contact us in the comment section.