Create an S3 Bucket

Objective

In S3, a bucket is essentially a folder where you can store files.  Think of S3 as one big hard drive that everyone shares.  As a result, you'll have to create unique bucket names.  You will not be able to create generic bucket names like "files" or "images."  Therefore, it's a good idea to add your application name as a prefix to any bucket name (ex: myapp_images).  The maximum number of S3 buckets per account is 100. The ownership of an S3 bucket is non-transferrable, but if a bucket is deleted, its name can be reused.

NOTE: You can only create an S3 bucket with a Developer or Premium account. 

If you plan to use the MySQL Backup feature in the RightScale ServerTemplates, be sure to make an S3 bucket first before you use the ServerTemplates.  Use an S3 bucket name that's all lower-case.  Later, when you are asked for the S3 bucket for the DB_BACKUPS script, you will be ready with a place to store the files.

Inside your S3 bucket you can place all of the MySQL Backups for several MySQL servers by defining a unique prefix for each MySQL Master-DB server that you deploy.

WARNING! Watch out for two servers that backup into the same S3 bucket with the same prefix!  You'll run into problems if you "Clone" a deployment and forget to rename the prefix or the name of the S3 bucket before launching the server.

Create an S3 Bucket

Go to Clouds -> AWS -> S3 Browser.
Click New Bucket.  

Name the bucket with your application name appended with “_production_backups.”  For example, “myapp_production_backups.” Remember, the S3 namespace is global, so if your application name is common, you may need to come up with a unique name for it.  NOTE:  You are not allowed to use spaces in the bucket name.

Tip:  It is recommended that you use only lower case letters when naming your S3 bucket.  This is because of a backwards compatibility issue:  S3 is case sensitive, but DNS is not, so there is ambiguity when mapping bucket names to host names.

Click Create.

You should now see your new bucket listed.

Click on the bucket name to see its contents. For now, it is empty. But, to upload files, simply click on the bucket where you want to store your file(s). 

NOTE: You will not be able to delete a bucket until all of its contents have been deleted.

Congratulations! You now have a bucket where you can store files on S3. 

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