RightScale Basics
Table of contents
Are you new to AWS and EC2? If so, please read Amazon Web Services (AWS) to become familiar with some common terms and definitions before reading the RightScale Basics section.
Our experience using EC2 to host our own site has led us to develop tools custom built for AWS. Designing the best tools requires thinking about old concepts in new ways. For example, we have done away with the old concept of launching images from a ready-configured state. Instead, we've found that it is far superior to launch bare instances and configure everything post-launch by scripts of code that we call RightScripts. This allows us to create modular server images that are highly customizable and easily replicated. If you are not convinced, read the Configuring servers with RightScripts blog entry.
As a result, we developed ServerTemplates. Along with specifying all of the normal EC2 stuff to launch an instance (ami, ssh-key, security group, etc.) server templates also allow you to designate any number of scripts that you want to run at boot time, upon demand, or when an event is triggered. We created RightScripts to make it even easier. RightScripts allow you to specify packages that you want to install before a script is executed and even allow you to upload and attach files directly to scripts. The Dashboard automatically recognizes and allows you to enter values for any variable that is capitalized. We provide a convenient and centralized way to manage input parameters to all of the RightScripts in a template. We also make it easy to use runtime values such as local IP's and EC2 meta-data.
We also created the concept of deployments. A deployment defines a cluster of machines that are associated with each other. You are able to specify global parameters that all of the instances inherit. This makes it really easy to add additional components without the need for extra configuration. The combination of these three tools allows you to deploy and maintain deployments of servers quickly and easily.
Credentials
The RightScale Credential Store gives you a simple and secure way to store passwords and other valuable information. You can easily use these stored credentials through RightScripts and deployments. You no longer have to remember your passwords or worry about your information being viewed by others.
Permissions
Sometimes you may want to let other people access your account, but you don't necessarily want everybody to have the same permissions. The Dashboard allows you to invite people to access your account and also specify their permissions. We have implemented the following access permissions:
Admin rights allow a user to administer the account, including changing keys, changing user permissions, etc.
EC2 observer rights allow a user to see images, instances, keys, and security groups. This is in-essence "read-only" access. EC2 actor rights allow a user to act upon EC2 objects, such as delete images, launch instances, create keys, and security groups. This is in-essence "write" access. Note that EC2 actor rights do not automatically confer EC2 observer rights, the latter must be set explicitly.
EC2 designer rights allow a user to create new ServerTemplates and RightScripts
- Tag page
-
- What links here
Yes, that was an obvious obstacle for us. But, we migrated over to a newer version and now we can remove the numbers from the left-hand navigation and page titles, but we need to keep them in the url to control the ordering of pages. Hopefully, there will be a solution that's more seamless.