Setting the webserver to an EBS directory

Question

On my previous question Saving changes to an EC2 instance without having to register an AMI each time? I asked how was posible for me to save files to my spot instance without having to register a new AMI each time. I researched and it looks like attaching an EBS volume is a way of saving data persistently without having to register an AMI each time I make changes.

The new issue I have is that I need to "call" files in the EBS volume via cron and treat them as webpages. They are mostly PHP files.

I tried setting up my EBS under /var/www/html but AWS prevents me to do that suggesting me to use /dev/sdf instead

Is there anyway I can set my EBS volume under my webserver so I can call my files on the EBS using the cron and interpret them as valid PHP files?

Any tip in the right direction will be much appreciated.

Thanks

Answer 1

/dev/sdf is a block device and /var/www/html is a mount point. They're completely different things; analogous to a physical book and a bookmark.

You first have to attach your EBS volume to your instance. It will show up as /dev/sdf(or whatever device name you've specified). You then have to create a file system on it using mkfs.ext4 /dev/sdf. You then mount the newly created volume using mount /dev/sdf /var/www/html. To have it automatically mount at boot, edit /etc/fstab and append the following to the file:

/dev/sdf    /var/www/html     ext4      defaults,noatime    0      0