AWS C5 (and other) instances

[BillBuilt]

Hello,
I went to launch a cPanel instance on AWS using the cPanel AWS AMI but it will not let me launch it on a C5 instance? I have successfully manually installed cPanel on a C5 / CentOS 7 but wanted to use the "official" AMI. Ay idea why it isn't allowed?

The message given is: "This instance type requires ENA support. To enable this instance type, return to the previous step and select an AMI that is enabled for ENA. This instance type is not compatible with the selected AMI."

The C4 instances are selectable as well as the M4 instances.

Thanks

 

[SS-Maddy]

Hello @BillBuilt ENA driver may be missing or flag may not enabled in the "Official" AMI. cPanel may need to build a new AMI with ENA enabled. It may not be purposeful as this flag needs to be manually enabled and iirc haven't seen the options listed while building AMI from console. You would need to raise a support ticket with them. Since you have installed cPanel on a C5 using CentOS 7 AMI, I think you are good.

Still if you want to use AMI, I guess you first have to check whether the ena driver is on cPanel AMI using the command ethtool -I eth0 and if it is listed, what you would need is to launch cPanel official AMI in C4 or any instance which is not insisting on the new ENA driver. And then modify the instance attribute like below and then build an AMI from that instance.
aws ec2 modify-instance-attribute --instance-id "I-instance-id-of-c4" --ena-support --region your-region-of-c4

Raising a support ticket with cPanel is recommended though as it is better they relaunch the AMI with ENA support.

 

[BillBuilt]

Hello, Thanks for the reply.

>Since you have installed cPanel on a C5 using CentOS 7 AMI, I think you are good.

Yes it is working and running fine. I was just worried about getting support with such an instance since i was not able to install the "official" AMI. It's stated everywhere that cPanel will not offer support on anything other than that AMI, but if I can't use it, then......?

 

[SS-Maddy]

Hello @BillBuilt,

I would recommend you to raise a support ticket with cPanel even though I am sure @cPanelMichael or other staffs would notice it.

 

[BillBuilt]

Thanks, i"ll do that. Although I wonder, at least in my case, if it even matters since i did not purchase my cPanel license directly from cPanel but rather a 3rd party.

 

[BillBuilt]

Ticket created: ID# 10488077

 

[SS-Maddy]

Thanks, i"ll do that. Although I wonder, at least in my case, if it even matters since i did not purchase my cPanel license directly from cPanel but rather a 3rd party.

cPanel cares about the product and it's partners So no worries man! They will take care of your issue

 

[BillBuilt]

For anyone else worried about support on a non-cPanel CentOS AMI, here is the reply:

If you are worried about support, fear not. So long as cPanel is running on CentOS, and you have a valid license, we will support the software, even if you aren't using AMI on Amazon.

 

[cPanel Scott]

Hi Bill!
The current cPanel AMI does not support C5 (and similar instance types) because they don't support network devices other than ENA. We are not actively working on this, but it is on our backlog to pick up as a part of improving the overall Amazon AMI experience. Would you find it acceptable to use a C4 instance in the meantime?

Thanks!

Scott

 

[cPanel Scott]

Actually, on closer look, I'm worried that this won't be an easy fix. We need support for ENA in the upstream CentOS7 kernel modules. I've quickly scanned this bug report, and this doesn't seem promising:

0013836: RHBA-2017:2283 - AWS AMI rebuild with ENA support - CentOS Bug Tracker

-Scott

 

[BillBuilt]

It's all good - just worried about getting support if I need it - and according to the ticket reply I got I should be fine. C4 is more expensive than C5, plus C5 is the latest generation of compute optimized instances so I'd rather stay with C5. The C5 is working fine with a manual cPanel installation. Thanks

 

[cPanelLauren]

Hi @BillBuilt

I'm glad you were able to get the issue sorted out and thanks for updating here!

 

[osvi]

Any update on this? I would like to buy a C5 reserved instance, so I cannot start a C4 and migrate it to C5.
What could I do?

 

[cPanelLauren]

The case that's linked here for this isn't resolved as of now, you can view it by clicking the link to CentOS's bug tracker: 0013836: RHBA-2017:2283 - AWS AMI rebuild with ENA support - CentOS Bug Tracker

From what I can see in our internal system we have removed any reference to supporting C5 instances as well.

 

[osvi]

Is that ok to spin up a C5 instance using Centos provided by AWS, then install cPanel using your installer? Is that supported?

 

[cPanelLauren]

Hi @osvi

Again at this time the C5 instances aren't supported due to the networking configuration - my assumption is when the above-referenced CentOS case is resolved we'll be able to work towards getting this supported.


**Edit**

It would appear that I was actually incorrect here, we recently did add support for the AWS C5 instances. You should be able to build this out using our image which can be found here: AWS Marketplace: cPanel & WHM for Linux