nova should keep instance data after termination

[Scott Moser]

On EC2, instances are available in DescribeInstances output afer they're terminated.
In nova, at the moment, they disappear immediately. This makes getting "shutdown" console output just about impossible.

Relevant link to amazon ec2 documentation:
http://docs.amazonwebservices.com/AWSEC2/latest/DeveloperGuide/index.html?instance-console.html
"Only the most recent 64 KB of posted output is stored, which is available for at least 1 hour after the last posting."

$ euca-run-instances --key mykey ami-00000056
RESERVATION r-227nsegw smoser_project default
INSTANCE i-00000200 ami-00000056 scheduling mykey 0 m1.small 2011-08-29T20:11:09Z unknown zone aki-00000052 ari-00000053
$ euca-get-console-output i-00000201 | tail -n 5
ec2: 1024 83:c3:7a:9b:42:fc:0d:c5:48:96:bd:46:62:25:bf:34 /etc/ssh/ssh_host_dsa_key.pub (DSA)
ec2: -----END SSH HOST KEY FINGERPRINTS-----
ec2: #############################################################
landscape-client is not configured, please run landscape-config.

$ euca-terminate-instances i-00000201
#no output

# wait 10 seconds or so
$ euca-describe-instances i-00000201
#no output
$ echo $?
0

$ euca-get-console-output i-00000201
InstanceNotFound: Instance %(instance_id)s could not be found.

[Brian Waldon (bcwaldon)]

I'm assuming you mean that the OpenStack API implementation in Nova should allow access to deleted resources, right?

[Scott Moser (smoser)]

On Tue, 30 Aug 2011, Brian Waldon wrote:

> I'm assuming you mean that the OpenStack API implementation in Nova
> should allow access to deleted resources, right?

yes. In EC2, you can see instances in 'terminated' for ~ 1 hour after
terminated, and get their console output as long as you can see them.

[Michael Still (mikal)]

Scott -- is it just console output which is interesting here? You can't get to disk images or anything like that, right?

[Scott Moser (smoser)]

you basically have access to the infomration provided by 'euca-describe-instances' and 'euca-get-console-output'. You certainly do not have access to disk images. on amazon 'euca-describe-instances' will show instances in 'terminated' state for at least 1 hour after they've been terminated, and provide the console output then too.

[Jason Dillaman (jdillaman)]

You can still access the console log from a soft-deleted instance until it is reclaimed. Are you looking for the console log to be preserved when soft-deletion is not enabled?

[Sean Dague (sdague)]

This wishlist bug has been open a year without any activity. I'm going to move it to "Opinion / Wishlist", which is an easily-obtainable queue of older requests that have come on. This bug can be reopened (set back to "New") if someone decides to work on this.