Can EC2 Mac instances mount Amazon EFS and Amazon FSx?

Yes, Amazon EC2 Mac instances can mount shared network storage from both Amazon Elastic File System and Amazon FSx. By using standard network file protocols built into macOS, such as Network File System and Server Message Block, EC2 Mac instances can connect to scalable shared storage across an Amazon Virtual Private Cloud. This capability allows development teams to share build artifacts, source code, media assets, and continuous integration caches across multiple macOS environments and other compute platforms without duplicating data on local Amazon Elastic Block Store volumes.

Supported Storage Services and Protocols

macOS includes native client support for the NFS (v3 and v4) and SMB protocols, enabling direct integration with several AWS storage services:

  • Amazon EFS: Supports NFSv4.0 and NFSv4.1. EC2 Mac instances can mount EFS file systems either through the standard macOS mount_nfs utility or by installing the amazon-efs-utils package via Homebrew, which provides Transport Layer Security (TLS) encryption in transit and simplifies mounting by file system ID.
  • Amazon FSx for NetApp ONTAP: Supports both NFS (v3, v4.0, v4.1) and SMB protocols, making it suitable for multiprotocol environments where macOS, Linux, and Windows instances access the same datasets.
  • Amazon FSx for OpenZFS: Supports NFS (v3, v4.0, v4.1), offering low-latency shared file storage for macOS build and test workloads.
  • Amazon FSx for Windows File Server: Supports the SMB protocol, allowing EC2 Mac instances to connect to Active Directory-integrated shared folders alongside Windows workloads.

Note that Amazon FSx for Lustre does not provide a native macOS client and cannot be mounted directly on EC2 Mac instances.

Network and Security Prerequisites

Before mounting an Amazon EFS or Amazon FSx file system on an EC2 Mac instance, ensure the following network requirements are met:

  1. VPC Connectivity: The EC2 Mac instance and the storage mount target (or file system endpoint) must reside in the same VPC, or have routing configured via VPC peering or AWS Transit Gateway.
  2. Security Groups:
    • For Amazon EFS and FSx over NFS, the security group attached to the file system mount target must allow inbound TCP traffic on port 2049 from the EC2 Mac instance's security group or subnet CIDR.
    • For Amazon FSx over SMB, the file system's security group must allow inbound TCP traffic on port 445 from the EC2 Mac instance.
  3. DNS Resolution: Enable DNS hostnames and DNS resolution in your VPC settings so the instance can resolve the file system's DNS name.

Mounting Amazon EFS on an EC2 Mac Instance

You can mount an Amazon EFS file system using either the native macOS NFS client or the AWS-provided amazon-efs-utils mount helper.

Option 1: Using the Native macOS NFS Client

  1. Connect to your EC2 Mac instance via SSH or screen sharing and create a local mount point directory:

    sudo mkdir -p /Volumes/efs

  2. Mount the EFS file system using its DNS name or mount target IP address:

    sudo mount -t nfs -o nfsvers=4.0,rsize=1048576,wsize=1048576,hard,timeo=600,retrans=2,noresvport fs-0123456789abcdef0.efs.us-east-1.amazonaws.com:/ /Volumes/efs

Option 2: Using amazon-efs-utils via Homebrew

If you require encryption in transit or IAM authorization, install amazon-efs-utils:

  1. Install the utility using Homebrew:

    brew install amazon-efs-utils

  2. Mount the file system with TLS enabled:

    sudo mount -t efs -o tls fs-0123456789abcdef0:/ /Volumes/efs

Mounting Amazon FSx on an EC2 Mac Instance

Mounting via NFS (FSx for NetApp ONTAP or FSx for OpenZFS)

  1. Create a directory for the mount point:

    sudo mkdir -p /Volumes/fsx-nfs

  2. Run the mount command using the storage virtual machine (SVM) or file system DNS endpoint and junction path:

    sudo mount -t nfs -o nfsvers=4.1,rsize=1048576,wsize=1048576,hard,noresvport svm-0123456789abcdef0.fs-0123456789abcdef0.fsx.us-east-1.amazonaws.com:/vol1 /Volumes/fsx-nfs

Mounting via SMB (FSx for Windows File Server or FSx for NetApp ONTAP)

  1. Create a local mount directory owned by the active macOS user:

    mkdir -p ~/fsx-smb

  2. Mount the SMB share using mount_smbfs:

    mount_smbfs '//DOMAIN;username:password@amznfsx01234567.corp.example.com/share' ~/fsx-smb

Best Practices and Considerations for macOS

  • Use the noresvport Option for NFS: When mounting NFS shares on macOS, always include the noresvport mount option. This allows the macOS NFS client to use non-reserved source ports and ensures seamless reconnection if a network connection drops temporarily.

  • Prevent Finder Metadata Overhead: By default, macOS creates .DS_Store files on network volumes, which adds metadata IOPS overhead. Disable .DS_Store creation on network volumes by running the following command and restarting the instance:

    defaults write com.apple.desktopservices DSDontWriteNetworkStores -bool TRUE

  • Consider Workload I/O Patterns: Xcode builds that compile thousands of small intermediate files generate high metadata operations. While Amazon EFS and Amazon FSx work well for storing shared SDKs, Xcode archives, dependency caches, and media assets, placing active Xcode DerivedData directories on local Amazon EBS gp3 or io2 volumes alongside shared network storage often yields the best build performance.