Attach a new volume to ec2, ensuring a service runs on server restart and access instance metadata

mount a new volume

# lists the volumes
$> lsblk
# this lists all the volumes
xvda1 202:1    0     8G  0 disk /
xvdb  202:16   0   400G  0 disk /mnt

$> free -s  /dev/xvdb
#would return data is its not yet formatted and doesn't have any data
#otherwise would return the block and storage type ext4

#formats the new attached storage in ext4 storage format.
mkfs -t ext4 /dev/xvdb 

#mounting the new volume, 1. create the directory
mkdir /fileserver

#now mounting the new volume
mount /dev/xvdb /fileserver

#remove the lost+found directory
umount /dev/xvdb

#ensure that a service gets started when the server reboots
chkconfig apache2 on

#to get your aws instance specific meta-data information, one can run the below command from aws instance.
curl http://169.254.169.254/latest/meta-data/