troubleshooting-efs

Diagnoses and resolves Amazon EFS mount failures, permission errors, and performance issues.

Updated Sep 8, 2026
One-click install
npx skills add https://github.com/dennisvink/yolomancer --skill troubleshooting-efs-dennisvink
Or copy as Structured Prompt for Agent
Please help me install this Agent Skill.
Skill: troubleshooting-efs
Source: https://github.com/dennisvink/yolomancer/tree/main/skills/aws/specialized-skills/storage-skills/troubleshooting-efs
Command: npx skills add https://github.com/dennisvink/yolomancer --skill troubleshooting-efs-dennisvink

SYSTEM DOCUMENTATION & REQUIREMENTS

What problem does it solve? Amazon EFS file systems can fail to mount, deny access, or perform slowly for many different reasons, and finding the root cause requires checking security groups, IAM policies, NFS clients, KMS keys, and VPC DNS settings. This Skill provides a structured diagnostic workflow that classifies symptoms and walks through the exact AWS CLI commands needed to identify and fix each category of EFS issue. ## Core Features & Use Cases - Symptom-Based Classification: Maps common symptoms like "wrong fs type", connection timeouts, and "access denied by server" to six distinct root-cause categories covering NFS clients, network, IAM, performance, encryption, and DNS. - Guided Remediation Commands: Provides ready-to-run AWS CLI and Linux commands for verifying mount targets, fixing security group rules on port 2049, checking burst credit balances, and switching throughput modes. - Use Case: An EC2 instance hangs for two minutes and then fails when mounting an EFS file system. The Skill classifies this as a network/security group issue, checks that the mount target's security group allows inbound TCP 2049 from the instance's security group, and applies the ingress rule fix. ## Quick Start Ask the assistant to troubleshoot why your EFS file system fs-12345678 is timing out when mounting from your EC2 instance in us-east-1.

Frequently Asked Questions about troubleshooting-efs

High-intent search queries and answers about installing and using this skill.

FAQPage Schema
How do I fix an EFS mount that times out?

An EFS mount timeout is almost always a security group issue. Verify the mount target's security group allows inbound TCP port 2049 from the compute instance's security group, and confirm the instance's security group allows outbound traffic on port 2049.

Why does EFS mount fail with "access denied by server"?

Access denied errors stem from IAM or POSIX permissions. Check that the identity-based IAM policy allows elasticfilesystem:ClientMount and review the file system resource policy with aws efs describe-file-system-policy. For POSIX issues, verify file ownership with ls -la.

How do I check EFS burst credit balance?

Check the BurstCreditBalance metric in CloudWatch using aws cloudwatch get-metric-statistics with the AWS/EFS namespace and your file system ID. If credits are near zero, switch to Elastic throughput mode with aws efs update-file-system.

Does EFS enforce IAM authentication by default?

No, IAM authorization is only enforced when a file system policy exists that requires it. Without a file system policy, any client in the VPC with port 2049 access can mount, even when using the -o iam mount option.

Why does EFS auto-mount fail after a reboot?

Auto-mount fails when the /etc/fstab entry is missing the _netdev option, which tells the system to wait for network availability before mounting. Add _netdev to the mount options in fstab to resolve this.

How do I fix EFS DNS resolution failures?

DNS resolution failures occur when VPC DNS settings are disabled. Verify enableDnsHostnames and enableDnsSupport are both true using aws ec2 describe-vpc-attribute, and enable them with aws ec2 modify-vpc-attribute if needed.