troubleshooting-efs

An agent skill by aws, from aws/agent-toolkit-for-aws. Tags: aws, networking, performance, storage, troubleshooting.

What it does

Diagnoses and resolves Amazon EFS issues including mount failures, NFS timeouts, permission errors, throughput problems, and burst credit exhaustion. Use when the user has an EFS file system that is not mounting, returning errors, performing slowly, or showing access denied.

Install

With the skills CLI, which installs into Claude Code, Codex, Cursor and other agents:

npx skills add aws/agent-toolkit-for-aws --skill troubleshooting-efs

Or copy the skill folder into Claude Code's skills directory by hand (~/.claude/skills for every project, or .claude/skills inside one):

git clone --depth 1 https://github.com/aws/agent-toolkit-for-aws
cp -r agent-toolkit-for-aws/skills/specialized-skills/storage-skills/troubleshooting-efs ~/.claude/skills/troubleshooting-efs

Safety box score

Grade C, moderate risk: 39 of 100 risk points, rated 2026-10-12. The grade rates what the skill and its scripts can reach on the machine of whoever installs it, across eight categories from shell execution to secrets access. How the score works.

This skill troubleshoots Amazon EFS by running AWS CLI checks, testing network connectivity, and sometimes changing AWS security groups, VPC DNS settings, file system throughput, and host mount configuration. The main risks are system-wide package installs, host config edits under `/etc`, and infrastructure changes that can widen access or alter storage behavior.

Category levels, from 0 (none) to 3 (high)
Category	Level	Why
Code & shell execution	2 (moderate)	It explicitly runs commands such as `aws efs describe-mount-targets`, `nc -zv ... 2049`, `tar -czf ...`, and package installs with `sudo yum`/`sudo apt-get`.
Network access	2 (moderate)	It sends requests to AWS APIs and remote endpoints, including `aws ec2 authorize-security-group-ingress`, `aws efs update-file-system`, and `nc` tests to `fs-ID.efs.REGION.amazonaws.com`.
Filesystem reach	2 (moderate)	It reads and writes host paths like `/etc/fstab`, `/etc/amazon/efs/efs-utils.conf`, `/var/log/amazon/efs/`, and archives them to `/tmp/efs-logs.tar.gz`.
Secrets & credentials	0 (none)	The skill does not ask for passwords, tokens, key files, browser sessions, or `.env` contents; it only references EFS logs and AWS resource metadata.
Privilege & persistence	2 (moderate)	It uses `sudo` for package installation and instructs changes to system configuration files, but it does not require shell startup edits, services, or other stronger privilege escalation.
Instruction hijack surface	0 (none)	There is no hidden prompt injection or instruction to ignore safeguards; the file only contains ordinary troubleshooting guidance and confirmations.
Irreversible actions	2 (moderate)	It can change infrastructure state with commands like `aws ec2 authorize-security-group-ingress`, `aws ec2 modify-vpc-attribute`, and `aws efs update-file-system`, though it also says to wait for user confirmation before write actions.
Transparency	0 (none)	All content is plain, readable markdown with no binaries, base64 blobs, or remotely fetched code.

Before installing

Read `SKILL.md` and confirm you are willing to let it run `sudo` package installs and edit `/etc/fstab` / `/etc/amazon/efs/efs-utils.conf`.
Check whether you are comfortable with it changing AWS security groups, VPC DNS settings, or EFS throughput mode if troubleshooting recommends it.
Run it first in a nonproduction AWS account or a scratch instance with minimal permissions.
Verify whether `/var/log/amazon/efs/` logs or `/tmp/efs-logs.tar.gz` would contain data you do not want copied or shared.

Rated 2026-10-12 by an automated review of 1 file from the skill's repository.

Source

Repository: aws/agent-toolkit-for-aws (all skills from this repository)
Path: skills/specialized-skills/storage-skills/troubleshooting-efs/SKILL.md
Branch: main
Updated: 2026-09-19

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