Remove/Modify Specific AWS Tags from the Environment- PowerShell

12th of September, 2018 / / 1 Comment

Why use TAGs

To help you manage your instances, images, and other Amazon EC2 resources, you can optionally assign your own metadata to each resource in the form of tags. This topic describes tags and shows you how to create them.

(Ref: https://docs.aws.amazon.com/AWSEC2/latest/UserGuide/Using_Tags.html)

Problem :

Sometimes tags are applied in environments prior to developing a tagging strategy. The problem in exponentially increased with the size of the environment and the number of users creating resources.… [Keep reading] “Remove/Modify Specific AWS Tags from the Environment- PowerShell”

Disk Space Reporting through Lamba Functions- Windows servers

4th of September, 2018 / / No Comments

Solution Objective:

The solution provides detailed report related to hard disk space for all the Windows Ec2 instances in the AWS environment.

Requirements:

Mentioned below are the requirements the solution should be able to fulfil.

  • Gather information related to all mount points in all the Windows EC2 instances in the environment.
  • Able to generate cumulative report based on all instances in the environment.

3. Assumptions:

The following assumptions are considered

  • All the EC2 instances have SSM agent installed.
… [Keep reading] “Disk Space Reporting through Lamba Functions- Windows servers”

Removing Specific Azure Tags – PowerShell

17th of May, 2018 / / 2 Comments

Azure Tags

You apply tags to your Azure resources to logically organize them by categories. Each tag consists of a name and a value. For example, you can apply the name “Environment” and the value “Production” to all the resources in production.
After you apply tags, you can retrieve all the resources in your subscription with that tag name and value. Tags enable you to retrieve related resources from different resource groups. This approach is helpful when you need to organize resources for billing or management.… [Keep reading] “Removing Specific Azure Tags – PowerShell”

Key Vault Secrets and ARM Templates

15th of May, 2018 / / No Comments

What is Azure Key Vault

Azure Key Vault helps safeguard cryptographic keys and secrets used by cloud applications and services. By using Key Vault, you can encrypt keys and secrets (such as authentication keys, storage account keys, data encryption keys, .PFX files, and passwords) using keys protected by hardware security modules (HSMs).
Key Vault streamlines the key management process and enables you to maintain control of keys that access and encrypt your data. Developers can create keys for development and testing in minutes, and then seamlessly migrate them to production keys.… [Keep reading] “Key Vault Secrets and ARM Templates”

Azure Policy for Auditing VM Tags

4th of May, 2018 / / 4 Comments

Azure Policy

Azure Policy is a service in Azure that you use to create, assign and, manage policy definitions. Policy definitions enforce different rules and actions over your resources, so those resources stay compliant with your corporate standards and service level agreements. Azure Policy runs an evaluation of your resources, scanning for those not compliant with the policy definitions you have.
Ref: https://docs.microsoft.com/en-us/azure/azure-policy/azure-policy-introduction
Mentioned below are the steps required for configuring Azure policies to monitor tags
Step 1 : Login on to the Azure Portal and search for Policy.… [Keep reading] “Azure Policy for Auditing VM Tags”

OMS Patching – Active Directory Groups

4th of May, 2018 / / No Comments

OMS : Update Management Solution in Azure 
The Update Management solution in Azure automation allows you to manage operating system updates for your Windows and Linux computers deployed in Azure, on-premises environments, or other cloud providers. You can quickly assess the status of available updates on all agent computers and manage the process of installing required updates for servers.
Ref: https://docs.microsoft.com/en-us/azure/automation/automation-update-management
This blog details the steps required for configuring patching through Azure OMS service.
Assumptions: 

  • The OMs client is installed on all the VMs.
… [Keep reading] “OMS Patching – Active Directory Groups”

Patching LINUX EC2 through SSM

23rd of January, 2018 / / 5 Comments

This blog deals with configuring patches for Linux EC2 instances through AWS Systems Manager (SSM).
Mentioned below is the link for patching Windows-based EC2 instances using SSM
https://blog.kloud.com.au/2017/05/08/patching-ec2-through-ssm/
The configuration has three major sections

  • EC2 instance configuration for patching
  • Default Patching Baseline Configuration
  • Maintenance Window configuration.

1 Instance Configuration

We will start with the First section which is configuring the Instances to be patched. This requires the following tasks.

  1. Create Amazon EC2 Role for patching with two policies attached
    • AmazonEC2RoleForSSM
    • AmazonSSMFullAccess
  2. Assign Roles to the EC2 Instances
  3. Configure Tags to ensure patching in groups.
… [Keep reading] “Patching LINUX EC2 through SSM”

Update FSTAB on multiple EC2 instances using Run Commands

15th of January, 2018 / / No Comments

Scenario:

  • Customer Running multiple Linux Ec2 instance in AWS.
  • Customer reports that Instances are loosing mount points after a reboot.

Solution :

The resolution requires to update the fstab file on all the instances.
fstab is a system configuration file on Linux and other Unix-like operating systems that contains information about major filesystems on the system. It takes its name from file systems table, and it is located in the /etc directory ( ref : http://www.linfo.org/etc_fstab.html)… [Keep reading] “Update FSTAB on multiple EC2 instances using Run Commands”

Disk Space Reporting through Lamba Functions- Linux servers

4th of December, 2017 / / No Comments

Solution Objective:

The solution provides detailed report related to hard disk space for all the Linux Ec2 instances in the AWS environment.

Requirements:

 
Mentioned below are the requirements the solution should be able to fulfil.

  • Gather information related to all mount points in all the Linux EC2 instances in the environment.
  • Able to generate cumulative report based on all instances in the environment.

3. Assumptions:

The following assumptions are considered

  • All the EC2 instances have SSM agent installed.
… [Keep reading] “Disk Space Reporting through Lamba Functions- Linux servers”

Certificate Management using PowerShell and Lambda Functions

17th of August, 2017 / / No Comments

Certificate Management

1. Why Certificate Management is required.

Certificates installed on client machines are one of the critical resources in the client’s infrastructure. Monitoring certificates is critical to any company willing to successfully provide Certificate Management service. The process of manually reporting certificate details is tedious is time consuming, so it better to automate it.
The following document will explain the steps to configure AWS services to provide certificate management for customers with AWS hosted infrastructure.… [Keep reading] “Certificate Management using PowerShell and Lambda Functions”