For those wanting to get into DevOps

This is oriented towards those new to the industry moreso, but been seeing a lot of posts asking how to learn DevOps and the skills.

Establish a learning routine. Pick a series of projects from the internet like setting up a minecraft server with AWS, launching a static web page, basic Linux administration etc.

Preferably pick a group of projects that cover Cloud, Linux, IaC, CI/CD. It doesn't have to be complex. It can be simple.

Then do them everyday. Everyday. Until you can do it without watching the videos. Until you can bring in your mother and explain to her in detail whats going on and why and how. Do this routine before you tackle on something new. Before you watch a new tutorial.

Obviously as your skills grow you should apply and add to this routine, but the most important thing is that you do it. Certs help you get interviews sometimes, but they will never speak for you. At the end of the day you need the experience of doing it constantly to help you do the talking.

Doing something everyday consistently is experience.

Doing something once and moving on is a experience.

If you can understand the difference then you're already ahead of the curve.

https://redd.it/o7jvoi
@r_devops

Penetration testing tools cheat sheet



Penetration testing tools cheat sheet, a quick reference high-level overview designed as a quick reference cheat sheet providing a high-level overview of the typical commands a third-party pen test company would run...



https://highon.coffee/blog/penetration-testing-tools-cheat-sheet/

https://redd.it/o7krw2
@r_devops

Would you take the job?

From talking to friends in this company it sounds like the management is trying to improve their processes especially after a mass exodus but no one appears to know how to run a software development shop even though they excel at manufacturing. They’ve got all the problems, it sounds like they were copied out of the Phoenix project before any lessons were learned. I’m being considered for the second Devops position and while I’m fairly young in the field, 3 years since undergrad, it appears to me that my experience to-date has equipped me with knowledge which no one there has yet. For example keep WIP low, reduce unplanned work, get someone between the devs and marketing to keep promises realistic, use something simpler than the classic Gitflow, reduce constraints optimizing for speed not cost, GitOps, etc.

What kind of questions would you ask during the technical interview to sound out the managerial willingness to listen to input and openness to change? I’m all for a chaotic job if there’s the possibility of bringing order, but I don’t want to change jobs and get stuck following people who don’t know how to manage the flow of work into and out of a software team. It makes everything miserable for everyone. Being a large and fairly old corporation, I especially anticipate that the lack of official certs and years on my resume will make my opinion appear sophomoric. Thoughts? What would you ask? (Obviously I’ll be asking diagnostic questions to get a better feel for organizational health, but I need to figure out the managers.) What would you want to see before you took the job?

https://redd.it/o7m9f4
@r_devops

Am I good enough for a devops role?

I have about 6 years of experience working in an automation/QA role with a lot of other stuff including some devops sprinkled in. I have been creating and managing the whole test automation infrastructure of different projects through mostly internal tools . This is has made me very comfortable with

Linux (all OS flavors),
bash
python .

I have intermediate experience with

jenkins
ansible
docker
AWS
Probably few other things that I am forgetting .

BUT I have done all of this only through the command line and not through higher levels of abstraction like kubernetes , terraform , etc . Also most of my work has been making these tests and its automation systems from scratch and then deploy & monitor them which means I do not have experience working along with other people.

I want to transition to a full time "devops" role but I do not know if what I know is enough to get my foot in.

If what I know seems insufficient or I just want to boost my chances , what do you guys think will help me in getting there ?

https://redd.it/o7ng95
@r_devops

How do you use GitOps ?

Hello !

​

I discovered recently the tool flux (https://fluxcd.io/) in a publication made by the CNCF, after reading more on the project and on GitOps as a whole, I found that I could use these concepts and add them in my "toolbox".

But before falling further into the rabbit hole, I'd like to get more opinions here.

A little context:

I redact Helm Chart for most of the applications I manage for my clients, as most of them are stateless, I find Helm to be the most straightforward tool to deploy these apps.

I also create Gitlab CD pipeline that update the images version of the various component when a push is made to a specific branch.

But as development progress, the version of the component deployed in the cluster does not match the values of the original Helm Charts.

And also, when I update the Helm charts (adding a new K8s Object for example, or a brand new component into the application), updating or redeploying the helm chart is tricky, and for this I think that implementing a tool like flux (or another, it just seems that flux is straightforward).

How do you manage multiple environment of the same application using a Tool like FLux ?

Since I have Multiple environments on the same cluster, what do you recommend ?

People having deployed and Using GitOps logic in production what are your tips or warnings ?

There is a THOUSAND article on the web about GitOps/Kubernetes, but I always prefer asking on forum like this subreddit to have real feedback!

​

GodSpeed

https://redd.it/o7olzz
@r_devops

Azure Pipelines, target resource group at runtime?

I'm looking to automate an upgrade process, and am trying to determine if it's something I can do with pipelines. The catch I'm running into here seems to be that it's not a fixed deployment target (resource group, generally) at run time. Upgrades aren't part of a CD pipeline, it needs to be manually triggered, with the target resource group determined at runtime, either interactive selection or reading config values, something like that. My thinking there being a config file of some sort that I could extract the required data from, and feed that to the deployment pipeline.

But it seems like (and I'm not totally surprised by this) even deployment pipelines are expecting that the target be a static one. So, is this just really not the right tool to do what I'm trying to do yet? I've seen some hints that adding Azure Lighthouse to the mix might enable it, but it doesn't seem certain, and that's more infrastructure ground work I'd have to get installed.

So it's starting to seem like I should go to a runbook based deploy instead.

And thoughts/suggestions on this (using Pipelines for it, or build out runbooks, or some other option I hadn't considered, I could run the operations from local scripting, but I'd rather centralize it into a runbook).

Thanks!

https://redd.it/o7pvd9
@r_devops

USA-PA Advice on accepting SRE position?

Throwaway for obvious reasons.

Was made an offer for a Site Reliability Engineer (SRE) position at a Fortune 100 company in Pennsylvania (already live in the city, so no relocation). Would like some reaffirmation before I accept the position.

In my past life, I was a Systems Engineer for 8 years (quasi-sysadmin/application admin), now in IT Security for 1 year (vulnerability scanning). I run a homelab and use Ansible, Terraform, Linux, Git, Influx, Grafana, etc... so I think that really helped me in the interview.

The position involves supporting an application hosted on AWS:

creating new infrastructure with Terraform
pushing application updates via Ansible
writing/maintaining bash+Python scripts
no programming (e.g., Go, C++, etc...)
only two people supporting this application, so on-call would be every-other week

I think I'm going to accept, this is a 15% raise compared to what I'm making now with better benefits.

108k base salary, up to 8k bonus, for a total of 116k
Medical/dental/vision
401k
15% discount on stock
15 vacation days
12 holidays (8 assigned, 4 "floating")
30 sick days
5 days urgent leave
mix of remote/in-office

I'll take any opinions/advice!

https://redd.it/o7nxnh
@r_devops

As a devops/SRE/Platform engineering job candidate, how would you like your skills to BE ASSESSED by potential employers?

The most common approaches seem to be take home tests, whiteboarding architecture diagrams, live troubleshooting in a dev environment, and quizzing technical questions in the interview.

I don't mind a take home test, but friends of mine with young kids would never be able to find 2-4 hours to dedicate outside of work to implementing something, so it's clearly not an ideal solution.

Edit: no idea what happened with the weird capitalisation in my title, can't change it now.

https://redd.it/o7rz0s
@r_devops

Paid Market Research Interview Opportunity

HubSpot's marketing team would like to interview professional web developers to gather information about their skillset, career path, and any educational resources they use. Participants will be compensated for their time.

What does participation look like?

If you are selected to participate, one of our researchers will schedule an hour long call. During this time you will be asked a number of questions about your background and experience as a developer. Your name and answers will only be used internally within HubSpot.

Who are we looking for?

\- Full-time professional web developers

\- Front-end, back-end, or full-stack experience

\- Developers who work for a single employer, an agency, or are self-employed

\- Must be comfortable answering questions in depth via a call

How to Participate:

Complete this form and we will reach out if you are a good fit for this project.

https://redd.it/o7s8d4
@r_devops

WebPageTest Github Action to keep track of Core Web Vitals on each build!

WebPageTest's GitHub Action lets you automatically run tests against WebPageTest on code changes. You can set and enforce performance budgets, and have performance data automatically added to your pull requets to move the performance conversation directly into your existing development workflow.


https://github.com/WPO-Foundation/webpagetest-github-action

https://redd.it/o7tj57
@r_devops

Best product to manage access to remote on-prem servers?

Let's say we will have 500 Linux servers out in the wild on private networks.

They can each establish a reverse proxy, and using passwordless authentication and SSH keys, as well as only one ssh key in the authorizedkeys file, I can confirm that my laptop is the only one able to connect.

However, let's say I'd like some program to manage this access. What would be the best way to handle this? Ideally, this program can add and remove SSH keys to the authorizedkeys on the server as necessary. OR potentially users must authenticate with this product, which then grants access to the server.

This is probably trivial, but I'm a bit confused on how to proceed. Obviously, I could go into each server and add/remove keys but this seems tedious. I could also use something like Ansible to handle this in a well-scaled way, however I would still prefer some web GUI to handle adding/removing keys or adding/removing users that can then access the single key.

I hope this make sense!

https://redd.it/o7rpzv
@r_devops

Why is learning Kubernetes so intimidating?

During customer interviews, while I was building OpsDrill, I was shocked by something. Very talented DevOps folks were having a hard time learning Kubernetes.

“I’ve been dragging my feet on learning”

“I’ve started and given up 3 times”

“I don’t know where to start, afraid it will mess up my laptop”

“It’s overwhelming”

I was relieved to hear this as I also found k8s intimidating at first.

There is a lot of great free material out there, but some of it feels like jumping straight into “Kubernetes 301: PhD in Containerology”.

(Kubernetes the Hard Way I’m looking at you. An amazing resource, but a very steep on-ramp for busy DevOps folks.)

In the past I’ve built games for learning as well as spaced repetition apps for helping to memorize materials. Would you be interested in

An adventure game
Played 15 minutes a day
Using real Kubernetes commands
To really, finally, learn Kubernetes?

https://redd.it/o7w9yn
@r_devops

GitHub - Publishing a pre-release on push to main (master) branch

I need my latest build artifacts to be available at any time. Currently, I do it by creating a GitHub release, which triggers a GitHub Actions workflow that publishes build artifacts to the created release.

I'd like to have a pre-release that is always up-to-date with my main (master) branch. Expected behavior:

1. git push to master
1. Workflow gets current latest release version 0.0.1rc1, pre-release==false
1. Workflow bumps current latest release 0.0.1rc2
1. Workflow creates a new release 0.0.1rc2, pre-release=true (if the release exists, skips this step)
1. Workflow uploads assets to 0.0.1rc2 and overwrites existing assets

Each push to master will always update 0.0.1rc2 and its build assets. Once I decide to create a new release 0.0.1rc3, pre-release=false, the same workflow will create a new release 0.0.1rc4, pre-release=true, and update its assets for each push to master, and so on ...

Does that make sense? Do you think it's a good/bad way to publish artifacts? Any thoughts/feedback is appreciated.

https://redd.it/o7nsuy
@r_devops

DevOps/cloud jobs outsourced to India?

Does anyone have statistics about DevOps, cloud engineer jobs being outsourced to India or other countries?

In my mind, since it is cloud which is accessible everywhere, it is like software development, it can be easily outsourced.

Appreciate any insight.

https://redd.it/o7yp7g
@r_devops

Using Ansible and Python in ESXi

Hey guys,

I am trying to do some playbooks with ansible to create and manage some VMs in ESXi but i am having some troubles.

First i check the connection and everything is working, i can even send bash commands with ansible.

I made a playbook that creates a VM but everytime i try to create i have `requests` error saying that i dont have `requests` installed in ESXi. So i tried to install requests but i dont have `pip` or `apt` and i cant even install setuptools with `python setup.py install`.

​

Are there any ways i can make this work? I think i need to install pip in ESXi but i dont know any other way i can do this

​

​

Here is my playbook

​

```yaml

\---

\- hosts: esxi

tasks:

\- name: Create VM based on Template

vmware_guest:

hostname: ""

username: ""

password: ""

validate_certs: False

name: TESTE

template: AWX-Template

datacenter: "Lab"

folder: /vmfs/volumes/HDD_2

state: poweredon

networks:

\- name: VM Network

type: static

start_connected: true

ip: 10.0.0.2

netmask: 255.255.255.0

gateway: 10.0.0.1

customization:

domain: lab.local

dns_servers:

\- 8.8.8.8

\- 8.8.4.4

wait_for_ip_address: yes

wait_for_customization: yes

​

​

```

https://redd.it/o7yo1n
@r_devops

Being SRE in the USA

Any SREs in the USA on here? I am based in the UK and I have been wondering about salary ranges depending on experience in the USA. I guess it depends on location as well. Thanks

https://redd.it/o7m92i
@r_devops

Sharing our Traefik runbook

Hey /r/devops!

At https://mediamachine.io we use traefik as a reverse proxy and we wrote an article about how we configured it to help us handle our incoming requests.

You can find the article here: https://mediamachine.io/blog/mediamachine-runbook-for-traefik .

Please take a look at it, and let me know if it's useful for you, or if you think we should write more about how we're using it.

Thanks!

https://redd.it/o7ezxp
@r_devops

4 years of devops background without know how to program

Yep, exactly what the title says. I have 4 years of experience in DevOps without knowing how to program, I can read code (Groovy and Python) but I'm not able to develop complex Jenkins libraries and automation with Python.
My background is more on the infrastructure side. I have 3 AWS certifications and another one from Red Hat...I can write simple bash scripts and also simple Jenkins Pipelines. Also I can write Docker and task-definitions for ECS, Terraform and Linux.

Recently I joined a new company where the core of the DevOps pipeline is a Jenkins Shared Library and since I can understand a bit of what it does I'm pretty sure I won't be able to maintain it and I'm a bit scared of don't know how to approach that. Any recommendation? (Courses, Tips, Tutorials)

Btw sorry for any bad written word, english is not my native language.

https://redd.it/o7dw1u
@r_devops

This is udemy DevOps class good?

Have you taken this class? Basing on reviews, it seems a good class. I am new to and want to expand on Ansible, Kubernetes and AWS. Would this be a quick good hands-on, intro class, to get more into DevOps?

Thanks.

# DevOps Project: CI/CD with Jenkins Ansible Docker Kubernetes

https://www.udemy.com/course/valaxy-devops/

#

https://redd.it/o83mxq
@r_devops

Help with selection process (logic test + personal presentation).

I have applied to the selection process of this company (bank) for hiring software developers. The first part consists in a logic test and personal presentation.

I accept help with materials to practice the logic part. Reports from people who have already participated of similar processes are welcome, since I have no idea of what is waiting for me. And any contributions that you deem constructive for an interview will be very useful, too. Thank you.

https://redd.it/o83444
@r_devops

Open Question: Terraform Scaling Challenges

Have you or are you in the process of expanding the set of people that are managing Terraform at your company? From trusted experts to dozens or hundreds of committers, what is your experience.

What challenges are you running into? How are you keeping reliability from suffering as you make this transition?

https://redd.it/o7ag2e
@r_devops