Gitlab Server Behind F5 Authentication

Hi! I have a Gitlab server that sits behind my F5. I want to be able to pull and push repos via HTTPS.
Right now from my local machine i would first have to hit the f5 and present my smart token/card to authenticate. From there traffic goes the a Virtual server > Gitlab.


Is there anyway for me to configure gitlab to prompt me to use my smart card in this process.
As of right now i am getting redirected once i hit the f5 and logged out due to the fact that im not using the cac via the CLI. Any other thoughts or suggestions are welcomed. Thanks.

https://redd.it/141l5dm
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Short lived web-app

Hi,

I'm currently using github actions and whenever someone opens up a PR I want to deploy the web-app to AWS and for the deployment to be available for like ~1 hour. Currently we deploy the webapp in a docker container to ECS. Does anyone have ideas on how this could be accomplished?

https://redd.it/141his0
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Which Kubernetes Certification is the Easiest One In The Land?

Looking for something to do while i'm off for a week next month? Which certfication will be the easist to earn

1. Certified Kubernetes Administrator (CKA)
2. Certified Kubernetes Application Developer (CKAD)
3. Red Hat OpenShift Developer
4. Red Hat OpenShift Administrator

https://redd.it/141t60v
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Vendor lock in to AWS. Does going multi cloud make sense?

So we got a new CTO. Reasonable, sharp, technical guy. Coming from a big company which had on-premise servers.

He's been looking at our all AWS infrastructure, and recently asked aren't we been vendor locked in for AWS. And whether we should consider multi cloud.

I understand been multi-region for higher availability, but doing multi cloud just doesn't make sense to me, considering the implementation and maintenance cost and overhead. We're also a team of just 6 SRE engineers.

Does it make sense to go multi cloud for avoid vendor lock in? Is vendor lock in to AWS an actual problem? People who do multi cloud, what is the main reason for that?

https://redd.it/141uqit
@r_devops

New job opportunity

I’ve been a sys admin / sys engineer for the past 5-6 years and have been slowly building up certs to hopefully one day enter into the world of devops. Recently I got a job offer as a infra eng and I love all aspects of the job, but for config management they are heavy into vRA and saltstack. In my current job we are a heavy RHEL shop, and I even went out and got my RHCE for ansible. Is salt hard to learn? It looks similar enough to ansible, but I have no real hands on experience. I’ve heard from others that learning Salt would expand my toolset, and there are other aspects of the job that would help he grow professionally, but I am looking for any feedback for those who have used it. Is it pretty common in this world? How well does it integrate with cloud?

Thanks in advance!

https://redd.it/141wr0e
@r_devops

What are some of your favorite job search sites for Devops?

Looking for opportunity in new DevOps role after 5+ years with one company, wondering how to get started? focus on upskilling first? Which websites can help you learn new technologies and prepare for interviews specifically in the DevOps field? Are there any platforms dedicated to DevOps career opportunities?

https://redd.it/141unr8
@r_devops

Kubernetes confuses the heck out of me

Okay folks, I need someone to explain these items to me and how they are related or not in regards to getting a docker image to run in a kubernetes environment.

So I have the docker image working fine. When I run docker compose up -d, when I use docke desktop, I can see my desires output. Now I want to get it to Kubernetes.

What is a manifest? Is this a yaml file or just a word used to describe something else? How about deployment.yml and service.yml? Do I need both of them to deploy the image? Are they a requirement?

Also, how does Helm play a role in all of these? Does deployment and service belong to it? Do I even need it? How do all of these things play together?
What is a minimum required configuration to get a simple deployment going in Kubernetes?

All tutorials online are making a lot of assumptions about these terms and what they are and aren't.

https://redd.it/1420cib
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Certs / courses for devops

Hello!
I have been doing "DevOps" for two years now and would like to know if there are any certs / courses I can/should do to boost my understanding of best practices. I am being asked to take course (s) certs from my work and attend conferences. Thing is, they don't know what I should attend and are asking me to pick something. I have googled a bunch but not entirely sure which one to commit to and I am open to recommendations and feeling a bit overwhelmed.

I would really like to take some courses that establishes DevOps best practices for end to end CI/CD and monitoring the application and how to best present the data as graph/tabular format for easy understanding for the end user (application developer).



Conferences planning to attend:
- kubekon (working out the price)

The tech I am familiar with:
- kubernetes (using it, not maintaining it)
- Prometheus
- grafana
- elk
- Jenkins (configuration as code)
- AWS (getting familiar with it)


Things I should be familiar with:
- I do not know what I do not know.

https://redd.it/141z8yf
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Node Removal and Workload Migrations in Kubernetes

Kubernetes Node Drain -

https://faun.pub/a-deep-dive-into-node-draining-and-eviction-for-safe-node-removal-and-workload-migration-49a4c18d3211

https://redd.it/1422qef
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Is there anything serverless cheaper than Lambda? I’m using it to process queued jobs, I don’t mind spot instances or guaranteed availability if it’s cheap

I run my queued jobs on Lambda serverless, so I can easily scale up or down depending on the load. I’ve processed massive queues in minutes but it’s not cheap.

I’ve seen Azure Functions and Google App Engine but their prices are comparable to Lambda. Is there something cheaper? Like going from EC2 to DigitalOcean VPS cheaper.

https://redd.it/141pg3s
@r_devops

Best sites to put your CV on

Hey all,

A couple years back I had a profile on talent.io and found this site good for attracting interest from companies. However I just tried to restart my account and it won’t let me. Perhaps they’re no longer in the UK or no longer do DevOps roles.

Are there any sites people recommend where you can put on your CV/profile and companies come to you?

https://redd.it/141fyju
@r_devops

Introducing Selefra: Open-Source Policy-as-Code Software for Multi-Cloud and SaaS Analytics

I'm excited to share this article with the DevOps community. In this article, we'll introduce our product, Selefra, which provides an open-source policy-as-code software that offers analytics for multi-cloud and SaaS environments.



Terraform, as you know, provides a platform-agnostic approach to infrastructure provisioning and management. It allows you to define, create, and manage infrastructure resources across various cloud providers, on-premises data centers, and other infrastructure platforms. It supports major cloud providers such as AWS, Azure, GCP, and others, along with infrastructure platforms like VMware, OpenStack, and Kubernetes. This flexibility enables organizations to adopt a multi-cloud or hybrid cloud strategy while ensuring consistent management across different environments.



Selefra specifically focuses on the multi-cloud landscape. With Selefra:
\- You can quickly build a data lake across cloud assets, manage security configurations, and analyze resource consumption.
\- It allows you to write SQL and YAML to develop Infrastructure as Code (IaC) programs for tasks such as misconfiguration detection, cost analysis, security provisioning, compliance scanning, and more. Our solution follows a declarative approach, empowering you to efficiently define policies and rules.
\- Selefra Cloud offers out-of-the-box modules, including CIS Benchmarks, SOC, GDPR, HIPAA, ISO, and more in [Selefra Cloud\](https://app.selefra.io/). These modules provide pre-configured policies and compliance checks, making it easier to ensure your infrastructure meets regulatory requirements and industry standards.



To interact with various cloud providers, SaaS providers, and development platforms, Selefra relies on provider plugins. These plugins establish connections and enable seamless integration with different services and platforms.



We deeply value the contributions from the Terraform community, and it has been a great source of inspiration for us. We welcome any suggestions and questions you may have. Your feedback and ideas will help us improve and enhance Selefra further.



We highly encourage you to explore Selefra and embrace the power of GPT for accelerated and efficient cloud security analysis.



Website: [https://www.selefra.io/\](https://www.selefra.io/**)
GitHub: [https://github.com/selefra/selefra\](https://github.com/selefra/selefra**)
Twitter: [https://twitter.com/SelefraCorp\](https://twitter.com/SelefraCorp\*\*)



Thank you for your support!

https://redd.it/1427dry
@r_devops

Understanding AWS NAT expenses

Hello folks, on mobile so please forgive my formatting.

Due to recent infrastructure changes my company has seen a drastic spike in NAT gateway outbound traffic expenses. This was a surprise expense to us that (to be frank) we should’ve predicted.


We use AWS lambdas in private subnets spread across 3 AZs, each with their own NAT. Lambdas are called via API Gateway. We understand that traffic outbound from private subnets exits via the NATs, but since this change we are bleeding $500+ a day.

We have researched a number of different options which we have started testing, but I wanted to reach out here to see if anyone has encountered a similar issue. Majority of our traffic is HTTPS bound out the NAT.

Do we have any good options to bring our traffic down or redirect in any way?

Best!

https://redd.it/141dajc
@r_devops

Introducing Trolley, an Open Source Multi Cloud/Multi Region Kubernetes management platform.

Hi all!

I am super psyched to present you with an Open Source project I've been working on lately with my wife.

Trolley is mostly designed for medium-sized organizations that work on cloud-based products, namely Kubernetes-based agents/apps.

Ever had a feeling you had too many clusters up in the air that were built by different colleagues/external vendors/clients for testing/developing/marketing purposes? Ever got lost in a mess of multi-cloud/multi-regional deployments of your internal tools/processes? Trolley is here to sort you out!

Fork it, deploy it and enjoy it!

Have questions, suggestions, curse words for the maintainers?

Feel free to reach me here or through the GitHub page:

https://github.com/Trolley-MGMT/trolleymgmt

More info in the SubStack post:

https://pavelzagalsky.substack.com/p/introducing-trolley

https://redd.it/142999h
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Easy K8S Connectivity for Local Utils

This blog post introduces a new operation mode for mirrord, where you don't need to have a target in your k8s cluster. You run a program locally on your machine, but with outgoing network connectivity as if they're running in your k8s cluster. This makes mirrord nicer to use with administrative and diagnostic tools. Do you think it can be useful for devops professionals? Does anyone here already use it that way?


https://metalbear.co/blog/easy-k8s-connectivity-for-local-utils/

https://redd.it/142al9z
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Big Tech Digest #1: Exploring HTTP3, What is operational resilience, Improving performance with HTTP Streaming, Go Developer Survey Results, Building and deploying MySQL Raft and more!

https://bigtechdigest.substack.com/p/big-tech-digest-1

https://redd.it/1429f2i
@r_devops

Going into DevOps for the gaming industry

I've been working as a devops engineer for about two years now, and I'm working on developing specialties for a better job. I wanna explore the world of DevOps for the gaming industry but it sort of feels like an ethereal topic. Any advice on tools, pages, mindset and route to approach it? Any experienced comments or advices are welcomed!

https://redd.it/142eb1x
@r_devops

help - cloud based obsolete LAMP enviroment

Hi, hope not too newbie to be posted
got a php mysql site to be temporarly moved from the actual host (not my server) to an host handled by myself, until we re-develope a new version (1/2months)
Unfortunately this php site run over a php 5.3 and crash and burn when php8 or 7 is turned on.
I've personally tried upgrade the code, but... has been made completely from scratch from a self-thought dev with an huge amount of calls to unsupported functions.


I was thinking to set up on AWS a LAMP stack that suits those needs php 5.3 on a EC2 machine but, trying to create that stack on modern distro isn't straight forward as I thought.


Anyone could suggest me the low brainer solution to keep this site live at least for a couple of months without making a complete debug of the SW.


thanks

https://redd.it/142f0ar
@r_devops

Jaeger alternatives?

I’m getting tracing setup from OpenTelemetry and Jaeger is proving to be a little difficult. My backend is Elasticsearch 8 and after a lot of trouble it looks like Jaeger just doesn't support ES 8 at the moment. Not sure what the plans are here.

Anybody using any alternative for tracing?

https://redd.it/142hmde
@r_devops

I'm a Principal Architect (Cloud/Automation) at a large consulting firm, and I want out. Looking for advice on where to go where I can make a difference, instead of just making someone money. More details inside.

So, quick bullet points of my story for context.

* I'm 29
* I'm the Principal Architect for a region, for a large services provider.
* I'm pre-sales only, and specialize in cloud architecture (Azure and AWS both) and infra automation (Terraform, Ansible, Puppet, vRA/vRO, Nomad, Vault, Chef, etc)
* I'm very good at what I do - I am brought in for our most complex deals and highest value opps.
* I make about $300k/yr, work maybe 20~ hours a week most weeks, and work fully remotely, but I hate my job and this industry. I love the tech, and will happily chat about any of these technologies nonstop, and am genuinely passionate about them, but I hate my job and what the industry is doing to my mental health.
* I ran IT for a Dental Lab, then was an architect for a telecom, then was at two other services providers before this one.
* I'm gay, a huge theatre guy, a gamer, and do a ton of improv comedy. (relevant, I swear)

I just got back from The Improv Retreat, learning from some of the best improvisers in the world, and it
really hammered home how miserable I am in my current job. Tons of organizational political drama, restructuring, no review processes, bad leadership, etc. which is standard for these types of organizations. Beyond that though, I'm just so tired of being ground down every day by incompetent leadership and account reps who will wring you dry to make a sale. I want to do something with my skills that will help people, and this isn't it.

I'd love to do something with social justice and LGBTQ+ advocacy, and combine my IT skills with that, or use those skills with my love for theatre and comedy, or gaming. I just don't know what all is out there and where I can really go. The hard part of just "making a jump" is that I have my fiance and dogs to take care of; I make $300k/yr and he makes $70k/yr, and we can't live solely off his income. I could drop down to about $150k/yr and still be okay, but even that is *very* high when we look at pay in any of the industries I just mentioned.

Overall, I just want to bring joy and help people, and I can't do that where I'm at. I'm miserable and I've never been more depressed in my entire life.

Please don't get me wrong, I am fully aware that I am extremely lucky and privileged to be 29 years old making $300k/yr in a job where I don't really work much, but I can't help how I feel. I feel like I'm draining my soul in exchange for money. I'm just so lost. I'd love any advice y'all can provide, or any connections you might have that may have opportunities or advice for me.

Thank you.

https://redd.it/142iyj2
@r_devops

Sizing Thanos for large Prometheus installation

Hi guys, I am hoping someone who has built out a large scale Prometheus/Thanos setup can chime in here.


Currently we are running a set of fairly large sharded Prometheus clusters with each shard having 2 Prom instances for HA and use Promxy to aggregate the metrics.
Current Setup: 4 VPCs of various sizes

VPC1: 16 Prom shards producing 11 million metrics per second
VPC2: 8 Prom shards producing 5 million metrics per second
VPC3: 2 Prom shards producing 1 million metrics per second
VPC4: 2 Prom shards producing 2 million metrics per second

Initially I was looking into Mimir and Thanos for options, but with our scale Mimir setup appears to be too expensive as the ingester will need a crazy amount of resources to support all of this metrics.

Thanos seems like a better choice as the sidecar on each Prometheus shard will take care of writing the metrics to the object store.


There are 2 things I am not exactly clear on with Thanos setup and hope to get some clarity on.


1. From my understanding the Query and store gateway do not need to be sized to the number of metrics we produce but instead to the expected number of metrics we will be querying (If we only use 15% of the logged metrics in Grafana for example)

2. The only Thanos component that will need to be sided to the number of metrics generated is the Compactor. I have not been able to find any guides on sizing the Compactor (Mimir provides really good documentation on how to size their components based on the number of metrics)


If anyone has experience with this sort scale I would really appreciate to hear your experience on running long term storage for large Prometheus environments.

https://redd.it/142ku8i
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