Anyone with experience using Iron Bank base images?

Starting work on a new contract (US Federal IT) and the customer has a requirement to utilize DoDs Iron Bank (https://p1.dso.mil/services/iron-bank) repository for all base images. I've been able to successfully connect to their platform with my CAC Smart Card. But I wanted to get any gotchas or lessons learned that other folks have encountered with their service.

* If using the base image, do all of your team members have a CAC? If not, what did you do to enable access to the image for other members of the team?
* What was implementation like when using a CICD platform to build new images, using either GitHub Actions or Azure DevOps?
* What other nuggets of wisdom that could be passed along?

https://redd.it/1bz0zjy
@r_devops

"Release Engineer" but posting seems very DevOps?

Hello,

Coming from a DevOps/SRE background, seeing more positions that are advertised under "release engineering".

The job descriptions seem to like up with typical DevOps/SRE responsibilities and requirements, with some SDET type bullet points.

Is anyone a release engineer by title? How does it compare to being a typical Ops/SRE?

https://redd.it/1bz1rxf
@r_devops

Seeking ideas for conducting reliability based event(Gameday) at work

Hey Folks,

We are brainstorming on an idea to conduct a reliability oriented event at work, similar to Hackathon, CTF conducted by other teams. The theme is to focus mainly on the SRE/infra oriented best practices (availability, reliability, monitoring).

The initial sketch that came to our mind is to follow the leetcode approach.
- Provide a generic problem statement
- Define the constraints
- Users provide answers
- Evaluate the answers and score based on the best practices

Here the evaluation to be done on whether the app is designed to be highly available, scalable(HA), health checks/probes configured, key metrics populated/captured, alerting defined, cost effective, etc.,
This is an initial thought process, but finding it difficult to extend it as concrete one.

Have you ever done/attended any such events so far? Please share your thoughts and inputs on how do we conduct such an event.

https://redd.it/1bz59zc
@r_devops

Am I in over my head?

Hi, all! Looking for honest advice here. I’ve been in technical/application support for quite sometime. Held several senior positions too. Never went too deep in the dev or ops space since deep issues we couldn’t figure out typically went to RnD.

I’ve recently accepted a position in the DevOps space and been here for a bit. Sometimes I feel completely over my head! Or most days, really. First time in this space and using many of these technologies(kubernetes, TF, containerization, docker, helm, api stuff etc. I often feel like I’m the weakest link and everyone knows it. Even asking a question is difficult at times because I wanna look like I deserve to be here! And also don’t want to look stupid for asking certain things that may be “101” stuff in this space. I’m also not sure if it’s just imposter syndrome ringing loudly.

Should I stick it out? Or should I free up some space for a more experienced person?

If you would suggest sticking it out, how would you recommend I best ramp up on things? Any books, YouTube vids would be perfect. Thx in advance guys!

https://redd.it/1bz5rpy
@r_devops

How do you keep a history of tasks?

We have Sysadmin, DevOps, SRE, Data Engineer, Developers,... teams and we want to make a history of what team changed something in Azure,AWS, DB, ...

Not sure if you have the same issue. We have Jira but is hard to keep the dates, or you need to check multiple jira to find it.

i am asking if one tool like this exists, or just use one calendar.

https://redd.it/1bz696w
@r_devops

Searching for a job on LinkedIn

Hi guys, Is it worth getting linkedin premium while looking for a job in DevOps? Would it help me getting more recruiters to text me? Please share your experience!

https://redd.it/1bzacvo
@r_devops

Graceful Server Eviction on Cloud Providers

How common is it that cloud providers ask tenants to evict their running workloads from a server, say for a regular maintenance or upgrade? If so, what are the common patterns that engineers use to remove their workloads? Do they simply turn off the service (assuming there are other replicas that can handle the load) or do they start a new replica? Are there cases wherein your cloud provider cannot provide you with ample resources to start a new replica and therefore you need to degrade some non-critical parts of the application to free up capacity so that the critical service can run?

https://redd.it/1bzgm1u
@r_devops

Need Feedback - I made this to automate the creation and updation of API documentation

**The Problem:** As a developer, manually updating API documentation is a nightmare. I've spent countless hours on it, only to miss crucial details or make mistakes. And outdated or inaccurate docs frustrate users and devs alike. 😭

**The Solution:** After brainstorming and coding, I've created apicall.ai – an innovative AI solution that revolutionizes API documentation. With just a cURL request, it automatically generates comprehensive docs. But the best part? As your API evolves, apicall.ai keeps the docs in sync through an interactive chat interface, instantly updating them.

I need your help.

* If you've struggled with API docs before, DM me your experiences - what worked, what didn't?
* Checking out the landing page? Let me know what's clear and what's confusing.
* If you're interested in getting early access to [apicall.ai](https://apicall.ai/) and providing feedback, join the waitlist or DM me.

https://redd.it/1bzjaju
@r_devops

List of popular Service Catalog tools

Hello folks, I wrote an article covering 7 service catalog tools, their pros/cons and context on what folks have talked about it. (Backstage, Cortex, OpsLevel, Port, Compass, Roadie and Datadog Service Catalog)

Have also discussed why some companies still went ahead and did a DIY despite the availability of these tools.

In case you are evaluating a Service Catalog tool currently, I hope you find this one useful!

https://redd.it/1bzj38v
@r_devops

Best practice for TBD for application and IaC for web app environments

(Sorry if this question has been asked ad-nauseum, spent a couple hours googling and searching Reddit and I feel like I’m not quite grasping the terminology I should be searching for)

Let’s say I have a fairly typical web app in source control, and I’m following TBD and having one main brunch and short-lived feature branches that get merged on frequently.

Over in a separate repo, I have a Terraform project that has provisioned cloud resources that build and deploy my web app in testing, staging, and production environments in AWA. Because I’m following best practices, I have each of these environments split up in their own AWS account (at least, I think that’s the best practice, please correct me if I’m wrong)

Here’s my questions:

1. It’s my understanding I should be sharing my binaries between my environments, rather than rebuilding them for each environment. If that’s the case, how should I be sharing the binaries between my environments (assuming that splitting up each environment into its own account is the best practice)?
2. How do I test changes to my IaC while ensuring I don’t disrupt CI/CD on the application side? Example, I want to test a change in the build process in my lower environments, but I don’t want to disrupt the current workflow of promoting the application build from test to staging to prod.
3. This is more of a TBD question than an IaC question but I’m having a hard time wrapping my head around it: how do I ensure in-progress features aren’t accidentally getting pushed up with finished features? Example, Feature1 and Feature2 have been merged into main; Feature1 is good to go and move on to stage, but Feature2 has some issues and needs some more work, but we don’t want work on Feature2 to block deployment of Feature1 to prod.

Hopefully that makes sense, thank you in advance.

https://redd.it/1bzjszd
@r_devops

Recommendations for a monitoring tool

In my previous jobs, I've always used Datadog as a monitoring tool. Currently, I'm working on a smaller on-premise project, and the client wants to install a monitoring tool for the entire infrastructure we'll be creating. They have suggested Zabbix as a potential candidate, and although I've worked with it several years ago, I would like to know what other current tools are available that are more user-friendly. In my initial search, I've found that most new solutions are oriented towards the cloud, but in my case, I would need something that can be installed on-premise. Our use case is very simple, just obtaining metrics for CPU, memory, and disk. Any recommendation?

Thank you very much in advance.

https://redd.it/1bznrxo
@r_devops

Access point router

Hi Iive in egypt and I have a Vodafone router but it doesn't cover up the whole house so I found this old router I can use as an access point (Dlink dir853) but I cant use it at all i searched alot of videos I face alot of mistakes like :
when I change my IP from the site i cant access the router page anymore (even with the new IP) .
it doesnt provide internet even when I connected both with ethernet cable.

I Really need help I couldnt find anything on the internet.


https://redd.it/1bznop8
@r_devops

Hashicorp vault configuration on kubernetes

I'm trying to configure Hashicorp Vault which is running on a kubernetes cluster. Unfortunately I cannot configure Vault using CRD's so were stuck I think with using Terraform. So we're thinking to deploy Vault with a helm chart and do the configuration afterwards with Terraform via a git pipeline.

I also stumbled on https://github.com/redhat-cop/vault-config-operator which seems to be exactly what we're looking for.

I'm curious if any has experience with vault-config-operator or how to do the configuration of Vault after it's deployed in a kubernetes cluster.

Regards

https://redd.it/1bzp0po
@r_devops

Advice for someone wanting to switch from backend to devops

Hi everyone! I just joined the sub and this is my first post.

Im a backend engineer with my confort language being TypeScript and NodeJS. In the past i have done some devops work in the project and did pretty good. Most of my devops work consisted on config automation, json / yaml parsing and bash scripting. I managed to get the importance of infrastrure as code and to mitigate admin overhead and develop strategies to test changes.
The reasson why im back on the backend is because the client company faced some budget issues and they cut-off my company devops services, so i was moved back to my original position full-time.

All my professional experience consists on web apps mostly, however in my spare time i do lots of bash scripts and i have done some small apps with python (i love python). I have worked in event-driven workflows as well as syncronous workflows.

I feel like devops is one of those subjects where landing the first job is really hard, mostly because a lot of professionals incurr in bad practices just to get things done fast (such as doing manual input and never reflecting it in the infra code) and because of that companies are very skeptical about hiring someone new (imagine someone with near-zero professional experience!)

Thats why i made this post, if you have any advice that you would give to someone who is trying to transition from backend development to devops, this is the place.

https://redd.it/1bzrpk0
@r_devops

Newbie building first CI/CD

Hi all,

I am completely new, hoping to get some answers here. I am looking to build my first CI/CD which needs to look as close as possible to a production ready version.

I think it's easier to start with GitLab runners, I looked a bit at them and they make sense in my head also can accommodate our needs.

But I was suggested Jenkins as a decent starting point. It looks like Jenkins needs to be run on a server on it's own. How do you guys handle multi project + multi environment CI/CD with Jenkins?

Probably it's better to state what I want the output to look like instead of writing some here nonsense :D

I have two not related project, I already dockerized the project. I am thinking of running them as containers (the traffic we have doesn't seem like we need k8s yet) on at least two environments staging and prod.

Thank you in advanced for reading this post and helping me wrap my head around this task.

https://redd.it/1bzuo3f
@r_devops

Career Dilemma: Stick with Data Engineering or Jump into Data Science?

I completed a PhD in physics/computer science. With my background in computer science/ML, I managed to secure a research engineer role in the renewable energy sector, aiming to develop a tool for diagnosing power plants. The goal was to build the product and enable the implementation of physical and AI models. Initially, I was interested in both data science and data engineering aspects. However, I've spent about 2 years now focusing on the data engineering part (essential for setting the stage for AI). Now, I feel I'll have to maintain the product's infrastructure and prepare the data pipelines, while others will develop the AI models on their side (Jupyter Notebook kind of work), and once ready, I'll have to implement it into the product.
My initial aim was to understand the workflow of transitioning from a PoC developed in isolation to a usable product, but now I feel stuck in the data engineering (MLOps?) aspect rather than the modeling side, and doing some small personal AI project on my side. I'm unsure whether to continue mastering this part, given the huge demand within the company (and the market) or start looking towards moving more into data science? I'm interested in both, but have a slight preference for data science (mainly reinforcement learning actually). What do you think?

https://redd.it/1bzxf2s
@r_devops

Trying to deep dive service mesh mutual TLS, what am I missing here?

I've setup a service A -> service B communication with istio sidecar installed (from Go custom-built images). I've captured all packets in each service's sidecar. Here's the full trace:
https://imgur.com/a/k3j7nCL

192.168.221.20 - serviceA pod IP
192.168.221.23 - serviceB pod IP
10.104.205.243 - serviceB svc IP

What I don't understand is why am I seeing the packets unencrypted? As far as I know, mTLS should work out of the box. Also, the presence of "x-forwarded-client-cert" header is an indicator that mTLS is active, yet packets are in plain text.

https://redd.it/1bzy2dl
@r_devops

had DevOps interview at Google ... Here are the questions

Hi Guys, couple months ago I had an interview at Google for Senior Site Reliability Engineer, SE (system engineering) position.
It took me some time to recall questions and write them plus I added some additional relevant questions that I used for preparation. Before the interview I received a pdf "Google Interview Prep Guide Site Reliability Engineering" with areas to prepare and books to read (if somebody needs this pdf dm me and I will forward it)... nevertheless interview was still quite tough and not the typical DevOps interview I was used to.

I'm posting it on https://prepare.sh/engineering/devops/google/

I create this website to help our community with interview prep
If you liked it, please share with your friends so I could do more of devops content, thank you

https://redd.it/1c00ec8
@r_devops

Helpful SRE advice

Found this article about the human side of careers in SRE super useful, lots of advice that I wish I was given in the early days. It's more about convincing people to understand why what you do is important, than technical skill, that make or break you. Let me know what other advice you'd give to a new SRE?

https://redd.it/1c01dpu
@r_devops

If Dev and Ops Had a Baby — It Would Be Called Winglang

The New Stack released this article about the ex-AWS engineer who built the CDK, now Co-Founder of Wing explaining the challenges with the current cloudscape and DevOps.

https://thenewstack.io/if-dev-and-ops-had-a-baby-it-would-be-called-winglang/


https://redd.it/1c02ssi
@r_devops

On demand ssh and rdp access to servers

Anyone use anything besides Cyberark or Teleport for ssh and rdp access? More specifically, we need a way to give our teams (if we can to specific developers) access to servers on demand.

https://redd.it/1c0316b
@r_devops