How to move to using infrastructure as code / configuration management / devops tools in a monolithic environment?

Old school sysadmin here, and I am struggling to find a value add that I can use as a justification to start such a project in a windows environment. The idea of ansible/chef/terraform sound amazing, but we already have tools to do most of the things I read about and none of them require messing with YAML or learning python. We are still buying software from vendors that are struggling with the concept of virtualization & server core let alone stateless containers. We don't do much in-house dev work and most of apps are typical 3 tier (SQL/APP/WEB). So, where could I find value with these tools?

https://redd.it/euyzk6
@r_devops

How do you folks implement load shedding?

A common recommendation for running high availability systems is [load shedding](https://aws.amazon.com/builders-library/using-load-shedding-to-avoid-overload/). Last year I personally experienced an outage that was exacerbated by a lack of load shedding. I can find a handful of resources talking about this strategy but none touch on the practical aspects: Okay, I want to implement load shedding, how do I do that? What software can I use?

I've been using HAProxy as a reverse proxy in front of my application, which [has some queuing features](https://cbonte.github.io/haproxy-dconv/2.1/configuration.html#timeout%20queue) that I was able to work into a primitive load shedding system. Unfortunately, I'm going to have to move away from it (or pair it with nginx or similar) because HAProxy [doesn't support request buffering](https://www.mail-archive.com/[email protected]/msg23074.html).

Wondering what everybody else's experience is with this.

https://redd.it/euu7rw
@r_devops

I wrote a self-hosted slack bot that will notify you when you are mentioned in on GitHub projects or Organizations in Lambda.

GitHub project: https://github.com/bagel-dawg/github-slack-mentions

I was tired of having to check my email to find out if my username was mentioned, or if my PRs were approved/commented on. It also has the ability to remind you daily of any notifications that are still on-going.

The reminders functionality assumes it will be used with an organization, but the mentions functionality will work with standalone repositories OR organizations.

It is based on AWS API Gateway+Lambda integration proxy and DynamoDB with 2 indexes for key+value storage. It can be deployed manually, but there is also a serverless.yaml for convenience.

https://redd.it/euxzrx
@r_devops

Can I remove unicode in ansible?

So i have u' in the list. it is coming from using json query and cat command. How can remove this unicode.

ex. \[u' /root, /my desktop/documents\] -> json query filter

\[u' cpu mhz: 2340.895} -> cat command

https://redd.it/ev12dz
@r_devops

How can i add human readable on json query in ansible?

So i add json\_query in ansible for ansible mount point. In size total of mount point shows bytes, i wanted to show in gb or mb . I tried to add human readable as a filter but gives me an error. the answers are in brackets list.

https://redd.it/ev0t2e
@r_devops

What’s the value of CI with Jenkins?

I’m new to Jenkins and I took a look at a build log and it appears to download and install all package requirements for a job every time it runs. If there are a ton of jobs that runs hourly, wouldn’t downloading and re-installing it take more time, bandwidth and processing power? Why wouldn’t one just have it run as a cron job with all dependencies already downloaded and installed?

https://redd.it/euvbhd
@r_devops

DevOps entry level job (USA)

Hello everyone.
Im an MBA graduate and I’m looking for an entry level devops engineer job. I don’t have the hands on experience but have the knowledge of how it works. Internship, junior level, part time or full time, any forms of job would be fine w me. I just want to learn and have real time work experience to start my career in IT.
Any help would be appreciated. Thank you. (:

https://redd.it/eutl5c
@r_devops

Azure dashboards

all,

Is it possible to display list of VM's matching with a criteria on a dashboard? Criteria could be a matching tag.

https://redd.it/euthew
@r_devops

What administrative process is involved when your company decides on adopting a new tool or tech?

I'm sure answers will vary. Some companies are very ad hoc, some have a team that considers new tools. How does yours operate?

https://redd.it/eur36z
@r_devops

When is a DevOps Engineer's day?

Hi y'all!

Some days ago I was interested this little question. Because the developers have their professional day as well as sysadmins, web-developers and QA-engineers. but nowhere I found any mention of DevOps Engineer's day.

Does somebody know when we may celebrate this day?

https://redd.it/ev8yyk
@r_devops

Whats wrong with Jenkins?

I've been learning up on the various CI/CD tools (there are so many!) and every discussion I see on here, people are avoiding Jenkins. I'm I big fan of the CloudBees podcast, but haven't tried Jenkins yet myself.

Currently I'm using CircleCI, GCP Cloud Build, and AWS CodePipeline. I'm also just starting a Travis CI experiment.

Whats wrong with Jenkins?
Is it worth learning for my future projects?
**Is it worth learning for my career progression if I want to job hunt?**

https://redd.it/ev9gtx
@r_devops

Learning Vim macros in 4 minutes read

Hi everyone, I published a short blog post explaining Vim macros which I think are essential to any user. I would love any kind of feedback!
[https://dev.to/prodopsio/unleash-the-power-of-vim-macros-in-4-minutes-35a8](https://dev.to/prodopsio/unleash-the-power-of-vim-macros-in-4-minutes-35a8)

https://redd.it/ev86ny
@r_devops

Build logs and secrets

How do you prevent a commit someone made causing secrets in a CI system getting leaked to build logs.

Most CI systems have a way for you to describe the CI steps within the repo. This can be as simple as someone creating a PR with the following:


commands:
description: "This is needed to run the build"
steps:
- run: python -c \"import os; print(os.environ['SUPER_SECRET'])"


Some CI systems know to filter build logs for secrets they are aware of but this doesn't particularly prevent someone from exfiltrating it.

commands:
description: "Save this important secret so I don't lose it"
steps:
- run: ./http_exfiltrate_secret.sh


There appears to be different strategies and tactics for preventing this, but I'm wondering what strategies there are if you have a monorepo/ consolidated repo where both the CI and the application are described.

https://redd.it/ev7jao
@r_devops

ML for Distributed Systems: Conceptual Background and Metrics

I'm putting together a [series of posts](https://medium.com/@mattstump/modeling-complex-systems-part-1-distributions-850d3591b8f8) that go through the step by step process in building machine learning models that out perform humans in performing root cause analysis and performance tuning. The first post covers how humans perform the task as a way to set the stage for how to automate the process.

https://redd.it/evcpwv
@r_devops

Terraform + Ansible/Chef/Puppet/Saltstack

So I am alone in deciding and implementing our IaC techstack and my company.

Terraform is what I've used for about a year, but now I need to figure out what Configuration tool that meshes best with Terraform.

Do you guys have any experience with any of them? Got any cool links for best practices?

Cheers!

https://redd.it/evag2b
@r_devops

How to remove brackets and apostrophes in ansible?

the second one i have use join but when i add the excel i get pound sign. I just the output to be /root, /home/mydocument, \]

\[ ' /root, '/home/my document/,....\]

\- name: mount

debug:

msg:

\- "{{ ansible\_mounts | json\_query('\[\*\].mount') | regex\_replace(u', '') }}"

\- "{{ ansible\_mounts | json\_query('\[\*\].size\_total') | join(',') }}"

https://redd.it/evb3r0
@r_devops

Backup and Quick Deploy Solution

What are the best options for creating a ready-to-go copy of a VM with an associated volume that I can deploy within an hour and avoid burning up costs while we are not using the applications deployed on it?

I currently have required uptime in order to run Tanium and other security scans on a daily basis. However, these applications are no longer being used and will not be needed for several months, so I'd like to potentially remove them from our AWS account apart from a backup in order to not incur costs and avoid a lack of vulnerability scans due to the VM being shut-off.

**My potential solution:**

1. Create an AMI from the VM
2. Create a final copy of the Volume attached to it
3. Shut Down and Destroy VM (Will this remove the AMI?)

https://redd.it/evavyg
@r_devops

Azure DevOps as a SaaS product?

I was about to embark on the creation of a highly specialized SaaS product of my own that would offer a lot of the functionality offered by Azure DevOps (which I just started using at work). Question: Can Azure DevOps be used as a "framework" on which to build a custom SaaS product? One critical thing I would have to be able to do is add a LOT of additional data elements that are specific to my application. OR - should I be looking at something like Dynamics365 or PowerApps?

https://redd.it/ev5v7u
@r_devops

AWS Cognito

Hey guys, I have a weird question.

I started as devOps some months ago. The company I'm working atm uses aws for basically everything. I don't have the experience to firmly suggest other technologies (yet), and I'm happy to start learning from any point.

Now, my issue. We have been requested to implement a VPN for the workers for security reasons. The idea is simlpe: You're not connected to the VPN, you can't access \[X\] (A certain tool, the database, gitlab...).
My seniors are suggesting Cognito, and normally I learn and then argue, but Cognito seems like... For something else. It seems like a tool for developers to verify the users of their app, not a tool for companies to secure their inside tools and resources.


Is Cognito a valid substitute for a VPN? At the moment we just temporarily whitelist whatever IP each worker has at home (Or wherever they're working at)

https://redd.it/ev4x1f
@r_devops

Jenkins vs Gitlab?

Hey, folks. I’m kind of confused between the platform that need to be used on my personal existing project for CICD. If you guys are using any one of these, please comment down below why you chose to work on that.

https://redd.it/ev70os
@r_devops

Metaphore for CI/CD pipelines (or: how do you explain what you do at a birthday)

Hi all,

Are you ever at a birthday and unable to explain in simple words what you do for a living? How do you explain it in simple words? I think it would be really cool to use a metaphore, so that I can compare it to something all people know and understand, but I cant come up with a good example.

Do you all have any good ones?

https://redd.it/ev52qs
@r_devops