Blog Tags: 

Automating EC2 instance setup with user-data scripts

I recently published ec2metadata which provides a simple CLI and Python interface to the metadata of an Amazon EC2 instance. In that post I mentioned that "one of the most useful pieces of data is user-data, which can be used to pass configuration information or even initialization scripts to the instance upon launch".

I received a couple of responses by email asking for more information, so here it is.

Blog Tags: 

EBSmount: Automatically mount EBS devices on Amazon EC2

The 2 most annoying things about Amazon EBS (Elastic Block Storage) I have found, is that there is no support to auto-attach an EBS on instance launch, and the need to manually mount an EBS when it's attached.

If the above annoys you as well, you're in luck! The first annoyance has been solved in the TurnKey Hub (private beta soon to be announced - request an invite here), and the second, well, is solved by EBSmount.

Blog Tags: 

Upgrading FCKeditor to CKeditor

I just finished upgrading the WYSIWYG editor on the web site from FCKEditor to CKEditor, which is FCKEditor's less offensively named successor.

Improvements

  • A noticeably faster, more lightweight code-base which was rewritten from the ground up.

  • Full-screen mode works beautifully now. I love how this instantly removes all the clutter and lets me focus on the content I'm editing without being distracted by the rest of the web site.

Blog Tags: 

Self signed and trusted SSL certificates

Important note: Please note that current appliances include support for getting free Let's Encrypt SSL certificates. Please see the Let's Encrypt docs within the new Confconsole doc pages for full details.

Blog Tags: 

Two simple tricks for better shell script error handling

Psssst. Hey you... yeah you. Word on the street is your shell scripts don't do any error handling. They just chug happily along even when everything is broken.

Because a lowly shell shell script doesn't need any error handling right? WRONG!

Qemu + KVM is the future of open source virtualization

Open source virtualization has been evolving dramatically over the last few years. Incumbent proprietary platforms such as VMWare still hold the throne in many areas but open source competitors are gaining ground fast on their way to ubiquity. Things are a-changing in the land of virtualization.

Right now we have three contenders to the (open source) throne battling it out for supremacy:

  • Xen: backed by Citrix
  • VirtualBox: backed by Oracle/Sun
  • KVM: backed by RedHat
Blog Tags: 

Amazon EC2 metadata - Python library and CLI

Each Amazon EC2 instance has associated metadata, as well as user data supplied when launching the instance. The meta and user data is instance-specific, and therefore only accessible to the instance.

The data is useful on several levels, such as configuring SSH public keys, programmatically configuring the instance according to certain criteria, or even executing user supplied initialization scripts.
 

Blog Tags: 

CSS cheat sheet

While reading CSS books and experimenting I found it helpful to take notes and put together a cheat sheet for quick reference. I figured others might find it useful so I'm sharing. I've also uploaded a simple PDF version.

Blog Tags: 

Python symmetric encryption with CRC

Recently I needed to transfer data between entities, but I needed to keep the data secure from prying eyes, and its integrity intact from busy little fingers on the wire.

I needed the solution to be simple, and support a high-performance environment. Seeing that I could exchange a secret key over a secure channel out-of-band (OOB), I opted for using symmetric-key cryptography.

Pages