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cloud engineer

Archives for July 2020

AWS IAM MFA

Here’s how to give AWS IAM users the ability to manage their own (MFA) Multi Factor Authentication. MFA makes your AWS console secure. AWS IAM users will be able to turn on MFA, using virtual devices such as Google Authenticator to secure their cloud accounts. Here’s the policy.

{
  "Version": "2012-10-17",
  "Statement": [
    {
      "Sid": "AllowViewAccountInfo",
      "Effect": "Allow",
      "Action": "iam:ListVirtualMFADevices",
      "Resource": "*"
    },
    {
      "Sid": "AllowManageOwnVirtualMFADevice",
      "Effect": "Allow",
      "Action": [
        "iam:CreateVirtualMFADevice",
        "iam:DeleteVirtualMFADevice"
      ],
      "Resource": "arn:aws:iam::*:mfa/${aws:username}"
    },
    {
      "Sid": "AllowManageOwnUserMFA",
      "Effect": "Allow",
      "Action": [
        "iam:DeactivateMFADevice",
        "iam:EnableMFADevice",
        "iam:ListUsers",
        "iam:GetUser",
        "iam:ListMFADevices",
        "iam:ResyncMFADevice"
      ],
      "Resource": "arn:aws:iam::*:user/${aws:username}"
    }
  ]
}

Change Default Editor

Ubuntu and Linux Mint use nano as their default editor. You’ll see it if you try to edit crontab or visudo. Now, there’s nothing wrong with nano, but I prefer using vim instead. Here’s how to change the default editor.

sudo update-alternatives --config editor

You’ll be prompted to change the default editor.

There are 4 choices for the alternative editor (providing /usr/bin/editor).
 
  Selection    Path                Priority   Status
------------------------------------------------------------
  0            /bin/nano            40        auto mode
  1            /bin/ed             -100       manual mode
  2            /bin/nano            40        manual mode
* 3            /usr/bin/vim.basic   30        manual mode
  4            /usr/bin/vim.tiny    15        manual mode
 
Press <enter> to keep the current choice[*], or type selection number:

Type 3 to choose vim basic.

Remove Sudo Password

Removing sudo password is typically not a good practice. If you’re a seasoned system administrator, or you’re the only one using your own desktop, being prompted for a sudo password can get really annoying. Here’s how to stop getting prompted every time you run sudo.

Run visudo. 

sudo visudo

Edit the sudo line and set to below.

%sudo ALL=(ALL) NOPASSWD: ALL

Save file.

AWS LightSail Restrict IP Address

AWS LightSail now has the ability to restrict IP addresses in their firewall rules. LightSail instances can now be secured by limiting firewall rules from an IP CIDR block or a single IP address. For example, you can restrict who can SSH into your instance by limiting it to just your IP address, so only you can SSH into your machine. Another feature AWS added in their LightSail firewall is support for ping, which could be helpful for monitoring and checks.

AWS Rotate IAM Keys

Here’s a script that will rotate AWS IAM keys.

#!/bin/bash
# set files
user='johndoe'
newkey='/root/new-access-key.json'
oldkey='/root/old-access-key.json'
credentials='/root/.aws/credentials'
# get old credentials
aws iam list-access-keys --user-name $user > $oldkey
okey=$(jq .AccessKeyMetadata[0].AccessKeyId $oldkey | tr -d \")
# create new key
aws iam create-access-key --user-name $user > $newkey
# get new access keys and new secret
nkey=$(jq .AccessKey.AccessKeyId $newkey | tr -d \")
nsecret=$(jq .AccessKey.SecretAccessKey $newkey | tr -d \")
# backup old credentials
cp /root/.aws/credentials /root/.aws/credentials-backup
# store the new key
echo '[default]' > $credentials
echo 'aws_access_key_id = ' $nkey >> $credentials
echo 'aws_secret_access_key = '$nsecret >> $credentials
sleep 10
# delete old key
aws iam delete-access-key --user-name $user --access-key-id $okey
rm $newkey
rm $oldkey

The script performs the following:

  1. Retrieves the current key
  2. Creates a new key
  3. Backup the current credentials file
  4. Create a new credentials file
  5. Deletes the old key
  6. Deletes the temp files
  7. Done

Remove Quotes From Strings

Here’s the command to remove quotes from a string in Bash by using the tr -d command. I’m using jq tool to extract the access key from a json file. Bash returns a string surrounded by quotes. To remove the quotes, just pipe the string to the tr -d command.

jq .AccessKey.AccessKeyId key.json

Result:

"ASDFSDFSDFASDFSDFSDFGHGDF"

Using tr -d.

jq .AccessKey.AccessKeyId key.json | tr -d \"

Result:

ASDFSDFSDFASDFSDFSDFGHGDF

Revolution Theme

I’m now using the Revolution theme from StudioPress. It’s a minimal design with lots of whitespace. The default font is Playfair Display which highlights headlines and blockquotes. The Playfair Display is available from Google Fonts if you’re interested. I think it’s a perfect theme for a photography blog. Although the theme seems to invite you to write more, something I haven’t been doing lately. And before I sign off, let’s take a look at what a blockquote looks like. Not bad at all. A beautiful theme.

It’s a minimal design with lots of whitespace.

By Studiopress