In the last blog post, we have explored Logstash, a tool for collecting and transform log data from many different input sources. Today, we will explore Elasticsearch, a scheme-less noSQL database with a versatile ("elastic") search engine. We will perform…
Logstash „Hello World“ Example – Part 1 of the ELK Stack Series
Today, we will first introduce Logstash, an open source project created by Elastic, before we perform a little Logstash "Hello World": we will show how to read data from command line or from file, transform the data and send it back to…
Java Build Automation Part 2: Create executable jar using Gradle
Original title: How to build a lean JAR File with Gradle In this step by step guide, we will show that Gradle is a good alternative to Maven for packaging java code into executable jar files. In order to keep the executable jar files…
Resolving Networking Problems (Performance Problems) of a WD My Cloud NAS System
Ever since I had bought a Western Digital My Cloud System with 4 TB of Backup space, I had problems with it: after some hours, the system was unreachable over the network. Several firmware upgrades later the problem has aggravated,…
Docker HTTP Proxy and DNS Configuration Cheat Sheet (now includes automatic HTTP Proxy detection)
This blog post provides a little cheat sheet on running a Linux host with or without a Docker client behind HTTP proxies. For Ubuntu and similar Linux distributions, we will also show how to detect the proxy available and adapt…
AWS Automation Part 4: Using Terraform for AWS Automation
This is part 4 of a blog post series, in which we explore how to automate Amazon Web Services (AWS) using the Terraform open source software by HashiCorp. Similar to Cloudify, Terraform is a versatile way to codify any type of infrastructure and…
LXD vs Docker — or: getting started with LXD Containers
Container technology has existed long before the Docker hype around container technology has started after 2013. Now, with Docker containers having reached mainstream usage, you can easily get confused about available container types like Docker, LXC, LXD and CoreOS rocket. In this…
Getting started with OpenShift Container Platform
In this blog post we will review the architecture of OpenShift before we will gain some hands-on experience with OpenShift Origin, which is the free version of the OpenShift Container Platform a.k.a. OpenShift Enterprise. Vagrant software will help us to automate the installation…
Ansible Tower – a Hello World Example
This is part IV of a little "Hello World" example for Ansible, an IT automation (DevOps) tool. This time, we will get acquainted with Ansible Tower, a web front end for Ansible. The post has following content: Quickest way of "installing" an Ansible Tower…
CoreOS Cluster Discovery & Troubleshooting
This blog post explores CoreOS cluster discovery problems and how to troubleshoot them. This blog post is part 8 of my DDDocker (a dummy's docker diary) series. Since this post is one of my more popular blog posts on linkedIn, I have…
Getting started with Docker Cloud
In this blog post, we will explore, how to get started with Docker Cloud, a Docker orchestration cloud service that helps deploying and managing Docker hosts clusters and Docker containers running on those host clusters. Background Since Docker has acquired Tutum…
Running GUI apps with Docker for remote Access
In this blog post, we will explore how to start and access a Linux Docker image with a graphical desktop and access it remotely using VNC. In the course of the blog post, we will search for an appropriate Docker…
AWS Automation based on Vagrant — Part 3: Creating a Docker Host on AWS in 10 Minutes using Vagrant
Learn how Vagrant can be used to perform more sophisticated provisioning tasks than creation and termination of virtual machines. From our local Vagrant console, we will install Docker host Software and we will verify the results by downloading and testing the Python Docker image.
AWS Automation based on Vagrant — Part 1: Getting started with AWS
In this blog post series we will explore, how to automate Amazon Web Services (AWS) by using Vagrant. The series is divided into three parts. Readers that are interested in the automation part only can skip part 1 (the AWS…
Automating Network Provisioning with Cisco APIC — Exploring the REST API
How to automate the configuration of network devices? Cisco APIC-EM (= Application Policy Infrastructure Controller) is a controller that can help us with that task. In this blog post, we will explore its modern REST API for accomplishing basic tasks like creating, reading, updating and deleting (CRUD)…
Rails Active Admin: from config File to Admin Portal
This blog post is a continuation of part 1 that had focused on the the installation process of Active Admin. In the current post, we show how Active Admin can be used to migrate from a configuration file based approach by an admin portal based…
Rails Active Admin Installation Experiences / HowTo
In this post, I have recorded my experiences with ActiveAdmin, a Rails Engine that has following goals (copied from their readme file): Enable developers to quickly create good-looking administration interfaces. Build a DSL for developers and an interface for businesses. Ensure…
Upgrading Rails to 4.2.x and Ruby to 2.2.x — an end to end Example
In this post, I have recorded my experiences when upgrading my hobby Web Application, a ProvisioningEngine front end from Rails 4.1.x to Rails 4.2.x and ruby from 2.1.x to 2.2.x. The upgrade went relatively smoothly, apart from an additional gem…
CCIE Written HowTo — where to get the Questions from (also for MCSE and others)
Every two years, I need to re-certify for the Cisco Certified Internetworking Expert certification (CCIE). This time I intend to post my findings on this blog. I intend to describe where to get Example Questions from and how to read them (works for…
Salt Hello World
This a simple Salt Hello World similar to the Ansible Hello World in part 1 of this series. In each step, we will discuss the likeliness and differences between Salt and Ansible. This post is (almost) self-contained, and there is no…
